[ALB]

According to the discussion of this incident on Urban75 they were "intersectionalists" (whatever they are, some kind of "identity politics", I think)

[ALB]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

In another article of interest is the coping mechanism of an Andalusian village that has become  a co-op with occupations of land owned by the rich.http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/marinaleda-spanish-communist-village-utopia

We discussed this in the Socialist Standard in June 2012 (it's always coming up):  http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2012/no-1294-june-2012/cooking-books-socialism-one-village

[ALB]

I went to the talk yesterday at the Anarchist Bookfair by the Wine & Cheese Appreciation Society on "Don't read Marx with Harvey". I had expected a criticism of his underconsumptionism or his Keynesianism or something like that, but the criticism was more fundamental. They handed out a sheet containing the following statement made by Harvey at a meeting in New York last 14 November in which he talked of an alternative money:

Quote:

Representation of value in the money form is a perversion of what value is about, it's a contradiction.[…] What this would suggest is that if you want to prevent class formation, if you want to prevent the individual appropriation of social value, then you would have to come up with a money form that is anti accumulation. Marx says that gold and silver are the money commodities because they are not oxidisable. […] They maintain their character. You can accumulate value, social power. And we see what happens in societies… But if you had a money form that dissolved, that is oxidisable, we would end up with a very different kind of society. You would have a money form that would aid circulation but that would not facilitate accumulation.

This apparent advocacy of an "oxidizable money" has become a standing joke in some circles and has completely discredited Harvey in their eyes — as, if true, it should. A video of Harvey stating this can be found here:http://vimeo.com/53579139#t=1h55m19sThe speaker's case was that this showed that Harvey had not understood that in the opening chapters of Capital Marx was criticising the whole concept of exchange, of producers working separately and then exchanging their products to get what they needed to live, and that this had led him to think that Marx was objecting only to money that could be accumulated but not to one that couldn't be.Unfortunately, it was presented as Harvey misunderstanding the difference between "socially necessary labour" and "abstract labour". This may be the case but the point would have been clearer if the speaker had simply said that, as Harvey was speaking of a new form of money that could not be accumulated, he had completely misunderstood Marx who clearly held that the end of capitalism meant the end of exchange, money and value.If Harvey really does advocate an "oxidizable money" then he will join the long line of people who are quite good at putting over Marx's criticism but are hopeless when it comes to the alternative to capitalism (as were those historians who were very good at applying to the materialist conception of history to the past but had a blind spot when it came to the USSR).

[ALB]

gnome wrote:

Saturday, 19 October from 11.00am – Queen Mary's University, E1 4NSLiterature Stall at the Anarchist Bookfairhttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/literature-stall-anarchist-bookfair-east-london-1100am

Seven members were there at various times to maintain a stall from 11am to 5pm — outside, because as a "party" we are banned from having one inside, even though much more "authoritarian" groups from an anarchist point of view are admitted, e.g. CWO and the Marxist-Humanists. Got some sympathy from some for our situation. Gave away leaflets, made a few sales, chatted with some sympathisers and ex-members, got some contacts. Witnessed an ugly incident outside. An Australian supporter of Wikileaks who was addressing an outdoor meeting was shouted down by a group of feminists chanting "rape apologist" and "no platform". And we thought anarchists were supposed to be in favour of free speech. Perhaps they were anarcho-trots.

[ALB]

admice wrote:

Where can I find more info on broad-church or multi-tendency" approach?

Here, for instance:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latitudinarianhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_ChurchBut, seriously, the Labour Party in the UK has been described as a "broad church", i.e anybody can join whatever their views as long as they broadly share its aims.

[ALB]

L. Bird seems to be doing a good job without needing our help !

[ALB]

Silly title because you can support a war without thinking that it's glorious and I bet some of them think that World War Two was glorious.

[ALB]

admice wrote:

Did I miss it or do they not quote their sources?

I assume you mean for the claim that the resources exist to more than adequately feed the present world's population (since Young Master Smeet has provide those refuting the "overcrowding" issue)?The chapter from the pamphlet does give a couple of sources:

Quote:

Godwin's point about every extra human being bringing in an extra pair of hands is still valid. The real issue is whether the social system allows those hands to be used to produce the extra wealth. It has long been known that the world can produce more than enough food for all. Lord Boyd-Orr, the first Director-General of the FAO, pointed out: 'There was no difficulty about producing enough food for the present population of the world, or even twice that number, but the problem was, could politics and economics arrange that the food that was produced was dispersed and consumed in the countries that needed it?' (The Times, 22 July 1949). At the second international agricultural aviation conference in Paris in 1962, Dr. Maan, the director of the International Agricultural Aviation Centre at the Hague, was reported as saying: 'The world's population, now a little over 2,000 million was expected to reach 6,000 million in the not very distant future. It had been calculated that the earth could support a population of 28,000 million if food production were organised on lines now known to be practicable' (The Times, 24 September 1962).

I know these are dated and that the world's population has grown since then but so has the capacity to produce, if only because of the extra "pairs of hands" that Godwin and YMS have mentioned.The second article was part of a special issue on "A World of Abundance". Here's the accompanying article on Food Production (with more sources):http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1970/no-792-august-1970/food-production-world-can-feed-us-allFor a more up-to-date article (with plenty of sources — 29 in fact!) see:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/depth-articles/resources/how-we-could-feed-world

[ALB]

I'd say the difference would be over campaigning for reforms to capitalism (which they do and we don't) and over the definition of socialism (they think it's got to do with government ownership; we don't), but our companion party in the US should be able to tell you more:http://wspus.org/The wikipedia entry on our companion party there says:

Quote:

… they criticize the Socialist Party USA for policies such as advocating full employment rather than dealing with the structural issue of the need for wage labor in capitalist society.

The principles of the SPUSA to which you provide a link confirms that this (which is impossible under capitalism and meaningless in socialism) is among the things they advocate.

[ALB]

Dave wrote:

ALB when you  talk about campaigning for socialism I wondered what you means by this. Is it the same as the reformists or even the so called revolutionary left when they become involved in say campaigns to defend the NHS without mentioning that a true NHS which will deliver quality health care to all is impossible under capitalism and that it's only with  ! global socialist society that such a service can be provided.

No, not at all ! I meant literally campaigning directly for socialism (as a classless, stateless, wageless society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, with distribution on the principle of "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs"), not for reforms to capitalism however desirable these might seem but, as you say, probably won't or can't be.Here's an example of the sort of leaflet we put out for, eg, "Save the NHS" campaigns:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/world-socialist-movement/whittington-hospital

[ALB]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

poverty exists because of property distribution and politics, not because of the absolute number of human beings.

This is developed in this chapter from one of our pamphlets:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/questions-day#myth_overpopand in this article from the Socialist Standard;http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1970/no-792-august-1970/not-too-many-people

[ALB]

This year's "Nobel" Prize for economics has reverted to form and has been awarded to three professors who have studied something quite useless, and which falls only marginally within economics — stock market and other assets bubbles;http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/15/business/3-american-professors-awarded-nobel-in-economic-sciences.html?_r=0Junk economics which will have absolutely no relevance in socialism.

[ALB]

We also publish some of the letters we receive on the Comments section here (or rather that's where they end up if you make a comment on an article that appears in online version of the Socialist Standard). Makes for a quicker turnaround than waiting for the next month's issue.

[ALB]

gnome wrote:

Turnout was 48.74% which was down on the 2010 election.

That's not bad compared with turnout in UK local elections which, in some places, is half that. Even for the high-profile London mayor election in 2012 the turnout was only 38%.

[ALB]

More detailed result here:http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/local-body-elections/9276561/Rachel-Reese-wins-Nelson-mayoraltyI see that in NZ they use the first-past-the-post system for electing mayors while they use some proportional representation system for parliament. The opposite to here, where you can't be elected mayor with less than 50% of the votes (after redistribution of the second preferences of the bottom candidates).By the way, I don't think he was an official Zeitgeist candidate even though he was expressing their ideas. I think they give their members a free hand to stand in elections or even join a party if they want to while as an organisation being "non-political".

[Author]

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