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Al,Our Obj and DOP make us a political party.Nobody disagrees that we are small.  We can thank the possibilists for that [Social Democrats and Communists].Zero is very small indeed, but it is still a number [in most number systems].  We are larger than zero.Do you recall how embarrassing the centenary celebration for Darwin’s Origin of Species was.  Hardly more tepidly enthusiastic than the stunned reception to Lyell and Hooker’s presentation of the original Darwin–Wallace paper at the Linnean Society. Yet, within a few years of the centenary, everything changed.  The mounting evidence suddenly became overwhelming:The Leakeys at Olduvai Gorge, plate tectonics, radioactive rock dating, Punk–Eek (punctuated equilibrium), cladistics, Steven Gould, David Attenborough, Carl Sagan on stunning prime time TV specials that set new presentation and filming standards, and drew huge anticipatory audiences.Now, with genome sequencing, evolution couldn’t be more exciting.  From moribund to the sensation of Jurassic Park in three decades!  Evolution is the hottest science around, with fabulous dinosaur discoveries all the time in China and South America, and all kids just adore dinosaurs.  Marx will simply take longer, but the capitalist class is doing its nasty bit to hurry things along. There will be mounting evidence.  That’s the way scientific change works and, as I hold, we are Marx’s scientific party.Courage and patience.

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LBird wrote:

humans create both ‘classes’ and ‘objects’   (1)

Statement (1) expresses a conclusion drawn from experimental observation of the practice of object-oriented programming.  It is an empirical fact.Empirical facts cannot be their own immediate explanation¹  If they were, we would remain forever trapped inside the world of concrete experience.  All experience would then be self evident.Empirical facts are part of the raw material of their own explanation, but they cannot explain themselves.  To explain anything we must leave our ‘outer’ world of concrete experience and enter our ‘inner’ world of abstract thought.Explanation of the empirical ‘outer’ world, or that-sidedness, can only be mediated, non-empirically, in our ‘inner’ world, or this-sidedness.Unconscious MaterialismYou forget that, by appealing to statement (1) as evident proof of idealism, you are appealing to the crude materialism of an empirical fact speaking for itself.  This is a trap for all folks who think that concrete facts hold self-evident content, as you are here implying, without appealing to theory, as you’ve hitherto sometimes said.This forum was invaded last year by (to put it kindly) a thoughtful racist, exploiting the same illusion that a fact was its own self-evident explanation; in his case, the fact of voluntary segregation was sufficient proof of racial incompatibility.The world of our immediate concrete experience is only half our world, and stands in need of explanation in the world of our abstract ideas, where mediated explanation resides, whether you’re an idealist or a materialist. So much for your dismissal of the categories concrete and abstract.By itself, statement (1) proves nothing.GOTO Considered HarmfulWith a contemptuous snort, you defend GOTO programming, five decades after Dijkstra² considered it harmful.Recent computing languages like Java, JavaScript, Python, etc. outlaw it.  The dominant desktop programming languages derived from C [C++ and Objective C] historically permit it, but deprecate its use, and provide structured alternatives like exception handling, etc.Anyone can use GOTOs where they are available, as Donald Knuth defended, for special cases.  But that master of the Art of Computer Programming, and father of modern algorithmic theory, writes what he calls, quite correctly, literate programs in his macroprocessor Web language, that ultimately typesets them, automatically cross-referenced and indexed, so that they may be read for literary and scientific pleasure, as well as generate executable code.  That’s human creativity.Notes¹ You formerly observed that concrete facts lack theoretical content, but put it, inexpertly, by pronouncing that your exemplary “proletarian” scientist distinguished himself from the bourgeois one by “changing facts to suit his theory”, a pronouncement so casuistic as to distort, and ultimately destroy, any possible correct meaningful content you intended to convey.² Dijkstra considered “the use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence”.

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pgb wrote:

So if you are a member, you can never question the Object and D of P. Right?

Right.WhyIf a member conscientiously disagrees with our Object and D of P that member puts himself outside the party.Should you find yourself in this position, you have no honourable choice but to join another party with a different Object and D of P that you do agree with, where you are consistently at liberty to attack the original party for its shortcomings as seen from your newfound position.How on earth can you attack principles by adhering to them, unless you aim for reductio ad absurdum.  But adherence to what is absurd, makes it absurd to adhere; absurd to belong.A principled thinker should logically depart.If a physicist disagrees with one of Newton’s laws he puts himself outside of classical physics, say, into relativity or quantum physics.  If a geometer disagrees with, say, Euclid’s fifth postulate (his parallel postulate) he puts himself outside of classical geometry into hyperbolic or elliptic geometries.In practice, non-newtonians and non-euclideans undermined their science inside of it, before they established their new science outside of it.  Then they logically moved on to adopting new principles.  [Thomas Kuhn gives the classic account (thoroughly Hegelian resolution of the struggle of ideas) of this process of paradigm shift.]Non-newtonian physics and non-euclidean geometry prove as logically consistent as the originals.  They must be or they are scientifically useless.  [Coherence , or scientific consistency, is essentially the argument against dualism, or syncretism, as a scientifically useful position, but merely the type specimen of temporary expediency.]No more than this is being said of the socialist party.  It sticks to its principles, or it is replaced by another with better principles.  It must be politically coherent to be politically useful.The real question you must answer is — what are these better principles?  Roydon feared 100 years of disproof.  You and alanjjohnstone fear another 70 years of disproof.What are the better principles that bury the party and, like the Phoenix, rise anew out of its ashes?If you ain’t got ’em, you’re merely absurd and dishonorable.Socialism, despite the cynicism bred of capitalism [in fact, in spite of the cynicism bred of capitalism] can only be achieved by opposing absurdity and dishonour, or it is doomed from the start.The party too presents itself as a coherent entity, that is logically consistent with its foundation principles. Its Object and D of P embody the party.  They mark it out as what it is, and what it is not.  Just like the principles of physics and geometry.Many avowed socialists have expressed conscientious doubts over, what is essentially, the party’s Object and D of P.  Bernstein was the first from within.  The Fabians scoffed at them long ago.  The anarchists ignore them.  The Trotskyites give them lip service.  And, from his Socialist Standard interview, Andrew Kliman cannot perceive their coherence.  [Poor old David Harvey hardly counts.]All who conscientiously disagree with our Object and D of P are perfectly free to hold, without needing our permission, their own principles [such as they are] and belong to their own organizations that adhere to their own principles [such as they do], and then from their own position [such as it is] attack our principles and us.Since you choose to do so from within[?], please tell us just where our Object and D of P are deficient?

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Soul SearchingThe language of religion doesn’t bother me at all.  English is deeply indebted to the language of the King James version.Religion is a reactionary part of the social superstructure, and is now largely subservient within the capitalist superstructure, which itself is subservient to the capitalist social base.The capitalist social base, rather than religion, is what we are determined to replace.With a socialist base, religion [which in the West now persists mainly by permission of the capitalist base] loses the foundation that supplies its need.To return.  I wrote that, unlike the socialist parties, other parties go through continual soul searching all of the time.  That’s the terminology they use.I continued my line of thought, in consistent terminology, saying that:  unlike us, other parties are continually forced to search their souls because they ain’t got no soul there to find.  We already found ours in our Object and DOP. We ain’t no need to keep on searchin’.  Big deal about the religious terminology.Australian IdeologyYou observe that you and I hold fundamentally different views about our Object and DOP. Too true.  To you they are ideological.  To me they are scientific.  They result from Marx’s science.If they are ideological, as you aver, how do you decide which ideology to accept? If they are ideological, as you aver, where do they come from?If they are ideological, as you aver, what hope does anyone have that our Object and DOP, or any other Object and DOP, will help us attain socialism and, once we’ve attained it, help us sustain socialism as a viable world social system?On the other hand, I claim that our DOP is the road to socialism [though others may doubt its central role, which I’ve argued is absurdly inconsistent with the DOP itself].I hold that our Object is the central scientific consequence of the materialist conception of history.  I hold that our Object is the conclusion of Marx’s critique of the capitalist social system — his towering achievement, to which all else he achieved is subservient.  Marx wrote it himself.Our Object defines socialism as a social process and, if attained through our DOP, supplies the ultimate “proof of the pudding” that social being determines consciousness, and thereby materialistically guarantees  the viability and sustainability of world socialism, whose determined conciousness is truly up to running a world-wide social system worthy of mankind.

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Some preliminary pages from a very long document written by W. J. Clarke in the late 1980s that covers the founding of the Socialist Party of Australia, and its association with the Australian Seamen’s Union.This has been transcribed today, and tidied with minor editing.  I will deposit all the originals with the SPGB.pgb, I believe Johnson’s son Desmond collected his father’s papers upon his death in 1961 in order to edit and publish them in some form.  Bill Clarke requested access, but access was declined.  I have no idea where they are now, hopefully (not as you suggest) at the bottom of the harbour.HISTORY [Forerunners (to come)]FoundingThe foundation meeting of the (World) Socialist Party of Australia was held on 22 January 1924 in the meeting room of the Theatrical Employee’s Association in Melbourne.  The hall had been made available after discussions between the Secretary of the Association and comrade Jack Temple, and it was accepted free of charge.Those present were comrades:   C. (Charley?) Wardley,  J. (Jack) O’Brien,  C. (Con) O’Brien,  A. (Gus) O’Brien,  W. (Bill) Delaney,  J. (Jack) Temple,  R. (Ron?) Buchanan,  Y. London,  J. (Jack) Gillies,  J. Grant.Com. Temple moved:

Quote:

That a Socialist Party be formed in Australia to be named the Socialist Party of Australia.

Com. Gus O’Brien seconded the motion and the resolution was carried unanimously.Com. Temple gave a preliminary talk on the object of the Socialist Party of Australia (SPA).  He then moved:

Quote:

That the object of the Party be:  The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community.

A statement of guiding principles for the Party, based upon the principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB), but with necessary geographical alteration, was presented and discussed in meetings held over about 14 sessions, and then accepted.These foundation meetings attracted more members, often from ships trading on the Australian coast.The first secretary was Gus O’Brien, one of three brothers, who had a long-time association with the Party.  Con’s wife Edith, and their son Peter, later became life-long members.  Gus O’Brien was elected Secretary–Treasurer after Jack Temple had declined nomination for Treasurer, on the grounds of uncertainty over his employment.Membership of the Party was fixed at a rate of 1/6d [7½ p] per week.Standing RulesCom. Young drew up a set of standing orders, and these were adopted, with minor amendment.  Having experienced the chaos that plagued other organizations, members agreed to lay down rules of guidance, among which were:

Quote:

No member shall issue or accept a challenge to debate other than on behalf of the Party; any further action shall rest with the Party.No member of the Party may take the platform of any other party except in opposition.No member can also be a member of any other political party.

Upon settling matters of Party machinery, the Party attended to questions of means of propaganda, meetings and lectures, debates with other organizations, and educational classes.Literature recommended for members’ reading included  “The Communist Manifesto”,  “Socialism, Utopian and Scientific”,  “Wage, Labour and Capital”,  “Value, Price and Profit”,  Socialist Standard (the SPGB official organ),  and the “SPGB Manifesto”.ActivityCom. London became tutor of the economics class.  Com. Temple lectured on social evolution.By now, Coms Barney Kelly and Jim Fitzgerald, both seamen, had joined and were active in meetings.  H. McEllen and J. Lamb had also joined.W. (Bill) Clarke and W. (Bill) Casey and other “forerunners” were active in Sydney, where a second branch was soon to be formed.CredentialsOne of the first challenges to debate came from [communist] Joe Shelley.  The Party instructed the secretary to write to the Communist Party, checking his credentials to represent it.  This was a necessary condition of debate, owing to the number of disaffiliated individuals then falsely claiming to represent various parties.There was a different twist to arranging debates with the Australian Labor Party [ALP].  Frank Anstey (MP), Maurice Blackburn, (MP) and Don Cameron (later ALP Senator), squibbed arranged debates or challenges, either by choice or by instruction of the Labor Party.Yarra BankOn 6 May 1924, Young and Temple were appointed speakers to address gatherings on the Yarra Bank, where open-air meetings were allowed on Sundays.  [twc: The Yarra river flows through Melbourne.]  Buchanan and McEllen were elected as chairmen to the meetings.LiteratureOn 2 July 1924, Fitzgerald, who was sailing to London, was credentialed to obtain back numbers of the Socialist Standard for free distribution in Australia on his return.  He was also to obtain other material from the SPGB that was unavailable in Australia.Growing MembershipOn 25 November 1924, S. (Stan) Willis made application to join, and was accepted into the Party.  [twc: His son, Ralph, though groomed to be Australian treasurer (like Chancellor of the Exchequer) under Prime Minister Hawke, was thwarted by Labor Party factionalism, but later became Australian treasurer under Prime Minister Keating.]Willis was one of a number of Victorian Railways employees that included boilermakers, train examiners and assistant station masters.  For a time, seamen and railway men formed a large proportion of the membership.Street CornerNaturally, at this very early stage, there were few members qualified to present the Party’s case on its behalf.  Speakers were first required to pass a stiff test in order to speak for it.  Lack of speaker qualification did not preclude members from chairing Party meetings.  (Note: Eddie Ward’s opinion on this.  [twc: presumably it was scathing, coming from Ward.])By October 1927, the Party had developed (numerically) to the point where it could apply to the Melbourne suburban councils of Prahran, Fitzroy, Richmond, South Melbourne, and the Melbourne City Council for permits to speak at certain street corners.  Application was also made for permit to stand on the Yarra Bank.  That was the procedure in those days.Two more members were placed on the speaker’s list — Willis and Gillies.DebatesChallenges were made to or by the W.I.I.U., the Communist Party, the I.W.W, the Henry George (Single Taxers) League, and other organizations.The W.I.I.U, was asked to show “How is Industrial Unionism a very important and powerful weapon for working class emancipation”, and “How the Russian Revolution of November 1917 demonstrates this”.There was a debate between C. Wardley (Socialist Party) and Bob Brodney (Communist Party).  Of course, the SPA rejected a request from the Communist Party to join one of its publicity demonstrations.A feature that plagued any arrangement for debate was constant procrastination on the part of opponents in arriving at a decision to accept.Open air meetings were now held regularly, and the Melbourne suburbs of Elsternwick and Brunswick were added to the list.An Open Air Meeting at Brunswick — The Brunswick Bell-RingerIt was at a Brunswick meeting, when Com. Clarke was speaking, that Frank Anstey (ALP) took umbrage over the assertion that the Labor Party was a supporter of the capitalist system.  “It’s a damn lie!” yelled Anstey as he rushed madly at the platform.  There was a large crowd in attendance, and several in the crowd managed to restrain Anstey.Clarke responded “This is the first time I’ve heard a politician call himself a liar.  I will give you the facts.”  Continuing, “In theory, the Labor Party opposes capitalism; in practice, it is its supporter and subsidizer”.“The man who said that was Mr Frank Anstey himself”.  Anstey was referred to his very own statement in Hansard.Now, the Labor Party used to speak at this same street corner on alternate Friday nights to the Socialist Party.  At election times, a very solid ALP supporter used to arrange their platform, and vigorously ring a large bell to herald the start of ALP meetings.  He was present on the night when Anstey rushed the Socialist Party platform.The solid bell-ringer approached our platform, and asked permission to speak from it for a few minutes.  We agreed, as it was always Socialist Party practice to let anyone take our platform to disagree with us should they wish to do so.He mounted the platform, and we prepared ourselves for a blinding attack on the Party.  Instead, to the utter disbelief of all present, he passionately proclaimed “I have been an Anstey supporter for many years.  I have rung my bell dozens of times to announce ALP speakers from this very spot.  After what I have seen tonight, I'll never ring that bell for the ALP again!”He attended our meetings several times afterwards, but never expressed a desire to join.  He couldn’t break with many long-time friends in the ALP.JournalAt the meeting of 10 August 1929, the Executive Committee recommended publication of an official party organ.  [twc: It was later called Socialist Comment.]Parliamentary ActivityOn 10 March 1931, it was agreed “That the E.C. consider the advisability of contesting the Melbourne seat at the next Federal Election”.On 24 March 1931, it was agreed to set up a Parliamentary Fund, and that the Press be notified of the Party’s intention to stand a candidate for the Federal seat of Melbourne Ports.In consequence, the Party decided “That in the event of any member being elected to Parliament his emoluments shall be under the control of the Party”.[To be continued]

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Your single pseudo-code destroys your logic:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/pannekoeks-theory-science?page=28#comment-8529Bluster as you may…No serious developer writes  “s****; f***** "GO TO's", but instead shuns them like the plague, even when writing pseudo-code.No socialist programmer could fail to take the bait (for, against or non-committal) of my object-oriented analogy of Marx’s ascent–descent method.Jacksonian regimentation was designed to weed out creativity at the software implementation level.  It’s you I pity.Human creativity resides in the algorithms and data structures.  Methodology is for channeling that creativity and, in large projects, taming it for the general goal.If you didn’t believe in the general goal, then you must have chafed under the general regimentation.

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First Contact with the SPGB

pgb wrote:

Unlike Clarke and Casey, both of whom I believe had contact with the SPGB before arriving in Australia, Jacob Johnson came out here as as young child from Sweden so unlikely he knew of the SPGB beforehand.

Actually, from going through Clarke’s autobiographical document, he first “came into contact” with the SPGB in Melbourne.  Here follows an extract I’ve just transcribed from the document, which I’ve only started to read in conjunction with his industrial and party history.  The date is probably 1919 or 1920.

W. J. Clarke wrote:

Back in Melbourne, I made for the shipping office, but there was little [work at sea] doing.  So I booked a room in the Yarra Family Hotel to bide my time.  There were a few seamen staying there …One of the chaps I met in the Hotel was Barney Kelly*, a little dapper Liverpudlian Irishman, and we remained mates right up to the day he died.Barney showed me the ropes around Melbourne.  The first place he took me to was the Yarra Bank where, at that time, the old IWW members used to gather and hold their meetings.  There were also radical speakers from The Victorian Socialist Party²; the Socialist Labour Party, the Victorian Labour Party, the Anarchist Chummy Fleming³, …There were quite a few independents and non-attached spruikers⁴.Among them were Jack Temple, a supporter of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, and Bill Casey, a strong supporter of Temple.

Notes* Kelly caused a minor upset at the first Red Trade Union International.  See Materialism post #241, http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/long-awaited-materialism-thread?page=23#comment-12417.² The Victorian Socialist Party included among its ranks future wartime prime minister Curtin, as well as Anstey, Blackburn and Cameron, mentioned in Clarke’s history, post #6, above.³ For Chummy Fleming, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chummy_Fleming.%5D⁴ Spruiker, Australian slang for “outdoor speaker”.

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Refused WorkHere follows an excerpt from Clarke’s autobiographical manuscript describing connivance between the shipowners and the Communist union officials to ban his employment.  It substantiates the case that the Communist officials prevented jobs being given to anti-Communist members.This is a verbatim transcription, side comments and all, with minimal editing.

W. J. Clarke wrote:

After the 1935 strike (see History)After I refused to recognize the Communist officials, particularly when they tried to force me to collect money [subscription dues] from the scabs they had taken into the Union, at the expense of hundreds of our best men being left without jobs, I decided I could no longer carry on [as Secretary].I called a meeting, explained the position to the members, and told them that I would resign my position rather than accept such a treacherous proposition.The members pleaded with me to stay on but, by this time, the so-called Communist officials had put round the rumour that, as long as Clarke remained in office, the owners would not give our loyal members a job.I stood fast [to my resolve], and although I resigned, the owners were still refusing to accept anybody who had a spark of militance in him.(The full story is set out in the "History")Furthermore, I refused to take out the Dog Collar, which was a license to go to sea, introduced under the Transport Regulations that had been enforced on Waterside Workers and Seamen, alike.I did not go back to sea until World World 2.  I had kept up my [membership] contributions to the Union, but Elliot* tried to prevent me and told the owners that if they gave me a job I would only cause trouble.

Notes* Elliot, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_V._Elliott.

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Absolutely lucky!  Jackson is ancient history.  Being forced to submit to it must have been hell.  No human creativity in that.On the hardware front, try Siri.

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Surely, if you were once an object-oriented software developer, you comprehend, in your creative bones, the distinction between classes and objects — between abstraction and concrete implementation.

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This forum is for socialism.Are you claiming that the SPGB's socialist Object or Declaration of Principles, or the prosecution of its socialist case, stand in need of 1960s critical realism or of 1960s philosophy of science?  If so, make your case.Over the posts, you've changed your cherished position from idealism to syncretism;  from fiercly repudiating anything written by non-Communists [as if anyone could trust Communists] to lovingly quoting them [not just Pareto, but the trio of philosophers of science, Carr, and even Popper of all people, the arch anti-Marxist];  and now Marx, whom you once relied on for irrefutable quotes, is now contemptuously condemned for being irredeemably vague and contradictory.You are the Pareto chameleon.No-one can expect a scientific work as complex as Capital, which attempts to unmask something as complex as the capitalist social system, to be comprehended without some effort on his part.  Comprehension is simply not like that.If you really want to understand Capital, you coud do worse than follow on with David Harvey's lectures, which despite some wacky conclusions aired since he gave his course, don't impede his general approach.  Harvey even suspects, with you, that the materialist conception of history is reductive. You might enjoy him, and learn something easily about Capital.Over many posts, I've tried to explain gently, where appropriate, and to defend scientifically, as needed, Hegel, Engels and deterministic science, but mere mention of these topics, and you hit the roof. That smacks of ignorant bigotry.I fail to see any point in my participation here if you, and apparently others, can't understand a thing I'm writing.

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pgb wrote:

I think the quote on Marxism he took from Lucien Laurat's 1940 book is spot on for his purposes, and quite properly he uses it to argue a case to "re-examine all our assumptions and see if they are still sound." Who was it who once called for "the critical examination of all that exists, without fear of the results of that criticism nor of the powers that be"?

That is sheer nonsense when one is dealing with a political party whose condition of membership is acceptance of its Object and Declaration of Principles.It is disingenuous to believe that a world socialist party's “assumptions”* are anything other than its Object and Declaration of Principles.  If they aren’t, please explain what they could ever be.A world socialist party’s abstract Object and Declaration of Principles are non-negotiable conditions of party membership.  You join because you agree with them.  You leave when you disagree with them.By disagreeing with them from inside, you place yourself outside the conditions of membership.  To attack the very conditions of the party's existence is then to sabotage it from within.You may attack as much as you like from outside, and that’s totally fine.  It happens all the time.In other words, everything to do with a world socialist party is consequential upon its Object and Principles.  Otherwise they become meaningless, which they decidedly are not.  They are our means to socialism.To put it in scientific form, our Object and Principles are the abstract form of our party's existence, of which its concrete activity [mental as well as practical] is the implementation.Party activity can of course be criticized as being inconsistent with its Object and Principles. But that wasn't the article's point. As alanjjohnstone correctly observes, the article from within was writing an “obituary”. The party was officially writing its own “obituary”. Committing “suicide”.That's how crucial the Object and Principles are to its existence, just as they must be and ever have been.What was done in Australia in 1948, was done.  But the consequences were devastating.All other political parties are different from the parties of world socialism.  Most have no clear Object at all, and none have Principles worthy of human support. To the man-in-the-street it seems highly reasonable for them to go through continual soul searching, all other parties do it all of the time, except that none of them has a soul like our Object and Principles to find.But the socialist parties, thanks to the clarity and science handed down to them from Marx, have decided up front precisely what they want [our Object] and how we get there [our Principles].Notes* Our Object and Declaration of Principles are not mere “assumptions”.  They are scientific abstractions from the concrete phenomena of society, and so vulnerable to rejection if their deterministic consequences fail to describe concrete society.  That “proof of the pudding” criterion is the only scientific way anyone can annihilate them.Doubters are at liberty to make their own scientific abstractions from our shared social condition, develop their  own deterministic science, and check out its implications by the only practical means mankind knows of — “proof of the pudding ”.

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Why does it matter?Marx, Hegel and the local barber know that ideas have a different mode of existence from immediately concrete objects like a tree, a car or money; or mediatedly concrete objects like an atom or quark; or palpable abstract categories of thought like energy and capital, just as each of these has a different mode of existence, and correspondingly different modes of behaviour, or determinism.What is at stake is how we explain ideas in order to comprehend how they may be changed in order to bring about a sustainable human world socialism.In that context ideas could be made of polystyrene, as long as they work the same way as we explain them.ExplanationDeterministic explanation has always been the concern of materialists and idealists. Explanation is what they differ on.Marx developed a scientific explanation, which successfully demonstrates the subservience of social thought to social conditions. That makes him a materialist.Insofar as Marx is a monist (a materialist monist) he can only be thereby reducing consciousness to material conditions, or in slang "reducing ideas to matter", even though ideas have, for him, a mediated abstract mode of existence, while also, for him, what we take to be matter has a concrete mode of existence.Insofar as Marx distinguishes abstract thought from concrete immediacy, thought for him is not concrete matter.  For him, abstract principles are pure, whereas impure determinations derived from pure abstract principles are still abstract, but as he puts it, they are concretely abstract, something that first puzzles folks who seek to comprehend Marx's scientific method.For Marx, abstractions are abstracted from social experience, and ultimately from what is immediately concrete, or measurable stuff. To that extent they are not concrete matter.Can you now see why I am reluctant to discuss such issues.  You demand the royal road, where none exists.Marx gets more complex.  We are an ingenious species. We abstract ideas from the concrete, but we also concretize our ideas in language, art, literature, legislation, institutions, etc. We build a social superstructure.Bashkar's critical realism bypasses this approach, although I may be wrong because I've only glanced at his book.  Its focus strikes me as primarily abstract, but I'm prepared to read it in depth.Relevant to our discussion is Bashkar's foundation assumption — note, not abstraction for him — that practice gives us access to external structure.  This happens to be one of the major conclusions of Hegel's Logic, and conforms with Marx and Engels.Bashkar's foundation assumption blows out of the water your cautious philosophical niceties over our deep inability to access external determinism.Your rejection of this assumption is the primary reason you detest and mistrust scientists for "imposing", what you mistakenly believe to be, their elitist ideological views upon us all — as if science "imposes" its views on anything except upon the practitioners themselves, who must assimilate their theoretical craft in order to progress their science.You have far stronger grounds for detesting and distrusting the philosophers who insist on doing precisely just that — imposing their [for you, elitist] views upon us.  Of course, you won't detest them because you and they share a common philosophically voluntarist belief in the power of persuasion.I'm quite happy to discuss critical realism, but have scarcely the leisure to engage it at the moment. This time, however, if I draw up a structure for critical realism, as I did in the case of Schaff to help out our mutual discussion of him, please stick to it or draw up your own.  Otherwise we go round in circles.Returning to the material foundation of social thought, which philosophy blithely ignores with impugnity, I thought I made it clear that social imposition of thought is an unconscious protracted social process.  Proto-capitalism needed to go through an entire stage of wholescale pre-capitalist dispossession in order that we might now think in terms of capitalist possession, or lack thereof, as a natural mode of thought.Nevertheless, capitalist social thought inexorably followed upon capitalist ownership and control, and proved entirely subservient to it.  That's materialist explanation.

[twc]

Crooks ExposedYes, The Crooks Exposed is a truly remarkable document, and should be transcribed with spelling and grammatical correction.  Otherwise left untouched.If you are prepared to transcribe it, with minimal spelling and grammatical fixes, and "publish" it here, you would be doing a service to those giants of the early SPA, Johnson, Casey and Clarke, but also to all supporters of socialism and integrity everywhere.Clarke's three remaining personal copies of Crooks Exposed  were lent for study purposes to post-graduate students in social history. They were never returned, as promised.One recipient was a married ex-Protestant minister, admitted to the Catholic priesthood, and the first married priest in Australia.  Clarke sent him a copy by mail.  When the parcel failed to arrive on time for this dithering fellow, he hastily demanded another be sent.  This also was duly sent by mail.  Neither was returned.Clarke lent another copy to a Master's student, recommended to him by Jim Thorburn, who had neither interest in nor competence to carry out her work, but spent her valuable time with Clarke conducting an idiotic interview on, of all people, Marx's son-in-law, LaFargue.I believe there is no longer a copy of the document among Clarke's papers. Clarke told me it was written under tight time constraints, and apologized for its lack of literary refinement.  But this valuable document was never intended as an exercise in belle lettres.As in such joint productions, one person took control and that, I believe, was Clarke. The main content was due to the incredible Casey. Remember, Clarke chose to run away to sea as a 13-year old boy to support his widowed mother and her family, after his father drowned in the Koombana shipwreck off the West Australian coast, in the eye of a tropical cyclone.  He taught himself to read and write, shipboard, studying Darwin's Origin of Species, out of which developed his subsequent writing and editing skills, e.g. for the Australasian Seamen's Journal, some of which I'll later transcribe and "publish" here. This is by way of explaining Clarke's later embarrassment over the literary style of Crooks Exposed.I've only ever glanced at a copy of Crooks Exposed, but have never read it.Given its tortuous history, you may imagine my elation in discovering that you have a precious copy. This should  ultimately reside in the SPGB archives.

[twc]

Challenge #279Sorry, but you are arguing just that —  that the social superstructure is pure bias.  That superstructural content is not scientific or, should you now concede that it is, its scientific status is merely that of pure bias.So, don't shirk #279.  It relates entirely to your expressed concerns.Tangible and PhysicalNo such claims.Materialism need not make any claims about the universe, other than how to explain, or conceive, it.  Ultimately, it only makes claims about how we actually explain the universe, or conceive, it.Materialism is any explanation of thought out of being, and not of being out of thought, which is idealism. [Syncretism or dualism has it both ways.  Ultimately, consistent thinking is the deep issue which outlaws syncretism or dualism.]Materialist ThoughtMaterialism is a thought position, like any theory. It appropriates the concrete world mentally, the only way we can and do, as abstract categories of thought and abstract determinisms of relationships and development.Marx's materialism comprehends thinking, non-philosophically.  For Marx, social thought is something more complex than just social thinking.  It is the social superstructure of our social being [see below].  In this sense, it is unlike any materialism that preceded it.Thought as the Active Side [of Something]Marx never considered the active side of society to be exclusively confined to thinking.  I don't think anyone-else has either.  That is a misreading of the Theses.What  Marx was thinking of in the Theses was the Hegelian theory of the history of human thought.Hegel, by conceiving society as a whole, attempted to explain social transitions from social stage to social stage [from stasis through revolution to new stasis] as determined by the evolution of social thought, in the minds of men, developing — for society conceived as a whole — by itself, out of itself, and into its new self.Hegel explained social development deterministically as struggle (just as Marx of the Manifesto did) and temporary resolution of thought — the temporary resolution being Hegel's famous Aufheben.The activity of thought was Hegel's comprehension of the activity of society = our social history.  But it was our social history, conceived correctly for the first time as a self-developing, self-determined, organism, of which we are its agents or necessary organs.  Hegel conceived it for the first time as a science of society as a unit, a whole, an organism.That was what Marx saw as the active side of thought.For, in a master-stroke, Hegel had solved (from his idealist standpoint) what had defeated the old materialists.  He transgressed into their secular turf and beat them at their game.  Here was a crisis for the old materialism.Marx and Engels were the first to recognize this crisis in materialism, wrought by the Hegelian system.  They initially stood in awe of it.  For Hegel had developed a dynamic theory of human consciousness, as a theory of social evolution.  Young Marx, particularly, recognized precisely what Hegel had achieved but, having grown up on French materialism, he was also deeply troubled by it, and was spurred on to recover the undoubted gains of the old materialism in the face of Hegel's idealist organicism.Marx's Theses are the first ripe fruits of his own struggle to resolve the issues posed by Hegel to the old materialism — that men are the products of conditions —  by the dilemma of the new idealism — that conditions are changed by men.What causes changed men to change their conditions?  That is our own problem — the problem of socialism.Materialist Conception of HistoryMarx's ultimate statement — his scientific manifesto — is written in the Preface to A Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy.  This should be read, and reread, until assimilated. It involves the two abstract theoretical categories of social base and social superstructure.  It proposes a scientific determinism of the form that base determines superstructure.  Social being determines consciousness.The rest of Marx is the working out of the implications of this base–superstructure determinism.At the deepest level of the social base, Marx locates ownership and control of the means of social reproduction.  Under capitalism, ownership and control are private, in the hands of the capitalist class.  In socialism, they are common, in the hands of all society.The only reason we strive for the latter [our Object] is because we comprehend the determinism of former [our Principles]. In short, everything is ultimately about the struggle over ownership and control of the means of life.  The history of the 20th century was largely about dispossessing pre-capitalist folks of ownership and control of pre-capitalist means of life, to make them necessarily dependent upon private capitalist ownership and control.That nasty process of human dispossession was the materialistically necessary foundation for capitalist production, and so for capitalist social thought.  Marx called this awful process "primitive accumulation", in which capitalism "comes into the world dripping in blood".Can anyone seriously explain this awful social transition as the product of active thought — i.e. idealistically.  Can anyone can seriously explain our earlier social transitions from hunter gathering to agriculturalism to civilsation, etc. as the product of active thought — i.e. idealistically.Marx offers a materialist account of the development of society, conceived as a whole, by itself, through itself into its new self — as a self-developing, self-determined, organism — of which we are its agents or necessary organs.Of course, nothing is entirely autonomous, even society as a whole.Our social development is ultimately subservient to nature herself.  But, the degree of irreducibility [non-reduction] to nature is pretty high for society, even though society is ultimately conditional upon nature, the very nature we are capitalistically bent on destroying, and which will exact its revenge upon our contempt of her.So, Marx's materialism is a deterministic science, based upon social being, and it is not a philiosophy, as you conceive it to be. For you, thought is philosophically a prori social.  My god man, of course it's social, since Marx is following Hegel in conceiving social thought — the thought of society as a whole — as an entity in its own right, and so it must be social as consequence, not a priori as you insist.Society is not merely dynamic thought stuff, in Hegel's sense [which is akin to the physicist, who often views concrete nature as an instantiation of non-concrete ideal laws of motion]. It is the social organism itself that is dynamic.We actively create society both in the concrete and in thought and, in so doing, it ultimately creates us. Changed men are the products of changed conditions. Marx's base–superstructure determinism of the social organism is, in that ancient sense of the term, materialist.Written in haste, without necessary correction. 

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