[Lew]

gnome wrote:

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There are still many workers who don't read the Standard online because they don't have online access and quite possibly choose not to have it.  What about them?

There are vastly many more workers who will never have the chance of buying a printed Standard. What about them?

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So instead of consuming "valuable resources" (i.e. that of cost and members' time) at Head Office it is proposed to transfer the effort to members elsewhere.

I did include HO (Head Office). But if members elsewhere want to take on that work, I don't see anything wrong with it.

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But neither is there any guarantee that workers will read the Standard online.  That's why it's patently obvious we should keep any and every option open and not place all our eggs in one basket…

 There is no guarantee that workers will read the Standard online or in print. But we do know that more and more workers are reading the Standard online. Nobody has suggested that we put all our eggs in one basket. All that is asked is that we redirect resources away from a media which is dying into a media which is thriving.– Lew

[Lew]

Here are a few reasons for discontinuing the printed Standard:Sales of the printed Standard have been in decline for many years. There is no forseable and realistic change to that trend.More people read the Standard online than in print. It is reasonable to expect that trend to continue.The printed Standard consumes valuable resources in terms of money and members time. For the effort involved it reaches relatively few people.Our website consumes very little resources in comparison to the printed Standard. For the effort involved its reach to the working class is limitless.Currently we have the Standard appearing monthly online, by which time some or all of the content is out of date. It's anachronistic to wait until the printed Standard comes out to see the Standard onlineIf articles for the Standard were edited and uploaded for as they arrive this would improve the "stickiness" for the website and people may return more often. We should be championing free access rather than following a failing model of capitalist consumerism.Last, but by no means least, this does not preclude HO, branches or individuals from printing off PDF copies of articles or whole Standards as required.– Lew

[Lew]

robbo203 wrote:

His book Debunking Economics is a must-read (and I haven't read it yet)

 I have read it and it's a waste of time:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2003/no-1182-february-2003/book-reviewsLew

[Lew]

Hal Draper argued that Lenin was making explicit what was already implicit in the politics of the Second International generally and Kautsky in particular:https://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1990/myth/myth.htmOur disagreements with Kautsky and the Second International usually center on their reformism and state capitalist conception of socialism. But our insistence that the emancipation of the working class really must be the work of the working class itself (DOP 5) has not been fully recognised. It is an important repudiation of Kautsky and the Second International and one of our most important contributions to socialist politics. I'm not aware of any history of the SPGB which covers this ground.Lew

[Lew]

OK, I'll give this one more try and attempt to answer the question which you avoided. To the question "Why should workers become socialist?" one possible answer is: Because the working class are exploited through the wages system. With consequences such as poverty amidst plenty, and so on. This is a claim which, we argue, is demonstrably true. It's true because it fits the facts and explains the world around us. It's true even if there is no workers' democracy. It's even true if there are no socialists or socialist party. And, of course, claims about "a fair days work for a fair days pay" are demonstrably false. That is the situation here and now.That is why talk of controlling "the production of truth" is meaningless.– Lew

[Lew]

LBird wrote:

It's not quite clear to me yet just who Lew is proposing should control the production of 'truth'. Perhaps Lew will clarify just who is their 'active agent of truth production'.

This is, I think, meaningless. But let's try another tack. How would you answer the question: Why should workers become socialist?– Lew

[Lew]

LBird wrote:

Of course, 'Marx's notion of truth' is not yet 'true', because there is at present another class in control of the 'notion of truth', but we have to argue, as socialists, for this revolutionary notion of the changeability of 'truth', so we can, err…, change our world, rather than just contemplate the 'Truth' that the bourgeoisie have built. 

So, by "true" you mean "not yet true". Or until the victorious proletariat decide otherwise, possibly true. Or possibly false. Or possibly meaningless. Who knows? It's anybody's guess. Actually, your own actions betray this essentially postmodernist approach. As a socialist there are things you believe about capitalism, about socialism which, to some extent at least, are true (and, conversely, things which are false). Rational political discourse depends on it. This includes your "revolutionary notion of the changeability of 'truth'" which, to make sense, you must believe is true and not merely "not yet true".After all, what is the point of getting engaged in the struggle to change our world now if we can't decide what is true or false until after the revoltion.– Lew

[Lew]

LBird wrote:

Yes, "the above statement is true".'Truth' is socially-produced, and the statement that I (and I think alan) make is a socially-produced one, with a political underpinning, that allows us to change 'truth', because it is humans that produce 'truth'.

How, why and where did the above statement (concerning Marx's notion of truth) become socially-produced as true?– Lew

[Lew]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

truth changes with time.

Is that always true? If it is, then the statement is self-contradictory. But if the above statement changes with time then there is no reason to accept its truth.

LBird wrote:

I'm fully behind Marx's social approach, of locating the production of 'truth' in the society in which it is produced.

I did ask before but didn't get a response; so I'll ask again: Is the above statement true? — Lew

[Lew]

moderator2 wrote:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contrition

That's an American English dictionary. A British English dictionary has:1. deeply felt remorse; penitence2. Christianity detestation of past sins and a resolve to make amends, either from love of God (perfect contrition) or from hope of heaven (imperfect contrition)http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/contrition– Lew

[Lew]

LBird wrote:

My 'definition of truth' is the same as Marx's.

Is this true?

[Lew]

ALB wrote:

There's a Shiite mosque just round the corner from Head Office. I too have seen swastikas on houses, when leafletting in Tooting where many Tamils live.

The swastika is an ancient religious symbol associated with Hinduism and other eastern religions. Tamils, being mainly Hindi, will often display that symbol. Quite why the Nazis adopted the swastika is something of a mystery (though many claim to know), but it can be generally said that Hindi are not Nazi.Lew

[Lew]

ALB wrote:

Something to cheer up those who moan about us going down the pan. Go here and scroll down and click to see inside and see what Niall Ferguson says on pages 17 and 18 of his 2008 best seller The Ascent of Money: [snip]A bit surprising, I suppose, that none of us noticed it before but Howard Pilott mentioned it in his talk in Brighton earlier this week.

 This topic was a thread on the WSM Forum 6 years ago: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/wsm_forum/conversations/topics/37498 It includes a couple of contributions from … ALB. Lew

[Lew]

Vin wrote:

SP I am making a broad generalisation but generally there was a consensus. Marx for example did not criticise anarchists for advocating a society without a state, he criticised their methods of achieving such a society

Not true. Marx’s main anarchist protagonists were Stirner, Proudhon and Bakunin, and none of them wanted socialism. They wanted a society without a state, it is true, and Marx and Engels recognised that an anarchist society would be stateless. But Marx had plenty of serious criticisms of anarchists and anarchism that went well beyond the methods they employed.For instance, consider the case of Max Stirner. Most of the German Ideology, by Marx and Engels, is a rebuttal of Stirner’s ego-centric anarchism. Stirner’s extreme individualism is a form of solipsism – there is no such thing as society, there are only individuals. This has probably been the most historically influential of anarchist ideas, and it long pre-dates Thatcher. Stirnerite anarchism flourished during Nazi Germany. If it strikes you as odd that anarchists could prosper under a Nazi state, then we must remember that in this ideology an anarchist can support anything they like as an act of individual sovereignty.Marx had plenty to say about Stirner and Proudhon, but he did not criticise their methods for achieving a stateless society. Why not? Because their objectives were not socialist, so it didn't matter. In Bakunin's case, Marx did criticise his methods but only because it would lead to an unnecessary and bloody civil war.– Lew

[Lew]

jondwhite wrote:

What the weirdest, wildest, most successful participatory project in history tells us about working together.An interesting article about Wikipediahttps://medium.com/matter/the-36-people-who-run-wikipedia-21ecca70bcca

This is another refutation of the "economic calculation argument", according to which any large-scale, complex project needs pricing for it to work efficiently. On the contrary, the success of Wikipedia is because of – not despite – the absence of pricing.– Lew

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