alanjjohnstone
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Quote:French Group (“Civilisation without money”)The Party has been contacted by this group seeking collaboration.Agreed that cde Buick responds inviting further contacts.
Is there any further background to this group available?
YMS, i did try to start a thread on Corbyn's speech on Workers Control Lite a few days agohttps://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/workers-control-liteIt seemed to me from the absence of comments from the forum users, it wasn't only the media who weren't interested in the topic.Nor in Free Access Litehttps://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/free-access-lite
Africapitalism“Africa’s development, which must be private-sector led and entrepreneurially driven, will have at its heart, young African innovators and their transformative ideas. Only they will create the millions of jobs Africa needs”.https://www.journalducameroun.com/en/africapitalism-key-winning-war-poverty-tony-elumelu/
Speegy Bee, what brought you to this forum and spurred you to make a comment? Nothing better to do? Do you share our oddity?The working class is a global entity so even for the sake of argument accepting your claim that people are apathetic, are you saying it is exactly the same around the world. Are you judging billions of people only by your own standards and your limited interaction with your fellow-workers?You need to put some flesh on the bones of your case.
Quote:What this shows is the impossibility of a rational energy policy under capitalism as energy use under it reflects the relative prices of the various sources (coal, oil, gas, shale oil, etc) and changes as they vary. It highlights the utopianism of those environmentalists who think that shaping the market is a solution. There are just too many variables, most of them market-driven. Prices of fossil fuels collapse, demand for them then starts to rise and the market need for alternative sources such as renewables falls. But when prices for fossil fuels rise other fossil fuel sources then become profitable. Either way there is no significant reduction in the burning of fossil fuels and so no reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.And a recent blog post draws attention to the closure of coal power stations confirming that statement that prices rule production…neither the enviromentalists "Leave coal in the hole" or the pro-coal Trump legislation can determine market outcomeshttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2017/10/coal-no-more.htmlAnother post also confirms that the State subsidises certain forms of energy that increases their profitability rather than let the free-market price dominate. That is a political decision spurred by lobbyists not simply an economic one http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2017/10/dirty-energy.htmlBut if i remember ALB once worked in the fossil fuel industry both here and in Europe and perhaps possesses clearer insights than myself. I bow to his knowledge and expertise.
As i am reading it, you both say we can justify and support certain technologies but only inside a socialist society. Which is my position also. The real question people are asking is what is our position right now to the use and the spread of various technologies or industrial/manufacturing processes (albeit, not many are asking us anything at all).I recall several bitter strikes during my time as a postal worker against management's introduction of team-working. Who could be against such a thing as working as a team? Well, it was the motives and the manner it was going to be imposed with lots of friendly psychological jargon to sugar it up to be accepted.For sure, in socialism, we will have lots and lots of cooperative team-working. In principle, i have nothing against such harmonious methods of working together. But that is not the way capitalist management view things. Their plan was not a tool – it was a weapon.Likewise, when i see many of the applications of technology, i recognise the benefits of them when we achieve a fit society to use them in. Sadly, we don't have socialism, and despite their potential for good, it is how they are being put into effect and the consequences they are having which drives my approach and attitude and my concerns.I see no dilemma in contrasting the possible windfalls of technological development with condemnation of draconian operation of them and the deleterious effects they are having on people and communities within capitalism and offering our support and solidarity as they resist their introduction or growth.
I endorse the approving comments about Quora.I joined but don't contribute but i do get the notifications of the three Party's members who are busy on it and so i can help boost their presence by adding my upvotes. Others can take this easy option and thus help the party's campaign for increased exposure. Later they may well be tempted to be more involved. If time permits in the future i would seriously consider upping my activity on it.
Another article on UBI/Citizens Wage from a less common angle. First the usual intro analysis
Quote:giant advances in twenty-first century communications, robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI) are having huge impacts on how we work. He suggested, rightly in my view, that in the near future the economy will not need very many humans to maintain it. So what to do with billions of redundant human beings? If people cannot obtain money through work, because no one needs them to work, how are they to obtain the money they need to survive? And how are corporations to continue maximising profit? For its many longstanding disciples (and perhaps some new converts in the corporatocracy), UBI is the obvious answer.The article then highlights some interesting points
Quote:Standing informed us that he had recently been invited to speak about UBI in Davos. He seemed to think this was a fantastic achievement. Being welcomed into the arms of the world’s most powerful oppressors of humanity and despoilers of the planet was sold to us by Mr Standing as something we should admire and respect – instead of being horrified by (which was my reaction). Then Mr Standing told us that “even Hillary Clinton” had taken an interest in UBI, and that billionaire businessmen and IT wizards in Silicon Valley had been seeking his wisdom. None of this appears to have troubled Mr Standing. Quite the contrary. He seemed proud of these things, suggesting that we should be heartened and encouraged by the implied credibility the rich and powerful are giving to UBI. He seemed to be oblivious to the obvious conflict of interests – the problem of talking about a scheme that’s supposed to eliminate human poverty with the very people who are responsible for causing it, and who choose to carefully maintain it……it seems to me quite impossible to properly test something like UBI. Trying to trial UBI in a town or a city where the rest of the economy is working around it as normal would be a bit like conducting a delicate scientific experiment using soiled and defective apparatus…In short, the results of any pilot scheme concerning UBI needs to be rigorously examined. But this is not what appears to be happening…Standing described a pilot in India that he’d been involved with. He couldn’t go into detail because his time was limited (and it was probably in his book), but the outline was that a few thousand people in some remote town had all received a basic income for the trial period and surprise, surprise, the local economy improved. Who would have thought it? Add some money to a working economy and sales will pick up. Incredible……UBI/CI are worthy and workable schemes, but the interest the corporate business world appears to be taking in them should scare the life out of their disciples rather than reassure them. I don’t suggest UBI/CI should be scrapped, merely amended, because there’s a much better alternative – guaranteed, useful, well-paid work in public service,…Sadly that is the article's conclusion…Statism and the public sector and the welare state, much like the criticism and ultimate rejection in Left Unity (whatever happened to that?) to ex-comrade SW's chagrin but the article does, however, raise useful points i think we can incorporate in our critique.
I think, a voice in support of your position on fracking, ALBhttp://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-41627213
Quote:Sillars said he thought opposition to unconventional methods of oil and gas extraction would cost jobs, and increase fuel poverty. "It's time to wake up. Trade unionists should wake up. You should be getting resolutions at the Scottish TUC demanding a rethink. Poverty groups in Scotland should be demanding a rethink by this government. We're in the ridiculous position of having about 900,000 people living in fuel poverty. At the same time, we are taking fracked gas from the United States across to Grangemouth."Vin, in 2005 the Party had a fairly strong presence in Edinburgh for the Make Poverty History and the Gleneagles G8 protests. I think we out-did all the Left combined with our leafletting and that is not an exaggeration. For some reason the "usual suspects" kept a low profile.But what made the most impression on me was the organisation of the Churches and their charities which reminded me that they are not a spent force politically.Religious groups from all over the UK made up the bulk of the quarter a million marchers. Churches were used to provide meals and sleeping accommodation for them all, a ready-made infrastructure for mobilising the masses.So to dismiss the debates we have on religion and whether or not early Christians practiced or advocated a primitive form of communism is not an abstraction for many of our fellow-workers who hold political views and happen to be church-goers.In the US, you no doubt of heard of the sanctuary cities where ICE – the immigration police – are not assisted by the local authorities. There, the churches are also in the forefront of offering their places of worship as places of safety for undocumented migrants. One of the small Amish towns has taken more refugees than the whole of Orange County in California. Are we not to tap into such sentiments by highlighting the church's radical past such as the anabaptists and the Levellers. Can we not talk about these issues, too, as you say?Indeed we had a thread on the politics of the Pope railing against inequality, environmental destruction and Mammon. Isn't his statements as much a spring-board for debate as Corbyn's reformism,BTW, i recently posted about reformism in workers control lite…a follow up to free access lite… Also a more abstract threads has evolved into a discussion on practical socialism and technology reformism – threads no-one much cared for to reply to and It was that which made me think, this forum is on its way towards to inactivity. Again, as an aside, i found the debate on thr Russian Revolution being conducted on the near-extinct Yahoo WSM discussion list very worthwhile.The blog may miss some events in current affairs but overall we cover important issues, many over-looked or forgotten about by the MSM. Any supporting or dissenting comments posted from another Party members is a rare occurrence. I doubt our Socialist Courier or Socialist Banner blogs are even known about much less visited or read by members.So you see, your well-meaning criticism is wrongly targeted. We do try to address the concerns of fellow-workers. But you raise an urgent question that require answering – If we aren't present where political activity is – how do fellow-workers hear our case. For sure we have a reticence to becoming involved and our stance is attending them but physically we are doing less and less of that. So we can only engage directly on the internet and you personally have participated in an important element of that strategy – providing us with media tools to post and communicate our ideas. So more power to your elbow and hopefully we can have more videos and some centred on specific social problems.Did i ever mention before that i think we require a "council of class war" to debate and discuss our strategies and tactics and whether we should re-organise and re-structure ourselves and adpt to fulfil future challenges?
Again you are not readng the comment in the context of the thread. Or noting my elaboration spurred by Marcos.LBird claims that science should be decided by democratic vote and not permit a scientific elite to decide what is truth or not. I responded that "we" – and i mean people in general – do indeed "rebel" against science and its truth and that we vote as it were by our feet and actions. Many commonly held opinions on science are irrational and goes against the wisdom of science. Back to my OP which was specifically to answer SP
Quote:SP -I previously asked whether you could put some "meat on the bones" of how knowledge, scientific "truth" etc, can be democratically controlled by a global, socialist population.I'd still be up for some ideas on the practicalities of your position? MeDon't we already do much of this democratic " truth" to the distaste of scientists, SP.We are rejecting their consensus on the safety of GMO, on fracking and nuclear energy through parliamentary legislation.We accept the truth of climate change but don't act upon it. We accept by majority decision the scientific position on other issues…vaccination and evidence based medicine …much to the distaste of some alternative health quacks.People vote with their feet, as often as not as irrationally as rational. Yes to a degree we choose what is scientific truth.You may indeed defend the principles of technology as benefits to humanity but surely we can criticise the implementation of them by those who are exercising their political and economic power to impose them- not for the interests of mankind – but for their own enrichment.Nor do i think should we present a rosy ideal picture of a perfect socialism. We will inherit a legacy that will require to be cleaned up tout suite…as i said this will be probably short-term to remove the existential threat to the planet's people. How and what tools used to do this will be determined by those in socialism with the task of restoring the environment to a healthy sustainable harmonious balance. It may men the postponement or suspension of some technologies.But i do think as i said —- Today's technology is being used in a detrimental manner for undesirable purposes. GM is not being used for food production but for cash crops which is causing real food-producers to lose their land.Nuclear power does have a possibility of alleviating global warming but so has many other options which carry less risk and require little waste disposal processes. For sure socialism will ensure the safety of nuclear reactors with several safeguards but again even many capitalist nations understand that capitalism cannot offr that guarantee and are dismantling those nuclear power stations. (Again an example of what i said earlier…public through their legislation is going against scientific consensus. That we do exercise our democracy against scentific "truth")The article i linked to on Paul Mason discusses the Lucas Plan from the 70s. Indeed, present-day technology is not inflexible and can be bent to the advantage of society as a whole. But it will be far closer to the revolutionary phase than now when it is far-off.Today the purpose of technology is to make profit …even at a human cost…While we can condemn the cranks of the anti-vax, we cannot deny that Big Pharma is not acting in the best interests of humanity See a recent bloghttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2017/10/where-is-pharmaceutical-reearch.htmlAnd regards agriculture, seehttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2017/10/an-even-bigger-big-ag.htmland on a specific crophttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2017/10/greasing-palms-with-palm-oil.html Simply because something might be useful in socialism does not mean that we cannot resist it under capitalism. It is not a Luddite position (which, btw, is very misunderstood as this blog tries to point out.http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2013/01/blood-for-blood-says-general-lud.html )
Quote:All those technological advances can be a used in a socialist society without any problem at all. Our problem is not technology, it is the system of profits.I understand where you are coming from Marcos but to say that socialism will not encounter problems and require to make choices, particularly on environmental issues, i think is not quite right.These problems in socialism may be short-term and not long-term and existential problems as they are in capitalism and so will be resolved by the democratic decision and will of the people inside socialism. They will make the choice whether there exists a problem with the technology and whether to apply certain processes and procedures or not to. It will be a much more neutral objective debate without overwhelming vested interests swaying biasBut as you say, "we are still living under capitalism" and so, therefore, we are facing the consequences that the profit-system is making right now on technologies and practices.These in many areas and fields are very detrimental to our current well-being. It isn't simply a matter of NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard) opposition but things being implemented or advocated have a social and global effect on humanity.We simply cannot take a backseat and sit back and do nothing. But our potential of actually influencing things are minimal. But we can make a stand in our literature. We condemn many "isms" such as racism and sexism, aware that we can as an organisation do little about ending or even alleviating them, except to explain the causes and offer solidarity to those who are engaged in defending themselves against such oppression and repression.I suggest on other matters such as the environment we can do similar. Is condemning the corporate land-grabbing to protect the small-farmer a defence of private-property principle? I suggest that it is the same as supporting trade unions in demands for higher pay is not a defence of the wages-system.But my comment you quoted was not in this context but to say that we are not enthralled to a scientific elite. That rightly or wrongly we do challenge their conclusions and hold to independent ideas that match our intuitive perceptions of the issue and which sometimes does not make common sense. So i think there is a small element of truth in LBird's claim that we vote on what is truth…he simply doesn't recognise that we already do that now.
