Originator of a THESIS on money’s incapacity

[Anonymous]

Prakash RP wrote:

Dear Dave, I have yet to read the whole of this brilliant comment by you, which appears to be an incontestable evidence of your impressive erudition. Nevertheless, I'd just like you to take cognisance of some points stated below. The issue I want to focus worldwide humanity's attention on is the universally-true, irreconcilable contradiction between the theory of communism that's a science discovered by Marx and Engels and communism based on the principle of ' From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs ' ( the latter also reflects Marx's thought ). The scientific theory of communism dictates that everyone of the social workforce must equally share the social workload for an equal share in the social wealth ( necessities and luxuries of life meant for decent living ). It doesn't need, nor does it approve of, overwork. It doesn't approve of working less either. It doesn't approve of sharing the social wealth more than the limit approved-of socially. On the other hand, the other model of the communist order is based on voluntary labour. By the principle of ' From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs ', everyone is free to work or not to work and work as much as they please, and everyone is free to consume as much wealth as they please too. The problem with it is this evidently silly and impractical idea was also Marx's brainchild. Many such as all of you against me in this debate are so enchanted that they're unable to see the irreconcilable contradiction existing between the two models of communism. The contradiction is basic and becomes evident if we take cognisance of the fact that the former model ( the one based on the scientific theory of communism ) presupposes that humanity is, in conformity with the laws of Nature, composed of the good, the bad, the sensible, the silly, the workaholics, the workshy, etc, etc while the latter presupposes the existence of humanity consisting of only the good and desired elements such as the good and honest, not the bad nor the crafty and crooked, the sensible, none of the silly, the work-loving, not anyone that's workshy, etc, etc. Thus, the contradiction between the two ideas appears blazing like the mid-day summer sun. the absurdity of The latter also appears too blazing to be missed by the sensible. It's diversity that reflects the design of Nature— plants & trees, mushrooms, animals, flowering plants, non-flowering plants, fruit-bearing plants, plants not bearing fruits, beneficial plants, harmless plants, harmless-but-not-beneficial plants, harmful plants, warm-blooded animals, cold-blooded animals, mammals, non-mammals, placental mammals, non-placental mammals, and so on and so forth. Humanity is a part of Nature, and in keeping with the design and dialectics of Nature, humanity consists of, and it will always consist of, the good, the bad, the progressive, the reactionary, the erudite, the enlightened, the benighted, the-erudite-but-not-enlightend, the principled, hypocrites, etc, etc. But the silly view that ' in the higher phase of communism ', as all those enchanted by the principle of ' From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs ' love to believe, humanity will produce only the good all of whom must be equally good, only the sensible, the talented, the work-loving, etc, all of whom must be equally sensible, equally talented, equally work-loving, etc, etc, etc evidently runs counter to the very basic law and design of Nature and defies explanation, the way I see it. Because Marx said this or Engels saw it, I don't think it's right to draw a conclusion through the arbitrary generalisation of what they said or saw.  ' Unrelated by blood was she to the man that she slew . '  The above citation occurs in the PREFACE TO THE FOURTH GERMAN EDITION ( 1891 ) of THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY AND THE STATE by Engels. It was the defence of Erinyes, an ancient Greek, for his action of pursuing Orestes, another Greek character, that was accused of matricide, a criminal act that was ' the most heinous and inexpiable of crimes ' in the eyes of Erinyes, who wanted to kill Orestes ( he killed his own mother to avenge the slaying of his own father by his mother ) and thus punish him for the offence he committed. This citation signifies that the absence of an organised force like the police, an organised judiciary like the one we have, and prisons like ours doesn't mean they were all good people— so good that they were above wrongdoing, consequent on which fact, they did not need the police , prisons or the judiciary like the ones of our times. People in the Middle Ages didn't see anything like the judiciary of our times. The reason is not that they were too good to commit crimes. The reason is people in the Middle Ages were far less civilised than us, as I see it. The citation presented above also suggests incontestably that those ancient people were not unacquainted with heinous acts like homicide, and that acts like homicide were not viewed as criminal at all if the person killed was not a blood-relation of the killer's or so heinous a crime as killing a blood-relation was.   

Another chapter for the book of Genesis, this guy should be writting for a monastery instead of a socialist forum. These are all pure  bourgoise argumentations, and a total distortion of what was written by Engels which explains the origin of the class state as an instrument of oppression for the ruling classes at different stages in the human society, and it has nothing to do with communism, in the primitive communist society the state did not exist

[Anonymous]

Matt wrote:

Quote:

The scientific theory of communism dictates that everyone of the social workforce must equally share the social

Your examples are all from class society. You are not advancing anything, other than a silly religious 'human nature' argument.Your responses are mere assertions springing from petty prejudicial assumptions, reinforced by capitalist ideology and have been roundly defeated.They are no more scientific than Humpty DumptyThe workers who make the revolution will make decisions, which spring from the relative superabundance of wealth in a commonly owned and controled  production of utilities for use, world, allied to voluntary work and free access for all, as truly free men and women and the norms and values of the post-capitalist society will arise from and be shaped by this revolutionary new society.

In a next eposide he is going to turn Marx and Engels into two vegetarian and advocating for the Green Party. The so called human nature is an old bourgoise conception which has been defeated already, and it is an idea that has been used by the capitalists rulers to justify wars, greedyness, and the exploitation of others human beings

[Dave B]

iWell I suppose I will have to do this again! Prakash’s argument is a bit garbled and lacks scientific precision. And I am going to have to deal with the argument and place it in the historical context of the development of Karl’s and Fred’s thinking. To summarise Prakash’s argument and place it on a more formal basis it goes along the line of humans are part of nature etc and nature is; 'Red in tooth and claw'  thing. It is egotistically predatory and all about selfish genes of individuals taking advantage of others when they can. We are all familiar with the argument I think? What we loose sight of is this is an interpretation was given a theoretical justification from Darwin’s first book of 1859. Darwin refuted that interpretation in his second book of 1871; but we will come to that in a bit. Anyway 1844 was before Darwin so we could start there. In 1844 Karl took the pre second Darwin book Fuerbachian position. That human beings were naturally social and co-operative animals, for some reason,  and that was their human nature or essence. So we are talking primitive communism here really as a natural state. With feudalism and capitalism etc which came along for various artificial reasons we were thrown out a way of life to which we were naturally conditioned. Exiting that ‘private property’ unnatural system and returning to non primitive communism would be ‘natural’. Which is what the following blather means, thus; Karl MarxEconomic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 Private Property and Communism  (3) Communism as the positive transcendence of private property as human self-estrangement, and therefore as the real appropriation of the human essence by and for man; communism therefore as the complete return of man to himself as a social (i.e., human) being – a return accomplished consciously and embracing the entire wealth of previous development. This communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this..  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm Just to help historically understand how the argument went then, Feuerbach asserted that early or ‘authentic’ Christianity was a sublimated expression of this communist ‘social instinct’ finding expression or manifesting itself in a metaphysical/religious  ‘form’. It was a projection of a social instinct. As things turned out Feuerbach was well ahead of his time as regards the tick cyclists and Darwin’s second book. Then at the end 1844 Stirner wrote his famous book which was what the unpublished German ideology was a response to. Stirner wasn’t  doing a pre Darwinian; 'Red in tooth and claw'  thing as such. He just basically said that looking after number one was the logical rational premise of everything. And anything else, like a-historical social instinct or communist human essence was just transient bubble headed nonsense without any natural justification or argument.  Karl and Fred actually took that on the chin, then. So Fred says this at the time which is interesting.   Basically it is in the egotistical interests of the individual to have communism and make it work; Letters of Marx and Engels 1844Letter from Engels to Marxin Paris  This egoism is taken to such a pitch, it is so absurd and at the same time so self-aware, that it cannot maintain itself even for an instant in its one-sidedness, but must immediately change into communism. In the first place it's a simple matter to prove to Stirner that his egoistic man is bound to become communist out of sheer egoism. That's the way to answer the fellow. In the second place he must be told that in its egoism the human heart is of itself, from the very outset, unselfish and self-sacrificing, so that he finally ends up with what he is combating. These few platitudes will suffice to refute the one-sidedness. But we must also adopt such truth as there is in the principle. And it is certainly true that we must first make a cause our own, egoistic cause, before we can do anything to further it – and hence that in this sense, irrespective of any eventual material aspirations, we are communists out of egoism also, and it is out of egoism that we wish to be human beings, not mere individuals.  http://www.marxistsfr.org/archive/marx/works/1844/letters/44_11_19.htm Now admittedly this changes things a bit because ‘social instinct and communist essence’ then becomes somewhat cerebral and rational. And is going to get some push back from some short term individual and ‘rational’ opportunistic egotism, trust in others to play the game and presumably maybe instinctive egotism? Even if communism would be a successful strategy. In fact to make it work [better] you would need a social instinct. Now enter Darwin again with; if there is a problem with the success of a species maybe nature will find the solution? So what Darwin is saying here is that the adoption co-operative behaviour in animals can be a successful strategy and for it to succeed requires the development of an appropriate social instinct. And we would experience that as some kind of morality; not of the eating fish on Friday thing, but more of a Kantian kind of thing. Thus;  Darwin, C. R. 1871. The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. London: John Murray. Volume 1. 1st edition   The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable—namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts,5 would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well developed, or nearly as well developed, as in man. For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them. The services may be of a definite and evidently instinctive nature; or there may be only a wish and readiness, as with most of the higher social animals, to aid their fellows in certain general ways. But these feelings and services are by no means extended to all the individuals of the same species, only to those of the same association. Secondly, as soon as the mental faculties had become highly developed, images of all past actions and motives would be incessantly passing through the brain of each individual; and that feeling of dissatisfaction which invariably results, as we shall hereafter see, from any unsatisfied instinct, would arise, as often as it was perceived that the enduring and always present social instinct had yielded to some other instinct, at the time stronger, but neither enduring in its nature, nor leaving behind it a very vivid impression. It is clear that many instinctive desires, such as that of hunger, are in their nature of short duration; and after being satisfied are not readily or vividly recalled. Thirdly, after the power of language had been acquired and the wishes of the members of the same community could be distinctly expressed, the common opinion how each member ought to act for the public good, would naturally become to a large extent the guide to action. But the social instincts would still give the impulse to act for the good of the community, this impulse being strengthened, directed, and sometimes even deflected by public opinion, the power of which rests, as we shall presently see, on instinctive sympathy. Lastly, habit in the individual would ultimately play a very important part in guiding the conduct of each member; for the social instincts and impulses, like all other instincts, would be greatly strengthened by habit, as would obedience to the wishes and judgment of the community. These several subordinate propositions must now be discussed; and some of them at considerable length.  5 Sir B. Brodie, after observing that man is a social animal ('Psychological Enquiries,' 1854, p. 192), asks the pregnant question, "ought not this to settle the disputed question as to the existence of a moral sense?" Similar ideas have probably occurred to many persons, as they did long ago to Marcus Aurelius. Mr. J. S. Mill speaks, in his celebrated work, 'Utilitarianism,' (1864, p. 46), of the social feelings as a "powerful natural sentiment," and as "the natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian morality;" but on the previous page he says, "if, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason less natural." It is with hesitation that I venture to differ from so profound a thinker, but it can hardly be disputed that the social feelings are instinctive or innate in the lower animals; and why should they not be so in man? Mr. Bain (see, for instance, 'The Emotions and the Will,' 1865, p. 481) and others believe that the moral sense is acquired by each individual during his lifetime. On the general theory of evolution this is at least extremely improbable.   http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/darwin/descent/dom07.htm   This even, if you want to take it or leave, it provided the scientific basis for the 1844 Fuerbachian position that missing then.  This was taken into consideration by Fred; Marx-Engels Correspondence 1875Engels to Lavrov12 November 1875  (6) On the other hand I cannot agree with you that the war of every man against every man was the first phase of human development. In my opinion the social instinct was one of the most essential levers in the development of man from the ape. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/letters/75_11_12.htm  Marxists then revisited Fuerbachs 1844 idea of early Christianity being a perverted expression of instinctive communism.  And we had this; Works of Frederick Engels 1894On the History of Early Christianity  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/early-christianity/index.htm  And then everybody jumped on that bandwagon eg Kautsky and Rosa. And back to 1844 and Fred; …….human heart is of itself, from the very outset, unselfish and self-sacrificing….  Neo Marxists later went back to the idea that modern corrupt Christianity never developed from an earlier form, like Marxism developed into Stalinism. Admittedly my non scientific SPGB friends hate this kind of idea but it was the also position of theorists who had some kind of non political scientific credentials like  Anton Pannekoek and Kropotkin.  So the point is how natural or unnatural are your people with bourgeois limitations?

[Prakash RP]

Would like to add the following to my last comment ( # 389 ). ' Communist labour in the narrower and stricter sense of the term is labour performed gratis for the benefit of society, labour performed not as a definite duty, … but [ as ] voluntary labour … ' ( # 382 by Dave B )Citizens of the communist order, be it in its lower phase or in its ' higher phase ', must need necessities of life in order to stay alive and luxuries of life to lead a decent life, as this need is a must for everyone, and as it's them, and them alone, who must work to produce all necessities and luxuries of life meant to meet this common need of theirs, it's outright ludicrous to view their work meant to create all these things by themselves as ' labour performed gratis ' or ' voluntary labour ' on their part. Another most important point V.I. Lenin seems to have missed outright happens to be the fact that capitalism needs, for its survival, only a part ( i.e. surplus-labour ) of the total labour ( necessary labour + surplus labour ) of a labourer while communism in its higher phase will need, for its survival, the whole amount of the ' labour performed gratis ' or the ' voluntary labour ' performed by everyone of the social workforce, which means capitalism is far superior to communism, RIGHT ? ' … it is labour performed without expectation of reward … because it has become a habit to work for the common good and because of a conscious realisation ( … ) of the necessity of working for the common good— … ' ( ibid )            Lenin seems to be unaware that the workshy and the crafty and crooked are outright unlikely to consent to making a habit of working ' without expectation of reward ' or ' working [ just ] for the common good. ' Lenin also seems to have missed the point that not only does ' reward ' mean the filthy lucre or something in kind, it also means recognition, respect, and reputation that so many people in the capitalist world, such as environmentalists, human-rights activists, the ICAN and so many other pacifists, etc, etc, want, OK ?'   ' It must be clear to everybody that we, i.e., our society, our social system, are still a very long way from the application of this form of labour on a broad, really mass scale. ' ( ibid )  I'd like to replace the expression ' a very long way ' with ' a million light years away ' in the above quote. Trotsky also seems, like Lenin, to have missed the same points.  ' Speaking frankly, I think it would be pretty dull-witted to consider such a really modest perspective “utopian.” ' ( ibid ) But I think it's ' pretty dull-witted to consider such a  really modest perspective “ [non-]utopian.” ' ' The material premise of communism should be so high …  that productive labor, having ceased to be a burden, … ' ( ibid ) What if the ' productive labor ' never ceases to be viewed as ' a burden ' by the workshy and the crafty and crooked ? Trotsky seems to have failed to give thought to this point, doesn't he ?  ' …  and the distribution of life’s goods, existing in continual abundance, will not demand – as it does not now in any well-off family or “decent” boarding-house – any control except that of education, habit and social opinion. ' ( ibid ) Thus, it's clear as day that Trotsky accepts that the distribution of wealth ( ' life's goods ' ) needs social control through ' education, habit and social opinion ' , and if he was alive today and took part in this debate , I'm sure I would win him to my side.  ' … under Socialism there will not exist the apparatus of compulsion itself, namely, the State: for … ' ( ibid ) The view of socialism as we find it in the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO and CAPITAL , based on the principle of the compulsory equal-sharing of the social workload by everyone of the social workforce for an equal share in social wealth obviously cannot do without forcing the bad citizens to comply with the socialist rules and regulations. Nevertheless, I'm not sure whether it makes dependence on something like the State indispensable for the socialist order. But I'm sure that the State won't disappear in order to prove that the utopian idea of communism ( i.e. the view of communism based on the silly principle of ' From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs ' ) is not utopian.

[Dave B]

iWell Prakash. There were, or used to be before, several strands to your argument. One of yours was that the correct interpretation of Karl’s work was that the higher phase of communism was unobtainable. I had hoped that by drawing in material from Stalin, Lenin, the Mensheviks and Trotsky, amongst others, would demonstrate that that was not the orthodox interpretation of Marx from say 1905-25? [If you want to continue to pursue that narrow part of the argument we could draw in another extended passage from Karl on the impractical possibility of using a labour voucher system.] You talk about ‘bad’ people and the congenital or ‘naturally?’  work-shy.  If you like to continue with that and expand on it a bit we could discuss that? Your so called ‘gratis labour’ as surplus labour in capitalism isn’t gratis of voluntary it is compelled and involuntary. It is used to provide a consumption fund for the work-shy. And to accumulate and expand their ownership of the means of production which they use to extort further involuntary labour from the working class. In the higher phase of communism the working class collectively will perhaps work longer than necessary to increase the means of production in order to reduce the working day in the future. They will democratically be in control of that and determine it rate of accumulation to whatever they regard as acceptable. Unlike in capitalism were maximized or taken to its limit according to how long a worker has to work to reproduce his labour power and maximum length of the working day etc. What you seem to be suggesting is a system that is useful to your queer bourgeois normal man, like yourself no doubt [which would be ‘projection’] With his ‘limitations’ and which consequentially applies to past, present, and future. If that looks like another Karl quote in the pipeline, well it is!

[moderator1]

Prakash RP wrote:

1st Warning: 6. Do not make repeated postings of the same or similar messages to the same thread, or to multiple threads or forums (‘cross-posting’). Do not make multiple postings within a thread that could be consolidated into a single post (‘serial posting’). Do not post an excessive number of threads, posts, or private messages within a limited period of time (‘flooding’). Would like to add the following to my last comment ( # 389 ). ' Communist labour in the narrower and stricter sense of the term is labour performed gratis for the benefit of society, labour performed not as a definite duty, … but [ as ] voluntary labour … ' ( # 382 by Dave B )Citizens of the communist order, be it in its lower phase or in its ' higher phase ', must need necessities of life in order to stay alive and luxuries of life to lead a decent life, as this need is a must for everyone, and as it's them, and them alone, who must work to produce all necessities and luxuries of life meant to meet this common need of theirs, it's outright ludicrous to view their work meant to create all these things by themselves as ' labour performed gratis ' or ' voluntary labour ' on their part. Another most important point V.I. Lenin seems to have missed outright happens to be the fact that capitalism needs, for its survival, only a part ( i.e. surplus-labour ) of the total labour ( necessary labour + surplus labour ) of a labourer while communism in its higher phase will need, for its survival, the whole amount of the ' labour performed gratis ' or the ' voluntary labour ' performed by everyone of the social workforce, which means capitalism is far superior to communism, RIGHT ? ' … it is labour performed without expectation of reward … because it has become a habit to work for the common good and because of a conscious realisation ( … ) of the necessity of working for the common good— … ' ( ibid )            Lenin seems to be unaware that the workshy and the crafty and crooked are outright unlikely to consent to making a habit of working ' without expectation of reward ' or ' working [ just ] for the common good. ' Lenin also seems to have missed the point that not only does ' reward ' mean the filthy lucre or something in kind, it also means recognition, respect, and reputation that so many people in the capitalist world, such as environmentalists, human-rights activists, the ICAN and so many other pacifists, etc, etc, want, OK ?'   ' It must be clear to everybody that we, i.e., our society, our social system, are still a very long way from the application of this form of labour on a broad, really mass scale. ' ( ibid )  I'd like to replace the expression ' a very long way ' with ' a million light years away ' in the above quote. Trotsky also seems, like Lenin, to have missed the same points.  ' Speaking frankly, I think it would be pretty dull-witted to consider such a really modest perspective “utopian.” ' ( ibid ) But I think it's ' pretty dull-witted to consider such a  really modest perspective “ [non-]utopian.” ' ' The material premise of communism should be so high …  that productive labor, having ceased to be a burden, … ' ( ibid ) What if the ' productive labor ' never ceases to be viewed as ' a burden ' by the workshy and the crafty and crooked ? Trotsky seems to have failed to give thought to this point, doesn't he ?  ' …  and the distribution of life’s goods, existing in continual abundance, will not demand – as it does not now in any well-off family or “decent” boarding-house – any control except that of education, habit and social opinion. ' ( ibid ) Thus, it's clear as day that Trotsky accepts that the distribution of wealth ( ' life's goods ' ) needs social control through ' education, habit and social opinion ' , and if he was alive today and took part in this debate , I'm sure I would win him to my side.  ' … under Socialism there will not exist the apparatus of compulsion itself, namely, the State: for … ' ( ibid ) The view of socialism as we find it in the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO and CAPITAL , based on the principle of the compulsory equal-sharing of the social workload by everyone of the social workforce for an equal share in social wealth obviously cannot do without forcing the bad citizens to comply with the socialist rules and regulations. Nevertheless, I'm not sure whether it makes dependence on something like the State indispensable for the socialist order. But I'm sure that the State won't disappear in order to prove that the utopian idea of communism ( i.e. the view of communism based on the silly principle of ' From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs ' ) is not utopian.

[Prakash RP]

Would like to change the expression ' The view ' in the first sentence of the last para in my last comment ( #394 ) to this : ' By the view '. I'd also like the expression ' obviously cannot do without … ' in it to be preceded by ' it '. Then I'd like to add what follows to my last comment ( #394 ). ' In such a case [ i.e. when scientific and technological progress has led to the growth in productivity to " such a high level " that " everything wanted by man will be produce in great abundance " ], the formula, " to each according to his needs " would be applied as a matter of course and … ' ( #382 by Dave B ) I don't think science and technology will ever make so much progress as to make socialism based on the ' formula, " To each according to his needs, " ' a reality. The phrase ' great abundance ' does not mean unlimited quantity, and because social productive forces and means of production can never grow unlimited, quantities of necessities and luxuries of life can never ever grow beyond a certain limit in order to make the ' higher phase ' , as Marx visualised it, of communism a dream come true. None of Lenin, Trotsky, and Kautsky seem to have considered the fact that either of overwork and working less means the exploitation of the overworking lot or all those working as much as they ought to do by the rest ( i.e. the workshy by nature and the crafty and crooked ) of the social workforce and the fact that the unequal share in the social wealth means the division of society into the rich and the poor. Either of these situations means the death of socialism defined as a social order free of exploitation, deprivation, discrimination, domination, and all other sorts of injustice, OK ? 

[Prakash RP]

I've noticed the moderator 1's notification. In this connection, I'd like to state that I haven't ever repeated the same stuff unnecessarily and uselessly. A single argument can sometimes refute more than one argument, and for this reason, its repitition becomes necessary and justfied. I expect the moderator to consider this point. My comment #394 was my reply to Dave B's comment ( #382 ), wasn't it ?My posts #389, #394, and #397 are my reply to Dave B's comment #382, and the post #399 is my reply to Marcos's comment #385. The three posts were posted as three posts as they were written in three different days. Do you want to say I ought to have combined all these posts in a single post ?

[Prakash RP]

 ' REPEATING THE SAME SHIT ALL OVER AGAIN ' ( #385 by Marcos )  I'm sorry if I've ever said anything unfair to cause your displeasure. Nevertheless, I don't think repeating the same argument disproves it just as repeating the fact that gravity makes apples fall to the ground doesn't make it false or less true. Another most important point is the same argument can disprove more than one assertion, which makes the repetition of it indispensable. Would like to know what points you want me to deal with.

[Anonymous]

Prakash RP wrote:

 Nevertheless, I don't think repeating the same argument disproves it just as repeating the fact that gravity makes apples fall to the ground doesn't make it false or less true. 

True, but repeating it ad nauseam on a forum is against the rules.  

[Anonymous]

Prakash RP wrote:

 ' REPEATING THE SAME SHIT ALL OVER AGAIN ' ( #385 by Marcos )  I'm sorry if I've ever said anything unfair to cause your displeasure. Nevertheless, I don't think repeating the same argument disproves it just as repeating the fact that gravity makes apples fall to the ground doesn't make it false or less true. Another most important point is the same argument can disprove more than one assertion, which makes the repetition of it indispensable. Would like to know what points you want me to deal with.

This thread should have been blocked by the moderator of this forum a long time ago.  I don’t need anything because nothing in this thread is not new to me and instead of orienting is totally disorienting and full of bourgeois garbages.  Repeating the same garbages is pure indoctrination 

[Anonymous]

patreilly wrote:

Prakash RP wrote:

 Nevertheless, I don't think repeating the same argument disproves it just as repeating the fact that gravity makes apples fall to the ground doesn't make it false or less true. 

True, but repeating it ad nauseam on a forum is against the rules.  

He/she is repeating the same argument and adding more distortion to what has been written. It is surgical distortion.  The purpose of this forum is to propagate sociological thruth instead of disseminating bourgeois illusions. It is called bourgeois ideology

[Dave B]

i Prakash’s arguments has two strands. One is that man’s ‘mundane’ wants are insatiable, although they may expand, and therefore enough is never enough and therefore there can never be abundance or enough available. Which wasn’t Karl’s position thus; In fact, the realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature of things it lies beyond the sphere of actual material production. Just as the savage must wrestle with Nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilised man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all possible modes of production. With his development this realm of physical necessity expands as a result of his wants; but, at the same time, the forces of production which satisfy these wants also increase. Freedom in this field can only consist in socialised man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working-day is its basic prerequisite.  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch48.htm For Prakash there is no consideration of the cultural and ideological capitalist encouragement of decadent and corrosive consumerism through advertising for instance. And you are what you own. And nobody is going to be satisfied until they have there own exclusive use of big house’s yachts, five thousand pairs of shoes and swimming pools in the back garden that they don’t have the time to use etc.  Far from being normal I think it is psychologically dysfunctional as well as being irrational. That is not sour grapes or anything I earn 30K and have more than enough, not being saddled with debt and interest payments etc. It is also quite offensive to half the population living off far less than $20 a day.  My attitude with regards this kind of bling like gold toilet seats is that it just wouldn’t be made available or produced to, crave for. Prakash repeats the work shy argument. So what is is it. Congenital and natural? Culturally conditioned? Or a rational egotistical decision based on an idea that productive labour and being useful, as a general condition, is against the egotistical well being of the individual?  What would you say, as a queer bourgeois little man,  to the San and the Anutans? To pick two peoples from totally different environments and geography. That they are queer, abnormal and unnatural bourgeois men? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_people  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anuta I think you are sick.

[Dave B]

i  Dear PrakashAs you consider yourself as an intellectual of noble laureate standard.You might want to start with looking at the ideas below on lazy egotistical man just to get a handle on some of the ideas circulating around before Bentham?Which pulls in pre Darwinian ideas from the likes of Hume and mill etc.Just spoon feeding a lazy intellectual here nothing more.  https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bentham/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/utilitarianism-history/ https://www.laits.utexas.edu/poltheory/jsmill/diss-disc/bentham/bentham.s03.htmlThen you could look at the so called communistic Mir system which was a favourite of Kropotkinist communism. Kropotkin used it as a central example in his book Mutual Aid to refute your bourgeois ideology and limitations.And eg Stalins`s 1906 we are Kropotkinist too; and anything suggested otherwise is ‘tittle tattle’ . It became a bit of a headache for the European Marxist’s as the Russian ‘Slavophiles’ said that the cultural salt of the earth Russian peasants were already communists and didn’t need to go through the crappy European Marxist stagiest model of Mir primitive communism to feudalism to capitalism and then modern technologically advanced communism.And then if there was a communist revolution in technologically advanced Europe post capitalism then the ‘primitive communist’ Mir peasantry could be simply absorbed into it as they were already culturally and ideologically there as regards non bourgeois co-operative behavior. Or in other words we could sell our SPGB type ideas easily to the San and the Anutan and wouldn’t get push back about what you would do about the Lazy and the work- shy?As that idea would be a bit alien to them?  A lot of the Russian workers in 1918 were second generation Mir peasants and their  perhaps loose woolly minded notions of communism were vaguely familiar?I think that this stuff with third world countries being ‘nominally’ more radical and anti capitalist is probably a hangover from prior more ‘communistic’ ways of doing stuff?Engels suggested I think that Robert Owen’s success in Scotland was partly a result of a hangover from the Scottish ‘clan’ variation of the Mir system.That remarkably persisted in 1930’s at Saint Kilda; a remote Island of the West Coast.Likewise they seemed to have no understanding or problem with the lazy and work-shy freeloaders. http://www.marxistsfr.org/archive/marx/works/1894/01/russia.htm   https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/zasulich/draft-1.htm  What happened was some kind of pseudo anthropologist wrote a book on the Russian Mir system  around 1860 ish I think. It wasn’t easy at the time to get intellectual access to that kind of thing out of Russia. So it was a bit idealised and romanticised, as one source. Apart from being straw sucking redneck Hillbillies who thought that the Tsar was a Demi God who loved them really and was miss-led by grasping intermediaries. The Mir peasants organised and were left to their own Feudal Monday to Wednesday necessary labour time communistically or co-operatively. And did the Thursday to Friday stuff the produce of which went to the aristocracy. Actually the Thursday to Friday stuff was organised communistically as well. It would be a bit like a workers co-operative working with loaned capitalist capital. Monday to Wednesday ‘pays the wage’s’ and the Thursday to Friday stuff pays the interest for the finance capitalist’s capital. There is a Karl quote on that in vol III It is a great system really as the exploiters don’t have to do anything at all excluding the expense of whip lashers. On superstructure and economic basis? Whatever you are doing or where you are at you have to make up ideology to fit in with it. In psychoanalysis they call it ‘rationalisation’ but that doesn’t mean it is rational.  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_09_21.htm

[Prakash RP]

 ' Your so called ‘gratis labour’ as surplus labour in capitalism isn’t gratis of voluntary it is compelled and involuntary. ' ( #395 by Dave B ) It's not clear what's your point is. In my comment ( #394 ), I clearly stated that labour performed to create necessities and luxuries of life they need to lead a healthy and meaningful existence can't be viewed as ' labour performed gratis ' or ' voluntary labour '. It can't be ' gratis labour ' as it's not something like the surplus labour, also called, and justifiably so, the unpaid labour under the capitalist mode of production. It can't be ' voluntary labour ' either just because it's not ' gratis '. On these grounds, the paid necessary-labour in the capitalist mode of production is also non-voluntary. Voluntary labour has to be ' gratis ' first. Nevertheless, not every ' gratis ' labour is voluntary just as the fact that mangos are juicy fruits doesn't mean all juicy fruits are mangos. A glaring instance of ' gratis labour ' that is not voluntary is the unpaid labour under capitalism. Nevertheless, anyone is free to choose to steal or smuggle goods instead of working for a living as the wage slaves do. In this sense, you can claim the act of choosing to work as a wage slave does is voluntary, but the work performed for wages is not so. In the communist mode of production too, the social working-day consists of two parts : part-I is meant for contributions to common funds like the social insurance fund, fund for the care of minors, fund for the disabled and the aged, fund for scientific and technological researches, fund for progress and development, etc, etc and part-II for the necessities and luxuries the workers themselves need to lead a healthy and meaningful life ; both parts are compulsory for every able-bodied adult of working age. As I view it, the part-I, like the part-II, is compulsory from both the individual's viewpoint and the social viewpoint, and so it's not voluntary. Nevertheless, the part-I is not something like the unpaid surplus-labour a wage slave has to perform under capitalism just because it's meant for the common good of all including all those that have to work to contribute to these common funds while the wage slaves have to perform the compulsory unpaid labour not for the benefit of themselves or their beloved ones but for the benefit of a certain class, the capitalists, a class outright opposite the wage slaves. Hope you'd now fall in with my stance on ' gratis labour ', voluntary labour, etc.  ' I had hoped that by drawing in material from Stalin, Lenin, the Mensheviks and Trotsky, amongst others, would demonstrate that that was not the orthodox interpretation of Marx … [ …  we could draw in another extended passage from Karl on the impractical possibility of using a labour voucher system.] ' ( ibid ) My dear friend, large excerpts from works by some well-known people will certainly help display your erudition, but in a debate, it's arguments and counter-arguments that truly matter. None of the excerpts you've cited so far contain any arguments to show that Marx's concept of the ' higher phase ' of communism is not plain wrong and impracticable. ' [A]nother extended passage from Karl on the impractical possibility of using a labour voucher system ' is most unlikely to help prove your point. The impracticability of the ' labour voucher system ' doesn't prove the theory of communism or the concept the ' higher phase ' of communism practicable or impracticable. The fallaciousness of the view that the sun borrows its heat and light from the moon has got nothing to do with the fallaciousness or correctness of views like the assertion that the earth is a satellite of the moon or the observation that Venus is truly a black hole nearest to the earth. ' You talk about ‘bad’ people and the congenital or ‘naturally?’  work-shy. If you like to continue with that and expand on it a bit we could discuss that? ' ( ibid ) I think I've said more than enough about the design of Nature and about good people, bad people, the workshy, etc by nature. You may have a look at my comments #368, #373, #381, etc for my views on this issue.  ' In the higher phase of communism the working class collectively will perhaps work longer than necessary to increase the means of production in order to reduce the working day in the future. ' ( ibid ) Citizens of the communist order are free to choose to work a longer time in the lower phase of communism too. Nevertheless, working a longer time this week to have one more day off the next week does not reduce the length of the social working-day. For a shorter working-day, you need achieve a breakthrough in science and technology which will lead to a growth in the labour productivity, which means a shorter working-day. Nevertheless, these points seem irrelevant to the main issue we're debating, namely, the practicability of Marx's view of the ' higher phase ' of communism.  '  What you seem to be suggesting is a system that is useful to your queer bourgeois normal man, like yourself … ' ( ibid ) The above quote is another instance of your silly display of rudeness that reflects your pitiable intellectual immaturity. Such comments become people that are pathetically lacking in the calibre needed to comprehend the simple arithmetic logic that two and two makes four, people that are so benighted and silly as to be outright unaware that in a debate the silly display of erudition or rudeness is useless, silly waste of time. I wish it'd soon come home to you that a debate is a conflict between views and counter-views which leads us to the truth, and that one side in a debate must emerge triumphant. It's unbecoming of the sensible to take it amiss when they face up to stronger views than theirs. The sensible are always for the truth, and true communists are sensible people, RIGHT ? 

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