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fractal-vortex

28th March 2013, 15:50

Kalinin's Facial Hair

28th March 2013, 16:04

How exactly is knowledge a mean of production? How exactly knowledge, something that is not material, and without any mediation, produces anything?

svenne

28th March 2013, 16:50

1. I've always found this discussion to be more of a worthless fight over words.

2-1: Do you have anything to back that up with? While it's not a new idea, the post-autonomists like Antonio Negri and Paolo Virno's been saying stuff like that for a while, and i'm still not convinced. It feels like they (and you) take one of many tendencies and make it universal. And even in the places where knowledge makes up a big part of the economy - the so called knowledge society, or the post-industrial society -, it's still built around commodity production made possible by constant capital, both in the form of the good ol' "white male working hard in the manufacturing industry", but also in the service industry which either sells products already created in the industry, or exists to make the industry work - hospitals, for an example. As i said earlier: you confuse a tendency in the western world with the base of our current state of society.

2-2: What do you mean with people with practical-theoretical knowledge? In any case, you could propably put a lot of them in the fold of the working class.

2-3: Really not following you here.

3: As long as we live in a capitalist society, marxism is the basis of our political ideals ans analyses, but yeah - we always have to go beyond what people thought 150 or 15 years ago. But still: we've got something like 170 years of analysis to build our current ideas around.

conmharÃ¡in

28th March 2013, 18:22

1. Marxism is no science, but a step behind science, a unified form of knowledge.

2. Marxism is outdated today for following reasons: 1) it is not "constant capital" which forms the principal means of production today, but comprehensive knowledge. 2) Hence, it is not "the working class" that is revolutionary, but people with theoretical-practical knowledge, 3) The law of value is negated by the law of planned development of the economy.

3. Hence, we need to step behind Marxism. Develop a new way of life combining theoretical and practical knowledge. Organize our theoretical knowledge. Develop our attitude to states like the former USSR, China, Yugoslavia, etc. by comparing them. Develop our attitude to socialist thinkers and revolutionaries.

That's a strategy!

What is a "unified form of knowledge?" What makes it different from a science? How does Marxism differ from a science in this way?
How does "knowledge" produce things without the material manifestations of capital and property? If the capitalist class can be defined by you as having the "knowledge" to produce, what is it that keeps the bourgeoisie from, in fact, representing the revolutionary class? What do you mean by "the law of value?" How is it "negated" by a planned economy? What is the "law" of planned economy?
What does it mean to "step behind" Marxism? How is developing a "new way of life" different from "lifestylism?" How do we organize our theoretical and practical knowledge? Along what lines do we "develop" our "attitudes?"
This is hardly what I'd call a strategy. It's a bunch of half-baked pseudointellectual nonsense.

l'EnfermÃ©

28th March 2013, 18:29

I vote to reject this proposal.

ind_com

28th March 2013, 20:20

Orange Juche

28th March 2013, 20:23

I'd say Marxism isn't a science, it's not like I can categorize it with physics and chemistry. To call it a "science" is a bastardization of the word.

Slavoj Zizek's Balls

28th March 2013, 20:31

I'd say Marxism isn't a science, it's not like I can categorize it with physics and chemistry. To call it a "science" is a bastardization of the word.

It's not a science, but it uses the scientific method (related to Scientific Socialism which incorporates empiricism).
But where would you categorise it?

Sidagma

28th March 2013, 21:14

The global proletariat is bigger now than it has ever been. Western lifestyles currently are predicated on the subjugation and hyperexploitation of workers in the global south/third world/whatever you want to call it. Just because the USA and Europe are all service industries doesn't mean that our lifestyles are sustainable without a subjugated working class to maintain industrial production.

I agree that the dynamics have changed, but the approach to that shouldn't be "oh yeah who cares about those brown people all the way over there". It needs to be actual, honest, non-racist analysis.

28th March 2013, 22:10

I think maybe the OP is a little uninformed about what Marxism is or why it makes the assumptions that it does (i.e, the working class being the prime revolutionary subject, for example).

There is as such little of theoretical value here.

Yuppie Grinder

28th March 2013, 23:08

Marxism is not a science in and of itself. It is an approach to social science, and historical materialism is a philosophy of science in the same way positivism is. Anthropology, sociology, and economics are sciences.
Some self-described Marxists aren't strict materialists and have a sorta mystic epistemology. That's how you get people "disproving" the big bang with dialectics.

fractal-vortex

29th March 2013, 14:22

Comrades!

Yesterday when I wrote my "proposal to socialists" I was in a hurry, and didn't have the time to explain everything. Here is a more complete version of my proposal:

A proposal to socialists

The goal of the proposal is to clear up the goals before socialists.
This proposal is based on the "Revolutionary socialism..." published by Iranian socialists in 1994 in London, after the defeat of the Iranian revolution of 1979, and re-published in Russian (which is my native language) in 2013.

1. A new form of knowledge.

Iranian socialists write about Marxism as a “science” (last section of their Platform). But if it is a science, what is it a science of? Marxism has been known for its economics, politics, anthropology, art, literature, etc. So, if by “science” we understand a special field of study, then certainly Marxism has not been a science. It is a form of knowledge which appears after science.

Specialization has been invented at the dawn of Industrial revolution as a way of improving productivity and delving deeper into knowledge. E.g. Adam Smith writes that production of needles is greatly improved by specialization of craftsmen. The same applies to intellectual endeavors of the Industrial revolution. Working recently with logarithmic tables, I have noticed that they require a great deal of attention and time. Hence, a need for specialization.
However, at the present stage of development, there is an opposite tendency: specialization tends to hinder development. We require an integration of various fields of knowledge, a fusion of theory and practice, to feel ourselves as healthy human beings. We don’t need a new “theory”, or a “science”, but a new way of life, which integrally develops our physical and mental forces.
All mothers and fathers understand a need for overall development for their babies. However, almost all adults deem it as impossible, and perhaps even undesirable, when it concerns them.
A classless society is is not divided into “thinkers” – i.e. capitalists, top managers, workers’ bureaucracy, - and “workers”, i.e. the rest of us, “99%” of the Earth’s population. Hence, a human being who strives towards communism should have a dual, theoretical-practical nature (as light has a dual nature, as energy is at the same time matter, etc.)
Theory and practice are always relative to each other. If one is abstract, the other one is similarly abstract. Moreover, inside each of these entities there is a constant transition from one to the other. For example, let’s say that a practical pole of theoretical knowledge as a whole is sailing (Einstein loved to sail and to play violin!). Yachting has a theoretical part called “navigational astronomy”, which teaches one to find location at sea with the help of stars. In this theoretical discipline, in turn, there is a theoretical part, explaining how is it possible, in principle, to find one’s location at sea using stars, and practical problems and methods of calculations.
Marxism has been an attempt at developing knowledge as a whole, in the period of the Industrial revolution. However, today Marxism is in a state of crisis for many reasons. One of these is its postulate on the leading role of “the working class” in the modern revolution, “the working class” being commonly understood as blue-collar, industrial workers. However, after World War II, we’ve seen a decline in importance of this class in the process of social production (see “The New Industrial State” by John K. Galbraith), which has taken on automatic, scientific and creative dimensions. Moreover, Marxism is mired by the paid servants of capital, in the West, and by Stalinism, in the East. Lenin was not afraid to get rid of the name of “social-democracy” for his party in 1914; today we have many more reasons to get rid of Marxism as a whole.
How shall we combine physical and intellectual development depends a lot on local conditions. For example, a Russian general Alexander Suvorov used to say that a cold water is good both for the mind and the body. However, what he said applies for the climate of Russia, and other cold regions, where it is possible to swim in the cold, winter water. For the people living in the tropics, such slogan would not apply.
We cannot tell all how to develop harmoniously, but we can pose a need for this as a problem.

2. Theoretical self-organization

In the morning I find it very useful to organize my day with the help of writing “an agenda”, i.e. what are the tasks for the given day? In the course of the day, I try to follow the schedule which I have created for myself and take care of all the problems. After I “finish” working on a subject, for the given day, I write “what is next”, in a sense creating a bookmark. Thus, I will know where to start with the subject when I come round it the next time.
This is a tactical form of self-organization. Strategic self-organization has other forms. One of these is a “map of knowledge”, similar to the other maps we have, depicting countries and continents. Socialists should organize existing knowledge, introduce order into this chaos, in order to understand “white spaces” in our knowledge, and how we can further develop our knowledge.
The existing encyclopedias are not appropriate for this goal. First, they give an idea about fragments of knowledge, without indicating how this fits into the picture of the Universe. Second, the existing encyclopedias are written by the representatives of capital or workers’ bureaucracy. For example, if we want to understand such important social phenomenon as “nationalism”, dictionaries and encyclopedias will give us only the most abstract, not living understanding of the term. Nationalism as a modern phenomenon in transitional states (ex-USSR, etc.), has its roots in the process of privatization of state property, in the attempts of the local bureaucracy to become capitalists. The existing encyclopedias will not mention this, as they are edited by the very people who serve these bureaucracies, or capitalists.
In the epoch of Enlightenment the great philosophers of the French revolution have founded their encyclopedia, in order to give the posterity a resume of all knowledge of their epoch. Similarly today, we should map all existing knowledge in order to prepare the ground – and this can only be knowledge – to jump from the realms of necessity into the realm of freedom. This is a theoretical part of our self-organization.

3. Socialism. The nature of transitional society

What is socialism? I.e. what is the goal towards which we’re striving? “The socialist program is inevitably defined by its socialist goal” and a party is based on such a program.
A modern definition of socialism must be given relative to the experience of socialist revolutions in XX century, and their outcome, i.e. the transitional states. Transitional states are those where capital has already been expropriated from power, but the working class is not yet strong enough to take the reigns of power personally. Instead, its representatives have taken the power, and these have later degenerated into workers’ bureaucracy, “the nomenclature”. Today, the power in the transitional states is wielded by “mafia”, i.e. the former nomenclature which uses various illegal means, including the organized crime, for sake of personal empowerment and enrichment.
The Iranian socialists write: “Were these societies examples of a degenerated workers state or were they forms of state capitalism? Or did we witness the formation of a new mode of production unforeseen by Marxism? These three positions and their variations more or less summarize the more serious analyses of the last 70 years”.
The given problem has been called “the nature of the USSR”, or (among the Western Marxists, such as prof. van der Linden), “the Russian question”. However, it is not correct to pose the problem as “the nature of the Soviet Union”, for there were, and are, other societies of similar nature. To make the problem clear, we must use comparative method, i.e. compare similar societies, to see their similarities and differences, to understand their common dialectic.
Further analysis leads us to understanding societies in which there were attempts at revolution, but in which the socialists have not been able to take, or hold, power, as for example, in Chile in 1973, in Iran in 1978-79, and in Afghanistan in 1978-1992.
A relationship of transitional states to imperialist states is obvious: the imperialism strives with all of its force to destroy, erase all traces of transitional states, which represent the beginning of socialism. For example, remember the goals of Hitler in the war against the USSR: “the liquidation of the USSR”, war against bolshevism. Hence, “the Russian question” grows into a world social and political analysis.

***

Next I would like to make a few comments on the writing of Iranian comrades on “the nature of the USSR”:
A. “This order was neither a workers' state nor a form of state capitalism. Nor was it a new mode of production. The Russian revolution was more or less defeated by 1924; however, the victorious counter revolution could not roll back the events to such a point so as to revive capitalism.” How was the Russian revolution “defeated”? It cannot be defeated by peaceful means. It can only gradually degenerate, which process continues to this day. The point of view of Iranian socialists is called “reformism in reverse”. If by “reformism” we understand a hypothesis that capitalism can be reformed into socialism (Edward Bernstein, Germany, 1890), then by “reformism in reverse” we understand a hypothesis that a transitional society can be reformed into capitalism. However, according to Iranian socialists, capitalism has not been revived in the USSR by 1924. Hence, it is not correct to speak about a complete “defeat” of the Russian revolution. We can talk only about its partial defeats, a roll-back, a Thermidor. Step back and remember: World War II in the USSR has started with partial victories of the German armies over the Red Army. The world revolutionary process, of which the Russian revolution is a part, is a process on a greater scale, and of longer duration, then World War II. It is a process as majestic as the revolving of a Galaxy.
B. On bureaucracy, the Iranian socialists write: “although this order maintained a more or less uniform format from the time of its establishment in Stalin's era to the time of its disintegration, one cannot deny that it went through various stages of degeneration”. This social order did not disappear, but continues to undergo degeneration. This is not questioned by any sane person living in the former USSR (or other similar societies). These people encounter the remnants of the former regime in thousands of details of everyday life, from attempts to rollback free education and medicine, as a constitutional right, to regulated prices for bread, the staple goods, and the maintenance fees for apartments. “Disintegration” of the Stalinist regime is only spoken about by those “Marxists” who have abandoned Marx’s concept of a state, according to which a state has to be overthrown by a violent revolution, or counterrevolution, before we can speak about a new state, having a different social nature. These “Marxists” are false Marxists, and they are the first to be criticized. Nothing is as dangerous as the enemies who put on the appearance of a virtue.
C. Iranian socialists write: “The one party system is no more than a denial of the dictatorship of the proletariat”. However, dictatorship can take many different political forms: from one-person rule, to a “multi-party democracy”, hiding behind it the dictatorship of the capitalist class. Hence, there is no reason for a denial of one-party system. It should be used in periods like the civil war (as we see now raging in Syria), as a weapon of defense against counterrevolution and imperialism. However, the overall goal of a transitional period is a negation of individual leaders, development of skills of social self-management.
The transitional period can be compared to a childhood of a person. To leave a child completely on his own would be foolish. On the other hand, to blackmail or force a child to confirm to an adult’s wishes is a tyranny. Hence, the only right policy is a patient explanation and education.
D. The end of the transition period is marked by an international socialist revolution: “This transition, i.e. the beginning of the socialist construction, cannot end until major productive forces on an international scale have come under social control. Under the conditions of the international division of labor, the thesis of socialism in one country is as ridiculous as the theory of socialism in one factory or one town. In the final analysis, socialism will only win when it can achieve a higher productivity of labor than capitalist society”. To achieve higher productivity, we require a greater degree of freedom and humanism, less brutal necessity, in the production process. All this implies human beings with a higher level of personal culture than under capitalism.
E. Agree with the following: “in the period of transition to socialism, priority lies with politics”. This has important philosophical implications. In the period of transition, “consciousness” is more important than “being”, and “the subject” is more important than “the object”, although there is still a two-way, dialectical relationship between the two. The most important “subject” is the communist society.
Generalizing what has been said, we notice that each type of society has its own laws. The laws which Marx has formulated, apply principally to capitalism, and only partially to a transitional society. Another example of this is “the law of value” vs. “the law of primitive socialist accumulation” (see the writings of a Soviet economist Evgeny Preobrazhensky on this problem, “The New Economy”, 1922-1938). This is another reason to stop bowing to Marxism and to go further.
As we have shown above, an analysis of transitional states grows into a global social and political analysis. However, in addition to this, what is required is a resume of theoretical contributions to the idea of socialism, made by modern socialists, since the times of Marx. This work is similar to the fourth volume of “Capital”, in which Marx attempted to formulate his attitude to the previous theories of political economy. In other words, it is necessary to know the previous theoretical and practical efforts towards “socialism”, before we attempt to build something on our own.
To understand who are the most important modern socialists, we should follow the current socialist movement, on the one hand, and know its history, on the other.

4. Revolutionary strategy and program

The revolutionary strategy, by analogy with military strategy, is a general, non-detailed plan, which socialists must follow to achieve their long-term goal. This goal is shaped by our evaluation of previous socialist revolutions and transitional states.
A revolutionary program, by analogy with a computer program, is an array of step-by-step instructions which lead us from our present condition towards realization of our long-term goal.
Hence, the difference between a revolutionary strategy and revolutionary program is that the first is a non-detailed plan, while the second is a detailed description, a set of instructions for achieving our long-term goals.
Using these definitions, it is possible to say that a revolutionary program has never yet been created. The present essay is an attempt to develop a revolutionary strategy for our times. (First, we have proposed to lead a healthy life style. Second, we proposed to create a map of knowledge. Third, we proposed a comparative approach to evaluation of all transitional states.)
Looking back at the experience of revolutions since the Paris Commune, we can suppose that a new revolutionary wave will be the principal result of a new global war, in effect World War III. We can also suppose – looking aback at the experience of such recent protest movements as “the Arab spring” and “Occupy” movement – that a new revolution will be almost simultaneous all over the world. Perhaps, it will start at the periphery of modern capitalism, but then it will quickly spread to the whole world.
What will be the causes of the new world war? Looking back at the experience of the former Yugoslavia, we can say that the process of privatization, the struggle for re-division of property amongst the criminal clans of bureaucracy leads to the disintegration of the transitional states. Thus, these states constitute “the new Balkans”, according to a prominent ideologist of imperialism Zb. Brzezinski (see his “The Grand Chess Board”, 1997). In other words, the transitional states constitute a tasty morsel, weakened by internal divisions, over which there is a struggle between the major world predators. The “new Balkans” stimulate the long-term desire of imperialism to “liquidate” the transitional states (as we’ve seen in the war of Hitler’s Germany against the USSR, or in the wars of NATO against Yugoslavia). Further, this implies a violent struggle among the imperialist powers themselves for a larger share of the booty, as such re-division of power and has never been achieved by peaceful means.
However, the “new Balkans” may become a prologue to a “new October”. This is the perspective which socialists must keep in view, as they are preparing their movement.

5. Revolutionary organization

What is the nature of a modern revolutionary organization?
A. Iranian socialists write: “The party establishes itself around a programme. Here we must distinguish ourselves from all those who assume party unity can be based on anything else.” As we’ve shown above, a “program” and a “strategy” (a general plan) are different concepts. It is possible to unite around a common strategy, without having a program. The main question is: what is this strategy?
B. As for the class nature of such organization, we believe that it is not possible to see the proletariat, i.e. the industrial workers, as the modern revolutionary class. Development of modern productive forces depends on the all-around development of knowledge, which has both theoretical and practical branches. Members of this organization can be intellectuals who, in addition to their main line of theoretical work, strive towards practice and simple people (when I write “simple people”, I mean it in the sense of the Russian song "Тянет к людям", “Drawn to the people”, composed to the group "Любэ", “Lube”). Members of the organization can be workers who, in addition to their practical labor, strive towards socialism, knowledge, and self-organization.
C. Should this organization be a “party”? The word “party” has two meanings: one is a political organization, and the second is an informal gathering of friends. However, a revolutionary organization should aim to overcome the military resistance of capitalists, in capitalist countries, and their lackeys, i.e. the bureaucracy, in the transitional states. Hence, this implies a need for a military organization (you fight fire with fire). However, as opposed to a traditional army, a membership in this organization is based upon voluntary acceptance of its goals and strategy. Hence, this should be an ideational organization, something akin to a party school (as we’ve seen Lenin organize on the island of Cyprus, before WWI). Third, the given organization has as its goal an international revolution, and hence in its essence is an International.
D. Iranian socialists write: “a member is someone who accepts the aims of the project and in the effort to realise it is committed to a certain level of activity”. However, this is not enough to become a member of a revolutionary organization. This is the discussion we have seen in at the II Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (1903), resulting in the division of Russian social-democrats into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Only a “professional revolutionary”, i.e. a person who makes revolution as a primary goal in life, can be a member of a revolutionary organization.
E. Of course, the regime inside revolutionary organization is “democratic centralism”. However – and this is the most important difference from Bolsheviks – the regime inside the organization should be communist, i.e. members of the organization in practice share what they have with other members of the organization. This is the practice we’ve seen in the narodnik movement, which preceded the Marxists in Russia.
Moreover, some members of the “narodnik” movement had become wives and husbands to each other, for example, the leaders of the terrorist organization Sofia Perovskaya and Andrey Zhelyabov. Amongst some of them free love was practiced. For example, one of the women who was sentenced to hanging for killing the tsar Alexander II was Gesya Gelfman, who was a wife of several members of “Narodnaya Volya” organization. She was not hanged with the rest because she was in her 4th month of pregnancy. In their personal relationships, the communists should jettison “the family”, as an institute of private property, and stand on the ground of free love.
To summarize our view on organization:
1) a revolutionary organization is established around common understanding of a goal of the movement – “socialism” – and an agreement on the problem of strategy.
2) People in the organization have a dualistic, theoretical-practical, nature.
3) It is partially a party school, partially a military organization, and in essence an International.
4) Members of the organization are “professional revolutionaries”, not “sympathizers”.
5) Inside the organization, there are communist relationships and democratic centralism.

Thesis of the article

1. Marxism is not a science, but a step towards a more encompassing form of knowledge which is beyond science.
2. Marxism is an all-encompassing form of knowledge of the early period of industrialization. It logically follows upon such all-encompassing teachings as that of Saint-Simon, but has grown obsolete today.
A. The principal productive force of modernity are no longer machines, raw materials, or buildings (i.e. “constant capital” in Marx’s terms), but multi-dimensional, theoretical-practical knowledge.
B. Hence, it is not the proletariat which is the revolutionary class today, but the class of people who learn to combine theoretical and practical knowledge and skills.
С. Moreover, the principal philosophical and economic assumptions formulated by Marxism are applicable to the capitalist society, but only partially to the transitional society and the epoch after World War II. This concerns, first of all: 1) the relationship of “subject” and “object”; 2) the law of value and planned development of the society as a whole.
3. Hence, Marxism should be exchanged not for a new “theory”, or “science”, but a totally different way of life, which harmoniously combines the physical and intellectual development of a person, his (or her) personal and social being.
4. Modern socialists should start by ordering and organizing what is the principal means of production today – knowledge. One way in which this can be done is through a “map of knowledge”. This is theoretical self-organization of a modern revolutionary class. Without such self-organization, all the talk about “organizing a class for itself”, “organization of the workers”, etc. are empty sounds. It is necessary “to map knowledge”.
5. One of the problems which is resolved in the course of such organization of knowledge is that of modern dialectics. Theory of socialism starts with dialectics, however, we should not repeat “ad infinitum” the definitions and laws formulated by Engels (in “Anti-Duhring”), and Lenin (in his notes on Hegel’s “Science of Logic”), but we should formulate anew the main tendencies of development of the Universe and knowledge, as both have taken great strides forward since the beginning of XX century.
6. Modern definition of the goal of our movement – “socialism” – should be given relative to the experience of the socialist revolutions and the transitional states. Without an agreement of this question, all attempts at unification of socialists are open and unconcealed opportunism.
7. A transitional states is such where, as a result of a violent revolution, the capitalist class no longer holds the reigns of power, but the working class is not yet at the helm, and hence the functions government have been taken over by the workers’ bureaucracy, which in time has transformed itself into “mafia”, i.e. a criminal clans, constantly at war with each other, aiming at stealing from the state the land, factories, raw materials, etc. and thus roll-back the society towards capitalism, religion, “family values”, etc.
8. A transitional state cannot be reformed into a capitalist state (“reformism in reverse”). A transitional state can only be overthrown by a violent counterrevolution and civil war, the like of which we see today in Afghanistan. In this problem, we remain Marxists.
9. A struggle over property between the criminal clans of bureaucracy turns the transitional states into “new Balkans”. The imperialist armies go there for what they call “stabilization”, but in reality an attempt to liquidate the results of socialist revolutions. All false Marxists, who proclaim the transitional states as “capitalist” are playing on the side of imperialist armies. They are our real enemies.
10. The people in transitional states offer whatever resistance feasible to the onslaught of capitalism, defending their rights to free education, medicine, low prices for the staple goods, basic services, etc. However, if the people try to liquidate the criminal regime as a whole, it becomes a prologue to “an orange revolution”, i.e. a regime change, orchestrated from an American embassy in the respective country. Hence, the people should wait untill the conditions for an international socialist revolution mature.
11. The transitional states should not be understood each separately, but we need to compare the transitional states to each other, in order to understand their common dialectic.
12. An analysis of the transitional states grows into a political and social analysis of all modern states, for socialists cannot remain, for example, “deaf, dumb and blind” to such momentous events as the civil war in Syria happening at the moment. The map of knowledge will help us to organize our disjointed and chaotic pieces of information.
13. For better understanding of the goal of socialism, it is necessary to develop our attitude towards modern socialist thinkers. Here, the priority should be given to those who have attempted to implement their ideas in practice, as we’ve seen with Trotsky and Che Guevara. Left-wing university professors (for example Slavoj Žižek), “the Frankfurt School”, etc. represent a form of “parliamentary cretinism” in the socialist movement. These clowns and false Marxists make their speeches on TV and at socialist conferences.
14. Socialists can unite on the basis of a common strategy, i.e. a non-detailed plan for realization of the main goal. A program of a movement becomes possible only in the course of the movement itself, as concrete steps to be taken in the nearest future, following the general precepts of a strategy. Hence, the socialists have 3 basic concepts: 1) the goal, 2) the strategy, 3) the program.
15. Socialists can start creating their organization as a result of a common work on “the map of knowledge”, i.e. a portal of theoretical-practical knowledge which will be superior to “Wikipedia” in the general structure of knowledge, and in directions which concern the social problems.
16. Such organization should be: 1) a kind of a party school, 2) a military training base, 3) an International organization of professional revolutionaries. These are men and women of theory and practice: “people’s intellectuals”, “philosophizing workers”, etc. The regime inside the organization should be communist, democratic centralist, hence denying in practice all private property, privileges, etc.

Sincerely,
"fractal-vortex"

fractal-vortex

29th March 2013, 14:40

fractal-vortex

29th March 2013, 15:00

What is a "unified form of knowledge?" What makes it different from a science? How does Marxism differ from a science in this way?
How does "knowledge" produce things without the material manifestations of capital and property? If the capitalist class can be defined by you as having the "knowledge" to produce, what is it that keeps the bourgeoisie from, in fact, representing the revolutionary class? What do you mean by "the law of value?" How is it "negated" by a planned economy? What is the "law" of planned economy?
What does it mean to "step behind" Marxism? How is developing a "new way of life" different from "lifestylism?" How do we organize our theoretical and practical knowledge? Along what lines do we "develop" our "attitudes?"

This is hardly what I'd call a strategy. It's a bunch of half-baked pseudointellectual nonsense.

Ok, calling my proposal "pseudointellectual" does not add much :(.

But let me try to answer your questions:):

1. In physics we strive towards a unified theory, a theory of everything. That means an equation that would describe all the physical forces in nature. In knowledge in general, we should also strive for a unified form of knowledge. That is a theoretical-practical knowledge and skills that do not draw artificial barriers between one scale of knowledge (e.g. "formation of the Universe"), and another (e.g. "history of mankind"). An example of a unified form of knowledge is "Big History", explained by David Christian (see TED for his presentation). However, Big History is a non-revolutionary approach to history. Moreover, it is merely "theoretical", not practical. It does not cover many important branches of our knowledge, such as physics, mathematics, logic, not to say anything about music, art, etc.

A unified form of knowledge should be good enough to direct our everyday lives, and to tell us what to do on the scales of history. It is both a program, i.e. concrete steps to be taken, and a strategy, i.e. general outlines of the problems. Unified knowledge does not limit itself to one branch of science, e.g. "politics", or even to science as a whole, but ranges over all manifestations of knowledge and all manifestations of life and the Universe, for implicitly that is knowledge too.

Marxism was a form of a unified knowledge at its inception. Today, as religion in the feudal times, it has become ossified. It is outdated by development of the productive forces, the principal one being knowledge (as I define it, see answer above).

....

As for your question on "the law of value" vs. the law of planned economy, I refer you to Evgeny Preobrazhensky (see him on Wikipedia), who analyzed this problem in the USSR, especially his "The New Economy", 1922-1938.

thanks for your attention,

"pseudointellectual" fractal-vortex:rolleyes:

RedMaterialist

29th March 2013, 15:13

RedMaterialist

29th March 2013, 15:44

In knowledge in general, we should also strive for a unified form of knowledge. That is a theoretical-practical knowledge and skills that do not draw artificial barriers between one scale of knowledge (e.g. "formation of the Universe"), and another (e.g. "history of mankind").

The laws of dialectical materialism are the basis for such a theory of everything. It was the development of capitalism which allowed for the separation of subjective and objective knowledge: the separation of the worker (subject) from the product (object) of his work. This objectivity made possible the explosion of the progress of science of the 18th century to the present.

This objectivity has not yet penetrated the "science" of economics for obvious political reasons. For instance, modern economists still believe that value is subjectively determined by the utility each individual subjectively derives from the product (marginal utility.)

John Kenneth Galbraith was famous for describing the modern corporation as a technocratic bureaucracy (The New Industrial State.

The "knowledge economy" is still one that is privately owned and managed for profit, and thus is still exploitative and subject to periodic crises. I think Marxist theory is still very much alive. As Lenin said, Marx is powerful because what he said was the truth.

Kalinin's Facial Hair

30th March 2013, 18:27

Knowledge is a concept. That means that it is both ideational and material. A concept - at least from dialectical point of view - has a dual nature: it is both "ideal", and material force. Knowledge is manifested in practice, as any physical force has to manifest itself to be recognized as something real.

Knowledge is at the essence ("heart") of modern production: to make anything, especially modern things, such as computers and Internet, and even to post this message, knowledge is what is needed (e.g. knowledge of the English language, as it can not be assumed here, in Ukraine, where I am writing this).

I like the idea of comparing knowledge to a force, like the gravitational force, or electromagnetism, or nuclear force. It is this force that has to manifest itself, to be recognized as real. In terms of Hegel's "Phenomenology", knowledge has to "APPEAR", to be registered as "present".

So, the heart of the debate is "what is knowledge?" And I propose:

1) organizing knowledge with the help of "a map"
2) the people who deal with this force, who shape it and wield it, as workers in the Industrial revolution shaped the iron, are today's revolutionary class.

sincerely,

fractal:)

I was indeed mistaken when I said that knowledge is not material. It is, of course, material, since it does affect human society (God, for example, might not even exist, but people believe in it and act according to its laws).

When you say that "knowledge" is required to produce "modern things" and conclude that, therefore, it is the "heart" of modern production, you make a mistake. Firstly, knowledge has ever been necessary to produce things; be it a computer or an axe made of wood. Secondly, what you are missing here is the human praxis (being redundant maybe?); the previously idealized result put on practice through the modification of nature. You are missing the foundation of men; its peculiarity.

And what happens when you lose the centrality of labour? This: "the revolutionary class today is the class who has the knowledge", not the proletariat anymore. How will this class emancipate itself and the whole of humanity? Who is this class? Engineers? Managers?

Giving up the centrality of the proletariat is to give up revolution altogether.

1) organizing knowledge with the help of "a map"What does that mean?

RedMaterialist

30th March 2013, 18:39

OMG, walls of text.

fractal-vortex

31st March 2013, 18:54

Dear Cactus! It is indeed true that knowledge is required both to produce a stone axe and a silicone computer chip. However, we're dealing with a change in the form of knowledge, and hence in the amount required. In the first instance, the knowledge required is called "a skill", and it is developed through observing another person do it, over a long period of time, and then trying one's own hand at it. In the second case, we're dealing with true knowledge, as it at its beginning a theoretical concept (the idea of semi-conductors), that has found an application - a transistor, and later a chip, with millions of transistors.

I define knowledge as a practical-theoretical activity, a concept, and hence both types of activities are included under my idea of "knowledge".

Labor indeed is required to produce both an axe and a chip. But the first is mostly physical, the second is mostly intellectual, & has a scientific character. It is the second type of labor which has the centrality today, which is revolutionary in all senses: in terms of daily production, and in terms of social relations.

Indeed, we don't call the labor of a peasant "revolutionary" today, although there were times - the closing of the Middle Ages - when the peasants were revolutionary indeed.

By "map of knowledge" I mean chartering the structure of modern knowledge, chartering what we know, and hence what we don't know.

thanks for your attention,

fractal-vortex:)

conmharÃ¡in

31st March 2013, 19:04

A chip is entirely physical. All science is predicated on the knowledge that nothing effectively exists beyond the material world; anything "metaphysical" emerges from matter and even then only subjectively. You're actually not improving on Marxism at all; you're obfuscating it with a bunch of metaphysical garbage.

ckaihatsu

5th April 2013, 02:53

How exactly is knowledge a mean of production? How exactly knowledge, something that is not material, and without any mediation, produces anything?

Knowledge is a concept. That means that it is both ideational and material. A concept - at least from dialectical point of view - has a dual nature: it is both "ideal", and material force. Knowledge is manifested in practice, as any physical force has to manifest itself to be recognized as something real.

As others have noted, you're not being correct with your use of the term 'means of production'. It does *not* have an elastic definition, and would *not* include whatever knowledge and know-how that goes into the production process.

You're admitting here that knowledge has to be manifested, or mediated, for any physical process -- like mass production -- to occur.

Knowledge is at the essence ("heart") of modern production: to make anything, especially modern things, such as computers and Internet, and even to post this message, knowledge is what is needed (e.g. knowledge of the English language, as it can not be assumed here, in Ukraine, where I am writing this).

I'll agree that knowledge (and know-how) *complements* whatever labor goes into the production process, but it's conventionally been too fetishized by the bourgeois mindset and glorified out-of-proportion.

Here's a framework that may have some relevance here:

[8] communist economy diagram

http://s6.postimage.org/mgmjarrot/8_communist_economy_diagram.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/mgmjarrot/)

I like the idea of comparing knowledge to a force, like the gravitational force, or electromagnetism, or nuclear force. It is this force that has to manifest itself, to be recognized as real. In terms of Hegel's "Phenomenology", knowledge has to "APPEAR", to be registered as "present".

So, the heart of the debate is "what is knowledge?" And I propose:

1) organizing knowledge with the help of "a map"
2) the people who deal with this force, who shape it and wield it, as workers in the Industrial revolution shaped the iron, are today's revolutionary class.

sincerely,

fractal:)

My educational background is in sociology and education, and I tend to think in terms of frameworks like the one above. There are more where that came from, at this thread:

Political (educational) diagrams, for revolutionaries

tinyurl.com/ckaihatsu-diagrams-revleft

I don't know if that's what you had in mind, but any 'knowledge map' that's any more specific than a general framework would have to have some definition as to what the linkages among the various concepts are meant to mean. Some "mapping" of regular English usage has been done in the past, around efforts at artificial semantic intelligence -- you could look into that, if you like.

Ok, calling my proposal "pseudointellectual" does not add much :(.

But let me try to answer your questions:):

1. In physics we strive towards a unified theory, a theory of everything. That means an equation that would describe all the physical forces in nature. In knowledge in general, we should also strive for a unified form of knowledge. That is a theoretical-practical knowledge and skills that do not draw artificial barriers between one scale of knowledge (e.g. "formation of the Universe"), and another (e.g. "history of mankind").

I actually *have* something like this, but, again, it may not be quite what you have in mind. Also, the issue of scale in attempting to reconcile disparate dynamics (at different scales) is *not* a trivial issue.

[2] G.U.T.S.U.C., Simplified

http://s6.postimage.org/wvo45xzhp/2_G_U_T_S_U_C_Simplified.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/wvo45xzhp/)

One has to ask themselves whether the 'unified theory' effort is even *worthwhile* from a revolutionary standpoint, or if there are better things to focus on.

An example of a unified form of knowledge is "Big History", explained by David Christian (see TED for his presentation). However, Big History is a non-revolutionary approach to history. Moreover, it is merely "theoretical", not practical. It does not cover many important branches of our knowledge, such as physics, mathematics, logic, not to say anything about music, art, etc.

Here's one (in two different versions) along these lines:

Humanities - Technology Chart 3.0

http://s6.postimage.org/6psghrjot/120830_Humanities_Technology_Chart_3_0.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/6psghrjot/)

Humanities-Technology Chart 2.0

http://s6.postimage.org/kdlaul6nh/090923_Humanities_Technology_Chart_2_0.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/kdlaul6nh/)

A unified form of knowledge should be good enough to direct our everyday lives, and to tell us what to do on the scales of history. It is both a program, i.e. concrete steps to be taken, and a strategy, i.e. general outlines of the problems. Unified knowledge does not limit itself to one branch of science, e.g. "politics", or even to science as a whole, but ranges over all manifestations of knowledge and all manifestations of life and the Universe, for implicitly that is knowledge too.

Marxism was a form of a unified knowledge at its inception. Today, as religion in the feudal times, it has become ossified. It is outdated by development of the productive forces, the principal one being knowledge (as I define it, see answer above).

We could call Marxism a 'societal paradigm', and also call religious thought a 'societal paradigm' -- the difference is that religion has already been historically manifested, whereas Marxism has not.

It's easy to see why people would accuse Marxism of being a religion, because it's paradigmatic, but it *is* scientific in its method and can also develop its repertoire by analyzing continuously unfolding world events.

Additionally, Marxism is *integrative* and *comprehensive*, and cuts against the prevailing *reductionistic* approach contained in most scientific perspectives.

Anything that's so paradigmatic, or all-encompassing, can be difficult to get a grasp on, since it can be unwieldy in its totality. Acceptance of a paradigm's premise -- like the class struggle -- gives rise to far-flung implications -- like the *need* for active class struggle -- that may not always be so appealing.

If you feel that Marxism to-date is stagnating, that may be reflective of the stalling of pro-active class struggle from below, generally -- arguably. Marxism is *still* a unified form of knowledge, and speaks to the productive process no matter what shape it takes, *independently* of the knowledge base involved.

ckaihatsu

5th April 2013, 04:32

12. An analysis of the transitional states grows into a political and social analysis of all modern states, for socialists cannot remain, for example, “deaf, dumb and blind” to such momentous events as the civil war in Syria happening at the moment. The map of knowledge will help us to organize our disjointed and chaotic pieces of information.

Your choice of wording belies your political position on the topic of Syria, and possibly in general.

What's going on in Syria is not a 'civil war' -- that's the euphemism used by the bourgeois corporate media in an attempt to cover up their complicity with the warmongers, or "opposition". It's actually a *proxy war*, and very world-war-like in its composition, since its backers are several nations.

fractal-vortex

5th April 2013, 10:09

fractal-vortex

5th April 2013, 10:20

Chris! An interesting reply, thanks, it seems we're both interested in some sort of generalization of knowledge. Hope to talk to you,

fractal-vortex:)

ckaihatsu

5th April 2013, 18:44

comrade! I agree that the West, in particular the US, is behind the war in Syria. But it is still a civil war, as one part of the population is fighting another. What about civil war in Russia? Was it a "civil war" or not? Please remember, that there was an extensive intervention in Soviet Russia, from the US, Britain, France, Japan, etc. See Wikipedia on this: "Civil war in Soviet Russia":)

I'll say that the Russian "Civil War" is misnamed, also, since it's far more accurate to call it the Russian Revolution -- both the February one, against the tsar, and the October one, for power to the soviets.

The *U.S.* Civil War is the most appropriately named -- and is the defining archetype of it -- since it *was* entirely internal and was sheerly between competing factions of capital.

ckaihatsu

5th April 2013, 18:45

Chris! An interesting reply, thanks, it seems we're both interested in some sort of generalization of knowledge. Hope to talk to you,

fractal-vortex:)

Very good, and thanks. Take care, FV.