What makes Hegel’s “idealism” an idealism is the way it assumes that matter (eg. a stone floating in space) does not really exist beyond the domain of the mind (ie. if something doesn’t involve consciousness, then according to Hegel, it does not exist). His notion that ideas drive social development is not a characteristic of traditional idealism. Pure idealism is not necessarily tied to that.

In other words: there’s Hegel’s methaphysical idealism, and then Hegel’s philosophy of history and society (which is where his dialectic comes in).

All those sociocultural ideas Hegel had, and his opinions on what is it that drives socioeconomical progress, are not necessarily incompatible with even the most extreme forms of materialism (defined by the belief that matter is the one substance of reality).

Those ideas are in conflict with Marxist materialism (which is essentially the materialist version of Hegel’s mix of ideas, which is intermixed with its own set of sociocultural claims), but not with materialism in its commonly used general term in metaphysics (which does not make those claims).

What Politzer calls “materialism” is also not strict materialism in the way it’s commonly used in philosophy of the mind, not even when he does try to link it to it. He toys with the idea of “mind” being a separate thing from “matter” even within his explanation of materialism. And this gets him closer to dualism, not the monist ideas subyacent in what’s commonly understood as materialism. Even in the most generous reading, he’s at most a dualist of properties (ie. an emergentist) but he does not develop his thoughts enough in this respect, his ideas could be perfectly followed by a dualist of substances too, who wouldn’t really agree with the monist view of materialism.

Materialism and Idealism, in the philosophy of mind, are not incompatible with the ideas of the drive of sociocultural change that either Hegel or Marx have when it comes to philosophy of history.

In a strict/pure (ie. not intermixed with separate Marxist ideas) materialist view, brains are machines and all within them is material and physical. Ideas don’t exist as anything but a form of physical electrochemical interactions between the matter of the brain.

In a strict/pure (ie. not intermixed with separate Hegelian ideas) idealist view, all physical properties, including physical things like factories, the products / goods produced, etc. are real and they can be just as primary in the development of society as any real thing can be. Idealism just says that matter only exists in so far we experience it, it does not say that matter is a different thing that’s separate from ideas and that ideas are somehow important and matter is not… no. It says that matter (food, house, factories) is important and it is part of our experience, and experience is part of consciousness, which is part of the realm of mind.

For an idealist, matter IS mind, just the same way that for a materialist mind IS matter. They are both monist views, there is no “X” is “primary” over “Y”… but rather “Y” IS “X”, there is only one realm of reality in both views.

That said, I’m a strict epiphenomenalist materialist that believes in determinism and rejects the idea of free will (beyond it being just an epiphenomenological illusion of our consciousness), I also reject the notion that consciousness in any way or form affects reality. I definitely disagree with Hegel’s views in more than one way.

I understand why you called me idealist. It’s because you were thinking about Marxist materialism and interpreted what I said (in your mind) as if it were opposed in some way to that view.

And yet, I do believe that the material act of punishing the powerful and distributing material goods efficiently and fairly is what can drive change in society… not culture/ideas per se. And in order to do that effectively you need to implement real tools with real physical mechanisms of distributed transparency and control that so far have not been applied in any society, nor do I see socialist States (like China) to be steering in that direction.

Agreed.

That’s your opinion.

I’m also not surprised you agree with “the red-headed philosopher”. Maybe read other philosophers too. It helps building up some perspective.

Georges Politzer’s Elementary Principles of Philosophy

He’s definitely mixing things up, so I’m not surprised you mix them too… he’s even involving a “God”, as if this had anything to do with religion. He even talks about a “soul”…

There are theists who are hard materialists (eg. Thomas Hobbes), and there are atheists who are hard idealists (eg. Bernardo Kastrup). It’s also possible be atheist and believe in a soul (eg. Michael Humer) or theist and believe there is no soul (eg. Peter van Ingwagen). The ideas in that book in relation to philosophy of the mind must be a product of its time. It’s full of assumptions and pre-conceived ideas.

And he uses the generic term “materialism” in a way that’s too specific, despite of all the different forms of materialism that exist, I’d say he seems to be more of an epiphenomenalist, or perhaps emergentist (which are just particular forms of it), but he does not seem to develop it well enough to clarify it. However the way he talks about it excludes many other forms of materialism, particularly the more extreme ones like eliminative materialism.

Personally, for a book like this one that’s meant to be an introduction (he does not go very deep), I would have first made clear the difference between dualism and monism… specially given that he seems to like the idea of including in materialism the concept of “matter” and “mind” (or “spirit” as he calls it) as two separate things, which would likely lead many to confuse materialism with a form of dualism after reading this book.

When it comes to your argument, “Ownership” is just an authority position recognized by the state as falling under that term. There’s no functional requirements or powers.

No, the executive power is a power. It does have a function… in the same way, the management/administrative obligations of a position has a function.

A society where “owners” have no actual ability to buy or sell what they “own” and who are selected by society to “own” rather than by virtue of posession aren’t owners at all.

I don’t agree with that, if I can’t sell something that does not mean I’m not its owner, it just means I will be stuck with it (unless somehow I find a way to get rid of it).

I also did not say they don’t have that ability, what I said that if the property is a means of production, the rules of the State would force them to require the approval of the State/Workers for any action related to that property. So if the State/Workers don’t agree with the operation, it would not be allowed.

This is not dissimilar to how in many countries some properties are protected by the State, even when they are privately owned. Some States will try and place laws to prevent certain practices with certain properties. Like forest/woodland and so. Sometimes you will not be allowed to do certain things with your house if the State does not consider it sensible (like how I’m not allowed to install solar panels, because for some reason my city does not want houses in my neighborhood to have anything that could make them look modern -_-U).

We reached max comment depth in the other thread so I cannot reply there… I’ll post the response here to your question:

That’s decided by the State, they are the ones enforcing those rights and demanding those obligations.

This is idealism, not materialism, ie this believes ideas create reality, rather than the inverse.

No, materialism is the view that all of reality can be reduced to the material, while idealism is the view that all of reality is in the realm of the mind / mental experience. I think you are mixing concepts, and in any case, neither of those positions has ever been able to be proven true… I’m perfectly happy to talk about philosophy of the mind (though you’ll find I’m more of an epiphenomenalist… even though all positions in this case have their issues), but it’s a completely different topic and you are not applying the concept correctly here.

If the paper is signed by an official of the US state with sufficient authority, and the laws of the country allow it, yes.

EDIT: I cannot respond to the reply below because we seem to have reached the max comment deph, so I’ll reply here

What comes with this ownership? What “rights/obligations” do I have?

That’s decided by the State, they are the ones enforcing those rights and demanding those obligations.

This is idealism, not materialism, ie this believes ideas create reality, rather than the inverse.

No, materialism is the view that all of reality can be reduced to the material, while idealism is the view that all of reality is in the realm of the mind / mental experience. I think you are mixing concepts, and in any case, neither of those positions has ever been able to be proven true… I’m perfectly happy to talk about philosophy of the mind (though you’ll find I’m more of an epiphenomenalist… even though all positions in this case have their issues), but it’s a completely different topic and you are not applying the concept correctly here.

To me all you need for ownership is a paper stating that your title will be “owner” in relation to a good, and some rights / obligations assotiated to it.

Yes, that’s what you think.

Why do you think they should be considered owners if they don’t own?

Because it’s you who thinks they don’t own, not me.

I have explained that they don’t, as long as they are scrutinized in the same level as I consider owners should be.

We are, because what you call ownership isn’t what I call ownership.

Let’s agree to disagree. But I find it sad that you wanna boil it down to semantics and don’t address the aspects of control that allow you to stop considering ownership as ownership.

I’m not saying that it ownership is an absolute requirement… again… THAT’S MY POINT… that ownership is IRRELEVANT to the root of the problem.

I feel we are going in circles.

I think you misunderstand. It’s not like they are a completely separate kind of person.

They are as distinct as an executioner who needs to cut someone’s head is distinct from the person whose head needs to be cut.

The minute executive officials become friends with the officials redacting rules and/or the officials organizing the push towards kicking them out, my trust in the system decreases. Because now you can’t trust the ones pushing for rules to make them in a way that benefits the one executing them… or that the ones judging the rules do not get swayed in favor or letting malpractices slip.

What does “independence from the workers” do to help accountability for the workers?

The Workers is not a power, it’s a community.

What I’m talking is an executive power, one that needs to be overseen by other entities and that has to abide by regulations. I feel the more independent from the ones setting those regulations and from those who are judging the execution of those rules, the least chances of corruption.

Do you believe in division of power?

The statement you made that contradicted it was believing individual ownership would last in a system where those rules no longer apply.

What rules? where’s the quote? I still don’t understand what you think that I’m thinking.

Your proposed role of ownership is functionally no different from an administrator and doesn’t consist of actual ownership. There’s no reason nor benefit for it, like, you could have a society where everyone has to wear an eyepatch, but that doesn’t make any sense and would never happen.

Having an eyepatch does make a functional difference though, it obstructs vision.

A better example to your point would be a society decides they want it to be spelt “color” (vs “colour”, lets assume that really makes no functional difference)… then a bunch of people show up and argue that the spelling of “color” is the cause of problems so they want to make it so it’s spelt “colour” instead… and just on the side maybe try and fix problems that they think were caused by the spelling… even though the measures to fix them can also be done with the same spelling in place.

My position is that the spelling of the word is not relevant… what’s relevant is the measures that should be taken to fix the problems, which would continue to happen if the only thing you change is the spelling of the word.

What does individual ownership add over public ownership if this role of management and administration is held by someone who has just as much ownership as any other worker?

Other than the idea of individuals being independent from the state (separation of power), it doesn’t add anything and it doesn’t remove anything.

This is exactly my point. We do not gain anything from taking away private ownership in a situation in which the real control / power is in the State / Workers and the owners are just independent individuals at the service of the State/Workers.

Profit only exists through exchange, ie for the purpose of sale so that you can use a greater quantity of money to produce a greater quantity of commodities, in a Money -> Commodity -> Greater Money circuit. This process inevitably results in competition, centralization, and death of competition. It isn’t a static, motionless system. Markets suffocate themselves.

Which statement I made is specifically challenged by this?

Let me ask you this: does the manager of your local publicly owned facility, be it a Post Office or school, own said facility? Would they need to?

In my proposed State, they would not necessarily need to (ie. they could delegate to a manager that does that job), but the responsibility towards the State/Workers in relation to the use of the facility would still be with the owner. So if the State/Workers are not happy about this arrangement for whatever reason (maybe they think the distribution of services is not being held with the benefit of the State/Workers in mind, or don’t think it’s fair for the owner to not take action himself), they can vote him out and elect a different one.

You call them owners, but there’s no actual reason for them to own it nor for the workers to allow them to own it and accumulate profits.

There’s a reason: you do need someone to take charge of management tasks and redistribution. Your argument would be like saying that there’s no reason to elect public officials, nor for the workers to allow them to take the roles they take and “accumulate profits” (they would only accumulate the profits that the State/Workers allow, btw, because the redistribution includes them, and it has to also be overseed / agreed by State/Workers).

You can call the owners “administrators” if you want… but that’s more of a semantic problem. Because at the end of the day, it’s not the document of ownership what really matters. I would not mind if you call me “administrator” of my building if it were the case that even though I have a paper that says I’m own it, I’m were to not be allowed to execute changes to it without the agreement of the rest of the people living on it.

And yes, it might be that there’s no competition (although that does not necessarily have to be true), but this is why I was telling you that the problem is NOT that capitalism evolves into a monopoly, the problem is making sure the owner has specific obligations and responsibilities that must be always aligned with State/Worker.

Again, I wanna keep things short so I don’t want to go one by one through your points just yet, because the comments are becoming long enough as they are, and I feel most (all?) of what you wrote is not in conflict with my point and it only relates to superfluous misinterpretations of what I was meaning to communicate. I don’t want to engage in double guesses trying to understand what you think that I think and why you think the point you are making challenges mine.

The feeling is mutual actually, to me it looks like it’s you the one with pre-existing notions and assumptions about private ownership.

I’ll try to keep it short, so I won’t respond to most of your text (after all, I fell you also didn’t really respond to most of my questions), and I’ll just take on your last suggestion:

Why don’t you start over from the beginning. Tell me what your approach is, what your Utopia looks like, why it’s a good thing, and why it will come to be.

Sure, but the Utopia I was presenting depends on your hypothetical Communist society, since the whole point was to test whether that one could work while preserving private ownership (as I already stated before).

The Utopic society I’m proposing is equivalent to yours, with a main change:

There will be people who are designated as owners of the means of production. And what this means is that they will be held responsible for any malpractice associated to the use of the production. So they will have the responsibility of overseeing it and organizing the distribution tasks needed following the rules mandated by State and Workers, and they will be, at the same time, overseed by a system of control that is fully transparent and for which the people can openly monitor every single action that is taken by the owner. I have some ideas on how this could work… like making it technically impossible for transactions to be valid without keeping records of them in a publicly held database that is distributed (P2P, maybe blockchain). This P2P community held database will be the sole authority in determining who should receive what, and it will be publicly auditable by every single citizen, them being able to openly keep a copy of it and inspect them for any possible violation of the rules established by the State/Workers.

The “ownership” carries responsibility, and the owner cannot act upon the owned property (or upon the way they distribute its output) without approval of the people. If there’s reason to suspect they acted without the interest of the people, the title of ownership will be seized and provided to someone else (and the method could perfectly be electoral votes).

No, I wasn’t asking that. And I feel I might have answered why I think that’s not a sufficient response to my question in the other comment.

There’s the option of recall elections.

How do you know you need to recall elections if the system is opaque? how do you recall elections if those who even suggest that’s needed are silenced via dirty means? How do you ensure alternatives cannot be pushed down by the ruling government? In a system where reputation is placed as the most important thing, how do you ensure that reputation is fair and the ruling party is not manipulating the information in order to mudden the opposition’s reputation and strengthen their own?

Don’t you think there are rules / safeguards that need to be placed to make sure that can work at all?

Also: do you think any of this (including the election bit) is incompatible with my proposal? why?

Historically, fascists have not been that popular

The objective fact is that they have had enough popularity, multiple times, to actually win elections.

So, again: is popularity PROOF of good will? … or is it (like you previosly admitted before, despite being defensive about it) only an “indication”?

Because there are all sort of things that it could be an indication of. Not just good will, it could also be an indication that censorship and social pressure of a party of powerful people that don’t act in good will does work at keeping up a good reputation for a big enough section of the population.

1. That doesn’t really make much sense to me, it isn’t about banning private property but publicly owning and collectivizing all property

Does that mean that you agree with me that doing it would not fix the problem?

There would be no real mechanisms for aquiring private property or outcompeting the rest of society

I feel you are just playing with words. Would you be banning “the establishment of State-driven mechanisms of acquiring private property”? or would you be actually allowing the State to put rules to allow/enforce those mechanisms?

Do I need to start saying “State-driven mechanisms for individuals to acquire private property” instead of “private ownership” from now on to satisfy the way you wanna use the term?

Moreover, it isn’t a utopia, there will be problems and issues that people have to work through.

Yea, that was my point, it’s the problems and issues are what needs to be addressed to make it “a utopia”.

2. Recall elections.

Ah, so you don’t think the separation of power is useful if there already are elections? Because that’s what point 2 was… either you are not addressing it, or you legitimately think elections make it so that separation is not useful.

Note that in my ideal state, after a private owner is destituted, I would not see a problem with calling for elections on who should be the next owner. Again, this is not something that is incompatible with “State-driven mechanisms for individuals to acquire private property”.

The thing is, the question you have been asking over and over is vague. “Fairness” means a million different things, “exploitation” means a million different things. You were never specific until this comment.

Yes, because it’s something that touches on morality, it is difficult to determine, just the same as how it’s difficult to determine that “good” means.

But you did not put this term into question before. It’s the first time you asked, even though you used the term as well. What do you think counts as fairness for you?

Specifically, the kind of “Fairness” you used in this comment, what did you mean there?

“Capitalism is categorized by a Mode of Production where Private Ownership and Markets are primary, Socialism is categorized by Public Ownership and planning being primary, and Communism specifically is a Mode of Production where all property has been collectivized globally, and Class therefore erased, with the State alongside it, leaving a world republic. It isn’t a “one drop” rule or about which is more common, but which is primary. Fairness is indeed not the determining characteristic.”

You said here that fairness is not the “determining characteristic” of Capitalism/Socialism/Communism. What kind of fairness were you thinking here?

In my case, what I was referring to is following rules that are designed for the benefit of the people.

In retrospect, after seeing what you meant by “primary”, I’m really wondering what did you mean, since later you told me that the State not working for the people was, for you, a determining characteristic of Capitalism… so I’m expecting you have a different definition of “fairness”, otherwise there would seem there’s a contradiction.

Communists speculate on what a future society may look like, but focus on the present systems and present trajectories. […]

You did not answer the question:

“Why do you want me to explain how would I steer the society if you don’t even seem to agree with me on what is the root of the problem that needs to be fixed?”

Do focus on the present trajectory, please… you cannot set a proper trajectory if your plan leads to the wrong target.

Again, I’m not asking what form that distribution takes, I’m asking how do you ensure it’s fair.

If there’s unfair exploitation, I could not care less if it involves Labor Vouchers, cheques, salt or cryptocurrency…

What I’m looking for is methods to detect and punish those who manipulate the system to distribute those goods unfairly. Those who lick the right boots to try and get favors from their distributing friends. I want to see how those countries are placing measures to punish THEIR OWN friends if they are unfair EVEN when it would benefit the one executing punishment to let it slide, I’m asking what method of PROTECTION (not prosecution) those who denounce problems in the system will receive. I’m asking how do you ensure transparency… how can people detect if something might be wrong? and if something is wrong and someone finds Xi Jinping with heir hands in a pot of foul honey, how can they guarantee they’ll be able to openly criticize and denounce leading to punishment in the same way my ideal State would punish those who distribute unfairly for their own benefit.

Those are the things that are important. Those are the things that prevent exploitation. I have not yet heard one measure against abuse that could not be applied in a system with private ownership. You could perfectly provide free essentials in a “private ownership” society, in fact many countries considered capitalists already do some level of this (admittedly, not enough, but it’s a good direction), my ideal State would have this cranked to 11.

The idea that to call a system “Socialist” or to say that a party in power is genuinely working towards xyz aims means that the system doesn’t have problems it needs to work on is flawed

Like capitalism, the problem is embedded in the way the system works, it is systemic. They definitely need to work on it, it needs more than a wash. even replacing the government would not work. Because the problem has never been who’s the one in control, but what safeguards are in place to ensure the control isn’t abused, the problem of capitalism isn’t the mere existence of private owners, but that there are no forms of control being put in place that prevent abuse… which is exactly the problem China has. If China finds a solution to solve this, I don’t see why it would not be applicable to a private ownership system.

I’d counter that by saying Trump also lost the popular vote twice

He’s popular now, though. Historically, most fascists have been overwhelmingly popular when they have won elections too. And they often pushed to keep their popularity through dirty manipulation tactics and unrestrained control over the state that places primary importance on their own reputation…

Like I said, being popular is no proof of being honest / good.

As for your system not existing in reality, I am specifically questioning why you want that.

Ah, you should have asked that then.

There’s more than one reason:

1. I want to test whether it’s true that your ideal utopic Communism really works BECAUSE of the ban on private ownership, or does it only work (if it does, it has not been proven) regardless of it (or maybe even in spite of it). If it’s true that banning primary ownership is a necessary piece to achieve freedom for the Workers, then it should be impossible to postulate a position where a strong government enforces extreme regulation against private owners that forces them to become (in essence) executors of the will of the State, not much different than a well regulated official that is forced to behave.

2. I said it before, I’m a defender of the separation of power. I think it would be much more difficult to ensure people responsible get punished by their bad acts if they are friends of the ones doing the punishing. I’d say that feel that removing the figure of the independent person responsible of distribution (responsible as in, the one who would be scrutinized) to replace it with a person who is no longer independent might actually make it harder to ensure the scrutiny is actually effectively carried out.

there’s a difference between funneling all of profits in an economy with a large private sector towards social safety nets like you seem to be wanting (at which point public ownership entirely is more efficient)

Can you explain how is it more efficient?

I have no genuine idea what you mean by “what rules did they set” to ensure this

I think I can respond that in the other thread, since that’s the same question I was asking (over and over, in multiple parts of this thread), I hope this time you can understand what I mean.

What you’re doing is Utopianism, trying to imagine a better society to create outright, rather than analyzing where society is heading and how we can best steer that.

You are doing it backwards if you think you can steer without first having a goal/destination. Why do you want me to explain how would I steer the society if you don’t even seem to agree with me on what is the root of the problem that needs to be fixed?