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There have also been about 10 who, after receiving the three free issues, have taken out a paying 12 month subscription.

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Fourteen more (via Imposs's blog).  Click on title to read:

Quote:

4 January, 2018: Added to the Edgar Hardcastle Internet Archive:The Real Russia: Its Present Position and Tendencies, February 1925 Catholicism and Socialism: Mr. Wheatley's Lie, April 1925 Socialism and the Economic "Experts", May 1930 Incentive Under Socialism, November 1940 The Devil is Convalescing, May 1943 The Purpose of Devaluation, December 1949 Trade Unions and the Cost of Living, February 1963 Cures for Strikes, April 1963 Throwing Stones in the Russian Glasshouse, July 1963 Can we trust the population experts?, February 1964 Russian Diamonds, July 1964 The General Strike 40 Years On, May 1966 Pipes of Peace?, April 1982 Failure of Keynesian policies, April 1983

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Came across this Trotskyist take on this (it's the Militant lot that stayed with Ted Grant and are in the Labour Party) from last year. It makes some good points but on the whole is not that good. But at least they are not prepared to unite to try to get it:http://www.marxist.com/universal-basic-income-utopian-dream-or-libertarian-nightmare.htm

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Your summary is generally fair but there are a couple of amendments:

you wrote:

We do not promote vegetarianism or veganism but we do acknowledge certain value in them, that for the well-being of ourselves and of our planet, we require to reduce our consumption of meat and curtail livestock farming.

I don't think "we" do acknowledge this (and certainly not for "veganism" which I don't think we've discussed). This makes the mixed meat/vegetable diet most people practise seem less "valuable". I'm not sure that even most vegetarians would want to actually say that as it makes them appear holier than thou and gets ordinary people's backs up (as it did here). Best to simply say something like:

Quote:

We do not promote vegetarianism or veganism or any other particular diet. Choice of diet is a private matter,

As to this

you wrote:

1.  meat-eating is not an efficient method of food production2. that there is very good evidence that it is not nutritious or healthy

There is no evidence whatsoever than eating meat is "not nutritious or healthy".As to (1), to be pedantic, meating-eating is not a method of food production.  Once this has been edited to "raising animals to eat is not …", this is not universally true either, as was mentioned many times in the discussion when it was pointed out that sheep and goats can more efficiently convert what grows on certain land into food better than agriculture could. Also, that chickens and pigs can eat stuff that humans can't, or don't, eat which would otherwise go to waste or to mice, rats and insects.Anyway, happy to close this thread. I agree we're going round in circles. In fact, since we too are animals I'm not sure whether Marxist Animalism was supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing. Do not discuss.

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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.

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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.

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Quote:

Being a carnivore is one thing but promoting factory farming and the absolute manipulation and objectification of other animals is another thing

Exactly, 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.

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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

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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.

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Be careful not to provoke the Hindu nationalists, Bijou. They kill people for eating meat.

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Yes but that also applies even if ownership of the land can command a rent. 

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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).

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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.

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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.

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Interesting statistic that dispels a popular myth:http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/india-diet-indian-palate-non-vegetarian-vegetarianism-3099363/

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