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I texted John to let him know about this and he says he'll resume letter-writing when his present problems are over. This confirms the impact of letters to the press in the North East. For instance:http://www.sunderlandecho.com/opinion/columnists/tuesday-january-9-2007-1-1128859http://www.shieldsgazette.com/opinion/your-letters/what-s-the-difference-1-1255064http://www.shieldsgazette.com/opinion/your-letters/rottenness-of-capitalism-1-1298259

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Never heard of him either but from the voting record you give I guessed he was a member of the Pope's Brass Band.

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Yes, there is a whole school of leftwing economic writers who argue that it is possible to explain how capitalism works without having recourse to the concept of "value". This is because they see "value" as "socially necessary labour time" and nothing more and so don't see it as a social relationship. (Others make the same mistake and end up arguing that value will continue to exist in socialism).But the social relationship that value represents is capitalism. Capitalist production is value-production, commodity production (the same thing), i.e the production of use-values for sale on a market by separate producers whose production is regulated by the market.I don't think this is a difficult concept to understand. Where you have private ownership (= ownership by sections of society, whether individuals, corporations, states or co-operatives) of means of production then what links these "private" producers is the market and articles are produced as commodities, as value.Where you have the common ownership by society as a whole of the means of production then there is production directly for use and distribution. There is no commodity-production, no value-production, no value, no money.Why is this so difficult a concept to grasp? Maybe it's the unusual language (value, commodity) but surely everybody can immediately understand the idea of a society without money (even if they don't think it could work)? I know that talking of "the abolition of money" gets us stick as "utopian", so some others prefer to talk of "the abolition of value" (which means the same) but at the risk of not being understood.Here's a group of activists making heavy weather of this simple idea:http://rosswolfe.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/marx-and-wertkritik/

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Quote:

Heinrich Scrotwengler von Grossteschattenburg

This guy can't be real. Even his pseudonym doesn't conform to German spelling conventions. Sounds like the name of a Troll. Don't they come from near that part of the world?I agree of course that since's he's mentioned socialism, marxism, etc this gives us an opening to give our views on these.

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You've forgotten the Euroelections and the London borough elections in May. And there's also the Scottish referendum in September.

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There are two ISN's. The Independent Socialist Network (Potts) and the International Socialist Network (ex-SWPers). I think the libcom thread is about the second lot.

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I haven't followed David Harvey's apparently very popular lectures on Marx's Capital but I have read a couple of his books and some of his articles. In one of them (an introduction to a new edition of the Communist Manifesto, I think) he suggests that at one time Russia wasn't capitalist (even if it wasn't socialist either).I can't see how anybody who denies that  post-1917 Russia has always been capitalist can claim to understand Marx's concept of "value" since the production and exchange of commodities never ceased to exist in Russia.Marx saw "value" as emerging wherever there were separate(d) producers producing for the market. Under these conditions products assumed the form of commodites having a "value" which was a reflection of them being produced by separate producers who exchanged them with each other. So "value" is an expression of this particular social relation between producersI'm not sure why Harvey thought that at one time Russia's wasn't capitalist. Either because he thinkst that "value" didn't exist there or because he thinks that "value" could exist in a non-capitalist context. Both of which are mistaken and would show that he hadn't understood Marx's concept of "value".

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He's done it again. Playing to the gallery, that is. This time over the First World Slaughter in an article in yesterday's Daily Telegraph headed "Germany started the Great War, but the Left can't bear to say so". In it he supports Education Secretary Gove's view that it is "unpatriotic" not to take this position and criticises Labour MP and historian Tristram Hunt for taking a more nuanced view. However, he scores an own goal when he writes:

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The driving force behind the carnage was the desire of the German regime to express Germany’s destiny as a great European power, and to acquire the prestige and international clout that went with having an empire.

Yes, but German capitalism had to appear as the aggressor because the world was already carved up and dominated by British and French capitalism with their empires and the "clout" this gave them and so could not expand without coming up against them. Being in this position, Britain and France were satisfied with the status quo and so could cast Germany as the aggressor. So Boris is here in effect conceding that the "Great War" was an inter-imperialist conflict or rather a conflict between a would-be imperialist power and two established ones. Nothing justifying the shredding of single drop of working class blood.In other words, Capitalism caused the Great War but the Jingoists can't bear to say so.

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

But it is nice that the Greens refer to some history recalling th 1906 election.

Yes, but typically inaccurately. Nearly all the 29 Labour MPs elected in the 1906 General Election were elected as a result of an electoral deal with the Liberals, not in opposition to them as Sinclair suggests.At that time some constituencies elected 2 MPs. The deal was that, in some seats, there would be one Liberal and one Labour candidate whose supporters would cast their second vote for the other party. The Labour MPs, elected with Liberal support, then formed themselves into the Parliamentary "Labour Party" and generally supported the Liberal government. To get any more representation in parliament the Greens would have to do a deal with Labour or the LibDems (as they probably already have done at local level).Interesting article, but I think many "leftwingers" have already been voting Green in elections. At least that's what we discovered in the London Assembly and local council elections we've contested.  For instance, prominent SWPer Paul Holborrow admitted voting Green (rather than Socialist) in Lambeth & Southwark in the 2012 GLA election (but would we have wanted his vote anyway?). The person who chaired a TUSC election meeting in Merton & Wandsworth where we also had a candidate told us he was doing the same.I hadn't realised that Russel Brand had modified the rigid anti-vote stance he took in the interview with Paxman:

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Writing in the Guardian, Russell Brand urged people not to vote: "The only reason to vote is if the vote represents power or change. I don't think it does." However, he ended the article arguing "I believe in change… A system that serves the planet and the people. I'd vote for that."[emphasis added]

Not that the Green Party stands for that. They stand for an impossible small-scale capitalism.

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Surely you were not expecting Robert Peston to explain value within capitalism, were you?Anyway, as value is an expression of a social relationship (between people organised in separate units producing goods and services for sale) once this social relationship is ended (through the establishment of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production by society as a whole) value disappears. Simple. Anybody can understand that, can't they?

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edmundpotts wrote:

Hello all,I'm a member of the steering committee of the Socialist Platform within Left Unity. I noticed the letters written into the CPGB's Weekly Worker by Adam Buick and Alan Johnstone, which seem to express interest in a discussion about similarities between our projects. I'd be more than happy for either Adam or Alan [or any other SPGB member] to email me as the point of contact for such discussions. My address is edmundpotts gmail com

For the record, here's Edmund Potts observations on the founding conference of "Left Unity" and how he sees the future of those who initiated the "Socialist Platform".http://www.independentsocialistnetwork.org/?p=2644

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Is this the sort of thing people here have in mind:http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/aug/31/ask-grown-up-pocket-moneyOr they could get together to establish free access and so the need for money and bringing about the end of value (real revolutionary socialism).

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This has already been translated into French by a sympathetic website and can be found here:https://bataillesocialiste.wordpress.com/2014/01/04/2014-annee-de-la-xenophobie/

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Someone said at the EC Meeting yesterday that he liked this as an election broadcast:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iulqp9xlCFg

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J Surman wrote:

Let's bore I say!

But that's what the Trotskyists say when they "enter" the Labour or any other party..

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