ALB
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We now know who are opponents are in Guildford West:Chandler (Tory), Dokimakis (Lab), Purvis (Green), White (LibDem) and Morris (Peace Party).White is the outgoing councillor. There is no UKIP candidate (no point anyway, now they've won the referendum).The Peace Party is a christian-inspired pacificist party, based in Guildford, which regularly contests elections there, including the last General Election. They are on the ballot paper as "The Peace Party – Non-Violence, Justice, Environment".In the rest of Surrey, there is one other candidate using the word "socialist" on the ballot paper: TUSC in Staines.
Alan is right. If you think "fiat money is made from debt" you haven't been following this thread. But what's the basis for this claim?
Hey, moderator, can't you do anything about this poncy ponzi? He's abusing our hospitability by making minor changes to past posts so his thread always appears at the top. A mark mof a real obsessive crank-pot
Prakash RP wrote:[ Would like to add the following text to my comment dated 02 April 2017: ' I wish British socialists would NOT fail to take cognisance … ' ] ' We hold that socialism ( or communism, the same thing ) can only come into being when a majority want it, i.e. it depends on majority political action,but you are never going to get a majority behave as you propose. ' [ ALB's comment dated 27/03/2017 ] I'd like to substitute the expressions ' a majority ' and ' majority political action ' in the above quote with respectively ' the majority of the politically active section of the working people ' and ' the political action of the majority of the politically active section of the working people '.Now we are getting to the bottom of it. This sounds like a formula for minority political action. Is it?
I'm reading (or re-reading, can't remember) Rudolf Hilferding's classic Finance Capital from 1910. He clearly understood how banks work:
Quote:As a provider of credit, the bank works with all the capital at its disposal; its own and that of others. Its gross profit consists of interest paid on the capital which it has lent. Its net profit – after deduction of expenses – is the difference between the interest paid to it and the interest, which it pays on deposits. This profit is not, therefore, profit in the strict sense, and its level is not determined by the average rate of profit. Like that of any other money capitalist it arises from interest. The position of middleman that the bank occupies in credit circulation enables it to profit not only from its own capital, like any other money capitalist, but also from that of its creditors to whom it pays a lower interest than it demands from its debtors.(…) The level of interest depends upon supply and demand of loan capital in general, of which bank capital is only a part. This level of interest determines the gross profit. In order to attract the greatest possible amount of money for their use, the banks in turn pay interest on their deposits; and the amount of such capital at the disposal of any bank depends, ceteris paribus, upon the level of interest which it pays on deposits. Competition for deposits compels the banks to pay the highest possible rate of interest. The difference between the interest which the banks receive as creditors and the interest which they pay as debtors constitutes their net profit. (p. 172)Of course, some banks also make profits from other activities such as share flotations but this is the investment banking side of the activities and of investment banks, which Hilferding is more interested in.
Prakash RP wrote:I wish British socialists would NOT fail to take cognisance of the following two points.( 1 ) There exists an irreconcilable contradiction between your matrimonial mission and your communist mission. By your matrimonial mission, I mean your duties and obligations towards your wife, supposing you're a man, and children, and your matrtimonial ( or familial ) duties and obligations are, in my view, ensuring the social and financial security and well-being as well as a decent lifestyle of your family members each and decent upbringing of the kids and decent livelihood of the grown-up kids. Nevertheless, the brute and inescapable truth is men are pitifully defficient in their capacity and calibre they need be possessed of in order to make a worthy husband or a worthy father.That might still be the situation in India but it is no longer the predominant one in Britain. Here, both "partners" work and in fact have to to maintain the same standard of living as in the times when the husband was the only "breadwinner". Here, the only women who marry to get a "meal ticket" are those who manage to catch a rich man, which means they don't need to go out and work for a wage — and who, when they get divorced, sue their ex-husbands for as much as they can get (and are regarded with contempt by most women as well as by all men). "Culture clash", as I said.
Prakash RP wrote:A communist, by my view, must appreciate that their way of living, like their words and actions, ought to be inspirational for the benighted millions, the born poor and deprived, that sweat blood, like beasts of burden, to produce all wealth and luxuries but lead a hard and humble existence themselves throughout their life.There seems to be a bit of a "culture clash " here. Is there some tradition in India of "holy men" who live like this and are respected by "the benighted millions"? I don't know. In any event, it is only the "masses" who can establish/socialism by and for themselves and not by following some minority of right-behaving socialists/communists.
Harry Young also said that vegetarianism was a capitalist plot to reduce wages by getting the workers to eat grass.
The nomination forms for our candidate in Lewes for East Sussex County Council, Howard Pilott, have been handed in and accepted.
Unlike the regular nuisances here Prakash does agree with the objective of a world classless, stateless, wageless, moneyless society of common ownership and democratic control. The trouble is that he seems to prioritise his code of behaviour for socialists within capitalist society telling us what we should or should not do (most of which we wouldn't dream of doing anyway). Which is annoying and puts people off. And he goes too far in what is to be shunned. Also, as has been noticed, his code assumes that only men can be socialists. Pity really that he doesn't concentrate instead on spreading the idea of socialism/communism as here:http://prakashrp-1.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/on-definition-of-communism.html
Why do you exaggerate all the time and draw invalid analogies? To say drinking is ok is not to condone "squandering" money on it. And "taking bribes" (and some other things you've mentioned such as rape) are not in the same category as drinking. Of course it is not a wise course of action for a socialist or any other worker for that matter to squander their money on drinking, gambling or drug-taking.
John Pozzi wrote:mmalcome1 wants a revolution, i.e., the forcible overthrow of the capitalist order.Oh dear. He expects us to plough through his crackpot stuff but can't be bothered to read what we say.For the record, our conception of revolution is the same as William Morris expressed in the opening lines of his pamphlet/talk How We Live and How We Might Live:
Quote:The word Revolution, which we Socialists are so often forced to use, has a terrible sound in most people's ears, even when we have explained to them that it does not necessarily mean a change accompanied by riot and all kinds of violence, and cannot mean a change made mechanically and in the teeth of opinion by a group of men who have somehow managed to seize on the executive power for the moment. Even when we explain that we use the word revolution in its etymological sense, and mean by it a change in the basis of society, people are scared at the idea of such a vast change, and beg that you will speak of reform and not revolution. As, however, we Socialists do not at all mean by our word revolution what these worthy people mean by their word reform, I can't help thinking that it would be a mistake to use it, whatever projects we might conceal beneath its harmless envelope. So we will stick to our word, which means a change of the basis of societyWhat makes you think that we, as world socialists, would be in the slight bit interested in news about setting up yet another capitalist state? You also seem rather naive as to who is behind this. You yourself say that Imperial Germany established a puppet state in Belorussia at the end of the First World Slaughter (and have the cheek to ask us to celebrate this). Similar forces are at work today, as they were in Yugoslavia and the Ukraine and look what happened there. Is that what you want? Another civil war with all the consequences for ordinary people.
