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?
Yes, the same thing I criticised - the mind preceding material reality, preceded by nothing. Needs springing into existence by themselves and emerging before the material.
Btw, how does the “the mind creates the material world” point of view analyses, let’s say, groups of native amazonian tribes mostly not wearing any sorts of clothes before first interacting with europeans, or even today? Or the poverty of Haiti, for example?
Anyway, if you’re really interest in finding arguments and not just adopting a point of view and ending thought right there, this question is maybe the most basic of Marxist-Leninist philosophy. That Vietnam book Luna Oi translated lays it out in very simple language while providing a lot of further sources, so it’s a good place to start, and Bukharin wrote a book that goes a little bit deeper.
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