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By the way, if there's anybody out there who has some time to devote to Party admin work there is one important post that needs to be filled — Standing Orders Committee. This is the committee that prepares the agenda for Conference and ADM. There is currently a vacancy. The work can be done electronically from home (and currently is). The printing and sending out of the agendas can be done by somebody else at Head Office.There is also a vacancy for Central Branch Secretary which can (and was) done from home. This involves keeping the branch membership list up-to-date, reminding them to pay voluntary contributions, and welcoming new members,
robbo203 wrote:It doesnt surely take that much for the committee to enlarge its brief to carry out a second survey using the data on the computer system and perhaps a third survey with regard to the companion parties.I am afraid it is not as simple as that. The data on the computer system was out of date and incomplete and had to be completed by trawling through emails from members to Head Office, application forms, and asking branch secretaries. There has been no email list for communicating with members individually.Nor can the committee change its brief just like that. It was set up in response to specific resolutions voted by Conference this year. The survey is only the first part of its brief. There have been surveys in the past but nothing concrete has emerged from them. This is why this committee's terms of reference include making specific proposals to amend the Rulebook.For the record, here's what its terms of reference are:
Quote:A. To consult the membership on the current and future organisational structure of the Party, in particular on how Party members and sympathisers can participate, including electronically, in setting priorities.B. To look at the implications, in terms of amendments to the rulebook, decision-making procedures and workload at Head Office, should the Party become a national membership organisation.C. To submit a report to the EC in time for it to be presented to 2018 Annual Conference.As you can see, the survey is only the first part of its work. The second part is equally important. Changes to the way the Party makes decisions, e.g. converting branches into "activity groups" or allowing any 5 members to propose motions to a general meeting of members, electronic voting, or whatever, will require a change to the Rules, which can only be done by a vote of the membership.
When I got oit I scrolled down and click a box which said "Make Exception" or something like that. So I did and it worked. I'm using Firefox.
In the minds of a Brexshitter like Gove, simply because it was part of some EU legislation. I agree, though, that his attempt to assert "British sovereignity" in the matter has backfired on the obnoxious little shit.
Just listened to the news on BBC Radio 4 and an interview with Michael Gove, the minister responsible for this sort of thing, and my interpretation was right — there was no vote that animals have no feelings, just a vote not to include something from the Treaty of Lisbon into the EU withdrawal bill. Gove complained that he had been misinterpreted but that was his own fault as he was playing Brexist politics. He didn't want it included because it was EU legislation and wanted to pass UK legislation saying the same thing.
In other words, they didn't vote that animals have no feelings, only not to include a statement that they do have feelings. Not the same at all. To justify mistreating animals they would have had to have voted that beings that have no feelings can be mistreated. But they didn't vote that. They are not going to scrap what animal protection laws exist. As I suspected, an exaggeration by a well-meaning pressure group that is doing its case (the valid one that people shouldn't be cruel to animals) no good by this sort of illogical argumentation.
I take it as given that animals feel pain and should not be made to suffer it. But I followed the links to try to find out what exactly had been decided. It seems that an amendment to the Brexit Bill was voted down. I wouldn't have thought this represented a change in government policy on the matter, certainly not "scrapping what animal protection laws exist". This sounds like exaggeration by a well-meaning pressure group.
Quote:there are 6 biscuits (and no way to make more)Why this assumption? It rules out examining the conditions under which biscuits are produced and, typical of bourgeois marginalist economics, concentrates on the market. As comrade Goldstein went on to point out:
Quote:Actually, of course, the average price of an article is fixed prior to supply and demand.Sympo wrote:What would be the direct answer to the question "If it takes 5 hours for company A to make something and it takes 10 hours for company B, C, D etc to make the same thing, is the SNLT 5 hours?"On the assumption that only company A is capable of (re)producing the commodity in 5 hours while all the other companies producing the same commodity can only do so in 10 hours, then the SNLT would be 10 hours (even on your arithmetic mean it would be only just under this). This is because the total amount of the commodity required by the market cannot be supplied at 5 hours labour-time a commodity.What would happen in your hypothetical situation is that company A would be making extra profits. This would be an incentive for the other companies to adopt the same production methods as company A. The more that did the lower the price (and SNLT) would become until, when (and if) all companies adopted the same methods, the SNLT would fall to 5 (and company A lose its extra profits). As a matter of fact, this is how the price of commodities (other than from mining and extraction where costs tend to increase as the easier seams and oil wells are used up first) comes to fall — one firm innovating and making extra profits, both providing the other firms with an incentive to follow suit and competition putting them under pressure to do so to stay in the race for profits.
The amount of socially necessary labour time in a commodity is not something that is, or can be, established mathematically. It's established by the market. Sometimes more is produced than the market requires; in which case the labour time involved in producing the unsold surplus is wasted and would not enter into your average (arithmetical mean). Also, it is not the cost of having produced a commodity that is relevant but the cost of reproducing it. As in most industries (mining and extraction are exceptions), with the introduction of more efficient machines or ways of organising production, this will tend to fall. All this means that in practice the amount of SLNT in a commodity will be less than your arithmetic mean (supposing it could be established).
After stamps, let's discuss the economic status of Guernsey. It's in the EU Customs Union so has to apply the common external tariff for imports from outside the EU. It is in the Single Market for manufactured goods (not that they manufacture much) and follows the rulings of the European Court of Justice on this. A precedent for another, larger island of the North West coast of Ireland when it too is reduced to the status of Guernsey?
It's a bit like war. War is banned under the UN Charter, so when States go to war to protect their 'vital interests' they have to find a legal pretext for this. Military coups are no longer the flavour of the month in Africa so the military has to find a 'legal' way of overthrowing a government, in this case invoking Zimbabwe's paper constitution.
Next they'll be doing stamps for Bernardo O'Higgins, who led the struggle for Chile's independence from Spain, and President MacMahon of France. Or perhaps they already have. Just checked. They did for O'Higgins:https://www.stampnews.com/stamps/stamps_2010/stamp_1288619010_107115.html
This is virtually a French version of our pamphlet as it contains exactly the same articles by him (and nearly the same photo on the front) in which he shows how the Bolsheviks distorted Marx to try to justify the dictatorship over the proletariat that they were establishing. In addition, there is an extract from his autobiography (hence the title "How I became a Marxist") and some other, shorter articles, mainly on the aftermath of the 1905 Russian Revolution. Martov recounts how he became a Marxist, i.e someone who relied on the working class to overthrow Tsarism (as opposed to the Narodniks who relied on the peasantry) while a student at St. Petesburg University in 1892.Interesting that someone else should see republishing Martov on the Russian Revolution as a fitting analysis of what went on in Russia in 1917 and after. We could almost buy a few copies to re-sell. In fact we should though it can easily be ordered online.
