[LBird]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

LBird wrote:

alanjjohnstone wrote:

If it is workers' democracy we want, …workers were discouraged not by lack of consultation but the amount of it…after meeting every day and every week…many compulsory…

So, alan, you're arguing that the Soviet Union's version of 'consultation' amounted to "workers' democracy"? Wow!

Previously I have tried (sometimes by your own admission successfully) taking the piss out of you, but I think after reading the above I have to admit that at times I'm beat,L Bird you really are beyond parody, your ability to misconstrue any statement made by another is an absolute marvel of the modern world. I would go as far as to say, and I don't say this lightly, your ability to misrepresent any comment made in a negative and derogatory way goes beyond that of my late mother in law, and that is my friend very great praise.L Bird, a one man mixture of misunderstanding, misrepresentaion and misconstruction, I salute you sir!

Tim, you could try reading the political discussion, and then making some political comment, about both sides, but you regard yourself as a 'Genius Jester', whose 'witty quips' keep us all in tucks of laughter, 'The Joker'.Perhaps 'A Joke' would be more accurate for your knowledge, if only you had Rabbie's power.Anyway, back to the grown-ups' political discussion…

[LBird]

twc wrote:

LBird wrote:

Marx was talking about how we collectively control our own natural production, which we are compelled to do by our natural existence.  This ‘compulsion’ isn’t a trick by the bourgeoisie…  We can’t ‘retire’ from it, as a species.

LBird’s natural compulsion operating upon ‘our species’, independent of our will, is the foundation that opens up the (otherwise closed) possibility of a deterministic science of society.A science that comprehends external necessity has no choice but to recognize that thought is not the determiner of the necessity, but is the determined, just as LBird asserts against ajj.LBird acknowledges that social reproduction is subject to external necessity, from which he has abstracted a deterministic social law, and that society (as a whole, despite some members of it) isn’t free to practice just as it desires nor to think just as it pleases.And herein lies the germ of Marx’s materialism and Marx’s deterministic science of society which investigates the social forms that arise under the compulsion for social practice to reproduce society:“In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production.  The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.  The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life.  It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.” [Marx, A Contribution…].

There is much I agree with in what twc writes – I've tried to engage with twc, many times, and discuss these issues, but twc, like the rest of the SPGB, seems to prefer personal abuse to answering political questions.For example, as twc point out, Marx wrote "their social existence that determines their consciousness".This is not 'matter determines thought'.It is 'social theory and practice of production determines social theory and practice of political/ideological consciousness'.Because, for Marx, there is 'social' in both 'existence' and 'consciousness', there are clearly 'ideas' in both 'existence' and 'consciousness'.It's Engels who made the mistake of reading 'material' to mean 'matter', and Marx always referred to 'production' (ie., social theory and practice), in which humans were 'the active side'. This is nothing whatsover to do with 'matter' determining 'ideas'.For Marx, we determine. That's why we can change our social product.'Matter' does not 'determine'. But 'materialists' wish to find something which determines, outside of workers' consciousness, but they themselves claim to have a 'special consciousness', which allows them alone to 'know material conditions' which the workers don't and can't.This 'material' must always be something that workers must be unaware of, and that an elite of 'materialists' are aware of.Marx specifically warns against this 'materialism', which he realises will lead to a division in society, between a minority and the mass, over whom the minority rule.

[LBird]

Alan Kerr wrote:

Workers become aware of ENGELS’ MATERIAL CONDITIONS and establish Socialist Production.

The problem now, Alan, if I continue our conversation, is that I'll be warned by the mod.All I should say is that Engels' interpretation of 'material' was not Marx's interpretation of 'material'. Those who follow Engels, like you seemingly, define 'material' as 'matter' (or, something 'tangible', not 'ideal'), whereas Marx, when he used the term 'material', was talking about humans (as opposed to when he used 'ideal', meaning divine). So, for Marx, the terms 'material production' and 'social production' are synonymous.The key difference is that Engelsist 'materialists' regard 'material' as something outside of human consciousness and ideas, whereas Marxists regard 'material' as something to do with social theory and practice, social production, which includes human consciousness and ideas.So, for Engelsists, 'material' can be discussed outside of socio-historical production, which is always production-for a social producer. For a Marxist, we can only discuss 'material-for'.So, to answer your statement, above, it's not 'workers becoming aware of' something which already exists, but 'workers producing their own product, which does not yet exist'. Engels' material conditions won't do anything, and don't make workers aware of those 'material conditions'. Any conscious 'awareness' will always come through social productive activity, by workers themselves. If workers are passive, their 'awareness of material conditions' will always be a bourgeois awareness of those same.I'll leave it at that, and hope the mod will give me the leeway, since you probably aren't aware of these issues.

[LBird]

Alan Kerr wrote:

@LBirdThe fact is we can’t avoid stages.Or can you for instance explain how automation could come before simple manufacture?No?Then you must accept stages.Before machines there were not even many wage workers to take part in your struggles.Struggles cannot avoid stages.

So, you'll have to define your 'stages', Alan. Are they 'technological' stages, or 'social production' stages? That is, regarding the defining characteristic of your 'stages', is it 'material stuff' or 'social relationships'?I'm with Marx, and would focus upon 'stages' of 'social production'. That is, 'class struggle' rather than 'machines'.So, any discussion of 'Marx and Automation' would be about the differences between 'bourgeois automation' and 'proletarian automation' (perhaps even some similarities).But a discussion of 'automation-in-itself' would be asocial and ahistorical.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I go away for a day and return to two threads that are meaningless to any neutral visitor. Number of angels dancing on the head of a pin comes to mind…I'll be basically offline for a week or so and will expect to return to screeds of messages after messages which in no way relate or resonate with any of my fellow-workers. If it is workers' democracy we want, then boring them stiff and so that they will not participate or get involved will be one method of keeping the elite in charge.I posted a link to Lee Harvey Oswald's stay in the Soviet Union which i doubt anybody really read and how workers were discouraged not by lack of consultation but the amount of it…after meeting every day and every week…many compulsory…

So, alan, you're arguing that the Soviet Union's version of 'consultation' amounted to "workers' democracy"? Wow!

ajj wrote:

Worker's democracy for me is all about creating a situation that will free me from work obligations and the slavery of giving my time to it. Why do you think we all look forward to retirement from it

But this is not "workers' democracy" within social production, alan. You are defining it as 'individual freedom' (much as robbo does), which is a ruling class idea. Marx was talking about how we collectively control our own natural production, which we are compelled to do by our natural existence. This 'compulsion' isn't a trick by the bourgeoisie, to prevent you 'sunning yourself on the beach'. We can't 'retire' from it, as a species.

ajj wrote:

roll on robotics when decision-making itself itself is automated,  self-monitoring and self-adjusting…and i can fully enjoy the fruits of machinery, by the beach with my pina colada…or a good malt in tree-covered, loch-speckled  hills 

But you're just talking about personal enjoyment, not social production. I'm all with you, on a personal level, robotic house-cleaner, boozy beach parties, roaming in the gloaming to visit a whisky distillery…… but workers' democracy is about how we go about ensuring that everyone on this planet gets to enjoy the fruits of our collective efforts.On the whole, your post just confirms to me what I've long suspected… many in the SPGB seem to be only concerned with 'individual freedom' (in the hippy sense), rather than building a collective social consciousness, concerned centrally with production. From your perspective, "workers' democracy" is nothing but a 'compulsion', which prevents your liberation. Whatever it is, it's nothing to do with Marx or socialism, alan.'Meetings' won't disappear in socialism, alan. It's a lie to say so to workers, now. And the idea that 'machines will make decisions' is technocracy, not democratic socialism, and will lead to an active elite controlling 'machines', and a passive mass, who can avoid 'meetings'. It sounds more like Brave New World.

[LBird]

Alan Kerr wrote:

@VinThank you,Yes I was wrong there.Well then,1) 'automation-for-the-bourgeoisie’ comes earlier.2) automation-for-the-worker comes later.Please see The Socialist Preamble.Or see anything by Marx and Engels.Is that better?

Presume your theory is 'Stalinist Stages Theory', then?I'm for class struggle, here and now, not 'later'. I find that 'later' never actually comes, for those theorists who tell workers that their 'x-for-the-workers' 'comes later'. I suspect that 'later theorists' aren't actually interested in workers' self-development.At least you've got to the view that 'automation' is actually a class issue, which, again, I suspect many reading have never even thought about. I'm talking about the 'materialists', who probably think that 'automation-in-itself' is going to bring socialism, and that they 'know' this because 'automatons' talk to them, alone. I have my doubts. I've actually read both Marx and Engels.Anyway, take a well-earned 'Well Done!', Alan. At least we're now actually talking about 'Marx and Automation', not the 'Machine Socialism' of the 'materialists'.

[LBird]

Alan Kerr wrote:

@LBirdOk I’m not SPGB either.Without 'automation-for-the-bourgeoisie’, what automation would you have to discuss at all?

Funnily enough, I'd have us discuss the other alternative that I've already mentioned.'Automation-for-the-proletariat'.Being a Democratic Communist and a Marxist, I don't recognise the non-social, non-historical, category 'automation'.As a starter, since we're all democratic socialists (well, I could name someone who isn't, but won't), we could discuss democratic 'automation-for-the-proletariat'.I suspect that those who wish to employ the category 'automation' are doing so to hide their anti-democratic intentions, and to pretend that 'automation' is nothing to do with social production, and therefore, nothing to do with democracy.

[LBird]

Alan Kerr wrote:

@LBirdYour comment goes beyond (adds to) SPGB Object and Principles. And yet your comment still does not go as far as The Socialist Preamble. Will you go as far as The Socialist Preamble?With The Socialist Preamble, we have a way to explain. If The Preamble is wrong then please explain. Please explain, for instance, the rise of automation. Can you do that and show where the Preamble has got it wrong? 

I'm not a member of the SPGB, Alan, so I'm not bound by its ideological beliefs, whether expressed formally in its 'Object and Principles', or expressed infomally in its adherence to Engels' 'materialism'.Any discussion of 'Marx and Automation' has to have some idea about Marx's views, and discuss just 'who' any 'automation' is for. 'Automation' is not simply about 'machines', but about social production, and who benefits. In a class society like ours, there is 'automation-for-the-bourgeoisie' and 'automation-for-the-workers', and discussions about 'automation' alone simply ignore Marx's views.That's where Marx comes in – his ideas about 'social production', historical conditions, and class struggle.

[LBird]

Socialism and Change, hmmm.You stick to your 'Real World', robbo, where the very notion of 'change' is anathema.The 'Real World' where 'Reasonable People' accept the 'Facts Of Life'…I want to discuss with socialists, Marxists, democrats, who start from the revolutionary presumption that this present 'Real World' is not 'real-for-us', where 'Reasonable People' are regarded as murderous dictators, and the 'Facts Of Life' are seen as 'Social Oppression', which we can change.Socialism and Change? You want Individualism and The Status Quo, robbo, and you're going to shit yourself when faced with democratic decision-making, which contradicts your bourgeois, expert-loving, elitist worship.Why can't you envisage a society in which scientists work to democratically-chosen social concepts, within scientific institutions which are run on democratic principles, and where the results of social research are presented in a socially-acceptable language, to a democratic society, for them to decide whether the research results are 'true-for-them'?Who are these 'experts', who have a non-political method, in a non-political science, who don't have to present their findings to a well-educated, well-organised, conscious society?Who determines 'dogma', 'rigidities', and 'eternal'? Apparently, for you, robbo, the whole of humanity, left to their own political devices, will become rigidly dogmatic, for eternity, if you and your elite don't have the power to override humanity!You really think that most people are stupid naturally, don't you, robbo? You can't conceive of a revolutionary social process, whereby the vast majority of humans self-educate themselves, and engage in a revolution which will overthrow your 'Real World', and actively participate in all human research. 'Ignorance' is a social product, not a 'Human Condition', nor part of 'Human Nature'.According to you, anyone who argues these democratic socialist principles, is saying that everyone in socialism will carry out brain surgery on each other! What political ideology has such contempt for 'the masses', and their 'endless stupidity'?You're a Tory, through and through, robbo, and all your bleating is the resistance of 'common sense' to 'revolutionary activity'. And you're, ironically enough, the one who's 'ignorant' of the basics of democratic socialism.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

FFS  this is what is so infuriating  about LBird. . He never makes any attempt to defend his argument,  He just repeats it over and over and over again – like a JW arguing against evolutionIf you are trained as a molecular biologist are you bound to know more than about more molecular biology than some one who is not trained?  Of course you are!! LBird I cant believe even you are that dense as to deny  this.  Of course, the  rest of can come to know as much about molecular biology if we too were inclined to train up to become molecular biologists as well.  But thats not going to happen in the real world is it? 

Here we have again robbo's individualist, elitist ideology, which completely ignores socio-historical production, and the future of a socialist society, which must be built, by us, employing Marx's method of social theory and practice, using democratic methods from the outset.All this political thinking means nothing to robbo – he's an individualist (he doesn't aim for the democratic control of social production, but for the realisation of the bourgeois ideal of 'free individuals') and an elitist (he assumes that academics 'know better' what 'our world' should look like, than we should). All this elitist individualism (ie. ruling class ideas) comes from robbo's belief in 'matter', which an 'individual' (like him) can 'touch' (by his 'biological' senses).I've said this, time and again, as a political explanation, and to defend the argument of democratic socialists. But, apparently, given his 'senses', robbo can't read. Ironic, eh?But, for Democratic Communists, like me, and for Marx, the defining assumption is 'democratic social production'. The earth is a common treasury, for all, and the social production by all for all, based upon our common resources, can only be realised by democratic means.robbo completely ignores the political and philosophical basis of his ruling class ideology, and so doesn't start from 'democracy' in academia.During the building towards socialism, the ideological dominance of bourgeois academics and bourgeois elitist science, must be replaced by a form of education and science more suitable to the needs, interests and purposes of the revolutionary proletariat. So, we'll see the emergence of challenges to the assumptions of bourgeois education (which robbo ignorantly shares), so that our assumption will be that there will not be an 'academic elite' who isolatedly conduct 'science' for their own ideological purposes. Professors-for-us will be elected, and we will determine what ideological concepts the 'professors' employ in our research, in the buildings and facilities we provide, for our scientific needs, interests and purposes. If the elected can't explain in a language suitable to us, they'll be removed. There won't be any 'priests' using 'Latin' to explain 'The Bible'. Or 'physicists' using 'maths' to explain 'matter'. These are revolutionary assumptions, democratic assumptions, suitable for a revolution.robbos' assumptions, that 'scientists know better' than we do, and that this is a state of nature that can't be changed, says everything about his political ideology, which has nothing whatsoever to say to workers who wish to build towards a democratic socialism.robbo knows nothing, and always resorts to insults, of the sort typical of those who think that most workers are thick as pigshit, and can't argue with professors, like Hawking, who even the SPGB has recently corrected.I've said all this to robbo, but he never discusses 'science' as a social and historical activity, or the social production of 'matter', which we can, as Marx argued, change. robbo wants elite contemplation of 'Truth'.'Materialists' follow robbo, and follow Engels, who didn't have a clue what Marx was talking about, and thought that Marx had reverted to the 'Mind-Matter' problem. Marx unified 'Mind-Matter' as 'conscious activity', where both are required. Any discussion of 'matter' outside of its socio-historical production is a reversion to 'materialism', whereas Marx was an 'idealist-materialist', and he says so, and he criticises 'materialists' as elitists.So, Marx was right about you, robbo. 'The real world'? Conservatives unite, eh, robbo?

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

You keep insisting that only a materialist minority can determine 'truth'

Can you site one instance where anyone other than yourself has said that?  For instance, I would sugest that Robbo has never said that, …

Read robbo's post following yours, YMS. And then tell me what he says. He doesn't mention workers' democracy, only elites, who are 'bound to know' better than the rest of us.

YMS wrote:

…and I certainly haven't in all our long long discussions.

Well, here's your big chance to clarify, for everyone reading.YMS, do you agree that only the class conscious, democratically organised proletariat can elect 'truth' (ie. 'truth-for-them')?If you don't agree, that's fine, but then you must tell us who or what will determine 'truth' in your 'socialist' society – and so, by extension, who else than the self-developing workers within bourgeois society, as they build for socialism.Only the class conscious, revolutionary, democratic proletariat can build socialism. Or do you disagree? If so, who are 'the builders of socialism', in your political ideology?

[LBird]

It seems to me that a thread entitled 'Marx and Automation' should have at least some reference to the question of 'Automation for who?'.Marx was interested in social production, conscious revolutionary activity by the proletariat, engaged in a democratic political process of self-development.Thus, with Marx, we must ask for whose needs, interests and purposes any posited 'automation' is referring to.'Automation' can only refer to the 'needs for automation of the workers', the 'interests in automation by the workers', and the 'conscious purposes intended for automation by workers'.Put simply, it must be 'automation for us' (not 'automation for the bourgeoisie'). There is no asocial, ahistoric, 'automation', an 'automation in itself'.

[LBird]

Alan Kerr wrote:

@LBirdThank you,This matters for this discussion Marx and Automation and Michel Luc Bellemare. ….The class struggle depends on economic steps.Engels was a thinker who came to this way to think independently. 

No, "the class struggle depends on" conscious activity by the proletariat. If, by 'economic', you mean 'social production', then you agree with Marx. But if by 'economic' you mean 'matter', then you agree with Engels.Engels didn't understand Marx, and it was Engels who created what we now know as 'Marxism'. Engels certainly 'came to this way of thinking idependently' of Marx – who was dead, when Engels created 'Marxism'.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

MBellemare wrote:

As for May 68, any idea of a Leninist, vangard party, armed-revolution and/or a storming of the winter-palace, is super-problematic to me, as they tend to lead down dark, bloody, rabbit holes. 

I think you will find that that is precisely what  the SPGB has been saying for 100 years now,  Vanguardism can only have one outcome – to reproduce a class based society as the vanguard steps into the shoes vacated by the old ruling class

But you support 'Material Vanguardism', robbo.You keep insisting that only a materialist minority can determine 'truth', and you openly say that you won't allow workers to democratically decide whether to employ the ideological concept of 'matter' (which you pretend contains 'truth'), or whether to replace 'matter' with (as the bourgeoisie suggest) 'mass' or 'energy', or with (as Marx suggested) 'inorganic nature' (which is his rendering of Ancient Greek concepts like 'hupokeimenon' or 'prote hule').Whilst the SPGB doesn't challenge Engels' 'materialism', it will remain, in effect as a "Leninist, vanguard party", which MB succinctly analyses in political terms. 'Matter' is a 'dark, bloody, rabbit hole'. 'Matter' can't be voted upon (it supposedly 'just exists', whereas 'hupokeimenon' is simply a passive ingredient into social labour), whereas the product of our work upon 'inorganic nature' can be voted upon.The only answer is Marx's: workers' democracy, and social theory and practice, in our production of our world, 'organic nature'.

[LBird]

Alan Kerr wrote:

@LBirdI did read both Marx and Engels. I do not see that you’re right. 

Well, I've long since realised that Engelsian 'materialists' will read both Engels and Marx from their Engelsian perspective, and giving quotes containing Marx's words won't have any effect on their 'materialist' beliefs.I presume that you also, as do the 'materialists', like Lenin, identify the 'unified-being' Marx-Engels as the source of your estimation of 'rightness'?In case I'm doing you a disservice, and you're not an Engelsian, I could give you some further details – but it would be a waste of my time and yours, if you self-identify as an Engelsian.Just let me know your ideological perspective, if you wish to continue. I'm a Democratic Communist and a Marxist.

[Author]

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