LBird
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DJP is another ‘materialist’ who can’t have a debate, and soon turns to insults. It’s the ‘materialist method’, as displayed by Lenin, in his Materialism and Empiriocriticism.
Wez wrote: “Just as the laws of nature are not affected by the beliefs and needs of humanity so are the laws of capitalist economics – they are independent of the desires of governments and other groups. That’s why it’s called ‘the materialist conception of history’.”
Since Marx never used the phrase ‘materialist conception of history’, your ideology is nothing to do with him.
If all these things are ‘not affected by’ and ‘independent of the desires of’ humanity… who changes them?
As Marx argued, the only logical response to your ideology is to ask, ‘if not humanity as a whole, democratically’, and since humans are not passively awaiting ‘stuff’ to do things for us, which elite will make changes?
Your ideology, Wez, is that of Lenin. This is not an insult, but is proved to anyone by reading Lenin’s works.
Lenin and Wez have no time for the belief that humanity can democratically change its own world. They are both waiting for non-human ‘laws’ to work their magic. [well, according to Marx, they’re not really, and will substitute a conscious minority (an elite of party or experts) to effect their changes – I think Marx has been proved correct].
Wez wrote: “It doesn’t surprise me that LBird rejects Marx’s LTV along with his theory of historical evolution…”
You’ll have to point out just where I supposedly did those things, Wez.
But on the contrary, I can point out dozens (hundreds?) of examples where ‘materialists’, rather than debate what has been said, make up stories about Marxists who adopt Marx’s democratic social productionism.
Anyway, to rebut your made up story – Marx’s LTV (being a theory (‘T’)) requires human consciousness, and does not emerge from matter and enter passive humans through their biological senses; and his ‘theory of…’, err…, I think this is pretty obvious, too.
Marx believed that ‘conscious activity’ (ie. ‘labour’) socially produced our world, and thus we can change it.
Materialists, like you Wez, deny this, as when you claim “…the laws of nature are not affected by the beliefs and needs of humanity…“.
I’ve quoted often from Marx and other Marxists, to show that any ‘laws of nature’ that we know, we have produced, and have changed. The ‘laws of nature’ are socio-historical.
If you’re going to respond to my posts, please respond to what I write, and please don’t make up stories, to help hide your own defenceless, outdated 18th century ideology.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “Isn’t value as described by Marx an abstraction…socially determined as LBird says but unable to quantify?” [my bold]
Bijou Drains wrote: “Although I don’t always agree with our feathered friend (glad to see that you are still out there and pecking corn, LB), much of the capitalist system is based on various belief systems, rather that physical entities.” [my bold]
These statements are the closest that you’ve come to Marx’s ideology of ‘idealism-materialism’, lads!
There is no ‘matter’ or ‘physical entities’ ‘to quantify’, but only ‘socially determined’ ‘belief’.
These require an active consciousness which can change its own products, a productive subject which creates its own objects, and can thus change them, employing social theory and practice, which for socialists must be democratic.
There is no ‘reality-in-itself’, no ‘material’, no ‘matter’, which makes any human have a ‘belief’.
The ‘metaverse’ is our ‘reality-for-us’, just like the ‘universe’, and we can change them.
Whilst socialists wait patiently for ‘matter’ to do its work on the masses, the capitalists will continue to create ‘reality-for-them’, because they actively create their world, which as alan’s Dragons make clear, will always benefit them (whether we call it ‘universe’ or ‘metaverse’).
‘Materialists’ patiently wait for a saviour, an active separate minority, as Marx said in his Theses on Feuerbach. The ‘materialists’ will continue to wait.
Perhaps this will help orientate you, alan.
For materialists, there is only the ‘universe’, which is ‘material’, ‘physical’ or ‘real’, and which ‘exists’ independently of humanity. The ‘universe’ is ‘real-in-itself’.
Thus for materialists, the contrast is the ‘metaverse’, which is ‘ideal’, ‘notional’ or ‘unreal’, and which ‘exists’ only in the minds of humanity.On the contrary, though, for Marxists, both the ‘universe’ and the ‘metaverse’ are social products of humanity, which both require an active humanity to socially produce, and so both require both ‘material’ and ‘ideal’ to create. Thus, Marx’s method of ‘social theory and practice’, an actively conscious humanity which can change its own products. We have a ‘universe-for-us’, a ‘reality-for-us’, a ‘physical-for-us’, a ‘real-for-us’.
While we workers adopt a passive policy of waiting for ‘reality itself’ to tell us what to do, the active policy of the bourgeoisie, producing a ‘universe-for-them’ and a ‘metaverse-for-them’, will then tell us workers what to do.Put simply, for humanity, the universe and the metaverse are similarly ‘real-for-us’. Trying to separate ‘material’ from ‘ideal’ is a bourgeois ideology, to prevent active, conscious political activity, to prevent a democratic proletariat from determining its own ‘universe-for-us’.
Of course, workers can continue to be baffled with the ‘metaverse’, and place their trust in ‘matter’…Yeah, alan, replace ‘paper’ with ‘value’, and it’s spot on!
The key to understanding the issue is ‘social production’.
The ‘Dragons’ are all correct: at the end of the production process, they’ll all be richer, because that’s what the process is meant to do. The problem is that so many people believe that it will simply fail, because ‘reality’ will intervene.However, if one believes, as did Marx, that ‘reality’ is a socio-historical product, and we can change it, the answer is to collectively change it by democratic methods. Merely waiting for ‘reality itself’ to do our job will simply lead to richer ‘Dragons’.
As continues to happen. Joke over.
These things are socially produced, alan.
If one is a Marxist, although one can’t touch them, or indeed value, they can be explained, so that one is not ‘at a loss’ to understand them.
However, if one is a materialist, then anything whatsoever to do with consciousness will always remain a mystery.
And as social production requires both theory and practice, it too remains a mystery to materialists.
As an example of this ‘unifying’ aspect to Marx’s philosophical approach being followed by Dimmock, see p. 159, footnote 3:
“The study of conquest, battles and state and legal constitutions forms a separate discipline to social and economic history in most British academies. Bringing the two disciplines together has been one of the most interesting and hopefully fruitful aspects of my research since then.”
ZJW wrote “Regarding the Bird-recommended book by Spencer Dimmock from 2014, ‘The Origin of Capitalism in England, 1400–1600’, its detailed table of contents, on Google Books, can be seen here: shorturl.at/gqvCZ . This book (likewise downloadable from libgen) ought to be reviewed in the SS.
(Dimmock might be surprised at Bird’s characterisation of the Political Marxism current in Bird-comment #208026. Near the beginning of the chapter ‘Orthodox Marxism versus Political Marxism’, Dimmock writes:
‘As we shall see, the accusation of voluntarism – among other things – against Robert Brenner and Ellen Meiksins Wood (the Wood referred to in the above quote) stems from a total misreading of Brenner’s thesis and its application by Wood and other political Marxists such as George Comninel, Benno Teschke and Charles Post. Far from abandoning historical materialism, Brenner’s social-property
relations perspective has sought to bring it to life by rejecting the tendency to teleology and techno-determinism in earlier orthodox accounts.’”I think Dimmock’s book is very good introduction to the debates surrounding the ‘origins of capitalism’ between ‘orthodox Marxism’ (ie. the Engels-influenced “battle between ‘materialism’ and ‘idealism'”) and ‘political Marxism’ (ie. the Marx-influenced “unity of ‘materialism’ and ‘idealism’).
I don’t think Dimmock would be at all surprised at my ‘characterisation’. If anyone’s interested in my claim, have a read of Dimmock’s book, and get back to me here, with any questions.
Bijou Drains, alanjjohnstone, thanks for your kind words.
My advice is to read up about Chinese physics and politics, and try to see how they don’t separate ‘Nature’ and ‘Society’ (just as Marx didn’t), and to see how Engels was badly influenced by ‘Western Science’ (ie., what I’d call ‘bourgeois science’).
All ‘Science’ is socio-historical and so changes, and is powerful.
The question is: ‘Who is to control its power and how it changes?’.
The SPGB and TrueScotsman would agree (I think) about who should have power: an elite, who have an ability and motivation which not shared by the mass of humans.
Why the SPGB diverges from its democratic political beliefs when it comes to ‘science’ is a mystery that I’ve never been able to really solve.
I suspect it’s because you regard Marx and Engels (as do all Leninists) as in effect a ‘single being’, and regard the critical investigation of this belief as illegitimate.
Perhaps TrueScotsman can now say whether they align with the SPGB on this issue of ‘science’, or have I misjudged TrueScotsman’s politics? I would imagine that TrueScotsman regards the Party as the ‘Scientist’ within ‘Scientific Socialism’?
This has been a very interesting and enlightening debate, marred only by the inevitable personal insults by the SPGB against TrueScotsman. Plus ca change…
I should declare openly, though, to TrueScotsman, that my Democratic Communist politics are closer to those of the SPGB than to those of TrueScotsman.
There are two outstanding parallels between this thread and my many debates with the SPGB about ‘science’, which mirrors the “Leninist Elite versus Mass Class” basis of this one.
The first parallel, as I’ve already pointed out, is the SPGB’s mode of political debate – it doesn’t argue politics, but attacks individuals, and so loses the political debate, in the sense that its own ideological beliefs remain sacrosanct, but it doesn’t spread its own political message to workers who debate with them. It’s a method that will end in cult-like isolation.
The second, is that my arguments in defence of democratic science (the ideological belief that only mass control of physics, maths, logic, etc. is acceptable for a democratic socialist movement and its eventual product, socialism) are exactly the ones used by the SPGB to defend their politics.
That is why I agree with the SPGB as against TrueScotsman’s politics. I believe that only mass communist consciousness amongst workers across the planet can build socialism. TrueScotsman disagrees with this, and argues for a party to lead the still non-socialist workers into socialism – which is fair enough, and a political and ideological one, which I disagree with, but I can understand and debate with.
The problem is, the SPGB are contradictory, and on the issue of ‘science’, agree with TrueScotsman’s political and ideological position: that an elite is needed to lead the benighted mass.
My position, and I think it was Marx’s too, is that only the proletariat can liberate itself, in all areas of social production, which naturally (and I chose that term consciously) includes the power of human ‘science’.
‘Nature’ and ‘Society’ are human products, and within a democratic socialist society can only be changed democratically.
I think TrueScotsman would disagree that either should be democratically produced (but at least holds a consistent political position), whereas the SPGB thinks ‘Nature’ is simply sitting ‘out there’, waiting to be ‘discovered’ by an elite of physicists (and other ‘scientists’), and so ditches its correct democratic politics regarding ‘Society’ when dealing with ‘Nature’. It’s a confused political stance that must lead nowhere. At least TrueScotsman’s consistent beliefs have had, and continue to have (unfortunately from my perspective) political relevance today.
Anyway, I couldn’t resist posting, so my apologies to those who detest the notion of ‘Politicised Science’, and prefer a self-selecting elite to hold power in science.alanjjohnstone wrote: “All i can say, is that Marx in his lifetime actively joined in organisations which did not fully accord with all his ideas and expectations. We can only assume that he valued their contributions to the emancipation of the working class more than he did the philosophical views from his youth. It appears you take a very difference position from Marx.”
Again, as a materialist, you’re twisting the truth.
Marx never joined an organisation that argued against the self-emancipation of the proletariat – which is what ‘materialists’, as we’ve seen here, do. Marx’s philosophical notion of ‘self-change’ has been deemed wrong by both ALB and robbo.
Marx might have thought that the organisations that he did join were not ‘materialist’, but we’d probably disagree now, given later developments, and Marx’s own words about not being a ‘Marxist’.
And given his support for the supposedly ‘idealist’ ‘Narodniks’ in Russia at the end of his life, when he opposed the supposed ‘materialist’ ‘Marxists’, like Plekhanov (who made up the category of ‘Narodnik’ and damned his creation as ‘idealist’, in an echo of Engels’ great battle), we’ve good reason to think he wasn’t any sort of ‘materialist’, like you are.
Your ideological view of ‘Marx’ is not one I share, alan.
But, since you don’t consider your view to be ‘ideological’, we can’t even discuss the problem. To you, there is no problem.
Putting your heads in the sand is not a good political strategy. Nor is shooting the messenger.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “My questions were as you rightly quoted
“…can you suggest any political party, contemporary or historical, that has been more democratic than ourselves? Likewise, can you provide an example of a socialist party exemplifying socialism more than we do?”
Your answers did not address them, LBird.”
Right, alan, I’ll try again.
It seems that, as Marx suspected, the political ideology/movement/party known as ‘Marxism’ was nothing to do with his ideas. Again, as Marx pointed out, any ideology/movement/party rooted in the notions of ‘materialism’ would bolster class society.
So, if you are asking me if “any political party, contemporary or historical… has been more democratic than ourselves”, then I can only judge your question based upon Marx’s democratic social productionism.
The answer thus is, to the best of my knowledge (and I’m open to further enlightenment on the issue), there is not and never has been a ‘democratic’ party, ‘contemporary or historical’, that meets this political test.
So, the SPGB is not democratic, nor does it ‘exemplify socialism’. And it appears that all ‘contemporary and historical’ parties who’ve called themselves ‘socialist’ or ‘Marxist’ have really been ‘materialist’, and so have nothing to do with Marx’s democratic social productionism.
Of course, there have been thousands of individuals, over the years and across the world, who’ve pointed this out, that ‘socialism/communism’ must mean ‘democratic social production’ if it is to be worth building. But, again to the best of my knowledge, no party has emerged from these dissenters against ‘materialism’. I might be wrong on this, and would be pleased if you know differently and can point one out.
I must admit, my experience of the SPGB and its ‘materialist’ ideology (which is so obviously at odds with ‘democracy’) leaves me feeling as if I’m unlikely to find a ‘democratic socialist’ party in my lifetime. Youse were a bit of a ‘last chance saloon’. I actually think that there’s a danger that Marx’s ideas will be completely forgotten, because it seems that the ‘materialist’ parties, like the Trotskyists and the SPGB, are doomed in the 21st century because they base themselves on a completely discredited 18th century ideology, and there is no other ‘institutional’ memory of what Marx argued. I’d like to think that a party based upon Marx’s views would emerge, and I’d join, but I’m not hopeful.
I hope that this answers your question, now, alan.
robbo, you must try and read my answers. It’s pointless to keep asking the same question.
‘Objects’ are socially created. That’s the answer.
The fact that you disagree, and want ‘objects’ to be ‘independent of human conscious activity’, is an ideological position.
Deal with your ideology, and ask where it came from.
Hint: it didn’t come from you.
robbo, you haven’t read or understood Marx, so quit now, whilst your ignorance, and touching faith in the bourgeoisie, is still partially hidden.
robbo203 wrote: “Actually, Marx’s explanation was quite wrong…”
So, why bother with Marx and Capital?
Oh, sorry, you don’t.
