ALB
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More on Bogdanov here:
Meet the new shadow Business Secretary : Ed Miliband, avowed supporter of capitalism.
Trying to make capitalism nicer is the most the Labour Party has always ever aspired to do but, when in office, has always failed to deliver as it’s undeliverable.
There is also this that we said in 1932:
The Programme of the Russian Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries
Speculation about what the Mensheviks would have done if they, not the Bolsheviks, had ruled Russia is pretty idle as they had even less support amongst the general population than did the Bolsheviks and unlike the Bolsheviks were not prepared to be a minority dictatorship. If the results of the elections to the Constituent Assembly in 1918 were anything to go by, if the Bolsheviks hadn’t seized power (and the White Russians hadn’t restored the Tsar or established a military dictatorship) Russian parliamentary politics and government would have been dominated by various parties representing the peasants. The biggest party to emerge from those elections was the non-Marxist Socialist Revolutionary Party.
Actually of course Von Mises wrote it in German (in 1920) so the term “commonwealth” is that of the person who first translated it into English in 1935. The German word that Von Mises used was “Gemeinwesen” which doesn’t have to be translated as “commonwealth”. So maybe the translator had read up on genuine socialist literature. Anyway he kept the term “Socialist Commonwealth” in circulation.
I see the homeopaths are trying to cash in on the Coronavirus pandemic. But as today’s Times points out:
”Over recent decades the Prince of Wakes has consistently campaigned for homeopathic treatments. However, The Times understands that he did not receive homeopathic treatment when he contracted the virus.”
He’s not that stupid. Incidentally it’s not just him but the whole royal family who believe in this fake remedy. It’s part of their German heritage.
There is an extract from the Austrian Social Democrat Otto Bauer’s book on the national question here:
https://libcom.org/library/question-nationalities-social-democracy-otto-bauer
He was a reformist and German nationalist.
There was also a Commonwealth Party in Britain during the second world War of the last century.
Just discovered two other descriptions used in the 1920s — “World Commonwealth” and “International Co-operative Commonwealth”. Nuisance that the old British Empire rebranded itself “The Commonwealth”, which is quite illogical and unjustified as there’s not even a remote suggestion in it about wealth being held in common. Quite the opposite in fact.
Also in the 1920s the CP was referred to as the “Communist” (in inverted commas) Party and its members as “Communists” (in inverted commas again). But to keep that word unsullied has proved an even greater task than for the word Socialism.
“Only two individuals left.”
Not surprising since they didn’t believe in sex. In fact it’s a wonder where the two came from. Not for most people then.
Apparently the gorillas in the Congo are worried about getting it just like they got Ebola:
Good point. This article also explains why it was not mentioned in the Socialist Standard — news about it was censored:
https://www.history.com/.amp/news/why-was-it-called-the-spanish-flu
Although the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918-19 killed millions (including the Party’s first general secretary Con Lehane, by then an ex-member, in New York in 1919), there seems to have been no mention of it in the Socialist Standard of the time,
All I have come across is this passing reference a few years later in the April 1922 issue:
”During the last ten years probably a hundred millions of people have died as a result of war, famine, and pestilence (influenza).”
Another perverse effect the pandemic and necessary social distancing is having under capitalism — they’ve started pouring milk down the drain again as they always do when production exceeds paying demand.
Of course this time it’s because paying demand has suddenly fallen rather than through overproduction but the reason given is still the same— to protect the price (something that wouldn’t be necessary had this pandemic happened in socialism — other uses could be found for the temporary excess supply).
“Removing the excess distressed milk from the marketplace will help to stabilise the current spot price without causing long-term market distortion.“
Sent from my iPhoneIn the 1920s the comrades weren’t too keen on saying that our aim was Anarchy or on describing themselves as Anarchists !
