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In the meantime the media are beginning to talk of the fighting in Syria being or becoming a proxy war between Russia and the West for control of the strategic region that Syria is. Same old capitalism then.

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Here's how Chris Harman's review (from International Socialist Journal No 54, Spring 1992) of Chris Knight's book on Blood Relations and the theory behind it begins:

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Every generation of Marxists has to fight its battle against those who produce the latest proofs — strangely enough, always the same old proofs — that Marxism is finished. But we have also had, repeatedly, to fight another, even more tiresome battle against people who claim to be on our own side. Ever since Herr Professor Durhing beguiled half the intellectuals of the German socialist movement with his ''revolution in science'' in the 1880s, Marxists have had to expose a series of intellectual quacks who have tried to present their pet systems of myths and half truths as the latest thing in scientific advance.Chris Knight's book about the origins of human culture falls straight into the same tradition of quackery.Every chapter is headed by a quote from Marx. But the intellectual basis of the book owes little to Marx's insistence that the social production is the key to the development of humanity.Rather Knight's acknowledges his debt to: ''sociobiology's achievements'' in seeing that ''what animates … the flesh and blood individual…are…genes…whose only law is to survive..'' to the mystical poets Peter Redgrove and Penelope Sharp, whose ''style and tone'', he tells us, is ''Jungian'' to those ''involved in the Greenham Common anti-missile campaigns of the early 1980s'' who refused ''to collaborate in the whole masculinist political set up…'' and to his ''political friends'' which include prominent Labour MP Ken Livingstone and two lesser known luminaries of the London Labour left, Keith Veness and Graham Bash.His politics are those of the Labour left of a decade ago — when Knight himself edited the ''personal politics'' section of the Labour Briefing, mixing Greenham Common feminism with municipal socialism — and his methodology is a similarly eclectic. The resulting confusion leads to absurdities like speaking of a ''class conflict…between genders'' among ''monkeys and apes''.

I think Chris Knight's politics may have changed since then but not his basic theory. But we shouldn't reject Harman's criticism just because he was a member of the SWP. On this issue he could be right. Certainly the alternative view of the origin of human society that he presented in Engels and the Origin of Human Society is impressive.

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Here's yet another article arguing that there will be increasing technological unemployment as more and more work processes are computerised:http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/speed-of-innovation-and-automation-threatens-global-labor-market-a-897412.htmlThis article does at least mention the counter-argument:

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Still, many economists remain unconvinced. Critics argue that there have been constant warnings of the consequences of technological transformations since the beginning of the industrial revolution, yet these fears have always turned out to be exaggerated. These observers believe that this will also be the case now.

Articles in the June Socialist Standard (which deals with theories of capitalist collapse) takes a similar position, but from a Marxist point of view, on the grounds that most of the unemployment today is cyclical (the reserve army of labour returning to its slump size) not technological and that there is a difference between technological invention and its actual application to production. (capitalist firms only apply inventions if these reduce the amount of labour, including that incorporated in machines, that they have to pay for, which is a much higher bar than simply saving total labour).While it is true that computerisation does reduce the total number of workers that need to be employed even taking into account the extra ones employed to make the machines, this will only lead to increasing unemployment if capital accumulation stops or slows down permanently. But economists like the two mentioned in the Der Spiegel article have yet to make a convincingly case for this.Unfortunately perhaps, capitalism is more resilient than some might like to think. Or perhaps not unfortunately, as, if capitalism collapsed before there was a majority in favour of socialism, the result could be worse in that some of the scenarios envisaged in the many dystopian novels and films could well come about. 

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jpodcaster wrote:

Did he reply?

I don't think so.

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"Anti-Possibilist" is better as it's the same as anti-Reformist. The trouble is that the term "possibilist" is not used by anyone today. When the German Green Party had a similar discussion they were divided into "Realos" ("Realists" who wanted to pursue what Green measures were considered achievable within the system) and "Fundis" ("Fundamentalists" who wanted to give priority to campaigning for a Green society). The Realos won and this is now the approach not just of the German party but of all Green parties. But we can't call ourselves "Socialist fundamentalists", can we (even if we are)?

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Stefan has a point: why do we call ourselves "impossiblists"? I know the historical reason (label applied to us by the "possiblists", ie those who said the workers' movement should aim to get reforms that are "possible"), but surely it is those who think that capitalism can be reformed to work in the interest of the rest of us who are the real impossiblists?

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

There are an estimated 50,000 foreign jihadist fighters terrorizing Syria. MAIREAD MAGUIRE Nobel peace laureate.

I don't doubt that there are thousands of them but 50,000 seems rather a lot. What's the evidence for this?

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Here's what we said at the time about his dad:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1960s/1969/no-780-august-1969/book-review-state-capitalist-societyhttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1977/no-871-march-1977/open-letter-professor-milibandActually some of his criticisms of the "far left" mentioned in the second article are not all that wide of the mark and still apply today.

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Young Master Smeet wrote:

These apparent auto-jihadists would probably find a cause to be violent even if Islam didn't exist, it just provides a map for their actions and a means to comprehend their desires.

The fact the two beheaders have turned out to be ex-christians who chose to become muslims suggests that this is probably true and that under other circumstances they would have found another ideology through which to express their frustrations. But why did they choose islam?

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jpodcaster wrote:

How are they differentiated from the Green Party? To my mind the GP is now to the left of the Labour Party and has many of the same policies as I'd imagine LU will end up supporting. Plus it has local and national representation and a growing membership base. I wonder what the attitude of prominant GP-ers such as Derek Wall and Peter Tatchell will be towards LU?(

That thought had occurred to me too. I can't see the policies they are likely to adopt being much different from those outlined in this Green Party election broadcast for the local elections in England earlier this month:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4BcCi7Xr06MAnectodotal evidence suggests that many of those who might be attracted to the Left Unity project already vote for the Greens when there is no non-Labour Left candidate. For instance, in the London elections last year a prominent SWPer living in Lambeth said he had voted for the Greens (not us) while a TUSC supporter in Wandsworth said he had done the same.Apart from undermining a LU party by boring from within it, the Trotskyist groups are likely to try to orient it towards concentrating on seeking the support of public sector trade unionists and workers living on council or housing association estates, so excluding a large section of potential supporters..

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Just realised that Kate Hudson, who is the registered Leader of the Left Party and one of the prime movers behind Left Unity, is the secretary-general of CND. So no wonder that the registered address of her party is Houseman's Bookship. She is also a former member of the Communist Party of Britain. At least she's not a Trotskyist.

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Quote:

'there is no god, and Allah isn't his name.' 

I like it (even if I shouldn't). Sounds like a good title for a daring meeting.Meanwhile there's a lively discussion on this beheading going on on the forum of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain:http://www.councilofexmuslims.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=68e6398ad09798b645ee7fe4069798f5&topic=24183.0

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Quote:

Journalist Laurie Penny used the same platform to warn of “ugly racism and Islamophobia”.

Here's a much more rational approach from a fellow writer for the New Statesman, Andrew Zak Williams:http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2013/04/new-atheism-should-be-able-criticise-islam-without-being-accused-islamophobia 

Quote:

Take Sam Harris. His 2003 book End of Faith catalogues the Qur’an’s long list of orders to murder and exhortations to avenge. (…) Surely, rational discourse should be permitted to tiptoe cautiously along the hallowed corridors of the house of Islam without the guards frogmarching it out, bellowing allegations of racism and bigotry. Cannot we not agree that the real issue is whether the critiques of Islam proffered by today’s prominent atheists are correct? For instance, does Islam fall short when it comes to women’s rights? Does it trample free speech while enforcing its own precepts, by the sword if necessary? (…) Islam isn’t a race, so to accuse its detractors of racism should appeal to no-one bar those in need of an cheap jibe.

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What did these Jihadist nutters expect:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2329290/Woolwich-attack-More-100-English-Defence-League-supporters-gather-near-scene-killing.html

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Are the Parecomics going to join Left Uniy as well? If so it's going to be a real what the French call "panier des crabes".

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