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The May Socialist Standard is being delivered and despatched that day so if delegates arrive early enough they can help stuff it into envelopes. It's actually expected before 13.00hrs GMT + 1, so HO will be open even before then.
moderator1 wrote:Seeing there's no rule on deliberately bumping of posts I've locked the thread where this was occurring.Good. Thanks. Now let's bump it down to the bottom by bumping up other threads
moderator1 wrote:Introduction here: http://www.thenewhumanrightsmovement.com/why-this-book/Just realised that this, already on the internet, contains this passage which reflects, consciously or not, the Marxist approach to social systems;
Quote:A social system is defined as the means by which a society organizes itself to facilitate survival, prosperity, and, ideally, peaceful coexistence. (…) However, any challenge to the integrity of the system is really a challenge to the integrity of its core foundation, and that core foundation is economic. How a society organizes its resources, labor, production, and distribution is by far the most defining and influential feature of culture. This is why when people discuss social systems in general they usually refer to them by their economic modes.Another note-worthy development is that, unlike all the other candidates, the far-left candidate Mélenchon has refused to endorse Macron in the second round, so leaving the way for his supporters (he got over 19% of the votes, i.e nearly a fifth) to vote for Le Pen if they want, attracted by the same narrow nationalist policies both her and him advocated.
Unlike in the 2015 general election, in this one TUSC will not be fielding any candidates but will be reverting to saying "Vote Labour":http://www.tusc.org.uk/17358/22-04-2017/tusc-chair-dave-nellist-welcomes-general-election-chance-to-drive-out-the-toriesIt's not so much Lenin's supporting Labour as a rope supports a hanged man, but more a parasite supporting the existence of a new potential host.
About 40 people at the anti-Brexit hustings last night in Guildford to which parties contesting the elections in the five Guildford town divisions were invited, i.e. Tories, LibDems, Labour, Greens, Peace Party and us. No UKIP representatives as they seem to have given up on Guildford, not having any candidates there.In the absence of UKIP the pro-EU audience tried to make the Tory representative, Bob Hughes, the whipping boy but, unfortunately for them, this former MP and junior minister was very prominent in the Remain campaign. The Lib Dem and the Green were a mutual admiration society (they are a joint group on Surrey County Council), the Labour (and Cooperative) representative was an EU "immigrant". The Peace Party candidate was an old-fashioned pacifist who preached "be nice to everybody". He did, however, venture into economics by claiming that "Modern Monetary Theory" meant that austerity was unnecessary as the money could be made available if the government decided. A perfect opening to point out that austerity was not a free government decision but one forced on them by the requirement of capitalism, when in a slump, for pressure on profits to be relieved by cutting government spending and the taxes to pay for it. As most local council money comes from the central government, these cuts trickled down to local level, leaving councillors too no choice but to implement them at their level.There were questions on the environment. Another opportunity to explain that under capitalism making profits has to take priority over everything else, including the environment, and to point out that a global problem like climate change required a global solution which capitalist states, with different energy sources affecting their competitiveness, were unable to agree on doing anything effective.
Except that it happened yesterday on 4 or 5 General Discussion threads all within 5 minutes of each other at around 6pm yesterday, which Ponzi is not or cannot have been on (one has the last contribution in 2015).
moderator1 wrote:I have a strong suspicion his way of getting "there" will be similar to the Civil Rights Movement in the US.Sort of. He sees the movement for a non-market, non-money, post-scarcity society (let us call it "socialism") as having to be based on the activism of "the raw masses", the "average majority" and that, to triumph, it will have to eventually have majority consent. In this event, he suggests various transitional measures, such as universal basic income (to begin to break the link between work and consumption) and making "free (without direct purchase) goods from as many industries as possible". These would correspond to the list of (now completely outdated of course) immediate measures in the Communist Manifesto, i.e measures to be implemented once the battle of democracy had been won.It's where the movement has not yet got majority support that ambiguity comes in. He suggests that the movement should still demand and exercise pressure for them "upon the existing power structure, coercing change from the bottom up". This, even though he knows that these run counter to the logic of the capitalist market system:
Quote:Political influence, whether through grassroots protest or institutional lobbying via NGOs, will naturally be important. This is the arena of democracy that most people think of, though often they misunderstand its limitations. Public appeals to directly reduce socioeconomic inequality and stop environmental degradation are always going to go against the grain within a market system, which will resist every step. Regardless, we should constantly demand things such as Universal Basic Income; maximum wage and wealth caps per person, government subsidies to incentivize cooperative businesses rather than hierarchical ones, universal standardization of goods components by industry sector to reduce waste, and other socializing and income/wealth equalizing means. Basic public-health services, as common to Nordic countries, should also be pushed to ease social stress while larger strides are made. These are not solutions in and of themselves, but they will help.These would correspond to the "minimum programme" of the pre-WW1 Social Democratic parties.Gradualism is ruled out.:
Quote:. ..even if only partial transitions were made toward the ideal goals expressed, it would still improve things. However, the more one examines the implications ol these changes, the more it will become clear how they work against the current economic system's incentives and structure. This means the ideal of a step-by-step transition (and improvement) is improbable. Rather, it will likely take large and dramatic leaps to move from one state to another, revealing the need for serious activism to get things done.So, "large and dramatic leaps" (revolution) rather than gradual reform.He seems to have reached the same position, and to face the same strategic and tactical dilemmas, as the pre-WW1 Social Democratic movement from which we emerged with our view that the socialist movement should not have a programme of immediate demands to be implemented within capitalism. We know, from what happened to the Social Democratic parties, that the measures he sees as "helpful" will tend to attract people who just want them and not the complete change to a non-market, non-money society and so derail the movement for this.Still, there is no other modern book that discusses these choices in relation to the movement for the sort of society we want to see established.
I couldn't open that but the idea of eliminating money was discussed by the Bolsheviks. Here's what Bukharin wrote in The ABC of Communism by him and Preobrazhensky:
Quote:The communist method of production presupposes in addition that production is not for the market, but for use. Under communism, it is no longer the individual manufacturer or the individual peasant who produces; the work of production is effected by the gigantic cooperative as a whole. In consequence of this change, we no longer have commodities, but only products. These products are not exchanged one for another; they are neither bought nor sold. They are simply stored in the communal warehouses, and are subsequently delivered to those who need them. In such conditions, money will no longer be required. 'How can that be?' some of you will ask. 'In that case one person will get too much and another too little. What sense is there in such a method of distribution?' The answer is as follows. At first, doubtless, and perhaps for twenty or thirty years, it will be necessary to have various regulations. Maybe certain products will only be supplied to those persons who have a special entry in their work-book or on their work-card. Subsequently, when communist society has been consolidated and fully developed, no such regulations will be needed. There will be an ample quantity of all products, our present wounds will long since have been healed, and everyone will be able to get just as much as he needs. 'But will not people find it to their interest to take more than they need?' Certainly not. Today, for example, no one thinks it worth while when he wants one seat in a tram, to take three tickets and keep two places empty. It will be just the same in the case of all products. A person will take from the communal storehouse precisely as much as he needs, no more. No one will have any interest in taking more than he wants in order to sell the surplus to others, since all these others can satisfy their needs whenever they please. Money will then have no value. Our meaning is that at the outset, in the first days of communist society, products will probably be distributed in accordance with the amount of work done by the applicant; at a later stage, however, they will simply be supplied according to the needs of the comrades.But here's what Preobrazhensky, echoing Lenin's false distinction between communism and socialis (which Bukharin didn't make here), wrote in his part on "Money and the Dying-out of the monetary System":
Quote:Communist society will know nothing of money. Every worker will produce goods for the general welfare. He will not receive any certificate to the effect that he has delivered the product to society; he will receive no money, that is to say. In like manner, he will pay no money to society when he receives whatever he requires from the common store. A very different state of affairs prevails in socialist society, which is inevitable as an intermediate stage between capitalism and communism. Here money is needed, for it has a part to play in commodity economy.In any event, the disappearance of money was discussed by the Bolsheviks in the early days after their coup.
IdPnSD wrote:if you remove money from the present system, called central bank economy (CBE), it will immediately become MLE. There is no need to change anything.We are not advocating the abolition of money as such but the establishment of a system of society, based von common ownership of the means of wealth production, which, among other things, will render money unnecessary and redundant. So we are not advocating just abolishing money and leaving everything else unchanged as you are advocating including private ownership of means of production, i.e in effect capitalism without money. That would cause chaos because capitalism could not function without money.To repeat, what we want is to replace class ownership of the means of production by common ownership by the whole community. Then money, along with wages, profits, interest, rent, etc become redundant and disappear.
This Canadian pilot project is not really about a universal basic income. It's about an unconditional basic income for people who would otherwise be on some other, means-tested state handout, i.e. it doesn't apply to everybody but only to those on below poverty line incomes. And although the payments won't be means-tested the recipients will be pre-selected on this basis. So, more a reform of the poor law than a step towards breaking the link between work and consumption. Which is the most "UBI" will amount to if it is ever implemented.
moderator1 wrote:Granted at one time Pozzi was deliberately bumping his posts to advertise his link. However, the last time he posted on that thread was 11/04/17 and it contained no advert. The thread was then bumped up by Marcos on the 12/04/17.But why is it now showing that Marcos sent something today at 1.41pm when there's nothing there since 12.04.17?
Quote:by mcolome124/04/2017 – 1:41pmI'm half-way through reading it and actually it's rather good. Peter Joseph has come along way since his first Zeitgeist film and its conspiracy theories. He now openly identifies capitalism and its production for sale on a market with a view to profit as the root cause of most of the problems facing society, even contrasting "the ownership class" with "the wage-working majority" and talking of a "class war" of the "upper class" against the "lower class". He also argues that it is ultimately futile to try to change this system as it can be changed to work in any other way than it does, so "only deep system changes will prove to have long-standing effects". It's almost as if he's taken on board some of the criticisms we have made of Zeitgeist, e.g. that it's not a question of convincing enough people of good will to bring about a non-money, non-market society but that it's going to have to involve a struggle against a well-entrenched privileged minority. I know what his alternative to capitalism is going to be but am reading on to see what he is going to suggest as to how to get there.
