the difference between Marxism and original communist theory/ideology

[Bijou Drains]

LBird wrote:

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

Thanks for your simple answer (No). Following on from your simple answer to my simple question. I can assume that as I am made of matter, I do not exist outside of your perception of the matter that makes me up. If this is the case, and I only exist in terms of your perception of me, there are three further questions:1. What do I get up to when you are not perceiving me? As according to you my matter has no existence outside of your perception of me.2. Why are you conversing with me when I only exist in your consciousness and have no existence outside of that domain.3. When I come home pissed, yet again, can I send my beloved around to your house so you can explain that it is not me that is pissed, but rather your perception of me that is pissed, and therefore you are to blame? ( I would advise caution, she can be a bit volatile when she's vexed)

[my bold]You'll have to read my post again, Tim.I was giving an answer to a political and philosophical question about 'power' within epistemology.You seem to want to persevere with your 'bourgeois individualist' concerns, like 'I' and 'me', and your biological notions of 'perception'.Since I specifically said that 'existence' is socially-produced, I don't know how you can read that as 'your existence is in my head', but I suppose with your bourgeois ideology, those sorts of beliefs are basic.But those ideological beliefs of yours are not mine (nor Marx's).And who told you that you are made of 'matter'?And why not 'energy'? Your ideology is 19th century, Tim. As are your 'assumptions'.

Let's simplify it for you then, Do I exist outside of your perception of me? Again a simple yes or no will do,

[twc]

Out of the mouth of the scientifically illiterate…

LBird wrote:

And who told you that you are made of ‘matter’?  And why not energy?  Your ideology is 19th century, Tim.

Nobody can be made of energy, whether in the 19th, 20th or 21st century!Energy, like mass, is an attribute of matter.  It is borne by matter, not an alternative.  Think of energy as an adjective that clings to the noun ‘matter’.What LBird is grasping for is the scientific principle of mass–energy equivalence (E  = mc²) which doesn’t imply the magic he imagines.Consider particle–antiparticle annihilation…  Quantum mechanics permit massive particle–antiparticle annihilation to create other massive particles, so long as overall energy and momentum are conserved.Mass is not condemned to vanish, as it always does in the popular magazine articles!Modern scientists are not the mindless idiots of your opprobrium.You may be thrilled to learn that Frederick Engels correctly understood the implications of the 19th century precursor to mass–energy equivalence—which you fail to understand—namely the First Law of Thermodynamics, particularly in its related form of transformation and conservation of energy.You might also be thrilled to learn that Karl Marx was simultaneously, but independently in the British Museum, single-handedly developing his analogous transformational and conservation circuit of capital.You might be delirious to learn that the French philosophes were their great precursors: Lavoisier with his conservation of mass;  Quesnay with his Tableau économique.And definitely thrilled to learn that the scientific principle, which (21st century) you wield like a boat anchor, rests upon the Lucretian John Dalton and his reclamation of materialist Democritan/Epicurean atoms.A gentle admonition to a Berkelean denier of principles within nature:  “All social life is essentially practical.  All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.”

[LBird]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

Let's simplify it for you then, Do I exist outside of your perception of me? Again a simple yes or no will do,

Tim, I keep giving you the simplest answers that I can.But you're not using the same Marxist ideology as I am, about the social production of 'existence'.You want to discuss your drunken encounters with your missus, and you as an individual and me as an individual. I keep pointing this out as an effect of your 'materialism', which looks to 'biological senses' as the determiner of 'what exists'.Any answer I give is in the context of my freely exposed-to-all ideology, which is Marx's too. For example, Marx argues that 'senses are social', and so to talk about 'existence' outside of the mode of production that produces that 'existence', is meaningless.I'm trying to give you straight answers, but you just seem to ignore Marx's works – which, of course, you're free to do, but it would be better if you openly state to all, where your concern with you, yourself and your perception, comes from.I'd argue that you're simply repeating the ruling class ideas of this society, and locate your views socio-historically, whereas I suppose you'll locate the origin of your views in you.I won't keep on saying the same thing to you, Tim, so unless you start to engage in a discussion about epistemology, and its social location, then I'm going to have to stop replying to you.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I really don't see any real big difference of viewpoint here and we all these years been arguing about angels dancing on a pinhead.

Well, alan, if you can't tell the difference between power in the hands of the producers, and power in the hands of an elite, there's nothing further I can say that will convince you.I still find it strange that a political party seems to have so much difficulty comprehending political debates.The issues of epistemology are political debates about 'power'.Unless, that is, one is a 'materialist', and thinks that it's all down to individuals and their biological senses, and their easy ability to touch 'matter'.Then, clearly, this debate is just so much 'angels dancing on a pinhead', and the SPGB can just ignore me, and carry on as it is, living in the 19th century.As I've said, alan, I've tried hard to raise awareness of these political issues, but it seems, to you, to be a complete 'non-issue', and I think that you've been the one who has most genuinely tried to engage with what I'm arguing, so perhaps you should just stick with Tim's, twc's and robbo's views, and leave 'my' arguments to the realms of 'idealism', and write me off as a 'bogeyman'.

[alanjjohnstone]

Quote:

Well, alan, if you can't tell the difference between power in the hands of the producers, and power in the hands of an elite, there's nothing further I can say that will convince you.

I'm not really sure you have addressed my points, LBirdAre you saying the SPGB has it wrong when we argue against syndicalist/workers control/cooperatives/industrial unionism/nationalisation/municipalisation forms of ownership, LBird? Just what is common/collective/social ownership?Marx talks of association of producers…i think the emphasis is on the plural, not only of individual producers but more importantly of producing units. I'm arguing that production becomes the actual property of society – not merely of those that engage in the production. I know i am preaching to the converted but the position is that goods and services are socially produced and result from a world-wide  division of labour. Production today is a complex social process. Even the simplest item like a pencil requires the direct and indirect labour of thousands of workers. Production today is a tremendously complicated social process: the production of any one item is intricately bound up with the production of all other items. An autonomous production unit is impossible. Socialism is a non-property system, and systems which accept and reject property cannot co-exist. Let us remind ourselves that socialism aims not to establish "workers power" but the abolition of all classes including the working class. In a socialist society, there would simply be people, free and equal men and women forming a classless community. That is the goal. Do the producers possess property rights over their means of production? Does their control over-rule everybody else's.Our goal is what some have called the “community of goods”; everything is to be made common property, everything will be everyone’s. “The association of free men who work with the means of production and who employ, following a concerted plan, their numerous individual forces as a single force of social labor … the work of freely associated men who act consciously and are masters of their own social activity”; “free and equal association of the producers”. You avoided my claim that the producers if they claim the sole right to control over production, they have usurped the  democracy of the majority and have become an elite.I think what is crucial isn’t who is nominally in control, but whether the whole of society has control over the complete process of production and that involves the scientific and technocratic aspects of R and D and the study of the “pure” abstract science which often underlies it that I suggested with an earlier mention of the utility of CERN.I'm not really interested and i have said it numerous times of the abstract debate on whether people believe it is the sun revolves around the earth. It is when belief systems start interfering in people's lives that that makes some truths important. If the majority of people believe in supernatural powers and start burning witches for employing these powers, i begin to challenge that belief system by denying its truth. If you think that problem has disappeared, you havn't been reading about the murders of albinos for magical powers. Or even in this country when social services were stealing children from their parents because of satan worship. … I'm not going to sit back and accept the majority vote on what is real or not when it begins to encroach upon other peoples lives…Every election people vote for capitalism…TINA…i don't accept the "truth" of that – neither do you. 

[Bijou Drains]

LBird wrote:

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

Let's simplify it for you then, Do I exist outside of your perception of me? Again a simple yes or no will do,

Tim, I keep giving you the simplest answers that I can.But you're not using the same Marxist ideology as I am, about the social production of 'existence'.You want to discuss your drunken encounters with your missus, and you as an individual and me as an individual. I keep pointing this out as an effect of your 'materialism', which looks to 'biological senses' as the determiner of 'what exists'.Any answer I give is in the context of my freely exposed-to-all ideology, which is Marx's too. For example, Marx argues that 'senses are social', and so to talk about 'existence' outside of the mode of production that produces that 'existence', is meaningless.I'm trying to give you straight answers, but you just seem to ignore Marx's works – which, of course, you're free to do, but it would be better if you openly state to all, where your concern with you, yourself and your perception, comes from.I'd argue that you're simply repeating the ruling class ideas of this society, and locate your views socio-historically, whereas I suppose you'll locate the origin of your views in you.I won't keep on saying the same thing to you, Tim, so unless you start to engage in a discussion about epistemology, and its social location, then I'm going to have to stop replying to you.

I'll take your reply as you refusing to answer the question because you know the only answer you can give, which is consistent with your previous postings, (which is that I do not exist, outside of your perception of me) is clearly ridiculous.

[twc]

LBird wrote:

Well, alan, if you can't tell the difference between power in the hands of the producers, and power in the hands of an elite, there's nothing further I can say that will convince you.

Fancy, in all the merry dance you led us, in hectoring us over your miraculous undergraduate-level neo-Berkelean misreading of Marx, you never once comprehended that every able bodied person under socialism will be a producer.There can be no elite, in the political sense, if there are no political classes.  And there are no political classes if there is no political [=power] struggle to control the means (or wherewithal) of social production.Political conflict over social production is the essential hallmark of class-divided society.  It takes the form of a class struggle between the political class or classes that hold the political power to own and control the machinery of social production, whether land, resources or, in the ancient mode of production, humans as chattel, and the political class or classes that lack that ownership and control.Capitalism has simplified that class struggle into a political struggle between only two classes.  But that is not how the phenomena of capitalism appear on the surface to the protagonists engaged in the practical daily necessity of reproducing the social system.Producing is an eternal practical necessity for mankind’s survival.  That it is not humanly meaningful under capitalism is one of our many condemnations of the system.  But dissatisfaction is not a permanent feature of social producing.  Joy in producing becomes meaningful in classless society, where mankind has comprehended the practical necessity to produce cooperatively (and not divisively) in order to reproduce himself/herself as truly human.Your fear over political power reflects your erstwhile Leninist power framework that you still intellectually operate in.If now you plan to slink off from the forum, licking your dented Berkelean super-ego, perhaps lend a parting consideration to those normal folks who, at the expense of magnifying your brilliance, you maliciously humiliated and abused, and whether you owe them a decent apology.

[LBird]

LOL!Yer couldn't make it up!When I say 'worker', the SPGB says 'no workers in socialism'.When I say 'producer', the SPGB says 'no elite in socialism'.alan, I'm approaching these issues from a 'class' perspective, so I'm talking about how we build now, amongst interested, curious workers, to help build for a socialist future.When I say 'working class', I'm clearly referring to, well, the proletariat of Marx, and because I've been criticised for using that term, when talking about socialism, I've tried to use the term 'producers'…But, you and all the rest are never going to discuss a class approach to epistemology, and the need for democracy within all areas of power, both during the building towards socialism, and after the revolution, within socialism.And you have said, many times, that you're not really interested in these issues, I'll grant you that.But, what sort of position is that for someone who is involved in a political party to take – to claim that they're not really interested in a vital political issue, about the social production of knowledge?I openly acknowledge that you've engaged in a genuine attempt to understand, even given your declared 'lack of interest', but we're going nowhere fast now, aren't we?I thought that I could generate a political debate about Marx, epistemology and democracy, but I think that the complete embeddedness of Engels' ideology of 'materialism' (which starts from the view that this is a non-issue, 'reality just is', 'anyone can touch matter') within so-called 'Marxist' parties (not just the SPGB) is too strong for critical debate to overcome.I laughingly called it 'Religious Materialism', in the hope that, in a party like the SPGB, with its dislike of religion, this term might wake it up.The laugh's on me, eh?

[LBird]

twc, if the SPGB's still listening to you, the party deserves what it gets!

[twc]

So, they should be inducted into neo-Berkeleanism, and told beforehand to vote for capitalism until they attain enlightenment, and then swot up in acarology… in order to become, in your words, “elite” impractical dilettantes in every subject, object and reject as essential training to police and stifle every non-conformist thought so that bourgeois scientists don’t take over the socialist world and conduct Mengele experiments on them.  Your words.   

[alanjjohnstone]

Sorry, LBird but i have to persist. Who is the elite – the producers who claim control over the widgets or society who likewise insist upon control? Is this simply about confusion over definitions? "I argue that only the producers can decide about 'widget production'."Producers are everybody and not simply the widget-producers? Can we then narrow the decision making down a little more to now producers meaning those who make them but also those who will consume/use of the widgets. And do we agree that democracy is not always going to be everybody voting but that we do have delegate forms of decision-making, that we have fairly reliable polls which can determine support or not for a proposal, that we could simply have a jury system of randomly selected individuals to make decisions. As for pre-revolution, pre-socialist times, yes we do discuss class/class struggle/class war .And we recognise conflict can only be resolved by class victory in the political arena (primarily) but also equally important the economic organisation. And we don't mean nose-counting majority but an effective political majority when we say it has to be democratic.  

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Sorry, LBird but i have to persist.  

alan, I can't win. If I talk about 'proletariat' and 'socialism' is the same sentence, I get jumped on by those who object to talking about a 'class' in socialist society.So, to try to come up with a term which represents 'workers', I use 'producers', to try to cover both now and then.Then you, because you're not really interested in the debate about 'who has the power to determine production, including scientific knowledge', you've move on, to a …You tell me, alan. What do you think I mean by 'producers of widgets'?The individuals producing widgets?Or is 'producers' a term for 'collective producers' and 'widgets' a term for 'social products'?In other words, those in society who determine products.I think only democratic methods can be employed by those in society who determine what is to be socially produced.If you're going to 'persist', alan, you're going to have read some books on epistemology yourself, and do it the hard way, because my comradely attempts to shorten the process and make it easier, have clearly completely failed.My interests in this subject go back to the late 80s, so if you start now with your readings, you might get to where I'm trying to get you quickly now, in about 25 years.Perhaps this is just evidence for robbo's thesis that we're all too thick to learn 'new' stuff quickly, and you're just going to have to leave this subject in the hands of experts like me, who've been grappling with it for more than a quarter of a century.God help us all. And you're not interested. Why 'persist', mate?

[LBird]

Marx, Capital Vol. 1, p. 169, wrote:

…categories…are forms of thought which are socially valid, and therefore objective, for…this…mode of social production.

'Objectivity' is determined by its 'social validity'.This is a historical 'validity', because produced by a certain society.Who, amongst workers struggling to build for socialism, determines what thoughts count as 'objective' and 'valid'?Is it the workers themselves, democratically, or an elite?Who makes the category 'matter' a 'socially valid' one? And when?The 19th century bourgeoisie made 'matter' a 'socially valid', and thus 'objective', category.They've since moved on, but Engelsian Materialists haven't.The ruling class has learnt from Einstein, but 'materialists' haven't.Ironically, Einstein confirmed Marx, but the ruling class is still over a century ahead of the proletariat, who still look to 'materialism'.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

So lets have it from the horses mouth: are you now denying that your vision of a future communist society involves workers voting on the truth or otherwise of scientific theories?  A straightforward  YES or NO will be much appreciated  and if NO please enlighten with a simple explanation in your OWN words as to precisely what you have in mind without your customary waffle.   . 

Yes. (ie. workers will vote on 'truth')If you don't agree, robbo, you have to say who does determine 'truth'.I suspect that you'll argue that 'truth' is 'out there', waiting to be 'discovered', but then that puts power in the hands of 'out there' and we can't change it.Can you please give me a similarly simple answer, to my reasonable political question?Who determines 'truth'?

 OK so now we have it in black and white from LBird.  Workers in a communist society will vote on the truth of scientific theories – thousands upon thousands of them! The theories not the workers, that is.  So 7 billion people, more or less, voting on thousands of thousands of scientific theories is how LBird sees the future.  Glad we sorted that out  LBird Do I agree with this idea? You gotta be kidding.  The idea  is about as daft as it gets.  Logistically it is simply out of the question.  But the more important question I wanted LBird to answer which he is failed to do – is  WHY is it it necessary  for workers to vote on the truth of these thousands of scientific theories?  Why? Why? why?  LBird says if I don't agree with his idea then I have to say who then determines the truth.  But why? Why should anyone determine the truth?  If I have one particular scientific theory to account for a certain phenomenon and you have another, then obviously we have a difference of opinion.  What is true for you is not for me and vice versa. Of course we can look at each others respective  theories  in the light of the evidence presented and perhaps as a result I might come to reject my theory and accept yours . Or vice versa.  Or we might even come to see that both our theories are off the mark.  The point is  the truth is relative and provisional, not absolute and set in concrete.  Scientific advancement develops through engagement and debate  not by bureaucratic rubber stamping of a particular theory as true by virtue of some democratic sanction.  So the question of who determines what is the truth is quite misleading.  It betrays the mindset of a Jehovah Witness not a Marxist.  Marx said "question everything" but how can you possibly question something when it has been "democratically" determined to be The Truth.   Explain LBird So lets run with this idea that LBird has put forward and see where it takes us.  Let us assume (very generously)  that a substantial number of workers in a communist society – say 4 billion out of a population of 7 billion turn  up to vote on the Truth of String Theory in astrophysics.  62% of this 4 billion vote in favour of String theory (Ill ignore   the fact that this is still a minority of the total population))  So String theory  has now been officially designated as Scientifically True, Fine, Now what?  What is supposed to happen as a result of this vote???  See, this is what LBird totally fails to explain.  Is he saying that all those who reject String Theory in favour some other theory are now forbidden  to promote this other theory.  No? , what then?  What was the point of the exercise? Why has a communist society gone through the enormous expense of organising a global plebiscite on  a particular theory when all it serves to do is to rubber stamp the theory as scientifically true no doubt to to the satisfaction of its proponents whose egos would have been suitably massaged. Its quite dumb when you think about it.  This is not at all what democracy should be about.  Democracy is about practical decisions that have a practical bearing on our lives in terms of the allocation of resources to certain desired objectives.  It is not about deciding the scientific truth of this or that theory. That is a complete waste of time and resources and its utterly pointless

[Anonymous]

robbo203 wrote:

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

So lets have it from the horses mouth: are you now denying that your vision of a future communist society involves workers voting on the truth or otherwise of scientific theories?  A straightforward  YES or NO will be much appreciated  and if NO please enlighten with a simple explanation in your OWN words as to precisely what you have in mind without your customary waffle.   . 

Yes. (ie. workers will vote on 'truth')If you don't agree, robbo, you have to say who does determine 'truth'.I suspect that you'll argue that 'truth' is 'out there', waiting to be 'discovered', but then that puts power in the hands of 'out there' and we can't change it.Can you please give me a similarly simple answer, to my reasonable political question?Who determines 'truth'?

 OK so now we have it in black and white from LBird.  Workers in a communist society will vote on the truth of scientific theories – thousands upon thousands of them! The theories not the workers, that is.  So 7 billion people, more or less, voting on thousands of thousands of scientific theories is how LBird sees the future.  Glad we sorted that out  LBird Do I agree with this idea? You gotta be kidding.  The idea  is about as daft as it gets.  Logistically it is simply out of the question.  But the more important question I wanted LBird to answer which he is failed to do – is  WHY is it it necessary  for workers to vote on the truth of these thousands of scientific theories?  Why? Why? why?  LBird says if I don't agree with his idea then I have to say who then determines the truth.  But why? Why should anyone determine the truth?  If I have one particular scientific theory to account for a certain phenomenon and you have another, then obviously we have a difference of opinion.  What is true for you is not for me and vice versa. Of course we can look at each others respective  theories  in the light of the evidence presented and perhaps as a result I might come to reject my theory and accept yours . Or vice versa.  Or we might even come to see that both our theories are off the mark.  The point is  the truth is relative and provisional, not absolute and set in concrete.  Scientific advancement develops through engagement and debate  not by bureaucratic rubber stamping of a particular theory as true by virtue of some democratic sanction.  So the question of who determines what is the truth is quite misleading.  It betrays the mindset of a Jehovah Witness not a Marxist.  Marx said "question everything" but how can you possibly question something when it has been "democratically" determined to be The Truth.   Explain LBird So lets run with this idea that LBird has put forward and see where it takes us.  Let us assume (very generously)  that a substantial number of workers in a communist society – say 4 billion out of a population of 7 billion turn  up to vote on the Truth of String Theory in astrophysics.  62% of this 4 billion vote in favour of String theory (Ill ignore   the fact that this is still a minority of the total population))  So String theory  has now been officially designated as Scientifically True, Fine, Now what?  What is supposed to happen as a result of this vote???  See, this is what LBird totally fails to explain.  Is he saying that all those who reject String Theory in favour some other theory are now forbidden  to promote this other theory.  No? , what then?  What was the point of the exercise? Why has a communist society gone through the enormous expense of organising a global plebiscite on  a particular theory when all it serves to do is to rubber stamp the theory as scientifically true no doubt to to the satisfaction of its proponents whose egos would have been suitably massaged. Its quite dumb when you think about it.  This is not at all what democracy should be about.  Democracy is about practical decisions that have a practical bearing on our lives in terms of the allocation of resources to certain desired objectives.  It is not about deciding the scientific truth of this or that theory. That is a complete waste of time and resources and its utterly pointless

 L Bird does not answer to all the questions that we have asked him,  because he knows that we are going to  catch the ball, and his  answer are going to prove that he is wrong. Like this one, that Robbo just answered to him in a very clear manner, It  is absurd that millions and millions of workers are going  to vote on scientific theories, or in the same theory, and all are going to agree to that idea, and that theory is going to be a scientific truth, even to a minority of peoples approve itWhat peoples are going to need is the allocation of resources, and how they are going to be used, and how to manage the means of production, this is the real truth and real concept of democracy. He is already making a blueprint of the socialist society like the Bolshevik, and making decision for the vast majority of mankind,  and Marx did not dare to do that.It is like in the WSM forum, some peoples show up as teachers, and trying to give lectures to the members of the WSM/SPGB, and that the end, they become students. He has too many questions to be answered in this forum, and to himself

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