[ALB]

I see that the article in this month's Socialist Standard on the Rastafarians says:

Quote:

The yearning for righteousness is a very human ideal born of the suffering endemic within the exploitation of Capitalism (the Babylon System) and is shared by Socialists.

Wow, so now we are "the righteous" too!

[ALB]

Thanks. Just booked to go. In the meantime I see that the book's argument is that the Second World War was a war to re-divide the world amongst imperialist powers, but that unlike the First World War was still "a war worth fighting" as a way " to end the scourge of fascism and Nazism".http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/conferences/annual9/submit/a-peoples-history-of-the-second-world-war.-resistance-versus-empire

[ALB]

jondwhite wrote:

I wonder how it compares with A People's History of the Second World War by SWPer Donny Gluckstein (book launch 10th November)

Sounds as if we should review the two books together. From this it appears that the SWP one will take a quite different approach, ie support for the war as an "anti-fascist" war. But where is the book launch taking place?

[ALB]

Ozymandias wrote:

Have just watched this latest interview with PJ on Russia Today. He has had quite a few opportunities to appear on TV…opportunites the WSM would NEVER have, yet I have never heard this guy state on TV that he advocates a world without Capitalism, money, governments etc etc. He never ever comes out with it.

This is just not true. On a number of occasions Peter Joseph has explicitly argued for a world without money. For instance in this interview with RT:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr7-Qbbrwywand in this one:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYH57Cw644kThere's also this hour-long demolition of the so-called "Economic Calculation Argument" against a moneyless economy:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozy52bZ6JTwNor would I describe the video you criticise as "waffle" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XOyEil_o38&feature=relmfu)It's actually quite a good explanation why voting within what he calls "the market monetary system" never gets anywhere and the "Global Redesign Institute" he mentions at the end sounds as if it will be doing the work of our Production for Use Committee for us.OK, he doesn't use the same language as us but much of the time he is saying the same as we do.

[ALB]

SocialistPunk wrote:

How can anyone explain how the harsh, "scientific", obsessive mindset in the SPGB is going to tune in to people from the Occupy movement etc, and cleanse their "unscientific" moral outrage?

According to this BBC report, Andy Haldane, Bank of England Executive Director for Financial Stability

Quote:

told a meeting organised by Occupy in London that protestors had touched a "moral nerve".

The Times today reports him as telling the meeting last night that

Quote:

He applauded the protestors for being correct, not just in a moral sense, but also for the quality of their analysis into the causes of the banking crisis.

Oh dear, we seem to have lost the moral highground to the Bank of England. Or is this a case of how easy it for mere "moral outrage" to be co-opted by the system?

[ALB]

James Heartfield's talk on his book has now been fixed. It will be the next in the series of Sunday evening talks at 52 Clapham High Street. The date is Sunday 11 November (Armistice Day) at 6pm. Copies of the book should be on sale at a reduced price. See http://www.heartfield.org 

[ALB]

Hud955 wrote:

  And the moment you say, for example,  that exploitation is wrong and that capitalism is morally bad this places on the working class a moral obligation to overturn it.  As socialists though, we don't rely on the capitalist class fulfilling their moral obligation to us, and I'd be rather reluctant to tell members of the working class that they were failing in their moral duty by not being socialists.

Interesting counter-argument (the killer one?) against using the language of morality. Much better (warning: joke) to talk of the working class having a "historic mission" to overthrow capitalism.

[ALB]

SocialistPunk wrote:

Listen up!I will repeat, once only, that I do not nor have I ever advocated that socialism or the case for socialism be based solely on a moralistic appeal.

Noted, but keep your hair on. Nobody here has suggested that you do or ever did. The argument here is, as in so many cases, about definitions and language. All socialists are outraged at what capitalism does to people (that's no doubt why we became socialists), but the question is whether or not we think it would help the socialist case to add "immoral", "unjust", "unfair", "wrong",  "bad" to the adjectives we throw at capitalism. Most Party members think not and prefer to stick to "can't work in the interest of the working class", "irrational",  "anti-social", etc.Supposing we did adopt these terms, people would turn round and say "why is capitalism immoral, unjust, bad, etc?" and we'd have to answer "because it can't work in th interest of the working class", "because it doesn't advance human welfare", even "because it degrades humans into things".  As I said, some Professors of Moral Philosophy would regard these as "moral judgements". Maybe they are, but they are not appeals to some vague, abstract eternal principles of Morality and Justice.

SocialistPunk wrote:

In my opinion, based on experience and observation, "scientifically" sidelining such here and now human concerns, such trivialities as morality, right and wrong, is a mistake.

Who is sidelining people's protest or outrage at what capitalism does to them and to other people? It's basically a question of what language is used to express this.

SocialistPunk wrote:

Now can anyone explain how the harsh, "scientific", obsessive mindset in the SPGB is going to tune in to people from the Occupy movement etc, and cleanse their "unscientific" moral outrage?

I can't see what's "harsh" or "obsessive" about having a scientific mindset. Presumably in view of your opening statement above you too think that the case for socialism is based on a scientific examination of the facts. I imagine many in Occupy do too. But where have we ever said that Occupy were wrong to be outraged at capitalism and its effects? In any event, a scientific mindset will go down a bomb with Zeitgeist (they even argue that what's right and what's wrong can be discovered scientifically).

[ALB]

Just been reading an article about the "water footprint" of different countries, i.e the amount of water used in them to produce their national product. We've all heard of "carbon footprints", i.e. the amount of CO2 released in producing something.  What this shows is that the Technocracy people are right in saying it would be possible to calculate the "energy footprint" of products too. Just checked and this is being done too. I'm not sure of the implications of all these calculations, except that they are calculations in kind, not money.What you would seem to be envisaging, Young Master, is calculating the "labour footprint" of products? A useful calculation no doubt but why should this particular calculation in kind be considered more important than the other ones?

[ALB]

Hud955 wrote:

The scientific stance is the only thing that can create a conscious movement for socialism and keep us on course; ethics cannot distinguish between socialism and reformism, and tends to lead to the latter because it overwhelmingly focuses on single issues.

Hud955 wrote:

I think we can certainly use capitalist morality against capitalism itself, but it is a dangerous weapon and needs to be used carefully, because on its own it leads directly to reformist solutions not to socialist ones.

I think we should be careful not to overdo this line of argument. For two reasons.First, because it is possible to imagine a "moral" argument against capitalism which would not lead either to reformism or to single-issueism. Only some moral arguments lead to this, i.e those that criticise capitalism from its own standpoint (for not being "fair" to all workers), because capitalism can, has and is putting this right: minority groups don't have to be discriminated against.Second, even an argument based on class analysis can lead to reformism. After all, the classic Social Democratic and Old Labour case was that their parties were defending the interests of the working class within capitalism.The case against basing the case for socialism on some abstract morality is that this is not what motivates social change. It's classes acting in their own class interest. That's how it's been in the past and how it is likely to be in the future change from capitalism to socialism, especially as this change will be one brought out by the majority class acting consciously, which will involve an understanding of what it is doing, i.e acting in its own class interest.

[ALB]

TheOldGreyWhistle wrote:

The history of all hitherto existing society is a history of class struggle not the struggle for 'justice' or improved 'morality', whatever they may mean

Exactly.

[ALB]

We are always criticising capitalism for being "irrational", "insane", "crazy", "anti-working class", "anti-human", "anti-social", etc. (just read any issue of the Socialist Standard). What benefit would we get if we started saying that it was "immoral", "unjust", "unfair", etc?No doubt a professor of Moral Philosophy would say that both sets of criticisms are "moral judgements", but this is to ignore the different connotations of the two sets of phrases. The second suggests mere namby-pamby whingers. The first science-based class warriors. There is a difference and we need to make it clear which we are.

[ALB]

jondwhite wrote:

some critics of Leninism even those calling themselves Marxist socialists just want state-capitalism.

Of course, Karl Kautsky would be a prime example.  Social Democrats tended to see that what was wrong with Russia was a lack of political democracy not the state ownership and control of industry. For them, if political democracy had existed there it would have been socialism. In other words, they stood for the impossible dream of a democratic state capitalism. So did many on the left of the Labour Party. In the olden days.

[ALB]

DJP wrote:

SocialistPunk wrote:

What of the millions who have died of starvation or are in the process of doing so? What of the millions of lives torn apart by war during the last century?Would these be considered "capitalism's failure to live up to its own morality"? I think so. I've never heard any politician openly support mass starvation and they always claim war is the last resort.

These failings may be the strongest argument for the failure of capitalism but not because they are examples of 'capitalism failing to live up to it's own morality', but because they are examples of unnecessary human suffering, which is not the same thing.

You beat me to it. That's just the point I was going to make.This is not criticising capitalism from the point of capitalist morality but from a standpoint of how human beings should be treated or what it is the interest or welfare of humans and/or the working class. Something quite different.By "capitalist morality" I meant the ideological reflection of the exchange of equal value for equal value, i.e that all commodity exchangers should be treated equally and that it is therefore wrong that some market participants should be at a disadvantage because of their gender, skin colour, or whatever. In practice of course capitalist governments and politicians support all sorts of discriminations which makes them hypocrites from the point of view of capitalist morality. I was trying to make the point that we shouldn't try to base the case for socialism on the fact that capitalist governments are hypocrites, i.e that they don't apply the capitalist morality they preach. We can leave it to supporters of capitalism to take them to task for that.

[ALB]

Hud955 wrote:

Adam's closing remark is spot on.  Socialism  *breeds* morality.  Socialism is the platform on which moral expression can stand but it is not moral in itself. 

Actually, Hud, that is TWC's final remark not mine. I've not done much more in this debate than vote with the majority to repeal the 2010 Conference resolution which said that socialism was an ethical as well as a scientiofic issue.But I do agree that we shouldn't use capitalism's failure to live up to its own morality as part of the case for socialism. That way leads to reformism, i.e trying to make capitalism live up to its own standards, eg by not discriminating against women, gays, immigrants, disabled people, etc. This is what all the Trotskyists groups specialise in, by making special appeals to groups that are discriminated against/treated unfairly within the system by its own standards (as far as capitalism's is concerned all it is interested in is a worker's ability to work, not any of their other qualities, so discrimination on the basis of any of these other qualities is "immoral" from its point of view). Paul Foot, the SWP writer, even made a speciality of exposing "miscarriages of justice" (and even then didn't always get it right, as in the Hanratty case)There is discrimination against groups within capitalism, but the point is there doesn't have to be. Capitalism could bring about women's equality and in fact is in the process of doing this.

[Author]

Posts