[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

With regard to value, what I think is that only through a general character does the value-form correspond to the concept of value. The value-form had to be a form in which commodities appear for one another as a mere jelly of undifferentiated, homogenous human labour, i.e. as expressions in the form of things of the same labour-substance. For they are all material expressions of the same labour, of the labour contained in the linen or as the same material expression of labour, namely as linen. Thus they are qualitatively equated.

This hardly answers my question, YMS. Which was:

LBird wrote:

So, you agree, YMS, that 'value' contains no matter, is not in the 'grey matter' of individuals (not even in one synapse of one head, never mind in all 7 billion), and is a real mechanism (but not physical) that causes our problems.

You still seem to be clinging to a 'materialist/physicalist' viewpoint. That's OK if you are, but I just can't understand why you don't say so.For Marx, there is no 'matter' in 'value'. I agree with Marx. It is not a 'material expression'.I'm beginning to have the sinking feeling that my words are not having any affect after all, notwithstanding what I wrote earlier.Why can't comrades see that there are alternative ideologies being used to understand 'value', and discuss their differences, rather than pretend it's all the same mish-mash of 'materialism/physicalism/realism'.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

So, you agree, YMS, that 'value' contains no matter, is not in the 'grey matter' of individuals (not even in one synapse of one head, never mind in all 7 billion), and is a real mechanism (but not physical) that causes our problems?

Are you talking about 'value' the concept or 'value' the social relation?

The social relation existed before the concept was dreamt up. I'm talking about the causal mechanism that destroys the lives of humans.Value existed before Marx identified it. Value is nothing to do with 'grey matter'. Capitalism ruined humans prior to 1867.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

Well, perhaps I've succeeded (at last!) in pointing out to you the difference between a 'realist' and a 'physicalist' view of nature.It's your choice, comrade, which ideology you want to employ to help you to understand the world (physical and social).Leaving aside the substantive issue of 'value', etc. and how we understand it, I'm just glad that I've been able to finally explain something!

I think it's more like we now understand your terminology.  You say Critical Realism, I say Cultural Materialism, after the deaths of millions of electrons, we now agree that what we've been calling materialism is what you call critical realism….Now, potato, or potato?

So, you agree, YMS, that 'value' contains no matter, is not in the 'grey matter' of individuals (not even in one synapse of one head, never mind in all 7 billion), and is a real mechanism (but not physical) that causes our problems?If you do, I'm not yet sure that others, for example, Vin or DJP, agree.And to call this perspective 'materialism' is a misnomer, because, well… much of it has as much to do with 'idealism' as with 'materialism'. That opposition was resurrected by Engels, after Marx thought he'd put it to bed.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

If 'value' is in the 'grey matter' of individuals, 'all in the head', why doesn't everybody in capitalist society know about 'value' just by thinking about what's in their heads?

I don't think anyone has claimed that value is 'all in the head'…

Didn't you read the quote I gave with this question? From Vin?

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

God is real.I think a 'materialist' will disagree with that statement, but a 'realist' will agree with it.

LOL I don't think realism entails one to have to say that! One can say that the concept 'god' is a real thing that exists as a concept in the minds of people (and so effects how they behave) but at the same time say that thing that the concept refers to does not exist in the real world.Surely you have to seperate the concepts from the entities / non-entities they refer to. Otherwise you will have to say that anything that can be concieved is real. I don't think anyone would use 'real' in this sense.

Well, perhaps I've succeeded (at last!) in pointing out to you the difference between a 'realist' and a 'physicalist' view of nature.It's your choice, comrade, which ideology you want to employ to help you to understand the world (physical and social).Leaving aside the substantive issue of 'value', etc. and how we understand it, I'm just glad that I've been able to finally explain something!

[LBird]

Vin Maratty wrote:

LBird wrote:

Or do you think 'value' doesn't exist, because 'there is no-thing outside or beyond matter'? Marx clearly thinks 'value' is 'outside' of 'matter'.

Does he?  Without getting out and dusting down my copy of capital I think Marx refers to 'Value' as a  relationship between people expressed as a relationship between things. The relationship is in all our heads and has a material existence within our grey matter.

[my bold]A further question for you, Vin, relating to your earlier post from page 2.If 'value' is in the 'grey matter' of individuals, 'all in the head', why doesn't everybody in capitalist society know about 'value' just by thinking about what's in their heads?It's clear that the vast majority of our society don't know about 'value'. For everybody, it only becomes clear when it's openly discussed, when people have read Capital (and often not even then!), when they realise that an external mechanism is at work upon them, that compels them to act in certain ways, or to die otherwise.Value is real, and causes humans (of all classes) to act in ways which are detrimental to all of humanity. In the short term, the ruling class might appear to be benefitting from their exploitation, but they are not freely, consciously, choosing to exploit, but are prisoners of a social mechanism which exists outside of them as individuals.If value is left to continue to exercise its powers, it will destroy humanity. It's not merely an opinion 'in our heads', comrade.

[LBird]

I'm still not convinced that Vin and DJP have got the hang of this sort of 'idealist-materialist' (or 'realist') thinking, yet. I've tried to think of a test which will bring to the foreground our differences. If they agree with what I'm about to say, then clearly I'm mistaken, and Vin and DJP are 'realists' ('idealist-materialists') and not 'physicalists' or 'materialists'. Here goes!God is real.I think a 'materialist' will disagree with that statement, but a 'realist' will agree with it.The materialist, using a 'perceptual' theory of existence, will say that 'god' can't be 'touched/seen' as so does not exist. So, god is not real.The realist, using a 'causal' theory of existence, will say that 'god' causes humans to take various actions, and so does exist. So, god is real.For a critical realist, humans create god, because humans are active, creative beings and have the power to bring new entities into existence. But once they create entities, often for the best of motives, these entities have powers which can dominate humans, often to the detriment of humans. This is the case with god and value, and is best captured in the story of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, or Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentice.For 'idealist-materialists', as the name suggests, there is no longer a hard-and-fast divide between the so-called 'material' and 'ideal'. Marx was aware of the difficulty of maintaining this divide, in the 'real' world, in which we live.

Marx wrote:

…theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htmWhen the human-created theory of 'god' 'grips the masses', it has become a 'material force'. Thus 'god is real'.Marx was what we would now call a critical realist (or, in 19th century terms, an 'idealist-materialist'), not a simple, mechanical 'materialist', or a bourgeois 'physicalist'.Over to Vin and DJP.

[LBird]

I take it Vin now accepts that he's not a 'materialist'? Or a 'physicalist'?

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

I think this whole dichotomy between ideas and matter is a false dichotomy, anyway. Im not too sure if I would go quite as far as L Bird in talking of "idealist materialism" if by "idealist" is meant the primacy of ideas over material conditions. But I think what he is getting at, and which I support, is really the inseparability of ideas and material conditions.

Just to confirm that we agree on these points, robbo.You're right, 'idealism-materialism' doesn't mean the 'primacy of ideas over material conditions'. As you say, it's 'a false dichotomy'. We could just as easily say 'materialism-idealism', again with the same caveat, that this is not 'the primacy of material conditions over ideas'.I'm merely using the phrase 'idealism-materialism' to polemically counter the myth of Marx's 'materialism'. I do this because it fits better with Marx's proper views, of 'theory and practice', or 'men make history, but not in circumstances of their own choosing', etc. That is, the 'human' is the creative element (theory), and the 'conditions' are limiting or enabling factors (practice). So, 'idealism-materialism', with no 'primacy', just necessary interaction. Or, as you say, 'the inseparability of ideas and material conditions'.[edit]

robbo203 wrote:

Ironically , the mechanical or crass materialists join hands with the pure idealists in this regard . Mechanical materialism is in fact a species of idealism in my book.

Yes, this has been said by all thinkers who've addressed this issue. And the Leninist Party provides the necessary 'idealism' which, for humans, is the inescapable counterpart to 'materialism'.They just pretend it isn't. But if workers don't do the thinking for themselves, someone has to do it. Step forward Lenin! Or the 'central committee'.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

If it was a physical entity it would share the same quality as individual human beings and thus be empirically apprehensible via sense perception along with human beings.

Yes, for reductionists/physicalists/materialists being "empirically apprehensible via sense perception" is what constitutes 'existence'.This is what the Critical Realist Margaret Archer calls "the perceptual criterion of existence".She opposes to this "the causal criterion of existence", which allows humans access to imperceptible reality.Ref: M. Archer (1995) Realist social theory, p. 23Observation cannot be the criterion of existence, because this is empiricism, a copy theory of knowledge, naive realism, Humean 'constant conjunctions'.For Marx, 'value' is not directly observable, only its effects. But it is the cause of those effects, it really exists, it's not just 'in the grey matter of individuals', as some comrades have argued.Much of 'nature' (or 'the real') cannot be empirically observed. Unless we employ a 'causal criterion of existence', which gives us theoretical access to reality, then we can't understand much of the workings of nature.Further, many of these philosophical problems go back to Aristotle, whose work influenced Marx.According to Bhaskar, 'mechanisms' exist at the level of 'reality', which humans access through theory, not at the levels of the actual or the empirical.Ref: Roy Bhaskar (2008) A Realist Theory of Science, p. 13

[LBird]

Ed wrote:

You're nothing but consistent L Bird, I'll give you that.

Thanks, Ed! That's because I've thought Marx's ideas through, not because of any personal quality I have.

Ed wrote:

This comes back to the other thread where you say that ideas are the primary motivating factor in societal progression. As opposed to ideas being the consequence of material necessity. I seem to remember calling you out for being an idealist in that thread. You've admitted it in this thread.

Yes, humans are the 'primary motivating factor in societal progression'. Marx thought this, too. Neither Marx nor I think that the 'rocks' are the 'primary motivating factor'.But, neither of us are 'idealists', or 'materialists', we're 'idealist-materialists', as Marx argued in the Theses on Feuerbach. The third, unified stance, from both earlier trends, the unity of 'theory and practice'. Rocks neither 'think'  nor 'practice'.

Ed wrote:

In a nut shell idealism vs materialism. Idealism = ideas being the primacy of ideas over any other driving forces at work. In this sense it is antithetical to materialism.

Why do you oppose 'idealism' to 'materialism', Ed? Marx didn't. He unified them into something new. The thinker who opposed them was Engels, not Marx.The 'need' for 'light for longer days in factories' was 'present', but it didn't create any form of 'light', never mind 'the light bulb'. Humans did that. Humans are creative. Humans have ideas. The application of new ideas (which don't exist in the 'material conditions') to human-defined problems in nature, where the human practice changes nature, is not some version of 'materialism'. Marx condemned the 'mechanical materialists', like Feuerbach, precisely because they ignored the 'active side' of human creativity, ie. ideas.

Ed wrote:

Is it physical? No. But can ideas manifest into physical reactions. Yes. Ideas or as I prefer and think makes it clearer knowledge (knowledge=ideas) are in themselves material conditions. Perhaps this is L Bird and I agreeing…. Perhaps what I am saying is his idealist-materialism.

Yes, 'idealism-materialism' is Marxism. 'Materialism' is Engelsism.

Ed wrote:

However where he is severely mistaken and what makes him an idealist is his belief that ideas alone create conditions rather than the other way around.

But you've reverted of Engelsian Materialism here, Ed. 'Material conditions' don't create ideas. Humans create ideas. When those ideas are put into practice in the real world, humans find out the correctness or not of those ideas, through their active practice.This is the method of 'theory and practice'.To argue otherwise, as the human race realised during the 20th century, is to argue that 'rocks talk', and tell us what to do. If you've heard a 'material condition' talk, Ed, you've had experiences I haven't!In fact, workers don't hear rocks, and thus need someone 'special' to translate their imperceptible whispers. That is the role of 'The Leninist Party'.

Ed wrote:

Necessity is the mother of invention comrades……Not individualist geniuses.

So there must be a 'father', too? If 'need' is the 'mother', then 'active humans' (both in thinking and practice) are the 'father', in this schema.And this is nothing to do with 'individual geniuses', which is yet another 'materialist' red herring. Humans are social, science is social, ideas are social, practice is social.But the rocks aren't…

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

If you can't touch , see smell taste or hear capitalism then it seems by your logic capitalism doesnt exist and we are back to Mrs Thatchers aphorism.

Yeah, anytime anyone talked of 'society' and pointed to a group of people, Thatcher just said, 'that is just a group of individuals!'.We say 'football team', she says 'eleven individuals'; we say 'workforce', she says '1,000 individuals'.The problem with this way of looking at things, is that the structural relationships are lost.A 'football team' isn't just any old 'eleven individuals'; it's a single goalkeeper, four defenders, four midfielders and two attackers. They have different roles, powers and needs within the structure: fast sprinting is not needed of the keeper, as it is of the wingers; the goalkeeper can touch the ball with their hands, but the other ten can't; etc.The physical presence of components (eleven individuals) does not necessarily make a 'team'. Anyone who knows about football understands this. The selecting, blending and training of the individuals shapes 'the team'.Again, to take my earlier 'fist' example. If I make a fist, the reductionist can pooh-pooh this and say, 'it's just five fingers', and ask me to touch the 'fist'. Of course, anytime I touch the 'fist' I am also touching a finger, and so the reductionist can say, 'Ah-hah, that's just a finger you're touching!'. Of course, they are correct.But what they are missing is that the relationships between the fingers is crucial. Holding the fingers spread out is not a 'fist'; but to the reductionist there is no difference because, like Thatcher, they don't recognise 'structures'.Five fingers are five entities; but a fist is six entities (five fingers and a fist). But there is nothing more 'physical' present than there is with five entities. Using the notion of the 'physical', it seems strange that five entities can become six, without any added 'physicality'. And conversely, six can become five, without any loss of 'physicality'. So 'physicality' alone is not enough to understand structures: something else is important.That 'something else' is relationships. And Marx was keen on relationships, and argued that 'value' was a relationship.

[LBird]

Vin Maratty wrote:

I am beginning to think it is the definition of 'material' that we differ on.

Well, I'm not a 'materialist', and neither is Marx.I think that by 'materialism', you mean 'physicalism'. But many entities are not 'physical', but are nevertheless 'real'. Like 'value', for example. 'Real' doesn't mean 'tangible'. Many real things are intangible.I think Marx was a Critical Realist, as we would call it now, but in the terms you'll understand, he's an 'idealist-materialist'. So, for Marx, he's dealing with the 'ideal-material', not simply the 'material'.The unity of 'theory and practice' requires the unity of the 'ideal-material'. So, 'value' is 'ideal-material': it's 'ideal' as a social relationship, but 'material' as a commodity (tin of beans, for example).Perhaps my examples are not working, but I'm trying. Marx makes this 'duality' clear from the start of Capital, where he talks about the two factors of the commodity.If you don't agree with my fumbling explanation, how do you account for these two factors, from a 'physicalist/materialist' perspective? Especially as Marx makes it plain that 'value' does not contain 'matter'.

[LBird]

Vin Maratty wrote:

I have noticed that a lot of posts are clogged up with apparent insults so for this example It is not a sufficient argument to refer to us laymen as 'reductionist' or 'bourgeois phylosophers' as we are laymen and need our arguments addressed.

I'm not insulting you and DJP, Vin. I'm trying to expose your ideology, which you have but won't address or reveal.We're all 'laymen', here.As for 'addressing your arguements', I have, constantly, but you ignore the weaknesses in yours, which I point out, and refuse to consider mine, which I've tried to explain, using simple metaphors, which you don't seemingly understand.And my 'fist' is not 'in my brain', even if yours is!You still haven't explained how 'value' is in the brain. Your naive materialism means you can't understand Marx. He says 'value' is not 'material', but a relationship. I don't know how to simplify my arguments any further, because you ignore the 'meaning' and jump on the 'simplification'!

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

Well I get what you are saying, L Bird, and to me it makes solid sense even if it doesnt to others.

Thanks for the much needed words of support, robbo. You've lifted my spirits, a little.But I can't say that I'm not downhearted at my failure to explain to DJP and Vin (and others, it seems).Using the theories that they've adopted, one can't make sense of Capital or 'value', or Marx's ideas in the wider sense of history and society.I'm baffled as to why Communists would look to ideas from non-Communist philosophers, theoreticians and scientists to help them to try and understand this world of ours, both physical and social.Well, you know what they say about 'ruling class ideas', eh? Even for us.

[Author]

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