ALB
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Here’s a translation of what an anonymous French intellectual wrote in 1979 under the heading “Abolish Money or Abolish the Commodity?”
“Money is currently the essential concrete representation of the exchange value of the commodity, of its real substance. Abolishing money is to abolish only one concrete representation of exchange value. This exchange value can well take on other faces, other forms of concrete representation. So to abolish money is not at all to abolish the commodity. Obviously abolishing the commodity will abolish its substance, exchange value, and its concrete representation, money.”
What the French intellectual forgot to spell out was that the commodity (as an item of wealth produced to be sold) only comes into existence where there is private property and private production as exchange of products can only take place between separate owners. So to abolish the commodity can only be done by replacing private ownership by common ownership.
What we socialists advocate is the common ownership of productive resources; this will end production for sale and so the commodity, and so exchange value, and so money.
Here’s how the official Russian state news agency reported what Volodin said:
https://tass.com/politics/1845365/amp
Note the difference between:
“What the European Parliament is calling for opens the way to a nuclear world war,”
And Reuters translation:
“What the European Parliament is calling for leads to a world war using nuclear weapons,”
I don’t know what the Russian word he used was but “opens the way to” and “leads to” are not the same. The second implies that a nuclear war will result; the first that it makes one more possible.
Both of them are saying that, in the event of a long-range NATO missile being launched against Russia, Russia would retaliate against Ukraine using a “powerful weapon”.
It looks as if NATO may have backed down and is saving face by not making any official announcement. But if it hasn’t backed down and a long-range NATO missile is used against Russia, then we can expect Russia to deploy its “powerful weapon” against Ukraine (but not a nuclear strike on Britain or America).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyvpv1lzq6o
Oh dear, things have only got worse for him as he has had to take the tough decision to refuse more freebies.
Now he can say that we all in it together: You can’t heat your flat, and I have to pay for my Armani suits.
Don’t know whether this statement from Russia’s long-standing foreign minister will re-assure TM but it sets out what Russia’s position is. Basically, Don’t or we will use some more powerful weapon that we have not yet used. Presumably he is referring to tactical nuclear weapons though not necessarily. Anyway, he is not talking about pressing the red button.
I was going to say the same that, if Russia does use nuclear weapons in retaliation for further provocation from NATO these will be tactical ones used against Ukraine. Also, of course, their spokespersons are upping the rhetoric to try to dissuade NATO from allowing Ukraine to use on Russia longer range NATO missiles.
I know we always say Labour Tory, Same Old Story but it is a bit surprising that Starmer should continue Borys’s dream of being a war leader. You’d have thought Labour might have stood up to the unbalanced generals who want to go further even than the Pentagon. But then all Labour governments have supported Britain’s “imperialist” pretensions.
Yes, in Marx’s day there were people who wanted to “abolish money” and replace it by “labour notes”. In a footnote near the beginning of chapter 2 of Capital he refers to a group
“which wants to perpetuate the production of commodities while simultaneously abolishing the ‘antagonism between money and commodities’, ie abolishing money itself … (Penguin translation)
He compares this to abolishing “the Pope while leaving Catholicism in existence” since “money only exists in and through this antagonism”, and refers readers to what he wrote in a previous book he published, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy where he discuss the views of a currency reformer called John Gray.
Here he says Gray was inconsistent:
“as Gray presupposes that the labour-time contained in commodities is immediately social labour-time, he presupposes that it is communal labour-time or labour-time of directly associated individuals. In that case, it would indeed be impossible for a specific commodity, such as gold or silver, to confront other commodities as the incarnation of universal labour and exchange-value would not be turned into price; but neither would use-value be turned into exchange-value and the product into a commodity, and thus the very basis of bourgeois production would be abolished. But this is by no means what Gray had in mind – goods are to be produced as commodities but not exchanged as commodities.”
And
“The fact that labour money is a pseudo-economic term, which denotes the pious wish to get rid of money, and together with money to get rid of exchange-value, and with exchange-value to get rid of commodities, and with commodities to get rid of the bourgeois mode of production, – this fact, which remains concealed in Gray’s work and of which Gray himself was not aware …”
In other words, money won’t cease to exist unless commodity production (the production of goods for sale) does. As long as goods are produced for sale money is needed and will arise because it is needed.
Socialists want to replace commodity production by production directly for use on the basis of the common ownership of the means of life — which will abolish the need for money.
You seem to be missing the distinction between “tactical” and “strategic” nuclear weapons:
“A tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) or non-strategic nuclear weapon (NSNW) is a nuclear weapon that is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations, mostly with friendly forces in proximity and perhaps even on contested friendly territory. Generally smaller in explosive power, they are defined in contrast to strategic nuclear weapons, which are designed mostly to be targeted at the enemy interior far away from the war front against military bases, cities, towns, arms industries, and other hardened or larger-area targets to damage the enemy’s ability to wage war. As of 2024, no tactical nuclear weapons have ever been used in combat.“
The speculation has been that Russia might respond to NATO’s provocation of allowing Ukraine to use NATO long range missiles to attack Russian territory by using tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine’s armed forces.
If they were to be used this would not result in the “nuclear winter and mass starvation” you fear. “Only” a chernobyl incident (I guess).
It’s becoming tedious trying to convince you that the end of the world is not nigh as you insist on wanting to believe.
The EU has no military wing or powers if only because some member states are not in NAT0 (Austria, Ireland, Cyprus, Malta). On the other hand, some European countries are not in NATO (Norway, Iceland, Albania).
All the EU does is fund the Ukraine state’s administrative functions.
The only European country that has independent nuclear arms is France (Britain is dependent on the US, in fact is a very small part of the US arsenal, which couldn’t really be used without US support).
More on France’s nuclear pea-shooter here:
After Keir Starmer Kid Starver and Keir Starmer Pension Harmer, it’s now Keir Starmer Freebie Farmer.
Not all politicians are necessarily dishonest but the present prime minister, with his pre-election talk of cleaning up politics, doesn’t fall into this category. The man’s a complete and utter hypocrite. A money-grubber and a person without principles. What a despicable character. Mind you, it wouldn’t matter if he was a saint he’d still have to put profit before people.
A lurker on the forum has drawn attention to this.
Excellent title and interesting stuff on the Democratic Party as the Party of Wall Street.
https://www.leftvoice.org/whos-funding-harriss-lesser-evil-campaign/
I can’t see any left of Labour Party party getting off the ground unless the electoral system is changed. As if there wasn’t enough evidence to show this — ILP, SLP, Respect, TUSC, Left Unity, WPB. And fancy inviting Fiona Lali of the RCP. If they were to get off the ground they would soon find themselves infested with all sorts of Trotskyist groups not just hers.
Now it turns out that he occupies the same moral low ground as other politicians — accepting gifts from a dodgy businessman not just for himself but for his wife too:
“THE PM had a day at the races with his wife yesterday — as a row erupts over clothes given to her by a Labour donor.
(…)
This year Lord Alli, ex-chairman of fast fashion firm Asos, gave Sir Keir £18,685 worth of work clothes and several pairs of glasses.”His day at the races probably also involved some gift from some betting firm.
What a hypocrite.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/30445314/keir-starmer-races-wife-labour-donor-clothes/amp/
