LBird
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Dave Perrin wrote: “The perceived need to achieve mass socialist consciousness among the working class… came into question.”
This is still a valid analysis, regarding the relationship between ‘mass socialist consciousness among the working class’ and ‘science’.
Lenin’s materialism held (as do all 21st century materialists hold) that ‘democracy’ is not necessary within ‘science’. This political need is still currently questioned.
Without democracy in every social activity of production (including science), Marx’s ideas are meaningless.
Plus, Marx himself specifically warned that ‘materialists’ would deny the need for ‘mass’ involvement, and would institute a rule by an elite.
Marx was correct, of course, and Lenin’s political and ideological career was testimony to Marx’s foresight.
L.B. Neill wrote “We can’t vote what reality is- but observe it, and then decide what to do with the findings.”
This statement must be untrue, L.B., otherwise Marx is wrong. And I go with Marx’s democratic ‘social productionism’ on this issue, because I think Marx is correct.
Firstly, ‘observe it’. To ‘observe’ is passive, not active. Marx argued for ‘conscious activity’, and condemned mere ‘passive contemplation’. So, Marx argues for ‘production’, not ‘observation’.
Secondly, to observe ‘it’ suggests ‘it’ is unchanging. But Marx argues that whatever ‘it’ is, it is a socio-historic product, which changes over place and time. That is, any ‘it’ is different between different modes of production – otherwise, ‘it’ would be exactly identical for ever, in any circumstances, as an Absolute It.
Thirdly, ‘We’. Who is this ‘we’? If this ‘we’ is the social producers, then their conscious activity within democratic socialism would have to be democratic. So, this ‘we’ can vote upon their ‘product’. The same applies to ‘decide what to do’ – this must be democratic, as otherwise an elite would ‘decide’.
Fourthly, ‘findings’. This is a rerun of ‘it’. ‘Findings’ are social products, which are actively produced, by conscious humans.
From your other comments, L.B., you seem to be already aware of some of the difficulties involved in what you’re saying, regarding ‘material’ and ‘fixed’. Keep investigating Marx’s views, because I think that he offers a way forward beyond ‘bourgeois science’ (production by an active conscious, undemocratic elite) towards a ‘revolutionary science’ (production by an active conscious democratic humanity). The ‘passivity’ of ‘observation’, BTW, is a lie. ‘Science’ means ‘active production’. The ‘dominant ruling classes’ (to use your own terms) just hide this fact. ‘Passive observation’ is an ideology.
L.B. Neill wrote: “I am not going anywhere near we make our own reality here, not at all.”
That’s fair enough, L.B.
But Marx argues that we do ‘make our own reality’.
His point is that we create any ‘nature’ that we know.
That’s why we can change it, which is the whole political point of Marx’s philosophy of ‘socio-historic production’.
Indeed, as you actually say, “Yet the material seems fixed by dominant ruling classes- I know it is not fixed, but to many it feels fixed.”
Your key insight here is ‘feels fixed’ – this is the point of view of the isolated, biological, individual, who ‘knows reality’ because they can ‘kick a brick’, and so the ‘brick is real’.
You’re correct of course, about your point regarding ‘fixity’ and ‘ruling classes’ – they pretend that the ‘reality’ that they’ve had produced by us workers, is ‘fixed’, and can’t be changed. Thus, ‘capitalism’ is the only reality, and not subject to change by its creators (which Marx argues).
Our viewpoint has to be that of the ‘social producers’, not ‘biological individuals’. Thus, it is a historical approach to ‘our own reality’ and its ‘making’, and our intention to revolutionise ‘our reality’.
In simple terms, L. B. Neill, Marx is arguing that ‘socio-historic change’ is at the heart of our reality.
That is, ‘social production’ produces ‘change’.
Marx reconciled ‘idealism’ with ‘materialism’, by which he meant ‘conscious activity’ with ‘humanity’.
Prior to Marx, the German Idealists saw ‘conscious activity’ as ‘divine’, whereas the Materialists saw ‘humanity’ as ‘clockwork mechanism’.
Thus, idealism argued for ‘divine activity’ and materialism argued for ‘human passivity’.
Marx reconciled ‘conscious activity’ with ‘humanity’, and ditched the ‘divine’ and ‘passivity’.
‘Social production’ is the key to understanding Marx, which all of his key concepts involve.
LeonTrotsky wrote “In this sense LBird, Lenin argued that the working class required a transition period between capitalism and socialism in which a dictatorship of the working class would rule.” [my bold]
LT, I think that you’ll find that “Lenin argued that…a dictatorship of the party would rule“.
That’s what separates Marx and Lenin – Marx equated ‘working class’ with ‘working class’, whereas Lenin equated ‘working class’ with ‘party’.
Hence, for those who follow Lenin’s politics (and ‘scientific’ method), there’s no need for ‘democracy’.
An elite in politics (and in science) will tell workers what is correct think. As in society, so too in nature.
This is nothing to do with Marx, whether as an ‘academic and theorist’ or as a ‘revolutionary practioner’, to employ your theoretical separation of Marx’s unity of ‘theory and practice’.
“Marx and Lenin’s views contrasted”?
It’s a very easy to make the political distinction between their views.
Marx argued that the vast majority of humanity should be democratically involved in their own social production, whereas Lenin argued that there was an elite with a ‘special consciousness’ who should direct the social production of the majority, and thus democratic social production wasn’t needed.
If one is a democrat and a communist, one can’t look to any of Lenin’s political ideas.
Obviously, this also includes Lenin’s views on ‘science’, which are standard 19th century bourgeois views.
Einstein (quoted by ALB) “The intelligence and character of the masses are unquestionably lower than the intelligence and character of the few who produce something valuable for the community.”
Yes, Einstein was a bog-standard ‘materialist’ (as Marx pointed out their key political trait in his Theses on Feuerbach), who later rejected his own work in physics, because his theory of relativity undermined ‘materialism’, as many other physicists soon realised.
Our political choice in physics is either ‘elite knowledge’ or ‘democratic epistemology’.
All ‘materialists’, without fail, choose ‘elite knowledge’. Like Einstein, given a choice between ‘mass activity’ or ‘elite reflection’, when determining ‘truth’ in ‘nature’, the ‘materialists’ will choose ‘elite reflection’.
Marx pointed this out in 1845.
Bourgeois physics caught up in 1915.
‘Materialists’ in 2020? Still faithful to the elite.
robbo, if you (or anyone else) is minded to look further into the Brenner/Wood thesis, and explore the differences between ‘Political Marxism’ (idealism-materialism) and ‘Orthodox Marxism’ (materialism), have a read of:
The Origin of Capitalism in England 1400-1600 by Spencer Dimmock, Haymarket (2015), which is part of the Historical Materialism book series.
robbo203 wrote: “Yes I for one would go along with this. Ellen Meiksins Wood & Brenner’s “agrarian-origins-of -capitalism” seems to me to be the most plausible explanation for the rise of capitalism”
I know that this will come as an unwelcome post, robbo, but here goes!
Brenner and Wood are proponents of what I’ve called ‘idealism-materialism’.
That’s why the ‘materialist’ SWP has argued so vehemently against their ‘Political Marxism’. This is opposed to a ‘materialist’ viewpoint of ‘Economic Marxism’.
The difference is simple: for ‘Political Marxism’, consciousness carries as much weight as ‘reality’. That is, political, social, historical and ideological factors play as much of a part in explanations as ‘current reality’. Again, there is no determinism, that ‘Feudalism’ must lead to ‘Capitalism’. For Brenner and Wood, it’s entirely historically possible that capitalism wouldn’t have emerged in the English countryside, or at all.
The reason for the ‘materialist’ SWP’s opposition, of course, is political.
If the ‘materialists’ can’t claim to ‘know truth’ (and so discern the course of the past, present and future), then their elite party has no purchase over the working class.
You’re fishing in very complex philosophical waters, by accepting Brenner and Wood’s version of Marx.
Wez wrote: “As I’ve made clear on innumerable occasions I, along with C. Hill, believe that the merchant class bought up a lot of land to convert it into a capitalist enterprise – this was much resented by the conservative landowners. Some of them converted their own land into capitalist farms but those who did not still relied on feudal tenure and joined the king’s cause. DJP seems to think that there’s something different about ‘rural’ capitalists whereas I thought, as merchants, financiers, pirates and slavers they were the same old bourgeoisie.”
As I and others have recommended, Wez, you should read E. M. Wood’s book.
It seems to me that you regard ‘merchants’ as the source of ‘capitalist’ relations, and so their buying of land produced those social relations in the English countryside.
On the contrary, Wood (and Brenner originally) argue that ‘capitalist’ social relations emerged in the English countryside, amongst very large landowners and tenant farmers (because of very specific, long term, political and socio-historical reasons, dating back to the pre-Norman period, and developed by the Normans, and exacerbated by the Black Death). That is, the ‘commercial bourgeoisie’ were not the source of ‘capitalism’.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “Or AMP?”
alan, you might want to read a good critique of the whole concept of Marx’s ‘Asiatic Mode of Production’, in:
Lineages of the Absolutist State by Perry Anderson (1979), esp. pp. 462-95.
Thanks too, L.B.
If I had to put my finger on the difference between us, it’s that, as a Democratic Communist, I have to espouse an ideology that allows for the democratic control of ‘matter’.
This political aim isn’t, from what I can tell, part of your problematic. Which is fair enough, most people on this planet, at present, don’t want democratic control of ‘matter’.
But, this political aim is a fundamental part of the socialist project – if humanity as a whole, employing democratic methods, doesn’t control ‘matter’, who does? The answer must be an elite. Even if that ‘elite’ is the isolated, biological individual, the Robinsonade, as Marx called them, who, simply by ‘kicking their toe against a rock’, can assure themselves that they, as an individual, ‘know reality’. No need to educate oneself about history, society, science, politics, philosophy… just a kick, and all that need for political self-education as a class simply goes away!
Well, L.B. if you’re satisfied with ‘the physical’ as the last word… as I said, ‘the democratic production of the physical’ isn’t part of your ideology, so that’s fine for you. 😛
L.B. Neill wrote: “Mental and the material is like saying: how do we tell the dancer from the dance. Matter will exist even if we fail to even see it…”
But your second sentence contradicts your first, L.B.
The second says (in effect) ‘the dance will exist without the dancer‘.
This is the whole point of post-Kantian, German Idealist, and Marx’s philosophy. There has to be a ‘dancer’, in any account of ‘the dance’.
There isn’t a ‘dance’ simply ‘out there’, taking place without ‘the dancer’.
It’s been pointed out by many philosophers that ‘materialism’ is, ironically, a form of ‘idealism’.
Materialism simply replaces ‘god’ as the active dancer, with ‘matter’ as the active dancer. As Marx realised, both regard ‘humanity’ as the passive element.
For Marx, ‘the dance’ is a social product, and ‘the dancer’ is humanity. Both idealism and materialism deny this. Again, as Marx pointed out, if the ideology pretends that humanity is the passive element, it has to smuggle in human activity for an elite: hence, either ‘priests’ or ‘scientists’, who are outside of any democratic controls.
Lenin’s ‘party consciousness’ also provided this elite, separated from the political control of the whole class. That’s why Lenin defended ‘materialism’ to the death.
ALB wrote: “What is annoying is that he drags in Marx who never dabbled in such ideas and attributes them to him”
Marx certainly did ‘dabble in’ democratic social production.
Only the bourgeoisie separate ‘nature’ from ‘society’ – Marx certainly didn’t. ‘Nature’ separate from ‘Society’ is a ruling class idea.
It’s as if you’ve never actually read Marx, ALB!
Good luck with ‘the physical’! It’s as if Marx never wrote a word that you understand.
‘Value’ and ‘Matter’ are social creations, and we can change them. We do not need to ‘contemplate’ them.
If a ‘biological individual’ can determine ‘matter’, then a ‘biological individual’ can determine ‘value’.
Your ideology and politics are suitable for bourgeois economics and bourgeois science. ‘Value/Matter’ is regarded by you as an individual estimation, rather than a social product, which we can change.
It must be very annoying for you to keep reading about Marx and Democratic Communism, ALB, but this is your future. You’re going to have to come out of the 18th century, reject bourgeois ruling class ideas, and embrace democracy.
Isn’t that what the SPGB is supposed to be about? Why keep denying democracy?
L.B. Neill wrote: “It is an example you ask for. And hope my tired attempts help (it has been a long year).
Stay safe
LB”
Thanks – in fact, you gave several examples!
It’s clear to me that we’re very far apart in our respective views about society, reality and science.
My views flow from Marx – I’m a Democratic Communist, so my views about all three of those start from the need for a political theory that stresses ‘democratic social production‘.
I don’t think that looking to ‘individual biological opinion‘ is useful in any of these areas.
I believe that society, reality and science are socio-historical productions, so that they can always be located in specific societies at specific times. I don’t agree that there are any ‘universal’ or ‘absolute’ things or ‘stuff’, about which the bourgeoisie has, for the first time in human history, been given a way to this ‘absolute’.
Ironically, given that you declare that you are a postmodernist (in some way), many of your statements above (like ‘stubbing your toe’ and ‘reality’) show that you have far more in common with the materialists here, than the Marxists!
It would be very interesting to explore this affinity of postmodernism with materialism, and the complete absence in both of any mention of ‘democracy’ when determining ‘reality’, but perhaps we’ve gone as far we can, on this forum.
Thanks again, L.B., for an enlightening discussion.
