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What does materialism have to do with communism? (hexbear.net)

submitted 2 years ago by DroneRights@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net

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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?

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[–] IzyaKatzmann@hexbear.net 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I appreciate the response. I suppose the only issue I have is the confidence and declarative nature of the statements you make.

I don't know if anthropocentric views are incommensurable and need to be translated through metaphor. Nagel talks about this in "What is it like to be a bat?" I don't think it makes sense to think we are at the stage where we know exactly what we don't know.

I think what you said about artificial distinctions and boundaries makes sense, I only use them as they are useful. Would you say there is a limitedness to their usefulness? If so is there some epistemic system which would be more useful? Maybe one where we accept our limits as our experience is seemingly limited to our being human.

I suppose I hold out for the possibility of some emergent phenomena hitherto unknown and avoid declarative statements.

EDIT: To comment on what you said about your experience and you being anthropocentric, are those claims themselves not artificial distinctions made and used as heuristics? Or does some level of observation of which operates on the relation of oneself of constitute an artificial distinction?

When I said I was probably wrong I don't think I was making a normative claim. You can specify further to help me understand. I saw it as a probabilistic claim where say you have a distribution, a gaussian curve, and this statement has some qualities which are within some range in that curve which when communicated in simple language is easiest to convey as 'wrong'. The intent was to open a space for discussion and to make it easier to share your views as I explicitly mentioned a space where that could happen, i.e. in the space of me considering myself to not have accurately understood. Then it wouldn't be wrong but more so not exact enough to my satisfaction.