LBird
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Some relevant thoughts from Engels, ‘Dialectics of Nature’ (CW 25, pp. 490-1):
“Natural scientists believe that they free themselves from philosophy by ignoring it or abusing it. They cannot, however, make any headway without thought, and for thought they need thought determinations. But they take these categories unreflectingly from the common consciousness of so-called educated persons, which is dominated by the relics of long obsolete philosophies or from the little bit of philosophy compulsorily listened to at the University (which is not only fragmentary, but also a medley of views of people belonging to the most varied. and usually the worst schools), or from uncritical and unsystematic reading of philosophical writings of all kinds. Hence they are no less in bondage to philosophy but unfortunately in most cases to the worst philosophy, and those who abuse philosophy most are slaves to precisely the worst vulgarized relics of the worst philosophies.
* * *
Natural scientists may adopt whatever attitude they please, they are still under the domination of philosophy. It is only a question whether they want to be dominated by a bad, fashionable philosophy or by a form of theoretical thought which rests on acquaintance with the history of thought and its achievements.
“Physics, beware of metaphysics!” is quite right, but in a different sense.”
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/ch07b.htm
Matthew Culbert wrote: “I think ALB and ALJO have summed up our historical materialist position.”
Yes, I think that they have.
The point is, Marx never claimed to be a ‘historical materialist’, which youse all claim to be ‘our position’.
‘Historical materialism’ was a term claimed by Engels, and his claims for the ‘matter versus humanity’ debate (of which I’ve alluded to, as 2 and 3 of our choices, above) are different to Marx’s.
Marx very clearly chose ‘Humanity’, not ‘Matter’, as the ‘creator’, within his theories.
Engels was very inconsistent, and is not a very good basis for even the claims of ‘historical materialism’ (ie. ‘your position’), because even he wrote that ‘matter’ was a social product, which all ‘materialists’ (whether of the ‘historical’ sort or not) dispute.
All ‘materialists’ claim that ‘matter’ precedes its creator (humanity), which is clearly an illogical argument to make. Thus, they must claim that ‘matter’ itself is the ‘creator’ of ‘humanity’ (and not humanity itself as its own ‘creator’, which was Marx’s ‘position’ – and mine).
As I said earlier, this is a fundamental question for any ‘Marxist’ to answer – and the answer must be ‘humanity’ (not ‘matter’), for Marx’s theories and concepts to make any sense.
For example, Marx employed a concept of ‘social production’, within which the ‘social producers’ were ‘active humanity’. On the contrary, ‘matter’ requires a ‘passive humanity’, which is the product of ‘matter’. Thus, ‘matter’ is ‘god’, the divine producer of humanity.
This is the political, philosophical and ideological question which ‘historical materialists’ must have an answer for, which allows for ‘democratic’ social production.
I’m yet to read or hear a convincing one, Matthew. Put simply, ‘matter’ is not a ‘democratic’ concept.
alan, BD, thanks for your kind words.
It’s a real shame that the issue encapsulated in this thread title hasn’t been discussed more comrade-ily over the last few years.
It’s a question that is politically and ideologically fundamental – who/what is the ‘creator’ of our world (and so, being its creator, can change it)?
God, Matter, or Humanity?
These three choices being the answers, respectively, of Idealists, Materialists and Marxists.
Again, the Divine, Nature, or us? Or, Spirit, Reality or Social Production?
I think that ‘divine intervention’ or ‘miraculous conception’ describes perfectly Marx’s position.
Marx saw the proletariat as the ‘divine’ subject who would create their world, for themselves, by themselves.
This ‘conscious activity’ by the vast majority of humanity would be a ‘miraculous conception’, something completely new and original, a social product of the theory and practice of workers themselves.
It’s nothing to do with a ‘science’ that an elite minority can ‘understand’ prior to workers themselves producing the ‘miracle’. And it’s certainly nothing to do with ‘matter’.
In fact, I’d argue that the ‘materialists’, including the archetype Lenin, have smothered any chance of the production of this ‘miracle’, by telling workers that ‘material conditions’ will ‘conceive’. In effect, whereas Marx replaced the ‘divine’ with the ‘mundane’ (ie. us), the ‘materialists’ re-instated the ‘divine’ in their ‘matter’.
An older book about Lunacharsky:
The Commissariat of Enlightenment: Soviet Organisation of Education and the Arts under Lunacharsky Sheila Fitzpatrick. Cambs. UP (2002; first 1970)
Some more recent books by/about Bogdanov:
The Philosophy of Living Experience: Popular Outlines Alexander Bogdanov (ed. D. G. Rowley). Brill (2016)
Molecular Red: Theory for the Anthropocene McKenzie Wark. Verso (2016)
Red Hamlet: The Life and Ideas of Alexander Bogdanov James D. White. Brill (2018)
The Bolshevik thinker who came closest to Marx’s ideas was Bogdanov, both politically and philosophically.
Most of the rest were much the same as Lenin, including Stalin, Trotsky and Bukharin. Perhaps Lunacharsky was similar to Bogdanov.
marcos wrote: “L Bird, you are always beating around the bushes”
Well, I thought I treated your post with respect, giving answers to all your points, including admitting that I didn’t have a clue about your earlier question.
Unfortunately, it always seems that materialists, like you, are unable to discuss civilly, or actually answer any questions about Marx, social production, or democracy.
These issues, since they don’t involve ‘matter’, are regarded as ‘beating around the bushes’.
To focus on the subject under discussion, Kautsky was an undemocratic, uneducated, elitist, like many who flocked to ‘Marxism’ in the late 19th/early 20th centuries.
What attracted them was Engels’ talk of ‘Science’ – not Marx’s democratic communism, or his philosophy of ‘social productionism’, within which humanity produces its own universe.
I’ve put this issue in a nutshell for ‘materialists’ to ponder, and hopefully answer: “Would you rather see ‘socialised science’ or ‘scientific socialism’?”.
The former is Marx’s political view – a revolutionised, democratic social activity which changes in history. The latter is Engels’ (and Kautsky’s) – a bourgeois, elitist, apolitical, ahistorical, asocial ‘method’, that allows an elite to tell the rest of us ‘what reality is’, without our active participation.
Neither Engels nor Kautsky understood this. Nor Plekhanov or Lenin. And, apparently, neither you nor the wider SPGB.
Hmmm… I think that I’ll keep ‘beating the bushes’, so that all workers can flush out the ‘materialists’ and their undemocratic ideology.
marcos wrote: “L Bird, you have not answered my question on item #194693.”
Only because I don’t know anything about any issue regarding Engels, Marx, and his The Civil War in France.
marcos wrote: “I have known for a long time that dialectic of nature is not correct, it is only possible in the realm of the mind.”
It’s better to say that any ‘dialectic in nature’ must feature an account of social production, which necessarily involves a practice directed by an active human consciousness.
marcos wrote: “Have we created the unity of Marx-Engels?”
Well, all ‘materialists’ have, because the only way that their ideology can stand up is by: 1) quotes from Engels (there is nothing in Marx, who was critical of ‘materialism’); and 2) linking Engels to Marx, as a unified being, so that Marx’s authority can be invoked. So, as for Lenin, we have ‘Marx-Engels’.
marcos wrote: “We have raised critique to both and also Marx contradicts himself on different occasion too.”
Yes, both must be criticised, and Marx requires a critical update for the 21st century, by workers who begin from ‘Democratic Social Production’. We have to correct, clarify and update Marx’s works.
marcos wrote: “Without Engels volume 2 and 3 of capital would not have been able to be published…”
It’s quite possible to argue that it’s a pity that Engels did publish Marx’s unfinished texts, which completely ignored the work Marx had done after 1867 and his first volume, on Russia and its development and potential future. Marx supported the Narodniks, not the supposed ‘Marxists’, in their political debates of the 1870s and 80s, and seemed to think it was at least theoretically possible for Russia to skip ‘capitalism’ and proceed straight to ‘socialism’. If Marx had been able to publish his own later work, it’s very probable that it would have looked nothing like Capital 2 and 3, as we have them today.
marcos wrote: “…and without Engels financial support Marx would not have been to able to finish all his works”
No, you’re right, Fred was a sound, life-long mate of Charlie. And supporter of his kids, too.
But decency doesn’t necessarily mean he had a clue about Marx’s philosophy of ‘social productionism’ and its democratic imperative. In fact, it’s soon obvious to anyone who reads Engels works, from his 1859 review of Marx, that they were talking about different things.
Unfortunately, it’s Engels’ version of ‘Marx’ that most people are taught. We have to change that, marcos.
marcos, Engels not only contradicted Marx, but also contradicted himself, within the same letter.
Plus, Engels wrote that ‘matter’ was a social product, but also wrote the ‘Dialectics of Nature‘, where ‘nature’ supposedly pre-exists its human creators.
Without Marx, no-one now would’ve heard of Engels, who would’ve been a long-forgotten, obscure, minor, 19th century worshipper of pre-Einstein ‘science’, with little to say to us, today.
But… for those who create the unity ‘Marx-Engels’… they live in Lenin’s world… ‘physical’ and ‘material’ world, of course.
And Kautsky lived in that world, too.
marcos wrote: “Pretty soon L Bird will show up saying that Karl Kautsky was a follower of Frederich Engels like the members of the SPGB.”
An accurate forecast for an accurate statement, marcos! 😛
ALB wrote: “As Mattick was saying:
“an embarrassing, scatterbrained hodge-podge of philosophical, economic and political ideas that defy description and serious criticism.” “.
Materialism? Indeed!
That incapacity to respond to ‘philosophical, economic and political ideas’ presented by Marxist critics of ‘materialism’, seems to be the source of Lenin’s diatribe in his Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.
Even in the links that I gave above to the Red/Green debate, it’s clear that the supporters of ‘materialism’ soon turn to personal abuse, rather than give clearly thought out, rational responses to the democratic supporters of Marx.
‘Matter’ doesn’t recognise ‘votes’. No ‘Materialist’ is able to reconcile this problem within their ideology. Thus, the usual retort that ‘idealists’ are attempting to destroy ‘science’ and modern civilisation, and put us all back into the clutches of witches.
But ‘fear’ cannot overcome workers’ consciousness of their democratic production of their world, and their determination to politically control their own production.
As Marx argued, socialism is the self-emancipation of the proletariat. ‘Materialism’ is dying out.
ALB wrote: “This passage from Paul Mattick’s review of one of her books would seem to have some application here too:
”And although Dunayevskaya’s interpretation of Marxian doctrine is occasionally true and eloquent, the book as a whole is an embarrassing, scatterbrained hodge-podge of philosophical, economic and political ideas that defy description and serious criticism.””
I too would criticise many of these thinkers, like Dunayevskaya and Pannekoek, nevertheless I criticise them from a perspective of Marx’s method of ‘theory and practice’, and the need for democratic production.
It’s important to remember that every critic has an ideological perspective, and Mattick’s is clearly that of ‘materialism’. For example, in the article he writes:
“As practice leads to theory…“.
This is a standard ideological formulation of ‘materialism’.
For Marx, of course, the opposite was true – for him, ‘theory leads to practice‘. So, Mattick too has a dog in this race – there are no ‘objective’ commentators.
So, my advice: read all the texts, but be sure to identify both one’s own and the author’s ideological assumptions.
marcos wrote: “A new version of Marxism-humanism. Raya Dunayeskaya wrote: Karl Marx is one of the most idealist materialist philosopher and one of the most materialist idealist philosopher.”
Yeah, marcos, there’s always been a strand of Marxist thought that opposes Lenin’s anti-democratic ‘materialism’ – the earliest reference I can find is Labriola in 1896, but it carried on through Brzozowski, Bogdanov, Korsch, Gramsci, Panneneok, etc. It seems to be prominent in Italian and Polish philosophy.
The one thing that I have difficulty explaining, is why (given a democratic alternative which one would suppose would better fit Marx’s political views), the anti-democratic philosophy of Kautsky, Plekhanov and Lenin should continue to predominate. To me, it’s clear that the SPGB formed in 1903 was already locked into this proto-Leninist materialism. It was ‘in the air’ in the late 19th century, and both Lenin and the SPGB seems to have been affected by the ideology. This is the ideology of which Marx said, “I’m not a Marxist“.
As you say, it appears that Jason Moore’s views are ‘a new version’ of a long tradition of democratic ideology.
I know which side I take in the political and philosophical debate – it’s that of the democrats.
