Bijou Drains
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Vin wrote:Gates is not that much of a philanthropist. I have asked him on numerous occasions to lend me a tenner and he has blanked me everytime. After everything I'v done for capitalism, that's what I get.
That's 'cos he knows your a Mackem
MBellemare wrote:
Let me answer your other question, why doesn't a network of capitalists raise prices to outlandish new highs. Well, sports does it all the time. Stadiums have raised the price of entry in North America with huge mark-ups. Sport stars demand obscene salaries, CEOs command obscene bonuses and salaries. To support such salary-hikes requires fundamental network-control over the nodes of production, consumption and distribution.Michel Luc BellemareOk let's test out this scenario. My beloved football team decide that for me to go and watch my back and white herooes I will have to pay an Additional £20. As a loyal fan I go along to the match as per usual. Before the match I meet up, as usual with the lads in my hostelry of choice, however instead of my usual modest consumption of 10 pint Bottles of Newcastle Brown, I only have enough money to consume a pityful 8 pint bottles. Similarly, on my walk up to St James' Park I stop off at the bakers. The baker happily bags up my usual order of five large pork pies, but to his dismay I shake my head and indicate I'm only going to purchase 3 of his delightful comestibles.In the aftermath the brewer and the baker get together. "Oh my god, the fat bastard has cut down on his consumption, what are we to do!" they cry amidst much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Well they decide there are only two options, we can either reduce production, to meet the new requirements, or we can reduce the prices to ensure the glutton continues to consume our wares and doesn't go off in search of other cheaper purveyory of beer and pork pies. Either way, they decide, it will mean a cut in profits.And when the final scores come in, I have spent the same amount of money, The football club have made greater profits and the baker and the brewer have made less. Sadly, no pixie dust, just simple straight forward maths, that even I, with 8 pints, 3 pork pies and the two kebabs I purchaed to celebrate another home victory, gurgling away in my stomach, can work out!
MBellemare wrote:Another quick comment, if you factor in creative-power, i.e., both unquantifiable and quantifiable labor-powers expended both in production and outside of production, in everyday life. My economic models introduced above, work and function adequately in explaining, that the rate of profit, and the falling rate of profit etc., can be circumvented, indefinately, via creative networking,Michel Luc Bellemarefactoring in something means taking account of (something) when making a calculation, if this is unquantifiable, how can "creative power" be said to be factored in, in any meaningful way. You may as well say that you have been factoring in magic pixie dust and when you do that it explains the meaning of life, the world and everything.I have previously asked you to back up your view that capitalists can increase prices by small amounts when they wish without impact (If they could do this with impugnity, it begs the question, why don't they?). You have studiously chosen to ignore the question of the magic capitalist price rise impugnity. If we add this to the Pixie Dust of "creative Power", we can see that your "economic models" seem to have more in common with JK Rowling that Karl Marx!
alanjjohnstone wrote:It appears to be more a play on a forum user's name drawing attention to what is perceived to be the tone of his responses by Michel, and i would be slightly hesitant in suggesting it possessed any racist undertones, Tim-nice-but-dim, from Al-everyone's-pal.So what your saying is that making a sterotypical reference to someone's perceived ethnicity, which is intended to demean or belittle that person, i.e. calling Marcos "Sub-Comandante", in an attempt to belittle him, does not have racist overtones?It is not merely a play on a person's name, it is not about Marcos's name it's about his perceived ethnicity and an assumption that the person's view is of less worth because of that ethnicity.And by the way, I'm not particualarly dim and I'm certainly not particularly nice.
MBellemare wrote:I agree with you David B. on most all you've stated. I think you see the concept of creative-power, and how it informs value, price and wage. And your right persuading people as to certain artificially fabricated price, value and wages is a major task of capitalists. Hence why controlling the means of both mental and physical production are so vital to capitalists. It seems to me, that we are normalized to pay certain prices and to conceive certain imagined values onto things. And if capitalism, was not the dominant political economic framework of society, we would cast-aside and/or discontinue the production of many capitalist commodities.
As for sub-comandante Marcos, and his statement that I am not using the term "value" correctly, I see value as arbitrary and as an artificial social construction. As a result, I am using the concept of "value" arbitrarily and as an artificial social construction. Just like Marx did, although he would never admit it, because he couched it in labor-time, quantifiable labor-time! Quantifiable labor-time, which is only validated when it is realized in circulation.Am I the only person on this forum that thinks that the use of the term "sub-comandante Marcos" is actually an attempt at a racially stereotyped slur?
MBellemare wrote:No worries, Alan, Personallly I love good solid quotes! A small point on TWC and fictious capital, to broaden the term. There maybe such a thing/concept as "unquantifiable" fictitious capital/value. Isn't the whole so-called Royal Family-Apparatus, a form of "unquantifiable" fictitious value? A nonsense founded in the conceptual-perception of people? Why would anyone, in Canada, pay 35.99 for a plate, worth in reality 99 cents, with a picture of a royal wedding on it? Yet, Canadians do pay and pay in large numbers. Doesn't this pricing index seem a bit arbitrary and artificially fabricated? Hence, how the conceptual-perceptions of a segment of the canadian population can imagine into existence value, value that is not really there. This is post-modernism at its best.Cheers,M. BellemareAgain you seem to be using the term value and price interchangeably. In marxist terms they are not. The price of the plate may well be $35.99, the cost of producing the plate may well be 99 cents, however the Value in Marxist terms is neither of those to things.
MBellemare wrote:3. Shareholders place pressure on these companies and/or capitalist to augment profits, annually. So out of the blue or via group agreement, one of the nodes of the network will raise his or her prices, thus profits as well, slightly over time. It may be only a few dollars here and there. They label it inflation, and there maybe some inflation involved, but what stops a capitalists from raising prices, other than the network in general he or she belongs to, inflation plus a little more is nothing. The public won't even notice, its the price of doing business. My competitors, who are not really competitors, due to our mutual networking set of rules, feeling the same pressures will raise prices, accordingly, thus raising profits, across the specific sphere of production. Why would they do this, when they could lower prices and undercut their adventurous competitor? They do this so as not to trigger the coercive laws of competition, which are bad for everyone across a specific sphere of production.You claim that you are not like the currency cranks who can create money at a stroke, however this passage from your notional scenario betrays you. If one group of producers raise prices, in a system where there is a finite amount of currency in circulation, this has the impact that there is less currency to be used for the purchase of other commodities, therefore the amount of other commodities being purchased or the price paid for these purchases will fall. The Price/value equilibrium will be maintained across the economic activities. Prices cannot be raised without impact, just as a man cannot pull himself of the ground by his own boot straps and you cannot pull price up without reference to value.Perhaps you should read, or re-read this:https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/
gnome wrote:A total of 70 enquiries from the inserts in the New Statesman and New Scientist have now been received. Nearly all have taken advantage of the free three month subscription to the Socialist Standard and over 40 also opted for the information pack containing a copy of the current Socialist Standard, the pamphlet From Capitalism to Socialism, an introductory leaflet and a covering letter.The next batch of inserts will be included with the September edition of the William Morris Society magazine which goes out to 1100 subscribers.Thanks for the update, that news alongside the video launch makes for some good news about activity.
I don't know if it's just me, but observing Socialist Studies slow decline takes me back to the childhood experience of watching a wasp caught in a spider's web, slowly losing it's potency and gradually falling into the icy grip of death.Not particulalry educational, but you've got to admit it's compelling viewing
jondwhite wrote:Bob Hope, comedy's answer to Kissinger, ever-willing to entertain the troops on the latest US military adventure.Quote:Bob Hope was the establishment. Bob Hope was friends with Nixon. Bob Hope was speaking in favor of the [Vietnam] War. Bob Hope was expressing that kind of backward, suburban, WASP view of minorities, homosexuals, the women's movement. Even his comments on the women's movement were very condescending. He did a special in the '70s on the women's movement and it was so silly, so backward. And [in his act] the woman who had some big political office was dusting the chairs in between her meetings. It was just awful. He got mail … from feminists.He was clueless at that time. That was why that generation of comedians turned off to him. … It's hard to be [a] comedian and be part of the establishment because comedians, their job is to satirize and to poke fun at the powerful people. And this is something that Bob was — one of the powerful people. So just as a comedian, he became less and less relevant.http://www.npr.org/2014/11/24/366137941/the-rise-and-fall-of-comedian-bob-hope
The author asks who started stand up? and comes up with the answer Bob Hope?"I was always wondering who kind of started standup comedy," Zoglin says. "And I really think you have to say it was Bob Hope." Guess he's never heard of Mx Miller, who was way ahead of Hope, in more ways that one!
Bob Andrews wrote:What evidence is there that Kropotkin was an influence on the founders of the WSM? Anarchists were anti-marxist even before the capitalist class sat up and took notice. Kropotkin at one time describing Bismarckism and Marxism as 'two sides of the same coin'. Which might help to clarify why he did not oppose the First Great War.Apologies if this is also straying slightly off topic, but The Clousden Hill Free Communist and Cooperative Community was founded about 200 yards from the house I was born and brought up in and which Cde Kilgallon senior (my mother) still lives.Rumour has it that Kropotkin and Tom Mann were regular visitors and sometimes went for a drink at the Clousden Hill Hotel (where I made my debut as a drinker and whose football team Clouden Hill Celtic (139 appearances 3 goals, two broken legs (not mine) I later played). As a child I used to play in the derelict house which formed part of the commune and made tarzan swings from the decaying roof. Perhaps Kropotkin had a sub conscious influence on me?http://www.ic.org/wiki/clousden-hill/
Daniel Cotton wrote:check out Solidarity, a socialist party working in Australia to tear apart the brutality of colonial capitalism: http://www.solidarity.net.au/aboriginal/capitalism-and-aboriginal-oppression/And no doubt introduce the brutality of Leninst dictatorship!
