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I think any invitation or challenge should be done “officially” by the EC. Are they meeting on Saturday 8 January? Mike, can you put it in the agenda?
That could be Democracy’s Seven Deadly Sins.
But if he mentions us we need to take up the challenge even though the book has been out since 2018. We have a tradition and reputation for being anti-socialist killers going back to the pre-WWI Anti-Socialist Union. This one seems easy meat.
I imagine he singled us out as we are the only group calling themselves socialists who present a coherent alternative to capitalism. The anarchist-capitalists did the same in the 1980s because we were the only group arguing for a non-market, non-money society.
Interesting article. Draper wrote some good stuff, for instance on what Marx meant by “dictatorship of the proletariat”, a term we have never thought much of. Must better to speak of “working class rule” while capitalism is abolished, the temporary use of political power by the working class to abolish capitalism and bring in socialism.
But Marx’s article does weaken one of the arguments we have used — that in his day “dictatorship” had not yet acquired the meaning it has today and simply meant a strong government. As Marx described Bolivar as a “dictator” this suggests that it did then have the meaning of an individual exercising unrestrained power.
Still a good reason for not using the term “dictatorship of the proletariat”. No need to use another term that we have to explain all the time what it doesn’t mean, especially as we want to emphasise the necessarily democratic nature of the socialist revolution.
Having read that interview with Gerard Horne (is he — or was he ever — a member of the Communist Party?) I have to agree, DJP, that you are right about CRT. It is not a Black Nationalist or Racist Theory but what you said — an interpretation of US history which explains why discrimination always has been and still is a feature of society and politics there.
It is easy to see why US patriots want it banned from being taught. It doesn’t paint a good history of “their” country even though it is accurate.
Not that the CRT partisans are, or consider themselves to be, unpatriotic Americans. They want the USA to be a discrimination-free capitalist society and state like most other capitalist countries. In fact capitalism isn’t inherently racist so they are not demanding the impossible.
Listened to a radio programme a couple of days ago which made me realise that what we have been discussing here is NFTs rather than the “metaverse”.
The “metaverse” seems to be a possibly useful technological advance making long distance meetings easier or at least more congenial. In any event, it is not as such a scam.
Maybe some CRT theorists are just criticising discrimination (like we do) but I assumed that they were saying rather more than that.
I still say CRT is racist because it promotes the idea of “white privilege” with its suggestion that all whites are somehow privileged. This sees the struggle in society as being “blacks” against “whites”. Here is an example found at random.
We mustn’t be put off criticising it just because their counterparts, the “white” racists, don’t like it.
The struggle in society is not between “blacks” and “whites” but between workers and capitalists.
One reason I wrote “if” is because that Maoist article says of one school of CRT:
“Realism rejects that structural racism can be eliminated through class solidarity because the contradiction between white working class and black working class is an antagonistic contradiction (or very close to being one)” (While Maoism says it’s only a non-antagonistic contradiction).
If CRT is just pointing to the “legal codification” of racism, fair enough — though I don’t think that racism is “codified” in law in the US, is it? After all the law didn’t prevent a “black” president being elected or a “black” head of the armed forces being appointed. If they are talking about legal practice rather than what it says on paper, that’s another matter of course. As you say, discrimination on the basis of skin colour is still a big issue in the US.
That article Robert S found isn’t that good. Mao is quoted as a dialectical materialist philosopher about the difference between antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions. According to the author, the difference between Marxism and one school of CRT is over whether the contradiction between the white working class and the black working class is antagonistic or non-antagonistic.
What the article seems to be saying is that there is a difference between Maoism and CRT. No doubt, but who cares?
Obviously, from a genuinely socialist point of view, if CRT is saying that there is an irreconcilable conflict of interest between white and black workers they are wrong and preaching dangerous racist nonsense. But is there are contradiction between these two sections of the working class anyway?
I see that that Advertising Authority has banned an advert for this sort of thing by Arsenal Football Club Plc as being a sort of scam.
So we are discussing here for once something they are also discussing down the pub.
BD, hope you haven’t been taken in.
This Wikipedia entry about “non-fungible tokens” throws some useful light on the subject we are discussing here.
I suppose it might be interesting to record what Marx had to say on this, even if he was only expressing a commonly observed fact. Here are some extracts on the nature of stocks and shares from chapters 29 and 30 of volume 3 of Capital:
“The stocks of railways, mines, navigation companies, and the like, represent actual capital, namely, the capital invested and functioning in such enterprises, or the amount of money advanced by the stockholders for the purpose of being used as capital in such enterprises. This does not preclude the possibility that these may represent pure swindle. But this capital does not exist twice, once as the capital-value of titles of ownership (stocks) on the one hand and on the other hand as the actual capital invested, or to be invested, in those enterprises. It exists only in the latter form, and a share of stock is merely a title of ownership to a corresponding portion of the surplus-value to be realised by it.”
“The independent movement of the value of these titles of ownership, not only of government bonds but also of stocks, adds weight to the illusion that they constitute real capital alongside of the capital or claim to which they may have title. For they become commodities, whose price has its own characteristic movements and is established in its own way. Their market-value is determined differently from their nominal value, without any change in the value (even though the expansion may change) of the actual capital. On the one hand, their market-value fluctuates with the amount and reliability of the proceeds to which they afford legal title. If the nominal value of a share of stock, that is, the invested sum originally represented by this share, is £100, and the enterprise pays 10% instead of 5%, then its market-value, everything else remaining equal, rises to £200, as long as the rate of interest is 5%, for when capitalised at 5%, it now represents a fictitious capital of £200. Whoever buys it for £200 receives a revenue of 5% on this investment of capital. The converse is true when the proceeds from the enterprise diminish. The market-value of this paper is in part speculative, since it is determined not only by the actual income, but also by the anticipated income, which is calculated in advance.”
“Titles of ownership to public works, railways, mines, etc., are indeed, as we have also seen, titles to real capital. But they do not place this capital at one’s disposal. It is not subject to withdrawal. They merely convey legal claims to a portion of the surplus-value to be produced by it. But these titles likewise become paper duplicates of the real capital; it is as though a bill of lading were to acquire a value separate from the cargo, both concomitantly and simultaneously with it. They come to nominally represent non-existent capital. For the real capital exists side by side with them and does not change hands as a result of the transfer of these duplicates from one person to another. They assume the form of interest-bearing capital, not only because they guarantee a certain income, but also because, through their sale, their repayment as capital-values can be obtained. To the extent that the accumulation of this paper expresses the accumulation of railways, mines, steamships, etc., to that extent does it express the extension of the actual reproduction process — just as the extension of, for example, a tax list on movable property indicates the expansion of this property. But as duplicates which are themselves objects of transactions as commodities, and thus able to circulate as capital-values, they are illusory, and their value may fall or rise quite independently of the movement of value of the real capital for which they are titles.”
Yes, stocks are “shares” that bring in a fixed income but that does not mean that their price does not change. They too are bought and sold. In fact, the fixed income is a key factor influencing their price especially when the general rate of interest changes.
I don’t think it is unreasonable to compare things in the “metaverse” with shares as the same separation exists between something and its representation, with the representation being subject to buying and selling apart from what is represents. In fact the distinction is clearer as in many cases what it represents can also be bought and sold and quite independently.
It’s all to do with speculation of course, in the case of digital representations not for a future income stream but for a capital gain.
I think it is a bit of a scam actually, promoted by dealers who exchange fiat money for cryptocurrencies and the other way round. You have to pay for your digital representation in a crytocurrency and, if you haven’t any, you have to convert fiat money into it. Naturally the dealers take a commission on this. The same if you want to sell it, to realise any capital gain and use it to buy things in the non-digital world. Again the dealer takes a cut as their commission.
The whole thing is a also misuse of blockchain technology. But, then, what do you expect under capitalism.
Say a new company is starting from scratch and needs £100,000 to set up some business activity and that this is raised by selling shares. The money so obtained is then spent on buying the physical assets needed to carry out the business activity. The £100,000 now exists in the form of these.
The shares will still have a nominal value of £100,000 and entitle their owner to a share of future profits (as well as to a share of the disposal of the physical assets). It is as a claim on future profits that they are bought and sold on stock exchanges. Their total price will normally be greater than £100,000 and their individual price is a sum obtained by capitalising an expected future income stream.
The price of a share is different from the value of the physical assets. These are two different things. Otherwise this would be a case of having your cake and eating it — spending some money and still being able to use it.
Well, yes, what’s traded on stock exchanges is not the tangible assets of a company (its buildings, machinery, computer system, etc). It’s pieces of paper entitling the owner to a future income stream from the profits a company is expected to make. In the case of government bonds it’s a piece of paper entitling the owner to a future stream of income from taxation.
The future income stream is of course non-existent (or not-yet-existent) but the pieces of paper entitling the owner to a future income, if it materialises (!), do exist — as pieces of paper.
But it is advisable to distinguish the pieces of paper and the future income stream as if a company goes under or a government is overthrown then these pieces of paper become worthless, though I believe Tsarist government bonds made useful lampshades.
