the difference between Marxism and original communist theory/ideology

[Bijou Drains]

LBird wrote:

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

Young Master Smeet wrote:

lbird wrote:

So, if a democratic vote is not 'binding' (in some sense), what's the point of it?

Exactly!

then presumably we would need a vote on the vote on the result of the vote, followed swiftly by a vote on the vote…………..

I'm not sure what point you two think that you're making, other than, according to you, democracy is pointless and voting is a process without an end product.I don't think arguing this about 'democracy' will gain you any members of the SPGB from amongst those workers looking for answers about 'democratic socialism'!This standpoint is not only opposed to democracy in science, but also to democracy in politics.But… I'm sure you two will claim to have a 'special consciousness', that allows you two to 'know' the product of 'science'.Otherwise, it's the death of any notion of 'science', even a bourgeois elitist one.

Don't get angry with me, let's face it I don't have an existence outside your perception of me. If it's anyone to blame, surely it's you. I am merely a socially construced scientific theory that you have about me, and I would say that as you are conversing with me, without first subjecting your theory of the existance of me to a democratic vote, you are demonstrating dangerously elitist practices! Shame on you!

[Anonymous]

The expression: Democratic socialism, sounds like  there is an  undemocratic socialism,  and a democratic socialism, socialism will be the most democratic society, but  it can be established within the frame of the capitalist society, as the apologist of that concept want to apply.The actual concept of democratic socialism is a bourgeois conception, similar to Liberalism, neo-liberalism, and leftism.Simply, Democracy is just the common possession of the means of productions by the vast majority of the human being, and we do not need a PHD, or a bunch of philosophers, or gurus  to understand that.

[Anonymous]

"Marxists" and socialists-communists are the peoples and organizations which advocate for a stateless, momeyless, and leaderless society, with free access and the wordly possession of the mans of productions. Before Marx and Engels nobody used to support that conception they wanted  to reform capitalism, or comeback to Feudalism. We do not have to read the 52 volumes of Marx and Engels to understand that differentation

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

 I suspect that you're echoing robbo's concerns with 'individuals', rather than Marx's concern (and mine) with 'social production' by classes..

Marx, unlike LBird, was also concerned with " individuals"  To take one or two random  quotes"the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all."  Communist Manifesto"the development of the rich individuality which is as all-sided in its production as in its consumption" Grundrisse Concern with individuals and concern with social production by  classes are not mutually exclusive concerns, you know. It takes a rather dogmatic mind that can only see the the world in terms of black-or-white not to grasp this point. LBird's crass argument about individuals is the mirror reflection of Mrs Thatcher crass  argument about society.  Mrs Thatcher declared that there is no such thing as society , "only individuals and their families". LBird declares there is no such thing as individuals only society. Both of those points of view are equally inept, not to say sociologically illiterate. There is no such thing as society without individuals anymore than there can be individuals without society.  Its a two- way connection.between them.  Each reciprocally influences the other. Ironically LBird professes to be what he calls an "idealist materialist".  Funnily enough I don't have, and never have had,  any quarrel with his criticisms of a positivistic cum objectivist view of science and its pretensions to be value free.  Theory, the ideas we hold in our head always condition that factswe apprehend about material reality.  Hence idealism-materialism. LBird can see this but when it comes to the question of the individual and society he goes completely off the rails. It has to be one thing of the other but but he cdeclines gto apply this same logic when it comes to the question of idealism and materialism. Then you can have idealism- materialism.but in the case of the former, the individual has to be competently erased from the picture. ldeaving on "society". It makes no sense but then lot of what LBird says makes no sense…

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

  So, if a democratic vote is not 'binding' (in some sense), what's the point of it? 

LBird wants the global population of a future communist society to hold tens of thousands of plebiscites on the truth value of each and every new scientific theory that comes on stream.  As if this was not Monty Pythonesque enough, he now wants the democratic global vote on each new theory to be "binding" on the population as a whole What on earth is he warbling on about, I wonder.  Assuming that more than 0.0001 % of the 7 billion people comprising the current global population could even  be bothered to turn out to vote on whether String Theory in Astrophysics was true,  assuming that 51% of this tiny fraction of the global population voted to accept String theory as the incarnation of Proletarian Truth,  does this mean that the rest of the populace must now toe the line, must expunge from their heads any rival theory to String Theory. I fondly imagined that the whole point about science is that it is meant to be self critical and open to rival interpretations and not peddle in absolute truths.  It may not quite live up to this ideal in capitalism but is LBird now telling us that a communist society should follow a capitalist society in that regard? I still have no idea whatsoever why LBird thinks a democratic vote on a scientific theory is even necessary –  democracy is about practical decision making not abstract theories –  and I am even more puzzled now as to why he thinks this vote should be" binding".  Perhaps he could be so good as to explain his reasoning

[alanjjohnstone]

Quote:

LBird wants to global population of a future communist to hold tens of thousands of plebiscites on the truth value of each and every new scientific theory that comes on stream.

I don't want to put words into anybody's mouth but isn't his demand for only the right to democratically decide such issues.This is already being done obliquely today, of course, when you consider climate change and folk voting for political candidates and their policies that either endorse or deny the science behind it.In future won't there also be indirectly votes taking on the validity of science.Would we democratically decide the creation of the CERN project and devote so much resources to it …wouldn't there first be a debate on the social need for that science before going ahead with it? Would a peasant in India really say, okay according to Maslow's hierachy of priorities i wish to sacrifice my organic digesting energy producing toilet for something that will determine if faster than light neutrinos exist?Some will decide if actually finding or refuting a "scientific" fact is all rather irrelevant to actual….dare i say it..the reality of real life, here and now on the planet and what we are experiencing in this world, not in some other multiple universe if these exist…A bit like the argument about a non-intervention God…if he isn't making a presence felt — so what if there i one or not?Anyways, i return to what i always say…people will vote on science with their feet..so to speak…no-one will challenge the effects of gravity by leaping off from the top of a high building…when lots of people do and begin flying…i suggest that is a vote in favour of abolishing the law of gravity…. and those who are against abolishing may well point to the jumpers use of parachutes or gliders…Ridiculous analogy, re-reading that, but my point is that surely we do and must have the right of voting on science claims, despite if a  the law of physics decides if it is valid or not…Surely we as people decide, not a laboratory experiment. Not exactly denying the actual science but simply being able to say…who cares. I know someone will claim the importance of abstract research which may very well produce some future concrete benefits or eventual implications for the "real" world that cannot be determined in advance…But do we really actually care a toot. We already have voted …by abstention = apathy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_mathematics

[Anonymous]

This is very funny. DJP is always accusing us of being elitist and proto-Leninists, but he is  denying that in a socialist society is where we are gong to express our own  real individuality which does not contract the concept of social production, which is related to the way that human beings are going to product and produce those things needed for the survival and well living, even more, religion is going to be based on personal incumbencies. The Soviets were the one who wanted to eliminate the individuality of the human being, and Marx was not against individuality, which is something different to individualism and selfness. As Marx wrote: We shall have an association under which  The free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. Capitalism promotes individualism and selfiness, but it does not  provide the real free individuality of all human beings

[moderator1]

mcolome1 wrote:

This is very funny. DJP is always accusing us of being elitist and proto-Leninists, but he is  denying that in a socialist society is where we are gong to express our own  real individuality which does not contract the concept of social production, which is related to the way that human beings are going to product and produce those things needed for the survival and well living, even more, religion is going to be based on personal incumbencies. The Soviets were the one who wanted to eliminate the individuality of the human being, and Marx was not against individuality, which is something different to individualism and selfness. As Marx wrote: We shall have an association under which  The free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. Capitalism promotes individualism and selfiness, but it does not  provide the real free individuality of all human beings

It appears you are mistakenly misquoting DJP here.  A bit of editing would not go amiss.

[robbo203]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Quote:

LBird wants to global population of a future communist to hold tens of thousands of plebiscites on the truth value of each and every new scientific theory that comes on stream.

I don't want to put words into anybody's mouth but isn't his demand for only the right to democratically decide such issues.This is already being done obliquely today, of course, when you consider climate change and folk voting for political candidates and their policies that either endorse or deny the science behind it.In future won't there also be indirectly votes taking on the validity of science. 

 Alan,That is not how I would interpret what  LBird is saying but then LBird has only himself to blame if people misinterpret him given his tendency to haughtily decline to respond to questions concerning the practicality of his ideas.  Perhaps he imagines in that fertile imagination of his that such questions betray a..er.." bourgeois"  view of the world and elite communists like his good himself have no need to concern themselves  with such mundane matters. As I see it, LBird has explicitly invoked the idea of workers in a communist society voting to determine the truth or otherwise of scientific theories – thousands upon thousands of 'em.  Not once has he explained WHY this is necessary or HOW such a stupendously mammoth undertaking is going to be accomplished.  I have repeatedly asked him these questions but he has snubbed me every time And no I don't think he is demanding only the "right" to democratically decide such issues.  How would such a right be activated anyway? Would it require a petition with a minimum number of signatures and who decides what is the minimum in a population of 7 billion people? Its all too  silly for words Nor do I think what  LBird is suggesting is being obliquely done  today.  There is a world of a difference between what LBird is proposing and voting for candidates who want to do something about climate change.  Firstly the latter does not involve a global vote. Secondly ,  the vote happens only once ever four years or so but new scientific theories crop up on a daily basis.  Thirdly,  the  political candidates people vote for stand for a raft of other things too apart from wanting to tackle climate change so there is no way of determining whether a vote for them represents an endorsement of the "truth" behind climate science. And fourthly and perhaps most importantly, the candidates are putting forward practical policies that impact upon the utilisation of resources.  Now this indeed is, or should be, the subject of democratic decision making.  I have always made this clear to LBird that this is what democratic decision making ought to be about – practical decisions that affect us all, not the supposed truth of scientific theories – despite his puerile insults levelled at oppnents like me that they are "not democrats".  I fully support the idea of common ownership  and democratic control of the means of production.  I do not however support the idea of democratically deciding whether this or that scientific theory is "true" or not.  It is a stupid and utterly pointless idea.  If LBird thinks otherwise then he should get his finger out and make a case for it.  That would certainly make a change from just sneering at his opponents as not being democrats for having the effrontery to reject his daft idea.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

Ironically LBird professes to be what he calls an "idealist materialist".  Funnily enough I don't have, and never have had,  any quarrel with his criticisms of a positivistic cum objectivist view of science and its pretensions to be value free.  Theory, the ideas we hold in our head always condition that factswe apprehend about material reality.  Hence idealism-materialism. 

I'm happy enough that at least robbo seems to be agreeing with me, here.And if he really means that the 'reality' we 'know', is a product of 'conditioning' plus 'fact', then we've got there, at last.Thus 'plus' is 'activity' (or, as Marx called it, 'social labour'), and 'unconditioned fact' is the 'passive ingredient' to labour (or, as Marx called it, 'inorganic nature'), and 'reality' is our product (or, as Marx called it 'organic nature').So, we have 'theory' ('conditioning') being 'active' ('plus') on 'unconditioned fact'.But, 'fact' IS NOT 'out there', but a product, a 'conditioned fact'. There is no 'fact' (unconditioned) that we 'know', because we condition 'unconditioned fact' by our social labour, and produce 'our facts', or 'facts-for-us'.As Marx says, we create our 'objective facts'.So, 'reality-for-us' is our active product, by social theory and practice, when we change inorganic nature into organic nature.This is not 'materialism', which pretends to 'know' the 'unconditioned facts', which is why it is passive and claims that what the elite know is a reflection of 'out there'. Materialism denies activity (social labour) which changes 'out there' into our 'in here'. Materialism claims that an elite can produce 'Truth', whereas 'truth' is a social product, which we can change.So, it's better to call Marx an 'idealist-materialist', to capture 'theory' and 'practice'. Engels did not understand these epistemological issues, otherwise he would not have talked about a 'dialectic in nature' prior to human conscious activity, social labour, our theory and practice, which produces 'nature-for-us', a 'nature' which changes within modes of production, a socio-historic 'organic nature'.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Quote:

LBird wants to global population of a future communist to hold tens of thousands of plebiscites on the truth value of each and every new scientific theory that comes on stream.

I don't want to put words into anybody's mouth but isn't his demand for only the right to democratically decide such issues.

I've tried talking to robbo, but he won't read what I write, and goes off on a rhetorical tangent.Perhaps you can explain 'socialist democracy' to him, alan.I define it as "workers' power", but he seems to define it as 'no individual's muscle moves without a vote', and thus condemns my wish to have workers in collective control of their production.Especially their production of our 'reality-for-us'.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

[I'm not sure what point you two think that you're making, other than, according to you, democracy is pointless and voting is a process without an end product.

Its a legitimate reducio ad absurdum of your claim that only a vote can determine he truth: if that is so, we can't know anything since we cannot know the result of the vote without voting on it.  Voting is a means to an end, an enhancement of communication and co-ordination between concrete social indviiduals, it's not an end in itself.In the course of living, we will have to vote and make democratic decisions on our self-activity, which will implicitly have to accept scientific premises as part of our action: even a decision to install computers means we have to accept the work of Faraday, f only up to a point.Society will be run democratically, but to the end of freedom and individual development.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Society will be run democratically, but to the end of freedom and individual development.

My point entirely.'Freedom and individual development' are social aims ('theory') and social tasks ('practice').Social theory and practice in a socialist society will be democratically controlled.'Freedom' is not the 'individual tasks' of 7 billion individuals.'Individual development' is not the 'individual tasks' of 7 billion individuals.To argue that 'Freedom and individual development' is not task for  'social theory and practice', under the democratic control of all, is to argue for Thatcherism.Only we can achieve the 'end' you mention.7 billion individuals can't. Only a united society can.

[alanjjohnstone]

“And no I don't think he is demanding only the "right" to democratically decide such issues.  How would such a right be activated anyway? Would it require a petition with a minimum number of signatures and who decides what is the minimum in a population of 7 billion people? Its all too  silly for words.”This is indeed an important issue. How do we decide issues that may have global impacts.Right now, apart from climate change, there is GM food. (I don’t want to get into a debate on if or not it is harmful but purely on the hypothetical question on how do we decide if it is or not and whether as a technology it should be applied.)Who decides? And how do we decide. And how many of us decide.  As Robbo suggests it is daunting task to ask every single person on the planet, especially when many won’t know the arguments or the implications for either choice. LBird is cautious about offering the technocrats the power to decide, even though they may well be the only ones who do understand the science behind GM, both for and against.How do scientists decide things, by discussion and debate, face-to-face meeting at symposiums and conferences with Q and A, placing papers for peer review and responding to counter-arguments. They do within their field democratically as workers, and normally reach a recommendation by majority opinion but usually almost unanimously.  It is then presented to politicians as a recommendation and then politicians have the task of implementing those as a policy. How different under socialism? Firstly, we should be able to trust the research from the scientists much more once the monetary rewards are removed from the vested interest influences. The politicians are replaced by the global industrial/social forums of the union of workers councils and the federated communes. If they agree to the science then their task is to educate and convince the regional and local elected/delegated bodies.If the majority go with the anti-GM no serious issues arise. It is simply not used and an alternative method of growing plants is taken up, a second-best substituteBut if the agreed decision is pro-GM, we have now the problem of the minority who oppose it but unable to stop the effects of the majority’s choice. GM will be in the food and will trespass on non-GM crops.What I am asking is where does local/regional/worldwide voting extend to and stop at? Who does possess the mandate of democratic decisions inside socialism.Even with a plebiscite, we cannot have total democracy, can we? This why I found this Pathfinders article of interesthttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2005/no-1210-june-2005/pathfinders

Quote:

“Collaborative filtering (CF) software technology is currently used on the internet where a crisis of choice already exists. Faced with a superabundance of products and services, CF helps consumers choose what to buy and navigate the huge numbers of options. It starts off by collecting data on an individual's preferences, extrapolates patterns from this and then produces recommendations based on that person's likes and dislikes. With suitable modification, this technology could be of use to socialism – not to help people decide what to consume, but which matters of policy to get involved in. A person's tastes, interests, skills, and academic achievements, rather than their shopping traits, could be put through the CF process and matched to appropriate areas of policy in the resulting list of recommendations. A farmer, for example, may be recommended to vote upon matters which affect him/her, and members of the local community, directly, or of which s/he is likely to have some knowledge, such as increasing yields of a particular crop, the use of GM technology, or the responsible use of land by ramblers. The technology would also put them in touch with other people of similar interests so that issues can be thrashed out more fully, and may even inform them that 'People who voted on this issue also voted on…' The question is, would a person  be free to ignore the recommendations and vote on matters s/he has little knowledge of, or indeed not vote at all? Technology cannot resolve issues of responsibility, but any system, computer software or not, which helps reduce the potential burden of decision making to manageable levels would… capitalism’s drive to make its democratic forms look more participatory may be doing socialism’s work for it, so that in the future the technology to debate, dispute, appeal, complain, conference and vote will all be in place – at the touch of a phone button.”

Anyways, a practical question to be posed to this thread   

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

To argue that 'Freedom and individual development' is not task for  'social theory and practice', under the democratic control of all, is to argue for Thatcherism.

That doesn't follow.   As, I believe has ben argued here by others, hunter gatherers are highly individualistic, but they are hardly Thatcherite in their primitive communist societies.

[Author]

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