alanjjohnstone
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I have not advocated what was one called deep-green primitivism and ably exposed by Murray Bookchin.
But i do question the capitalist optimists who place their hope and trust in the technology of geo-engineering as a solution rather than system change. They hold a faith that capitalism can cope.
The most popular is the unproven and untested and poorly understood proposals to extract CO2 from the atmosphere (as promoted by the fossil fuel deniers such as the Koch Bros) and/or block the sun with reflective seeding of the upper atmosphere.
There are those who are more modest and promote green capitalism and state capitalism with various tax reforms and regulatory legislations to restrict capitalism’s pollutions. Can capitalism include all the externalities costs in their prices?
Can capitalism even afford such preventions, are the costs acceptable or prohibitive to capital accumulation? One quote i have read has been $570 TRILLION for CCS and not to mention the physical resources required
Making War on the Planet: Geoengineering and Capitalism’s Creative Destruction of the Earth
At the moment the only projects have been designed by the polluting industries themselves such as carbon cap and capture and storage. Experts in the IPCC have yet to give a neutral appraisal of the evidence and effectiveness.
Can capitalism succeed with techno-fixes?
Will capitalists all share in the costs and cut their profits to pay the increased share of taxation from surplus value.
Can it pay for the solution without the burden of the costs being placed upon our backs and making us pay.
But most important …is there time enough …and the evidence in mounting that there is now an extreme urgency, they the threat is more imminent than people assume.
Well, you know my pessimistic answer, ALB.
Only socialism can solve the coming crises caused by climate change. No point in hiding that fact.
I have tried in my posts to not designate the arguments as life-style choices but relate the issue to the wider concerns of global warming and climate change, according to evidence presented by scientists
Also to what is described as food sovereignty, the conflict between small-holders and the agri-industry in the developing and undeveloped countries, according to the evidence presented by NGOs such as GRAIN
There are other arguments, the speciesist aspect about animal welfare under industrialised livestock farming.
And the worries of the medical sector about the health effects of too much red meat-eating in our diet.
It is not as the food critic tries to say whether a vegan meal is appetising or not.
There are social questions to be answered. While the Party can generalise and suggest that throwaway built-in obsolescence products will disappear with socialist production, i think we can also infer that the diet we will consume shall also be rationally decided upon. We can leave the specifics to future generations of socialists but we do need to say so.
But i feel it is fair to say that with present trends, and without system change, capitalism is endangering the existence of civilisation as never before.
I think it may well time for the Party to share my doom and gloom about the prospects of the planet and its people and to bring a much-needed urgency to our arguments and highlight the imminent threats we face, which although are already impacting upon us, the real dire consequences can now be reliably forecast to be a mere decade away when nothing we do, even with socialism, will stop the runaway physics of the crisis.
I don’t think we can frighten fellow-workers into socialism but not laying out the reality of the choice, “socialism or barbarism”, which is no longer some 19thC speculation but scientifically supported, is an abrogation of our duty as a socialist party.
Or do some Party members believe capitalism can win through this climate crisis? Let me hear from you on how.
Semantic sophistry doesn’t achieve socialism
I am not surprised that the OP has fallen silent when confronted with this verbiage (of which i plead guilty of contributing to, as well.)
But yes ideas are material…or at least that what i believe was the contribution of Dietzgen.
Despite whatever value LBird’s views offer us, he has not presented any proposition of social change, no dynamic of society.
At least Marx did suggest class struggle from the material conditions being created by capitialist relations imposing itself upon labour would result in the formation of the capitalist grave-diggers…a movement coming forth…
So LBird you decline the corial invitation to offer comradely advice to a group you very obviously seem attached to, despite what disagreements you hold with us.
Then let me re-phrase my request
Construct an address to our fellow-workers in a non-party, non-partisan manner that will encourage them to investigate the socialist case further.
Come on, LBird.
The SPGB has been most welcoming to you over the years you have posted on the forum.
Unlike some other lists, you never been permanently banned and those who have abused you have often amused you, too.
“It’s always open to either of you, or any other SPGB member/supporter, to come up with political answers”
And this is probably the most frequently asked question of yourself.
We’ve given our answers on numerous occasions which you decline to accept which is your prerogative to do since there is no absolute truths, is there? 😉
Well, not until, as Lew said, the working class have voted on it.
The SPGB holds two general assemblies a year to exchange information and experience and try to construct the political answers yo so much seek to learn. Proposals and policies have to be placed within practical parameters so that members and branches and our EC can carry them out. We have to cross the t and dot the i , so that our collective democratic instructions are followed out by the relevant committees without any confusion.
Let me suggest to you…Present us with a resolution, a proposition that an organisation such as ours can begin to implement. Not some wordy wishful general observation but something concrete and pragmatic and practical, that we can get our teeth into and show some sort of result from.
As you see in another post we are appealing to fellow-workers directly and we will gauge the success by the response the newspaper insert produces.
Share your own ideas with us, not in an abstract, philosophical, theoretical exercise but perhaps in an advertisement promoting the concept of socialism that would appeal to our fellow-workers.
A challenge i hope you do not shy away from 😛
21% claim to be flexitarian, where a largely vegetable-based diet is supplemented occasionally with meat.
One in eight Britons is now vegetarian or vegan.
This means a third of UK consumers have deliberately reduced the amount of meat they eat or removed it from their diet entirely.
Waitrose executive chef, Jonathan Moore, said: “Vegetarianism has grown and evolved. More people dip in and out of it. There was a time when choosing a plant-based diet was about taking an ethical stand based on unwavering principles. For many, this distinction between vegetarians and meat-eaters still exists but for others the lines have blurred.”
The number of vegans in the UK, who shun all animal products including dairy and eggs, has grown fourfold in the past four years from 150,000 to 600,000, according to the Vegan Society.
“This year, we’ve seen vegan food go mainstream” said Natalie Mitchell, Waitrose’s head of brand development.
Waitrose’s managing director, Rob Collins, said: “Being mindful of how we live and eat has become a priority in today’s world. As we become increasingly mindful of our own health, the wellbeing of our family and that of the planet, we’re reshaping how we shop, cook and eat.”
About 60% of vegans and 40% of vegetarians surveyed said they had adopted the lifestyle over the past five years, with 55% citing animal welfare concerns, 45% health reasons and 38% environmental issues. People in the 18-to-34 age group were more likely to switch to veganism, with much less enthusiasm among the over-55s.
So by the time we do build socialism, this debate might well be over if the trend continues and conversions snow-ball.
BTW, is meat off the menu for Summer School after ADM?
“Or the Scottish saint Kilda anarcho-syndicalist commune on saint Kilda in the 1920’s”
Isn’t this a 1928 answer to the OP’s question
“Mr. H. Baker (Wickford, Essex) writes, objecting to the statement that there will be a period of transition after a Socialist working class have gained control of the machinery of government. He says that ”the moment Capitalism is abolished Socialism will start.” He forgets, however,. that economic re-organisation is not a task to be completed in a moment by the simple issue of a decree, even although the majority of the population support the re-organisation. You cannot in a moment convert industries from the production of luxuries for the leisured few to the production of. necessaries for the population as a whole.Mr. Baker adds that the change-over will involve “as little fuss” as a general election. This, of course, depends largely upon the attitude of a dissentient minority. But whether there is fuss or not, there certainly will be very difficult economic problems requiring to be solved before society will be running smoothly on a Socialist basis.”As you say Marcos,
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.”
“The task at hand then becomes a theoretic one, namely, providing a concrete social analysis which shows how these needs, interests, and powers shape and hold particular human conventions and in which ways these conventions can be transformed” – Cornel West
Our task is to fight for a human community that satisfies human needs by abolishing wage-labour, money, trade, and the State and part of that struggle is to expose the mystification presented by apologists for the capitalist system and reveal the real nature of it – the reality of capitalism, rather than LBird’s pre-occupation with philosophical epistemology on the forum…what is “truth”…etc etc
As a socialist, i urge LBird to get real 😉
potaytoes and potahtoes…tomahtoes and tomaytoes
“Because the alternative to capitalism, ie, socialism, would require a class conscious revolutionary proletariat organised upon democratic lines, to socially produce it.”
And how is that different from when i say
“The only thing lacking is the political will of our fellow-workers”
“…two requisites were required for the establishment of socialism, the productive capacity and a mental development, both complementing one another…But the mental consciousness has lagged behind…”
As for your answer to my question….i again see little difference but you insist upon making some great philosophical disagreement out of it.
” ‘Marxists’ (ie., ‘materialists’) prevent the self-development of any workers who show any interest in overthrowing capitalism…”
However, this i do find strange is how you ascribe to the “materialists” this amazing great power of prevention … yet you on’t give an instance of when those workers have endeavoured to overthrow capitalism….they have not even joined the “materialist” parties in any great number to even indicate a willingness to do so but as you say…
“Capitalism continues to be supported because it works..”
Again i find myself repeating myself
“As for who determines “truth”, i already suggested who…our fellow-workers, who have consistently and continually rejected the “truths” of social evolution and socialist revolution. Marx’s arguments are dismissed and not reality because it does appear to our fellow-workers that capitalism is commonsense and the only reality to live in. They have rejected the socialist agenda ….so far.”
Capitalism is preferred, not because we are preventing a “true” understanding by imposing our “materialist” truth upon fellow-workers but that they have already self-determinedly developed their own version of the truth…socialism won’t work…it is impractical, unviable, unfeasible…As you say…”because [they think] it works…”
Our task is to demonstrate that it doesn’t work and most definitely not work in their interests…poverty war racism mental illness and the countless other detrimental effects of the capitalist mode of production.
My difficulty is that even when this paradox is shown, there is still a disconnect …a refusal to admit that the problem in society is that the world is working as it should and a denial that things can change if we willed it to happen.
This what we need to overcome.
I was a bit contradictory when i said the OP’s question “was a straightforward one and the answer an easy one.” I hadn’t taken into account your convoluted distraction, LBird 🙄
My understanding has always been that two requisites were required for the establishment of socialism, the productive capacity and a mental development, both complementing one another
We reached the capability of supplying the needs and wants of the population sometime in the late 19th C and early 20C although i am willing to be corrected on this matter.
But the mental consciousness has lagged behind.
I suggest a re-reading of the Communist Manifesto and how capitalism, the development of machine-manufacture and factory-production (not the earlier mercantile capitalism) created the gravediggers of the present system – the potentially revolutionary working class through the emergence of the class struggle
“…the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product….”
Socialism could not emerge until the working class was given birth to and grew and it was the Industrial Revolution that was the real beginning of this class (and then later it incorporated other continents.)
As for who determines “truth”, i already suggested who…our fellow-workers, who have consistently and continually rejected the “truths” of social evolution and socialist revolution. Marx’s arguments are dismissed and not reality because it does appear to our fellow-workers that capitalism is commonsense and the only reality to live in.
They have rejected the socialist agenda ….so far.
And if you did read my earlier post, i would like your answer to why capitalism continues to be supported.
You may have missed my earlier comment where i made clear that
“The only thing lacking is the political will of our fellow-workers, which is something I don’t think Marx anticipated and something our Party founders underestimated, that workers would decline to use their political power to change society and benefit themselves by acting in their own interests. Why this is so is an ongoing debate.”
Is that not the “self-determination” you accuse me of not taking account of, LBird. Or do you have another definition of self-determination, LBird.
As been said elsewhere, socialism had to wait for its time to come to be more than a utopian aspiration, and it was the recognition of the progressive nature of capitalism in creating the forces of production that Marx frequently alluded to which created the possibility of socialist ideas arising, in the first place, by creating a class that can carry out the task of transforming the economic basis without substituting itself as a ruling class (even if for the shortest of periods workers will become the supreme class so to dispose of the present ruling class before society becomes classfree)
Consciousness is always at the core of the Socialist Party’s analysis and it is why we place the battle of ideas at the forefront of the class war.
I understand and sympathise with your view, Marcos, but what this report has done is reflect what the vast majority believe socialism is and the opinion of a minuscule organisation has no influence upon the understanding of those workers we need to come on to our side.
We can now better focus our campaign on correcting the false interpretation held by most people, and that really the Bolsheviks and Leninism is no longer central to what people think socialism is but that it is government directed state capitalism they believe is socialism.
We hold a vision of as you say a world that is a stateless, moneyless, leaderless, world society, based on free access, without borders, and without the concept of nation-state. Yes, we do not need a PhD to understand that…but we do have to hear about it, be told about it, have it described to us. We need to debate and discuss the socialist concept, not only what it it is but how we can achieve it.
Please indicate where such an exchange is really taking place on the scale that is necessary to accomplish change.
Where people are talking about socialism, even incorrectly and inaccurately, we need to be present to offer our ideas. Very sadly and tragically, through no fault of our own, our voice has been absent.
Just how do we challenge the prevalent narrative on what socialism is?
A question i concede i have no answer and i see no others having any more success on what is the Thin Red Line of non-market anti-state socialists.
Which leaves us carrying on business as usual…and waiting for some sort of miraculous development in our fellow-workers consciousness.
Such a sombre assessment is not at all promising for a newcomer to our forum as the OP is and i apologise to him or her.
I have to agree with Marcos. The question was a straightforward one and the answer an easy one. I don’t think what Marx, Engels or Kropotkin thought counts for much and turning the topic into a philosophical discussion rather than one about applying technical knowledge is not fruitful .
We can debate at what time in history capitalism produced the material conditions to establish a free-access society for all but today there is no question that with the technological wonders of the world we can provide a decent standard of living for everyone on the planet. Perhaps not overnight but within a relatively short time, no more than a decade in my estimation, and a handful of years for most people when the infrastructure is already sufficient and doesn’t require to be put into place.
Capitalism may prefer lucrative big projects but for energy, but much of the world, can be provided with power off-the-grid locally via appropriate green energy such as solar, wind, geo-thermic, hydro or whatever. (i am minded how to help my first wife’s family i helped to provide an expensive telephone landline to their rural home. Just a matter of a few years later the mobile phone arrived on the scene making such costs superfluous) That is just one example. In the developing world, it is not increasing food production to end hunger that is required but reliable cold storage and efficient silos to end food waste and logistic supply chains to bring the produce to urban areas. These already exist. I have travelled a fair amount off the beaten track and rarely have i encountered a situation where i could not acquire a cold coca cola. Capitalism has created the distribution network.
