ALB
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https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/iain-duncan-smith-iain-duncan-smith-to-live-on-53-a-weekOver 423,000 have signed so far.
DJP wrote:Was going to give the Fragment on Machines (pg 690 – 712 of the Grundrisse) a proper read before writing the review. Perhaps this could be discussed on here?I think the key passage here is this (pages 705-6 of the Pelican edition of the Grundrisse):
Quote:The theft of alien labour time, on which the present wealth is based, appears a miserable foundation in face of this new one, created by large-scale industry itself. As soon as labour in the direct form has ceased to be the great well-spring of wealth, labour time ceases and must cease to be its measure, and hence exchange value [must cease to be the measure] of use value. The surplus labour of the mass has ceased to be the condition for the development of general wealth, just as the non-labour of the few, for the development of the general powers of the human head. With that, production based on exchange value breaks down, and the direct, material production process is stripped of the form of penury and antithesis. The free development of individualities, and hence not the reduction of necessary labour time so as to posit surplus labour, but rather the general reduction of the necessary labour of society to a minimum, which then corresponds to the artistic, scientific etc. development of the individuals in the time set free, and with the means created, for all of them.What Marx seems to be saying here is that, if capitalism continued long enough and with productivity constantly increasing, a stage would be reached when each unit of a product would contain so little value (as measured by labour time) that its price would be virtually zero and so could be given away. At which point capitalism, being based on production for sale with a view to profit, could no longer function.As far as I know, this is the only passage in Marx's writings where he uses the word "zusammenbrechen" (to break down, collapse) in respect of capitalism as an economic system. I don't think he thought that this stage would ever be reached, but that he was just theorizing about the final limit of capitalism if productivity kept on increasing.Of course we are nowhere near that stage today, so I don't think this helps explain what is happening at the moment.
I don't know. To get an income of £20,000 from investments, you'd need, with a 5% rate of interest, a capital of at least £400,000 and that's it addition to your non-interest-bearing house (which might be worth that too), You'd hardly be a member of the mythical middle class, let alone the working class with that. I do agree, though, that you'd fall into the lower end of the capitalist class, the "lower upper class" that George Orwell said he came from. On the other hand, he went to Eton and the fees there are now over £30,000 a year.This does raise another problem. We've been prepared to concede that some top executives and bureacrats are also members of the capitalist class receiving their share of surplus value as "bloated salaries" and bonuses. So any questionnaire would need to try to distinguish between what part of these people's income was genuine payment for the value of their labour-power and what was a share in surplus value.
He's also a practising Roman Catholic and is engaged in bashing the poor just as much to win votes as to save money. The new pope has said he wants to help the poor. So will he excommunicate him? Of course not. The both of them are hypocrites. Not of course that it would make any difference either way. Even if Duncan Smith was sincere or a saint he would still have to do what the economic laws of capitalism require him to do as capitalism can't be made to work in the interests of the majority. Still, it's all grist to our mill.
This seems a idea worth pursuing:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spintcom/message/14650Questions could be on these sort of lines:1. What is your relationship to the means of production? (a) owner (b) non-owner (c) I own some shares.2. What is your annual income?3. What is the source of your income (you may tick more than one): (a) employment (b) self-employment (c) dividends or interest (d) pension from employment (e) State benefits (f) charity.4. How much of your income comes from (c) ?If over £20,000 no need to proceed further: you are a member of the capitalist class.5. If (a) or (b), how long could you survive without it?6. Do you own or are you buying your own house?7. Do you derive any income from it? If not, then it makes no difference.8. Do you wear (a) a cloth cap (b) a top hat? It doesn't matter.Seriously, if someone did this properly with weighting for the answers, would it be possible to put it on this site?
jondwhite wrote:I got precariatI got a joke result too — technical middle class, just because I don't go the opera or know a solicitor. The whole thing is rubbish, or at most a game. Or maybe something more sinister: an attempt to create the illusion that a wage and salary working class no longer exists or is only a dwindling 14% of the population.
Brian wrote:what actually prevents the world socialist movement from realizing a socialist society is the lack of a socialist majority. For without this majority we are in no position to take on the force of the state. With this majority we are transformed into the strongest army in the world where the productive class becomes a class for itself.Or as Victor Hugo put it:
Quote:No army can stop an idea whose time has come.Ed wrote:twc wrote a particularly good post on the processes which determine class conciousness. http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/social-reproductionAs a p.s. I would like to see more articles like this published in the standard on occasion.There's another relevant article on this that appeared in the Socialist Standard in April 2011:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2011/no-1280-april-2011/brief-history-public-relations
Alf Recon wrote:It seems high time to get rid of the monetary system and to put some serious thoughts into implementing a resource based economy (RBE) which would give us the chance to live a life in peace, health and equality without money and the beautiful “side effect” of saving our planet from further destruction due to exploitation at all cost. The way we deal with our resources isn’t (and wasn’t) tolerable.Welcome. You'll find the same sentiments expressed in the other thread here discussing Cyprus:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/cyprus-crisis-why-do-we-need-banks-allWe don't need banks and we don't need money. They are part of the profit system that is holding back the application of technology to provide plenty for all. To do this, all we need are resources, technology and human skills. Which we've got. But we won't be able to use these to benefit everybody on the planet until the Earth's resources have become the common heritage of all.
Alexander Reiswich wrote:ALB, thanks for the clarifications.I'm slightly suprised that you seem to be in full agreement with the principle of non-aggression. I'm sorry to say that this is usually not obvious when I read socialist writing. I can make the friendly recommendation to put more emphasis on it. It makes everything so much simpler :)I have no more questions if you agree with the consequences of the value I suggested, other than perhaps: do you personally feel that you represent the mainstream of the socialist party, or are you in the minority in that respect?We are talking here about after when socialism as a society of common ownership, democratic control, production directly for use and not for sale or profit, and distribution on the principle "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs", has been established. Yes, as the Conference resolution I quoted shows, it is the official position of the Socialist Party that there will be no coercive state machine in socialism. We have always said that socialism can only be a classless, stateless, moneyless, wageless society.Having said that, we are not absolute pacifists. If any group of pro-capitalists decided to take up arms to try to stop the democratically-expressed majority will to establish socialism we think that the majority would be justified to use armed force against them as a last resort. And of course, to establish socialism, we do want to use the coercive power of the state to dispossess the capitalist class of their ownership of the means of production and make these the common property of the whole community. But, this done, the coercive state is then dismantled and replaced by an unarmed democratic central administration.
Here's what we said in one of the leaflets we put out for the local by-election in Islington:
Quote:If elected to the council, our delegate will vote, as instructed, in the interests of the workers, but we won't kid on that we can save services within the profit-driven market system where profits always come before people.There is also this pamphlet by a member of the Socialist Party of Canada who got elected to the Alberta Legislative Assembly in 1910:http://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/proletarian.in.politics.htmHere's a extract:
Quote:At this point, J. W. Woolf (Lib.) rose to a point of order, claiming that O’Brien was not speaking to the question, but giving a lecture on Socialism.That's something else a socialist local councillor could do. In fact, it's probably the main thing they could.
Federico Pistono explains here in 4 or 5 minutes his particular theory of why he thinks the present economic system is going to collapse. Not very convincing, if only because the first reason he gives is based on assuming that the money to pay interest on a loan can only come from taking out a further loan (whereas in fact it can come out of future production). But he does also use the growing technological unemployment argument.
Alex Woodrow wrote:P.S. Thanks for informing me about two candidates standing in local by elections. I knew that one stood in Junction ward in Islington but, may I ask, where did the other candidate stand?It was in Brixton Hill ward of Lambeth Council in South London. See this thread:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/world-socialist-movement/brixton-hill-local-electionThis time we don't need to choose between local elections and European elections as they are likely to fall on the same day, Thursday 27 May 2014. So we can do both. One thing you are overlooking is that in European elections (as for Parliament) candidates can get their manifestos distributed free by the Post Office whereas in local elections we have to deliver them ourselves door-to-door.
