ALB
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Actually this has been suggested before and someone put it forward as a "bright idea" in the brainstormig workshop at 52 Clapham High last Saturday. The big obstacle to be overcome would be the find members to make the coffee and sandwiches 6 days a week.What is interesting in the Guardian article is that the Firebox Cafe in Bloomsbury is financed by "Counterfire" which is a breakaway from the SWP by a number of their high-ranking cadres (Chris Bambery, John Rees, Lindsey German). It is rather amusing to see these hard-line Leninists reconvert themselves into Bohemians. But this happened before with "Marxism Today" and "Living Marxism". "Counterfire" is in fact the only Trotskyist group in this country that has made a determined effort to infiltrate the Occupy Movement here.
jondwhite wrote:I just dug out an e-mail from him last year where I asked him about the SPGB and other groups and he replied;"I … find the exclusive attention on parliament a real diversion.That was him at it again. Distorting our position. What "exclusive attention on parliament"? The pamphlet he was reviewing and which it must be presumed he read says this on page 10:
Quote:This is not to say that the socialist majority only needs to organise itself politically. It does need to organise politically so as to be able to win control of political power. But it also needs to organise economically to take over and keep production going immediately after the winning of political control. We can’t anticipate how such socialist workplace organisations will emerge, whether from the reform of the existing trade unions, from breakaways from them or from the formation of completely new organisations. All we can say now is that such workplace organisations will arise and that they too, like the socialist political party, will have to organise themselves on a democratic basis, with mandated delegates instead of leaders.This re-iterates what the Socialist Standard said in an article on "The Socialist Party and Economic Organisation" in November 1937:
Quote:The Socialist Party, therefore, whilst holding that the working class must be organised, both politically and economically, for the establishment of Socialism, urges that the existing unions provide the medium through which the workers should continue their efforts to obtain the best conditions they can get from the master class in the sale of their labour-power. That the trade unions must inevitably accept the Socialist theory as the logica1 outcome of their own existence, and as such will provide the basis of the economic organisation of the working class to manipulate the means and instruments of wealth production and distribution when the capitalist ruling class have first been dislodged from political power. The essential conditions for obtaining Socialism must never be underestimated. At the very moment that the workers have gained control of the State machine provision must be made simultaneously for the economic requirements of the community. The Socialist working class of the future will, no doubt, see to this as one of its supreme functions.The full article can be found on our website here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1930s/1937/no-399-november-1937/socialist-party-and-economic-organisationIt wouldn't have taken much difficulty for a "radical" historian to have discovered this, but of course it isn't what they want to discover.
I know you're not supposed to speak ill of the dead but, ok, Alan Woodward was a nice bloke and a good trade unionist but he spread all sorts of false stories about us. For example, this snidey review of our pamphlet on parliament.http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/debating-anarchists.htmlHe was also a guest speaker at one of our meetings at Head Office in 2009. It was one of the most embarrassing meetings we've held there as it became clear that he didn't have a clue about what socialism was (he thought it was some form of self-managed market economy). The only effect this visit seems to have had on him was the basis of this nasty comment
Quote:One mystery remains about the `Small Party of Good Boys'. What do they do with their vast financial income that neither keeps the UK banking system going nor invests in capitalist type institutes? One thing is certain, it does not go to people fighting for socialism outside the parameters of the Holy Script or Principles. The funding of the SPGB is not covered by either of the following texts, the unofficial and the semiofficial versions.He also accused us of being "vanguardist" and "authoritarian":
Quote:In the mind of this reviewer, the SPGB is located slap bang in the middle of the Marxist vanguard groups whose characteristics it shares – authoritarian structure, party chauvinism and so on. What else can be said about this eccentric body?There are people outside the SPGB who are socialists but he was not one of them.
Here's a meeting organised by Occupy London next Sunday (4 November) that we must be present at:
Quote:Sunday 4 November Venue: Toynbee Hall, 28 Commercial Street, London. E1 6LS 11am-5pm Capitalism is Crisis (Another World is Possible…) The sessions on capital, power and the State will tell a story of capitalism. They will explore the character of the capitalist process that is continuing to tear up the planet and to exterminate its inhabitants. The purpose of the sessions is to investigate why we are doomed, and also how we might escape the doom. Speakers. Discussion. Workshop. Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/283364291772404/We'll try and organise a group of comrades to go. Anypne interested please contact Head Office.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Good. Confirmation that I was not alone in thinking that there was more behind this award than having worked out a formula for speed (and non-speed) dating.I hadn't realised that Kantorovich had been awarded a Nobel Prize (in 1975, the year after that joke Hayek). So, along with Amartya Sen (whose work had shown that famines are not caused by an absolute shortage of food but by a collapse in the ability of some people to buy or exchange something for food) and Elinor Ostrom (whose research exposed the myth of “the tragedy of the commons” by showing that in practice where commons existed they had been managed by the community and did not break down through the self-defeating selfish behaviour of those have access to them), that makes three other winners who were worth it. Actually 4, as I see Wassily Leontief got one in 1973 (for the development of input-output tables, something else that could be used in socialism).Here's a book review which deals with Kantorovich and the problems he had to deal with:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2010/no-1275-november-2010/book-reviews
Yes I had though of making a play on words myself with "repugant" and "repugnance".Of course as far as we socialists are concerned all capitalist economic theory is "repugnant economics". "Repugnance economics" ought to mean something different, like what the paper said: "the study of transactions where the application of the price mechanism is regarded as morally repugnant". I could say that socialists regard putting a price on anything as "repugnant" so that we are interested in the study how transactions can take place without price and money, but that might open the question of whether socialism is a "moral" as well as a class or scientific issue. Fortunately, looking up the dictionary definition of "repugnant/repugnance" I see it can also mean something that is logically inconsistent. Which, under capitalism, not allowing body parts to be bought and sold is.In any event, personally I do regard the sale of body parts even within capitalism as (even morally) "repugnant".
I think they are talking about this here on this site:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/z-marxismGo to Publications/Education at the top of this page.
alanjjohnstone wrote:http://issuu.com/occupylondon/docs/occupy_little_book_of_ideas/1The 60 page pamphlet is by the working economic group which Carne Ross is involved with and which i drew attention to in an earlier post on the thread. The group in its foreward claim to be authorative in the field.Read through this last night (it's an easy read and only takes an hour or so). To tell the truth, it is not what I first assumed it to be, i.e a statement of policy. It's an attempt to explain some of the terms used in discussions about banking and the financial crisis, and it gives the case for and against particular reforms. Its description of how banking works is not all that cranky, but not much different from how the textbooks say it works. I imagine hardcore cranks will be disappointed.But the overall assumption is that the crisis is financial and has been caused by certain activities of the banks, with the implication that it could have been avoided if banks hadn't been allowed to behave in this way and that future crises can be avoided if banks can be stopped behaving in this way. It's still "the bankers" rather than the capitalist profit system as a whole that is blamedSo, there's still a need for us to produce something on the same questions as there is clearly an interest in them amongst those who are critical of present-day society and economic system.Incidentally, I read their pamphlet on my computer as an e-book. Are we capable of producing something like this on our site?
alanjjohnstone wrote:Perhaps this months Socialist Standard could be reformatted and re-edited into a counter-pamphlet on HO equipment with an appropriate introduction, and if not all issues are covered – ie Robin Hood Tax, previous articles from archives can be included. The title can reflect the haste by being described as The Socialists Answer – Part One or whatever to show that we are prepared for an ongoing discussion. (hopefully a Part Two and Part Three would materialise)OK, let's try to do something like this. I've just selected 20 articles on banking and money from the Cooking the Books column in the Socialist Standard since it started in 2005. At 500-600 words these are as short as the chapters in the Occupy booklet and they cover the same subjects as them, eg Basic Income, Ron Paul, Social Credit, Land Tax, Quantititive Easing, local currencies as well as banking and "credit creation". In all, about 12,250 words, so about the same length as theirs (and the same number of words as in the Standard).I'll send them to the Publications Department tomorrow. This should be do-able. Maybe also to them with a proposal to meet their Economics Working Group?
Just read more about the Nobel Prize winners and see that they were awarded it for studies "to improve efficiency in markets where price was not an issue", i.e. where there is no buying and selling — in plain English, where there is no market. In fact, one of the winners, Professor Shapley is reported as saying that he's not is an economist, but a mathematication: "I never, never in my life took a course in economics." So their work could be of interest to socialists.According today's Times:
Quote:Their studies helped to improve efficiency in markets where price was not an issue, matching doctors to hospitals, students to dorm rooms and organs to transplant patients (…) Such matching arrangements are essential in most Western countries where organ-selling is illegal, and the free market cannot do the normal work of resource allocation..and
Quote:Professor Shapley, who is 89, began the theoretical spade-work in the 1950s and 1960s, using game theory to analyse different matching methods. In the 1990s, Professor Roth, now 60, working independently, applied similar theories to more practical matters, helping to allocate student doctors to particular hospitals and later providing the theoretical underpinning to streamline organ donation. Professor Roth is regarded as an authority on a field known colloquially as "repugnance economics" — in essence, the study of transactions where the application of the price mechanism is regarded as morally repugnant, such as the sale of body parts, sperm and eggs, prostitution and even dwarf-throwing."Repugnance economics", is that our answer to the "Economic Calculation Argument" ?
If there are crisp packets in socialism they'll all be the same — just like in the olden days when they all said "Smith's Potato Crisps with Salt inside".
Young Master Smeet wrote:1) Only Labour occurs in every product (yes, all products contain energy, but calculating erg output of human labour would be quite a feat).2) Because what this is about isn't a general unit of equivilence, but a human centred approach to the social organisation of production, starting with the people around to do the work.But in counting the number of people available to work you are not talking about "Labour" which is an abstract concept that, as Marx pointed out, is difficult if not imposssible to measure except through the market. And, again as Marx pointed out, the contribution of living labour to products (as compared to past labour) has become less and less over time.You are talking about labour-power and, as I said, if you are doing this you need to take account of the particular skills of the people available for work. Counting this, and taking it into account in calculating what and how to produce, is part of calculation in kind in general. I'm not against counting labour-power, in kind, but don't see that it is different in principle from counting the other resources available for production.How would calculating the labour output of human labour power be any less easy than calculating the "erg output of human labour [power]"? "Labour output" cannot simply be counted by time. To calculate it you'd have to reduce all the different types of skilled labour to amounts of simple labour. I'd prefer to have a go at calculating erg output !
Young Master Smeet wrote:ALB wrote:If some material is in short supply or needs to be used sparingly for some other reason, this is something the engineers can factor in to their calculations.As per the standard ECA, though, such calculations would involve massive computational difficulty (as well as following the suppy chain of thousands of inputs for the simplest product. Whilst the engineers might have the time to do that, a signal between products can save that considerable effort.
You seem to be assuming that all inputs might be in short supply but surely the basis of the socialist case for non-monetary calculation is that they won't be. Some might. Then the engineers calculating the "optimal" way to produce something would have to take this into account. I can't see that this would involve a "massive computational difficulty". I thought that this is what Robin Cox's "law of the minimum" was all about.This said, I agree that the Zeitgeist people who have worked on this problem do seem to favour a centralised command approach to production and consumption (after all, they are descended from the Technocracy Movement of the 1930s) rather than the self-regulating system of stock control, etc started by what people decide to take freely from stores that we have come to see, in recent years, as a workable alternative.Incidentally, have the two people who have just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics anything to contribute here? I read that one of them has devised a scheme for matching those who need a kidney with those prepared to offer one. I assume money isn't involved but you can't be sure because this is an American scheme. But if it's not, maybe they deserve the prize for solving the question of Who Will Live on Richmond Hill in Socialism. Those who want to and need most to, rather than those who want to and can pay the most.
Among the things Occupy London have done (besides chaining themselves to the pulpit in St Pauls in what appears to be an inter-Christian dispute) to mark their first anniversary is to produce The Little Book of Ideas which can be read online here:http://occupylondon.org.uk/archives/17533A quick look suggests that they have absorbed a number of currency crank ideas. From the chapter headings it seems to be expressing the same sort of ideas for reforming capitalism as the Green Party. That would be a sad outcome, but I'm suspending judgement till I've read it all.
Young Master Smeet wrote:It would be a useful measure of the total share of the social effort an activity was taking in (and thus could help us balance out between branches of industry), as well as performing a transferable meaure that could allow up-chain transmission to avoid technical choices being made at one end that stretch capacities at another.No doubt, but why single out labour-power as the special case? It's only one of many inputs and in principle no difference to the other inputs (materials, energy). I'm not suggesting this but I believe the Techocrats in the 1930s suggested that accounting be done in "energy units". What I'm suggesting is that calculation in kind doesn't require any general unit, not labour-time nor energy units. We calculate in amounts of all the different elements involved in production, just as now under capitalism, only in socialism it won't be duplicated by a calculation in money and won't need to be by any other general unit ("universal equivalent").
Young Master Smeet wrote:As with Robinson Crusoe, we know the numbers of humans available, and how much time they have to work, the intensity of that work is, at a certain point, irrelevent (that is a question for wage allocation, not productive co-ordination).Of course. We will need to know that along with the amount of materials and energy available. Why make a special case of labour-power (which is unlikely to be in short supply anyway)?
Young Master Smeet wrote:As for Zeitgeist, economic efficiency is not the same as technical efficiency, as I demonstrate in my example above, what might be the most technically efficient way of producing X might in turn actually lead to excess drains on resources further down the line.If some material is in short supply or needs to be used sparingly for some other reason, this is something the engineers can factor in to their calculations.
Young Master Smeet wrote:I agree that recording concrete labour types could be useful as well (but would require more effort, and relies on fixing some fairly blurry lines between types of labour).It has to be done today and seems to work. If a hundred persons are required to construct a building you cannot just take a hundred people at random and set them to work on the grounds that they are capable of contributing so much labour-time. You've got to take into account different qualities of labour-power (just as you have to of other productive inputs).
