[alanjjohnstone]

In message #154 i said"i beginning to suspect that Piketty simply threw that in as a passing after-thought and of little importance to himself having seemingly not bothered to provide any supporting evidence for it or extrapolate its effect, simply guessing what tax burden the rich could bear. "Galbraith seems puzzled too. "if the proposal is utopian, which is a synonym for futile, then why make it? Why spend an entire chapter on it—unless perhaps to incite the naive?"http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/kapital-for-the-twenty-first-century

[alanjjohnstone]

A section of Left Unity throw their weight in support of Scottish separatismhttp://republicancommunist.org/blog/2014/06/26/7269/

[alanjjohnstone]

damn this lists quote facility ! apologies for the format of my comment but i cannot even seem to get it corrected by re-editing

[alanjjohnstone]

Quote:

TZM see the electoral process as inevitably corrupt, as it seeks to give power to one group or another over the rest of us. In the short term it may be a way of raising awareness of the alternatives, but in the longer terms it is redundant. We don't really need politicians of any colour. Democracy is only better than dictatorship in that it gives the winning group some say in who the dictators are, and a small element of control over what they do…..I think the main difference is that TZM does not see the need for politics or political leaders, or with 'democracy' as these imply control of people with ideas or needs that differ from the majority. TZM would like people to be individuals cooperating for mutual benefit, rather than members of groups vying for control.

 Some anarchists recognise that the political party that the SPGB is and the model it advocates is not your run-of-the-mill left-wing political party which wishes to be elected to take office and then decree by acts of parliament that socialism/RBE has been established.  

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As for the problem of the entrenched elite, they have an unavoidable achilles heel 'money'. Enough people stop using it and their power disappears.

James Connolly once said the in a strike it is a matter of "empty bellies against fat wallets". In the fight to see who lasts the longest in a war of attrition, sadly it will  be the ruling class who  sit back and starve the workers back into submission. 

[alanjjohnstone]

Another review, or more accurately from its last paragraph, more a "How Piketty's Plan Can Save The World"http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/07/capitalism-a-system-of-patrimonial-wealth/But on reflection, i beginning to suspect that Piketty simply threw that in as a passing after-thought and of little importance to himself having seemingly not bothered to provide any supporting evidence for it or extrapolate its effect, simply guessing what tax burden the rich could bear. But as i said …it is his apparent conclusion people are seizing upon. After all, as the writer of the review dismissively says "Marx’s critique was necessarily more abstract, more a criticism of capitalist market theory than of capitalist practice."…even though Capital's sub-title is "Critique of Political Economy" and concentrated heavily upon the production process as much as the circulation department. But i never ever read Vol 2 or Vol 3 or all the Theory of Surplus Value and the notes of the Grundisse…

[alanjjohnstone]

 "He doesn't actually say …"Isn't this rather odd.Every review i read (and many on this thread) applaud him for his skill with figures and statistics yet the most important political information….what will be the actual result of his proposals, he fails to provide any estimated figures. Not even a speculative GINI for the future? Is he supposing that people take his solution on trust of what you call an implication?You assumed right that it was indeed the reason of my question – to determine just what degree of social/wealth inequality is acceptable to Piketty (and his tax supporters) and what he considers to be "unfair" or potentially damaging to the health of capitalism.Again without Piketty's contribution, the 1% had already been sub-categorised to the 0.1% and even the 0.01% in ownership proportions analysis. Oh i am sure more than the ICC will eventually share my own and LBird's less than generous appreciation for Piketty. "I've counted the number of spots on your body…but not sure if its the chicken pox or the smallpox or even the measles but at least we now know how many spots there are …i recommend that the treatment is scraping them all off so you'll look unblemished." I'm looking forward to all the forthcoming articles that utterly discredit Piketty's political views and economic "solutions"i read this in a review. (or more accurately a review of reviews) “Notwithstanding its flaws, Piketty has succeeded in making everyone ponder on the right questions,” writes Lawrence Summers, the former US treasury secretary and Harvard University president"http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/Zng1Rz4mHbvjVAdR4Zy3nJ/The-Piketty-cheatsheet-Six-mustreads-on-Thomas-Piketty.htmlI am not at all sure this is accurate…i already mentioned earlier , my scepticism about Piketty began when i found he wasn't addressing any of my questions which i sought answers for. I began to wonder, in fact, if he was serving as a diversion from the real questions about society that needed to be asked.i think Lbird may be right…you ask the questions that will fit in with your answers and that is because of the ideas you already hold in your head…ideology. Wasn't Marx already a socialist before he began his study of economics?  I  think many members of the party were, too,  before we got round to reading Value Price and Profit. 

[alanjjohnstone]

A serious question from me now to those who have read the book. YMS opened the thread in his very first message by stating due to Piketty we can now "reasonably confidently state that the top 10% own 70% of the wealth, and the top 1% own about 29%"Can i ask what are Piketty's projected figures about this share of ownership if his proposed tax rules were actually successful and fully implemented ? You still here, Stuart ?..i thought you said you had more important things to do ….like persuading your own new friends to change their policies to be more in line with your own. 

[alanjjohnstone]

If the title of the book was "Sharks, their food cycle" no problems i'll accept its limitations ..but if it's title was "Sharks,their life cycle" , then i suggest the book has made some serious omission by not discussing how they reproduce.Remind me …What is the title of Piketty's book again?

[alanjjohnstone]

If everything is owned by everybody then effectively no-one owns anything. As Brian touched on we insist upon social control, again as he says, not by the government, but more importantly and much to the chagrin of those who advocate syndicalism and co-operatives not even by those who do the actual producing  who are simply after all just sections of society Although they will have day to day control of the production process…what they make and how they make it and the way it is distributed will be be decided and controlled by the wider community – the consumers.  To achieve our desired new society,  once we agree on the aim…which i think you and we do…the next step must determine the best way for us all to reach that goal.As the new society depends on collective collaboration , coordination and cooperation so does the means to achieve it.Our rulers are united and has a much stronger sense of class consciousness than we have right now (divided on race religion and nationality) and they are also able to direct the coercive control of the government to maintain their power of ownership…They won't be persuaded by moral force to surrender but will be dispossessed by political action when they no longer have that state in their hands to do their bidding. But for the majority to have political power we have to come together on agreed tactics and strategy…where limited democracy exists we suggest we use it in the similar way that the owners of industry do, win elections… But to participate in the electoral process we need a political party…and for a party to be effective people have to agree with its object and have control of it …We say we represent an example of that  type of organisation …only those who understand what we want and agree with our methods are accepted for membership and once in there are no leaders to tell them what and what not to do but all policy decisions taken by party polls of every member. We are all leaders which makes us leader-less. As you can see from this forum, we sometimes disagree and then discuss and debate and dispute and eventually our democracy comes to a resolution. But unlike other organisations we have a rule-book and a structure and in the end all members have the responsibility of accepting the will of the majority in the decision making…  

[alanjjohnstone]

I'm sure there are those who will eat toadstools and retort…"But they are nevertheless sooooooooooooo tasty and, anyways, they look much the same as mushrooms do…" 

[alanjjohnstone]

Adam,  so does the Encyclopaedia Britannic…in fact we still quote Kropotkin from it, don't we?  A book has a purpose…it has a message in it…even one such as a dictionary that consists of nothing but 'information', has its origin in a political purpose and often still has. Let us look at Piketty's politics a bit more before it is lost in the accolades showered on him for his long years of gathering information and then concluding that it's best to tax the rich, not abolish them.YMS gave an example of the climate change scientist who proves it with his studies it is and we should credit him with that …But what if he or she decided that eugenics and enforced population reduction was the solution, that we stop using technology and the data is being used by proponents of such policies..the Deep Green solution…we would be leading every article with that fallacy and leaving his or her scientific legitimacy as a good researcher as a foot-note. Well, Pikitty, a member of the most shameful French "Socialist Party" of Hollande…and what has he concluded from all his worthy research …that capitalism should continue… and unless we deny our own conclusion about capitalism, that means acceptance of millions of unnecessary needless death death and suffering.And if you want to use the fishing metaphor …he trawled for his data, and all the catch that isn't suitable for what LBird says to back Piketty's own ideological position which would mean a very different conclusion to a tax, has been thrown back. And what of his catch…it is being used as bait to lure the bigger fish …people ..on to all their political hooks. And this is all to be put to one side because Piketty produces data…it may be an extreme example…but the SS doctors in Buchenwald produced plenty of medical data that, because of how it was acquired (which isn't an issue here) and for what purpose (which is an issue here) is ethically a no-go.I already said very early…won't make much difference if Piketty is read or not…the people who count will come to their own conclusions (and have done), about capitalism for themselves, from life-experience, and not from books. They mostlly undersood its conclusions long before Piketty was born without the need for his graphs and algebraic formula. But can they change their prevailing negative view about socialism's viability when we recommend a book that says it is not necessary, that the social revolution to change why we produce, and not simply how it is distributed, is not required, that has as its solution the idea that we lobby our governments to change tax law, no matter how unlike they will. These absurdities should be head-lined, not relegated to a brief mention in passing while we concentrate praise on his diligence in interpreting the archives. It is not a caveat but a core criticism to Piketty. 

[alanjjohnstone]

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, StuartBe very very productive and start soap-boxing for Piketty's panacea global tax that will ensure capitalism staggers on, albeit less unequal, but still exploitative and alienating….I stand corrected on the branch donation , but tell, me had you decided to resign before or after you proposed your resolution to hand over branch funds?DJP, i did once acquire a copy of My Struggle and read it from cover to cover…does that count as an antidote to confirmation bias? …and shameful confession, holding my head in disgrace…i've never read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged…Nor Volume Two and Three of Capital, i'll wear sack-cloth and ashes and flagellate myself for that omission on the reading list. Has anybody have the Collected Works of Enver Hoxha for DJP to spend his time and energy in reading?I mean, come on , seriously,  just how well read do we expect to be ….You don't have the remotest idea about ….religion until you have fully digested the Bhagavad Gita, preferably in the original Sanskrit, while sitting Yoga style with one leg around your neck…I'm with Lbird on this one…Is socialism only for bookphiles and only those whose political journey took them through the right-wing that most of us already knew enough of to avoid treading in…And this is for you, Adam, to show i'm not at all partisan in criticism…to Socialist Punk you say "I wouldn't have thought that he would want to save capitalism from socialism as we understand it if he thought it was a realistic proposition. "Hows that for topsy turvy thinking…the fact is Piketty doesn't consider it a realistic option …unless of course i'm putting words into Piketty's mouth, especially after we just said in this month's Standard said "A book, of course, can only be reviewed on the basis of what it says."…I am sure if from the reviews i read if Piketty supported the concept of common ownership and production for use, my judgement on his book would be very different too…BUT he doesn't and the grist to the mill is more for Stuart's LU and that is why he was spunking in his underpants about the book before he even read page one…as he used to over Chris Knight…Harvey ..then Graeber …and for whatever the next book after this one is…i'm sure a member said once that Stuart's political position shifts with whoever he is reading at the time …..Back to Hayek perhaps, i wouldn't be at all surprised…political consistency was never your strong point, was it, Stuart, but the lack of it you turned into a virtue.I'm done now.  

[alanjjohnstone]

"Piketty, in Naidu's view, is limited by his unwillingness to challenge capitalism itself……..Piketty wants desperately to salvage capitalism, even if that means proposing something that every capitalist will hate: a global wealth tax"These are quotes from the cited review, not my opinion, Adam. YMS, all i can sy is then let us start highighting the ineffective solutions. As i pointed out, this thread has been rather much cheer-leading because of the abundance of data provided as Adam and even i have conceded. He adds meat to the bones of what we already knew and that does not give reason to onsider it as the break-through book some seem to think it might be. As soon as i began casting doubts on that, the defence begins.Let's back-track before Stuart's and my accusation and counter accusation takes off again.This thread, began by yourself YMS, before anybody had read the book. I am not sure if you have even begun to read it still, YMS, Adam hadn't and Stuart was barely through the opening chapters and already writing enthusiastically about it on his blog. Myself, i simply cannot visit the High St Watersons and pick up a copy from the shelf and i do not have a Kindle to download. So i rely on what i read online using the links provided to the many reviews and for that crime i am depicted as some sort of book-burning philistine by Stuart. I am not embarrassed to admit a weakness and early expressed one of which the example wasn't long in coming in Adam's message  #48 but was counselled by yourself and Stuart to soldier on which i did, reading what i could.But a nagging doubt grew in my mind. The book wasn't answering any of my own questions that i consider vital. Sure it was providing us with more ammunition (and despite repeatedly acknowledging that fact everybody still reminds me of it) . i began to wonder how it will be received. So i posted a bit imprecisely that i somehow think its impact on the drinking classes will not be as big as it has been for the thinking classes.To put it in Marxist terms:"The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses." (my emphasis).I suggested that Occupy's theory if less scientific put was more valid because it was part of a physical mass movement with facts (truisms, if you prefer) that were obvious to many people by their own observation and experience and therefore more an material influence upon consciousness than Piketty will be. My position then began to evolve further on more reading.That if indeed the book's contents does become a material force, the conclusions of the author will become the focus and a negative effect on the politics for socialism if it is "gripped by the masses." . Another needless diversion.Nothing profound or original since the reformism was what some of the reviewers were saying and what Stuart himself said on this thread itself  [Piketty] "therefore proposes radical (utopian) reforms to save it [capitalism] from itself."It is the politics of the book and its author i am challenging, not the fact that he has marshalled enormous amounts of information and presents them in a more digestible way that we can cherry-pick and use in our own literature. Which Adam has pointed out we have always done. (but i have to say my first reaction to the names he gave was Who?)So my crime of being a Doubting Thomas on the actual political effect of the book on the working class and the consequence of the authors message has Stuart denying any right to question on a thread devoted to it …a rather odd position and a bit sycophantic, which indeed is one of my reasons for posting.I have no doubt that we will be more critical of his proposed solutions especially the more they are picked up by the many receptive political parties that already advocate them and now view the book as their justification and authority, YMS, but as yet they have not come to the fore-front of our response to Piketty. I suggest we may have a lot of interpreting to do , YMSI also know,of course, that any criticism of Piketty's politics by ourselves will automatically result in the usual refrain of sectarianism.I hope this clarifies my approach before Stuart and i recommence our exchanges and distract from what is the real issue, IMHO.

[alanjjohnstone]

Says the one who wanted the party's funds to be donated to Occupy St Paul's…And now spending his time sharing the same ideas as the Libertarian Right as even his new party comrades have pointed out. No that is very very sad, indeed. Tragic even. You still avoid commenting on Piketty's reformism and i keep bringing it back to this…His very less than important conclusion ……tax the rich til the pips squeak …how new and novel and imaginative that solution is ! 

[alanjjohnstone]

First raised by our blog back in April 2011http://www.socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2011/04/return-of-disease.htmlAgain in January 2013http://www.socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2013/01/profits-not-peoples-needs.htmlYet again in November 2013http://www.socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2013/11/no-profit-no-research.htmland just a few months ago in May 2014 http://www.socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2014/05/bad-news-for-everybody.html

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