ALB
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Another item, from today's Times, to file under "Banks can't lend more than they have":
Quote:Metro [Bank} has customer deposits of more than £1 billion, which swelled by £205 million in the last three months to the end of September. It has 238,000 personal and commercial accounts and lent individuals and businesses just under £200 million in the quarter, taking its total loan book to £565 million, it said yesterday.Those who think banks create the money they lend out of thin air are invited to do the maths and/or to ponder on why this bank didn't do this.
LBird wrote:ALB wrote:Do you really think that democratic control should extend to what people should think?What's the alternative? Leave it in the hands of a minority, as it is now?What? You actually believe the ruling class myth that 'we are all individuals'? That we all now think as 'individuals', and that future democratic control of our socialisation processes would be a retrograde step? That we shouldn't have a collective say in how we reproduce our society?
No. I was just giving you a chance to clarify your view. Actually, I think it reasonable that education and even child-rearing should be subject to democratic decision-making. These are matters of collective concern and today are imposed by a minority in their interest.Obviously, as you've pointed out, socialist society will "socialise" its members to fit in with it (just as all societies do). If that's all you are saying and that this should be decided and implemented democratically, fair enough. The trouble is that the way you express it can be interpreted as suggesting more than this, e.g that we are all going to have think alike, though I'd imagine that education in a socialist society will encourage people to think critically. Remember this all started with an off-hand remark of yours about "the democratic control of ideology (including religion". Maybe it's just a semantic thing about the meaning of "ideology"?
Interesting article, especially in relation to demolishing the concept of "unlimited wants". But it still seems to accept the concept of "absolute scarcity" or, as Fanning puts it, that "we live in a full world where the global economy is bumping against ecosystem limits." Obviously resources are not "absolutely abundant" but there are abundant enough in relation to likely human needs, i.e. there is "relative abundance", even though resources won't be able to be rationally used to meet needs until we've got rid of capitalism and its artificial scarcity and organised waste.
alanjjohnstone wrote:IMHO, the failure of Occupy was the lack of participation of organised wage-workers in the unions and despite Mayday attempts to involve them, they didn't succeed.But how to judge whether Occupy was a success or a failure?At the start Occupy deliberately didn't have any practical reform demands (one of its attractions), but saw itself to be a consciousness-raising exercise. Insofar as it did popularise the use of the word "capitalism" in a derogatory sense they achieved this. It was a "success". Eventually of course those most behind it couldn't resist the temptation to put forward demands, mainly for the reform of the banking and monetary system and Occupy lapsed into common or garden reformism. Insofar as they failed to achieve these they were a "failure". But these reforms were irrelevant anyway from a wage-worker point of view. So, a good thing that the trade unions were not ensared in them, though of course, if they had been involved in formulating demands, no doubt they would have brought other futile ones such as Keynesian attempts to reflate the economy.Occupy has been and gone and its positive legacy has been to help make "capitalism" a dirty word again. For us to build on.
twc wrote:You came here on a crusade to educate the Party into adopting democratic control of scientific thought. Since, for you, cognition is scientific thought, you sought the Party to endorse monitoring and controlling human cognition per se.It looks, LBird, as if this issue of the limits of democratic control will have to be settled first, i.e. what do you mean by "democratic control of ideology"? Do you really think that democratic control should extend to what people should think?On the thread about what would real democracy look like (the appropriate thread, I suggest, to discuss this) you replied that in a socialist/communist society this would apply to education, including what today is called "civics" and perhaps to child-rearing. That education policy should be subject to democratic control seems reasonable enough (these are already subject to social control today, even if not democratic), but the term "democratic control of ideology" can be understood or misunderstood in a more sinister sense. As I said,what exactly you mean by this seems to needs clearing up, best on the other thread.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/what-would-real-democracy-look
Here's an SWP article from last year supporting Islamists (against secularists). The idiots.http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/27973/Egypt%3A+Faith+in+the+revolt
Quote:The crowd around us got bigger, comrades very much on our side and the others, men who seemed utterly heartbroken (pissed off) that we were chanting “kill all men”. One well-meaning chap explained how his mum was a feminist and how he had support for women but he felt alienated by phrases such as the one we were using.I bet he was and the rest of the male working class too.On my way to the fair I passed a woman in a burqa. I would have thought that the energies of these people would be better directed at those who force "their" women to do this. Wouldn't like to see what happens, though, when they shout "Kill All Men" in this context.
At the Anarchist Bookfair on Saturday I was given a free copy of the latest issue of Kittens put out by the Wine & Cheese Association (section in England of the group from Germany Gegen Kapital und Nation). In one of the articles there are a couple of paragraphs refuting the idea, embraced by trade unions and the Left and propagated by groups like Militant (even if they don't believe it or at least their leaders don't), that increasing workers' consumption is a way out of the slump and in fact good for capitalism:
Quote:Some Left parties and the TUC claim that companies are being irrational when they suppress wages, and they do not mean the simple fact that workers are having a hard time to make ends meet. They point out that somebody has to buy the commodities with which capital makes its profits. Their proposal is: wage increases create more effective demand and this benefits everyone – workers have more wages and capital more profit. Capitalism could be a nice symbiosis if companies were not so short-sighted.What is remarkable about this theory is that it is only ever proposed to support rather limited wage demands: a minimum wage, a wage increase of 3% or even an unconditional basic income of a few hundred pounds. Why are the proponents of this theory so humble? Why not an hourly wage of £50, a wage increase of 100% and an unconditional basic income of £5000? If the theory was right, then this would make the economy go pop. Their humbleness shows that they themselves do not really believe their own theory. Rather, these advocates are looking for a reason to have their interest in higher wages recognised in the national discourse.The theory is also simply wrong. For one, a single company has no advantage if it increases the wage. Even the workers of Nestlé spend only a small part of their wage on Nestlé products. Of course, if other companies pay their workers higher wages, then Nestlé might make more sales. However, it is not the logic of a single capital to pay its workers more for this effect.Yet, sometimes competitors must be obliged for their own benefit. This is why the Left looks to the state which ought to enforce such wage increases. Workers get more money because the state mandates it. All companies sell more commodities to workers and, hence, attract more money from them. However, the imagined advantage for everyone is not realised: what companies pay more to their workers, they get back through their sales. Though these proponents of higher wages in the interest of capitalist success would not admit it, from the standpoint of the rate of profit, the ratio of advance and surplus becomes worse.And of course, as it's the pursuit of maximum profit that drives the capitalist economy, reducing the rate of profit will have negative consequences. Which is why this won't work or even be tried. So what's the point of campaigning for it (instead of for socialism)?It's online here: http://antinational.org/en/wage-and-profit-rate
The Unity Trust Bank seems better, but it has close links with the Co-op Bank which provided the initial capital and still has a 26.66% share in it. We used to bank with the old Girobank, as a state as opposed to a private bank, but this got privatised in 1989 and is now owned by Santander. Maybe the new Post Office Bank to be set up next year (it's only Royal Mail not the Post Office that has been privatised), which is a sort of attempt to revive the Girobank, could also be suitable.
I knew he had gone off the rails (relatively speaking since he was only in the Trotskyist IMG at one time) but hadn't realised that he had gone that far, but weren't there a couple of other ex-IMGers in Blair's cabinet? Still, he can't have been all bad as we recommend his book Marx and Human Nature on this site here (under H).
Falling into the hands of hedge funds and vulture capitalists ! What an undignified end to a bank used by the trade unions, the Labour Party and their branches and which thousands of people switched to in response to the appeals of Move Your Money (I wonder if the FSA will do it for mis-selling?)Bad timing too for a book released a couple of weeks ago by the New Internationalist and the Ethical Consumer:http://newint.org/books/politics/co-operative-alternatives-capitalism/We have got a review copy. The accompanying leaflet explained:
Quote:… last year, in a bid to open up global debate on achievable ways of doing business, Ethical Consumer, a research and campaigning co-operative asked: "Is there a Co-operative Alternative to Capitalism?" [their bold]Capitalism has given them the answer: No, except perhaps on the margins catering for a niche market; try to expand further and take on ordinary capitalist enterprises and you'll either become like one of them or being eaten alive by them.It will always be Capital Over People under capitalism. Capitalism and any other "ethic" than maximising profits are incompatible. As we've said all along. Not that that stopped some of us banking with the Co-op. That reminds me. I must rush to join the queue of people at my local branch waiting to withdraw their money.
OK, I too have a wish list of things I'd like to see happen when socialism is established but they are to do with demolishing buildings and statues (eg the Sydney Opera House) not killing people.
Somebody else who noticed us:http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/anarchist-bookfair-2013-october-19th.315271/page-9#post-12640908
gnome wrote:A rather different account of the incident here:http://libcom.org/forums/announcements/london-anarchist-bookfair-19th-oct-07102013#comment-526313Well, yes, from one of the disrupters. Here's another from another of them in which she admits that at one point they were chanting "Kill all men":http://samambreen.wordpress.com/2013/10/20/there-is-no-anarchism-without-feminism/I thought this sort of stuff had died out 30 years ago.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Did someone say that the revolution will only come when the last investment bank trader is hung by the guts of the last hedge-fund manager?Nobody here did. But some currency crank or funny money merchant might have.
Although it's tempting to want to see arrogant and greedy bankers get their come-uppance, it was the whole capitalist system that's to blame for the present slump. In fact singling out "the bankers" not only let's other sections of the capitalist class off the hook but deflects attention from the need to get rid of the system.
