Material Conditions

[Social Greenman]

I am writing as to what circumstances or events which would translate into revolution. My best answer would be "no one knows." :o Yet the term gets thrown around a lot here on this board with little explaination. I figure the material condition involve many things but what would be the trigger? Perhaps my answer is the best after all. :)

[which doctor]

Here's a few I will throw out.

Wealth concentrated into the hands of a very few.

A growing number of impatient workers.

A government that is drifting toward the conservative side of things.

[Cult of Reason]

I have one to throw out:

Increase in unemployment due to automation. This trend is becoming more and more evident in the service sector now, not just industry, where it first became evident.

[KC]

Increase in unemployment due to automation. This trend is becoming more and more evident in the service sector now, not just industry, where it first became evident.

That's the increase in the organic composition of capital.

Falling rate of profit due to increasing organic composition of capital causing increasing misery among the working class.

[enigma2517]

Didn't Marx say something about capitalism operating on the basis of diminishing returns?

Why does the rate of profit fall? I'm gonna go look it up but if you have a good summary go for it.

[KC]

Originally posted by enigma2517+--> (enigma2517)
Why does the rate of profit fall?[/b]

Variable Capital is the money spent on labour power.
Constant Capital is the money spent on the means of production.

The organic composition of capital is defined as constant capital divided by variable capital, or c/v. This is a ratio (obviously).

Surplus Value is the social product over and above what is required for the producers to live. In other words, it is the difference between what the product is sold for and what is paid for variable capital.

The Rate of Profit is determined by the equation s/(v+c), where s is surplus value, and v and c are variable and constant capital.


Marx's Kapital For Beginners

As everyone knows, capital production tends to rely ever more on increasingly powerful means of production. Every day, high technology gets higher – more powerful machines enter production, and productivity soars. From simple hand tools – spindles, looms, hammers, anvils – production advances to nuclear power plants, automated factories, advanced computer systems, and much, much more. Historically, the most important reason for the rapid growth of capitalist-owned means of production is competition. When Moneybags decides to buy labour-power and means of production to produce watches, he embarks on a risky venture. There are other firms making watches, and a less-than-infinite market. Who can sell watches? How many can be sold? For what price?

If Moneybags is fortunate, he, rather than his competitors, will get a large share of the market. To do this, though, Moneybags needs to sell his products as cheaply as possible. Unless he is willing to sell products for less than they are worth (which sometimes happens, but as an exception, not the rule), this means that he must cut the average labour-time socially required for the production of workers. If it originally requires 20 hours of average labour-time to make a watch, moneybags must find some way to produce a watch in less than 20 hours.

When he does, he can then charge less for his product with no loss in surplus value, and win a higher percentage of the market. If his competitor, Cashbox, finds a way to cut prices by cutting labour-time, Moneybags must follow suit – or go out of business when Cashbox ‘ corners the market’. To make a long, unlovely story shorter and sweeter, the point is that competition forces capital to use ever less labour-time per commodity. First, Moneybags cuts the time required to produce a watch from 20 hours to 18. Then Cashbox retaliates by cutting it still further. And so it goes, like a tug of war. Cutting prices, as we will see, is a way to cut throats – to eliminate competitors.

The golden rule of competitive profit-making is to produce more for less – to cut costs by cutting the average labour-time required for production. How? By increasing the power of the means of production. It’s a simple rule – but one with earthshaking consequences. Productivity, revolutionized, rises steeply. The world fills with commodities, and the danger of economic crisis approaches. What’s the connection? Jus this: that s derives from v. Variable capital, not constant capital, produces surplus value. If competition forces capital to employ an ever higher ratio of constant to variable capital – as it clearly does – then the rate of profit (s/v + c) tends to fall.

When more is spent on means of production relative to labour-power, the rate of profit tends to decline. Say, for example, that initially c = 16, v = 8, and s = 8 ( so that a 100% rate of surplus value, s/v, obtains). If c rises with no corresponding rise in v and s, the rate of profit grows smaller (even though the rate of surplus value does not). Say c changes to c = 24. Then s/v + c changes from (8/8 + 16 = 1/3) to 8/8 + 24 = ¼). From the standpoint of the capitalist, this is a big and appalling drop.

Producing for exchange is risky – it’s possible that the product will fail to sell, either as a result of competition or for other reasons. To make the gamble of investment worthwhile requires a certain minimum prospect of gain. If the rate of profit falls too low, investment ceases to be a wise use of money – the risk of loss is too great, the potential for gain is too slight. This is all the more true when investment becomes, typically, a matter of ever increasing billions of dollars – a tendency which parallels the tendency of the organic composition of capital to rise, and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. This is not just hypothetical. That the rate of profit has a tendency to fall is borne out by myriad facts of economic history. This tendency is not, however, absolute. There are countertendencies as well. But who can fail to notice the profit squeeze now stalking the world?

Previous profit squeezes have led to trade wars, often culminating in shooting wars. For competition leads not just to cutthroat business – Moneybags and Cashbox battling over prices and markets – but to the business of cutting throats. War is the ultimate means of securing economic advantage, letting your competitors suffer whatever losses must be incurred while you seize resources and markets directly without recourse to the genteel etiquette of exchange. For the victor, it is an excellent means of evading a fall in profits.

Some of the countertendencies to the tendency for the rate of profit to fall are vastly important, not only as such, but in their own right. These countertendencies revolve around v (variable capital) and s (surplus value). If c rises, what can maintain or improve the rate of profit? A comparable increase in s or a decrease in v? Let’s consider these in turn.

If necessary labour is still 4 hours, and if the number of workers stays constant, then extra surplus value can be extracted by adding extra hours to the working day. A working day of 8 hours will yield 4 hours of unpaid surplus labour-time – but a working day of 10 hours will yield 6, and a working day of 12 hours will double the original surplus value. With no change in v – neither the value of the labour-power nor the total number of workers changes – s rises. This we call the extraction of absolute surplus value.

By compelling the worker to work longer hours, Moneybags forces an absolute increase in surplus value. This is pure, unbridled joy for the capitalist, the pleasure of getting something for nothing. For the worker, the compulsory performance of absolutely more surplus labour is something else entirely – a journey through purgatory, into the hell of overwork. Is it accidental that the antagonistic relations between capital and labour so constantly revolve around the length of the working day? No! Starting with legal enactments of the 14th century, capital has fought long and hard to keep the worker at work as much as possible.

In the brutal glory days of early English capitalism, when capital was organized but labour wasn’t, horror stories abounded. Countless thousands of children between 7 and 12 were literally worked to death – forced to work from before sunrise to midnight or later. Capital’s voracious, vampire appetite for labour brought death to innumerable workers. Even in the unusual event that restrictions were imposed at all, it remained legal and ‘respectable’ to keep small children at work from 5.30 a.m. to 8.00 p.m. The majority of the time, there were no restrictions at all – just the ceaseless torment of hard, hot, dangerous work in lightless, chokingly dirty factories and mines.

Children, women and men perished by the multitude, after brutish and nasty lives shortened by overwork. Penniless even when employed, workers in these ‘dark satanic mills’ (so-called by the visionary poet William Blake) were crippled and maimed in untold ways and numbers. Family life was totally disrupted, with fathers, mothers, and children chained to machines… The only power serving to limit capital’s effort to turn every waking hour into a working hour was the proletariat itself. By means of bitter struggles against unequal, seemingly impossible odds, against greedy and complacent foes defended by the armed might of the State, workers organized to reduce the working day to more acceptable dimensions. Intense and intricate battles ensued. The result was that organized labour showed capital its power by shortening the working day. Moneybags and his vulture-brothers yielded with bitter resentment, forced to swallow gall and wormwood in the guise of first a 10 hour workday, and later an 8 hour day.

Capital hates and despises this misfortune, resisting the reduction of the workday with all its might – to this day seeking to subvert the workers’ gains and seeking places elsewhere in the world where less organized workers may be coerced into 16 hour and 18 hour days. In many places, where the process of industrial production and the creation of the proletariat is still a recent development, capital succeeds in its quest. Just ponder Taiwan, Korea, Brazil, India, South Africa… So the battle over absolute surplus value continues. S rises and falls at different times and in different parts of the world as the balance of power between capital and labour see-saws back and forth. Here labour forces absolute surplus value down – there capital forces it up.

Meanwhile, there are other fronts in the battle over surplus value. Say, for example, that workers are forced to work faster. If the value of labour-power remains unchanged, then it now requires fewer labour hours to produce commodities equal in value to the value of labour-power. Working faster, our harassed worker produces in three hours what formerly required 4 hours to produce. Where once 4 hours comprised necessary labour-time, now 3 hours does so. Even without lengthening the working day, capital can thus extract surplus value. An extra hour of surplus labour is extracted – and every hour of surplus labour is now equal to 4/3 of one labour hour before the work was speeded up. If we assume that the earlier labour was socially average, the present, faster labour is above average in intensity, resolving itself into more hours of average labour than before.

Or suppose that the value of labour-power falls. This occurs, willy nilly, whenever the average labour-time socially required to produce the means of subsistence falls. By means of rising productivity in the food industry, the construction trades, and related industries, foodstuff and other basic subsistence necessities may be sold at cheaper prices. When this happens, the value of labour-power – roughly, the cost of reproducing labour-power through the purchase of basic necessities – also fails. The result is that fewer hours of labour are now required to produce commodities as value as labour-power – since the value of labour-power has fallen.

By reducing that part of the workday devoted to necessary labour in either of these two ways – by speedup, or by cutting the value of labour-power – capital extracts what we call relative surplus value. Without absolutely lengthening the workday, capital nevertheless succeeds in expanding s by freeing relatively more of the workday for unpaid surplus labour. Again, s rises – counteracting the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. And again, it is only the working class that can defend itself.

Speedup can be prevented from reaching a killing pace only by the action of workers organized for their own ends – as the telling lessons of sweatshop labour make clear. In countless places, Moneybags, Cashbox, and their bloodthirsty colleagues try to push labour faster, faster, and still faster – typically, by the ploy of speeding up the machines until the workers keel over. Or they turn to the ruse of ‘scientific management,’ bringing in ‘efficiency experts’ with stopwatches (a la Frederick Winslow Taylor) to reduce ‘wasted motions’ and thus generate higher productivity. Or management psychology is used: ‘What colour should we paint the factory, and what muzak should we play, to lull the workers into working harder?’ Or direct force is employed, with the use of brutal foremen and supervisors.

In places where labour is strong, decisive steps have been taken to combat speed-up. But where labour remains weak, capital is overjoyed to speed workers as fast as it can and for as long as it can. Until labour is strong everywhere, capital will scour the earth for unorganized sectors of the world proletariat to exploit more ruthlessly and thoroughly than organized workers will allow. Right now, as the world working grows rapidly, capital enjoys many options. Labour in many places can be absolutely and relatively forced to provide more and still more surplus value – a factor definitely counteracting the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Add to this that v can be lowered by the reduction of the workforce, of by the reduction of wages, and we begin to glimpse the battery of approaches open to capital in its effort to avert the crises which threaten as c rises.

-Source (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=45625&st=0&#entry1292011595)

The entire book can be found here (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=45625). It is a very good read for people not that knowledgable or not that patient with economics.

[Connolly]

I am writing as to what circumstances or events which would translate into revolution. My best answer would be "no one knows." Yet the term gets thrown around a lot here on this board with little explaination. I figure the material condition involve many things but what would be the trigger? Perhaps my answer is the best after all.

The circumstance for the socialist transformation of society MUST be that the capitalist mode of production can no longer further its development.

Think of the feudal system. It had become obsolete from the technological developments made - social relations and further development to production could not have been improved.

For human advancement, the feudal overthrow was a must. Either that, or remain static - without change and advancement to the means of production.

This is the same for the capitalist mode. If it cannot further its development, holding society back from further "productive potential", it can either advance (breaking free from its capitalistic restraints) - or hold the human race without change (something humans cannot do, "curiosity killed the cat" - say no more).

The events are much harder to 'predict' - probably with no accuracy what so ever, time will tell.

Marx for example, believed society and the mode of production were ready for change - now, over 100 years down the line, the capitalist mode of production continues to revolutionise and advance the means of production.
If I were to go predicting these things, I could very well end up in the same trap and be a "victim of my time" - something which I try my utmost best to avoid.

Ill give it a shot as to how the capitalist system might restrain itself, needing necessary overthrow.................

There is the trade off between the worker (who produces the food and gets paid and consumes what they have produced) and the machine (who produces the food, yet consumes nothing and gets no pay). There is an anarchy in production, meaning each capitalist works for their own interest, updates their manufacturing plant for their own interest - without any central guide.

The capitalist, while trying to compete with rivals, will choose the machine over the worker to reduce costs and produce more for less. So, each capitalist is forced through competition to automate their production lines (this can be seen today), thereby reducing the labour force - but also, advancing the means of production (capitalisms historic role).

It must, somewhere down the line, come to the point of "who will buy what the machines produce? - since the workers have been displaced".
(something which dosnt seem to be happening at the moment since there is still very high employment rates - but in time?)

At this point, humanity can regress, destroying the productive forces which took so long to build up to save the capitalist class (not going to happen), or, break free from the capitalistic restraints which holds back the means of production towards a higher form, automation.

Revolution of the proletariat class must occur to advance society from those whos interest it is to hold back - the bourgeois.

For revolution to come about, class consciousness must be present. I believe this could come in the form of the workers realising that the capitalist class are no longer necessary - seeing the vast manufacturing plants, agricultural machinary and distribution systems all running practically by themselves - without the need for the capitalist selling these goods at a price. I would imagine mass unemployment, monopolisation of production, land in the hands of a few and an obviously clear state slant towards the protection and interests of the ruling class for the proletariat to even begin questioning the structure of society and the necessity of the capitalist class.

Of course, for society to reach this level, there must be workers in order to buy what these machines produce.

Maybe a little far fetched, but these remaining workers could be those "tending" to the ruling classes every need and those also protecting them - police, military. Something opposite today might happen, instead of people coming from other countries to the most modern and advanced countries, those within the most modern countries might emigrate to the less developed nations due to the lack of work.


Call all this far fetched, somewhat impossible, but I am putting a lot of "slack" on the rope - something Marx didnt do!!

That is what, from my limited understanding, the way these material "events" will unfold. - I am a mere mortal after all.

[Epoche]

The RedBanner:


It must, somewhere down the line, come to the point of "who will buy what the machines produce? - since the workers have been displaced".

Are you implying that only "workers" are consumers?

I think at such a point there will be three basic classes which exist, but the ratios will be worked out over time as machine production increases, in turn decreasing the divide between the classes finally to resolve into one class. I don't think that suddenly consumerism will drop or dissappear altogether. Besides, the machines will only produce what is demanded and what is demanded is determined by the population census.

I think it might work like this. You will have the upper-class which are those who own a larger percentage of the means of production (machinary) and do no labor, the middle-upper class which will own a smaller percent of the means of production and do some labor (I'm speaking proportionately here), and the lower-class which will be the decreasing class which owns no means of production and which had previously done the larger percent of labor.

As machination as the means of production increase, the lower-class will move quicker to extinction, while there will still be consumerism. Except the only viable consumers will be the upper-class and the upper-middle class. The original middle-class, which can be considered right now as those who are in a higher financial bracket than the lower-class, but also perform a small percent of "labor," will integrate into the upper-class when the machination evolves to maintain itself-- machines making and regulating themselves.

In summary it might be like this: Lower-class doesn't do labor anymore because machines do it, while the middle-upper class run the machines owned by the upper-class. The machines then become self-manageable and the middle-class submerges into the upper-class. From this point a type of corporate totalitarianism might develop where there are only two classes- the human being and the machine.

"I want your boots, your sun glasses, and your motorcycle"

....just kidding.

Anyway I think this is one possible scenario, and of course it isn't an original idea. I've heard similiar forecasts.

I think communism's task might be to "check" and prevent that techonological advancement so that rather than the working class becomming extinct...machines and hegemonies are not created and in turn cause the upper-class and middle-class to level into the working class. There is your classless society.

It will be a single world order of perfect non-despotic democracy.

The only thing left to do is coordinate the existing worker castes which control the different resource productions, of which there will be many. For example, all worker castes will start with the same commodities, while they produce different commodities, depending on the industry pertaining to that specific caste. If one castes fails to supply the society with the commodities it is assigned to produce, this doesn't mean that it loses its consumer rights-- instead the failed productive forces are reinforced by another caste to re-establish the production rate for the present demand. This isn't decided "democratically" because it is neccessary and not a matter of choice. There would be no alternative to this that wouldn't jeopardize the whole system. It is a material objective. There are no more "countries" or "political systems" or "religions" and a "class" is only determined by its position on the globe-- which directly concerns its industry capability. You are "your job" but not in a class since all workers are equal consumers. It would be like a hive.

The world is then working like a well oiled machine?

Just a thought. I'm sure there are many, many more details and anomalies but it might be the basic format for what could happen.

[Social Greenman]

First of all: Thank you all for replying to this thread.

The RedBanner wrote:


The circumstance for the socialist transformation of society MUST be that the capitalist mode of production can no longer further its development.

Think of the feudal system. It had become obsolete from the technological developments made - social relations and further development to production could not have been improved.

For human advancement, the feudal overthrow was a must. Either that, or remain static - without change and advancement to the means of production.

I wish I could agree with this but at this point I'm not. I believe the capitalist class will always find a way to continue its developement. However, I do agree that the workers themselves have to awaken to the fact that they don't need the capitalist class since they do all the functions in production, distribution, accounting, and book keeping. The capitalist is absent but hold the deed to the means of production. Workers must also realise that their labor power becomes surplus labor which = to profits made. What I am saying is that every worker no matter where they work are robbed daily by the capitalist class.

It was once pointed out to me in an analogy that different gasses were put in a closed container and the heat was turned up. However, there was no explosion. The person who mixed the gasses now has to determine what percentages of the different gasses would cause an explosion. The same applies to material conditions because we don't know what circumstances would ignite revolution.

Thanks Lazar for the link to Capital for Beginners.

[Connolly]

Your Ideas are very interesting. :)


I don't think that suddenly consumerism will drop or dissappear altogether

Consumerism will exist as long as the economic mode requires it to.


Besides, the machines will only produce what is demanded and what is demanded is determined by the population census.

No, under the capitalist system, things are produced based on what can be sold - not by demand. Is food in demand in africa?

What machines produce is limited by the capitalistic economic restraints.


As machination as the means of production increase, the lower-class will move quicker to extinction, while there will still be consumerism. Except the only viable consumers will be the upper-class and the upper-middle class. The original middle-class, which can be considered right now as those who are in a higher financial bracket than the lower-class, but also perform a small percent of "labor," will integrate into the upper-class when the machination evolves to maintain itself-- machines making and regulating themselves.

What will happen to the vast bulk of the population - the workers?

You believe they will become owners of the means of production?

A fundamental characteristic of the capitalist system is MONOPOLY and COMPETITION.

What you are saying is complete rubbish to be honest. Everyone cannot own the means of production under circumstances of competition and monopoly. That contradicts the whole nature of the capitalist system.


In summary it might be like this: Lower-class doesn't do labor anymore because machines do it, while the middle-upper class run the machines owned by the upper-class. The machines then become self-manageable and the middle-class submerges into the upper-class. From this point a type of corporate totalitarianism might develop where there are only two classes- the human being and the machine.

You cannot be serious. So the humans have gone from the exploited to the exploiter...........of machines :huh:

What is the necessity of the class system - upperclass and middle class? Why do they have to exist in your system?


Im sorry - please explain your theory better - I fail to see how this can possibly be.

[Connolly]

I wish I could agree with this but at this point I'm not. I believe the capitalist class will always find a way to continue its developement.

But it cannot.

How will the capitalist 'develop' a way to keep the entire human species from advancing, stop the progressive class progressing? How?

Could the Monarchs and feudal lords prevent feudalism and the necessity of their existance from vanishing into history?

Its easy saying what you said but HOW? HOW can the bourgeosie STOP history?

The carpet will be pulled from under them.

[Floyce White]

This post (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?act=ST&f=6&t=45607&hl=&view=findpost&p=1292020598) gives the definitive treatment to the generic jargon of "material conditions."

If you ignore it, expect me to eviscerate your arguments later.

[redstar2000]

The term "material conditions" is indeed "thrown around" a lot...as a kind of "short-hand" for a whole bunch of things that we really don't know.

Instead Marx and later writers have assumed that for communism to be practical, a very high level of technological development and consequent abundance is required.

By this crude measure, the "material conditions" for communism don't yet exist...because if they did, then people would be communists.

Just as people stopped being serfs and started being workers when the material conditions that we associate with capitalism had sufficiently developed to make capitalism practical.

There are, of course, "post-modernists" who maintain that there's "no such thing" as material conditions and humans can have "any form of society they like" no matter what the constraints of their technology.

That's mindless babble in my opinion...but probably harmless enough, all things considered. People with those views usually start little "communes" which just disappear after a while.

Meanwhile, we still face the "problem" of defining the material conditions required for successful proletarian revolution and viable communism.

I'm not sure it's possible to "surpass Marx" at this point: capitalism will be overthrown when it breaks down of its own accord and can no longer function. And that will be the "point in time" when communism is the practical alternative. It will be as "obvious" as capitalism was "obvious" in 1800.

It would certainly be "nice" if we had a clearer idea about just what "in particular" will be the "tipping point"...but I'm "in the dark" just as much as I think everyone else is now.

Cybernated production may be the "key"...but, as I say, I don't know. :(

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Social Greenman]

Thanks Redstar 2000 for posting. Great answer. To answer The RedBanner...You may be very correct. Karl Marx said it best:

So, then, why aren't the workers now open-minded about the concept of socialism? Not due to material condition, but due to ideological conditions:
Marx and Engels explained in _The German Ideology_

A friend of mine wrote this:


"The ideas of the ruling class are, in every epoch, the ruling ideas; i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society is, at the same time, its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control, at the same time, over the means of mental production, so that, thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it."

Capitalist control of the means of _mental_ production (mainly, the schools and the media) is currently the only thing sustaining the popular acceptance of capitalist ownership of all of the other means of production.

That is why we educate our co-workers and friends. To over come the idelogical conditions that exist.

[Floyce White]

Redstar2000, it was YOUR argument that was eviscerated in that post (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=45607&st=25&#entry1292020598) (as taken up by you and ComradeRed). Do you remember how I told you in another post (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?act=ST&f=6&t=42974&hl=&view=findpost&p=1291999104) on this same subject that you would pretend that your argument wasn't unproven (and now disproven), and that you would continue to promote a position you know to be false? That's what you're doing here. Dogmatism is a feature of all "leaderism" (such as "Marxism").

An anonymous Internet nickname cannot have a reputation, cannot defend it, and cannot lose it. You are free to say whatever you want without worry.

I do not have that luxury. As an older, experienced comrade, I must set an example of willingness to fight, willingness to admit mistakes, reason, and factual honesty. I have a responsibility to help build the morale of young revolutionaries who read on this board--not kick them in the teeth by saying they "can't know" what they're fighting for and "can't win" for "perhaps two centuries more." I can't imagine how someone as anti-revolutionary as you ever got to be a theory moderator on a "revolutionary" message board. But it makes perfect sense that you pretend that your anti-revolutionary ideas are "never" refuted.

The issue isn't you. The issue is that the term "material conditions" has been made into a euphemism as I described in the aforementioned post. Younger and inexperienced comrades are confused by the vagueness of the term. They aren't yet "initiated" and don't know they are being subtly lied to.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Floyce White
Redstar2000, it was YOUR argument that was eviscerated in that post...

You couldn't "eviscerate" your way out of a paper bag. :lol:


Dogmatism is a feature of all "leaderism" (such as "Marxism").

Incoherence is a feature of all "nutballism" (such as "Floyce White-ism").


An anonymous Internet nickname cannot have a reputation, cannot defend it, and cannot lose it. You are free to say whatever you want without worry.

And I like that! I'm not trying to be anybody's "Great Leader"...so I can tell the truth "without fear or favor".


As an older, experienced comrade, I must set an example of willingness to fight, willingness to admit mistakes, reason, and factual honesty.

Why don't you begin by "setting an example" of coherence? Unintelligible ranting is...not much help.


I can't imagine how someone as anti-revolutionary as you ever got to be a theory moderator on a "revolutionary" message board.

Bribery! :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[KC]

Why don't you begin by "setting an example" of coherence? Unintelligible ranting is...not much help.

I can't believe that Redstar just said this!!! :lol:

[Connolly]

Please, Floyce White - explain what exactly your point is in relation to the material conditions for communism for us inexperienced comrades - without the mathematical jargon.

Are you saying there are no material conditions necessary for socialism?

Why are we being lied to?

[Floyce White]

The RedBanner: "Please, Floyce White--explain what exactly your point is in relation to the material conditions for communism for us inexperienced comrades--without the mathematical jargon."

Material: lower-class people are material things.

Conditions: lower-class struggle is the condition that causes the communist future world society.

The RedBanner: "Are you saying there are no material conditions necessary for socialism?"

Socialism is a form of capitalism characterized by nationalization of big business. Socialism is not a "lower stage" of communism. Please see my Antiproperty articles on my WEBSITE>>.

The RedBanner: "Why are we being lied to?"

Petty capitalists try to co-opt the workers' movement into fighting for various property interests. Petty capitalists have a material interest in trying to convince workers that there are SOME OTHER MATERIALS and SOME OTHER CONDITIONS that cause communism (other than the struggle of working-class people).

redstar2000: "..."

Redstar2000 approaches disagreement as a dog greets strangers.

Redstar2000 neither knows nor cares what constitutes a logical argument. He is interested solely in advancing his agenda. He says whatever he perceives to be in his self-interest to say at the time, and believes that everyone else does exactly the same.

Isn't that right, Redstar2000?