Rethinking the Marxist Conception of Revolution by Chris Wright

[robbo203]

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LBird wrote:

.Unless you agree, with what I'm starting to suspect is widespread within the SPGB, that only 'an elite of the educated and informed' will make decisions for the dumb majority.It seems that my understanding of the revolutionary process to human emancipation is very different from the SPGB's – not least, over this issue of 'democracy'. If you've got a mental picture of the 'ignorant and uninformed' having to be 'excluded', christ knows what robbo's visions of the "hell of workers' democracy" look like.

 More drivel from LBird,  He just dosesnt get it does he? After endless efforts to try to explain what the real issue is here, he comes out again with the same old boring evasion. No LBird  it is not a case of "an elite of the educated and informed' making decisions for the dumb majority" that we communists are arguing for.. This is an utterly, sociologically inept, conclusion on your part for two main reasons 1) Because the "decisions" you are referring to are more than just practical decisions about things like the allocation of resources or where a local sweage plant should be sited.  There is no disagreement that these sort of things should  be subject to democratic decision making despite your deceitful insinuation that I think otherwise.  However, you are extending the range of decisions, and hence the scope of democratic decisionmaking,  much much further than is warranted to include also things as the "truth value" of scientific theories or the artistic merit of works of art.  That is what we object to.  Its an utterly stupid idea ,  Its totally impractical and, more to the point, its totally unnecessary,  If a majority of people vote  to say a particular theory is correct what is meant to happen following that vote?  You never explaim, Are the minority then supposed to abandon their oppostion to this theory becuase the majority,support it? But thats just dumb.  If scientific progress was governend by LBirds model we would still be thinking  that th sun revolved around the earth and that the eath was not sphere, but flat.  Because that is what the majority thought  at the time and there would be no  mechanism by which this point of view could be altered if minority opinions were banished.  In fact if minority opinions were to be banished we would never arrive at communism – and should never according to LBird – since the overwhelming majority of workers today support capitalism and this view should prevail 2).  Becuase you dont understand what is meant by an "elite",  You lack any real understanding of what communism is about and how it precludes the very possibility of such an elite ever arising. Universal free access to goods and services and the voluntartisic nature of labour itself dissolves completely the very basis of political power in communism.  No one would be in  a position of being able to exercise any kind of  leverage over others.  Moreover,  you fail to ses that by an" elite" is meant a systematically unified  internally coherent body or section of the population sharing a common interest.  How could this possibly arise in a communist society  with a complex social division of labour? An expert neurologist will be a complete layperson  as far astrophysics is concerned while an astrophysicist will be a complete layperson as far as the neourological sciences is concerned,  What is the common basis on which these two very different experts can unite as a collective elite to conspire against the interests of the general  public in the way you suggest?   You dont explain.+ Your whole line of argument is incredibly weak , incoherent  and confused. You dont accept that in a communist like any other form of technologically advanced society there must be a complex division of labour, We cannot all become  competent neurologists so it is INEVITABLE there is going to be an uneven distribution of social knowledge.  If you disagree with that then how do you propose to overcome this unevenness – that we all become accomplished in every conceivable field of scientific enquiry so that we can all grasp the minutiae of every scientific  theory going and be able to competently vote on them?  But this is impossible LBird as you must surely realise .  Even becoming accomplished in just one single field of sceintifc endeavour is an uphill strugge for any one person, involving years of dedicated study and practice.  Yet you are proposing that we shall equip ourselves with a godlike omiscience of being able to grasp the sum total of human knowledge! This is a childiish idea. Frankly LBird  you are dreamer with your head in clouds more concerned with the sound of pretty words than what they actually signify in real terms

[Anonymous]

robbo203 wrote:

LBird wrote:

 I'm a Democratic Communist, whose ideology defines 'socialism' as 'democratic socialism'. 

 Another red herring. Of course socialism involves democracy .  No one is disputing that.  The argument is solely about the limits of democratic decisionmaking even in a socialist society. Do you deny that such limits will exist even  in socialism, LBird? Do you agree that there would be a vast range of decisions that would necessarily fall outside the practice of democratic decisionmaking.  For example  – albeit to take a rather extreme example – whilst you rail against what you ignorantly call the "individualists" on this forum, would you be comfortable with the fact that the democratic community (which in your eyes boils down to the entire global population) should determine how you shoud lead you life, thus: – what work you should do and for how many hours per day- where you may live – what you may study- where you may travel to- your  consumption and lifestye choices- your view on what constututes scientific truth- your view on what constitutes artistic beauty And so on and so forth. Also and I have asked this of you before LBird but would local communities exist in your version of democratic communism that would be able to take democratic decision on their  own (thus limiting democracy to locals in this case).  Can you please answer this question LBird 

I genuinely would love to read LBird's replies to these questions. Does he understand this post? Sure a 'democratic communist' like LBird should have no problem dealing with these question. Thread-hop as much as you wish, they aren't going away, Lbird

[robbo203]

Vin wrote:

 I genuinely would love to read LBird's replies to these questions. Does he understand this post? Sure a 'democratic communist' like LBird should have no problem dealing with these question. Thread-hop as much as you wish, they aren't going away, Lbird

 I doubt if he will Vin.  You see, to talk about individuals being able to freely take from the distribution stores according to their self determined needs and to freely and voluntarily contribute to the production of wealth according their abilities is  unspeakably INDIVIDUALIST, for heaven's sake. I mean, you can't really go about mouthing slogans like "from each according to ability to each according to need".  Where will it all end? Next, people will be calling this Marx's "higher stage of communism"!No, people need to be democratically instructed by the ..er .."democratic global community" concerning what work we shall each contribute  and what goods and services we shall each be allowed to consume.  All 7 billion plus of us,  Now thats "democratic communism", innit?

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

You see, to talk about individuals being able to freely take from the distribution stores according to their self determined needs and to freely and voluntarily contribute to the production of wealth according their abilities is  unspeakably INDIVIDUALIST, for heaven's sake. I mean, you can't really go about mouthing slogans like "from each according to ability to each according to need".  Where will it all end? Next, people will be calling this Marx's "higher stage of communism"!No, people need to be democratically instructed by the ..er .."democratic global community" concerning what work we shall each contribute  and what goods and services we shall each be allowed to consume.  All 7 billion plus of us,  Now thats "democratic communism", innit?

The saddest part of this, robbo, is that you're making quite clearly my (and Marx's) argument here, very well, but without realising it.You're contrasting your 'individualist consumptionism' with Marx's 'social productionism'.The former doesn't need 'democracy', whereas the latter does need 'democracy'.For the former, Engel's 'materialism' ('matter' being touched by 'passive biological individuals') is quite sufficient.But for the latter, some ideology of 'human creation' is required, where the 'subject' is a 'social' category, a subject that creatively produces its world.For the former, individuals contemplate their choices from the existing store; for the latter, society creates both its choices and its store.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

The saddest part of this, robbo, is that you're making quite clearly my (and Marx's) argument here, very well, but without realising it.You're contrasting your 'individualist consumptionism' with Marx's 'social productionism'.The former doesn't need 'democracy', whereas the latter does need 'democracy'.For the former, Engel's 'materialism' ('matter' being touched by 'passive biological individuals') is quite sufficient.But for the latter, some ideology of 'human creation' is required, where the 'subject' is a 'social' category, a subject that creatively produces its world.For the former, individuals contemplate their choices from the existing store; for the latter, society creates both its choices and its store.

 It seems to me to be quite clear from this statement of yours, LBird, that you reject the Marxian concept of communism or at any rate what is called the “higher phase of communism” as outlined by him in the Critique of the Gotha Programme.  This concept is summed up by the expression “from each according to ability to each according to need”.  What that means is that individuals freely take from the common store according to their self-defined needs and freely cooperate with their fellows in the production of wealth on a purely voluntary and unremunerated basis. These two things hang together, you cannot have one without the other What you advocate, instead, has got nothing to do with communism or Marx’s “social productionism”.  What you advocate can best be described as  a kind of idealised hypothetical totalitarian society in which it is not individuals who make choices with respect to what goods they consume or what labour they contribute but “society” (“ society creates both its choices and its store”). Individuals should not have a choice in these matters at all, according to you.  In other words, you advocate a society in which wealth is essentially rationed and labour is fundamentally coerced in accordance with some predetermined social plan in order to ensure the realisation of this plan Since you cannot allow for any kind of feedback mechanism that seeks to accommodate and adjust to individual decisions and individual choices what this means, in effect, is that you advocate a society of society-wide central planning,  You have now finally admitted what I suspected was the case all along.  Though you have yet to acknowledge this, you have finally revealed to us the true nature of the ideology you subscribe to – namely, unreconstructed Leninism It was Lenin who declared “The whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory, with equality of labor and pay”  (State and Revolution).  There is no other way in which such a society could function except on the basis of a completely  top-down authoritarian command structure and I defy you to show otherwise.  Logistically speaking, the sheer volume of decision-making needed to administer any kind of large scale society which you want to concentrate entirely within a single society side planning entity makes it absolutely impossible for even a significant number of individuals to participate in the planning process.  Of necessity and by default, these decisions would have to be undertaken by a tiny vanguard elite yielding absolute power in the face of which the great majority, by your own admission, will not be able to exercise any kind of choices whatsoever and consequently will be powerless to reject these decisions handed down to them by the vanguard , dressed up as “choices” made by society in general.   Marx's position is totally the opposite to the one you put forward, incidentally.  Marx advocated a society of “freely associated” workers which only makes sense in the context of a society in which individuals are actually empowered to make choices.  In your misleading use of the term, Marx would qualify as an "ultra-individualist".  He  maintained that in communism, the “free development of each is the condition for the free development of all"  Note the words "condition for".  What this signifies is that individual freedom is precondition for social freedom. In the German ideology, he famously spoke of communist society as one in which an individual might  “hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, do critical criticism in the evening, just as he has in mind”.  “Just as he has in mind” means the individual has an absolute  choice in the matter of what work he or she performs but, according to you, that individual should have no choice and should diligently carry out a work quota as determined by something called “society” (meaning your Leninist Vanguard). I'm sorry to say this LBird but you are no Marxist, you have little understanding of Marxist theory and you have no inkling of what is meant by Marx’s “social productionism” at all.  It is not at all what you seem to have in mind

[LBird]

Well, we differ about just what that famous statement of communism 'means', robbo.Anyway, I'm pretty clear about your personal views, but how far do they reflect the 'official' view of the SPGB?I'm always surprised that there is so much reticence for others to mention "workers' power", 'democratic production', 'social individuals', even Marx, when it comes to these discussions.Is your interpretation of 'socialism' widely held within the SPGB, even if it's not an officially declared position?

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

I'm always surprised that there is so much reticence for others to mention "workers' power", 'democratic production', 'social individuals', even Marx, when it comes to these discussions.Is your interpretation of 'socialism' widely held within the SPGB, even if it's not an officially declared position?

In your interpretation of  'communism' there will be workers. You are not a communist if you believe there will be a working class in communism. 

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

I'm always surprised that there is so much reticence for others to mention "workers' power", 'democratic production', 'social individuals', even Marx, when it comes to these discussions.Is your interpretation of 'socialism' widely held within the SPGB, even if it's not an officially declared position?

In your interpretation of  'communism' there will be workers. You are not a communist if you believe there will be a working class in communism. 

We've been over this dozens of times, Vin. Surely you haven't got that bad a memory? But if you have forgotten, you've only got to read what I replied to you last time.

[alanjjohnstone]

Quote:

I'm always surprised that there is so much reticence for others to mention "workers' power", 'democratic production', 'social individuals', even Marx, when it comes to these discussions.

Perhaps not in these exchanges with yourself, LBird, but they do feature very much in our promotion of socialism. Just take a look at the archive of our blogs, particularly Socialist Courier.But i do favour the term "people power" and "power to the people" to "workers' power", a hangover from my John Lennonist years.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

Well, we differ about just what that famous statement of communism 'means', robbo.Anyway, I'm pretty clear about your personal views, but how far do they reflect the 'official' view of the SPGB?I'm always surprised that there is so much reticence for others to mention "workers' power", 'democratic production', 'social individuals', even Marx, when it comes to these discussions.Is your interpretation of 'socialism' widely held within the SPGB, even if it's not an officially declared position?

I note LBird that you dont respond to the specific points I made and indeed the specific Marx quotes I provided, which demonstrate conclusively just how removed your outlook is from a Marxian one.  Thats OK if you want to hold the views you do but dont pretend that your position is a Marxian one.  It most certainly not. There is no question about what "from each according to ability to each according to need" means.  It means individuals freely and voluntarily contribute their labour to the common good in ways that they see fit in the light of their own abilities and awareness of what they are capable of doing.  It also means individuals freely and directly taking goods from the communist distribution centres according to their own self defined needs.  I dont know how you interpret that statement – perhaps you can tell us – but that is how we Marxists have always interpreted it. You have made it clear that in your view the individual in your kind of society will not be able to make any kind of meaningful choices at all.  It is a "society" alone that will make all production and consumption choices so that in effect you are advocating a system of rationing coupled with a system of forced or compulsory labour.  That is, workers will be compelled to do certain types of jobs and for a certain number of specified hours per week.  They will have no choice in the matter.  If the central Plan is to be fulfilled and workers are to receive the particular ration of goods that have been allocated to them, they will each have to be compelled to work in this manner. Just as free access goes with volunteer labour so rationing goes with forced labour I explained to you earlier why your kind of society must inevitably lead to a top down authoritarian or vanguardist system of decision-making.  This is precisely because you have eliminated the possibility of any choices being made except those made by society as a whole.  Since it is totally impossible for society as a whole to make the millions upon millions of decisions that it will need to make to function at all, these decisions will perforce be made by a tiny elite in the name of society.  There is no other option unless you allow individuals themselves to make decisions for themselves (which you have ruled out) so that you would have a feedback system in place rather than a top down command economy where decisions flow downwards in a one-way direction I will end with this observation.  Marx as mentioned took the view that in a communist society, the “free development of each is the condition for the free development of all"   In other words, the individual should be empowered to choose and this would benefit society as a whole Now you have counterposed this to what you call Marx’s ”social productionism” without any understanding of what that entails at all.  Certainly, modern day production is indeed a highly socialised process which brings into sharp relief just how interdependent we all are upon each other.  I would argue and I think this is the point that Marx himself was making, that we can only really fully appreciate this sense of interdependence when we ourselves are free human beings, free to choose what to consume and what labour to perform. A free access communist economy provides the optimum conditions under which we can realise our true social nature and shatpen this sense of mutual interdependence.  There is no one else to turn to provide for our needs, or to blame – no governments, no bosses, no charities – only ourselves The kind of society you advocate for is not conducive to promoting a sense of interdependence and the kind of cooperative ethos that arises from that but, rather, what is called a “dependency culture”. This is because in your kind of society you are deprived of the ability to make any choices and, thus, to learn from the consequences of making those choices.  You are reduced to status of being a cog in a vast impersonal machine.  You are essentially dependent on the decisions others – the elite – make for you.  You don’t feel any sense of responsibility towards your fellows because as an individual you are powerless.  As you said yourself, the individual in your society will not be able to make any choices Far from encouraging a democratic outlook, what you are proposing will do the very opposite – on the one hand by concentrating power in the hands of a tiny elite of decision-makers and, on the other, by disempowering the great majority and fostering in them a sense of isolation and helplessness In the end, a society of free individuals is an absolute precondition for a properly functioning democracy.  Here I am not referring to the fake freedom of bourgeois “individualism”, a term which really boils down to the freedom of one class to exploit another. Incidentally, “individuality” which is what I am really talking about does not mean the same thing as “individualism” at all but you seem to constantly confuse or conflate these different terms.  I am referring to the real freedom that is entailed by a society of free access and volunteer labour.  Far from detracting from democracy as you suggest, it ensures and strengthens it    

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Quote:

I'm always surprised that there is so much reticence for others to mention "workers' power", 'democratic production', 'social individuals', even Marx, when it comes to these discussions.

Perhaps not in these exchanges with yourself, LBird, but they do feature very much in our promotion of socialism.

Yeah, and I think that that itself is indicative of the real problem.That is, I've read Marx (and Engels, etc.), so I know what he actually said (and can quote him), and so in your debates with me youse are all continually found out.For your propaganda for the masses, who are mostly not yet socialists and haven't read Marx, youse can say anything (including mention of workers, democracy and society) without those readers being aware of what youse actually stand for. To those who regard themselves as workers and want to see a real democratic society, it can ring a bell.But, it's become obvious to me that youse are only using these terms as bait, much as bible-bashers mention all the 'nice stuff' in the bible, and which can appear attractive to the socially concerned and unwary. That is, the bible-bashers have a hidden agenda, which only becomes obvious when subjected to  critical examination. When we bring up all the Jesus stuff which is anti-rich and pro-poor, the bible-bashers scuttle away. I've had plenty of doorstep 'conversations' with Jehovah's Witnesses and US Mormons, and believe me, if they have kids and young people with them, my views tend to 'convert' them. It's not what the religious adults intended, of course, and they usually give up and go away before I close the door, probably to 'save' their young from the 'conversation'.Well, same process here. I put some meat on the bones of your claims, about "workers' power", for example, and you all shy away from the political consequences of it. For example, workers' control of production means the control of intellectual production (ie., academia, universities, research, physics, logic, maths, etc.), not just the control of factories (ie. 'widgets', the 'material' stuff the workers can touch).So, not surprisingly, regarding these terms, 'they don't feature very much in these exchanges with me'.I've read many of your archives, blogs, Socialist Standard articles going back a century, and even some specialist stuff that a comrade sent to me, like Alison Assiter's 1979 article about Engels and epistemology, so I know both your strengths and weaknesses.Unfortunately, the weaknesses prevail – there seem to be two groups in the SPGB: one group, like you, doesn't really understand  what all this stuff about "workers' power", democratic production, social individuals actually means, so are quite happy to mouth the 'correct' platitudes; the other group, the Religious Materialists, can really understand the political consequences of these terms, and don't like it one bit. So, they, as you say, don't use them in our debates.So, the SPGB seems to consist of the ignorant and the religious, the former unaware, the latter faithful to 'Matter', and a Democratic Communist is running rings around youse.I'm surprised in one way, because you've set up a site to attract workers, preferably who already know Marx, and hope to encourage them to join the SPGB and help build for 'socialism'.But, asked what 'socialism' means… and it all goes to ratshit. I'm a worker and a Marxist, and I can tell quite clearly that youse are not. Youse seem to favour an elite of 'Specialists', and place your hopes in 'disinterested experts' who will give 'advice' which has to be taken. None of you have any intention at all in building a society in which the masses determine for themselves whether, for example, 'matter exists', or whether that concept can be replaced by another of our choosing which better reflects our needs, interests and purposes.From what mod1 wrote earlier, youse seem to think that 'experts' already know our needs, interests and purposes, and that their 'expert advice' is not to be gainsaid.Finally, it's ironic that in the latest edition of the Socialist Standard, the SPGB criticises Stephen Hawking about his views on psychology, but presumably accepts that he 'knows better' than us about nature and physics.Believe me, I'll know when this party is ready for my membership – when it starts criticising Hawking for his maths and physics!Well, I won't be voting for him, when we elect the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, in our socialist society!

[alanjjohnstone]

I'll take your latest post as one of waking up on the wrong side of the bed by its relatively uncomradely tone and patronising language, LBird.As i said, in my posts, it will be future society that will determine the democratic processes (and there will be many of these, not just a single universal system of workers' democracy) of administrating society, not yourself or ourselves in advance with premature speculations on means and methods although we can engage in healthy debate and speculation. The generation that has the task of making socialism work, is different from ours that are striving to overthrow capitalism so it can be built. ( i think you and Robbo are surprisingly agreed that certain means must prefigure in the ends and that partially led to his resignation from the SPGB) As for your putting meat on the bones of what is "workers' power", i have repeatedly appealed for the discussion to be based more upon practical descriptions of how the embryonic "workers democracy" should manifest itself. But to continue your metaphor, in this debate you are adding chili powder to the bones that some find too spicy as to make it unpalatable. As for Hawkings, his insistence upon using a Dalek-voice machine when he could be communicating with Cary Grant clarity to convey his message is enough to make me question him. 

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I'll take your latest post as one of waking up on the wrong side of the bed by its relatively uncomradely tone and patronising language, LBird.

No, I'm fine – I'm only reflecting the SPGB's 'uncomradely tone and patronising language' to workers, alan, but, as I keep pointing out, just like the SWP, the SPGB doesn't like workers talking to The Party in the same way it talks to them!

ajj wrote:

As i said, in my posts, it will be future society that will determine the democratic processes…

Yes, and as I asked in my posts, is this 'future society' (your conceptual term for the 'active side') a 'democratic' one or not?It's a simple question, alan, that the SPGB should be able to answer.I'll spell it out for you, though.Is 'future society' an 'elite', or is 'future society' the victorious, class conscious, democratically-organised proletariat?If it's the former, this elite will decide the 'democratic processes' for the producers.If it's the latter, the decision about 'democratic processes' will itself be a democratic one.Once we've settled that, alan, we can get on to the 'practical' stuff that the SPGB is desperately trying to get workers onto, with the aim of hoping workers don't question the 'theory' that will drive the 'practice'. You simply want workers to accept, unquestioningly, your 'theory' (which is a bit rich, really, since you keep telling us that you yourself don't understand 'theory'). In fact, you want workers to be just like you, and put your trust in an 'elite' of 'theorists' who already 'know' all the 'theory', and just get on with the 'practical'.As I've said before, Marx's method is 'theory and practice'. You don't agree with this, alan, which is fair enough, but you should openly tell workers that you disagree with Marx, and that your method is 'practice and theory'.

ajj wrote:

As for Hawkings, his insistence upon using a Dalek-voice machine when he could be communicating with Cary Grant clarity to convey his message is enough to make me question him. 

For me, it's the content, not the sound.Cary Grant spouting Religious Materialism would be much the same as Lenin and Uncle Joe doing so. And the Daleks of the bourgeoisie.

[Young Master Smeet]

There will be no proletariat in the future society, but it will be organised by the free association of producers, democratically.or, put another way "a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common, in which the labour power of all the different individuals is consciously applied as the combined labour power of the community."

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

There will be no proletariat in the future society, but it will be organised by the free association of producers, democratically.or, put another way "a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common, in which the labour power of all the different individuals is consciously applied as the combined labour power of the community."

Yes, I know the 'words' as well as the SPGB, as I've told alan.So, here we go again.Can this putative 'free association of producers, democratically' decide to get rid of 'matter' and replace it with something else?If not, why not, and who decides this?Why can't 'a community of free individuals' producing 'in common', using 'combined labour power', 'consciously' decide by democratic means, to change 'matter' for a different concept, which better reflects our social and democratic production of our nature, a nature-for our needs, interests and purposes?

[Author]

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