'Reality'
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robbo203 wrote “…the contradiction exists in reality as an empirically demonstrable fact even if some of us may not be aware of it…“.
This statement is a perfect example of what Marx argued against, robbo.
The separation of those who know a ‘reality of empirically demonstrable fact’ and those ‘not aware of it’ who don’t know.
There is no ‘reality’ for the majority who don’t ‘know it’.
Marx said that this ideology would be forced to divide society into two, with one dominating the other. Bourgeois materialism is a classic ‘ruling class ideology’.
Put simply, any ‘reality’ is a social product. The ‘reality for the majority’ is ‘reality’ for them.
Whilst socialists continue to insist that an ’empirically demonstrable factual reality’ is simply waiting to be discovered, it will remain outside of the active social production of the majority. And our wait will go on.
We have to argue for building reality, a reality for us. This reality doesn’t exist, and there isn’t a minority who already know it.
Socialism is a creation, not a discovery. Just like any ‘reality’ that society knows.
LBird it very simple, really. I can walk through the town or city I live in and literally count the number of boarded up and empty houses in it. I can also literally count the number of people who or homeless or sleeping rough on a given night. I can do it. You can do it. Anybody can do it. Are you denying this?
I defy you, then. to justify your claim that that my statement that this contradiction exists in reality as an empirically demonstrable fact even if some of us may not be aware of it” is a “perfect example of what Marx argued against“. Not being aware of something does not mean being incapable of being aware of it. Sometimes it can simply be a question of the person not being sufficiently interested or motivated to find out. This can boil down to a question of values and I dont need to point out to you the ways in which capitalism discourages feeling of empathy and solidarity among workers.
So I think you are confusing two separate issues here. Marx himself made copious use of empirical data in the form of government reports etc etc to back up his arguments. No doubt in bringing this empirical data to the attention of his readers the thought must have crossed his mind that many of his readers may not have been aware of such information. I just dont see the problem you seem to be suggesting.
I agree that any ‘reality’ is a social product and that “The ‘reality for the majority’ is ‘reality’ for them.” But the majority currently support capitalism and – let us be frank here – the majority have little or no awareness of the socialist alternative to capitalism let alone a desire for it. We would be kidding ourselves if we thought otherwise…
You say,
We have to argue for building reality, a reality for us. This reality doesn’t exist, and there isn’t a minority who already know it. Socialism is a creation, not a discovery. Just like any ‘reality’ that society knows
Agreed. Socialism will be an act of a creation but what is not a creation (in the sense that we do not need to “create” it) is the empirically demonstrable fact that homeless people do exist alongside empty homes (unlike socialism which. sadly, does not exist) .
In seeking to build a socialist reality for us we need to make effective use of empirically demonstrable facts such as this – just as Marx did! – to persuade a majority to become socialists too. What is the point of being a socialist otherwise? Do we just accept that the majoroty have their view of reality and we have ours even though we have to live with the consequnces of this? I dont think so….
“Of course, the precise details of the revolutionary change will differ from country to country depending on the political conditions (where legal ballots do not exist or cannot be trusted the workers must create our own) and it will also differ in accordance with different creative ideas about what needs to be done before the establishment of socialism which will emerge as the socialist movement grows. In this sense John Crump is quite right to say that “the millions of men and women who will be the architects of the new world” will decide the exact means by which the revolution is to occur…
… We should build on whatever ideas we have in common. It is pointless for workers who share a vision of a stateless society based on the uncompromised principles of socialism to be endlessly squabbling over the texts of the nineteenth century. If the ranks of the revolutionary movement can be swelled on the basis of principled unity it would be wrong for anyone to delay the process…”
https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2020/02/debate-is-there-common-ground-between.html
robbo203 wrote “Not being aware of something does not mean being incapable of being aware of it“. [my bold]
No, you’re completely correct, robbo.
All it needs is someone to point out this ‘something’, and then someone else will be ‘aware of it’.
That’s fine, as far as it goes. But… (and you knew there’d be a ‘but’)…
… it’s not Marx’s method.
If one has no time for Marx (and many socialists don’t), then fine, again.
But if a socialist claims to be following Marx’s views, about building socialism, then there is a problem.
That is, Marx’s method is that a someone produces the ‘something’ that they are aware of.
For this method, the ‘something’ can’t pre-exist its production by its ‘aware producer’.
This is the whole point: the social producer (for Marx, the proletariat) has to produce its awareness of its own products itself.
There isn’t a ‘something’ which ‘exists’, which can simply be ‘pointed out’ by a well-meaning ‘someone’ who is already ‘aware of it’, and thus enlightens the other ‘someone’ who was ignorant of the ‘something’ until it was pointed out by the well-meaning enlightener.
Once more, for Marx, the ‘active side’ is the proletariat, itself, and not a ‘well-meaning enlightener’ who is not ignorant, and who sees themselves as the ‘active side’, and not the majority.
Again, it’s easy to see why someone interested in politics, and who wants to ‘do something’, now, would have no time for this method. For them, the ’empirically demonstrable facts of reality’ are as plain as the nose on one’s face, and merely need pointing out to those ignorant of that ‘reality’.
Fair enough, one might say, but this method of a knowing elite producing enlightenment in the masses, hasn’t worked, isn’t working, and will never work – if one desires the self-emancipation of the proletariat.
Even more condemning, is that this ‘knowing elite’ method, is the theory and practice of Lenin. It requires an ‘active elite’ (ie. a party), rather than a class-conscious class for itself.
There isn’t a ‘something’ which ‘exists’, which can simply be ‘pointed out’ by a well-meaning ‘someone’ who is already ‘aware of it’, and thus enlightens the other ‘someone’ who was ignorant of the ‘something’ until it was pointed out by the well-meaning enlightener.
Surely that is what you are attempting to do with your posts here with regards to “Marx’s Method”
Bijou Drains wrote “[LBird wrote:] There isn’t a ‘something’ which ‘exists’, which can simply be ‘pointed out’ by a well-meaning ‘someone’ who is already ‘aware of it’, and thus enlightens the other ‘someone’ who was ignorant of the ‘something’ until it was pointed out by the well-meaning enlightener.
Surely that is what you are attempting to do with your posts here with regards to “Marx’s Method””
No, I’m not pointing out an ‘empirically demonstrable fact of reality’ which supposedly ‘already exists‘. It is not ‘material’ or ‘matter’.
It is a method, a ‘theory and practice’, a choice, not a necessity.
And I’m openly saying it requires Marx’s politics, to make it a choice worth choosing. There might well be other methods suitable for the proletariat to employ in building socialism, and it’s open to anyone here to argue for those other methods.
As it is not an ’empirical reality’, because it doesn’t yet exist, it remains a theoretical construct, still awaiting its practical application, by the proletariat.
Further, it requires both consciousness and activity. Since this is so, it probably won’t appeal to a ‘materialist’ like you BD, who is waiting for ‘matter’ to convince workers’ consciousness. [that is meant as a joke, not a jibe, BD 🙂 ].
“No, I’m not pointing out an ‘empirically demonstrable fact of reality’ which supposedly ‘already exists‘. It is not ‘material’ or ‘matter’.”
So, what you’re saying is that there is a physical reality which we can have direct access to?
I note you didn’t mention democracy or communism, I don’t think you hold to those ideas: why won’t you expose your ideology?
Termiting our Hostility Clause
Assertion
‘We should build on whatever ideas we have in common…’
Comment
There is only one idea worth sharing in common—that is our Object.
At present no one else shares it nor aims for it. Rather the rest aim for something other than and antagonistic toward our Object. Their ideas stand in direct opposition to ours.
As their ideas aim for something else, they are useless for us.
We have no ideas in common with those who won’t share our Object.
Assertion
‘…workers who share a vision of a stateless society’
Comment
A vision of a stateless society covers the fondest desires of the latest self-styled libertarian conservatives.
The social state is a superstructural consequence of class ownership and control of the social means of life. Under capitalist class ownership and control of the social means of life, the vision of a stateless society remains just that—a vision, an anti-socialist fantasy.
A stateless society is only meaningful in the context of our achieved Object.
We harbour no vision of a stateless society in common with those who won’t share our Object.
Assertion
‘…based on the uncompromised principles of socialism’
Comment
Please explain which uncompromised principles of socialism if not our Object and D of P?
Assertion
‘If the ranks of the revolutionary movement can be swelled on the basis of principled unity it would be wrong for anyone to delay the process…’
Comment
Please explain which principles we should have unity with if not our Object and D of P?
* * *
In the wetlands of Kakadu you find massive termite mounds that are aligned—polarized, you might call them—parallel to lines of Earth longitude within a degree or two, pointing like compass needles to the Earth’s celestial poles.
The other species of termites in the drylands build wondrously baroque columnar palaces, but their’s do not face broadside to the morning and afternoon sun, and they lack a definite common axis of North–South orientation.
Both these eusocial cooperative mound-builders share much in common, but only one species invariably aligns them in the same direction.
- This reply was modified 4 days, 3 hours ago by
twc.
<i>That is, Marx’s method is that a someone produces the ‘something’ that they are aware of.</i> <i>For this method, the ‘something’ can’t pre-exist its production by its ‘aware producer’.</i>
I think you are straying somewhat from the point, LBird. I’m talking about the “contradiction” of there being empty houses along homeless people. These are empirically verifiable FACTS – or are you suggesting otherwise? This kind of information is useful to have nd make known when socialists talk to non socialists.
Certainly, the “facts” can’t pre-exist our becoming aware of them – it is by becoming aware of them that they become “facts”, as it were. My point is simply that becoming aware of them involves empirical investigation to establish what these facts are. To suggest that Marx did not engage in such investigation seems ludicrous to me. His writings are littered with empirical data gleaned from a wide array of sources.
robbo203 wrote: “My point is simply that becoming aware of them involves empirical investigation to establish what these facts are.”
And Marx’s point is that the ’empirical’ only ‘exists’ after the active producer has produced it. That is, there are no ‘facts’ until they are produced.
Your method, as you say, is to seek out already existing facts. And once you’ve discovered them, you pass on the ‘knowledge’ of those ‘facts’.
My point is that you’re employing a different method to Marx.
If you consciously want to do that, it’s fine with me, and I’m just pointing out that your method differs from Marx’s.
The key difference is that your method doesn’t require the active production of your ‘facts’ by the unaware, but only your active discovery and dissemination to the passive unaware. It’s a method suitable for an ‘elite’, who are keen to enlighten the mass. That is, suitable for a Leninist Party, or a bourgeois scientist, or a Christian priest – in short, an elite that has an interest in preventing democratic controls by the mass.
An active elite, and a passive mass. As Marx said, society divided into two, with one part dominating the other.
1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.
L Bird “Further, it requires both consciousness and activity. Since this is so, it probably won’t appeal to a ‘materialist’ like you BD, who is waiting for ‘matter’ to convince workers’ consciousness. [that is meant as a joke, not a jibe, BD 🙂 ].”
Not really your strong suit humour, then?
Can’t really see that having them rolling in the aisles at the Edinburgh Fringe mate. 😉
L Bird, you say that “the empirical only exists after the active producer has produced it” and “there are no facts until they are produced”. You also imply that this is, or is consistent with, “Marx’s method”. This is nonsense. Marx’s method – and I am assuming we are talking about his method as a political economist – was similar to the other great system builders. On the basis of a preliminary examination of existing facts, he selects those which he regards of vital causal significance, as far as the structure and development of the economic system as a whole are concerned. These facts are arranged in order on a scale of relevance. His choice of facts, and their relevance, depends on such things as the particular “vision” of the economic process which Marx adopted, including his social and political sympathies. Thus far, you seem to be saying much the same, except that you call it “ideology” (your use of that term is different from Marx). Every time you ask “what’s your ideology?” you are surely suggesting that what counts as a “fact”, and its relevance, are crucial to how you comprehend (how you “see”) the economic system or, crudely put, that a person’s “ideology” determines the “facts”. So while in this sense it’s reasonable to say that “there are no facts until they are produced” it doesn’t follow that “the empirical only exists after the active producer has produced it”. Facts are propositions or statements about the nature of things, so of course, like all propositions they are produced by people. But the things themselves exist independently of the proposition. The “cat sat on the mat” may be a factual statement. The empirical existence of the cat is not.
Robbo’s statement that homelessness in the US is an “empirically demonstrable fact” seems to me wholly uncontroversial (his term “contradiction” might be problematic to some but is irrelevant here). To determine if it is an empirically demonstrable fact or not, we could look up information from the US Department of Housing or the BLS or whatever. Marx did the same sort of thing when he consulted English factory inspector’s reports to provide empirically verifiable facts in Capital. That was part of his method. You seem to disagree, suggesting that Robbo’s statement is a “perfect example of what Marx argued against”. On the contrary, it is a perfect example of Marx’s method, as it is of other theorists claiming scientific objectivity. You call this method an “ideology”, which “divides society into two” etc. I take it that your view here draws on Marx’s third thesis on Feuerbach with its critique of utopian socialism and eighteenth century materialism, as eg. in Robert Owen. It is a caricature of Marx’s thought to believe that by examining existing empirical evidence one is committing the sin of dividing society into two parts; between “those that know” and those “who don’t know”, with “one dominating the other”. Marx actually refers to one being “superior” to the other (which suggests the possibility of elitism, not domination leading, as you would have it, to Leninism etc. etc.). His critique is surely aimed against those like Owen who believed that they could change society by changing the circumstances of workers living conditions. It’s an argument against reformism. Marx believed that society could only be changed by “revolutionary praxis” where the “educator” and the “educated” are one and the same. I thought this was the position of the SPGB.
Firstly, apologies to the moderator, who’s already give fair warning, but I have to reply to pgb’s extremely engaging post.
Secondly, thanks for your post, pgb. It’s a very great pity that the SPGB hasn’t produced you before, because it’s quite possible that the last 5-ish years discussion would have been far more comradely and enlightening, had you been participating. I particularly applaud your refusal to personally insult me, but to engage with my (and Marx’s!) arguments.
So, here goes:
pgb wrote: “So while in this sense it’s reasonable to say that “there are no facts until they are produced” it doesn’t follow that “the empirical only exists after the active producer has produced it””.
This is contradictory, pgb. If it’s not ‘factual’, what is the ’empirical’?
Why isn’t it ‘reasonable’ to allocate the ’empirical’ to the same category as ‘factual’?
Indeed, Marx’s work only makes sense (politically and philosophically) if humanity is the consciously active producer of its ‘facts’ and its ’empirical’.
If you’d like to start a new thread (with the same post?), we can satisfy the moderator, and I can answer your very valid ideological points at greater length.
twc, you will have to address these comments to the Socialist Standard and enquire if the present editors stand by that 1987 reply.
Not all those involved in the production of the Socialist Standard bother to visit this forum so you may well have to submit a formal letter to the Socialist Standard
L Bird, I am not a member of the SPGB, though I am a sympathiser in a sort of a way some of the time. For over sixty years I have had an active involvement and interest in Marxism both as an intellectual movement and a political movement. It’s only for that reason that I responded to your recent posts where you laid claim to know “Marx’s method” (against Robbo in this particular case). Along with many others here, I think you are completely wrong. The problem for me lies in your almost exclusive focus on Marx’s socio- philosophical beliefs (esp. in Theses on Feuerbach) and the nature of his “materialism” which I think you have re-defined as “idealism-materialism”, presumably to take account of the role of the active subject, as against eighteenth century “mechanical materialism” which sees the subject as a passive, contemplative receiver of data from the external world. Fair enough thus far. However, the significance of the active subject then seems to dominate your understanding of Marx’s views on nature (or what I am calling “empirical reality”) to the point that you have expunged Marx’s realism. I mean, when I read you, I get the unmistakeable impression that to you, there is no such thing as mind-independent reality. Like, in your remark (contra Robbo) “that the empirical only exists after the active producer has produced it”. I’m sure you’d agree that Marx had no interest in nature itself, or nature in the abstract, but only in nature as part of man through his interaction with nature via social labour. But that doesn’t mean that the world of objects or actual states of affairs (the empirical world, or “reality”) only comes into existence after human labour has worked on it and transformed it as an object for man – in accord with human needs. You have made “objects for man” (the result of labour-nature interaction) the sole empirical reality, so that in your world there can be no pre-existing reality, and no pre-existing facts. It seems also that it has led you to privilege the notion of “producing” facts/reality, rather than “discovering” them. You cannot argue that this was Marx’s method! The method in Capital begins with a preliminary examination (implying “discovery”) of the facts, not the “production” of them. You then argue that such active discovery entails “dissemination to the passive unaware”, thus bringing your argument back to its starting point in the third thesis on Feuerbach with its distinction between the educator and the educated. I can’t see any logical connection at all between “discovering” facts and “disseminating them etc”. Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach are certainly crucial to understanding Marx’s social/philosophical views. Despite your attempts to prove otherwise, I don’t believe they provide a useful guide to Marx’s method of analysis of capitalism as an economic system and it is his analysis of capitalism as an economic system that provides the necessary foundation for the kind of socialist politics that you appear to identify with. Since from your earlier posts you have given advice to others on what to read, may I humbly suggest that you get hold of Ron Meek’s Studies in the Labour Theory of Value, 2<sup>nd</sup> edition, (1973) which contains one of the best things you could ever read on Marx’s economic method. That’s all I have to say on this subject. Thanks for listening.
pgb wrote: “That’s all I have to say on this subject. Thanks for listening.”
If you’ve decided to withdraw from any discussion, that’s a shame, but I’ll still answer your points, both for others reading and for you too, if you’d like to learn more.
pgb wrote: “However, the significance of the active subject then seems to dominate your understanding of Marx’s views on nature (or what I am calling “empirical reality”) to the point that you have expunged Marx’s realism.”
Yes, as for Marx, the ‘active subject’ (or, the ‘social producer’) does dominate my understanding.
Further, Marx wasn’t a ‘realist’ (or, a ‘physicalist’), but a ‘productionist’ (or, ‘constructivist’).
The problem with ‘realism’ is that it requires humanity to be passive. Marx argued for an active humanity.
pgb wrote: “I mean, when I read you, I get the unmistakeable impression that to you, there is no such thing as mind-independent reality.”
Yes, you’re entirely correct. For Marx, any ‘mind-independent reality’ would be separate from our active consciousness, and therefore a ‘nothing for us’, or a ‘nullity’.
From what I understand about ‘realists’ and their ‘mind-independent reality’, they seem to associate ‘mind-independent’ with meaning ‘outside an individual’s biological body’ or ‘stuff I can touch’. Of course, by this (bourgeois philosophical) definition, of course there is a ‘mind-independent reality’!
But, that’s not what Marx, I, or any other ‘social productionist’ means by claiming ‘there is no mind-independent reality’. We mean that there is no ‘reality’ outside of our social production of it – and that social production clearly requires, as Marx argued, an active social consciousness, for its theory and practice. So, for Marx, ‘no mind, no reality’!
To claim otherwise, as do the ‘realists’, is to hide their ‘mind’ from their ‘reality’. The ‘realists’ (or, ‘materialists’) thus create a ‘reality’, and then pretend to the masses that they haven’t, and that they simply ‘discover’ this ‘existing reality’. I’m sure that I don’t need to stress the inherent conservatism, elitism and anti-democratic ideology behind this myth. As Marx writes, this ‘materialism’ must divide society into two, with the smaller dominating the larger.
pgb wrote: “I’m sure you’d agree that Marx had no interest in nature itself, or nature in the abstract, but only in nature as part of man through his interaction with nature via social labour.”
Here, you’re spot on, pgb. But this contradicts ‘realism/materialism’, which has an interest in ‘nature itself’ (‘mind-independent reality’); that is ‘nature in the abstract’, separated from social production.
pgb wrote: “But that doesn’t mean that the world of objects or actual states of affairs (the empirical world, or “reality”) only comes into existence after human labour has worked on it and transformed it as an object for man – in accord with human needs.”
I’m afraid it does, pgb.
Otherwise, you have to show how you know your ‘the world of objects’ without using your mind and labour (both social), and how you know ‘actual states’ supposedly outside of our conscious activity. According to Marx, any ‘object’ is ‘an object for humanity’ – otherwise we couldn’t know ‘it’, ‘in itself’.
Marx can be criticised, I think, for often being unclear about his philosophical assumptions, but it isn’t too difficult to expose them, given his political commitment to democracy, revolution and social production.
Any ‘realist/materialist’ would have to show how they know a ‘mind-independent reality’ which the rest of us can’t. Because if they claim we all can, we would be able to vote on ‘it’, and they won’t have that!
‘Realism’ is a bourgeois social product, with a history, and we can locate its emergence with the rising class in the early modern period. This ideology is linked to ‘Science’, an ideological belief in a minority having a special consciousness, an apolitical method, and being a disinterested elite, who are going to ‘discover reality’, for all of our benefit. [edit: sounds like Lenin, the great ‘materialist’!]
Marx wanted a ‘revolutionary science’, and without that being a democratic science, it would make a nonsense of all of his work, including Capital.
Anyway, pgb, thanks for participating.
- This reply was modified 1 hour, 52 minutes ago by
LBird.
Yes, you’re entirely correct. For Marx, any ‘mind-independent reality’ would be separate from our active consciousness, and therefore a ‘nothing for us’, or a ‘nullity’.
I think the point that pgb was making was not that we can understand or apprehend reality outside or apart from our mind – which obviously we cant – but that we can infer the existence of something independent of our minds even if we are using our minds to make such inference.
For instance scientists reckon that the earth is 4.5 billion years old
The oldest hominid remains date from 6 million years ago
The oldest remains of our own species homo sapiens date from about 200.000 years
So clearly there was an immense span of time between the formation of the earth and the emergence of something resembling human consciousness.
Unless you are creationist who goes long with the 17th century archbishop of Armagh, James Ussher’s, calculations that the earth was created in one go about 6000 years ago. you have to logically accept as fact that objects like rocks, plants dinosaurs etc existed long before humans came along and thought about these things. Meaning they existed independently of human thought processes – clearly!
Where do you stand on this matter LBird? Are you an..er… Ussherite?
robbo203 wrote: “…the existence of something independent of our minds…”
Which of the two definitions, that I gave earlier, are you basing your statement on, robbo?
I’m afraid to say it’s an ideological choice, and I know that all ‘materialists’ like to pretend that ‘reality itself’ is making their ‘choice’ for them, but I don’t share that delusion! ‘Meaning’ is not inherent in ‘material’, but is a social product, which has a history, and thus changes.
And we, conscious humanity, are the agents of that change, not passive bystanders of matter’s progress.
So, what do you mean by ‘independent’ – ‘biological’ or ‘social’? ‘Independent’ of ‘individuals’, or of ‘social production’?
Which is more “academic” and for academics: discussing unproductive labour or discussing whether reality is real? At least they discuss the first down the pub from time to time while Dr Johnson settled the other one 250 years ago by kicking a stone.
I’m afraid to say it’s an ideological choice, and I know that all ‘materialists’ like to pretend that ‘reality itself’ is making their ‘choice’ for them, but I don’t share that delusion
Well, no, I think its much more straightforward than that, LBird. Did dinosaurs exist before human came into existence endowed with the ability to even think about dinosaurs as such? Yes or No? If “yes” (and I would be seriously concerned about your state of mind if you answered “no”) then I am afraid there can be no question of “ideological choice” about the matter. “Ideological choice” is a faculty of human beings and that faculty could not have been exercised at a time, millions of years ago, when there were no human beings around and dinosaurs roamed the earth.
It would be an ideological choice if we decided, as in the film Jurassic Park to clone them and bring em back to life but back then, millions of years ago, we could not possibly have made such choice ‘cos, like I say, we weren’t around to make it!
How we view dinosaurs – and even the term itself – may be “ideological” loosely speaking but you cannot possibly argue that the actual existence of dinosaurs was a matter of “ideological choice”. Lets be reasonable here. I mean, I go along with the drift of what youre basically saying – that science like any other field of human endeavour is broadly ideological in the sense that it is not, and can never be, “value free”. But I think you are going too far with your argument and overstepping the mark.
Unwittingly or not you seem to me to be substituting for, what you call Marx’s “idealism-materialism”, just pure idealism with this line of argument that nothing can exist without humans thinking of it when what you really mean to say is that the idea of something existing cannot exist without humans thinking of it. Which is a truism…..
The only way to capture the ideological difference between the ‘materialist’ and Marx, is to question the thread title.
For a ‘materialist’, there is ‘Reality’.
For Marx, there is ‘Reality-For’.
For the ‘materialist’, there is no need to specify a producer of that ‘Reality’.
For Marx, there is a need to specify a producer of that ‘Reality-For’.
Thus, Marx’s fundamental concept of ‘Production’, which permeates all of his works, and is made apparent by his conceptual terms ‘mode of production’, ‘forces of production’, ‘means of production’, ‘social production’, ‘social producer’, etc.
And because ‘production’ changes, it has a history.
This is all a long way from ‘Reality’ (the concept is actually ‘Reality-In-Itself’, but who needs consciously created concepts when one has ‘Reality’ to inform one).
There are so many social, political and economic issues in this world, and in this forum, we are always wasting time with philosophical discussions. No wonder that ordinary workers never participate in this forum. The forums of the leftwingers have more members and more participants
Very interesting article in today’s Grauniad, regarding brain, consciousness and ‘reality’.
“By viewing the brain as a computer that passively responds to inputs and processes data, we forget that it is an active organ, part of a body that is intervening in the world, and which has an evolutionary past that has shaped its structure and function. This view of the brain has been outlined by the Hungarian neuroscientist György Buzsáki in his recent book The Brain from Inside Out. According to Buzsáki, the brain is not simply passively absorbing stimuli and representing them through a neural code, but rather is actively searching through alternative possibilities to test various options. His conclusion – following scientists going back to the 19th century – is that the brain does not represent information: it constructs it.” [my bold]
Of course, the main ‘scientist’ from ‘the 19th century’ who has influenced this philosophical approach is Marx.
As Marx argued, our world is socially produced (constructed) by our production (intervention), and we can change (alternative possibilities) it.
We are the ‘active side’; we are not the passive tool of matter (responding to inputs).
I’m sure that we’ll realise eventually that Marx was correct about ‘modes of production’, and that different modes produce different ‘consciousness’. This would help explain why contemporary survivors from pre-capitalist social production, like native Americans, Eskimos and native Australians, turn to drink when confronted with a ‘reality’ not of their making, which is beyond their social comprehension, and is ‘madness’, not ‘reality-in-itself’.
18th century Materialism is nearly dead. Hopefully, humanity and Marx’s ideas will survive.
I’ve just come across a debate which mirrors the debate that we’ve been having here, between ‘a mind-independent reality’ (materialism) and ‘reality-for-us’ (Marx’s social productionism, or ‘idealism-materialism’).
It’s in the context of a ‘Green/Red’ debate.
https://climateandcapitalism.com/2016/06/23/two-views-on-marxist-ecology-and-jason-w-moore/
Jason Moore (and Fred Murphy, perhaps?) seem to share the ‘constructivist’ ideology of Marx, whereas John Bellamy Foster and Ian Angus seem to share the ‘materialist’ ideology, which is common on this site.
I’m pleased to have found this debate which reflects ours, because I think it is central for the future of both ‘Marx’ and democratic socialism.
A new version of Marxism-humanism. Raya Dunayeskaya wrote: Karl Marx is one of the most idealist materialist philosopher and one of the most materialist idealist philosopher. This is also idealism-materialism or vice versa
marcos wrote: “A new version of Marxism-humanism. Raya Dunayeskaya wrote: Karl Marx is one of the most idealist materialist philosopher and one of the most materialist idealist philosopher.”
Yeah, marcos, there’s always been a strand of Marxist thought that opposes Lenin’s anti-democratic ‘materialism’ – the earliest reference I can find is Labriola in 1896, but it carried on through Brzozowski, Bogdanov, Korsch, Gramsci, Panneneok, etc. It seems to be prominent in Italian and Polish philosophy.
The one thing that I have difficulty explaining, is why (given a democratic alternative which one would suppose would better fit Marx’s political views), the anti-democratic philosophy of Kautsky, Plekhanov and Lenin should continue to predominate. To me, it’s clear that the SPGB formed in 1903 was already locked into this proto-Leninist materialism. It was ‘in the air’ in the late 19th century, and both Lenin and the SPGB seems to have been affected by the ideology. This is the ideology of which Marx said, “I’m not a Marxist“.
As you say, it appears that Jason Moore’s views are ‘a new version’ of a long tradition of democratic ideology.
I know which side I take in the political and philosophical debate – it’s that of the democrats.
This passage from Paul Mattick’s review of one of her books would seem to have some application here too:
”And although Dunayevskaya’s interpretation of Marxian doctrine is occasionally true and eloquent, the book as a whole is an embarrassing, scatterbrained hodge-podge of philosophical, economic and political ideas that defy description and serious criticism.”
ALB wrote: “This passage from Paul Mattick’s review of one of her books would seem to have some application here too:
”And although Dunayevskaya’s interpretation of Marxian doctrine is occasionally true and eloquent, the book as a whole is an embarrassing, scatterbrained hodge-podge of philosophical, economic and political ideas that defy description and serious criticism.””
I too would criticise many of these thinkers, like Dunayevskaya and Pannekoek, nevertheless I criticise them from a perspective of Marx’s method of ‘theory and practice’, and the need for democratic production.
It’s important to remember that every critic has an ideological perspective, and Mattick’s is clearly that of ‘materialism’. For example, in the article he writes:
“As practice leads to theory…“.
This is a standard ideological formulation of ‘materialism’.
For Marx, of course, the opposite was true – for him, ‘theory leads to practice‘. So, Mattick too has a dog in this race – there are no ‘objective’ commentators.
So, my advice: read all the texts, but be sure to identify both one’s own and the author’s ideological assumptions.
As Mattick was saying:
“an embarrassing, scatterbrained hodge-podge of philosophical, economic and political ideas that defy description and serious criticism.”
ALB wrote: “As Mattick was saying:
“an embarrassing, scatterbrained hodge-podge of philosophical, economic and political ideas that defy description and serious criticism.” “.
Materialism? Indeed!
That incapacity to respond to ‘philosophical, economic and political ideas’ presented by Marxist critics of ‘materialism’, seems to be the source of Lenin’s diatribe in his Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.
Even in the links that I gave above to the Red/Green debate, it’s clear that the supporters of ‘materialism’ soon turn to personal abuse, rather than give clearly thought out, rational responses to the democratic supporters of Marx.
‘Matter’ doesn’t recognise ‘votes’. No ‘Materialist’ is able to reconcile this problem within their ideology. Thus, the usual retort that ‘idealists’ are attempting to destroy ‘science’ and modern civilisation, and put us all back into the clutches of witches.
But ‘fear’ cannot overcome workers’ consciousness of their democratic production of their world, and their determination to politically control their own production.
As Marx argued, socialism is the self-emancipation of the proletariat. ‘Materialism’ is dying out.
As Marx argued, socialism is the self-emancipation of the proletariat. ‘Materialism’ is dying out.
Raya Dunayevskaya who was an idealist-materialist ( materialist-idealist ) also added herself to the same thought. She also rejected Lenin Materialism and Empiriocriticism, but she said that Lenin was ambivalent and that after 1914 he became a Hegelian when he was reading the Science of Logic. She rejected Engels and raised a critique against his book on the family. She rejected the vanguard party concept and said that all post-Marxists ( for her Engels was a post-Marxist) were La Salleans but considered that state capitalism was established in the Soviet Union in 1930. Probably, she was the ambivalent one, and she created a cult on herself. I don’t think Paul Mattick was wrong
She rejected Trotsky but in some way she accepted the concept of the Permanent revolution by saying that capitalism can be avoided to establish socialism, and that was not Marx ideas, instead of using Trotsky Permanent revolution, she called it a revolution in permanence, and she said that Trotsky was a great revolutionary but until his death, he was still supporting the vanguard party concept, and that means of productions administered by the state was socialism, She rejected Engels, but continued using dialectic in the same way it was used by Engels, so she was a real. Materialist-idealist or vice versa, or ambivalent
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