ALB
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I hope they are not going to use all these empty plinths to put on statues of William Wilberforce. Yes, he opposed chattel slavery but was all in favour of wage-slavery, to the extent of opposing the Factory Act, thus acquiring a merited notoriety in the working class movement.
This extract article from the Socialist Standard of April 1909 (not yet on our website) explains why wage-slavery apologists like Wilberforce wanted to end chattel slavery:
“It is well known that free labour is often far more profitable to employers than slave labour. Mr. Brassey in “Work and Wages” cites some interesting cases, and informs us on authority that prior to the emancipation of the slaves in Jamaica, 18 cwt. of sugar per acre was thought excellent, while under free labour it averaged 1 ton. He further attributes to the British Consul at Pernambuco a detailed statement of the comparative cost of work done by slave and free labour, which shows that sugar costing £4,251 to produce by slaves, would have cost only £1,080 by free labour. To further emphasize the point that free labourers, or slaves with the opportunity of earning their freedom, are more profitable than ordinary slaves, he says of some coffee-carriers in the Brazils, carrying bags of coffee weighing 2 to 3 cwt., that they worked with intense vigour in order to earn a sufficient sum to purchase their freedom, and generally succeeded in accumulating the amount in three or four years—an effort which too often broke their health. It was the knowledge of such facts as these that caused the abolition of chattel slavery, and not the sentimentalism of moralists and alleged Christians.”
So I am still on your new year card list after all. But I don’t know on what grounds you conclude that all meat-eaters “regard other species merely as ‘resources’ for human exploitation”. This is just another example of your exaggerations that weaken whatever case you might have.
There are plenty of members of the RSPCA, the RSPB, etc who eat meat as do the millions of dog, cat, budgie and hamster owners and who clearly don’t regard other species “merely” as “resources for human exploitation.”
I know I am not as holy as thou but I am a member of the Cats Protection League if that counts.
At one point we agreed that this subject had been argued to a standstill and you tried to change the subject. Unfortunately someone else didn’t take the hint and re-ignited the controversy.
In any event this is my last contribution to this thread.
So the mass debate continues. I am sure, Alan, you will continue to relay information about conditions in slaughterhouses but what’s the point? Nobody here is defending them or imagines that they could continue into socialism. And of course the Party campaigns only for socialism and so does not take part in campaigns to reform or stop them under capitalism.
But there are plenty of other products of daily use that are also produced under appalling conditions or with appalling effects. Some of the lithium that goes into mobile phones (child slave labour), palm oil products (destruction of orangutans’ habitat), etc.
Nobody here defends any of this but we still use the products. Are we to be told that we only do so because we rationalise away these conditions to soothe our consciences and that, unless we do, our morally-superior, condescending and judgemental mutual friend won’t deign to speak to us? (Not that that would be a too much of a loss since most of the time he seems to be operating from an animal rights boiler room)
Let’s use this forum to put over the case for socialism and not to try to convert existing socialists to something some seem to consider a higher priority.
According to Wikipedia, the slaves that were transported from Africa to the Americas were bought off other Africans:
”The vast majority of those who were enslaved and transported in the transatlantic slave trade were people from Central and West Africa, who had been sold by other West Africans, or by half European ‘merchant princes’ to Western European slave traders (with a small number being captured directly by the slave traders in coastal raids), who brought them to the Americas.”
Those referred to here as “half Europeans” were of course also “half Africans” and today would be classified as Blacks — exposing that the absurdity “race” classifications, which are cultural and political not scientific.
That link does a good job in demolishing white suprematist claims about Irish slaves in America but historically there were “European” slaves in North Africa obtained in raids by slavers from there on the Christian parts of Europe:
https://www.theguardian.com/guardianweekly/story/0,12674,1171347,00.htm
I don’t think this can be described as Africans enslaving Europeans since the skin colour of people living on both sides of the Mediterranean was the same and still is today, the difference was religion.
Muslim slavers also enslaved black Africans which makes it particularly ironic that some Black Nationalists rejected christianity in favour of islam and adopted Islamic names.
Yes, the ironic thing is that after the US Civil War the newly enfranchised black voters supported the Republican Party.
Sock it to him, Matt, on behalf of the majority of Party members that he looks down on from his proclaimed position of moral superiority.
From that Dundas link, first “black” MP in 1832! You live and learn. Doesn’t sound like a good role model though but then I don’t suppose he regarded himself as “black”.
Ok. You’ve convinced me. He was a racist.
They say Nelson was a slave-holder. Have you got anything on that?
I see that the person who painted on the statue of Churchill that he was a racist is reported as saying :
”he didn’t fight the Nazis for any personal freedoms, he fought the Nazis sheerly to protect the Commonwealth against the invasion.”
There’s some truth in this, except that he means the Empire and “sheerly” is overstating it, but the war wasn’t about defending democracy and personal freedoms.
The Hitler government did offer a deal, which some politicians at the time found attractive, in which Britain would be spared attack and could keep its Empire in return for allowing Germany to dominate the Continent. Churchill was the head of the faction of the British ruling class that didn’t think this was a good deal for British capitalism (as it probably wouldn’t have been). So the war was fought from the British side not just to defend the Empire but also to stop Germany dominating Europe which would have been detrimental to British capitalism.
Anyway it was an imperialist war just like the First World War of which it was in effect Round Two.
I don’t know about Churchill being a racist but he was certainly antisemitic seeing the Bolsheviks as part of a Jewish conspiracy.
Yes I remember climbing up the stairs to see the view from the top. So that must have been before 1966.
The jury is still out as we don’t know yet whether or not there will be a second wave in those states that pursued a more or less strict lockdown, but it is looking as if the herd immunity policy pursued by the Swedish government on the advice their own mad professor has resulted in more deaths per person than in other states:
https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/06/08/sweden-backtracks-on-its-low-pain-coronavirus-plan/amp/
In any event, the admirers of the Swedish government’s approach have gone silent.
Meanwhile down the road at the stock exchange;
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/08/business/recession-stock-market-coronavirus.amp.html
It seems that capitalist investors are banking on pharmaceutical and technology companies making fat profits in a post-virus world. Think vaccines, drugs, working from home, and online shopping.
And the recession that came wasn’t the one that was anticipated. It was not the result of the normal operation of the capitalist economy but was deliberately brought about by government action to deal with a pandemic.
This was a stroke of genius in terms of good publicity:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-52954305
Much more intelligent than throwing bottles at the police and fire crackers at their horses.
I think we can expect quite a bit of statue toppling before and after the socialist revolution. There are plenty of generals and military “heroes” for a start, including one in the centre of London whose statue in Dublin was toppled some years ago.
So what? British workers are reluctant to work picking fruit and vegetables as it’s a shitty job that too is only done by desperate East Europeans.
But I thought a truce had been called between vegetarian propaganda and arguments to counter it. If one side won’t respect it there is no reason why those of us in the other side should either and the whole thing will kick off again.
