ALB
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Bought this as a second-hand pamphlet at the SP's Summer School in Birmingham last weekend:https://libcom.org/library/karl-marx-iroquois-franklin-rosemontIt's based on Marx's Enthnological Notebooks of 1881 and throws some light on Marx's attitude to LH Morgan which Engels used as the basis of his Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. I didn't know that Darwin mentioned Morgan too (for a study of beavers).
Dave B wrote:The idea of 1845 that somehow or another “democracy” was automatically synonymous with communism.Here's Marx expressing the sane idea in an article in the New York Daily Tribune in1852:
Quote:We now come to the Chartists, the politically active portion of the British working class. The six points of the Charter which they contend for contain nothing but the demand of Universal Suffrage, and of the conditions without which Universal Suffrage would be illusory for the working class; such as the ballot, payment of members, annual general elections. But Universal Suffrage a is the equivalent for political power for the working class of England, where the proletariat forms the large majority of the population, where, in a long, though underground civil war, it has gained a clear consciousness of its position as a class, and where even the rural districts know no longer any peasants, but only landlords, industrial capitalists (farmers) and hired laborers. The carrying of Universal Suffrage in England would, therefore, be a far more socialistic measure than anything which has been honored with that name on the Continent.Its inevitable result, here, is the political supremacy of the working class.If only …
Read it now. It's more about acquitting Babeuf, who was a leading figure in an insurrection in 1795 to restore the constitution of 1793 in France, than Marx of the charge of standing for the rule of a vanguard party. The author takes it for granted Marx (or rather Marx-and-Engels) was not guilty of this. In fact she relies as much on Engels as on Marx.
Dave B wrote:Karl and Fred had been non democratic MarxistsI don't think that's fair. While in 1848-9 they did subscribe to the idea of a minority-led revolution (which they soon abandoned) the aim was to establish political democracy, not for the minority to hold on to power as Blanqui (and later Lenin) advocated.In fact, prior to then and again in 1848 Marx was the editor of a bourgeois-democratic paper in accordance with his (mistaken) belief, as expressed at the end of the Communist Manifesto, that "the bourgeois revolution in Germany will be but the prelude to an immediately following proletarian revolution"
Capitalist Pig wrote:Just for me to learn some more from you guys, are there any more major differences between Democratic Communists and Marxists or is the regulation of science the main dividing factor? For some reason I think there are some more differences between these ideologies
ThanksOne difference is that there is only one "Democratic Communist" in the world and that there are somewhat more "Marxists". That doesn't necessarily make him wrong, though.
Capitalist Pig wrote:What I got from all of your comments is that Marxism is just the perception of what people thought Marx meant by 'this' or 'that' and 'Communist Theory' Is something more ideologically solid.There is a difference between what what Marx did, said or meant (which is largely a question of fact) and "Communist Theory" (a question of definition). But, unfortunately, the definition of the word "Communist" is just as disputed as is "Marxism".Many people, perhaps most people, associate it with what went on in Russia under Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and their successors and imitators in other countries. But others, for example us, dispute this and say that this was state capitalism not communism. We don't often use the word communism but when we do we use it in the same sense as the word socialism, i.e. to describe a society based on the common or social ownership and democratic control of the means of production by the whole community or society, so that they can be used to turn out goods and services directly to satisfy people's needs instead of, as at present under capitalism, for sale with a view to profit.Also, there were communists (in this sense) before Marx (that's where he got the idea from) and others who are and have been but who don't claim to be "Marxists", e.g. the anarchist Kropotkin. So the term, even when correctly used, is different from "Marxism".
moderator1 wrote:Under…Am I breaking the rules if I suggest that it is unwise of you to intervene in a debate under that name to express a point of view?It means that you cannot later intervene as moderator should this be necessary. Haven't you another hat to wear to take part in debates?
Here's the Pope on what the war between the Islamic State and the West is really about:http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/27/europe/france-church-attack-aftermath/
Quote:There is a war of interest, there is a war for money, a war for natural resources, a war to dominate people. Some might think it is war of religion. It is not.A Papal Non-Bull then.
I saw Owen Smith, the stalking horse put up by the Labour MPs who see Corbyn as a threat to their career,on TV last night talking about the need for a "socialist revolution". The BBC showed him saying:
Quote:"A faith that our country can't just have a brilliant past but a future as bright as its past… where the fruits of our collective success are shared once more, more equally.To achieve that, he argued, "we need revolution not evolution", and added: "Not some misty-eyed romantic notion of a revolution to overthrow capitalism and return to a socialist nirvana."But a cold-eyed, practical, socialist revolution, where we build a better Britain and look the country in the eye and say 'this is possible'."Obviously a cynical, opportunist move to try to win over Corbyn voters. I doubt if it will work, though, given Smith's manifest insincerity as well as the incoherence of what he said, i.e he wants a "socialist revolution" but not one to "overthrow capitalism". And what "return" to a "socialist nirvana" which he seems to think once existed?if he really believes that "we need revolution not evolution" then it's him not Corbyn who is out of line with what the Labour Party has always stood for. In fact some of the anti-Corbyn MPs must be rather embarrassed at their champion using such language (which Corbyn himself doesn't), though, as experienced vote-catchers, they may take the view that the important thing is winning and that this end justifies any dishonest means.
Capitalist Pig wrote:I know Marx said 'that he was no marxist' and wanted nothing to do with people calling themselves marxistThe first part is true insofar as Marx was reported as saying that he wasn't a Marxist but the second is not, i.e. it is not true that Marx wanted nothing to do with people calling themselves Marxists. After all, they were people who were sympathetic to his point of view, so he was in effect telling them not to use the term. The term was in fact invented by Marx's opponents in the First International in the 1870s to describe those who took Marx's side. They, in turn, dubbed their opponents "Bakuninists".Eventually, after Marx's death, socialists who accepted his analysis of capitalism, his theory of history and his advocacy of political action to achieve socialism accepted the term and began to call themselves Marxists. And it stuck. Unfortunately, there are Marxists and Marxists (or even Marxists and "Marxists").I think it safe to say that Marx would have wanted nothing to do with "Marxism" as the ideology of state capitalist regimes, past, present and future (Russia, China, Trotskyists, etc) as regimes which maintain minority rule, wage-labour, production for sale..
Looks more like Attlee getting a taste of his own medicine. He criticises (presumably) those who criticise him for accommodating to capitalism when he was prime minister as "doctrinaire socialists" only to be criticised by the Tories as one himself. But, again, when he make the alleged statement?
jondwhite wrote:I heard recently that Attlee spoke out against what he called "doctrinaire socialists". Is this a simple Labour misrepresentation or is there more to this?When exactly did he say this? That will have some importance as to what he meant.
Horace Jarvis was a member. See his obituary here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1975/no-856-december-1975/obituary-horace-jarvisWhen he was in the Communist Party he had been in their front organisation, the League of Militant Atheists, but when the CP adopted the Popular Front policy of union with any anti-fascists including Christians it was dissolved. He refused to accept this and this presumably was the reason he was expelled.The Party did not publish his pamphlet as its approach (eg pointing out the contradictions between different passages in the bible) was old-fashioned Free Thinker atheism. So he published it himself. It's ok if you like that sort of thing but the Party has a more sophisticated, materialist analysis of religion.
Quote:only sheep need leadersI'm beginning to wonder whether this slogan is correct. I am on holiday in the middle of Wales and was stopped on the road by a farmer's daughter and told to wait as a flock of sheep was coming. I looked carefully for a leading sheep but couldn't identify one. Their movement appeared to be governed from behind by someone in a landrover and two sheepdogs.I am not sure what the political consequences of this are.
