[alanjjohnstone]

I think this article is of some import when it says what will applied will be what is fit for purpose, rather than some sort of ideological intent.http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/column-industrial-scale-farming-sustainable-path/

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There are, in short, no simple, perfect, universal answers. Agriculture can’t be formulaic or dogmatic because, as Justin says, “diverse ecosystems require diverse practices.” He sees, for instance, “crops and geographies and family circumstances where no-till is not the right solution,” including in very cool and poorly drained soils where under thick residues the soil can never dry or warm enough to germinate seeds. Instead, there are only the best (and provisional) imperfect ways, which can be arrived at only by facing the trade-offs head-on.

[alanjjohnstone]

I thought this article might be of interesthttp://www.businessinsider.com/citi-central-bank-policy-creates-economic-inequality-2016-9 

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if debt is so cheap, why aren't companies borrowing, spending, and investing? The answer is deflation. When prices are falling and productivity is low there is no point in investing if you can't make a decent return. So companies in Europe are focusing on cutting costs (which doesn't create jobs or drive wages)…whereas companies in the US are focusing on share buybacks (which help the rich)

[alanjjohnstone]

1st Warning to TWC7. You are free to express your views candidly and forcefully provided you remain civil. Do not use the forums to send abuse, threats, personal insults or attacks, or purposely inflammatory remarks (trolling). Do not respond to such messages.Keep it civil, comrades.This thread and its contributors have on experience of previous debates a tendency to become acrimonious so just be a bit careful that no-one does his or her part to escalated exchanges. 

[alanjjohnstone]

The Small Party of Good Boys returns to the fray

[alanjjohnstone]

When you have dug yourself into a hole, Wez, the first thing you do is stop digging

[alanjjohnstone]

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There's no such thing as bourgeois science because most, if not all, scientists are working class!

ahhh , no there is no such thing as capitalist war because those who fight and die are working class

[alanjjohnstone]

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There won't be a proletariat

This touches on what i asked earlier…will socialism be a static society? If ideas and material conditions do arise to create ideology what can we expect to replace the proletarian one when the proletariat is no more. hmmmmmmm…?

[alanjjohnstone]

Owen Smith the Labour leader contender comes out against the UBIhttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/universal-basic-income-not-credible-idea-labour-leadership-contender-owen-smith-a7226051.html

[alanjjohnstone]

I was going to mention that aspect…and add how Ostrom recognised that all the societies she studied possessed what amounted to by-laws often enshrined in custom to ensure the rights were not abused. 

[alanjjohnstone]

Can't we all agree that the way workers will vote will be with their feet on "scientific truth"If they wish to express their view on the validity of the Law Of Gravity, they can, if they wish, follow the example of the Natural Law Party and try to defy it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyXAB5L3EIQor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgkhAysnRNYBut without the safety net 

[alanjjohnstone]

Apologies for perhaps not quite comprehending the meaning of this exchange between you and LBird, Lew.I just want to have it made clear that when we advocate socialism, we are not seeking to establish a static society. Economically, yes a steady-state production/consumption system but not culturally. Social relations within socialism will still evolve.How so I cannot say…it is something that the material conditions of living in socialism will determine and I can hardly be expected to predict what sort of consequences they will have, can I?Except, that is, for reaching general conclusions only in regard to the differences it will mean from living in capitalism. Which is sufficient for us to make our case for a better system of society. Perhaps today I have been reading too much Dietzgen but this struck me as an interesting statement.

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“With the final triumph of social-democracy, human culture will start on its road of conscious and endless progress. Until now mankind advanced in a more or less unconscious manner. It is only we social-democrats who deliberately put the principle of progress to the front. Until now all progressive parties had defined limits which, when once reached, checked their movement and turned action into reaction.”

https://www.marxists.org/archive/dietzgen/works/1870s/ethics.htm

[alanjjohnstone]

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As an ex trade union rep/steward, would you have found acceptable a management procedure that involved an apeeal/review against a disciplinary matter or a dismissal, being undertaken by a panel which contained the manager whose decision was being reviewed?

This issue is being addressed, Tim. It has not been neglected. As a union negotiator, you know you wait until the negotiations are finished before presenting them. You also know, they are rarely speedy. 

[alanjjohnstone]

I have referred to it in a previous message but i will repeat it…the present moderators are discussing proposed amendments to the guidelines and as i have already indicated one of the difficulties in designing a guideline fit for purpose. There are others which we are addressingThe moderators are subject to a process by being a SUB-committee and that EC approval is also required for new guidelines to be adopted. My suggestion that we act as benevolent dictators was fortunately for the forum users not accepted.I suggest some patience. Unsubstantiated speculation about what amounts to, imho, a shadow EC operating via the IC is damaging to the Party's reputation and will not bring forth many new members. Members should be prudent in the way they express themselves. 

[alanjjohnstone]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ralph-nader-i-was-not-a-spoiler-in-2000-jill-stein-doesnt-deserve-that-insulting-label-either/2016/09/02/02df0e74-6fa3-11e6-993f-73c693a89820_story.htmlNader defending his third party run and exposing the lesser evil myth in the Damnocrats V The Repulsivcans 

[alanjjohnstone]

“truth changes with time”My, (admittedly rudimentary) understanding was that everything was ever changing. That historical materialism was another way of describing evolution. That the forces involved is material conditions, and again, my basic knowledge of Dietzgen, is that what ideas people hold, is a material force involved in change and those ideas itself are dependent on material conditions but possess a flexibility. That the very existence of any particular thing depends on its relations to everything else if I cite Dietzgen correctly.I may have misinterpreted Dietzgen (and I may have misunderstood your question, Lew)  but he does not talk of eternal non-changing moral truths but of an ethics and morality that undergo evolution.“To lay down regulations for all times and conditions, as our system makers claimed to have done, is in the highest degree immoral. We have seen that morality is based upon the general need for social co-operation. With the growth of that need, morality and civilization grow. The continued development of morality is as necessary to the welfare of our race as food for the body. Any moral prescription which claims to be more than a local or temporary expediency turns necessarily into an immoral limitation, just as a prescribed bill of fare turns finally into an unbearable diet. As bread is a general food, so is truth a general virtue. But remember, my friends, that that fact is by no means a metaphysical prescription with a claim to eternal validity, but an empirical rule which admits of exceptions. An absolute right is, like an absolute truth, theological or metaphysical moonshine. The moral world has but one commandment: permanent social progress, limitless social evolution.”In another place he says:“In order to get a clear conception of morality let us compare it with a tool. The tool is as eternal and yet as changeable as morality. Can a knife of the stone period be regarded to-day as a knife? It is surely an antiquated knife, but no more a knife in the modern sense; a knife of to-day must be from steel, and of modern finish. But just as a knife consists generally of a handle and blade, so is morality in general the subordination of personal desires to the local, national and, finally, international welfare.”But again I must plead an amount of ignorance but isn’t the Nature of Human Brainwork correct in saying all truths contain some amount of errors ad also in error there is some truth.Our "proletarian philosopher" taught that thought is determined by the thinker's class position. What thinking produces is not truth but "ideologies." Which I think is what LBird always lectures us about.The Jupiter we understood yesterday, has changed today with the knowledge acquired from the recent space-probe fly-pass. It is now a different Jupiter, is it not, and not the same one as previously. Another version of that we do no stand in the same flowing river twice analogy. 

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