Piketty’s data

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

And the thing I want to know is: is Lbird a communist.  I'm not sure on that point. 

Well, using the scientific method, I openly expose my perspective.You won't do the same, YMS, so your method is suspect. What have you got to hide?

[LBird]

gnome wrote:

Young Master Smeet wrote:

And the thing I want to know is: is Lbird a communist.  I'm not sure on that point. 

He certainly refers to himself as one….. ad nauseam.  Sort of begs the question – who's he trying to convince?  Us….. or himself?

And gnome's scientific perspective is….?Not another 'objectivist', surely? Or has Communism nothing to do with science and nature?

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

We all know that Piketty is a reformist who wants to try and regulate capitalism to benefit the majority, which can't be done.

I'm not so sure that 'we all' do 'know' this, ALB.I'm yet to see a review that openly says that, as a bourgeois academic, who is clearly unaware of the way capitalism really works (according to our ideology), that Piketty is very untrustworthy, because of his ideological framework. This undermining of the so-called 'Professor Piketty' should be so prominent, from the start, as to leave anyone reading totally clear  that Piketty is a charlatan, liar, and a selector of biased evidence, who is trying to pull the wool over our eyes, in the service of the rich.Once that is done, then perhaps we can proceed to place Piketty's book in its proper perspective. It's a bible for supporters of capitalism, not a handbook for Communists.

ALB wrote:

But you've still not, L. Bird, given your opinion on the statistics produced by Piketty in chapter 10 on the 'Inequality of Capital Ownership'. Are they underestimates, overestimates, biased, complete fabrications or what? Are you saying that we can't use them to back up our case that capitalism is based on the ownership and control of the means of production by a tiny minority?

But I'm a Communist, so given what I've openly said, I wouldn't read Piketty's book to find 'statistics' or to prove that the rich exist. Any worker who works in this society can 'see' this, once they start to think about their society. They don't need to read Piketty's book to find these things out, and I wouldn't recommend Piketty's book, for those purposes.Where I would recommend Piketty's book, is to Communists who wish to read what bourgeois professors say about capitalism, and then laugh at the stupidity of those academics, who don't seem to understand what any ordinary worker can understand. This can only help to develop the confidence of Communists, and those workers who are moving towards class consciousness.A worker can have a better understanding of the world than a professor. Professors are stupid. The benefits of the undermining of authority by this process doesn't need emphasising for Communists, I think.However, ALB, if you are asking me if I think that getting reformists to read Piketty will make them seriously question capitalism and become Communists, then, no, I don't. I think reformists reading the reformist Piketty will pick up on his strategy of reforms.As for most Communists, I think there are better uses for their time than reading this book. I've only read it to see what all the fuss is about, and I'm inclined to say to any comrades who ask whether it's worth their time to read it, I'd say 'no'. If they've got the free time and inclination, for whatever reason (perhaps the same one as me), then go ahead and read it. Otherwise, no.

[ALB]

I think you've missed the point. YMS wants to know if it is a fact that you are a communist. I think it is, but do you/can you?

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

I think you've missed the point. YMS wants to know if it is a fact that you are a communist. I think it is, but do you/can you?

I'm not sure why you've joined in the games of the 'positivists/objectivists', ALB.I thought you, at least amongst the regular posters, took these issues seriously, and have actually read some philosophy of science.Up until now, it's only by pm that I've had any contact with SPGB members/sympathisers who can see the difficulties involved in these issues of science, nature, facts and social knowledge, and they've preferred not to post, due to their unsureness about the issues.I too am unsure of much of it, and would like to discuss and learn more, but I don't seem to be able to get a discussion going, due to the almost religious views of the 'defenders of science'. I hadn't placed you in that bracket, due to your circumspection around these issues, since our initial exchanges, which I'd assumed meant that you were 'watching and listening', rather than had just given up on the discussion.Perhaps I'm doing you a disservice?

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

I thought you, at least amongst the regular posters, took these issues seriously, and have actually read some philosophy of science.

 Written where and by whom?  Name some non-bourgeois philosophy of science.  

[LBird]

Vin Maratty wrote:

LBird wrote:

I thought you, at least amongst the regular posters, took these issues seriously, and have actually read some philosophy of science.

Written where and by whom?  Name some non-bourgeois philosophy of science.

If you're not interested, Vin, why persist? Why does it matter to you what I think?Why not just let it go?Why are you, and several others, like 'moths to a flame' whenever 'science' is mentioned?Is it a religious compulsion to defend 'The Faith'?

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

If you're not interested, Vin, why persist? Why does it matter to you what I think?Why not just let it go?

Because you raise the same subject on all threads. You persist. You condemn bourgeois science on the one hand and then you use it  on the other.Declare your ideological position!  You dodge and weave.Where is this non-bourgeois philosophy of science? I genuinely want to know

[LBird]

Vin Maratty wrote:

Where is this non-bourgeois philosophy of science? I genuinely want to know

I'll take your query at face value, Vin, since you're a comrade (and you've used a smiley).I suppose later posts will show whether I've been wise, or simply duped, by someone who doesn't have a genuine interest in discussing the philosophy of science.A 'non-bourgeois philosophy of science' is awaiting construction by Communists.Will you join fellow Communists and workers in making the attempt to do this, initially by employing criticisms that have emerged within bourgeois society since Einstein wrote?For example (and I've posted this before, but do so again in good faith, in case you've forgotten it), here is a quote by a working physicist about the problems with 'science', the version of which we're all taught at school, and have reinforced by the media:

Rovelli, The First Scientist: Anaximander and his Legacy, wrote:

This reading of scientific thinking as subversive, visionary, and evolutionary is quite different from the way science was understood by the positivist philosophers… (p. xii)Facile nineteenth-century certainties about science— in particular the glorification of science understood as definitive knowledge of the world—have collapsed. One of the forces responsible for their dismissal has been the twentieth-century revolution in physics, which led to the discovery that Newtonian physics, despite its immense effectiveness, is actually wrong, in a precise sense. Much of the subsequent philosophy of science can be read as an attempt to come to grips with this disillusionment. What is scientific knowledge if it can be wrong even when it is extremely effective? (p. xv)But answers given by natural science are not credible because they are definitive; they are credible because they are the best we have now, at a given moment in the history of knowledge. (p. xvi)

"Collapsed, dismissal, revolution, disillusionment, wrong" – The words of a physicist; surely worth a discussion by anyone, never mind Communists?

[SocialistPunk]

Hi LBird,Is the quote regarding science you use, referring to the classic Newtonian ideas about scientific fundamentals, in the face of the discovery of the quantum world and the weird paradox of classic physics still at work on the macro level but falling apart ,or not appearing relevant, at the quantum level?

[alanjjohnstone]

Quote:

A worker can have a better understanding of the world than a professor. Professors are stupid.

Quote:

The words of a physicist; surely worth a discussion by anyone

As on all the previous occasions, i now bow out when the debate gets to, for me, at least, exchanges of philosophical gobbly-gook between "the stupid". As a worker i have a better understanding of the world. Try not to derail the thread too much. Still a lot to talk about with Piketty i think. I haven't heard too much about just how fundamentally different he is from Robert Reich or Joseph Stiglitz – the Three Stooges as i will now call them. The three do indeed seem to see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil when it comes to the actual capitalist system and restrict their cticism to inequality and offer up reforms and solutions devised by the the Marx brothers rather than anything from Karl. Just how unique is Piketty other than being a very competent number cruncher, maybe a bit slow though if it did really take 10 years of research to produce these figures. At least Karl had an excuse for his tardiness in producing his Capital – i don't mean the boils on his bum.Piketty claims not to be Keynesian, unlike one of his fan-club Paul Krugman. How accurate is this, particularly in regard to Piketty pro- European financial fiscal integration? Has Piketty started a new school of economcs? I read one review that from now on, economc courses in university will have to set aside a few classes for his theory either to advocte or refute it.  

[LBird]

SocialistPunk wrote:

Hi LBird,Is the quote regarding science you use, referring to the classic Newtonian ideas about scientific fundamentals, in the face of the discovery of the quantum world and the weird paradox of classic physics still at work on the macro level but falling apart ,or not appearing relevant, at the quantum level?

Hi, SP!That's part of it, but it has more far-reaching philosophical implications for human knowledge, which I think impact on both our physical and social worlds, and so, on our understanding of Piketty's book, too.From what I understand, Marx in the 1840s was ahead of bourgeois science by about 120 years, because his ideas from then fit better with what philosophers of science say now about 'science'.Engels, on the other hand, having been mesmerised by the tremendous advances within 'science' in the 19th century, took their part, and forgot whatever he had understood by Marx's words from 50 years earlier. If, indeed, he had ever understood this 'philosophy'; Marx was a trained philosopher, but Engels was, at best, an amateur. And we now know his amateurish books are wrong (NB. his science, not his other works).

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Quote:

A worker can have a better understanding of the world than a professor. Professors are stupid.

Quote:

The words of a physicist; surely worth a discussion by anyone

As on all the previous occasions, i now bow out when the debate gets to, for me, at least, exchanges of philosophical gobbly-gook between "the stupid". As a worker i have a better understanding of the world. 

Oh, there are plenty of stupid 'physicists', too, aj!As for 'a worker', that's what all this is about: arming workers intellectually for coming battles with 'authority', of both the political and scientific varieties.And, indeed, the economic variety!

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

Marx was a trained philosopher, but Engels was, at best, an amateur. And we now know his amateurish books are wrong (NB. his science, not his other works).

So, are *you* a trained philospher? Have you written your views in essay legnth form anywhere?

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

Marx was a trained philosopher, but Engels was, at best, an amateur. And we now know his amateurish books are wrong (NB. his science, not his other works).

So, are *you* a trained philospher? Have you written your views in essay legnth form anywhere?

Ahh… you won't have a word said against the Holy Father, will you now, DJP.More displays of unreasoning faith, and refusal to discuss.

[Author]

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