[ALB]

Actually, as the Socially Necessary Labour Time theory of value is one variety of the Labour Theory of Value, it's more the other way round: if the SNLT is true, then the LTV must be as well. Of course not all Labour theories of Value are true, for instance not one which says that the value of a commodity is determined by the actual amount of labour incorporated in it (actual labour time taken to produce it, from start to finish) nor one which says that the value of a commodity is determined by the labour added at the last stage of its production. Both, incidentally, misunderstandings about Marx's LTV.

[ALB]

Good for him. That part of the definition is flawed and biassed. It gives as an example of anti-semitism:

Quote:

denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination.

i.e. denying Zionism's basic tenet. It's like saying opposing an independant Scottish state is, by definition, to be anti-Scottish (even if you are Scottish yourself).

[ALB]

The internet committee have uploaded all the articles mentioned on this thread to the Archives section on our website here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/archiveSo they can be accessed here too, along with hundreds of other articles from past issues of the Socialist Standard.

[ALB]

More, from 1931 including recording and analysing the failure and collapse of the Second Labour government. Click on title to read:

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13 June, 2018: Added to the Edgar Hardcastle Internet Archive:The Fallacy of Empire Trade, March 1930 Why Socialists Oppose Family Allowances, February 1931 The Case against The "Living Wage", March 1931 The Mosley Party. Old Fallacies Re-Furbished, April 1931 The Economic Crisis and the Workers, July 1931The Socialist Party and War, August 1931 The Labour Party and the Crisis, October 1931

[ALB]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

It prohibits the “publishing or uttering of matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion” Ryan McChrystal of Index on Censorship commented:“Just ignoring the law because no one is using it right now means you are forgetting that, one day, someone might.”

I would have thought this might be a case of letting sleeping dogs lie. I don't know if anyone has been prosecuted under it but it should be difficult to convict anyone as both "intention" and "outrage among a substantial number" have to be proved. Difficult, I would have thought.I don't know about Ireland but in Britain anyone doing something like that can be prosecuted under other laws. In fact I was recently warned by the police under Section 4 of the Public Order Act for telling a cyclist to fuck off (they're a nuisance when they cycle in front of you in the middle of the road at 12 mph) because I was alleged to have caused fear or offence to a single person.So I suspect that what will happen if this is repealed is that it will be replaced by some more realistic threat to criticising religion. As I sad, maybe better to let sleeping dogs lie.

[ALB]

My guess was right. It was what Positive Money advocate:http://positivemoney.org/2018/06/positive-money-welcomes-unprecedented-swiss-sovereign-money-referendum/http://positivemoney.org/2018/06/vollgeld-referendum-result-positive-money-response/

[ALB]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

A helpful quote from the author to understand Marx

Quote:

Marx recognized the possibilities of reforming capitalism, ultimately based on relative surplus value. He himself refers to them in the Preface to the 1st edition of Capital, pointing out that “present society is not a solid crystal, but an organism capable of change, and is constantly changing”. Marx, however, showed at the same time the limits of these possibilities.

I don't agree that  this is a helpful quote. It's a distortion of what Marx meant. In that Preface Marx is not talking about the possibility of reforming capitalism so as to make things better for workers. He is talking about the possibility of society being transformed into something radically different. In other words, revolution not reform: Here is the whole paragraph:

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In the domain of Political Economy, free scientific inquiry meets not merely the same enemies as in all other domains. The peculiar nature of the materials it deals with, summons as foes into the field of battle the most violent, mean and malignant passions of the human breast, the Furies of private interest. The English Established Church, e.g., will more readily pardon an attack on 38 of its 39 articles than on 1/39 of its income. Now-a-days atheism is culpa levis, as compared with criticism of existing property relations. Nevertheless, there is an unmistakable advance. I refer, e.g., to the Blue book published within the last few weeks: “Correspondence with Her Majesty’s Missions Abroad, regarding Industrial Questions and Trades’ Unions.” The representatives of the English Crown in foreign countries there declare in so many words that in Germany, in France, to be brief, in all the civilised states of the European Continent, radical change in the existing relations between capital and labour is as evident and inevitable as in England. At the same time, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Mr. Wade, vice-president of the United States, declared in public meetings that, after the abolition of slavery, a radical change of the relations of capital and of property in land is next upon the order of the day. These are signs of the times, not to be hidden by purple mantles or black cassocks. They do not signify that tomorrow a miracle will happen. They show that, within the ruling classes themselves, a foreboding is dawning, that the present society is no solid crystal, but an organism capable of change, and is constantly changing.

"Radical change in the existing relations between capital and labour" is what he had in mind, not reforms. Marx did think that pro-worker reforms could be introduced under capitalism, e.g. the Factory Acts, but that is not what he is talking about here.

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Alan has dug out a 1962 MA thesis of a US student, James Martin Swanson, on “An Analaysis if the Jewish Influence on Martov’s Revolutionary Career, 1891-1907”:https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/33368090.pdfAs it’s not easy to read online, here’s a summary ofthe part it on the so-called "Jewish Question":.Swanson’s basic thesis is:

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Although Martov's ideas were later to become altered in some respects, the crux of this discussion of the Jewish influence on Martov's revolutionary world view is his belief that emancipation must come about through identification with, if not participation in, the emancipation of the "universal struggling workers," in other words, through a revolution. (p.25)

In other words, that Martov thought that Jewish emancipation could only come about as part of the emancipation of all humanity.Swanson draws a distinction between the Russian-speaking Jewish intelligentsia and the Yiddish-speaking Jewish proletariat and summarises the general view of the Jewish intelligentsia as:

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The Jewish intelligent [sic] did resent the autocracy for its oppressive measures against Russian Jewry but he also saw in a revolution the chance to be the equal of the Russian. To bring about this revolution, to guarantee the equality of the Jew and the Russian, the Jewish Intelligentsia could not "wait for assistance from above," as Martov was to say in I891, they had to work for it. The Jewish proletariat had to push aside their peculiar habits fostered by their life in the ghetto. They had to speak the Russian language. They had to break away from their religion which regulated every act of the daily existence—including dress and diet—which stood in the way of Russification. (p.11)

He says that Martov’s experience in exile in Vilna (now Vilnius) in Lithuania to wjhere he chose to be exiled from St. Petersburg, as well as leading him to switch from propaganda to agitation, also changed his view on the use of Yiddish (if only to make agitation easier, indeed possible there):

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On May 1, 1895 Martov delivered an address, later published as a pamphlet under the title: "A Turning Point in the Jewish Labor Movement", which was to become an important document in Russian-Jewish socialist literature. Martov’s argument was that the success of socialism was due to the introduction of democratic and economic elements into the movement. He went on to point out that the hope of socialism in the future would rest on the solution it provides for the needs of the masses, and that the economic struggle of the worker would naturally lead him to battle eventually for political freedom. Most important, Martov’s May Day speech urged the organization of a special Jewish workingmans’ party. This was the first time in a public speech that a social democrat made any distinction between the needs of the Jewish worker and the Russian worker. Martov also suggested that the language spoken and written by the propagandist be changed from Russian to Yiddish—the only language understood by the masses of Jewish workers. (pp.27-.

However, when the Bund adopted a nationalist-autonomist position Martov opposed this:

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In 1901, however, the Bundist movement reached a turning point. At the Fourth Convention in Bialstok, the Bund expressed itself on the question of Jewish Nationalism. The convention pronounced itself in favor of a Russian state based on a federation of nationalities in which the Jews would become a constituent part. Martov opposed the declaration of the Bundist convention claiming that the whole idea was "bourgeois." But the assimilationist policy of the majority of Jewish intellectuals was overridden by the non-intelligentsia section of the Bund. (p.31)

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The reason Martov opposed the Bund was probably because the Jewish organization would not comply to the Iskra demand for a centralized party. Henry J. Tobias in his analysis of the relationship between the Bund and Lenin has this to say about Martov' s criticism of Bundist separatism:

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“Martov… criticized the Bund for its efforts to squeeze the Jewish workers into narrow nationalist channels when the chief evil afflicting them was a government policy which retarded their rapprochement with the surrounding population. He pointedly contrasted the Bund's behaviour with that of the Jewish workers in the South who worked hand in hand with their Russian colleagues for the general demands of the proletariat.”

While Martov had declared his opposition to the "nationalistic" trend followed by the Bund at their Congresses, in all fairness to the Bund, it would be a mistake to say that nationalism in 1903 was very strong. (pp. 68-9).

Swanson says that:

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The Jewish Bund after 1903 was hardly more than a trade union. (p. 86)

And of Trotsky at this time:

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Trotsky was once asked if he regarded himself as a Jew or a Russian. He replied: "Neither, I am a Social Democrat, and nothing else."

Good answer !

[ALB]

Yes, I remember reading about that a few years ago myself:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2039453/How-America-planned-destroy-BRITAIN-1930-bombing-raids-chemical-weapons.htmlChemical weapons too ! I think it was a dispute about who was to control oil in Saudi Arabia.

[ALB]

Yes, I remember reading about that a few years ago myself:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2039453/How-America-planned-destroy-BRITAIN-1930-bombing-raids-chemical-weapons.html

[ALB]

ZJW wrote:

And here, for those interested is a definition from an introduction to the Bauer book (not by Bauer but by some latter-day academic) of what Austro-Marxism's national autonomy meant. (As a reformist/bourgeois utopian notion, not an unattractive idea.)

I agree that some sort of non-territorial cultural autonomy is a not unttractive idea. It can be imagined that this could be applied in socialism to language groups rather than to "nations" (of course), with people speaking the same language having autonomy when it comes to education and culural (theatre, films, publishing, etc) matters; particpation in the democratic decision-making would not be based on where people lived but on what language they spoke.Although, under capitalism, it would be a reformist measure, it is not that "utopian" in the sense of unrealisable. It is applied in the inner part of Greater Brussels where people choose which language "community" to be in (Dutch or French) and voted for its bodies that administer education and culture. So people in the same street can be voting for different bodies dealing with these matters. It is certainly better than ethnic cleansing and to what applies in other parts of Greater Brussels outside the centre which are also linguistically diverse and where the minority (in some communes even the majority) of French-speakers enjoy considerably less "facilities". That's because there things are based on territory and the French-speakers find themselves on Dutch-speaking territory.

[ALB]

Isn't it the same as what Positive Money propose?  As such, something that is not necessary as already banks cannot lend more than they have (or can get quickly) and only "create money" as this is how granting a loan is defined; and bank lending depends on the state of the economy not on what banks might want to lend.It could be implemented (it's not pure currency crankism) but would make day-to-day living more troublesome (you'd have to pay for every transaction on your current account since banks won't be able to lend money from such accounts to bring in some interest to run them, and if you put anything into an interest-bearing savings account it won't be protected if the bank folds). I doubt if Swiss voters will vote to shoot themselves in the foot (or, rather, graze their foot) in this way.

[ALB]

I take it you have alerted Comrade Shannon to this too so that he can take into account this criticism of "intersectionality" and its implications (the thin end of a slippery slope away from class politics).I liked the conclusion:

Mike Mcnair wrote:

A workers’ class movement which aims for class political independence from the capitalists can offer the approach of the 1880 Programme of the Parti Ouvrier that “The emancipation of the productive class is that of all human beings without distinction of sex or race.” The policy of the broad front and intersectionality, by sacrificing the politics of class to those of gender, race and all the others, fails in its own aims.

The clause he quotes from the programme of the French Parti Ouvrier (drawn up in Marx's presence) is of course almost word for word the same as part of Clause 4 of our declaration of principles (and no doubt from where we got it):

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That as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom, the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex.

 

[ALB]

I wonder if he will tell Macron that he's a self-loathing Jew for not being a Zionist?

[ALB]

This article from the January 2007 Socialist Standard noted a similar pattern:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2007/no-1229-january-2007/zionism-and-anti-semitism

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