ALB
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Someone should indeed tell the ECB !
European Central Bank wrote:Commercial banks can also create so-called “inside” money, i.e. bank deposits – this happens every time they issue a new loan. (….). Inside money (….) is named this way because it is backed by private credit.https://www.ecb.europa.eu/explainers/tell-me-more/html/what_is_money.en.htmlThe whole ECB document is a good description how the modern monetary system works. In fact it is something we can, and should, quote (and quote again) against the "thin air" school of banking. "Private credit" of course includes outside deposits (i.e not those opened by a bank for those it makes a loan to, but people and organisations depositing their own money there) and what banks themselves borrow.I think I'll put it to Steve Keen since he claims the backing of German banks for his description of how the monetary system works (and since he teaches just down the road from me at Kingston University). Not that he's a "thin-airist". It''s just that his description is an open invitation for them to misinterpret him..
Earlier this month French television broadcast a documentary on Russia in 1917 . According to veteran Council Communist Henri Simon on a discussion forum, this showed well that "il ne s'agit pas d'une conquête des masses mais d'un coup d'état minutieusement préparé par une minorité politique très réduite" or, roughly translated:
Quote:that it was not a question of a conquest by the masses but a carefully prepared coup d'état by a very small political minority.Nice to find someone else from our milieu taking this view.
Steve Keen wrote:Banks don't on-lend deposits they take in from depositors. Banks create money — and debt — whenever they extend credit to a client, whether it's by means of credit cards, mortgages, or business loans.How many times do we have to repeat that banks don't lend only from what has been deposited with them but also from what they themselves borrow from the money market? The Bank of England papers state this clearly enough. Of course if you define a bank loan as money then by definition banks "create money" when they make a loan, but this leaves open the question of where they get the funds to make loans. Keen knows perfectly well that they don't simply conjure them up out of thin air. So do all practical bankers.
You are right. The MIA version doesn't omit point 3 but there is still something wrong with it as it only has 9 points whereas the one in our pamphlet has 10 (as do other versions on the internet as here: http://home.wlu.edu/~patchw/His_213/spd_program.htm ). The whole text is there but points 5 and 6 have become a single point, changing the numbers of what follows to 6, 7, 8, 9 (instead of 7,8, 9, 10). Someone should tell them.
The only one that could bear this interpretation is point 10 of the general reform demands that calls for a reform of the tax system:
Quote:Progressive income and property taxes to meet all public expenditure, so far as these are to be covered by taxation. Duty of making one’s own return of income and property. Succession duty to be graduated according to amount and relationship. Abolition of all indirect taxes, customs, and other financial measures which sacrifice the collective interest to the interests of a privileged minority.In the online version of the Party's pamphlet there is a misprint as in the last part the words "interest to the" after the word "collective" do not appear, rendering the sentence meaningless. No doubt this can be corrected. (Incidentally, the version on the Marxists Internet Archive omits point 3 in ours about universal military training and a people's army to replace a standing army (as in Switzerland). I am not sure why.)Apart from that point, all the other reform demands are either to extend political democracy or intended to protect the industrial working class. The Party's first three pamphlets in fact were Kautsky's first three sections of the theoretical introduction he wrote to the Erfurt Programme (translation with his permission and approval: see http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/handicraft-capitalism-karl-kautsky-1906). In 1899 Kautsky wrote a book on The Agrarian Question.In the first decade of the 20th century there was a controversy within the SPD over whether and to what extend to appeal to small peasants with the Revisionists around Bernstein advocating this and the party moving in this direction.
The latest, revised proposals put Head Office on the boundary (literally) of two proposed new constituencies: one called "Brixton & Vauxhall", the other "Battersea & Clapham". Clapham High Street is the border and Head Office will be on the side in Battersea & Clapham:https://www.bce2018.org.uk/node/6485?postcode=SW47UNAnticipating something like this was why we decided to contest Battersea rather than Vauxhall in the general election.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Quote:French Group (“Civilisation without money”)The Party has been contacted by this group seeking collaboration.Agreed that cde Buick responds inviting further contacts.Is there any further background to this group available?
Here is their website (in French):https://www.civilisation-sans-argent.org/They seem to be an offshoot of the general Zeitgeist/Venus project movement. They stood a candidate in the elections in France in June this year. He got 40 votes:http://www.voter-a-m.fr/2017/
No, that is not my position. Not at all. I am not advocating fracking. My position is that we as Socialists should not be opposed to fracking on principle as, like with other technologies, it could in theory be made safe and, if need be, used in socialism. Trade unions support all sorts of things to maintain jobs, e.g. building submarines to carry nuclear weapons, just as Nimbys oppose all sorts of things.
Quote:We are rejecting their consensus on the safety of GMO, on fracking and nuclear energy through parliamentary legislation.It is not entirely clear. Is this Paul Mason or Alan Johnstone talking, i.e who is the "we"? The Socialist Party has never rejected GMO, fracking or nuclear energy as such. Genetic engineering has huge potential benefits and nuclear energy may have to be retained to combat global warming caused by burning fossil fuels. And who, not even supporters of capitalism, believe that the safety issues involved in these (and other) productive methods can be addressed merely by "parliamentary legislation"? They will be overcome by technology which may indeed not be fully adopted under capitalism because of cost and profits considerations but which could be in socialism.
Apparently the Spanish government relies on the Basque Nationalist Party (among others) to get its legislation through, a bit like the Tories' reliance on the DUP here.
robbo203 wrote:And, of course, as is to be expected there will be those on the Left who will rally to this reactionary cause like flies settling around an open woundToo true, though I'd have said like around a pile of shit. Here's an example from one of the 57 varities of Trotskyism (I'm not sure which):https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/puigdemont-fears-the-consistent-struggle-for-catalonia-s-independence/I see they want the Basque Country, Galicia and Valencia to break away too. Talk about dividing the working class. Misidentity politics gone mad. Whatever happened to "Workers of the World, Unite"?.
Socialist Party Head Office wrote:Matters Arising: The EC notes with concern that Tabrez Julaha Ajlaf is going on campaigning for his reformist parallel organization defying our repeated caution that our members are not allowed to run any parallel political organization “as an infringement of the Principles and Rules or detrimental to the interest of the Party”. MSC: That we once again ask him to dissolve his parallel union “Unemployeds, Youths and Workers Cooperative” immediately. – Agreed.I don't know if other comrades have noticed but every month these Minutes contain a criticism of this comrade. I don't know what his organisation is — it could just be what used to be called a "claimants union" in Britain (in which case it wouldn't be "refirmist") — but his contributions to our facebook page are good.
At least that would be better than UBI, though, as you say, it would have the same downward effect on wage levels. Pity it isn't the response of the capitalist class in an attempt to divert a growing socialist movement !
Young Master Smeet wrote:I slightly fear this might lead to a roata (shudders)Why the shudders, sounds like a good place to end up:https://www.lonelyplanet.com/honduras/bay-islands/roatan
