Wez
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I don't think that debating which intellectual division of labour Marx did or did not belong to is helpful; he contributed to all of them. As for Ms Lichtenstein's ' dialectics detox programme' I can only respond with a quote from Bertell Ollman: 'All of Marx's theories have been shaped by his dialectical outlook and its accompanying categories, and it is only by grasping dialectics that these theories can be properly understood, evaluated, and put to use.'
I found Bertell Ollman's book 'Dance of the Dialectic' particularly helpful with aspects of Marx's epistemology.
Castro is dead – long live Castro (Raul, that is). Such nepotism is obviously an intrinsic element within Socialism otherwise the Cuban regime would resemble just another dictatorship.
Forget all these anachronistic identities in terms of nation states/cultures and embrace class conscious socialist globalism – the only relevent identity for the 21st century.
It is to the credit of comrades that they continue to indulge Mr. Bird. However when he rises from his keyboard and feeds his body, looks both ways before crossing the road and puts on an extra layer for the frosty mornings he becomes, miraculously, a materialist. Even his/ or is it her imagination would be unavailable without the help of some grey material called a brain.
How about: 'Harvest for the World' by The Isley Brothers and 'Wake Up Everybody' by Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes? And I'm just gettin' warmed up.
Of course, our publications have a class bias, but at least we realise it and are honest about our perspective (propaganda?).
I think you over estimate most scientists concern with the philosophy of science (what constitutes scientific method etc.). Most are wage slaves like the rest of us who just perform alienated intellectual labour for their masters with no ideological questions asked.
After some study of the subject it would appear, to me, that there never has been a consensus on what actually constitutes the 'scientific method'. The book Against Method by Paul Feyerabend provides a fascinating insight into its development as a coherent (or incoherent) philosophy.
I think democracy is applicable in terms of the allocation of resources to particular scientific research. That 'investment' in pure science should continue is essential. It's difficult to conceive of the scientific method itself changing as I've always thought of it as potentially subversive of bourgeois ideology when practiced correctly. The scientists themselves will be free of reactionary ideology which, presumably, causes confusion and frustration within our culture. The commercial pressure to manipulate experimental data results will also disappear.
Again LBird seems to flatly contradict the socialist organisation of labour which states: 'From each according to his talents, to each according to his needs'. This implies to me that science, together with all forms of social labour, will be practised by those who are talented in, and inspired by, the particular discipline. The resources allocated to such a 'division of labour' will be decided by the whole community – isn't this Marxist/Socialist democracy?
There were wars long before capitalism arrived. It is the case that contemporary wars are caused by capitalism (as the most recent incarnation of private property) but wars are not a bourgeois invention! It's the same with science, it predates capitalism and will continue to exist after it ends.
LBird seems to believe in a ' world already designed and constructed by the bourgeoisie'. This is not true because it is the working class who design and construct this world and in so doing they are witness to the contradiction of this reality of production with that of bourgeois ideology. The capitalist actually believes that it is money/capital that creates the world whereas the working class are well aware that it is their own toil that does so. It is this contradiction between the reality of capitalism and the illusion of its dominant ideology that can lead to class consciousness. Scientists, as members of the working class, are also aware of these glaring contradictions in terms of finance, deadlines, unintended consequences, manipulation of experimental data etc. etc. There's no such thing as bourgeois science because most, if not all, scientists are working class! LBird would seem to deny the dialectical position that socialism is born out of the womb of capitalism.
You might be interested in something I wrote on the occasion of the last Olympiad: http://wezselecta.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/bread-and-circuses_1.html
Just making the point that Stalin, Trotsky and Hitchens have not made any significant contribution to political philosophy (as far as I'm aware). The 'rings' he ran around Trotsky were those of, as jondwhite points out, realpolitik which are merely bourgeois strategic power plays. For Hitchens to ascribe Stalin with an 'understanding' of politics implies that he also has such an understanding, for which I see no evidence; just another example of his usual arrogance.
