ALB
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I know this will risk kicking things off again but as a second-hand bookshop near me was closing down and selling its stock off at half-price i bought for £1.50 a copy of a book entitled A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science to see if it would throw any light on where LBird is coming from. It's not a very interesting book (too technical) but there were some parts that were. As far as I can see, the person who comes nearest to LBird's position is the physicist Ernst Mach (who is attacked by Lenin in his notorious Materialism and Empirio-Criticism) when he wrote:
Quote:in the investigation of nature, we have to deal only with knowledge of the connexion of apperarances with one another. What we represent to ourselves behind the appearances exists only in our understanding, and has for us only the value of a memoria technica or formula, whose form, because it is artbitrary and irrelevant, varies very easily with the standpoint of our culture.Apparently, throughout history, there have been two main schools of thought: the "realists, who according to the book's author John Losee, argue that:
Quote:scientists ought to seek to formulate true theories that depict the nature of the universe.and the "instrumentalists" whose position is that
Quote:scientific theories are calculating devices that facilitate the organization and prediction of statements about observations. It is statements about observations that are true or false. Theories are merely "useful" or "not useful".My sympathises in this debate would lie with the "instrumentalists" but I wouldn't argue that this is the "communist" position and that "realists" cannot be socialists/communists. After all, we get enough stick for ruling out people with religious views and don't need to also rule out fellow materialists who take a different view of what "science" is trying to do.By the way, the book says that Galileo was a "realist" and Pope Urban VIII an "instrumentalist". I hadn't realised before but it seems that the Church would have been prepared to accept Galileo's argumentation if only he had offered it as one alternative theory to explain why the Sun appeared to go round the Earth rather than as being "true".
baloch wrote:Religion is also a tool for oppressor. No it is not a hope for a hopeless world neither the heart of a heartless world, it could be if there was merely One religion.I don't see why there needs to be a single religion to describe it as the heart of a heartless world. Different religions offer consolation in different ways. And also different ways of frightening people into obeying their precepts. Christianity and Islam teach that you'll rot in hell forever if you don't obey. Hinduism and Buddhism tell you that you'll come back as a worm. Judaism, which doesn't believe in an afterlife, teaches that your descendants will suffer for 3 or 4 generations. All ways of getting people to submit to social arrangements which, I agree, benefit an exploting, ruling class (not necessarily or even normally a priesthood). Islam actually means "submission". Full marks for honesty (but nothing else) !
I should have said that it wasn't anti-Islamist enough. With their religious cleansing in Iraq they are just as bad as Israel if not worse.
I think the argument that religion is a racket set up by priests for their own economic benefit is simplistic. Certainly some priests do well out of it (the cardinals and bishops of the Roman Catholic Church and the bishops of the Anglican church for instance and many priesthoods in the past) but I don't think we can say that this is what religion is all about. I think Marx got it right in his early atheistic writings that religion is also the cry of the opressed, the heart of a heartless world (or is it the hope of a hopeless world?), the opium of the people and that, therefore, the criticism of religion should lead on to the criticism of the social and economic conditions that give rise to the need for religion, i.e the heartless, hopeless world where the oppressed need it as a drug to cope with their misery and oppression.
Oddly perhaps, one of the clearest modern explanations of why a tax on wages ends up as a tax on profits was set out in a discussion document on a proposed tax policy for UKIP that used to be on their site. It was written by Godfrey Bloom, described as a "financial economist". At the time he was one of their MEPs. Later he was booted out of UKIP for making a politically incorrect remark about women and his proposal taken down. But we kept a copy.Here's the relevant extracts from his document:
Quote:1. 2 The earnings of employed people are not a legitimate target for taxationIncome tax (and NI) extracted from wages through the PAYE system is, by its nature, severely counter-productive.Like VAT there is a general failure to distinguish the mechanics of the tax’s calculation from its incidence (who actually bears it). Tax under PAYE is calculated by reference to a purely notional figure called "gross pay", which no employed person in history has ever seen, let alone touched or spent. The employee's real income is of course the net pay; and that amount of tax which has been "deducted" is always the employer's liability, to be remitted by the employer to HMRC in full, every month. As with VAT, the employers are the de facto tax-collectors. In this case they are also the tax-payers!Quote:1. 3. Every attempt to tax wages sets in motion a "shifting" process whereby the tax finishes up as a corporate impost anywayThis phenomenon was clearly set out 220 years ago in Adam Smith’s illustration of an employee earning £100. If the state imposes a tax of 20% his pay must rise by 25% in order to re-instate the employee's former purchasing power (£100). He must now be paid £125 so that the 20% tax leaves him with disposable earnings of £100. In practice there may be a time-lag over which purchasing power (or the basic standard of living) is restored, but national statistics always show a ratio between real (net) pay and GDP that tends toward a constant. The effect is always inflationary as the costs, no matter how notional, feature in the revised price structure.1 4. You cannot "tax" the earnings of those who are paid out of taxesThe application of the entire PAYE rigmarole to employees in the public sector is a nonsensical charade whereby tax on the imaginary figure of "gross" pay of public sector employees is "taken" by HMRC and given straight back to HMRC in its capacity as collector.We know from the above arguments that taxing people's wages finishes up in effect as a corporate tax when the ramifications are laid bare, but the notion of applying this process to the earnings of those who are paid out of taxes lends it a still more farcical twist. It enters into price structures throughout the community and thereby fuels inflation and distorts all public sector costings.Bloom's beef was that PAYE taxes fall disproportionately on smaller businesses, a section of the capitalist class that UKIP seeks to represent (and does represent to a certain extent). But he still made a valid point that had been made by David Ricardo and by Marx as well as by Adam Smith.
That's the ideal of bourgeois justice even if it's more honoured in the breach than in the observance. But it doesn't say anything about the content of the laws, i.e that today they are mainly concerned with protecting private property especially that of those who have lots of it. So do we socialists want those laws to be fairly enforced?
Actually I think it's the other way round. Rather than people lining up to benefit from "Piketty's reform" (which is not going to happen anyway as he himself admits) it is long-time reformists lining up to use Piketty's analysis to back up their already-launched reform campaign. A bit like how in the 1930s and 40s long-time reformists used Keynes's ideas on government intervention to back up their call for this.It's not even as if these people's particular reform is desirable anyway. It's not about redistributing wealth and income from the rich, whether men or women or black, blue or white, to the non-rich, whether men, women or whatever, but about redistributing wealth and income from all "white" men, including workers, to all women and "people of colour", including capitalists.
beler1 wrote:Vladimir Putin's recent speech about the heroes of WW1 is also worth reading, if only for the telling sentence:'But this victory [i.e. of Russia in WW1] was stolen from our country. It was stolen by those who called for the defeat of their homeland and army, who sowed division inside Russia and sought only power for themselves, betraying the national interests.'I see he really did say that ! In fact the whole of his speech is really terrible. You wouldn't think he was talking about the Tsarist regime. Another extract:
Quote:The Russian army’s great values and the heroic experience of the generation who fought in World War I played a big part in our people’s spiritual and moral upsurge at that moment. This was a generation that was fated to go through not just the difficult trials of the first global world war, but also the revolutionary upheaval and fratricidal civil war that split our country and changed its destiny.But their feats and their sacrifices in Russia’s name were forgotten for long years. World War I itself, which the rest of the world calls the Great War, was erased from our country’s history and was labelled simply ‘imperialist’. Today, we are restoring the historical truth about World War I and are discovering countless examples of personal courage and military skill, and the true patriotism of Russia’s soldiers and officers and the whole of Russian society. We are discovering the role Russia played in that difficult and epoch-changing time for the world, especially in the pre-war years. And what we see reflects very clearly the defining features of our country and our people.Russia over many centuries supported strong and trusting relations between countries. This was the case on the eve of World War I too, when Russia did everything it could to convince Europe to find a peaceful and bloodless solution to the conflict between Serbia and Austro-Hungary. But Russia’s calls went unheeded and our country had no choice but to rise to the challenge, defend a brotherly Slavic people and protect our own country and people from the foreign threat. Russia stayed true to its duties as an ally. The Russian offensives in Prussia and Galicia upset the adversary’s plans and made it possible for our allies to hold the front and defend Paris. The enemy was forced to turn its attention and direct a large part of its forces east where Russian regiments put up the fiercest possible struggle. Russia withstood the attack and was then able to launch an offensive. The Brusilov offensive became famous throughout the whole world.But this victory was stolen from our country. It was stolen by those who called for the defeat of their homeland and army, who sowed division inside Russia and sought only power for themselves, betraying the national interests.Up until 1990 people in Russia were taught that WW1 was an "imperialist" war (as it was). Now it is in the interest of the current ruling class there to "revise" this and present this war as a heroic, nation(alist) episode. We hold no brief for the Bolsheviks (quite the opposite) but they were right on this point (as were the Menshevik Internationalists too).
If the writer had based their article on the editorial in this month's Standard they would have seen that the position the Economist of the time took up is referred to
Quote:Rather surprising is the position of another pro-ruling class historian, Niall Ferguson, who argues that Britain should have stayed out and let the Continental Powers fight it out amongst themselves. This was in fact the position taken up by some members of the Liberal government at the time.Four members of the Liberal government actually resigned over the issue:http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/document_packs/p_diplomaticsituation.htmWe have always recognised that the capitalist class is not a monolithic bloc but that different sections have different interests, as in this case.John Burns, incidentally, a former member of the SDF, was the first "working man" to become a cabinet minister. At least on this issue he was right if for the wrong reason.
ALB wrote:UK GDP has indeed reached its pre-2008 level but, as has been pointed out, GDP per head of population is not expected to reach its pre-crisis level for another three years (because of course the population has increased since then).Confirmation of this in an article in the Independent a couple of days ago:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/britain-facing-lost-decade-of-economic-growth-9647817.html
Brilliant article in today's Times by David Aaronovitch entitled "The glory of independence is just a mirage" and subtitled "As a separate nation Scotland would end up with less autonomy as it dragged along in the tow of its bigger neighbour". Unfortunately you have to register or pay to read the Times on line.The best part is where he imagines the arguments a fictional Marxist used to put against Scottish independence:
Quote:Let us imagine a true Scots Marxist of the old scholarly school and call her Catriona Lenin. Subjecting what has happened since the 1960s to a "class analysis" she would doubtless conclude that the Scottish bourgeoisie found its interests imperfectly represented by British Toryism and so gradually went over to the SNP.Catriona would have no trouble in showing how the Scottish elite has got behind nationalism and independence, disguising (as it always does) its own interests in the language of idealism. Imagine how that part of the Scots establishment that doesn't live in London or Los Angeles stands to gain from independence! Think of all those new ambassadors to the US, Paris, and Buenos Aires! The new Scottish Broadcasting Corporation with its own DG and parallel bureaucracy! All those government contractsgoing to Scottish architects, subsidies to Scottish artists and so on. Valhalla with better food.Meanwhile nothing else, predicts grumpy Catriona, will change. She points out the cake-and-eat-it character of Salmondism, in which no difficult choices are made, almost nothing is actually altered — not the Queen, taxes, currency or property — yet everything is somehow different. Young people will be better off with a Yes! There'll be no austerity in Scotland with a Yes! And no bill.One of his arguments is that his neighbours who used to put this argument no longer do but have gone over to supporting independence as they imagine that an independent Scotland would be able to pursue a more reformist policy (but which he convincingly argues they wouldn't be able to because independence for small countries is a mirage). Would could his neighbours be? Tariq Ali for one?Bring back Catriona (Marx) !
Email received from a sympathiser in Canada who is not on this forum:
Quote:You have possibly seen this article by Paul Craig Roberts. I only got a little way into it and I clicked on the second link below and I have not yet finished reading Roberts. Apparently there are two articles, one following the other.]The article in Global Research, whose articles on all sorts of subjects are usually well researched, is an excellent documentation of the evolution of Ukraine and Russia's present relationship. At the end of this description the author describes the likelihood that Ukraine is being set up as an American base — leading to the possibility of outright war. [Roberts is more or less confirming this in his documentation.] From the political point-of-view Russia could not afford to have theFifth Fleet anchored in the Crimea and had to take it back. Will the threat of American troupes training with and supplying military equipment on their Ukraine border be acceptable to Russia?Perhaps when the Ukrainian population realises the terms of the World Bank loans, which will throw the country into even worse poverty, they may create another Maiden to throw this government out, but that could become a bloody civil war since the U.S. wouldn't want to let Ukraine go.Trevorhttp://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39229.htmThe World Is Doomed By Western InsoucianceDon't expect to live much longerBy Paul Craig Robertshttp://www.globalresearch.ca/collapse-of-ukraine-government-prime-minister-yatsenyuk-resigns-amidst-pressures-exerted-by-the-imf/5393168Collapse of Ukraine Government: Prime Minister Yatsenyuk Resigns amidst Pressures Exerted by the IMF By Prof Michel Chossudovsky ____________________"If everyone demanded peace insteadof another television set, then there'dbe peace."1940 – 1980 – John LennonThe Monument is an entertaining read but it's not really a history of the SPGB, more a series of anecdotes (some of them rather dubious) about events and members. It probably doesn't do us any harm though, even if the title was deliberately chosen from an opponent's jibe that the "SPGB is more a monument than a movement". Baltrop was not a member of the party when he first drafted it. As we said in his obituary:
Quote:He was best known though for his work The Monument (1975), which remains a fascinating and entertaining introduction to the history of the SPGB. The book was largely written in the 1960s while he was out of contact with the Party, which explains the contentiousness of some of its many stories, anecdotes and perceptions.So enjoy it but don't take what it says as gospel.
Not sure about that. If we want to go down that road it would have to be 'Neither Edinburgh nor London' since we haven't got anything against the elected assemblies as such that sit in Holyrood or Westminster (have we?). But I still say it makes more sense, for a write-in vote (since this is what it is), to reject the two choices on offer on the actual ballot paper.
