On this page: Another view of science here ♦ Response #1 here ♦ Response #2 here ♦
Red Flag thanks readers who have written with criticisms, comments, and stories. We encourage more to take part in the ongoing struggle to develop our communist political line.
Another View of Science
A few comments concerning “Science and Covid-19: How Do We Know What to Believe?” and “Communist Dialectical Science Versus Capitalist Profit-Driven Science” in the last edition of Red Flag.
I think the authors were trying to use an issue affecting everyone’s life today to talk about communist science. I think they had limited success.
I found the first article confusing. It states that “we need the best general information available”, which “…comes from collective practice. From analyzing experiences in the material world, using communist philosophy (dialectical materialism).”
Do we really do that? I don’t. Unfortunately, it is the same for masses of people worldwide.
The scientific methodology it describes, I think, is the one used by capitalist scientists today. Will communism use the same methodology, integrating it with dialectical materialism and eliminating its division of mental and manual labor, its elitism, racism, sexism, etc.?
Both articles seem to miss the point that science existed before class society. The “discovery of fire, agriculture” and many more things were scientific discoveries. Science then was in the hands of the masses and served the interests of the masses.
Class society codified it, took it away from the masses and placed it in the hands of an elitist group to serve the interests of a particular ruling class at a given time in history.
Our task is to put it back into the hands of the masses. How will we do that? The article hints at the process. “Using dialectical materialism and practice, practice and more practice, we improve our understanding of society and how to transform it.”
Another point that both the article and the letter missed is the connection between capitalist science and war. Since capitalism transformed into imperialism – maybe earlier – the main focus of science has been to enhance the rulers’ ability to kill workers in wars. All major discoveries of the 20th and 21st century were made for the military and applied later for civilian use, like diodes, microchip, digital imaging, networks, etc.
The letter states that the pandemic “was not seen as a challenging new scientific field to be explored but as an unprofitable expense to be avoided.” How will science in communism be different?
Eliminating the material basis for a profit-driven science is not enough. It only sets the basis for communists to usher in a qualitative change in society: make massive the love of learning and base it on love for our entire worldwide working-class family to fight individualism. That is the challenge we will face and will conquer. But we need to talk about it now.
—Comrade in Los Angeles (USA)
Response from writer of “Communist Dialectical Science Versus Capitalist Profit-Driven Science”:
Thank you for your critical reading of the letter on science. Your point about science and war is well taken. It could have easily been put into the letter.
I’m open to the idea of classifying early achievements as science but I prefer to talk about them as examples of materialist thought. Different modes of production developed different understanding. For example, early society would mix a material knowledge of the seed with a fantastic idea of a fertility goddess. In this way of looking at it, science is the development of materialist thought under commodity production.
I tried to suggest ways to practice our communist vision today, rather than on some vague post-revolutionary period, but I see from your reading that I could have made that point more forcefully.
Response from author of “Science and Covid-19: How Do We Know What to Believe?”
The article could have stated more clearly the significance of “collective practice…. analyzing experiences in the material world, using communist philosophy (dialectical materialism).” This describes how our Party works. The “material world” includes the “social world” that we are fighting to change.
It’s how we should approach Covid-19. Through collective discussion and practice, guided by communist philosophy, we should decide what kind of meetings and mobilizations to have (or not) and so forth.
Our main task is to get masses involved in this process of Party-building and mobilizing for communism. That starts relatively small, with our co-workers, neighbors, family, friends. It grows from there. I don’t see how this can be considered as “capitalist scientific methodology.” To the contrary: it is the seed from which communist science will grow.
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