[robbo203]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

It doesn't seem as if we're going to get to the bottom of Marx's quote, on this thread, now.

It's quite simple. What makes a good a commodity and possess value is not the physical characteristics of the good itself but the social relations between the producers themselves.Now we get to the question of "what is a social relation". I'd say social relations are the aggregate outcome of the actions of people in society. How people act in society depends, to a certain degree on their consciousness and their consciousness is in turn conditioned by the society they are in. Both affect each other in a co-defining relationship.There is nothing in this that leads us to abandoning physicalism (in the metaphysical sense of the word).If you think physicalism is unable to deal with relations you are wrong.

 Up to the last sentence I would go along with what you say but your last sentence is a bit iffy.  Depends what you mean by "deal with" – which I take you to mean "account for".  If, as you say, you subscribe to a non-reductive physicalism (emergence theory) then almost by definition physicalism cannot fully account for, or "deal with", social relations.  There is something in the latter that eludes a purely physicalist explanation – even if the individuals who form social relations between themselves are physical entities.Point is they are more than just physical entities.

[robbo203]

Vin Maratty wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

The point Im getting at is that we should move away from this kind of crass mechanistic notion that material conditions "produce" ideas 

It is not 'crass mechanistic' to say that a material brain is required for thinking with. 

  Thats not what I am saying at all, Vin.  No one is disputing that a brain is required for thinking.  Im talking about something quite different – the idea that material conditions (or, if you like, the "base" in the base/superstructure model of society) "produce" or give rise to, ideas .  This is what I am criticising.  It derives from a crass misreading of the statement that it is not consciousness that determines social being but social being that determines consciousness.  There has never been such a thing as social being without consciousness; consciousness is an intergal part  of our social being.

[robbo203]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_202320/lang–en/index.htm

Quote:

The number of unemployed worldwide rose by 4.2 million in 2012 to over 197 million, a 5.9 per cent unemployment rate, according to Global Employment Trends 2013.

Leaving aside the horrific poverty implied in that headline figure, and that the 6% unemployment is not evenly spread, but in some cases much higher, blighting entire cities and countries.  Further:

Quote:

The labour market situation remains particularly bleak for the world’s youth, with almost 74 million people in the 15 to 24 age group unemployed around the world – a 12.6 per cent youth unemployment rate.

Again, that average will be lumpy as well.Yet, with 1 in 20 of the available human work force in enforced idleness, we still produce all the wealth we have, we still have enough wealth, if it were adequately distributed, to feed and clothe everyone; yet the wages system demands toil for some and poverty for others.

 Actually, a more serious problem in terms of the numbers affected is that of underemployment  – particularly in the so called Third World.  This later typically takes an "involutionary" form – to use the term coined by the American cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz  –  a downsizing or regression in the scale of one's economic activity such as is evident in the case of street hawkers in the informal retail sector in many Third World cities.  So, for instance,  instead of selling boxes of cigarettes you might perhaps sell cigarettes on an individual basis. That way you can tap even  the tiniest of markets, squeeze a sale from even the poorest of customers. The return as far as the individual is concerned is minimal but from a social point of view the waste that it entails is absolutely staggering

[robbo203]

twc wrote:

‘The inseparability of ideas and material conditions’ is deeper than you assume.It may surprise you to learn that the inseparability of thinking-and-being is common consensus among warring idealists and materialists, who nevertheless disagree over whether thinking or being determines the conjunction.

 Why should it neccesarily be one or the other? I mean how would you be able to show, for instance,  that "being" determines "thinking" when thinking or thoughts – consciousness – is always there, right at the very start? There is no such thing as being without consciousness.The point Im getting at is that we should move away from this kind of crass mechanistic notion that material conditions "produce" ideas which the base-superstructure model often, unfortunately,  seems to encourage. Actually this is a form of mysticism.  Ideas are held to be latent  in the mysterious workings of the universe and become manifest in its unfolding.  This is to strip history of any kind of creative aspect and reduce us to the role of passive onlookersA more useful model of historical materialism which acknowleges that ideas do have an influence and an internal development of their own is the one outlined by Marx when he pointed out that men make their own history  but not under conditions of their own making.  This posits the idea of material conditions as a constraint rather than a determinant.One of my favourite quotes which puts across this idea very well is from that wonderful book by Carolyn Merchant  – The Death of Nature: Women , Ecology and the Scientific Revolution:An array of ideas exists available to a given age: some of these for unarticulated  or even unconscious reasons seem plausible to individuals or social groups; others do not.  Some ideas spread; others die out.  But the direction and accumulation of social changes begin to differentiate between  among the spectrum of possibilities so that some ideas assume a more central role in the array, while others move to the periphery.  Out of this differential appeal of ideas that seem most plausible under particular social conditions, cultural transformations developThe only point I would add  to that is that the criterion of "plausibility" is itself a socio-cultural phenomenon and we should resist the temptation to impose on history the comparatively modern and eurocentric idea that individuals constitute themselves as atomistic competing units, fundamentally driven by what they perceive to be their own self interest  and by which yardstick they judge the plausibility of such ideas

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

I think this whole dichotomy between ideas and matter is a false dichotomy, anyway. Im not too sure if I would go quite as far as L Bird in talking of "idealist materialism" if by "idealist" is meant the primacy of ideas over material conditions. But I think what he is getting at, and which I support, is really the inseparability of ideas and material conditions.

Just to confirm that we agree on these points, robbo.You're right, 'idealism-materialism' doesn't mean the 'primacy of ideas over material conditions'. As you say, it's 'a false dichotomy'. We could just as easily say 'materialism-idealism', again with the same caveat, that this is not 'the primacy of material conditions over ideas'.I'm merely using the phrase 'idealism-materialism' to polemically counter the myth of Marx's 'materialism'. I do this because it fits better with Marx's proper views, of 'theory and practice', or 'men make history, but not in circumstances of their own choosing', etc. That is, the 'human' is the creative element (theory), and the 'conditions' are limiting or enabling factors (practice). So, 'idealism-materialism', with no 'primacy', just necessary interaction. Or, as you say, 'the inseparability of ideas and material conditions'.

 Ok,  I see what you are saying. It was just a somewhat minor pedantic point on my part to avoid confusion by using some other phrase than "idealism-materialism" which could seem like a contradiction in terms.  But as long as we understand each other….

[robbo203]

Ed wrote:

Robbo asks "can you touch, smell, taste capitalism"I'd answer yes you can. In everything you taste, in everything you see and hear you experience the social relations of capitalism whether it is apparent or not.Is it physical? No. But can ideas manifest into physical reactions. Yes. Ideas or as I prefer and think makes it clearer knowledge (knowledge=ideas) are in themselves material conditions. Perhaps this is L Bird and I agreeing…. Perhaps what I am saying is his idealist-materialism. However where he is severely mistaken and what makes him an idealist is his belief that ideas alone create conditions rather than the other way around.Necessity is the mother of invention comrades……Not individualist geniuses

 I think you contradict yourself here, Ed.  If you agree that capitalism is not physical then how can you touch smell or taste capitalism?  What is not physical cannot be apprehended through our sense perceptions.  What you can do is infer capitalism from what it is you touch smell and taste but that is a mental process.  Yes, it depends on a brain but still it is not something reducible to the brain. Identity Theory hasnt got a leg to stand on – figuratively or literally I think this whole dichotomy between ideas and matter is a false dichotomy, anyway.  Im not too sure if I would go quite as far as L Bird in talking of "idealist materialism" if by "idealist" is meant the primacy of ideas over material conditions.  But I think what he is getting at, and which I support,  is really the inseparability of ideas and material conditions.. You dont have "material conditions" at one point in time and then "ideas" come along at the next point in time having been "produced" by said material conditions.  This is totally misleading and in fact amounts to a kind of mystical version of history in which the meaning of history is immanent and unfolding.  Ironically , the mechanical or crass materialists join hands with the pure idealists in this regard . Mechanical materialism is in fact a species of idealism in my book For as long as human beings have existed ideas have existed. Ideas have always been  there right from the start, shaping history and being shaped by history. It is not that social being determines consciousness in the strict sense of causality  but that social being incorporates consciousness.  How could we even be social without being conscious of it in some way?

[robbo203]

Vin Maratty wrote:

If you don't think society is physical then meaningful conversation is impossible. Moreover,  you are completely twisting what I am saying. I could equally say that it is you  agreeing with Thatcher by saying society doesn't exist. because it is not physical!! What other things in the world  does not have a physical existence?If I smell anything it is a rat. 

 But I ask again , Vin , how is society physical – in what sense? How ? Oh I agree that society is dependent,  or supervenes, upon physical entities called human beings – you cannot have a society without human beings –  but that is NOT the same as saying society is a physical entity.  If it was a physical entity it would share the same quality as individual human beings and thus be empirically apprehensible via sense perception along with human beings.  In short , it would be something separate from specific human beings which you can identity alongside those human beings and in the same way as you might identify other  individual physical human beings But you cannot separate society from human beings in that sense. It is the pattern of relationships that human beings develop between each other..  Therefore by a reductio ad absurdum argument society cannot be physical This is why I argue that society is an emergent property of  inrteracting human beings and why emergence theory is the only viable way of looking at things.  Society is not reducible to the constituent entities that comprise it but is not independent of those entities either.  It exerts "downward causation" as the expression goes – that is to say we as individuals are influenced  by this "thing" called society  (which is proof of the existence of this "thing").  But this  "thing" is not actually a physical thing – if it were it would exist outside of individuals and be apprehensible in just the same way as individual phyical human beings can be apprehended, which is nonsense. Nevertheless it has a quasi objective existence which is the point that Durkheim was getting at with his concept of social facts. Social facts have an objective coercive quality about them and Durkheim demonstrated this in his work "Suicide" in which he argued that certain individuals are more predisposed to commit suicide than others  depending among other things on their religious beliefs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_%28book%29) I think the basic problem here is that you are equating objectivity with physicality when really they are not quite the same thing.  We talk about the objective laws of capitalism but they are not actually physical laws – are they? – even if they do have physical consequences and engage physical actors in the shape of you and I

[robbo203]

Vin Maratty wrote:

There is a 'society' Robbo but it is part of the physical world. Such views of ideas were rejected long before the 60s. Are you also saying that we have created 'entities' that exist independent of our social and individual physical material existence?Capitalism is an 'entity' as you call it and we entered into relationships independent of our will and created it. And we can't control it. But it is physical. It exists inside your (our) head, the socialist revolution will prove that.

 How is society "physical" , Vin?  Yes, it "depends" on physical entities – human beings  – and physical organs called brains which reside in these entities.  But  saying something depends on something else does NOT mean it takes on the quality of the latter. Saying capitalism is physical just seem ridiculous to me. Pierre Bourdieu once made the point that every society seeks  the "naturalisation of its own arbitrariness". You are talking that to the point of literal truth in the case of capitalism. How is capitalism "physical" (and how could you get rid of it if it was)? Can you taste  it, smell it , hear it , see it etc  Seems to me you are using the word physical in a manner that is actually pretty meaningless.  If everything was coloured red then red would be a pretty meaningless concept too. And how would you distinguish between capitalism and the individuals that make up capitalist society.  Individuals and their brains are indeed physical entities but the relationships between individuals?  I know capitalism stinks but it would be pushing matters to contend that this denotes a physical quality apprehensible through our sense of smell. If you can't touch , see smell taste or hear capitalism then it seems by your logic capitalism doesnt exist and we are back to Mrs Thatchers aphorism .  Which begs the question – how is it that something that does not exist – society – can have such an obvious effect on those rather strange physical entities we call human beings?

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

I don't know to how explain any better; I've tried, but sadly failed.'Physicalism and reductionism' it is then. But no Marx, no value, no Capital, no Communism, no creative workers.Just the rocks.

Well  I get what you are saying, L Bird, and to me it makes solid sense even if it doesnt to others.  Old fashioned physicalist reductionism  – or identity theory – was overthrown or dethroned way back into the 1960s revolution in the cognitive sciences with the rise of emergence theory or "non reductive physicalism". I dont see how anyone can cling on to identity theory in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary – if that is what some folk here are in fact doing Higher level properties or entities are not only  not reducible to the lower level properties or entities on which they supervene but also exert downward causation on the latter.  Think for a moment  what it means to reject this statement.  For socialists, for example,  it means repudiating any kind of socially grounded analysis.  What individuals do would then become completely explicable in terms of psychological facts alone. This is the Margaret Thatcher view of society – "there is no such thing as society, only individuals and their families".  That is, of course, preposterous but it is a logical outcome of rejecting emergence theory and the notion of downward causation.  Society cannot influence individuals – exert downward causation on them – because society apparently doesnt "exist" according to this view.  Of course society cannot exists apart from individuals – that is true – just as mind cannot exist apart from brain but that is not the same thing as saying that society cannot exist at all in any sense. You might just as well ask, in that case, if individuals exist.  Is the individual no more than just a bunch of  molecules?  What causes the burglar to break into somebody's house and nick their stuff?  "M'lud , I will argue that my client cannot reasonably be held responsible for this henous act  since I  will attempt to show that his motives were nothing but the outcome of  certain chemical reactions in his body over which he had absolutely no control"   Puhleeeze….. Where will it all end,  one wonders? Could the organisation of the working class into a socialist party really be the result of the mysterious antics of sub atomic particles colliding with each other? Must we wait for their fortuitous alignment into a pattern that will ensure the realisation of socialist society?

[robbo203]

twc wrote:

 Historical Determinism Marx’s guiding principle — the materialist conception of history — is deterministic:  “it is not consciousness that determines being but social being that determines consciousness”.The Socialist Party’s Declaration of Principles and the rationale behind its Object only make sense in Marx’s deterministic terms.If our Object does not deterministically guarantee the viability of world socialism — if common ownership and democratic control do not deterministically ground the day-to-day reproducibility of world socialism as a viable social system — then the Socialist Party Object is not worth our defending, and the Socialist Party and world socialism, as we conceive them, have no deterministic right to exist at all.Historical determinism is the beating heart of the Socialist Party’s case for world socialism.  It cannot be side-stepped.  The nature of world socialism’s beating heart must be comprehended by all and, for socialism to succeed, must be ruthlessly defended from the standpoint of unfamiliar socialism against the incommensurable standpoint of familiar capitalism.Voluntarism, or the attempt to sidestep determinism, is merely the ignorance of determinism.  Freedom is the recognition of determinism.

  TWC I dont really follow this argument at all.  How is the case for socialism "deterministic"? Are you saying socialism is inevitable?  If not how can we we usefully talk about "determinism" in the case of such a large scale pattern of social change in which a multiplicity of interacting  factors is involved? There is an interesting article here by Peter Stillman which argues against a deterministic reading of Marxhttp://www.marxmyths.org/peter-stillman/index.php

[robbo203]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

 Guns are a necessary, but not sufficient condition of statedom.  However, I'd suggest that even if the wages system were abolished, and an autonomous organised military force existed, it would shortly reconstitute itself as anew ruling class.  It isn't just symbollic, it is necessary to physiocally take and hold the mechanisms of state.

I might be puting words in your mouth (for which apologies in advance) but if  you mean by "mechanisms of the state" –  those outer  trappings of the state like the civil service and the armed forces – then,  yes, I wouldnt disagree that you need to physically take and hold such things. With socialism being implemented one presumes, with the former, the intention would be to strip away those capitalist functions such as tax collection or social security provision that mostly concerns the so called civil service as we know it today, leaving only a residue of socially useful functions needed in a socialist society.  In the case of the armed forces one equally presumes that the intention would be to turn "swords into ploughshares" and that any need to use armed force in the immediate aftermath of establishing socialism would be minimal (I gave my reasons in an earlier post why I consider that the problem of the "recalcitarnt minority" is unlikely to be a serious one so wont rehearse those arguments here) Nevetheless, there is a distinction to be made between the trappings or mechanisms of the state and the state itself. (You seem to agree, judging by your comnment that guns are a necessary but not sufficient condition  of statedom), The state itself is not something that you can "physically take and hold".  It is a social institution which, as stated earlier, means a regularised or routinised pattern of rule- dominated behaviour.  Built into such behaviour is a set of expectations about how people are supposed to behave, the roles they are meant  carry out.  This is why I insist that  the capture of the state is essentially a symbolic act. It symbolises or triggers  the closure of one set of social rules about the functioning of society and its replacement by another , quite different set,  A bit like changing from a game of draughts to a game of chess using the same board, as i suggested earlier I dont see how an "autonomous" organised military force could exist in a socialist society (and even if it did Im not too sure that it would reconstitute itself as a new ruling class) What kind of leverage would such a force wield that would compel the compliance of the population, given the dynamics of a free access, voluntaristic society,?  Such an arrangement dissolves the very material basis upon which political power rests: alienated property What you are suggesting is that this autonomous military force can somehow free itself from the constraints and entanglements  of society´s expectations and its value system.  Not even where an actual ruling class exists is this really true. Our rulers hold on to power hegemonically and this is more and more turning out to be the case.  Old fashioned dictatorships are inefficient,  dont work and are increasingly on the way out. The growing socialist movement will be the decisive factor pushing them into complete extinction 

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Oh, but we have.  From Russia to Chile the capitalists *believed* they were about to be abolished.  Hence why I said apparent.

 There is a big big difference between groups of capitalists who believe their existence to be imperilled and capitalism  as a system being imperilled,  Unfortunately, we have never ever reached the stage where the later is the case.  Even remotely, as I say.  When the writing is on the wall and the dusk begins to descend upon the capitalist epoch (to mix a few metaphors)  it will be far too late for the capitalist state to do anything about it.  That state will increasingly be held captive by developments that will begin to take on a momentum of their own

[robbo203]

So, just to get this thread back on track – what about the spatial spread of socialist society, then?  What does that mean?  What does it  imply?Do people here accept that the simultaneous or synchronous implemenation of socialism everywhere throughout the word in one go is simply a not a viable proposition? Do they agree that, if it was attempted (as the Left Coms et al propose) it would inadvertently mean  (given the relatively uneven growth of the socialist movement that is bound to be the case) having to set up DOTPs in different parts world,  pending everywhere in the world falling under a DOTP, so that collectively they can establish world wide socialism in one go?  That being so,  how could such DOTPs fail to function as just anther form of  capitalist administration that would effectively lead to, or inevitably evolve into,  a dictatorship of capital over the wage labour and so ultimately  would work against the the establishment of global socialism? Or do they accept that logically, if socialism cannot possibly be established instantaneously on a worldwide basis, that the only  alternative to this is that it  would commence somewhere and spread outwards from there, with capitalist state after capitalist state falling to the expanding sphere of socialism in domino fashion.  How does this differ from the theory of "socialism in one country" (which I believe it does in several important respects)?  How would an expanding socialist part of the world articulate with a contracting capitalist part?  What would be the forms of interactions between these two parts of the world?  And what be the role of a growing  global socialist movement in this whole process  given the fact that if a significant socialist majority was attained in one part of the world it would presuppose, at the very least, significant socialist minorities everywhere else, along with a radically transformed socio-political environment I am interested in getting a handle on the nitty gritty details of such a hypothetical set up.  To hell with the argument that we shouldn't speculate and "write recipes for the cook-shops of the future' . Lets live a little dangerously and use our imagination….

[robbo203]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Robin,the state, in the form of communication nodes; command and control points; files, records, archives, procedures and the like, is a very real Thing. Oh, and guns.  Lots of guns.   I for one am allergic to dying of typhoid on the morning after the revolution.Capitalism has a past record of continuing in the face of it's apparent imminent abolition: the historic response has been to fight.  Just as the Southern Slave owners, faced with their imminent doom chose one of the bloodiest wars in history as an option.

 YMS A state entails guns – yes certainly – and all the other stuff you mention.  But guns dont necessarily entail a state – anymore than a peice of machinery necessarily entails "capital".  The "state" and "capital" are only phenomena that happen under certain socio-economic conditions i.e. the state implies the existence of class relations.  No classes means no state  So guns can indeed exist outside the framework of a statist (class-based)  society.  That said, I have no doubt that, come a socialist society, swords will very rapidly be turned into plouhshares and AK47s into laptops or whatever. Unlike some on the Left  with  their hopelessly romantic and deparately dangeorus talk of barricades and armed revolt, I take the view that the growth of socialist movement will in fact, if anything, make for  a fundamentally pacifying effect on society as democratic socialist values seep into every nook and cranny, incrementally transforming the general social outlook.  States will be increasingly restrained and held captive by an electorate that, more and more, is not going to stand for war as a means of revolving conflict. A sifting process will commence that  will expel those more brutal elements of capitalist polity – like fascism – to the political margins or beyond – extinction.   Two sets of diametrically opposed ideas and values cannot flourish in the same soil.  Interpersonal relations too are going to be affected. Less and less will we see as others as simply a means to our own self interested ends.  What, for want of a better term, I call a "proletarian morality" (Engels) will take root and spread So I would fundamentally question your claim that Capitalism's historic response in the face of its "apparent eminent abolition" has been to fight .  We  have never ever been in this situation.  Not even remotely.  So the radically pacifying effect of a growing global socialist movement on capitalism has never had th opportunity to be tested or put into effect. If the state seriously wanted to crush the enemies of capitalism, NOW would be the time to do it when its enemies are weak and few in number.  When the writing is on the wall for capitalism it will be far too late . More to the point,  the very inclination to want to do so would have been selected out through a process of ideological evolution as a waning dominant ideology struggles to hegemonically maintain it grip and finds itself having to adapt to accommodate the changing currents of social opinion. One final thought. Yes the state is a "very real thing".  But only in the Durkhiemian sense of a "social fact". However, there is a very real danger of transferring a mode of  looking at the world pertaining the physical sciences to the social sciences. I'm talking about the problem of "reflexivity "as it is called.  We are part of the very thing we are "observing". It is impossible to step outside society abd "scientifically" examine it from an external standpoint as one might a rock or a plant or aome chemical reaction.  Indeed, at a more fundamental level of quantum physics with a phenomenom like the "observer effect", some  might even question that last claim. Point is that the state is rather like a kind of collective conspiracy or motivating myth.   We invest it with a normative "reality".  We develop a set of expectations around, and in relation to,  this "thing" we call a state – which expectations coercively influence, or reinforce compliance, in others. That is what a social institution is – a routinised regularised pattern of rule-dominated behaviour and the state is a prime example of a social institition. This to me is the strongest argument of all for "capturing" the state .  It affords the opportunity for a kind of cathartic symbolic switchdover from  one set of social rules to another  Rather like a ballon which we catch in our hands and then proceed to prick with a pin, the state instantly implodes.  And all that hot air generated by a generations of capitalist politicians dissipates safely into the atmospehere.  Or on second thoughts maybe we could recycle all that hot air even if it it does not count as a very clean energy source. Didn't Willaim Morris suggest in News from Nowhere turning the Houses of Parliament into a gassworks?    

[robbo203]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

I must be missing something here.1) The socialist party achieves political majority within the working class.2) The working class achieves political power.3) The organised working class, using political power, works to abolish capitalism.Now, if only for a few days, hours or nano-seconds, the political preponderance of the working class will exist within capitalism.Now, we can also envision a situation where the working class could take control of the state, but be unable to abolish capitalism (the vexed question of the local majority, or the technical majority).  Whilst it would ultimately have to govern within the limits of the interest of capital, such local/technial majorities could work to keep naked state power out of the direct hands of the agents of capital.For example, in the UK, I'd imagine any "socialist" administration that, say, won a parliamentary majority with 25% of th vote to do such things as (at least have referendums proposing to) abolish the Monarchy, House of Lordsa and Prime Minister and introduce annual Parliaments, elected office for important positions (Chief Exec of the NHS, BBC, etc.), etc.

 If anything, I would have thought it would be the other way round.  Even before the capture of political power by a socialist majority  capitalism would surely be struggling to maintain its own existence.  If the "expectation of profit " is  what motivates production under capitalism then what becomes of that when the expectation of capitalism's imminent demise becomes increasingly insistent and pervasive? How, for instance, do you persuade investors to invest when they are not going to receive a return should  socialism be just around the corner?I think this whole idea of a socialist majority  activily "using" the state in some positive sense -to become , as it were, a "socialist state"  albeit a very provisional and temporary one – in order to abolish capitalism  is throughly misleading. Better to think of  the capture of political power by a socialist majority as being tantamout to the immeidate abolition of the capitalism and ipso facto the immediate dissolution of  the state as an expression or institutional tool of class society. The state is not a " thing" and we should avoid thinking of it in such reified terms.  It is a  social institution and social institutions are "established  patterns of rule-governed behavior.".The whole point about the capture of political behaviour is surely its symbolic import.  It marks a change in the basic rules of the social game , expressing the wish of a significant majority.  With that wish having been expressed politically, to talk of capitalism continuing  to somehow linger on, dying a slow death,  seems to me a little nonsensical.  How could it possibly survive within a social climate governed by the expectation of such a socialist majority? Its like agreeing to change over to a game of chess while allowing  some aspects of the game of draughts  you had  just decided to finish to nevertheless remain. We breathe life into the state by acquiescing in it.   Take away that acquiescence  and it will simply evaporate. If a recalcitrant minority seeks to forcibly  resist the new social order , their resistance will be met, not by the state, but by the new society itself and by whatever methods it decides to use in its own defence

[robbo203]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I think what i was describing  the process where the State is transformed into the administration of things , as you say,  rather than dwell upon the DOTP which we all seem to agree is a flawed concept so yes i did not use the classic definition in political left circles except the general understanding to mean the democratic will of the people, and since the majority of people are members of the working class, it is class democracy until indeed capitalist relations are made history.The transformation of the State into organs of social democracy i think is a more worthwhile debate since it is the more appropriate discussion on how to make socialsm practicable and viable than debating the DOTP, a throwaway aside from a 19th century writer who picked it up from another earlier writer but like another vague and seldom used  phrase "permanent revolution" it is seized upon for polemic purposes and distracts.

 I understand the point you are making, Alan, but I would strongly caution against making use of the concept of the DOTP in any way shape or form- -even as code for  the mere capture of political power when it is pretty much understood to be  a state of affairs that emerges after the capture of political power by the working class .  Indeed there are even some who argue, from a vanguardist perspective, that only a minority of the working class need be socialists in order for the working class to capture power – a problermatic notion which I think automatically invites substitutionisim (the replacement of the class by the Party/vanguard as the governing organ) To be honest, Im quite surprised, judging by the reponses on this thread , by  the causalness of the SPGB's attitude towards the whole question of the DOTP.  I would have thought, if anything, given its basic theoretical orientration, it would be robustly critical of the idea (and perhaps even produce a pamphlet on the subject!) .  The whole dogma of the DOTP has evolved into something far more than a throwaway aisde from a 19th century  writer.  It has become a central organising principle of the so called revolutionary left and I maintain it is a principle that gives warrant to  their underlying reformism.  After all,  the logic of DOTP, on the face of it , would suggests that capitalism can indeed be run in the interests of the workers who can indeed dictate terms to the capitalists .  And there can be no doubt that under the DOTP it is capitalism that will prevail since by definition the proletariat is the exploited class in capitalism and thus presupposes capitalism. That apart , there is still the question of how a socialist society might come about in  spatial terms which has not really been touched on in this thread. I think we can safely assume a degree of unnevenness in the growth of socialist consciopsuness that would rule out the synchronous implementation of socialism everywhere.  What does that mean for  those parts of the world that attain a significant socialist majority first?The Left's reponse is that they should hold fire and set up a DOTP ands continue with capitalism.  I think thats a ridiculous notion.  A majority in one part of the world presupposes a significant minority of socialists everywhere else and a radically transformed social environment – both locally and globally – that would provide the context in which those parts of the world where a majority had been first attained  can go ahead and establish a socialist society.The really interesting questions still remain to be discussed such as what might be the form in which an expanding socialist part of the world relates to the residual capitalist states.  The point is that these kinds of issues should not be dissmised as "merely speculative", something that can be left to a future socialist movement to deal with.  Like the question of whether or not a socialist society would be centrally planned, they are of an inherently  different nature to issues such as whether or not a socialist society will continue with nuclear power.  That latter issue is indeed a matter of speculation but not what we are talking about hereWhat we are talking here is an organic aspect of the socialist case, a logical deduction from what  will almost certainly be the case – the relatively unneven spatial growth of the socialist movement.  It is thus an issue that cannot be avoided or sidelined and requires therefore some kind of theoretical position be developed in relation to this matter if  the case for socialism is to come across as more plausible

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