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I would guess that one of the big objectives of trolling, ring pieces like Bob Andrews is to cause disharmony between Socialists.I know from personal experience that both Brian and Vin are committed and active Socialists. If Socialists like Vinand Brian are arguing with each other, then they are not putting that energy into fighting the real enemy the vicious, inhumane, system of society that we currently have to endure. Surely we are better fighting the common enemy.As to The clearly provocative, sexist, homophobic, parody of a human being that is Bob Andrews, it is clear what his objectives are. He clearly has some kind of familial link to the dead hand of the Ashbourne Court Group,  it is sad that the legacy of the life time of commitment to Socialist activity that the members of that group have undertaken, activity that I would be proud to have been able to have carried out one tenth of, should  now be represented by the clearly anti socialist sewage of  Knob Andrews

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LBird wrote:

Marx, Letter to Annenkov, 1846, wrote:

…those who produce social relations in conformity with their material productivity also produce the ideas, categories, i.e. the ideal abstract expressions of those same social relations. Indeed, the categories are no more eternal than the relations they express. They are historical and transitory products. To Mr Proudhon, on the contrary, the prime cause consists in abstractions and categories. According to him it is these and not men which make history. The abstraction, the category regarded as such, i.e. as distinct from man and his material activity, is, of course, immortal, immutable, impassive.

http://hiaw.org/defcon6/works/1846/letters/46_12_28.html'Matter' is such a 'category'. Not 'eternal', but 'historical and transitory'. Not 'immortal, immutable, impassive', awaiting our 'discovery'.Those who think that 'the prime cause' is a 'category', like matter, which is 'distinct from [hu]man[ity]', rather than human activity, are not Marxists. They are the idealists. 'Materialists' are idealists. Engels didn't understand that, and neither do the 'materialists' who mistakenly follow Engels.Humans socially produce 'matter', and so can change it. 'Matter' is a social product.Even the bourgeoisie have changed from this 'category' to others. Thus, even the bourgeoisie are more advanced than 'materialists', who continue to live in the intellectual world of the 18th century, prior to Marx.

the problem is, my feathered fiend, is that you conflate Matter with Materialism. they are two different concepts and the words have effectively two different derivations although coming from the same latin root.material (adj.) mid-14c., "real, ordinary; earthly, drawn from the material world;" a term in scholastic philosophy and theology, from Old French material, materiel Matter " from Latin materia "matter, stuff, wood, timber".Your use of the word matter is a more modern usage to describe the "theory of matter". Adhering to Materialsim, does not per se adherence to modern theories of matter, which must by their very nature be subject to scrutiny and change.So to summarise basically, your talking bollocksYou may find the following link useful:http://blog.planetjamie.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Arse-Elbow-smaller.jpg

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Vin wrote:

Bob Andrews should be removed from the forum. His attitude to women is unacceptable to socialists

Not only that his repeated homophobic remarks should not be tolerated on this forum.

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Alan Kerr wrote:

Project Management also calls for choosing.The new society must still choose.How will they choose? Question #386This is really the same question as #289Crusoe also had to choose.For help see this month’s Socialist Standard.But don’t be slow.On the amount of dithering here, average worker will decide that the new society must descend into famine, dictatorship and Lenin’s New Economic Policy.

There is no need to choose one or the other, they just manufacture kiln dried and air dried tmber and then monitor which ones people choose to use in their different construction projects. Then as the stock of either or both begins to diminish the planks are replaced with new stock, etc. etc. If there is little or no demand for either, then the stocks are not replaced and productiv resources are shifted to something that people want.

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Sympo wrote:

Hud955 wrote:

"I don''t think that religion creates class division.  Religion is used to justify or excuse class division, it is also used to motivate others to act in the interests of elites."Just to be clear, what I meant with "class division" was "members of a class who don't identify their interest as identical to those class members of a different faith, race, nationality etc". I didn't mean "when people of a society are divided in classes". I guess I could have used a better phrase (though I can't really think of one at the moment)."You cannot serve two interests, your own and those of your masters.  Those that can be scared or intimidated by religious claims are also less likely to make a firm committment to socialism."I agree with you. A religious person who blindly obeys a religious authority is probably going to be told a bunch of anti-socialist stuff (Khomeini said for example that Islam was in favor of private property)."But people with looser forms of religious belief and less commitment to authority might well come to recognise their class interests and take a clear class view."What is your personal opinion on letting people of "loose" religious beliefs enter a World Socialist party? As I have understood it the present policy is to not let any religious person in, regardless of how strict they are.

My view, and it is only my view, is that there is a difference between religion and belief in things spiritual. Religion and religious belief implies the adherence to an organised belief system. To me there is no place for people who carry an adherence to an organised belief system in the Socialist Party. However a personal spiritual belief, is not something that is part of an organisational system, so for instance a person might believe in a personal karma, where if they do good to others, good will come to them. Although, I would view that as superstitous and illogical, I would not personally view that as a bar to being a party member.

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LBird wrote:

Brian wrote:

The decision reached will be based on …  There will be no need for a vote when the situation itself will determine the outcome. 

[my bold]I'm not sure how 'the situation itself' will obviate the need for conscious human activity, Brian.

Brian wrote:

In short, we will decide when and if its appropriate and acceptable to use technology in a given situation.

[my bold]Ahhh… so, it's not 'the situation itself', then?So, 'who' is the 'we' that do 'decide'?And, 'how' does this 'we' make a decision, if not by democratic means ("no need for a vote")?

In honour of the great L Bird, they could choose two short planks

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Not only that Michel L Bird has so far failed to give us any indication about how the truth behind the following crucial questions will be established in a future society:1. "What came first the chicken or the egg?"2 "Is the glass half full or half empty?"3. "How much is that doggy in the window?"4. (One for the football fans, or as you would call it Soccer) "Who's your father referee" (The current consensus goes along the lines of "you haven't got one, you're a bastard, you're a bastard referee")5 (And probably the most important question) is it "the one who denied it, who supplied it" or is it as, I suspect "The one that smelt it that dealt it"(On a serious note, perhaps when reading through L Bird's ridiculous, long winded, pompous, pseudo-intellectual postings, you can now see why those of us who are serious about promoting Socialist ideas on this forum, get a little bit tetchy at times!)

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LBird wrote:

Tim, I only got to Question 1, and since I've answered this time and time and time again (to you, Vin, robbo, YMS, etc.), it appears that you either can't read or won't read what I write.When you've gone back and read what I wrote in answer to this question the last few times, I'll then take your request seriously. Until then, I can't treat your post as a serious attempt at political discussion.So, post a quote of mine, answering that question the last time it was asked, and we might start to make progress. From Question 2.

Actually L Bird, what you really mean is that you wont answer these questions, because you know fully well that you would look even more stupid if you did answer them. And you wonder why people take the piss, what a pillock

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LBird wrote:

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

LBird wrote:

alanjjohnstone wrote:

If it is workers' democracy we want, …workers were discouraged not by lack of consultation but the amount of it…after meeting every day and every week…many compulsory…

So, alan, you're arguing that the Soviet Union's version of 'consultation' amounted to "workers' democracy"? Wow!

Previously I have tried (sometimes by your own admission successfully) taking the piss out of you, but I think after reading the above I have to admit that at times I'm beat,L Bird you really are beyond parody, your ability to misconstrue any statement made by another is an absolute marvel of the modern world. I would go as far as to say, and I don't say this lightly, your ability to misrepresent any comment made in a negative and derogatory way goes beyond that of my late mother in law, and that is my friend very great praise.L Bird, a one man mixture of misunderstanding, misrepresentaion and misconstruction, I salute you sir!

Tim, you could try reading the political discussion, and then making some political comment, about both sides, but you regard yourself as a 'Genius Jester', whose 'witty quips' keep us all in tucks of laughter, 'The Joker'.Perhaps 'A Joke' would be more accurate for your knowledge, if only you had Rabbie's power.Anyway, back to the grown-ups' political discussion…

The point I am making, L B, if I may call you that, is that what Alan was saying, i.e. that workers in the Soviet Union, were pissed off with being corralled into taking meaningless votes about fuck all, in no one's mind other than your own, could possibly be construed as "arguing that the Soviet Union's version of consultation amounted to "workers' democracy"". Which is what you stated. However your elitist stance is that anyone who disagrees with you is somehow your intellectual inferior. As an aside I wonder what kind of life events have made you have such a fragile sense of self esteem that you have to continually buld up your intellectual prowess, at the expense of others.The point I take from Alan's quote from Lee Harvey Oswald, is that choice, selection, voting, in whatever form it takes is meaningless unless it has an impact on individual experiences. This is of important and relevant to this discussion, not because Alan equates the Soviet Union to Worker's Democracy" but because have proposed a system of society where regular plebiscites are held over every theoretical aspect of science.Moreover your proposal gives rise to several questions, which have been repeatedly asked by posters on this forum, none of which you have given substantial answers to. So I will put these questions to you again in the vain hope that you will use your "massive" intellect to provide any form of answer to themQuestion 1 – You repeatedly state that you are in favour of workers' (or sometimes you have used the phrase proletarian) democracy, if that is the case, how can this be implemented in a classless society, where by definition there is no working class or capitalist class?Question 2 – You state that you are in favour of plebiscites to establish the "nature of truth" and of "scientific theory". In the event of these plebiscites taking place, what is the fate of any minority who do not agree with the outcome of the vote? Would they be free to continue to hold their views, despite the democratic vote? Would those that voted for scientific theories that lost the vote be banned from applying the theories that lost the vote in their research? Would those who persisted in holding these views be subject to any form of sanction?Question 3 – Which leads on from question 1, if, as could be construed from the phrasing you use, only "workers" i.e. those that contribute useful work, are part of the franchise, what are the rights of those who do not contribute useful work, fro example the retired, people with disabilities, the seriously ill, etc.? If as could also be possibly construed the franchise for these plebiscites was open to all, how far would that franchise stretch, would there be any exclusions?Question 4 – Although you state that this system relates to science, where do the boundaries of this start and stop? What, effectively is science and what is not? It would be very easy to define research into cell formation as science, but what about perception of the world, is that scientific?Question 5 – What about resources? as scientific theory is built up of lots and lots of interrelated theories, presumably each plebiscite decision has a knock on effect on all of the other theoretical positions that are built up from that theory. therefore it is conceivable that, in your system, if a major theoretical concept is overturned, hundreds, if not thousands of subsequent votes would need to be taken. Where is humanity going to find the time and the resources to conduct these seemingly endless series of plebiscites? I fully expect that you will waffle on about your superior intellectual power, or my bourgeois individualism, or accuse me of being a Leninist/Trotskyist, materialist fuckwit, but I am a kind of a glass half full kind of character, so here's hoping.

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LBird wrote:

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I go away for a day and return to two threads that are meaningless to any neutral visitor. Number of angels dancing on the head of a pin comes to mind…I'll be basically offline for a week or so and will expect to return to screeds of messages after messages which in no way relate or resonate with any of my fellow-workers. If it is workers' democracy we want, then boring them stiff and so that they will not participate or get involved will be one method of keeping the elite in charge.I posted a link to Lee Harvey Oswald's stay in the Soviet Union which i doubt anybody really read and how workers were discouraged not by lack of consultation but the amount of it…after meeting every day and every week…many compulsory…

So, alan, you're arguing that the Soviet Union's version of 'consultation' amounted to "workers' democracy"? Wow!

Previously I have tried (sometimes by your own admission successfully) taking the piss out of you, but I think after reading the above I have to admit that at times I'm beat,L Bird you really are beyond parody, your ability to misconstrue any statement made by another is an absolute marvel of the modern world. I would go as far as to say, and I don't say this lightly, your ability to misrepresent any comment made in a negative and derogatory way goes beyond that of my late mother in law, and that is my friend very great praise.L Bird, a one man mixture of misunderstanding, misrepresentaion and misconstruction, I salute you sir!

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Vin wrote:

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

What norsery school did yee gan tee marra? Ah din't knaa th'wez that clivvor owa the watta.Forthest we iva got at norsery wus Logical Positivism and a little bit of existentialism!

Ah dident gann ta norsry marra and am not that clivver, like. I'ts just the thik c$£ts around mak es luck clivver. Ya naw, the liverbird's a div lol 

Whey ah thowt yee'd had a gud educashun marra, yee'd sed ya school was approved, mind wor wag wifey knewed mare than yon liverbord, he wadn't knaa what cuddy kicked im.

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Vin wrote:

Alan Kerr wrote:

@LBirdWell then,1) 'automation-for-the-bourgeoisie’ comes earlier.2) 'automation-for-the-proletariat' comes later.Please see The Socialist Preamble.Or see anything by Marx and Engels.

There can be no proletariate in socialism. There can be no free slaves. See Marx and Engels ! "Vulgar socialism has accepted as gospel from the bourgeois economists (and a part even of the democracy has taken over the doctrine from the unreflecting socialists) that the problem of distribution can be considered and treated independently of the mode of production, from which it is inferred that socialism turns mainly upon the question of distribution.""We look forward to an end forever to the wages system".NO MARKET! NO WAGES! NO PROLETARIAT!    Eeeeehhh, tell you what, its like being back at nursery school  

What norsery school did yee gan tee marra? Ah din't knaa th'wez that clivvor owa the watta.Forthest we iva got at norsery wus Logical Positivism and a little bit of existentialism!

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moderator1 wrote:

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

Marcos wrote:

Alan Kerr wrote:

@Steve-San FranciscoWho or what is shifting total sunlight around in a way that keeps trees alive?“A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"(Stephen Hawking’s book A Brief History of Time)At least the little old lady did give an answer.If not the market then who or what is shifting total labour around in a way that keeps us alive?

We are shifting from social sciences into Botany, Agronomy,  and Zoology

message to Moderator 1can you explain how the original post relates to the title of this discussion, marx and Automation. As pointed out by Marcos, the posting had nothing to do with the thread title, yet no action was takenagainst the posters, yet later posts wchich diverge ended up with bans from the forum. I for one would like some degree of consistancy in the moderation of this forum!!!

1st warning: : 2. The forums proper are intended for public discussion. Personal messages between participants should be sent via private message or by e-mail.

 

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Marcos wrote:

Alan Kerr wrote:

@Steve-San FranciscoWho or what is shifting total sunlight around in a way that keeps trees alive?“A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"(Stephen Hawking’s book A Brief History of Time)At least the little old lady did give an answer.If not the market then who or what is shifting total labour around in a way that keeps us alive?

We are shifting from social sciences into Botany, Agronomy,  and Zoology

message to Moderator 1can you explain how the original post relates to the title of this discussion, marx and Automation. As pointed out by Marcos, the posting had nothing to do with the thread title, yet no action was takenagainst the posters, yet later posts wchich diverge ended up with bans from the forum. I for one would like some degree of consistancy in the moderation of this forum!!!

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MBellemare wrote:

Aaah! This is where you Armchair Marxists have ventured to. The pub down the street, Socialism and Change!Bolsheviks, a blue-print? There only idea was to shoot half the country! And let the other half die of stavation!I wonder if Russia would have made the same choice in Lenin, knowing where they are today under Putin.The way to anarcho-socialism is through micro-revolutions, little mini-insurections in the micro-recesses of everyday life, which may possibly blossom into a full-fledge people's revolution. (Think May 68 in France). It begins with the students and spreads from the campuses, outwards, making the whole super-structure wobble.A genuine revolutionary rabble, no party, no polit bureau, just a rabble, comprised of people from all social stratums wanting radical social change! A new socio-economic formation.      

Oh wow, it's another proclamation from right on, trendy anarchist Michel Luc Bellemare, the man who is so radical and revolutionary and anti elitist that he spends half his time making sure that every one knows he's got a PHd. (like anyone in the SPGB would give a flying f@ck)So the revolution starts on the student campus, that's right mate, when they've finished playing candy crush!Oh and it's going to be headed by a disorganised rabble. I can really imagine the agencies of the state are really shitting it, a whole load of disorganised students with no organised idea of how they want to achieve change, or what they want to achieve by that change, charging on to the streets, just like France in '68.I recall the late, great Cde Dick Donnelly refering in his rich Glaswegian Brogue to the "so called revolutionaries" being defeated by "something akin to a municiple street sweeping device, christ only knows what would have happened if the full resources of state repression had been unleased on these romantic fools".It was a disorganised rabble that tried to overthrow Assad, it was a disroganised rabble that over threw the Tunisian regime, it was a disrganised rabble that over threw Louis XVI. They all worked realy well for the working class, didn't they. Can I suggest that if you aren't willing to learn from the lessons of history, you bugger off back to your cosy world of modern art and paint some more of your bonny pictures and stop posing as a windswept and interesting revolutionary. The SPGB is a serious political organisation, not a passing fasion statement, to look back on in embarassment in old age.

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