alanjjohnstone
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Robert Fisk has written an illuminating essay on so-called neutrality of humanitarian organisation.http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/iraq-mosul-doctors-medicins-sans-frontieres-usa-army-humanitarian-a8160306.htmlJonathan Whittall of Medecins Sans Frontieres, director of MSF’s analysis department, “most humanitarian actors behave in line with how Colin Powell described their role in 2001: ‘NGOs are such a force multiplier for us, such an important part of our combat team.’”He explains that "…the sieges of cities and towns in the Middle East these past two years have produced a new and more profoundly disturbing challenge: medical aid groups who embed themselves in armies and militias and thus align themselves with one side in the conflict…"In his BMJ article, Whittall scathingly attacked what he called “stethoscopes for hire”, contractors for a commercial medical company who operated “as contractors driven by profit rather than the principles that guide humanitarian action in conflict.
The right-wing Adam Smith Institutes promotes UBI
Quote:UBI is politically feasible, socially desirable and financially sustainable,” the report says…Even if it gets implemented, UBI won’t solve all our problems. Its parameters, scope and size will have to be fiddled with for a long time to come. But no one can deny that it’s a feasible reform that can nudge our society forward.”Report author, Otto Lehto, explained,
Quote:“A UBI streamlines the provision of welfare services and improves the autonomy and incentives of individuals. Allowing poor people to spend their money as they see fit stimulates a bottom-up market solutions and cuts down on the bureaucratic red tape. All this pulls resources away from wasteful rent-seeking into wealth creation”.Sam Dumitriu, the head of research at the Adam Smith Institute, said
Quote:Attempts to protect jobs through luddite regulation will backfire and mass retraining schemes have a shaky track record. Cash transfers are our best bet at ensuring the benefits from coming technological change are felt by everyone.“We now need to experiment with different ways of doing it – should we tweak the tax credits system, should we introduce a ‘Negative Income Tax’, or is a Universal Basic Income the best approach?http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/momentum-members-growth-labour-party-jeremy-corbyn-ukip-green-conservative-membership-numbers-tory-a8166031.htmlMembership of Momentum has surged above 35,000 and is growing by more than 1,000 a month. Membership figures had now overtaken Ukip and are on course to overtake the Green Party, who currently possess a membership of 39,000.
In 2003 the World Bank economist Lesley Campbell, estimated that Burns generated £157 million each year for Scotland. This figure has grown exponentially since then.Joan McAlpine, a SNP MSP said: “It is high time that we looked seriously at the economic potential of Burns the Brand."http://www.thenational.scot/news/15857173.Robert_Burns_s_value_to_Scotland_debated_at_Holyrood/
Worth a quick read on Malthusian doom and gloomhttps://uk.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-breakingviews/breakingviews-hadas-malthus-condorcet-and-shithole-economics-idUKKBN1F61UVCan't say i have heard of this Condorcet chap. I'll try and follow up on him later.
Am i to understand that you do not acknowledge the strong similarity of your own views with the ideologies i have linked to and quoted from, Ike?Perhaps you could tell me what differentiates your position from theirs? What are your criticisms if any of national-anarchism?I have never claimed to be an original thinker, as you appear to do, ike. Why else do you think i call myself a Marxist because i subscribe to many but not all of the ideas Marx developed and i joined a party of like-minded socialists who i have learned a lot from. I don't claim ownership of my ideas. You do apparently.Aren't ideas social, and arise from reading and listening? Perhaps you are indeed unique in giving birth to your own particular set of beliefs without the intercourse and interaction of influences. Maybe so, but i think you have had confirmation of them as "valid" from other sources and they have become reinforced by others acceptance of them. You deny any association with those political tendencies i mentioned. You may well have no dealings with them and offer no formal allegiance towards. But the fact is, your ideas reflect theirs and it is extremely difficult in not seeing you as an advocate for them, either knowingly or unwittinglyIf the cap fits, Ike, wear it. It isn't a tangent, Ike. Nor was it name-calling. But, yes it was labeling you. If you refuse to recognise what you stand for then it is up to others to tell you. I returned to my earlier charge because you repeated your same message in reply to Robbo, which he may not seen the importance of. I merely placed it in context – something i believe you are reluctant to do.
On my daily trawl of the web, i came across this reference which i think could be relevant to my earlier comment. I am already guilty of labelling so i might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/43232-as-the-alt-right-strays-from-its-roots-will-it-turn-to-open-fascism
Quote:Using the argumentation found in anti-imperialist and "third-worldist" circles of the time, they argued for an "Ethno-pluralist" politic that saw a "nationalism for all peoples" as the solution to the degenerating effects of globalized commodity capitalism. Instead of the internationalist and egalitarian vision of the New Left politics they appropriated, they wanted to see a deep relativism, to have cultures kept separate from cosmopolitan influence with the understanding that different peoples were too different in skills and temperament to abide by each other's rules and customs. The founding principle here was an opposition to egalitarianism, primarily on the belief that human beings were not equal, either as individuals or as groups. The primary segment of this was racial, and by using the decolonization rhetoric, they could argue that white Europeans were facing colonization by globalism and had to join up with other liberation movements that they could reframe through ethnic nationalism…"Third Positionism," in which fascists use leftist politics in a strange synthesis of the left and the right. Anti-capitalism, environmentalism, post-colonialism, antiwar politics and the like have all been appropriated heavily in white nationalist circles,…It was these principles they used to buck off accusations of white supremacy, saying that instead of "ruling over non-whites," they simply want to return to their ethnic roots and live an "indigenous" form of life… the "alt-right" took the old-fashioned segregationist motto of "stop the hate, separate" and argued that racial separatism would be healthy for all people. Nationalism, they argued, was for all people, often coined as "Ethno-pluralism." …"Similar views are becoming increasingly mainstream as can be seen from this recent statement“We have to decide if our ethnicity, if our white race, if our society continues to exist or if our society will be wiped out,” Attilio Fontana, of the Northern League. He reflects the view of a number of Eastern European right-wing statesmen who express similar sentiments about European culture and Christianity being under threat.
You talk the talk, Ike, but do you walk the walk?I do recall your earlier stated position where your support for heterogeneous culture was predicated on what you termed racialism. (Robbo and others, latecomers to the forum, may not be aware of those earlier posts)Some may well have mistaken this as separateness – apartheid, in other words. It is repeated in your last post.
Quote:I personally could not agree with a global common system of ownership unless it also respected and maintained national/cultural boundaries, and maybe even tribal boundaries, and unless such a system also permitted variations and separate developmentI once long ago accused you of holding opinions akin to "national-anarchism"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National-anarchismWhile i respect your willingness to enter into debate and engage in discussion, when i read between the lines, i really do not find any reason to change my previous judgment of the basis of your world-view, even if you do deny any formal connection with "national-anarchism".If it waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it's a fair bet, it is a duck.Also related is national-bolshevism although i think it is not relevant in your own case, being you appear to be an anti-statist, but in my cyber travels, i have come across those people, toohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bolshevism
Next January will be the centenary of Rosa Luxemburg's and Karl Leibnecht's murders.It would be an opportunity to publish a pamphlet offering our analysis of their ideas. We have done quite a number of sympathetic and some critical articles in the Standard.We could address nationalism, war, reformism, Marxian economics and political tactics all in one pamphlet, focussing on those two revolutionaries at a time when interest may have grown in their lives and deaths. Ample preparation time for the pamphlets committee…or they can co-opt a willing member for the task and merely do the proof-reading.
Pamphlets had the virtue of flexibility.George Orwell said that they need only be “topical, polemical, and short.”
Oscar, i think many issues that might arise are not going to be very different from the disagreements we encounter these days such as where do we route road and rail links, where do we place factories and retail outlets, all of which effect local residents in various ways, some etrimental.First of all, do we need to ditch all the procedures we have in place now, planning committees, consultation meetings and public inquiries? I think they will remain but perhaps get improved. How are they resolved. First those who are directly involved in the construction will be offering only technical options and not fishing for the contract profits. Because actual pounds and pence is not involved, other alternatives will be considered..a tunnel rather than a bridge, for instance…buildings made architectural aesthetic rather than an eye-sore. If locals still object and incentives rejected, if it isn't vital and necessary, then life goes on without it. If it is of the utmost importance then the problem is taken to the wider society…if village x remain steadfast opposed but the next village Y suffers as a consequence, then the people of the region, the villagers of a, b, c are asked to decide on it. In socialism however because we have added responsibilities of deciding production and distribution priorities, there, too, will be a variety of proposals to choose from. I don't envisage the need for everybody to be involved. But we do have presently various methods of decision making…I once again emphasise, socialism is not a society that begins totally anew – but rather inherits much of the good stuff of capitalism and rejects the bad stuff or adapts and adjusts it. We have consumer research, for example. We have blind product trials. We have cost-benefit analysis. We are not going to be caught up on the trap of spending all our time voting. We have today apps that use filters to ask the views of those directly involved in an issue. I have to rush now…i will try and return to the question. Hopefully, others know more from other experience and can offer added solutions to dilemmas that we might face when one section of the population differ from another on what to do.
I always have held that the SPGB did accept the concept of authority as opposed to the idea of authoritarianism. We stand for the abolition of political authority but not necessarily all social relationships involving authority.Engels used the example of a captain of a ship.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htmMarx used the conductor of an orchestra as his analogy. Soloists are their own conductor, but an orchestra requires a conductor to create harmony.Bakunin used a boot-maker to explain his position. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/various/authrty.htmI also believe that the SPGB have never subscribed to the theory that one size fits all but have accepted that administration and organisation of socialist communities will be influenced by history and tradition and existing local practice. All societies have or had their own ways of running things smoothly and without divisiveness. Capitalism came and distorted those cooperative relations but was quite unable to destroy them entirely so they persist often as parallel systems of authority or "government" if you wish to use that term. Would there be differences of opinion especially on practical matters. Indeed, most likely. They exist within our own Party and as you mentioned before the structure and organisation of the SPGB is reflected in our vision for social democracy. I'm less sure if those could be called conflicts of interest. But they may arise in some way and your comment that safeguards would be in place to counteract such occurrences. The most basic is the vote and the will of the majority as expressed by it. The right of the minority is not the right to thwart the decisions of the majority. But grey areas will manifest itself – the proverbial split vote of 49-51, for instance. Whereas we are not willing to compromise and make concessions with pro-capitalists, i think in socialism itself, there will be more readiness to meet half-way and reach agreements…and since cost is not a factor…few situations will be irreversible at a later time. Trial and error will be an accepted manner of trying out new ideas.You talk about some "group interest" arising as if this might be a new class, a new ruling class or informal or formal elite that will be able to exercise their "authority" to impose their will. What you don't say, is where they get their legitimacy from? I pointed out that free access deprives any group of holding others to ransom. Despite the contradictions, capitalists get their legitimacy from elections and the consent of the people. Voters give their consent at the ballot box. When that consent is no longer given we have peoples revolts, and the biggest example of that was in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union…but we have seen many other examples of dictatorships being overthrown when people no longer had faith in their rulers to provide for them.Certainly, some leaders and parties impose their despotism by force but i think a look at history see this as usually a temporary affair that cannot be maintained indefinitely without softening. Again, we have to wonder where this coercive military force appears from in socalism. How can a police state arise when the police won't exist in anywhere near the same form as today and how the nation-state and the State itself no longer resembles anything we have today.For sure, the SPGB hasn't got all the answers, but as i said, we can generalise. Those who will have the task of implementing socialism will be the generation who have successfully made the revolution, have learned valuable lessons from the process and now are building and putting socialist ideas into practice.Some people will do it differently from others, some will make mistakes, some learn from others…But the goal is the same. "from each according to ability, to each according to need" All for All. Everything to Everybody
If anybody is interested in following up RP's post, my comment mentioning St Aquinas is #357 in a thread of 417 messages on Marxism Animalism where i posted an extract from another website's article which was related to the topic.The "justified rebuke" is #358Shame of shames, i hang my head in disgrace
Rest easy, Vin.I was referring to Ike and his fear that he may be excluded from the discussion list for them. His comment #5 could easily be construed as an attack my individual liberty as my reply in #8 pointed out and support for those who would like the return of miscegenation laws.
Quote:you decide who you want here.Our moderator is very even-handed, Ike.I think every member of the forum has been warned to stick to the topic and desist from personal comments. I know. I have been suspended a fair number of times. Vin, i believe, holds the record. Despite holding political views that i sometimes find offensive and which have the potential consequence of providing support for the nastiest of people, this discussion list abides by its guidelines https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum-rules-and-guidelinesI think how we deal with those who break the rules of the forum, in a little way, reflects our response of how we consider rules inside socialism will operate.
