ALB
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Engels confronts the “hermetic” tradition:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/ch10.htm
It includes his amusing account of his own attendance at a spiritualist meeting in 1844.
Loren Goldner is sometimes good (he’s a Left Communist) but I am not sure about his “cosmobiology”. Sounds a bit mumbo-jumboist to me:
“Our starting-point must be the direct opposition between the body of doctrine which came to be known as ‘Marxism’, codified in the First, Second, Third and Fourth Internationals, and the ideas of Karl Marx. After separating these two, I want look at the relation between ‘Marxism’ and the body of ideas known as the Enlightenment, chiefly those of the French eighteenth century thinkers. Then I should turn to the earlier tradition sometimes called ‘Hermetic’, which includes magic, astrology and alchemy. I want to show how, when modern rational science defeated this outlook, it also lost something of value: its attitudes to humanity and nature.”
http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Cosmobiological_Tradition
Give me Engels any day !
It is not just conspiraloons who are endangering reason and science. There are others:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230870512_The_postmodern_assault_on_science
With the second wave approaching and the prospect of a second lockdown imposed as an attempted “circuit breaker“, the government’s dream of getting GDP quickly back to what it was in the first three months of the year is being shattered. No V-shaped recovery but definitely a U-shaped one maybe even L-shaped— after all, the UK GDP contracted in the first quarter of this year before the virus struck and the government imposed a lockdown. This resulted in a much bigger fall in GDP than any normal capitalist slump has produced of some 15% over 3 months compared with 4.6% over 16 months after the Crash of 2008. There’s never been anything like it and it’s not over yet.
Incidentally there’s a good YouTube video explaining how GDP is calculated here (scroll down to the end of the text) :
TM, I don’t think these were Marx’s views:Postmodern view of RealityAccording to postmodernism, apparent realities are only social constructs and thereby these are not static but subject to change. It emphatically believes that for the formation of ideas and belief, the role of language, power, relations and motivations are immense. This approach of thought does not believe any sharp line of demarcation or classification between male and female, straight and gay, white and black or imperial and colonial. It does not believe any absolute truth. Rather it believes that reality is plural relative and dependent. The description of reality is dependent on the persons and their nature who describe it. Moreover, the description of the world is dependent on the persons who perceive it and thus this description is subjective.https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.998.6261&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Anyone who really thinks that “beliefs create reality” should be eager to explain how the real motions of all planets in the solar system changed from earth-centered orbits in 1500 (when this was believed by almost everyone) to sun-centered orbits in 1700 (when this was believed by almost all scientists). Did the change in beliefs (from theories of 1500 to theories of 1700) cause a change in reality (with planets beginning to orbit the sun at some time – but exactly when did this occur – between 1500 and 1700) ?Yes, Ashley Montagu is good;
“the SPGB’s ‘materialism’ (which they share with Lenin)”
Just in case, Thomas, you get the wrong impression:
http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2019/03/lenin-reviewed-1976.html?m=1
That’s not the view of the SPGB but of some weirdo who frequents this forum. It’s open to anyone including weirdos.
I don’t want to be (too) pedantic but it’s been known for ages that inheritance is through genes not the blood as was thought for a long time. So should we really be encouraging this mistaken belief by using its terminology? It’s a valid point of course that national characteristics are cultural rather than biological and are transmitted through learning not through genes.
Of course you are qualified to comment Alan! So-called “Modern Monetary Theory” is basically the view that the government can and should print as much money as it needs to finance its activities without needing to worry about any adverse consequences such as roaring inflation. This is why it’s been said that what MMT stands for is Magic Money Tree. Anybody can refute that. The article you refer to also criticises it after summarising its claims.
I think we’ve had a thread on them before but here’s a more theoretical refutation of the theory.
This, from a more conventional reformist standpoint than the MMTers’, isn’t too bad.
Yes , it’s because dentists (and doctors not directly employed by the NHS such as consultants and GPS) are “independent contractors”, ie profit-seeking businesses, and that’s what profit-seeking business do in any way they can. It’s called “private enterprise” and is a basic form of the capitalist system. And like all businesses one of the risks they take is being found out if they break the law or bend the rules as many do from time to time;
I got confused between SOEs and SBCs. But it didn’t seem to be saying anything particularly new. The fact that the old USSR was ahead for a while in the space race shows that the state can develop one sector of the economy if it throws enough resources at it but this will be at the expense of other sections. I think this is what the present UK government wants to do with hi-tech industries but the EU regards such “state aid” as unfair competition.
What are we to make of this?
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-54138247
Hume was in effect an agnostic and a sceptic who is still studied by all students of philosophy in Britain. He did support slavery and needn’t have done as others at the time didn’t.
That other philosopher taught in all British and American universities, John Locke, drew up a constitution for Carolina which provided for chattel slavery.
Another one, Thomas Jefferson, fathered children with one of his slaves. Rabbie Burns was going to take up a job as a slave overseer in the West Indies.
All this needs to be pointed out of course, drawing attention to the feet of clay of the great philosophers of the rising bourgeoisie. But I would have they that it’s much more important to refute their ideas than pulling down their statues or renaming buildings (as a prelude to banning their books?).
One philosopher who might escape this is Plato since he was at one point bought and sold as a slave himself. Not that it prevented him proposing a caste system as the ideal way to organise society.
