ALB
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Thanks. The editorial committee knows. One of the authors pointed out to us at the time the error about Seamus Lynch.
alanjjohnstone wrote:And a bio may very well reinforce people's perceptions that we are predominantly a white elderly male party.If it's the perception that we are all "elderly" it's wrong. We're not all OAPs ! Of the 10 candidates we put up at the last general election only 3 fell into that category, 5 were middle aged and 2 were younger than that.
alanjjohnstone wrote:But the SPGB case is not about diminishing a speakers presence or his attributes as a debater or speaker but simply on election leaflets and online statements by not having his photo or personal extraneous details such as if he is married, how many children, what age he is, what his job is or even his or her gender if we could.We certainly don't, and should continue not to, put such details on our election leaflets but I don't see any objection to supplying the media with some of this info (photo, age, job) if they ask. Some branches contesting elections do this. Others don't. It's not a question of promoting the "face" but of showing that our candidate is human and just like any other member of the working class. Besides, a photo in a newspaper helps draw attention to the text underneath. No need to cut off the nose to spite the face or should that be the other way round?
As it's in their catchment area I would have thought North London branch should be able to help out if you ask them.
I don't know who's idea it was but it doesn't seem good practice to change the rules just to accommodate one case, especially as a pragmatic solution has been found and accepted. If you change the rule it will have to apply to everyone. So the next time LBird is banned he'll be asking permission for somebody to post on his behalf and, if this is refused, then there'll be another long, tedious argument as to why the moderators did in the one case but not in the other.Best to leave things as they are.
Yes, probably. The electorate will be less, 74,000 and the constituency more compact. Head Office will be easily accessable from most parts of it (which wouldn't be the case if we end up in a Battersea constituency). A word of caution, though, the proposal might not go through as 2 of the wards are more in Brixton than Clapham and there may be objections to this from people in Brixton. A final decision won't be reached till 2018.
Your law was confirmed only a few weeks ago when someone likened the EC to a "central committee". Previously "Stalinist" and "North Korea" had been mentioned but also "fascist". Not yet had a manifestation of Kilwin's Law (or is it Godgallon's?) with "Red fascist" being used.But, seriously, haven't we enough threads on this stuff?
On my left is Irish Trotskyist Rayner O'Connor Lysaght (IMG in its day, I think). The meeting was supposed to be recorded but I pressed the wrong button.
Marx explains in Chapter 17 of Volume 3 of Capital on "Commercial Profit" how "commercial workers" acquire surplus value for their employer (but do not produce it):https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch17.htm
Quote:It is only through its function of realising values that merchant's capital acts as capital in the process of reproduction, and hence draws on the surplus-value produced by the total capital. The mass of the individual merchant's profits depends on the mass of capital that he can apply in this process, and he can apply so much more of it in buying and selling, the more the unpaid labour of his clerks. The very function, by virtue of which the merchant's money becomes capital, is largely done through his employees. The unpaid labour of these clerks, while it does not create surplus-value, enables him to appropriate surplus-value, which, in effect, amounts to the same thing with respect to his capital. It is, therefore, a source of profit for him. Otherwise commerce could never be conducted on a large scale, capitalistically.Just as the labourer's unpaid labour directly creates surplus-value for productive capital, so the unpaid labour of the commercial wage-worker secures a share of this surplus-value for merchant's capital.Quote:The commercial worker produces no surplus-value directly. But the price of his labour is determined by the value of his labour-power, hence by its costs of production, while the application of this labour-power, its exertion, expenditure of energy, and wear and tear, is as in the case of every other wage-labourer by no means limited by its value. His wage, therefore, is not necessarily proportionate to the mass of profit which he helps the capitalist to realise. What he costs the capitalist and what he brings in for him, are two different things. He creates no direct surplus-value, but adds to the capitalist's income by helping him to reduce the cost of realising surplus-value, inasmuch as he performs partly unpaid labour.Ernest Untermann in his Marxian Economics (ch. XVI) summarises Marx's argument here as:
Quote:The merchant has invested a certain amount of money-capital in a store, equipment, and wage laborers (clerks, salesmen, etc.). These wage laborers are unproductive like the merchant himself although they work for him a longer time than he pays for. But their surplus-labor is as unproductive as the capital of the merchant. They merely realize the surplus-value for the merchant, which was produced in the sphere of production, and make profits for him so much quicker, the more their unproductive surplus-labor is extended and their necessary labor shortened.Eduard Bernstein puts it this way in his Evolutionary Socialism:
Quote:By the simple fact that Marx applies the formula for the value of the whole of the commodities, to single commodities, it is already indicated that he makes the formation of surplus value fall exclusively in the sphere of production, where it is the industrial wage earner who produces it. All other active elements in modern economic life are auxiliary agents to production and indirectly help to raise the surplus value when they, for example, as merchants, bankers, etc., or their staff, undertake services for industry which would otherwise fall upon it, and so they lessen its cost. The wholesale dealers, etc., with their employees, are only transformed and differentiated clerks, etc., of the industrial entrepreneurs, and their profits are the transformed and concentrated charges of the latter. The employees for wages of these merchants certainly create surplus value for them, but no social surplus value. For the profit of their employers, together with their own wages, form a portion of the surplus value which is produced in the industry."Non productive" workers can be said to be "exploited", not in the sense of producing surplus value for their employer (which by definition they don't do) but by working longer hours than needed to replace the value of their labour power. This would apply to civil servants. Others, working in commerce, will, as has been pointed out, be working to allow their employer to grab a part of the surplus value produced in the productive sectors of the economy and be getting paid less than this.Marx himself didn't develop a clear-cut definition but sketched two, one of which leads to the paradox already mentioned (though not as a paradox) that a teacher working in a private school is "productive" (of surplus value for their profit-seeking employer) whereas one in a state school isn't (since they are paid out of the state's revenue). That is difficult to justify. The other definition that only those producing material things (including designing, etc them) are productive would make more sense, i.e that neither teacher is productive.But I wonder, given the interrelated nature of production and that labour power itself is a social product involving education, health care and indeed other services, whether, rather than trying to distinguish between "productive" and "non-productive" workers, a better approach will be to see the whole of the working class, whatever job they do, being exploited by the whole of the capitalist class?
I don't want to get into a debate about the video, but the Socialist Standard only publishes photos which are not copyright or are free. In fact we publish a list of the sources each month. See page 23 of this month's Standard (which includes Corbyn's photo on the front page)., for instance. Here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/sites/default/files/Socialist%20Standard%20September%202016.pdf
gnome wrote:For the time being I'll skirt around the EC's re-writing of Rule 17 and the fact that there is no provision in Rule to rescind the appointment of a sub-committee member.Irrespective of whether they should have exercised it in this case, I would have thought that it was clear that as the EC has the right under Rule 17 to appoint subcommittees (of the EC) it must also have the right to "unappoint" any member of one of (their) subcommittee.. This would be the standard relationship between a committee and its subcommittee(s) in any organisation. I am sure that the EC will have done this on some occasions in the past.
I notice that in rejecting the points system for immigrants, May spoke of "not free movement as it has been in the past". Which suggests that she is still in favour of "free movement" but wants it modified. I don't know what she has mind (she probably doesn't know herself at this stage) but it seems a good opening statement for negotiations on behalf of the British capitalist class with the rest of the EU, i.e we're in favour of the principle of "free movement" but would like to discuss its application. The europhobes are already up in arms about this but the majority section of the British capitalist class want to stay in the single market and will be prepared to accept some form of "free movement" if this is the price to pay.
