ALB
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Here is quite a good summary of Gesell’s views, from which it is clear that he had nothing in common with socialism. He wants “stamped money” while we envisage a social system in which money would be redundant.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/08/27/754323652/the-strange-unduly-neglected-prophet
ps PeterFrank, we ourselves are not “Marxist-Leninists” (which we regard as a contradiction in terms as the two had quite different views about politics). We are, if you like, simply “Marxists” who don’t accept Lenin’s “additions” to Marx such as the need for a “vanguard party” and the conclusions he drew from his particular theory of imperialism.
Sorting out some old leaflets I came across one from the Labour Land Campaign which campaigns within the Labour Party and trade unions for a Land Value Tax. They say that it is “a fair and just tax” because
“It recognises that every individual helps create land values through their work, their community activities and their spending — so why should it be only owners of land who reap the financial reward.”
and that it is
“part of the solution to the inequalities in life that exist because of a fundamental flaw in our economy; a denial of the importance of land in the economy, the undeserved and unjust power in its ‘ownership’ and the acceptance of land wealth being given as unearned income to owners of land rather than being returned to those that create it — that is all of us !”
I suppose you could be right, PeterFrank, that in arguing with someone with this approach we could point out that increases in land value in not the only source of “unearned income” or that gives “undeserved and unjust power to ‘ownership’”. So does the ownership of ‘capital’ with its unearned income in the form of profits derived from the unpaid labour of those who produce wealth.
Another fact about Gesell is that, although he made his money in Argentina, he was born in St. Vith which was then part of the German Empire. After the defeat of Germany in WW1 it was transferred to Belgium and is in the small German-speaking part of that country. Not a lot of people know that or that they speak German in a part of Belgium where it is an official language. Certainly the makers of the film The Battle of the Bulge didn’t as they have the locals wearing berets and carrying a baguette under their arms, as if they were stage Frenchmen (but I don’t think they had them selling onions hanging from their bike). In fact they would have been Germans as Germany took the area back in WW2.
Of course this doesn’t make Gesell’s idea on how to reform capitalism any more relevant. But it does allow you to answer the pub quiz question: Which famous currency crank was born in the German-speaking part of present-day Belgium?
It was in TrueRussian’s post of 12.17 today. Here it is again:
I am surprised the Daily Mail published that exposé of just how nasty the Ukranian ethno-nationalists are. And the West are backing them.
Imagine the massacres and ethnic cleansing that will take place if the Ukranian nationalists do manage to reconquer Donbass and Crimea, with Western arms and money. Would Biden, Truss and the others then be put on trial at The Hague as war criminals? Silly question.
Former member Steve Coleman’s take on this:
https://theconversation.com/what-do-britains-tears-for-queen-elizabeth-mean-190784
Not bad if you excuse the academic ear language.
To get the timing right. An earlier species of homo left Africa for Asia and eventually evolved into Neanderthals; Homo sapiens evolved out of species of homo left in Africa and then spread to Asia too where they interbred with Neanderthals?
Incidentally, are all apes African (an artificial concept and division anyway, however useful for some purposes).
If, as Pääbo’s research confirmed, we and Neanderthals (and Denisovans) interbred why are they regarded as a separate species and not as a sub-species (one of the definitions of “race” as applied to non-humans).
Neanderthals Vs Homo Sapiens: Different Species Or Subspecies?
But it does depend on gas (mainly to burn to generate electricity) and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the retaliation by the Western bloc and Russia counter-retaliation have raised the international price of gas wherever you buy it from.
“The American word “hillbilly” has been said to have come from the Ulster-Scots.
Apparently, they became known as hillbillys for their folk songs about King William.”I know that’s been said but it sounds like folk etymology to me. In other words, complete bollox. Do they mean they sang The Sash My Father Wore and the Auld Orange Flute a hundred or more years before they were composed? In fact, before the Orange Order was set up.
Do youse think that all this means that our vicarious Russian here might not be a true Scotsman?
Fair enough. I see the point you were making. More generally, what we are talking about here is language not so-called “ethnicity” (the successor to the discredited term “race” and so objectionable on the same grounds). “Ethnonationalism” as promoted by both the governments of Russia and Ukraine is a species of racism.
I don’t think so. Most of them came from Scotland and spoke the dialect of English spoken in the lowlands. Some of them do consider themselves “ethnic Scots”.
Ulster Scots in fact has the same status in Northern Ireland as Irish Gaelic, so it does.
The voting papers in Donbass and Lugansk were in Russian only, but the ones in the other two regions were in both Russian and Ukrainian. I would guess that in Donbass and Lugansk the vote would be an expression of popular opinion as they have not been part of Ukraine since 2014.
What is “an ethnic Russian” anyway? Speaking Russian has got nothing to do with biology. Being “Russian” is a political identification and there are plenty of people in Ukraine whose mother tongue is Russian who don’t consider themselves “ethnic Russians”. Zelensky’s mother tongue is said to be Russian and he’s from the Zapo whatever you call it region (and it’s different in the two languages). He probably still speaks it in private with his wife and kids.
Next they’ll be referring to the Protestants of Northern Ireland as “ethnic Britons”.
Incidentally, Israel annexed the Golan Heights (from Syria) and East Jerusalem without even bothering to organise a referendum, sham or otherwise. But then it us “our” breaker of the “international order”.
Yes, she does and has to for the other reason you give (how are the Yemonon communities to get steel and MRI scanners). Since she rules out money these “exchanges” would presumably be in kind, like barter. But if production in socialism was organised at regional and world as well as local level (as envisaged in our “Socialism As A practical Alternative” pamphlet) then her communities could just order such things without having to offer anything in “exchange”.
It would be less of a problem for the larger, ecoregions (the size of a medium-sized country) envisaged by Murray Bookchin in his “Towards and Liberatory Technology”.
I would have thought that there would, even in the future she envisages, need to be some organisation above the local level and also on a world level. A permanent organisation like the WHO at world level would be useful to coordinate dealing with a pandemic, wouldn’t it? And what about the International Postal Union or the World Wide Web? Even Kropotkin envisaged the former continuing.
