stuartw2112
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It seems, LB, that your ideology is preventing you from understanding my meaning, which is making you very confused! I've already told you that I am a communist – although to make such a big deal out it is more identity politics than anything else. As for the FT and Economist, you haven't grasped my point. But actually, even your point is wrong. Read enough issues and you'll find the concept of vampires discussed often enough – the term they usually use is "rentier".
LB: It's not bourgeois, it's pre-bourgeois, dating from at least 600BC, but probably long before that. I learnt it from Buddhists, but you can learn it from many places, including secular ones. And it is irrelevant to the question of whether or not you donate to the vampires. All workers have to donate to the vampires, regardless of what's going on between their ears.My point about the FT and Economist is not that they sing from the same hymn sheet as Marx. It is that someone who wants to learn about economics, including what Marx had to say about it, could get most everything they need to know from these publications. They don't need to do a three year course in Marxist 'science'.
Thanks very much twc, I'm delighted you liked it. Glad we could see eye to eye over this, if over nothing else! All the best
twc: No apology necessary!LB: Yes, OK, that's where we disagree. I think that, actually, with training, it is possible to turn off the ideology in your head, and that, when you do, the result is peace and happiness. Sometimes, you turn it back on again, that's fine. But the ability to turn it off and not be ruled by it – that's freedom.
LB: I can't see that we're disagreeing about all that much, and I can't seem to get you to see the point I'm making. In trying to make it, I'm making myself seem more hostile to socialism, communism, marxism, whatever, than I really am. Marx is and has long been a guiding light for me. Just not the only one. You ask me what my ideological starting point it. I see your point: if I was a scientist or a philosopher writing a paper or book, I would have to bring my ideological starting point, or my theory, to the light of consciousness, and be explicit about it, if I am to have any hope of being genuinely 'scientific'. But I'm not either of those things, I'm just a bloke chatting on a discussion forum. And as a bloke going round my everyday life, my "ideological starting point" is to notice when my mind is caught in ideology, and then just let it go and return to life.twc: Apart from your good self, every SPGBer who has expressed an opinion really liked my essay when they read it, or listened to it as a talk I gave at Head Office. If you find it heretical, you'd better take it up with them. Actually, I'm not a refugee from the left, but from the SPGB – I left for the second time some time ago. Not over any point of Marxist dogma (and I decline your polite offer to go over it all with a fine tooth comb), but because I found the attitude of all party members who expressed an opinion on the Occupy movement and Arab Spring to be intolerable, inhuman and unsocialist (unmarxist too). Having said that, I'm still very fond of the party and its political position. It's why you still find me hanging out in places like this.
Communists and communism existed millennia before Marx. So did moral indignation against usurped power – and the ability to turn such indignation into colourful metaphors and stories. Indeed, these things are probably as old as humanity itself.When it comes to Marx's economic science, what is there in it that wasn't already known, or isn't now a part of economic discourse? Very little – and what little there is is of dubious value. I don't say this to disparage Marx. Read my essay, linked to above, and I think you'll find I am second to few in my admiration for him. Who else could pen an agitational pamphlet that is still read 150 years later? And Capital, whatever its scientific value, is a masterpiece of world literature. The danger is in attaching too strongly to Marx's words, even worse to his attitudes and behaviour in debate, and treating them as some kind of 'key to all mythologies'. The result is monstrous, as twc proves every time he gets to the keyboard. As I said before, imagine that kind of aggressiveness with a gun in its hands. Wouldn't it be better for everyone if these troublesome idealists and wooly minded religionists just got out of our way? Why can't they understand our science? Why must they stand in the way of human progress? Wouldn't it be better if we could just sneak the odd bullet into these recalcitrant minds?As is well known round these parts, Lenin leads to Stalin. But Marx leads to Lenin. Or he can do if we're not careful – if we don't keep our moral wits about us.
LB: let's try another tack. Say there's a chap, he's reasonably well educated and intelligent, has his head screwed on, considers himself a left-leaning socialist in a vague way, and, because he has a job, feels very much like the life is being sucked out of him by vampires, and that he's being shafted by thieves. Despite his good general education, he is not well read in economics and has never read Marx, but wants to understand what has gone on in the crisis. What of vital importance could he get from grappling with "the law of value" and departments 1 and 2 and all that gubbins, that he couldn't have got from reading, say, The Economist (I've switched publications to one I'm more familiar with in case it gets hot in here!)?
I agree with most of what you say, and will try to explain where I think we differ by asking a question. What is there, in Marxist 'science', what does it tell me, that I couldn't have got from a common sensical, critical reading of the Financial Times, and perhaps a few other publications or blogs for some context and debate? I can assure you that I have tried to answer this question myself, by reading extensively in Marx, and in the other things I mention, and I drew a blank.
I agree with almost everything you say, LB, except I don't think it's fair to keep blaming poor old Engels. What you would say would seem to imply that the best thing a Marxist 'science' could do would be to forget about Engels and go back to Marx, and just focus on what Marx said. But everyone says that, and we don't seem to get very far. Take the financial crisis. What agreement is there about the causes of that? There is some agreement, but it's all on the level of journalistic common sense. Go 'deeper', into the 'science' of it, whether the 'science' of Marxism or Keynesianism or whatever, and all you get is more and more confused. The best we can get would seem to be a Piketty style investigation – but then that is, as far as I'm aware, entirely empircal and common sensical, and anway only confirms with data what everyone knew anyway.
Above was reply to LBird. My reply to twc is that his long answer to my brief question seems to be "no". But if anyone can decode, please do.
I think you're right about how science works (I think it's more or less what I was saying: there's no 'essence' to grab hold of, it's theory and maths and testing all the way down) though whether that's what Marx was doing, or what he achieved in creating, I'm not sure. If Marxism is a science, it sure is a strange one – not even it's strongest proponents and adherents can even agree what the terms mean or what would constitute confirmation or refutation! That's why in the essay I went with the idea that Capital should be read as what its subtitle hints it is – a critique of political economy, not an alternative political economy. Or, as Wheen puts it, a satirical utopia.
Sorry twc, but I still have no idea what you're talking about. Marx's quote on science is all very well as far as it goes, but it's old hat: science has shown there is no "essence" of things, that it's "appearance" all the way down and out the other side again. And I find it hard to believe that you object to appeals to our common humanity, since one of the most important things science has done in recent decades is prove beyond all possibility of doubt that all humanity is indeed one – ending any justification for racism, one of the great evils of the past few centuries. I'll challenge you again: could you tell me, in a sentence or two, using your own words, and preferably words of plain English, what our argument is about?
Well, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about twc, but it sounds damn saucy you naughty thing! Could you perhaps tell me in a single sentence, in words of plain English, what our disagreement is?
If I understand you, twc, I agree with you. My point was precisely that you can't just follow any predetermined precepts and avoid moral complexity, including conflict and violence. Nevertheless, the precepts (morality, whatever you want to call it) shouldn't just be tossed aside as so much garbage – they are guidelines for living, widely accepted because they work. Compare Marx's evaluation of religion – he thought it the highest human achievement, not rubbish. Capitalism may know no compassion – but we do.
The essay on Marx was by me – thanks for sharing, I'm glad you liked it. I wrote it just before joining the SPGB for the second time, and I can't find much to disagree with in it now.If I was to make any changes, it would to concede that Marx's bourgeois, moralising critics do have a point. Socialists contend that a better world is possible – a world where we treat each other better, and don't allow greed for wealth or power to destroy our societies. It is reasonable to expect that people who make such claims also live in a way that demonstrate the truth of the proposition. My answer then to Marx and Engels's moralising critics would be that actually they did lead morally upright lives and they did act in ways that were true to their principles. They made mistakes of course – but they were human, that's what you'd expect. One of the great things about the SPGB is that, in my experience, all of its members have done likewise. Of course they make mistakes too – one has only to look at how easily a disagreement about the meaning of words or about the right course of action can blow up into anger and aggressiveness. But overcoming these things is very hard, much easier said than done.The other change I would make would be to try to make my understanding of what Lao Tzu is talking about clearer. In his Tao Te Ching, he makes morality a "second best" to natural human feeling. But his shouldn't be misunderstood – it's still a "best", even if only a second best! His view is close to that of Buddhism. If you can stay mindful and act wisely and compassionately, then the precepts will keep themselves. But if in doubt, follow the instructions – ie, just do what the precepts or moral rules say. This is second-best because no moral rule can apply universally, you need to be sensitive to context. "Do not steal" is a fine rule to follow, but it leads to evil if applied in a context where a few rich men "own" all the bread and the population is starving.To put this morality in a socialist context, consider what you do when confronted with a picket line. No doubt in the real world what you should do will be beset by all kinds of complex and contradictory impulses – you'll have to make your own decision in the full light of all these, guided by your compassion for your fellow workers. But if in doubt, just follow the instructions, just stick to second-bests and follow the moral rule: never cross a picket line!
