ALB
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members there are who believe choices are not bound by cause and effect, but are free; that therefore they are made by an independent “self” not subject to cause and effect.
For the record, I know of no member who holds such an absurd view. In fact I have never met anyone who does.
It flies in the face of all scientific evidence of how the brain works.
It was demolished philosophically by the 18th century materialists, and again decades ago even in academic philosophy as the myth of “the ghost in the machine” by Gilbert Ryle (rather boringly if I remember from my student days).
I imagine it is only taught today in seminaries and theology departments along with other obscurantisms and then only in regard to the relationship between humans and “god”. Even there they accept the findings of neurology in respect of everyday material living.
Of course Socialists don’t believe in “prisons, punishments, abuse, incarceration”.It is not as if this has been discussed before in the Party. Here’s a couple of Conference resolutions on the subject.
“That this Conference recognises that rules and regulations, and democratic procedures for making and changing them and for deciding if they have been infringed, will exist in socialist society. Whereas a ruling class depends on the maintenance of laws to ensure control of class society, a classless society obtains social cohesion through its socialisation process without resorting to a coercive machinery. However, in view of the fact that in socialist theory the word “law” means a social rule made and enforced by the state, and in view of the fact that the coercive machinery that is the state will be abolished in socialist society, this Conference decides that it is inappropriate to talk about laws, law courts, a police force and prisons existing in a socialist society.” (1991)”
“This Conference affirms that any law concerned with the enforcement of class relations or property interests could have no place in socialist society, but that any regulation which may serve the needs of the community could become part of democratic organisation in socialism.” (1998)
What would be the point of having rules and regulations if they could be infringed with impunity by invoking some clever dick argument like “I was only a link in a chain of causation”?
The issue of so-called “Free Will” is a red herring anyway. Even the Christian and Islamic theologians who preach it only see it as applying to the choice or whether or not to follow their god’s commandments. Only a minority of them think their god had written a Grand Scroll on which the whole future was prescribed. Just as only a few materialists do.
No but I think there will be rules and regulations in socialist society and tribunals, juries or whatever for deciding whether or not someone has infringed them. Even in the case of rare violent behaviour I would think the perpetrator would have a chance to argue that they shouldn’t be “restrained”. We are realists, not airy-fairy anarchist philosophers.
But I wasn’t thinking of violent behaviour but rather of the ordinary everyday (mis)behaviour of ordinary people. What the Americans call misdemeanours.
Are you saying that people will be so angelic in socialism as to never deliberately break some of the lesser rules and regulations of socialist society? I myself occasionally drive what would be considered as carelessly, for example not respecting a speed limit. Tens of thousands of others do every day. I imagine you yourself have occasionally jaywalked. Others may have left their dog in a car on a hot day. I am sure people will continue to do such things in socialism.
If I was caught doing this in socialism I would say “fair cop” rather than “I couldn’t help it. I was just a link in a chain of causation”. I doubt if a jury or tribunal would accept that. I must confess, too, that having 6 penalty points on my licence (never had more than that) is an incentive to respect the motorway speed limit.
Not only read him but written about him.
As a matter of fact I was just typing a reply in which I was going to suggest that you had read too much of him and so think that humans are born good and, if freed from authority, would behave just like angels.
Yes, you could be right to some extent. There will still be rules and regulations in socialism and I can’t see “I couldn’t help it, I was just a link in a chain of causation” being accepted as an excuse for careless or dangerous driving, can you?
Which is the episode of Colombo where the murderer says : “You can’t blame me. I was just a link in a chain of causation. I couldn’t help doing what I did”.
Interesting question, but why could not more digital money be made available by the central bank than needed by the economy?
A few years ago Sky News’s economics editor Ed Conway did advocate a cashless society as a way of trying to control consumer spending.
Searching on the internet for who said “the rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs” I see it is widely attributed to Marx but no source is ever given.
Does anyone know if Marx did say this and where? I don’t think he did. Actually, it sounds more like something Tolstoy would have said.
I didn’t see it as being about benign colonialism as about “benign capitalism” and its welfare state. More generally, about any situation where there is a one class that exploits the work of another. A expansion of the saying that the capitalists will do anything for the workers except get off their backs.
This parable by Tolstoy is good but nothing else of his Christian anarchism. Never got round to reading his War and Peace but I am sure somebody here will have.
We should not forget Ukrainian forces shelling of Donbas prior to the Russian invasion.
They are doing it again now, this time with more powerful weapons supplied by NATO. They are shelling the city of Donetsk and other places in the Donbass and hitting civilian targets like schools and hospitals and killing civilians including children. Just like the Russians have been doing to Ukrainian cities. But none of this is being reported in self-censored media in the NATO countries.
Evidently the Zelensky’s regime regards the population of the Donbass not as their own subjects but as Russians who they will inevitably ethnically cleanse of they get their way and conquer the Donbass. All with NATO weapons and money.
And we are being asked to support this as a “defence of democracy”. What hypocrisy !
Jaurès was murdered before the war had actually war started and was killed for calling for a general strike to try to stop it breaking out. It is inconceivable, had he lived until after the war broke out, that he would not have supported the French government and even joined it, as did his long-standing Marxist rival Jules Guesde.
One guess would be that, everywhere, the working class movement tended to grow out of the radical wing of the “bourgeoisie”. In Northern Europe (Britain, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Scandinavia) these were not insurrectionary like they were in Southern Europe (France, Spain, Italy). Another might be that, as Bijou mentions, reformist Social Democracy reflected the attitudes of industrial workers and Anarchism those of artisans and rural workers.
