[LBird]

if only Vin wrote:

I was brought up a strict Materialist and at the age of 54 I realised there is no Matter and no such thing as objective. As an ironic gesture, I looked up to the sky and said FUCK OFF YOU CUNT. I have had nothing to do with it ever since.

We're on the same trajectory, mate  – I was brought up a Catholic, too, and had to go to mass every Sunday until I was 16. I just seem to have got to the second 'Fuck Off' point, a bit earlier than you, after my time in the SWP.Perhaps the SPGB doesn't educate workers as well and as fast as the SWP, about the Party's 'nature', ironically enough!

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Been offline for a few days so missed many of the posts but just to comment on the latest post

Quote:

I clearly do agree with much of what the SPGB says that it stands for: socialism, end of money, democracy, Marxism, etc. alanjjohnstone seems to think that, perhaps some day, I'll join the party (though perhaps he's changed his mind over time).

As just an exercise, LBird, why not submit your answers to the membership questions which would be the basis of accepting or rejecting any membership application and see if your critics can fault you responses.https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/membership-application

I've had another look at the form, alan, and I still think that I'd fail.For example, I don't think that any party has a monopoly over thinking, so I'd be fine with numerous workers' parties helping to build a class consciousness amongst workers. To me, the more debate, the better.Plus, I regard 'Faith in Matter' as an example of religiosity, so I'd laugh at the question about religion, because I consider Engels' 'materialism' (or, certainly as it was developed by 'Marxists' in the 19th/early 20th centuries) as a religious ideology about 'The Real World', which workers haven't created.So, it's clear to me that I'd be rejected, both by the current open rules and the covert beliefs, of the party. In fact, from the responses on this site, I'd be in a minority of one, because I haven't read one response in four years that seems to agree with my notions of socialism, democracy, Marx, science, etc. There seems to be no basis for me to join – neither I nor current members would be happy about that circumstance. It's better to discuss from the outside, for now, whilst I'm allowed.

[LBird]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

Thanks for an honest reply, I appreciate it.The point of this forum, at least as I see it, is to help in the process of enabling people to develop Socialist consciousness and to debate issues that relate to that.

Yeah, I appreciate your response, too. And I, too, think that socialists should be helping in that process.  To me, 'Socialist consciousness' is the whole point, not 'defence of matter'.

Tim wrote:

If your ongoing contributions had been based on the idea that we were for want of a better phrase "your enemies" then I could see no fruitful point in engaging in debate with you, considering how long the debate was going on. I appreciate that you have honestly held points of disagreement with us, however I am heartened to hear that you recognise the areas where we agree.

Well, I don't regard youse as 'my enemies', but I regard youse as 'confused' about socialism, Marx , democracy, science – I think that these are all fundamentally related issues.That is, if I talk about socialism, I talk about Marx, democracy, science. If I talk about Marx, I talk about socialism, democracy and science. If I talk about democracy, I talk about socialism, Marx and science. And…. tah-dah!… if I talk about science, I talk about socialism, Marx and democracy.IMO, I shouldn't need to stress the above relationships (and I could add a few more, like class, history, production, method, but I'll assume you all get the relational gist from that list), which itself causes me some concern about 'areas where we agree'.

Tim wrote:

I also understand that you have spent time in Trotskyist and Leninist organisations and that they are very different from the way we organise politically. I hope it is clear in the discussions that have taken place that we are unlike those kind of elitist and leadership driven organisations And I can fully understand your reticence with regard to internal party democracy, considering that experience. I hope it is also clear that we are very different to organisations like that.

Yes! My typical working class experience, of being an uneducated adult, who received a late education, who then came across 'Marxists and Socialists', at college, who talked about workers, class consciousness, Marx, Engels and Lenin, democracy, etc., and who eventually joined a Trotskyist organisation, has had big effect on me. Like most (no, all) of the workers I knew who joined these organisations, I left when I realised that they were bullsitting us workers, about democracy and workers' power, and they really had an idea that they, and they alone, had the requisite 'consciousness' to effect their 'practice'. Of course,as Trotsky helpfully pointed out, 'they' moves from 'workers' to 'party' to 'party machine, to 'central committee'… It's nothing to do with Marx, workers' power, democracy, class consciousness (not 'party' consciousness), and the democratic control of social production in a socialist society.Of course, this political experience helped me to question what Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc., actually said, and actually meant. I long ago got to the realisation that many of the things that the Trots claim can be supported by reference to the genius unity of 'Marx-Engels'. I'm fucked as a class conscious worker, if I start from the god-like mythical unified being of 'Marx-Engels'. I will always lose an argument with the Trots.Imagine my surprise, when I found out that the SPGB embrace exactly the same ideology as Lenin. And for the same reasons, and with the same results. Engels' materialism is a bourgeois ideology, which is suited to 'elite consciousness' (especially the ultimate elite, of The Sovereign Individual, who has Biological Senses), and has the result, as Marx warned, of dividing society into two. You've guessed it, the SPGB talks about 'Specialists' and 'Generalists', and pooh-poohs democracy, where the Specialists do as they are told by the Generalists.So, Tim, I ask a genuine question – are you a 'very different organisation' to the SWP, Militant, etc.? On the surface, certainly, but…

[LBird]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

L BirdThis is a serious question. As you clearly do not agree with or have any sympathy with the views of the SPGB, why on earth do you spend so much of your life on this site?You clearly think we are not a party putting forward a Socialist Programme, you clearly think whatever we do we cannot develop beyond the limited influence we have on the working class and you clearly think we are all as thick as mince.

And here's a serious answer, Tim.I clearly do agree with much of what the SPGB says that it stands for: socialism, end of money, democracy, Marxism, etc. alanjjohnstone seems to think that, perhaps some day, I'll join the party (though perhaps he's changed his mind over time).It's when we get to the detail of what you're claiming to be socialism, democracy, Marxism, that the problems arise. I think that if you did put some emphasis on those issues, that you have the potential to grow as a party (which is going to be needed in the future, at some point, when a Labour government fucks up).But your (and I mean all the posters here) understanding of socialism, democracy and Marxism is so far removed from, well, socialism, democracy and Marxism, that I'm forced to argue the point.I don't think that you're 'all as thick as mince', but I do think that none of you have any idea about what Marx was up to.The dominant ideology seems to be some form of bourgeois individualism, and a desire to see a 'socialism' based upon the myth of 'Individual Freedom'. It's nothing to do with democratic social production or Marx.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

…you appopriate the whole house.  If you appropriate a street, you are not making slections, you're taking the whole street.  

[my bold]'Whole house' or 'whole street' is a selection between two 'wholes', YMS.'If' is the clue. Your 'appropriation' is a conscious choice by you, a part of what Marx calls 'the active side'.One could also note that you've chosen not to appropriate 'whole estates', 'whole towns', 'whole urban sprawls', and several other 'concepts' that we could take account of.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

When I appropriate a house, I am not making selections, I take it tout court.

Well, that's the need for estate agents removed, because according to your method, the house selects its occupants!You can't argue otherwise, because then you'd need to agree that you didn't select which property you live in, but that the bricks and mortar actively drew you, the passive occupier, into the house.Mind you, that's exactly what the 'materialists' argue – that 'matter' is 'the active side'.Marx disagreed with your method, YMS. I suspect that many do, unless the entire SPGB is claiming that it is living in accommodation, that chose them!

[LBird]

All you are saying now, YMS, is that one's ideology determines how one understands Marx.I've been saying this for years, and have argued that the only way forward is to examine the content of our differing ideologies.'Appropriation' is an act of selection, and selection requires a prior theory which provides the parameters of selection for that act.Your ideological reading regards 'appropriation' as an act of the thing appropriated, in which the appropriator remains passive.It's nothing to do with Marx, YMS, but with pretty standard bourgeois individualism, which pretends that 'matter is active and talks to passive humans'.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Engels wrote:

Of course the method of presentation must differ in form from that of inquiry. The latter has to appropriate the material in detail, to analyse its different forms of development, to trace out their inner connexion. Only after this work is done, can the actual movement be adequately described. If this is done successfully, if the life of the subject-matter is ideally reflected as in a mirror, then it may appear as if we had before us a mere a priori construction.

[my added bold]

Yes, this is correct, and this describes Marx's method of 'theory and practice'.To 'appropriate', 'analyse' and 'trace out', is to apply a 'theory' to 'the material' ('material', here, meaning 'our selected object of study', not 'matter').If one 'appropriates, analyses and traces out' with contrasting 'theories', one will get differing 'inquiry', 'presentation' and 'description'.If you read this quote to mean 'matter talks to you as an individual', YMS, you won't understand Marx's method of 'social theory and practice'.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

We always need to go back to the real society as it is before us, and how it changes, rather than relying on the abstract model.

[my bold]This is the political problem with your method, YMS.You have a concept of 'the real society as it is', but you pretend that 'the real society as it is' is telling you personally 'what it really is', without you first having a concept of it.Marx's method is 'theory and practice', and if you choose to use his method, we first have to find out where the 'concept' of your 'real society as it is' came from.Because of that initial Marxist step, if we are not happy with our practice which, together with the concept, produces any society that we know 'as it is', we can then return to the 'theory', change it, and then with our social practice, change 'the real society' into 'society as we really want it'.Now, if you want to choose an individualist method (which is bourgeois, and is also used within 'economics', and claims that 'individuals' know 'value' by their personal estimation), and say that it is obvious to you what 'the real society as it is' actually 'is', then we can show that your 'theory and practice' is not the Marxist theory and practice.In fact, you're claiming that your individualist method is 'practice' upon a 'reality' which then yields a 'theory'; this is the reverse of Marx's social method

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

The bottom line, robbo, is how one chooses to understand what Marx's whole body of work was about.

Why don't you quote Marx to backup your assertions on 'what Marx's whole body of work was a about' as we 'religious materialists' do?  You will not answer,  so I will:  It is because your argument has nothing to do with Marx. Perhaps you sport a similar beard(which would explain a lot) but you do not hold the same ideas.

You're either telling lies now, Vin, or your memory is failing you. I'll accept that it's the latter.For the first few years posting here, I gave detailed references, not just to Marx, but to Engels, and many others, like Dietzgen, Labriola, Untermann, Brzozowski, Bogdanov, Lenin, Lukacs, Korsch, Gramsci, Pannekoek… I could go on, there are many others, from more recently, like Mattick and Dunayevskaya, but I think that list makes my point sufficiently.But, it soon became obvious that the work I was doing 'to back up my assertions' about Marx, were being completely ignored. Posters like you, who don't seem to have read either Marx or Engels, never mind the rest, simply keep saying 'that's not Marx/Engels/etc.', even when I produce their quotes. This claim, here, that I have 'backed up', can be confirmed by anyone reading this, who has a mind to go back to the earlier threads.As I've argued, the real problem is not whether Marx said 'this or that', but how workers should understand what Marx actually said. It's not so obvious, even with his words in front of us. I've argued that we should all be open about the various ideologies that we're all using, to help workers to sort out 'what Marx meant'.I've been open about my Democratic Communism, and my view that Marx was an idealist-materialist, unlike Engels who was an old-fashioned materialist, but none of you will be open about your own beliefs. Of course, I've exposed your beliefs, and they are those of Engels. I've actually given page numbers for your particular beliefs, Vin, but it makes no impression.So, yes, I've deemed youse to be 'Religious Materialists', who are concerned to defend 'matter' and 'ahistoric bourgeois science', but not "workers' democracy" and the 'democratic control of human science'. And I've pointed out that this was exactly what Marx predicted of those who follow 'materialism': they must turn to an 'elite' who can ignore workers and democracy, a bourgeois elite which claims that it alone 'knows matter' and must control 'science'. And I've shown that this political belief in 'materialism' was exactly the one held by Lenin, whose 'elite' was the Cadre Party, which supposedly has this 'special consciousness'.None of your beliefs are of any use to class conscious workers, who wish to build a democratic socialist society.

[LBird]

The bottom line, robbo, is how one chooses to understand what Marx's whole body of work was about.For you, because you are an individualist, you argue that Marx was talking about 'individuals'.For me, because I'm a Democratic Communist interested in 'social production' and its history, I argue that Marx was talking about, not 'individuals', but 'social individuals', their socio-historic production, and their attempts to build for Democratic Communism.This is a choice for workers to make. They can either choose your political interpretation of Marx, or my political interpretation of Marx.You have an ideology; I have an ideology. Workers, now, have an ideology. It's up to them to decide which ideology is best suited to their needs, interests and purposes.One clear difference between us, though, that all workers should take note of: I'm open about my ideological beliefs, whereas you try to hide yours. If workers choose to 'remain non-ideological', then they'll probably stick with what they have now.

[LBird]

jondwhite wrote:

LBird wrote:

jondwhite wrote:

Quote:

An epic story of courage, genius and terrible folly, this is the first history of how the Soviet Union's scientists became both the glory and the laughing stock of the intellectual world.Simon Ings weaves together what happened when a handful of impoverished and underemployed graduates, professors and entrepreneurs, collectors and charlatans, bound themselves to a failing government to create a world superpower. And he shows how Stalin's obsessions derailed a great experiment in 'rational government'. 

jdw, does this book address the issue of democracy in science, and how the Stalinists denied it (as they did in the polity), or is it the usual bourgeois propaganda about 'Socialism = Stalinism'?If it does the former, I'll get a copy.

I don't know. I'm afraid it is still on my books to read list. The last topic I started about it here got no replies. There are other books I found by googling science and democracy including one from MIT.

Thanks, jdw. I found this:https://www.amazon.com/Science-Democracy-Expertise-Institutions-Representation/dp/0262513048I've had a brief look at the introduction online, but it seems to be the usual regurgitation of 'materialism', sadly.I'm yet to find a decent book on science that addresses communism, democracy, Marx, and his social productionism, in a coherent way. It's a bit sad that, 130 years after Marx's death, this hasn't been done. It's my opinion that 'science' is one of the key arenas that workers have to seek to understand, along with individualism and markets. I see those three areas as the tripod of ideology that supports capitalism.

[LBird]

jondwhite wrote:

Quote:

An epic story of courage, genius and terrible folly, this is the first history of how the Soviet Union's scientists became both the glory and the laughing stock of the intellectual world.Simon Ings weaves together what happened when a handful of impoverished and underemployed graduates, professors and entrepreneurs, collectors and charlatans, bound themselves to a failing government to create a world superpower. And he shows how Stalin's obsessions derailed a great experiment in 'rational government'. 

jdw, does this book address the issue of democracy in science, and how the Stalinists denied it (as they did in the polity), or is it the usual bourgeois propaganda about 'Socialism = Stalinism'?If it does the former, I'll get a copy.

[LBird]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

LBird wrote:

Yeah, even I laughed at that, Tim!I can't help feeling, though, that if you put as much time and effort into understanding Marx, as you did with your post, you'd start to get to grips with his social productionism.Anyway, brightened up my day! Cheers!

Thanks for your very gracious reply

Yeah, luckily, being an idealist-idealist-idealist-Stalino-Trotskyite-capitalist-roadster hasn't dented my sense of humour!

[LBird]

Yeah, even I laughed at that, Tim!I can't help feeling, though, that if you put as much time and effort into understanding Marx, as you did with your post, you'd start to get to grips with his social productionism.Anyway, brightened up my day! Cheers!

[Author]

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