I feel like I understand communist theory pretty well at a basic level, and I believe in it, but I just don’t see what part of it requires belief in an objective world of matter. I don’t believe in matter and I’m still a communist. And it seems that in the 21st century most people believe in materialism but not communism. What part of “people should have access to the stuff they need to live” requires believing that such stuff is real? After all, there are nonmaterial industries and they still need communism. Workers in the music industry are producing something that nearly everyone can agree only exists in our heads. And they’re still exploited by capital, despite musical instruments being relatively cheap these days, because capital owns the system of distribution networks and access to consumers that is the means of profitability for music. Spotify isn’t material, it’s a computer program. It’s information. It’s a thoughtform. Yet it’s still a means of production that ought to be seized for the liberation of the musician worker. What does materialism have to do with any of this?
I also argue that mills are a cultural technology too, because they are merely a means of shuffling about symbols within our perception to grant us pleasures such as having warm clothes.
Surely the actual utility of a dollar, a warm coat, and a mill are not all the same, right? Your comment here kind of sounds like you’re saying that because things are cultural technology (or symbols, which all things are), they therefore are purely symbolic, that they’re somehow not real or useful outside of their cultural symbolism. This is true for money, which would be useless in a society that does not use money, but untrue for things like clothes (which can always keep people warm or protected from the elements) or mills (which can always act as shelter, or places for people to do things, for example).
A dollar, a coat, and mill are only useful because they can bring me pleasure. Which is a mental construct. If I were an organism that could not experience pleasure, like, say, an advanced robot, then all three of those things would be equally useless to me. Perhaps I’m a robot that believes in helping others and will give the coat to a cold human to make them feel better, but again, that’s still just mental constructions - my philosophy and the human’s pleasure.
they can bring me pleasure. Which is a mental construct
The commodities are the materialization of our subjective needs, and our needs are a ‘subjectification’ of some practical experience, some interaction with the material world. It seems that the main problem with your arguments is that you assume the mind is it’s own entity, without a beginning and without any relation to the material world, when, in fact, the mind is a product of the material world.
If I were (…) an advanced robot, then
Are you arguing real life or a world that you thought up just now? Surely you can exemplify your point with real life, if you think it’s correct?
It seems that the main problem with your arguments is that you assume the mind is it’s own entity, without a beginning and without any relation to the material world, when, in fact, the mind is a product of the material world.
Not quite. My problem with your ideas is that I think the material world is a product of the mind. I used to think it was the other way around, like you, but I got radicalised by intersectional feminism.
Are you arguing real life or a world that you thought up just now? Surely you can exemplify your point with real life, if you think it’s correct?
I was exemplifying my point about real life by imagining a situation in which I didn’t value things for pleasure. I’ll exemplify my point about a fictional world by referring you back to the point I was making about real life.
