Socialism and Change

[robbo203]

The idea  that only the workers as a whole "can determine what socialism will be" means of course that those of us who consider ourselves to be socialists now should really fall silent on the question of what it is and never put forward any conception of socialism whatseoever for other workers to consider  since that would be …"elitist" … and "pre-deciding" the issue for them, the workers as a whole – even though the workers as a whole are quite free to to decide they dont want what we, still unfortunately a small minority, call socialism. So if the workers as a whole eventually decided that "socialism" meant "national socialism", we should fall in line with this defintion of socialism and embrace it as good "democratic communists".  Meaning if a majority of workers accepted Nazi ideology we should follow suit since that's "socialism", right? Of course, the fact that we are just workers ourselves putting forward our distinctive concepton of socialism as a non market stateless alternative to capitalism, never seems to enter the heads of those who come up with this batty argument.  Apparently, it seems, no discussion is permitted on what is the nature of socialism , according to this argument, until  a majority have decided they want."socialism". The gaping hole in this argument should be pretty obvious to all.

[alanjjohnstone]

MB, since you raised Paris May 68 as some sort of template perhaps you might be curious on what the  armchair Marxists said at the timehttps://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1960s/1968/no-767-july-1968/how-close-was-france-socialist-revolutionWe also issued a proclamation which i republish here 

Quote:

“The following manifesto (for distribution in France) was adopted by the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of Gt. Britain on 28th May. This is the English translation.We address you not as citizens of one country to citizens of another but as world socialists to fellow members of the world working class.We reject frontiers as artificial barriers put up by governments. All men are brothers and the world should be theirs. All men should be social equals with free access to the plenty that could be if only the means of living belonged to a socialist world community. We oppose governments everywhere, all nationalism, racism and religion, all censorship, all wars and preparations for war.Workers! We support your class struggle for better wages and conditions against the employers and the government. But do not be taken in by the ease with which you have occupied the factories. They allowed you to do this because they know that in time you must give in. Political power is always in the hands of those who control the machinery of government, including the armed forces and the sadistic CRS. Do not be misled by those who say that universal suffrage is a fraud. Learn from your masters. You too must organise to win political power if you want a new society. Do not let cunning politicians or the discredited Communist Party return to power on your backs. Ignore those who would be your leaders. Rely on your own understanding and organisation. Turn universal suffrage into an instrument of emancipation.Students! We share your distaste for the indignities and hypocrisies of the present order. We share your wish for a new society with no exploitation of man by man. But do not underestimate what a task it will be to change society. It will be a hundred times more difficult than changing the government. A democratic world community, based on common ownership with production for use not profit, can only be set up when people want it and are ready to take the steps needed to set it up and keep it going. Democratic political action is the only way to Socialism. There are no short cuts. We must have a majority actively on our side. Do not be misled by student demagogues, those who praise Bakunin, Trotsky, Mao or Che Guevara, who would use you for their own mistaken ends. They think that an elite should use unrest to gain power and then set up a classless society. What dangerous nonsense! Look at state capitalist Russia where a new privileged class rules, with police intimidation and censorship, over an increasingly restless population. Look at state capitalist China where power-hungry bureaucrats cynically manipulate the people in their own sordid squabbles. Learn the lessons of history: elite action leads to elite rule. No Socialism unless by democratic political action, based on socialist understanding.The task you face in France is the same that we face in Britain and our brothers in Germany, Russia, the United States and other countries: to build up a strong world-wide movement for Socialism. What is needed more than anything else in this period of social unrest is a clear, uncompromising statement of the case for a socialist world community.

[Anonymous]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

MBellemare wrote:

Aaah! This is where you Armchair Marxists have ventured to. The pub down the street, Socialism and Change!Bolsheviks, a blue-print? There only idea was to shoot half the country! And let the other half die of stavation!I wonder if Russia would have made the same choice in Lenin, knowing where they are today under Putin.The way to anarcho-socialism is through micro-revolutions, little mini-insurections in the micro-recesses of everyday life, which may possibly blossom into a full-fledge people's revolution. (Think May 68 in France). It begins with the students and spreads from the campuses, outwards, making the whole super-structure wobble.A genuine revolutionary rabble, no party, no polit bureau, just a rabble, comprised of people from all social stratums wanting radical social change! A new socio-economic formation.      

Oh wow, it's another proclamation from right on, trendy anarchist Michel Luc Bellemare, the man who is so radical and revolutionary and anti elitist that he spends half his time making sure that every one knows he's got a PHd. (like anyone in the SPGB would give a flying f@ck)So the revolution starts on the student campus, that's right mate, when they've finished playing candy crush!Oh and it's going to be headed by a disorganised rabble. I can really imagine the agencies of the state are really shitting it, a whole load of disorganised students with no organised idea of how they want to achieve change, or what they want to achieve by that change, charging on to the streets, just like France in '68.I recall the late, great Cde Dick Donnelly refering in his rich Glaswegian Brogue to the "so called revolutionaries" being defeated by "something akin to a municiple street sweeping device, christ only knows what would have happened if the full resources of state repression had been unleased on these romantic fools".It was a disorganised rabble that tried to overthrow Assad, it was a disroganised rabble that over threw the Tunisian regime, it was a disrganised rabble that over threw Louis XVI. They all worked realy well for the working class, didn't they. Can I suggest that if you aren't willing to learn from the lessons of history, you bugger off back to your cosy world of modern art and paint some more of your bonny pictures and stop posing as a windswept and interesting revolutionary. The SPGB is a serious political organisation, not a passing fasion statement, to look back on in embarassment in old age.

. You missed the hippie movement. The ABC from Cuba. The montoneros from Argentina. The macheteras from Puerto Rico.  The Tupamaros    The zapatitas from Chiapas. The farc from Colombia. The comandos. etc etc etc.  Can we include isis and the taliban ? 

[Anonymous]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

MB, since you raised Paris May 68 as some sort of template perhaps you might be curious on what the  armchair Marxists said at the timehttps://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1960s/1968/no-767-july-1968/how-close-was-france-socialist-revolutionWe also issued a proclamation which i republish here 

Quote:

“The following manifesto (for distribution in France) was adopted by the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of Gt. Britain on 28th May. This is the English translation.We address you not as citizens of one country to citizens of another but as world socialists to fellow members of the world working class.We reject frontiers as artificial barriers put up by governments. All men are brothers and the world should be theirs. All men should be social equals with free access to the plenty that could be if only the means of living belonged to a socialist world community. We oppose governments everywhere, all nationalism, racism and religion, all censorship, all wars and preparations for war.Workers! We support your class struggle for better wages and conditions against the employers and the government. But do not be taken in by the ease with which you have occupied the factories. They allowed you to do this because they know that in time you must give in. Political power is always in the hands of those who control the machinery of government, including the armed forces and the sadistic CRS. Do not be misled by those who say that universal suffrage is a fraud. Learn from your masters. You too must organise to win political power if you want a new society. Do not let cunning politicians or the discredited Communist Party return to power on your backs. Ignore those who would be your leaders. Rely on your own understanding and organisation. Turn universal suffrage into an instrument of emancipation.Students! We share your distaste for the indignities and hypocrisies of the present order. We share your wish for a new society with no exploitation of man by man. But do not underestimate what a task it will be to change society. It will be a hundred times more difficult than changing the government. A democratic world community, based on common ownership with production for use not profit, can only be set up when people want it and are ready to take the steps needed to set it up and keep it going. Democratic political action is the only way to Socialism. There are no short cuts. We must have a majority actively on our side. Do not be misled by student demagogues, those who praise Bakunin, Trotsky, Mao or Che Guevara, who would use you for their own mistaken ends. They think that an elite should use unrest to gain power and then set up a classless society. What dangerous nonsense! Look at state capitalist Russia where a new privileged class rules, with police intimidation and censorship, over an increasingly restless population. Look at state capitalist China where power-hungry bureaucrats cynically manipulate the people in their own sordid squabbles. Learn the lessons of history: elite action leads to elite rule. No Socialism unless by democratic political action, based on socialist understanding.The task you face in France is the same that we face in Britain and our brothers in Germany, Russia, the United States and other countries: to build up a strong world-wide movement for Socialism. What is needed more than anything else in this period of social unrest is a clear, uncompromising statement of the case for a socialist world community.

. The workers revolt in Germany had a bigger impact. It was a movement for reforms. It did not help the bolsheviks to.expand their coup   

[Anonymous]

@ Tim Kilgallon #60 Cute, Candy Crush on university campuses!  Its not all Candy Crush! Some have had their first taste of revolutionary politics through campus politics. Through squatting experiments on campus, which filtered off campus into broader movements. It was university campus politics that organized marches, set-up debates and open-democracy-meetings, and buses to protests like Seatle in 1999 etc. I think your selling university students short! Nowithstanding, I get it! Its not the whole story, but it is an important crucible for revolutionary thinking!As for the phd., I think I mentioned it in an initial post, because I had no idea what I was getting into on this site. But I have not mentioned it since.  And I kinda agree with you it is a bit of a useless piece of bourgeois paper. (but that is another issue).   As for May 68, any idea of a Leninist, vangard party, armed-revolution and/or a storming of the winter-palace, is super-problematic to me, as they tend to lead down dark, bloody, rabbit holes.  (Black Panthers, F.L.Q., Weathermen Underground, really alienated themselves overtime because of their tactics). Their social critiques were valid and correct (and still are valid), but their methods to enact this social critique in the everyday were unsound and troubling.    Maybe, the IRA was more successful, I don't know, but they appear to me super-problematic as an outside observer. (I would have to do more research) As they did enter slowly the political mainstream, and abandone armed-conflict, and utilized non-violent tactics with certain political mastery. I thought their murals/graffiti were quite moving, well-done  and radically powerful-images. To an outside observer like myself, I sympathized with their art-form and their struggle through their poignant murals.      Nevertheless, If revolution is the way, I think it can only happen through a May 68-type revolution, i.e., A General Wild-Cat strike, which can sweep up the middle-class into the fervor. Namely, a large-scale rabble, 10 to 15 million in the streets, can set the stage for the long struggle ahead, i.e., the war of attrition needed to inaugurate a new mode of production, that is, an anarcho-socialism mode of production founded upon anarcho-socialism relations, which can spring effectively, democratically and honestly from the crucible of a real revolutionary rabble. Bottom up rather than top down.     If revolution is to be an option. The other option is reform, via winning political power through the current system of government, by wining elections, i.e., like Mr. Corbyne and his corbynistas. Here is where a vanguard party may be effective, but I don't know, if this way can be ultimately revolutionary, that is, manifest a new mode production and a new set of anti-capitalist social relations. However, It makes the left feel better about itself doesn't it? (Its hope and a line pointing in the right direction!)"In every epoch, the ruling ideas, and the ruling art-forms, are those of the ruling class!. Our epoch is one ruled by neoliberalism art, Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol!" .    

[robbo203]

MBellemare wrote:

 As for May 68, any idea of a Leninist, vangard party, armed-revolution and/or a storming of the winter-palace, is super-problematic to me, as they tend to lead down dark, bloody, rabbit holes. 

 I think you will find that that is precisely what  the SPGB has been saying for 100 years now,  Vanguardism can only have one outcome – to reproduce a class based society as the vanguard steps into the shoes vacated by the old ruling class

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

MBellemare wrote:

As for May 68, any idea of a Leninist, vangard party, armed-revolution and/or a storming of the winter-palace, is super-problematic to me, as they tend to lead down dark, bloody, rabbit holes. 

I think you will find that that is precisely what  the SPGB has been saying for 100 years now,  Vanguardism can only have one outcome – to reproduce a class based society as the vanguard steps into the shoes vacated by the old ruling class

But you support 'Material Vanguardism', robbo.You keep insisting that only a materialist minority can determine 'truth', and you openly say that you won't allow workers to democratically decide whether to employ the ideological concept of 'matter' (which you pretend contains 'truth'), or whether to replace 'matter' with (as the bourgeoisie suggest) 'mass' or 'energy', or with (as Marx suggested) 'inorganic nature' (which is his rendering of Ancient Greek concepts like 'hupokeimenon' or 'prote hule').Whilst the SPGB doesn't challenge Engels' 'materialism', it will remain, in effect as a "Leninist, vanguard party", which MB succinctly analyses in political terms. 'Matter' is a 'dark, bloody, rabbit hole'. 'Matter' can't be voted upon (it supposedly 'just exists', whereas 'hupokeimenon' is simply a passive ingredient into social labour), whereas the product of our work upon 'inorganic nature' can be voted upon.The only answer is Marx's: workers' democracy, and social theory and practice, in our production of our world, 'organic nature'.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

You keep insisting that only a materialist minority can determine 'truth'

Can you site one instance where anyone other than yourself has said that?  For instance, I would sugest that Robbo has never said that, and I certainly haven't in all our long long discussions.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

MBellemare wrote:

As for May 68, any idea of a Leninist, vangard party, armed-revolution and/or a storming of the winter-palace, is super-problematic to me, as they tend to lead down dark, bloody, rabbit holes. 

I think you will find that that is precisely what  the SPGB has been saying for 100 years now,  Vanguardism can only have one outcome – to reproduce a class based society as the vanguard steps into the shoes vacated by the old ruling class

But you support 'Material Vanguardism', robbo.You keep insisting that only a materialist minority can determine 'truth', and you openly say that you won't allow workers to democratically decide whether to employ the ideological concept of 'matter' (which you pretend contains 'truth'), or whether to replace 'matter' with (as the bourgeoisie suggest) 'mass' or 'energy', or with (as Marx suggested) 'inorganic nature' (which is his rendering of Ancient Greek concepts like 'hupokeimenon' or 'prote hule').Whilst the SPGB doesn't challenge Engels' 'materialism', it will remain, in effect as a "Leninist, vanguard party", which MB succinctly analyses in political terms. 'Matter' is a 'dark, bloody, rabbit hole'. 'Matter' can't be voted upon (it supposedly 'just exists', whereas 'hupokeimenon' is simply a passive ingredient into social labour), whereas the product of our work upon 'inorganic nature' can be voted upon.The only answer is Marx's: workers' democracy, and social theory and practice, in our production of our world, 'organic nature'.

  Christ, not this boring crap yet again from the ever predictable, LBird No, LBird, by "vangardism" I mean the capture of political power by a minority in advance of the majority becoming socialist .  I am not referring to the fact that  a trained Molecular Biologist is bound to know a lot more about molecular biology than the rest of us who are not trained and are probably for the most not likely to be particularly interested in the subject. In socialism a Molecular Biologist will have no more power than anyone else because the social relationships of socialism – free access to goods and services and volunteer labour – dissolve the very structure of  political power itself.  Its only Leninists like yourself with your bizarre obsessive utopian vision of society wide planning and the impostion of a  single mega plan on the whole of humanity, who will massively reinforced elite power by default  and completely destroy all trace of democracy in the process. 7 billion people can't possibly all become trained Molecular Biologists – let alone trained in al those other occupations that exist out there. So there are very obvious  structural limits to what we can contribute to the "truth" of some theory in the field of molecular biology.  – though why you want for us  to vote on such a "truth" escapes me.  Your exhibit the exactly same mentality that Medieval authorities of the Roman Catholic Church  displayed towards those who would question their dogma that the sun revolved aorund the earth and not the other way round.  Except you want to enshrine scientific truth as a dogma by giving it the rubber stamp of a democratic vote by 7 billion people rather than the word of God .  But that has got sod all to do with what democracy is supposed to be about Unless you propose that all specialisiation and any kind of social division of labour should be eradicated in socialism, and provide us with some compelling reason why this would be both remotely feasible and beneficial,  then your drivel will continue to be regarded with the contempt and ridicule it richly deserves

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

You keep insisting that only a materialist minority can determine 'truth'

Can you site one instance where anyone other than yourself has said that?  For instance, I would sugest that Robbo has never said that, …

Read robbo's post following yours, YMS. And then tell me what he says. He doesn't mention workers' democracy, only elites, who are 'bound to know' better than the rest of us.

YMS wrote:

…and I certainly haven't in all our long long discussions.

Well, here's your big chance to clarify, for everyone reading.YMS, do you agree that only the class conscious, democratically organised proletariat can elect 'truth' (ie. 'truth-for-them')?If you don't agree, that's fine, but then you must tell us who or what will determine 'truth' in your 'socialist' society – and so, by extension, who else than the self-developing workers within bourgeois society, as they build for socialism.Only the class conscious, revolutionary, democratic proletariat can build socialism. Or do you disagree? If so, who are 'the builders of socialism', in your political ideology?

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

You keep insisting that only a materialist minority can determine 'truth'

Can you site one instance where anyone other than yourself has said that?  For instance, I would sugest that Robbo has never said that, …

Read robbo's post following yours, YMS. And then tell me what he says. He doesn't mention workers' democracy, only elites, who are 'bound to know' better than the rest of us.

 FFS  this is what is so infuriating  about LBird. . He never makes any attempt to defend his argument,  He just repeats it over and over and over again – like a JW arguing against evolution If you are trained as a molecular biologist are you bound to know more than about more molecular biology than some one who is not trained?  Of course you are!! LBird I cant believe even you are that dense as to deny  this.  Of course, the  rest of can come to know as much about molecular biology if we too were inclined to train up to become molecular biologists as well.  But thats not going to happen in the real world is it?  Apart from form anything else there are tens of thousands of other jobs that need to be done for society to continue and for which people likewise need to be trained.  So it is only right and proper, and eminently sensible, that people shuld be able to pursue whatever job or jobs that interest them most.  It is literally impossible to become a specialist in everything  – unless LBird  believes humans beings are capable of attaining  divine like omiscience  (which wouldnt suprise me in the least given his oher crackpot ideas he has been peddling here)  or  he believes that specialism and a social division of labour can be eliminated with all the obvious consequences that flow from this,  Presumably LBird thinks just anyone can be snatched randomly off the street to perform a surgical operation on his brain.  I would love for him to put this into practice.  Actually come to think of it , who knows – it might actually result in an improvement in his thinking prowess Does the facr that a molecular biologist trained in her specialised field is bound to know more than a person who is not trained mean that she has any more power over anyone else in a socialist sciety,  Once again, and emphatically – NO! It is in the arena of practical decisionmaking that a "real workers democracy" will exist, NOT in the arena of abstract scientific debate for which there is simply no need for democratic desisonmaking.  It would be quite stupid and pointless trying to democratically determine the "truth" of a scientific theory and also, incidentally, totally against the spirit of scientific enquiry which is supposed to be constantly self critical and opposed to the establishment of rigid dogmatic "truths"    Deal with the argument I presented for saying this, LBird ,  Dont just boringly repeat over and over again your same old dogmatic postulate which forms the beginning middle and end of every argument you ever attempt here

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

Read robbo's post following yours, YMS. And then tell me what he says. He doesn't mention workers' democracy, only elites, who are 'bound to know' better than the rest of us.

But he doesn't say "only a materialist minority can determine 'truth'"

LBird wrote:

Well, here's your big chance to clarify, for everyone reading.1) YMS, do you agree that only the class conscious, democratically organised proletariat can elect 'truth' (ie. 'truth-for-them')?2) If you don't agree, that's fine, but then you must tell us who or what will determine 'truth' in your 'socialist' society – and so, by extension, who else than the self-developing workers within bourgeois society, as they build for socialism.3) Only the class conscious, revolutionary, democratic proletariat can build socialism. Or do you disagree? If so, who are 'the builders of socialism', in your political ideology?

1: No, I dispute the "only".2: You can't handle the truth.3: Hunter gatherers can build socialism.  Modern socialism can come about through the democratic needs and activity of the working class, but peasants, in certain circumstances, could contribute.To come back to automation: I'll use this juncture to throw in the Morrisian point that without the drive of the declining rate of profit, wa future socialist society may elect to do away with automation. Some interesting footage in this video of an automated car plant in France:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxGauhTIRXQ

[Anonymous]

robbo203 wrote:

FFS  this is what is so infuriating  about LBird. . He never makes any attempt to defend his argument,  He just repeats it over and over and over again – like a JW arguing against evolution

That's because he is a troll.  "In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting quarrels or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers into an emotional …"   

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

FFS  this is what is so infuriating  about LBird. . He never makes any attempt to defend his argument,  He just repeats it over and over and over again – like a JW arguing against evolutionIf you are trained as a molecular biologist are you bound to know more than about more molecular biology than some one who is not trained?  Of course you are!! LBird I cant believe even you are that dense as to deny  this.  Of course, the  rest of can come to know as much about molecular biology if we too were inclined to train up to become molecular biologists as well.  But thats not going to happen in the real world is it? 

Here we have again robbo's individualist, elitist ideology, which completely ignores socio-historical production, and the future of a socialist society, which must be built, by us, employing Marx's method of social theory and practice, using democratic methods from the outset.All this political thinking means nothing to robbo – he's an individualist (he doesn't aim for the democratic control of social production, but for the realisation of the bourgeois ideal of 'free individuals') and an elitist (he assumes that academics 'know better' what 'our world' should look like, than we should). All this elitist individualism (ie. ruling class ideas) comes from robbo's belief in 'matter', which an 'individual' (like him) can 'touch' (by his 'biological' senses).I've said this, time and again, as a political explanation, and to defend the argument of democratic socialists. But, apparently, given his 'senses', robbo can't read. Ironic, eh?But, for Democratic Communists, like me, and for Marx, the defining assumption is 'democratic social production'. The earth is a common treasury, for all, and the social production by all for all, based upon our common resources, can only be realised by democratic means.robbo completely ignores the political and philosophical basis of his ruling class ideology, and so doesn't start from 'democracy' in academia.During the building towards socialism, the ideological dominance of bourgeois academics and bourgeois elitist science, must be replaced by a form of education and science more suitable to the needs, interests and purposes of the revolutionary proletariat. So, we'll see the emergence of challenges to the assumptions of bourgeois education (which robbo ignorantly shares), so that our assumption will be that there will not be an 'academic elite' who isolatedly conduct 'science' for their own ideological purposes. Professors-for-us will be elected, and we will determine what ideological concepts the 'professors' employ in our research, in the buildings and facilities we provide, for our scientific needs, interests and purposes. If the elected can't explain in a language suitable to us, they'll be removed. There won't be any 'priests' using 'Latin' to explain 'The Bible'. Or 'physicists' using 'maths' to explain 'matter'. These are revolutionary assumptions, democratic assumptions, suitable for a revolution.robbos' assumptions, that 'scientists know better' than we do, and that this is a state of nature that can't be changed, says everything about his political ideology, which has nothing whatsoever to say to workers who wish to build towards a democratic socialism.robbo knows nothing, and always resorts to insults, of the sort typical of those who think that most workers are thick as pigshit, and can't argue with professors, like Hawking, who even the SPGB has recently corrected.I've said all this to robbo, but he never discusses 'science' as a social and historical activity, or the social production of 'matter', which we can, as Marx argued, change. robbo wants elite contemplation of 'Truth'.'Materialists' follow robbo, and follow Engels, who didn't have a clue what Marx was talking about, and thought that Marx had reverted to the 'Mind-Matter' problem. Marx unified 'Mind-Matter' as 'conscious activity', where both are required. Any discussion of 'matter' outside of its socio-historical production is a reversion to 'materialism', whereas Marx was an 'idealist-materialist', and he says so, and he criticises 'materialists' as elitists.So, Marx was right about you, robbo. 'The real world'? Conservatives unite, eh, robbo?

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