ALB
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I think you've missed the point. YMS wants to know if it is a fact that you are a communist. I think it is, but do you/can you?
We all know that Piketty is a reformist who wants to try and regulate capitalism to benefit the majority, which can't be done. But you've still not, L. Bird, given your opinion on the statistics produced by Piketty in chapter 10 on the 'Inequality of Capital Ownership'. Are they underestimates, overestimates, biased, complete fabrications or what? Are you saying that we can't use them to back up our case that capitalism is based on the ownership and control of the means of production by a tiny minority?
I agree that we should be wary of seeing these things as an upper class or Establishment 'vice' as certain populists are (a couple of members came across a demonstration outside parliament on Friday which they described as a 'lynch mob' chanting "Kick the pedos out of parliament"). After all, this was what some on the left traditionally saw homosexuality as.
Here's another example I just remembered about which shows that at one time there was general agreement as to what socialism meant. It's from, of all people, Stalin in 1907:
Quote:Future society will be socialist society. This means also that, with the abolition of exploitation commodity production and buying and selling will also be abolished and, therefore, there will be no room for buyers and sellers of labour power, for employers and employed— there will be only free workers.Future society will be socialist society. This means, lastly, that in that society the abolition of wage-labour will be accompanied by the complete abolition of the private ownership of the instruments and means of production; there will be neither poor proletarians nor rich capitalists—there will be only workers who collectively own all the land and minerals, all the forests, all the factories and mills, all the railways, etc.As you see, the main purpose of production in the future will be to satisfy the needs of society and not to produce goods for sale in order to increase the profits of the capitalists. Where there will be no room for commodity production, struggle for profits, etc.It is also clear that future production will be socialistically organised, highly developed production, which will take into account the needs of society and will produce as much as society needs. Here there will be no room whether for scattered production, competition, crises, or unemployment.Where there are no classes, where there are neither rich nor poor, there is no need for a state, there is no need either for political power, which oppresses the poor and protects the rich. Consequently, in socialist society there will be no need for the existence of political power.From here: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1906/12/x01.htm
As one of the papers pointed out yesterday this event is going to provide material for conspiracy theorists for years to come. On a more serious level, I recall the US shooting down an Iranian airliner in (I've just checked) 1988:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655What I don't recall is the media's concern at the time for the innocent travellers who were killed, eg no stories about the 66 children who perished, but then of course Iran was the enemy of the West whereas Russia is becoming again particularly over into whose sphere of influence Ukraine falls. And of course I don't think any Europeans were among the victims.
The other side of the coin, illustrating another way capitalism distorts things but is quite normal under it:http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/jul/16/karl-marx-das-kapital-sold-for-40000-dollarsNot that this disproves the labour theory of value as this is about the value of something that can be reproduced whereas a first edition of Das Kapital, like unique works of art, can't be. So their price (they have virtually no labour-time value) reflects only the demand for them, as Marx explained in Das Kapital (if the purchaser bothers to read it).
There's chapter 3 of this 1967 pamphlet of ours which argues that at one time there was more or less agreement amongst those calling themselves socialists as to what the aim was (even if only the "ultimate" aim for some and there was much disagreement over how to get there) but that later on, in the 20th century, there came to be disagreement not only over means but also over the aim:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/russia-1917-1967-socialist-analysis
Apparently our press release gets a mention in today's Independent in "Andy McSmith's Diary" on page 20, if someone wants to check.
Jamie Rose wrote:you really deny that opposing it would have meant accepting the rule of the Kaiser at some point down the line? His plans to move into the rest of Europe after Austro Hungary and Belgium are, by now, well documented.Germany invaded Austro-Hungary in 1914? Is he a joker or an ignoramus? The second, I think.
ALB wrote:"Multiculturalism" is the government policy of encouraging historically-evolved cultural groups to identify with that group and to construct and teach them a concocted history to that end. I'm opposed to it on the ground that it encourages identity politics instead of class politics. As was well explained in an article from Class War in 2007 which can be found by typing "cowley club" + "class war" + "multiculturalism" into a search engine (perhaps someone can find an easier way of accessing it. It's from the Summer 2007 and entitled "Multiculturalism — The Newspeak of the Left Cop".)Did you also have a hand in this article too?
Incidentally, one illusion Piketty does not share is to imagine that banks can create credit by the stroke of a pen. In fact he takes a similar position to ours:
Quote:What in fact do central banks do? For present purposes, it is important to realize that central banks do not create wealth as such; they redistribute it. More precisely, when the Fed or the ECB decides to create a billion additional dollars or euros, US or European capital is not augmented by that amount. In fact, national capital does not change by a single dollar or euro, because the operations in which central banks engage are always loans. They therefore result in the creation of financial assets and liabilities, which, at the moment they are created, exactly balance each other. For example, the Fed might lend $1 billion to Lehman Brothers or General Motors (or the US government) and these entities contract an equivalent debt. The net wealth of the Fed and Lehman Brothers (or General Motors) does not change at all, nor, a fortiori, does that of the United States or the planet. Indeed, it would be astonishing if central banks could simply by the stroke of a pen increase the capital of their nation or the world.(p. 550)I can think of various things we could do:1. Publish an article length review in the Socialist Standard2. Maybe also a shorter piece on where he gets Marx wrong.3. A meeting entitled "Have You Read Piketty?"4. Use his figures to update Chapter 7 of our The Market System Must Go! Why Reformism Doesn't Work pamphlet:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/market-system-must-go
