Pre-1930 SPGB on Materialism

[jondwhite]

http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/socialism-and-materialism-1926.html

[LBird]

jondwhite wrote:

http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/socialism-and-materialism-1926.html

I've had a brief look at this article, jdw, and it seems very good.No mention of 'matter', but focussed entirely on social production, working class standpoint, class war, the mass of the population, "the individual…and the social forces of which he is the product" (my italics), "consciously co-operating", exploitation, "private owners" as "parasites", "for workers…individualism is a bankrupt creed", "social ownership", "social plan", etc.I couldn't see the word "democracy", but I'm prepared to accept that as an oversight, given the rest of its content.In any case, it's fuck-all to do with Engels' 'materialism', 'matter', bourgeois 'free individuals', 'Specialists' and their elite 'special consciousness'.It's a shame that the SPGB doesn't seem to live up to articles such as this.Where did the SPGB go wrong, and turn to the Leninist ideology, drawn from Engels' misunderstanding of Marx's democratic social production, of 'Faith In Matter', and the 'Specialists' who claim to 'know' it, and the downgrading of our class as mere 'generalists', who can't be trusted with having developed the intelligence to vote for their own self-determined interests, purposes and needs?

[Author]

Posts