The Diverse Tasks for Revolutionaries

Revolution of the Mind

The essential modern extensions to a Marxist analysis of Capitalism are clearly underway with contributions like those of David Harvey. And, Richard Wolff correctly extols the virtues of Worker Co-ps as an alternative to Capitalist forms of production.

But these contributions are by no means sufficient to build an effective revolutionary organisation, capable, when a genuine revolutionary situation emerges, of leading the Working Class to finally overthrow Capitalism. Indeed, literally nowhere are such organisations being built!

I know because I spent a good part of my adult life in professedly Revolutionary organisations, yet none of them were anywhere close to being up to the competences required. And it was not just in their political organisation, or even their policies: they were, in retrospect, emasculated shadows of the real thing - embodied in such as the Russian Bolsheviks.

And, they were not only very top-down in their bureaucratic organisation, but also lamentably lacking in developing the essential and radically different Philosophy of Marxism - Dialectical Materialism!  Indeed, even their reasoning was dominated by the old Formal Reasoning, which had led to Hegel's attempt to correct its pluralist disabilities, via his instituting into it the directly contrary Dialectical Approach.

And as a professional physicist, I couldn't even raise any interest in the primary-philosophical-task still outstanding among self-professed Marxists - namely, both the philosophical, and the physical, defeat of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory in Modern Sub Atomic Physics. Indeed, in bringing it up, I was admonished for using it to avoid the pressing day-to-day rasks of political Activism!

None of the parties I joined were general Dialectical Materialists: they were, in fact, well out-of-date, and inadequate purely economic Marxists, and political activists only, and they never discussed Marx's actual revolutionary philosophy at all. It most certainly did not guide their activities, or their publications.

Yet, it was undoubtedly Marx's creation of the wholly new philosophical standpoint of Dialectical Materialism, that enabled all his consequent contributions. But as a single individual, addressing the whole gigantic area of Capitalist Economics, he never had the time to address all the other crucial areas in the same way.

And, the most important of these, Science, has still not been addressed by any of the "Marxist" groups.

Marxism can only advance if it is diversified...

Organising for Real Social Change

In spite of several major crises, such as the decade-long slump in the 1930s, and the similar and still continuing Depression commencing in 2008, the problems which caused them have not, and indeed cannot, be solved, whilever we live within a Capitalist Economic System.

For, this system is driven by maximising Profit for the Few, while directly extracting the wherewithal to maintain and extend the System, from the the work and the pockets of the majority of the People - the Many! And, the consequences throughout the last century have been totally horrendous - TWO World Wars with literally Tens of Millions of Deaths - entirely due to rival Capitalist powers wanting bigger shares! Impending climate catastrophe as the system requires perpetual growth and the destruction of the natural world which that necessitates. And, also, there have been - Revolutions in TWO of the biggest Countries in the World, whose stated purpose was to build Socialism and bury Capitalism for ever.

So, how has Capitalism survived?

There is no easy answer, but one of the primary reasons the many haven't been able to overthrow the few is because literally ALL the means of disseminating Information are in the biased hands of the Wealthy, and even the apparently Democratic Political Systems, worldwide, have been bought to both speak and act always in a pro-capitalist way!

Yet, even so, it has all been insufficient, and we are now living within a period of literally constant wars - either to supress any divergence from the pro Capitalist Bloc, or to supress any challenge the dominance of the current hegemony of the Leading Capitalist Power - the USA!

And, no matter what setbacks the war-mongers get, they simply redouble their efforts, to maintain the status quo - one way or another. 

It is becoming an existential Crisis for Capitalism, and as they have NO solutions - they still carry on with the vast increases in Debt, which precipitated the continuing Crisis of 2008! It hasn't been a solution to that, so stepping it up again to even higher levels won't solve things now.

So, how can the People break out of their currently powerless position?

They have to FIRST bypass the usual means, and take to the streets!

And, then they must strive to build Socialist Political Parties with the Theory necessary to inform their actions.

And that MUST be Marxist - BUT NOT the distorted versions of the Stalinist/Communist and even the Trotskyist aberrations, but a NEW and Genuine Marxism, based upon the contributions of Karl Marx, but now finally extended into Science, where it is currently exposing the myths of Modern Sub Atomic Physics, as well as rejecting the many Damaging Revisions, in the name of Marxism, which are no such thing!

There is no shortage of Issues: get out there and DEMONSTRATE!

Natural Revolution (2019) A SHAPE film...

Natural Revolution

SHAPE Journal is proud to present a new film by Michael C Coldwell and Jim Schofield.

This is a film about revolution.

A film about how revolutionary emergences are a natural and crucial part of all developing reality. 

Based on a wide-ranging discussion between Marxist philosopher and scientist Jim Schofield, and filmmaker and researcher Michael C Coldwell, this essay film explores diverse themes, from Stalinism to the evolution of language, from the origin of life on earth to the failure of the 1960s revolutionary movement. The visuals are ripped and mashed from Youtube - archive footage, newsreels and films from the 20th century. Music is supplied by Conflux Coldwell and the Urban Exploration collective.

Revolutionary Socialism

The world has transformed substantially since the last time this was tried

What mechanisms of social change could finally enable a switch to socialism?

Do you really think that such a switch-over will be allowed to occur anywhere by countries like the USA?

What did you think the two World Wars, the Cold War, and the now constant local hot wars, have been about, first in Asia, and are still the case now in the Middle East?

The World Wars were about an attempted change in hegemony between Capitalist powers, while the Asian wars, and a series of others, were to suppress the attempted extension of Socialism, while later conflicts were back to hegemony once again.

Do you really think that the replacement of Capitalism will be allowed to happen peacefully by the Ballot Box? Know your History: and the current situation in the UK, for all tell us very clearly indeed that the answer is without any doubt - NO!

All the "versions" of Socialism, which insist that a peaceful transition will be allowed to occur, effectively disarm those fighting for Socialism, with strictly moral alternatives, which have never in the past, and will never now, change the World.

And, of course, there has, and continues to be, a sizeable penetration of the Socialist Movements by those who, in the last analysis, will actually fight against real Socialism's institution, and will show their true objectives by who it is that they militarily align when the crunch comes.

The Socialist movement has, since its very inception, been divided into Liberals and Revolutionaries. And, while the former have never established anything significant, only the revolutionaries have ever managed to succeed in challenging the injustices of Capitalism. And, that was never just via a totally committed militancy, but by a theoretical superiority, based upon an understanding of the trajectory of past histories and the dynamics of social change, with their absolutely essential Social Revolutions!

The wherewithall for the necessary breakhrough was achieved by an Historian follower of the Philosopher Hegel, who after over 2,000 years since the Greek Intellectual Revolution, finally addressed the debilitating Pluralist flaws in Formal Reasoning, with his attempted inclusion of Qualitative Changes into that Discipline. But, Hegel was an idealist philosopher, and it was in the switch of Hegel's modified stance, only by Karl Marx, that his objective was generally achieved, by applying the same reasoning, but with a Materialist Philosophical Basis.

For, Marx then knew what had to be done, and spent the rest of his life applying that Dialectical Materialism to a thoroughgoing critique of Capitalist Economics in his 3 volume work Das Kapital.

So, for the first time, History could be considered dynamically- in its vast qualitative changes, and in their key events - Social Revolutions - where such changes happen at a remarkable rate, but nevertheless could be understood on-the-fly- as they occurred, and, consequently, acted upon successfully.

Indeed, that evident Marxian understanding divided the sheep from the goats - only Marxists had any idea of what was happening literally day-by-day, and even hour-by-hour. For, Marx had been able to use Michelet's History of the French Revolution to extract the Dynamics of Revolutionary Change from that period of maximal Social Flux, in a generally applicable way. And, of course, also apply it to a remarkable degree in Das Kapital!

The application of Marx's methods within an actual Revolution, especially those due to Lenin, were also made available worldwide by both John Reed's Ten Days that Shook the World, and also Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution.

Now sadly, the early deaths of both Marx and Lenin left Socialism without a first-rate Marxist theorist, and both inside and outside the Soviet Union (as post-revolutionary Russia became), the absolutely essential extension of Marxism into the still-outstanding Sciences, had never been undertaken, and a multitude of self-professed "Marxists" appeared everywhere, but literally without the understanding or necessary profundity of a Marx, or of a Lenin!

Indeed, the crucial assault upon the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory in physics, has only very recently been completed by this Marxist, mathematician and physicist, after a decade of study, and is as yet unknown in Socialist Organisations worldwide.

So, committed comrades in Socialist Organisations are still largely ill-equipped theoretically for the coming World Crisis, and unless something is done very quickly indeed, the madmen in power, and currently manipulating the present crisis will plunge us into what could be a terminal World War!

Can Socialists do anything if they limit themselves to blind activism and the Ballot Box? Current Elections have proved that Democracy can be effectively manipulated or even swept aside when it gets-in-the-way of certain politicians' purposes.

We surely must be prepared to act in a Revolutionary way to stop the Billionaires sacrificing millions of ordinary People via their dangerous and undemocratic plans...

SHAPE Journal has recently produced a documentary film on the theory of revolution, you can watch it below:

Beauty?

Scultpure by Henry Moore - its beauty is nothing to do with symmetry or formal perfection

As an artist (I am primarily a sculptor) as well as both a professional scientist, and a philosopher, I always justifiably jib at sweeping definitions of Beauty, from one or another supposedly fundamental stance! So, when today I was assaulted on YouTube by a series of such declarations, I was impelled to pen this essay.

The most glaringly false declarations, as you might have guessed, were inevitably about Mathematics!

Wilczek swoons at its towering and breath-taking "Beauty", while another is staggered by the importance of Number in the Universe.

But, it is also clear, that neither of these 'prophets' were in any way aware of the fundamental weakness at the very heart of that Mathematics, which makes it totally incapable of dealing with any qualitative developments whatsoever. For, its power resides solely in its artificial simplification of all things to reveal only their superficial Forms or Patterns.

Mathematics is the study of forever-fixed Pure Forms, and as such was, and is, a truly remarkable advance, but certainly NOT the Revealer of all, or even any, Causative Essence. The invention of this formal approach, by the Ancient Greeks, was indeed a major Revolution in intellectual studies: but it wasn't carried out by an omnipotent, all-knowing and all-seeing God - but by mere human beings.

Darwinian Evolution selects for Survival and effective Reproduction only - so our Hominid-Line knapped pieces of flint for literally millions of years, without any significant intellectual development occurring at all. For this 'intelligence' was not congenital, but certainly had-to-be both a solely socially-acquired, and passed-on ability.

Indeed, the undoubted proof is clearly evident, from the revealing studies of Palaeontologists, who also immediately recognised the tremendous significance of the Neolithic Revolution, when Mankind successively changed-over to staying-in-one-place with others of their kind to productively both Farm-the-Land, Domesticate Animals. and discuss with one another. Only then could increasing-social-interactions begin to develop in both the regular Exchanges of things, and revealing Discussions, delivering a consequent development of productive activities and crucially also both Language and indeed Thought itself!

Now, the above short diversion into Human Evolution was absolutely essential, as without it, the inevitably inaccurate initial misconceptions about the Nature of Mathematics would inevitably intervene to prevent any understanding of its accompanying significant weaknesses. So, unavoidably demolishing any promotion of it to a universally fundamental role in the Consciousness of Mankind!

The Ancient Greeks had achieved a remarkable thing conceptually, in their Intellectual Revolution - they invented a wholly new kind of Abstraction - with regard to Forms, that enabled the valid construction of the very first Intellectual Discipline in their History - namely Mathematics!

I call them "Simplifying Relatable Abstractions", and they were a remarkably empowering original invention! They stripped down certain formal conceptions to an absolute minimum content - indeed, so tiny were they, that they were useless in isolation - BUT, as connecting-enablers, they alone legitimately linked certain things together, delivering a sound means that could be legitimately repeated into delivering a substantial complex and coherent spatial Discipline.

But, there was a flaw!

All so-produced-things must be permanently fixed.

They could never change qualitatively into something else!

So, what had actually been inadvertently and unavoidably subscribed-to was the Principle of Plurality, and, most certainly, not everything was legitimately so permanently limited. But, abstract Form most certainly was!

Now, here beginneth the inevitable drift into significant Error, from this initial success. For, immediately, The Greeks, delighted with what they had been able to do with Form, exported the same sort of qualities into both Reasoning and a nascent Science, where they were wholly illegitimate as universal premises!

But, the disaster was, by no means immediately evident, particularly if those so-produced Disciplines were to be only used within naturally Stable and Unchanging Situations.

And also, crucially, in Science, investigators quickly learned how to both achieve-and-maintain such situations, for both relation extractions and also subsequent effective use of extracted eternal Natural Laws. While in Formal Logic, the Reasoning was limited to fixed concepts, which could suffice in most stable situations!

NOTE: But, almost immediately, Zeno of Elea had revealed the unavoidable falsities that emerged from Contradictory Fixed Concepts in his Paradoxes.

Now, as both a competant mathematician and a well-informed philosopher, I have developed these ideas, particularly with respect to the damaging Role of Pluralist Mathematics in Science, wherein I have established it as unavoidably both pluralistic and idealistic, and hence totally inadequate as any sort of assumed General Ground of Concrete Reality, i.e. in Science.

Indeed, all of its many extensions no longer exist within Concrete Reality at all, but are situated solely within Ideality - the realm of Pure Form alone.

Jim Schofield's Theory of Abstraction

So, when Wilczek and his like wax lyrical over the Beauty of Mathematics, he is actually describing situations in Form-Only Ideality!

The breath-taking intricacies and "beauties" of these investigators, are NOT about The Real at all, but, instead, only about the extensions of formal definitions into the infinite, but not concretely existing, features of Pure Form Alone within Ideality.

[It applauds the infinite extendibility and intricacy of Symmetry with Fixed Forms, and totally excludes the Real World Beauty of Creative Development entirely]

It just cannot be Science any longer: for it is, at best, a form of Art, based upon the Real, but artificially extended to extreme limits, outside of Reality, to display their Formal Beauty!

[Remember: Reality also contains properties, qualities and causalities, while Ideality contains only Form!]

But, why then is this unreal World indulged-in so extensively by scientists?

Having shot themselves in the foot via the Universal extension of Plurality to literally everything, they walled themselves off, permanently, from Developing Reality, and the Holistic and Dialectical means of dealing with it, so were forced to permanently give-up Understanding, for mere Prediction, and hence had to look elsewhere, NOT, it must be emphasized for Explanations, but instead, to seek only Descriptions-of-Forms that might possibly then be used as Disembodied Forms, enabling Prediction, without-Explanation or increased Understanding.

It is actually a retreat to an older pragmatism, disguised within sophisticated Abstraction!