ALB
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Interesting but equally interesting is that when you follow the links back to the original Mighty report it is not so much meat production as such that causes the problem as the production of food (the vegetables soya and maize) to feed the animals that later become meat.The case for producing less meat (and it's a valid one) is that much meat production is inefficient and so wasteful in that the land used to grow animal feed could be better used to grow food for direct human consumption. In practice this would mean growing more soya as a substitute for meat as a source of protein. But under capitalism the same methods would be used by the same profit-seeking corporations to produce human food as to produce animal food, with the same effects on the environment.In other words, the change in human food consumption is not likely to have the desired effect unless accompanied by the change from production for profit to production for use on the basis of common ownership, i.e from capitalism to socialism.
Here's what the head of one capitalist corporation had to say about this a couple of years ago (he's now the Tory Mayor of the West Midlands):http://www.itv.com/news/2016-01-06/john-lewis-concerned-amazon-tax-problem-is-creating-an-unfair-fight/
Quote:Andy Street told me: "If you think two companies making the same profit, one of them pays corporation tax at the UK rate, one does not because it claims to be headquartered somewhere else. That is not fair."The Government is trying to address that but as yet we've not actually seen that (reform) really, really bite. It matters because the company paying corporation tax has, of course, less to invest in its future and in this time when retail is changing so fast that is a critical differentiator."So I asked him: "Just to be clear then, three years ago you said there is an 'Amazon tax problem'. You think there still is do you?""I think there still is," said Mr Street. "This is not just about John Lewis, let's be absolutely clear, this is about those UK companies paying corporation tax on the profit made on the UK against companies that make profit here but do not declare it and therefore do not pay tax."Over time this is likely to mean British companies, paying British taxes are disadvantaged."I don't think we or the working class generally need to be concerned with taking sides over whether or not some capitalist corporations are paying their fair share of taxes to maintain the UK capitalist State.
Quote:Being a carnivore is one thing but promoting factory farming and the absolute manipulation and objectification of other animals is another thingExactly, that's it ! Nobody here is defending or promoting the methods capitalism uses to produce meat to feed the urban masses. But it works the other way. Once these methods are abandoned in socialism, those who have become vegetarians because they don't like them will be able to become the natural carnivores (actually omnivores) that we are and begin eating meat again.
Murray Bookchin saw this coming and was why he stopped calling himself an anarchist:https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-social-anarchism-or-lifestyle-anarchism-an-unbridgeable-chasm
Now that the interval for banter is over, back to the discussion. In the meantime I've re-read the two articles on agriculture in this month's Socialist Standards. Both assume that animal rearing and meat-eating will continue in socialism. Both in fact advocate mixed farming, partly to cut back on using artificial fertilisers. That's something that those whop dream of a meat-free world haven't thought through properly. If only crops are to be grown how is the fertility of the soil to be maintained? Also, as Robbo has pointed out, it is difficult to imagine a countryside without animals and making use of them.
As you say, pathetic, absolutely pathetic:
Quote:The AF has been a large part of recent developments, not least our co-organising of the AFEM 2014 international anarcha-feminist conference. However, the result of development of anti-colonial and even more inclusive thinking around colour and gender has clearly challenged the cohesiveness of the anarchist movement which, apart from small pockets of individualism that still exist, has all but adopted a social anarchist perspective in recent years. At this year’s bookfair the distribution of a leaflet against transgender rights (concerning an amendment to the Gender Recognition Act which would allow trans persons to more easily self-identify) was incendiary, being both pre-meditated by Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists and pre-empted by a large number of bookfair attendees who choose to take direct action.For the AF (and the ACF before our name change) we are proud of our having made explicit the need for struggle against ‘other’ oppressions and independent organisation by oppressed minorities as a core principle of a class struggle organisation since our inception 31 years ago, and this has become more concrete in recent years by inclusion of caucuses (for Gender-oppressed, LGBTQ and most recently for members who have disabilities or mental health problems), a safer spaces policy and production of a text on Privilege Theory. However, differing responses to the bookfair events, and a few years of tension preceding this within AF, has led to 12 of our membership (including all of our remaining founder members) leaving on the grounds that this has gone too far – it being diversionary from the class struggle, merely identity politics being expressed as inward looking sub-cultural disputes, whilst the majority of us who strongly disagree with that view are having to regroup in 2018 to consider the consequences for the AF and our movement (seeing as the Bookfair won’t happen, with the 2017 collective having resigned). Gender politics will be a big part of this, as no doubt will be a more nuanced anti-colonial thinking.I hadn't realised they were that bad but thought the AF was an anarcho-communist organisation that aimed at the sort of classless, stateless, moneyless, wageless society like us. I was wrong as I didn't realise how deep they had sunk into the bog of so-called "identity politics" (more properly, misidentity politics). We have nothing in common with them. No wonder the original founders left. It would be nice to think there'll be others (including somebody we know).
I am just trying to dispel the impression that we are a vegetarian party. So every time a vegetarian member puts up a pro-veggie post I am compelled to send in a correction. Of course I have no objection to members being vegetarians than I do to them growing a beard or dyeing their hair red but that's a personal choice they should keep separate from their socialism.
The article's conclusion that "vegetarians are certainly more benign to the planet’s environmental health" is misleading if it means that eating any meat is harmful to the environment. More benign than what? Eating less beef would certainly be more benign to the environment. But eating less fish or chicken? That doesn't follow. In fact, eating some fish and chicken and some vegetables could be better for the environment than eating just vegetables (as this would involve using more land to grow more of them). You also overlook the passage in the article that expresses concern for the malnutrition of vegetarians in India through not getting enough protein.We just make ourselves look silly, even by individual members expressing this as a personal position, by speculating about a world in which nobody eats any meat. That won't happen. Humans have been eating meat since we came down from the trees and became hunter-gatherers and this won't change in socialism. We are that sort of animal. Maybe less meat especially beef but eating meat is bound to continue to be part of the diet of the vast majority of humans as it always has been. You can't change that and it's silly to suggest that you could.
Interesting statistic that dispels a popular myth:http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/india-diet-indian-palate-non-vegetarian-vegetarianism-3099363/
You forgot to mention the possible demise of the Anarchist Book Circus. But, don't worry, anarchism will survive as the amorphous blob that it has always been.Personally, I've never understood why even class-struggle anarchist-communists have been prepared to accept anybody (except anarcho-capitalists) who calls themself an anarchist as part of a broader movement. In fact they have more in common with us than with most of those calling themselves anarchists.It looks as if they made a mistake when thirty years ago they dropped the word "communist" from their name as one result may have been that they attracted anarchists who weren't really communists or had other priorities.Their concentration on day-to-day struggles at the expense of popularising the idea of a classless, stateless, moneyless, wageless society won't have helped here since you don't have to have any longer term aim to take part in such struggles.
We've been over this many times here, Sympo. The Marxian Labour Theory of Value is that the value of a commodity reflects the amount of socially necessary labour time that would be taken to reproduce it, which is not necessarily the same as that taken to produce it. So it only applies to what can be reproduced by human labour. Which excludes works of art because they can't be reproduced (and whose price is determined by demand in relation to limited supply) while (virgin) land is excluded because it is not even a product of human labour. These are exceptions thst prove the rule.In fact, the price of land is not really even the monetary equivalent of an exchange value. Louis Boudin explained this in 1907 in chapter 5 on "The Labor Theory of Value and Its Critics" of his The Theoretical System of Karl Marx:
Quote:Land as well as all other objects which are not produced by human labor has no value. This may sound strange in face of the fabulous prices that we know are sometimes paid for land. But these very fabulous prices are proof that the price paid does not represent the value of the land but something else entirely. Marx proves conclusively that rent is not the value of the land, and that the price of land is admittedly merely a "capitalization" of the rent. Marx calls attention to the fact that… the price of land is a multiple of the rent by a certain number of years, the number depending on the prevailing rate of interest. In other words, it is not the value of the land that the price nominally paid for it represents but the price of the rent. The transaction which formally and nominally appears as a sale of land, is in reality merely the discount of the rent. It differs absolutely nothing in character from the purchase of an annuity, which is not an exchange of present values but a mere banking operation. This is well known to real estate operators.I agree. Hopefully the Libcom forum will continue, but what is the source of the passages quoted and where can the whole message be found?
Sort of. The price of land is the capitalisation of the rent that the land can be expected to bring in over a given period of years, which will depend on its location, e,g. nearness to something like Disneyland as you say but it could also be a population centre or railway station. This is not a particularly Marxist theory but is generally accepted. Marx only comes into it because, according to his labour theory of value, land, not being a product of labour, has no value, but only a price.
