Ours to Master

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

One fine day, robbo, you'll actually read what I write.

 One fine day  I hope you'll actually read what you wrote.  Because you are not making much sense a lot of the time. You are flatly contradicting your own words time and time again

LBird wrote:

It's not 'individuals' but the relationship between them, that is the focus of 'class'.If one stresses the 'individual' existence, and think that enquiring closely into that reveals what we want to know, then we will miss the most important factor: not the individuals, but the nature of their relationship.

Indeed, I wouldnt disagree with this  but this is not what you said earlier, is it? Now you are talking about the "stress" placed on individuals whereas earlier you were questioning the very existence of" individuals". It illustrates once again how you are constantly changing your tune.  I remind you once again what you said in post 26:robbo regards himself as an 'individual'. I don't. I'm not an individual. That is a concept that emerged historically with bourgeois society. It suits the purposes of the bourgeoisie for everybody to regard themselves, as does robbo, as an 'individual'. Incidentally , flatly contradicting what you said even earlier – in post 24:The problem is, Richard, is that no-one argues that society is not made up of individuals.If you are not an individual but a worker and everyone else is not an individual either (but a worker too or a capitalist)  then according to you there are no individuals anywhere.  Yet capitalist society you confidently assert invented the idea of individuals. You could also by that logic assert that it also invented the idea of "workers" and "capitalists".. Do workers and capitalists exist then according to your logic? The truth of the matter and one seemingly has to drag you kicking and screaming to finally come to accept it , is that of course there are individuals and indeed, there could be no such thing as class or society if there were not individuals. Being an individual does not preclude you from being a worker as well notiwthstanding your black-or-white view on this question.  Class is indeed a relational concept  but class relations don't exist in the ether; they connect individuals and would not be relationships if they did not. All this incidentally kicked off when you questioned my point  in post no 14:I think it is important to understand that the notion of  "class" in the Marxian sense is an abstraction  and that, in reality, there is a grey area where one class shades into the other. You then twisted this to suggest I was intent upon 'placing every individual' in an 'individualist schema' of society.  How is trying to sort individuals into classes an "individualist schema"?  I'm not trying to differentiate between the individuals on the basis of their accent or education or whatever – that is the conventional definition of class which I'm not putting forward here at all – but on the basis of how much capital they possess and "capital" or more to the point, the expanded reproduction of capitai,  as you will be aware implies an exploitative relationship . So I will throw back the question to you. Its all very well talking about an exploitative relationship but how would you distinguish between exploited and exploited in this relationship?   The mere possession of capital is not sufficient to qualify one as a capitalist because on that basis since most workers have some form of saving or investment that would mean most workers would be capitalists . If you are going to distinguish between exploiters and exploited within capitalism society then the only reasonable criterion you can use is how much capital you as an individual possess.  If you know any other way of differentiating between workers and capitalists then show me!  And don't tell me that no capitalists earn wages as well as draw an unearned income.. Some do like the top CEOs corporations some of whom have an income of many millions of dollars per year.  They are capitalists nevertheless

LBird wrote:

We need to bring to the fore the relational aspects of society, and not the 'individuality' of all.'Individuality' is a bourgeois ideological concept, which keeps us victims separated into our own little world of one.

 You repeat this crass claim again and again so I ask you once again – since hunter gatherer societies exhibit a very marked degree of individuality would you consider them to be bourgeois societies?  Yes or no

[alanjjohnstone]

Richard,Just to add to the bricks analogy can i perhaps interject here with something Wilhelm Reich tried to explain class consciousness with"A brick is not yet a house, but you use bricks to build a house" Reich in Sex-Pol describes class consciousness and explains:“Everything that contradicts the bourgeois order, everything that contains a germ of rebellion, can be regarded as an element of class – consciousness; everything that creates or maintains a bond with the bourgeois order, that supports and reinforces it, is an impediment to class consciousness”I think this is reflected in the old Solidarity Groups "As we see it"7. Meaningful action, for revolutionaries, is whatever increases the confidence, the autonomy, the initiative, the participation, the solidarity, the equalitarian tendencies and the self -activity of the masses and whatever assists in their demystification. Sterile and harmful action is whatever reinforces the passivity of the masses, their apathy, their cynicism, their differentiation through hierarchy, their alienation, their reliance on others to do things for them and the degree to which they can therefore be manipulated by others – even by those allegedly acting on their behalf."And here again is Wilhelm Reich“Against the principle of self-denial preached by political reaction, we must set the principle of happiness and abundance…Any socialist political economist can prove that sufficient wealth exists in the world to provide a happy life for all workers. But we must prove this more thoroughly, more consistently, in greater detail than we generally do”This i believe is an echo of Sylvia Pankhurst who said:Socialism means plenty for all. We do not preach a gospel of want and scarcity, but of abundance.

[Richard]

Okay, I've read this entire thread and have been thinking about this over the last few days. I've come to two conclusions:1.) LBird and robbo203 are actually an old married couple. 2.) Individuals obviously exist and have existed since before capitalism. However, in order to analyze our society it's necessary to focus on economic classes and the exploitative relationship between the capitalist class and the working class, not on individuals. However it also important to recognise that capitalism exploits individuality through marketing creating a "cult of the individual". That's how I see it, right or wrong.

[Richard]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

And here again is Wilhelm Reich“Against the principle of self-denial preached by political reaction, we must set the principle of happiness and abundance…Any socialist political economist can prove that sufficient wealth exists in the world to provide a happy life for all workers. But we must prove this more thoroughly, more consistently, in greater detail than we generally do”

An excellent quote! I've never read Reich but he appears to have had all his marbles and a great amount of insight to boot! Let the capitalists preach austerity and sacrifice (i.e., sacrifice by the 99% and not by the 1%) while we promote equality, democracy and a meaningful way of life!

[LBird]

Richard wrote:

Individuals obviously exist and have existed since before capitalism.

You're wrong, Richard.You're making a common mistake, based upon your socialisation/education/brainwashing, which we all suffer from, and have to fight, of equating 'biological existence' with 'ideological concept'.The universal statement that 'I'm an Individual', which everybody is taught to repeat like a mantra, would not be made in other societies in the past. In a slaveowning society, for example, all the slaves did not go around declaring that 'I'm an individual'. It was as clear to them, as to the slaveowners, that they were the property of someone, not 'an individual' (an concept which contains the belief in autonomy, which they knew that they didn't have).To the Romans, a slave was an instrumentum vocale (a speaking tool). An agricultural implement was an instrumentum mutum (a non-speaking tool), and a farm animal was an instrumentum semi-vocale (a noisy tool).In this society, many people were 'tools' not 'individuals'. We can analytically separate out them as 'biological individuals', and still understand that this is nothing to do with the bourgeois belief that everybody holds of being 'an individual'.Within this socio-historical framework of understanding ourselves as humans, we can see that only with the dawn of Communism will a society exist which aims from the start to produce all-round 'individuals'.

[alanjjohnstone]

"I've never read Reich but he appears to have had all his marbles"Not quite true, unfortunately, in later life…he strikes us now as bit of the mad inventor when he developed his orgone accumulator…This socialist standard article is worth a readhttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1973/no-825-may-1973/sexual-politics-wilhelm-reichMany prefer Erich Fromm's take on socialism

[LBird]

Richard wrote:

However, in order to analyze our society it's necessary to focus on economic classes and the exploitative relationship between the capitalist class and the working class, not on individuals.

This is why, if we are going to use 'class' to understand our society, we need to ideologically identify the members of the two main opposed classes as 'workers and bosses', not as 'individuals' (which just emphasises our biological similarity with bosses).This is politics, stressing exploitative socio-economic relationships and the ideological concepts used in the relational struggle, not a discussion about biology.If we're serious about it being a political, not a biological, discussion, we should call ourselves 'workers', and denigrate the ideological confusion caused by calling ourselves 'individuals'.To call oneself 'an individual' is to line up with the bosses' view of our world. One made up of isolated, autonomous, uncaring, 'free', individuals.We're workers. And we'll never be 'free' of society. That is a bourgeois myth and aspiration.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

Richard wrote:

Individuals obviously exist and have existed since before capitalism.

You're wrong, Richard.You're making a common mistake, based upon your socialisation/education/brainwashing, which we all suffer from, and have to fight, of equating 'biological existence' with 'ideological concept'.The universal statement that 'I'm an Individual', which everybody is taught to repeat like a mantra, would not be made in other societies in the past. In a slaveowning society, for example, all the slaves did not go around declaring that 'I'm an individual'. It was as clear to them, as to the slaveowners, that they were the property of someone, not 'an individual' (an concept which contains the belief in autonomy, which they knew that they didn't have).

 Not this again.  I repeat again the point that has been made on numerous occasions to LBrid which he still does not seem to have heeded.  For the vast majority of existence on this planet we lived in a hunter gather form of society.  In such a society individuals exhibit an extremely high degree of individuality. I can cite numerous sources in support but just at random check out this excellent article by Peter Gray http://www.journalofplay.org/sites/www.journalofplay.org/files/pdf-articles/1-4-article-hunter-gatherer-social-existence.pdf.  It is a long article but well worth reading through…. Gray contends that a hunter gatherer mode of governance is characterised by  voluntary participation, autonomy, equality, sharing and consensual decision making.  He compares this mode of governance to social play. There are numerous passages in the article that illustrate the individuality of hunter gatherers but at random here's one"A crucial ingredient of play is the sense of free choice. Players must feel free to play or not play and must invent or freely accept the rules. Workers who must follow blindly, step-by-step, the directions of a micromanaging boss are the least likely to consider their work is playful. Hunter-gatherers have developed,to what our culture might consider a radical extreme, an ethic of personal autonomy. They deliberately avoid telling each other how to behave, in work as in any other context.  Each person is his or her own boss." "Individual autonomy" is the essence of their individuality and goes  hand in hand with their "fiercely egalitarian" (Richard Lee) culture.  It is also the basis of their mode of conflict resolution: internal conflicts within the band are resolved through a process of group fissioning.  The aggrieved individuals simply break away from the group should others within the group seek to encroach on and diminish their personal autonomy.  Punishment and revenge was also radically decentralised and typically concern only the immediate parties involved in a disputeIn his 1999 book, Hierarchy in the Forest, Christopher Boehm put forward evidence in support  for what he called the  "reverse dominance theory" – that is, early human society broke away from the pattern of primate society by instituting an arrangement which suppressed or negated the influence of alpha males within the group. In its place the personal autonomy, or individuality, of every individual in the group was fundamentally asserted LBird has asserted that " the individual" was something that was invented by bourgeois society a few hundred years ago. He could not be more wrong if he tried.  A marked degree of individuality was a characteristic of over 95% of our time as a species on this planet and is inseparable from the egalitarian mode of existence that our hunter gatherer forbears enjoyed 

LBird wrote:

To the Romans, a slave was an instrumentum vocale (a speaking tool). An agricultural implement was an instrumentum mutum (a non-speaking tool), and a farm animal was an instrumentum semi-vocale (a noisy tool).In this society, many people were 'tools' not 'individuals'. We can analytically separate out them as 'biological individuals', and still understand that this is nothing to do with the bourgeois belief that everybody holds of being 'an individual'.

Inadvertently, this reveals more about LBird's ideology than it does about anything else.  To a Roman slave owner, a slave may well be just a tool  but what of the slaves themselves?  LBird is embracing the ruling class view of the slaves. He contendsIn a slaveowning society, for example, all the slaves did not go around declaring that 'I'm an individual'. It was as clear to them, as to the slaveowners, that they were the property of someone, not 'an individual'This is to totally miss the point. The slaves might have dully recognised that they were institutionally enslaved but the point is how did they FEEL about  it. That is surely the litmus test of  their individuality..  Did they or did they not have an inner life, a subjectivity, that chafed against the social oppression they endured? Apparently not according to LBird In fact  what LBird is expressing here is an ultra conservative ideology of holistic totalitarianism -that individuals are totally malleable to the dictates of something called "society" .  He is a Durkheimist, rather than a Marxist, who reifies this thing called society and invests it with an objective existence over and above individuals . A Marxist would take a radically different perspective to LBird and would see the relationship between individuals and society as a reciprocal one in which the individual both constitutes society and is constituted by society: Or as Marx  put it "It shows that circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances. (German Ideology)LBird's ultra conservatism makes also for an utterly static conception of history.  He cannot begin to explain why for example there was such a thing as slaves revolts in Ancient Roman if, as he contends, the slaves thoroughly internalised their masters' view of themselves as mere "tools" and disregarded their own feelings of resentment at the way they were treated

LBird wrote:

Within this socio-historical framework of understanding ourselves as humans, we can see that only with the dawn of Communism will a society exist which aims from the start to produce all-round 'individuals'.

 Except of course and this is what is so damaging to LBird's whole thesis,  Marx and Engels took the very opposite position to the one he advocates. The all rounded individual is a precondition for the dawn of communism to materialiseWe have further shown that private property can be abolished only on condition of an all-round development of individuals, precisely because the existing form of intercourse and the existing productive forces are all-embracing and only individuals that are developing in an all-round fashion can appropriate them, i.e., can turn them into free manifestations of their lives. We have shown that at the present time individuals must abolish private property, because the productive forces and forms of intercourse have developed so far that, under the domination of private property, they have become destructive forces  (German Ideology)

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

 the point is how did they FEEL about  it.

Yeah, individual feelings.Not an analysis based on socio-economic exploitation, ie. 'the point is' class.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

 the point is how did they FEEL about  it.

Yeah, individual feelings.Not an analysis based on socio-economic exploitation, ie. 'the point is' class.

 Is that the best you can come up with, LBird?No response to my detailed argument about hunter gatherer society exhibiting a marked degree of individuality?No response to my argument that your mode of explanation makes for a thoroughly static and ultra conservative view of history?No response to my suggestion that contrary to you, Marx and Engels saw the all-rounded development of the individual as a precondition of communism rather than a result? Of course, I haven't gone into a detailed analysis of the socio economic exploitation of the slaves in Ancient Rome (I rather assume that on this forum we can take this for granted!). That doesn't mean i don't think they were exploited as a class.  Certainly they were and I am not denying that in the least.  But in the context of this debate we are talking about their sense of individuality which you deny they had ("the individual" was only invented by bourgeois society, you claim). I say your whole argument is thoroughly flawed from start to finish and that you could not begin to explain why the slaves occasionally revolted if you suppose that they had no feelings about the treatment they received but just meekly accepted or internalised the ruling class view of them as "tools"The feelings of resentment they undoubtedly felt (which presuppose a subjective inner life and thus a sense of individuality)  are inseparable from the fact that they are exploited as a class,. The two things go hand in hand but as usual you cannot see  this in your simplistic black-or-white, all-or-nothing  view of the world…

[alanjjohnstone]

When it comes to the issue of class and individual, i always thought Murray Bookchin had a certain amount of insight to offer in his Listen Marxist

Quote:

“ The Marxian doctrinaire would have us approach the worker, better still – enter the factory – and proselytize him in preference to anyone else. The purpose ? to make the worker class conscious. In the end , the worker is shrewd enough to know that he can get better results in the day-to-day class struggle through his union bureaucracy than through a Marxian party bureaucracy…the worker becomes revolutionary not by becoming more of a worker but by undoing his ‘workerness’. His ‘workerness’ is the disease he is suffering from, the worker begins to become revolutionary when he undoes his ‘workerness’, when he begins to shed exactly those features Marxists most prize him – his work ethic, his character-structure derived from industrial discipline, his respect for hierarchy, his obedience to leaders, his consumerism, his vestiges of Puritanism. In this sense, the worker becomes a revolutionary to the degree that he sheds his class status and achieves an un-class-consciousness. He degenerates and he degenerates magnificently. What he is shedding are precisely those class shackles that bind him to all systems of domination. He abandons those class interests that enslaves him to consumerism, suburbia and a book-keeping conception of life”

Less people have read his reply to Jeremy Brecher's criticisms of the essay…The exchanges can be found at the link. https://libcom.org/library/listen-marxist-replyI think there are some in the party who wish to flush workerism down the toilet and concentrate our vision on the one shared by Erich Fromm that reflects thehedonistic  hippie still in us …all we need is love and all we want is leisure and all we demand is luxury…The three Ls maybe hells for others in the party. I accept that it is not an universal appeal https://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/index.htmPS…I have always accepted tht it has to be the working class…those with nothing to lose but their chains…who must be the agent of change…but what if the work-place does not become the centres of resistance…but communities….(or protecting the environment )….then we relate to one another not as fellow workers and comrades but as neighbours and friends…just thought i throw that in without expanding on it . 

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

 the point is how did they FEEL about  it.

Yeah, individual feelings.Not an analysis based on socio-economic exploitation, ie. 'the point is' class.

Is that the best you can come up with, LBird? 

For those who can't understand what a 'relationship' is, yeah.You'll be telling us next that, as long as a slave or a worker FEELS 'free', they ARE FREE!Individual feelings, eh? 'They can't imprison our minds!'I suppose if bricks in a pile 'feel' like they are a wall, then they are!I recommend some structural analysis, long before the rabid wolf comes into sight.'Pilist' robbo versus 'Wallist' LBird? Hmmmm…. Who's advice will other workers follow?Any individualists will clearly follow Pilist robbo, and the wolf will be served dinner on a plate. Their arses might be in the wolf's stomach, but as long as the individualists 'feel' that their bum cheeks are still attached to their backsides, then they are.Yeah, right!

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

….then we relate to one another not as fellow workers and comrades but as neighbours and friends…just thought i throw that in without expanding on it.

I'll 'expand on it': you must have some unusual 'neighbours and friends', alan.All mine (and my relatives and enemies, too, funnily enough) all sell their labour for a living, since they don't own any of the means of production.In fact, some bloke called Charlie something-or-other pointed out that taking control of the means of production that they labour at is the key to workers taking control of their lives.No doubt you and your 'friends and neighbours' will just throw a little soiree during the revolution?You'll have to change your tag to abigailjjohnstone.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abigail's_Party

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

For those who can't understand what a 'relationship' is, yeah.You'll be telling us next that, as long as a slave or a worker FEELS 'free', they ARE FREE!Individual feelings, eh? 'They can't imprison our minds!'

 I didn't say that LBird.   Stop misrepresenting my position! What I said is that the slaves' reaction to their  class exploitation in Ancient Rome  would have been fuelled by a sense of anger at the treatment meted out to them.  In fact the very opposite of what you are saying, is my position –  namely the fact that those slaves would have reacted in the way they did  because they consider themselves to be NOT free but, as you put it,  a mere tool of the ruling class.  My interpretation is thus fully compatible with a structural analysis you claim to present –  though your conservative and ahistorical way of approaching the whole question completely prevents you from explaining why those slaves would have reacted in the way they did in the form of a slaves revolt.  That is because you deny to them any semblance of individuality, any kind of inner subjective life at all. You are at one with the Roman ruling class in regarding them as mere "tools" in your mechanistic worldview.  Your position is an elitist Leninist one whether you recognise this or not. Incidentally, I'm still waiting to hear from you regarding 1) the question of individuality in a hunter gatherer society and 2) what you make of Marx's view that the establishment of socialism/communism presupposes the development of the fully rounded individual rather than the other way round Or have you chickened out of volunteering a response? It wouldnt surprise me and it wouldnt be the first time either….

[alanjjohnstone]

Charley once said  

Quote:

In all revolutions up till now the mode of activity always remained unscathed and it was only a question of a different distribution of this activity, a new distribution of labour to other persons, whilst the communist revolution is directed against the preceding mode of activity, does away with labour, and abolishes the rule of all classes with the classes themselves, because it is carried through by the class which no longer counts as a class in society, is not recognised as a class, and is in itself the expression of the dissolution of all classes, nationalities, etc. within present society

The tense he uses is "it is carried through"…so i think he means classless not post revolution but classless in the actual process of revolution because it is part of the revolution to rid ourselves of  the shit of the past….and create the associations, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.i think part of my understanding is that during the revolution i begin to relate to my fellow workers, not as "class comrades"  but to use that cliche..people…individuals…friends …and neighbours …who have come together in solidarity….we recognise one another as human beings first and foremost…that is our commonality that we come to realise …we dump all the previous identities…class ….nationality…race…gender..all the other etceteras…I know…i probably misunderstood this section…and will be corrected in my interpretation…i await my lesson

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