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Dave B wrote:

Dogs have also beaten the chimps when it comes to vocabulary.They can also do the abstract thinking stuff.So they can be shown a picture of a red carrot and told to go and get it from the next room from a larger jumble of rubber toys etc.

Is this really abstract thinking or is it conditioned behaviour? And if it is abstract thinking how is it different from getting a dog to smell some scent and setting it off to find it?

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More added. Click on title to read.

Quote:

Turgenev's Virgin Soil, July 1965 The maxims of Enoch Powell, August 1965 The Job of Governing, August 1966 The Failure of Reforms, February 1978 Debate with Liberal Party (Guildford), April 1978 The case against CND, June 1982 "The Struggle", December 1983 Is the Marxian theory of history still relevant?, February 1984 Socialism and the Left, January 1986 Labour's head-banging exercise, July 1989 Government or Democracy?, May 2001 A challenge to the unions, September 2002 The fall of Berlin, September 2002 The Last Conflict, December 2006

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Thanks for pointing this out. I know why this happened (the link changed between message #1 of 30 January and message #2 of 24 February where it works). It's now been corrected. To save time, here's a direct link:https://www.marxists.org/archive/lawrence/1what_socialism.htm

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There's a fault in the link to the last item (a review of his novel about a possible way that socialism might come about). This one works:https://www.marxists.org/archive/lawrence/last_conflict.htm

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Capitalist society is still based on the class monopoly over the means of wealth production with production for profit and all the attendant problems this causes for wage and salary workers in particular and for humanity in general. And socialism, or the common ownership of the means of production with production solely for use and directly to satisfy people's needs, remains the only way-out.The only change we would make in relation to that 1946 article is that the further development of the productive resources at the disposable of society since then has meant that the implementation of the principle "from each according to their abilities, to each according to the needs" is more practicable than ever.

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Marx's view of Jeremy Bentham is here:https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/fi/vol02/no10/marx.htm

Quote:

Had I the courage of my friend Heinrich Heine, I should call Mr. Jeremy a genius of bourgeois stupidity.

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This would be an interesting development if it actually happens:https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/03/civilians-organise-human-shield-protect-kurdish-afrin-180311163553611.htm

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An interesting question from the point of view of the history of ideas (irrespective of whether or not they are sensible or practicable) is why the De Leonist SLP embraced the idea of labour-time vouchers while the SPGB didn't.We know why the SLP did as it was founded by German immigrants to the USA (refugees from the Anti-Socialist Law of 1878) who brought the idea within them where it was popular (and why Marx used the scheme for illustrative purposes). In fact, for them, it was the socialist method of distribution, not even a step on the way to free access. The European Social Democrats weren't committed to it so much if at all and certainly not as the end, and that's where we come from. Another possible influence on us could be William Morris and the Socialist League, a previous breakaway from the SDF.Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme, though available in German from 1891, wasn't translated into English until 1933 which, used by the rulers of Russia to try to justify the continuance of the wages system there, revived the idea. It also caused a problem for the SLP and eventually led them to accepting free access, without money or vouchers, as the goal with labour-time vouchers as a transitional measure.

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Imposs1904 has put up an article from a 1920 Socialist Standard  which shows that we rejected labour-time vouchers as long go as that:http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/how-shall-we-share-out-1920.html

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I'm afraid that's how you come across, Prakash.

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Not as daft as Lust Pigshagger..

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Let's hope so.

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Imposs1904 has just published a review from the Socialist Standard of 1942 of two anarchist pamphlets, one putting a rather pathetic case against voting and the other a rather unrealistic alternative way to try to abolish capitalism:http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/new-publications-1942.html

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So much for the Brexshiteers illusion that Britain (the British capitalist class) will be able to survive better in the jungle of world capitalist trade competition on its own rather than as part of a larger trading bloc. With the first division clubs — USA, EU, China, Japan — fighting it out, the government has chosen to relegate British capitalism to the second division. I don't think the British capitalism class are going to forgive the bunch of second-class political representatives (Cameron, May, Boris and the other non-entities) they've got. Still, not our problem as socialists.

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I ended up too as from Sunderland just because I prononced "scone" as like "gone" rather than "bone" as when I did it again and said it like "bone" I ended up speaking like Hugh Grant.https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/news/survey-reveals-correct-way-to-pronounce-scone/.Isn't there something in their bible about those who said "sibboleth" and those who say "shibboleth". Can't remember which lot got slaughtered. I think it was those who said "scon".

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