[robbo203]

MBellemare wrote:

@Robbo Comment #264  You raise important issues. I see you are mulling over the same issues. I would say that "theoretically" price can be increased, ad infinitum. The theory, I've introduced, stipulates so.  The reason they are not raised immediately is the social antagonism from the working population.The imperative I introduce is: "Whatever an entity can get away with in the marketplace is valid and legitimate". This does not mean that entities get away with their price manipulations everytime. There are times when there is push back. Notwithstanding, I would argue that we are right now in the early stages of a broad tendency to raise prices beyond the reach of the working population, where capitalists are beginning a long protracted war of attrition, since the 1970s, againt the working population, to return the working population into servitude over the next century or so. An economic slavery akin to feudalism! I see the advent of return to the dark ages, a corporate dark age, where knowledge is suppressed, knowledge advancement is suppresed, knowledge sharing is suppressed, technology is suppressed etc. I call this the rise of  micro-fascism, where no-one of any significance advances and only the obedient and obedience is rewards and worthy of merit, and given positions of influence. Universities in north america are increasingly closed spaces filled with the indoctrinated, who produce indoctrination on a mass scale.  As a result, the working population increasingly finds itself in a the predicament of social immobility, stagnation, both intellectually and financially.     

 Hmmm,  This all sounds  a bit like conspiracy theory to me, Michel – the capitalists colluding to impose some sort of neofeudalistic fascist regime on an increasingly regimented and servile working class.  I am very wary of these kinds of Big Brother dystopian narratives.  You make the capitalists sound  like some kind of uber race endowed with a superior knowlege, foresight and an ability to cooperate that workers singularly lack,  The capitalists are nothing special and they certainly dont control their system,  They cannot just direct it to  behave in whatever  fashion they desire.  A return to the Dark Ages? How are they going to possibly enforce that in this day and age of social networking – not to mention continuous and growing  displays of popular discontent? Nope I cant see things panning out as you suggest.  Instead, I think  capitalist society will just continue to muddle through as it always does unless and until workers collectively and consciously takes steps  to bring it an end – or else some catastrophic event like a nuclear war happens  I suppose its the Jeremiah in you that prompts you to say right we are "right now in the early stages of a broad tendency to raise prices beyond the reach of the working population",  But why would capitalists want to do that? They want to sell  their goods and increase their market share vis-a-vis their market rivals.  They dont want to be lumbered with a whole bunch of unsold commodities which workers cannot afford to buy ,  which  will force them to cut back on production and thereby curtail the flow of profts coming their way.   And as I have said several time now,  it is simply not true that ALL prices are rising in relative terms.   There  many kinds of goods which relatively speaking are cheaper today than the were a decade ago, for example.  I provided you with one or two links making this point.   

MBellemare wrote:

I would argue that the coercive laws of competition can be short-circuited, via "networking", an unquantifiable force influencing price. If we had true competition, as Marx argued, capitalism would have collapsed decades ago, as profits would have deterioriated to nil. Capitalists do price their goods too high, hence the rising debt-load upon the working population.  

 When did Marx say if we had true competition capitalism would have collapsed?  I  would be interested if you could cite a source for this claim .  My understanding is that Marx did not believe capitalism would collapse of its own accord though  his buddy,  Freddy Engels thought it might in the 1880s I fail to see how the  laws of competititon can be shortcircuited via "networking" and  you dont really explain the mechanics of this process anyay.  Marx made the point in Grundrisse that " Capital exists and can only exist as many capitals".  Even in the most collectivised and heavily regulated version  of capitalism – the so called command economy of Soviet state capitalism where prices were (supposedly) set by the central authorities , there was intense competition at  every level of society over funding and materials allocations , most notably between the state enterprises themselves which were obliged to keep profit and loss accounts and could be heavily penalised by going into  the red.and  so effectively functioned as separate capitals in their own right If Soviet state capitalism went nowhere near to shortcuiting the laws of competition, how do you propose to do this via "networking"?

[robbo203]

gnome wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

The SP should be churning out several pamphets a year along these lines.  As a format it is so obviously convenient when you have to refer people to the socialist position on a particular subject matter.  I dont know why the Party does not do it

Currently the SP doesn't appear to have the human resources capable of "churning out several pamphlets a year".  We've managed to produce the Martov one so far this year but we're having difficulty getting the one on the Russian Revolution out in time for the centenary…

 Thats a pity Dave.  Perhaps the idea needs to be promoted in the SP to see what kind of response  it elicits. Does the Party not have a "pamphlets committee" (or whatever it was called)  anymore? Such a body could take it upon itself to commision pamphlets by directly approaching individual writers to come up with something or, as Alan suggests, compile pamphlets out of old articles with a common theme. I cant stress enough the benefits of having publications in a pamphlet form.  It enables a much more detailed , multi-angled and rounded  examination of a particular subject than is possible with an isolated article appearing in the SS. I know I have mentioned this example before but take the case of the Libertarian Alliance which the SPGB has debated on several occasions.  They are a tiny outfit, a fraction of the size of the SPGB, yet they manage to produce an astounding array of publications.  Check out their literature stock here  http://www.libertarian.co.uk/?q=publications Why can't the SPGB do something similar? It just needs the imagination and the will to make it happen

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

Once more we have the "progressive' demand for the UBIhttps://commons.commondreams.org/t/why-we-need-a-universal-basic-income/45041/8Isn't it time to dedicate a pamphlet that explains the con that is taking place, rather than expect visitors to this forum or our website to search for the scattered critique of the Citizen's Wage.It needn't be a print pamphlet but an online collation of our articles re-formatted and re-edited for better reading.

 Indeed,  Alan,  The SP should be churning out several pamphets a year along these lines.  As a format it is so obviously convenient when you have to refer people to the socialist position on a particular subject matter.  I dont know why the Party does not do it

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Hud955 wrote:

Thanks for the useful examples, Robin.  I get that. The problem I have however, is that writers like Zac Cope use this fact to feed into their superprofits argument.    And in this part of his argument perhaps he is correct.   Producers in the global north can use market, and particularly labour, arbitrage to trade with "third world" producers on very unfavourable terms.    Marx dealt with that and outlined the mechanism clearly.  And these days monopolistic practices also have an effect. 

 Richard,  I recommend  you read Charlie Post on this subject of superprofits and the supposedly "bribed" labour aristocracy in the so called First WorldAs far as capitalists based in the First World are concerned, the proportion of total capital invested abroad – and even more so, in the Third World – is actually remarkably small by comparison with what is invested at "home".  According to Post:Imperialist investment, particularly in the global South, represents a tiny portion of global capitalist investment. Foreign direct investment makes up only 5% of total world investment – that is to say, 95% of total capitalist investment takes place within the boundaries of each industrialized country.  Of that five percent of total global investment that is foreign direct investment, nearly three-quarters flow from one industrialized country – one part of the global North – to another. Thus only 1.25% of total world investment flows from the global North to the global South. It is not surprising that the global South accounts for only 20% of global manufacturing output, mostly in labor-intensive industries such as clothing, shoes, auto parts and simple electronics. ("The Labor Aristocracy Myth" , International Viewpoint Online magazine : IV381 – September 2006  These figures are a little dated and describe the situation  prior to 2000; they dont fully take into account the rapid growth, since then, of transnational corporate investment in China, in particular.  However, even if we update the figures, the overall picture still remains essentially the same: only a tiny fraction of global investment flows takes – or ever took –  the form of Direct Foreign Investment (FDI) by the global North in the global South  Even if we allow that the rate of profit in theThird World was significantly higher, on average than what  was obtained in the First World at the time Lenin was writing (and despite capitalisms tendency for profits rates to equalise) – thereby justifying use of the term, "superprofits" –   the total mass of profit accruing from FDIs in the Third World would still have been, and continues to be, comparatively small – at least compared to the total return on investments domestically or even elsewhere in the First World itself.  (This is to say nothing of capital flows in the other direction – from the Third world to First).  The evidence suggests that around that time – in the period leading up to the First World War – in the case of Britain (then the world's leading capitalist power), not only was  total FDI a small fraction of total domestic investment, but would also tend to vary in proportion to the latter.  In other words,  FDI would be high when domestic investment was high and low when the latter was low  (Lance E Davis and Robert A Huttenback, Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire, Cambridge 1986, p.39).    If the "superprofits" thesis was correct we would not have expected this to happen:  the level of FDI would have remained high, or even have risen,  irrespective of whether domestic investment was high or low – if only because the returns of FDI according to theory of superprofits would have been greater than in the case of domestic investment.  So a lower return on domestic investment would have encouraged capitalists to divert more of their capital abroad, or at least maintain the same level of investment there,  but that is not what seemingly happened. Moreover, if the  "booty" of imperialism that Lenin had talked about was comparatively small (judging by the extent of FDI, and the small proportion of this FDI going to the Third World itself) , then that portion of this booty which, he surmised, was diverted to the labour aristoracy in the form of bribes,  must therefore have been, correspondingly, absolutely minuscule.  Post  remarks that  "Foreign profits as a percentage of total U.S. wages rose above 5% only in 1997, 2000 and 2002, and rose slightly over 6% in 2003" (ibid).  Bearing in mind that a sizeable chunk of these "foreign profits" derives from investment in other industrialised countries,  one has to ask what proportion of the remaining foreign profits made in the Third World itself would it take to make a discernable difference – to buy off the labour aristocracy  through offering a bribe and thereby ensure their loyalty and class collaboration? On the face of it , it would hardly seem worth the effort from the standpoint of the "imperialist powers" themselves. The "crumbs" falling from the "imperialists' banquet table" would have been  barely noticeable if they existed at all.  Certainly there is no way the alleged bribes that the Lenin's labour aristocacy was supposedly  in receipt  of could account for wage differentials within the working class.  Other factors have to be invoked to account  for that and which fundamentally call into question the very claim that the labour aristocracy is literally bribed.   Also as mentioned earlier, countries in Europe that lacked colonies and engaged in little in the way of FDI tended to have more marked wage differentials compared with countries like Britain and France – as Tony Ciff noted.  This is the exact opposite of what we would expect to be the case if Lenins Labour arisocracy myth held any water 

[robbo203]

Hud955 wrote:

I've also been asked this.  "if it holds true that there is no difference between the exploitation of the first world and the third aside from their relative development and productivity, what is it that causes work that is of equal quality and technology in both locations to be valued so differently?"I can make a couple of guesses of what is happening, but I have no evidence to back them up.  

 Perhaps the simple arithmetic of the supply and demand for labour has a lot to do with this.  There are a lot more workers chasing fewer jobs in the so called Third World and levels of underemployment are signficantly higher too.   The erosion of peasant subsistence agriculture is fuelling massive rural urban migration and the urban economy simply cannot generate enough jobs to accomodate this influx. Also, many of these countries are still going through the demographic transition. Birth rates are starting to decline as one might expect but death rates have dropped faster, so rapid population growth is also an aggravating factor in the short term.  In China, for example, export oriented  industrialisation was initially fuelled by cheap abundant labour and the rise of China as an economic power house has been accompanied by a swtich from extensive to intensive growth based on increased mechanisation and rising labour productivity as wages increased and population growth diminished following the implementation of the one child policy in 1979.  In the race to the bottom corporations are looking elsewhere for abundant supplies of cheap labour – places like Vietnam for example.

[robbo203]

The idea  that only the workers as a whole "can determine what socialism will be" means of course that those of us who consider ourselves to be socialists now should really fall silent on the question of what it is and never put forward any conception of socialism whatseoever for other workers to consider  since that would be …"elitist" … and "pre-deciding" the issue for them, the workers as a whole – even though the workers as a whole are quite free to to decide they dont want what we, still unfortunately a small minority, call socialism. So if the workers as a whole eventually decided that "socialism" meant "national socialism", we should fall in line with this defintion of socialism and embrace it as good "democratic communists".  Meaning if a majority of workers accepted Nazi ideology we should follow suit since that's "socialism", right? Of course, the fact that we are just workers ourselves putting forward our distinctive concepton of socialism as a non market stateless alternative to capitalism, never seems to enter the heads of those who come up with this batty argument.  Apparently, it seems, no discussion is permitted on what is the nature of socialism , according to this argument, until  a majority have decided they want."socialism". The gaping hole in this argument should be pretty obvious to all.

[robbo203]

Marcos wrote:

 The workers in the unproductive sectors of the economy are also producing surplus value, and exploitation does not take place at the point of sale. 

 I wouldn't put it quite like that Marcos because technically unproductive workers  dont produce commodities for sale  and so dont produce value and hence surplus value.  However, they are indispenable to the production of value and surplus value since  capitalism could not function without such unproductive workers (For example how could capitalism function without a state and hence state employees? Or bank workers or salespeople  etc etc).  The workers who perform this work, although they do not directly produce surplus value, are nevertheless part of the exploited class in capitalist society and enable the realisation of surplus value even if it is other workers who directly produce it.  There would be no point in just producing surplus value if it cannot be realised through market sale. Marx's labour theory of value is applicable at the level of the economy as a whole and it is at the macro level that the process of expoitation truly reveals itself

[robbo203]

Hud955 wrote:

https://anti-imperialism.org/2014/01/05/gauging-the-contribution-of-third-world-labor-to-imperialist-economies/Can I throw this in the arena? I've been grappling with this issue of super-exploitation and getting confused.   The claim made by the author of the article and by various other "third world" Marxist (=Leninist) theorists  is that the "first world" imports 350 million worker years of labour time (value) from the "third world" every year whereas the the productive labour of "first world" workers in the same time represents only 180 million worker-years.  The conclusion reached is that the share of value (labour time) that "first world" workers consume is greater than the share they produce.  The article then calculates that most workers in the "first world" are not exploited at all.  This is obviously an absurd conclusion, as is the apparent claim that superexploitation takes place at the point of consumption not of production. This analysis raises many more issues.  There is, first, the accuracy of the highly generalised figures it bases its calculations on.  But there are more theoretical issues.  What is the definition of a productive worker?  What proportion of "first and third world" labour time is embodied in commodities consumed by "first world" workers (as opposed to luxury and capital goods)?  And how much of what is produced by "first world" labour time is exported to  the "third world"? The author also seems to ignore the labour of unproductive workers in the "first world" when it comes to consumption of the products of "third world" labour time.   I can think of any number of specific objections I would want to make, but they are fragmentary and I'm concerned that  I may be missing something essential. Is anyone with a better knowledge of Marx's LTV than I possess able to get to the root of the problems with this article and summarise them  more coherently and succinctly that I can? 

Richard, Here’s my take on the article you linked to and the conclusion it reaches viz “that the share of value (labour time) that "first world" workers consume is greater than the share they produce.  The article then calculates that most workers in the "first world" are not exploited at all”. This is just plain wrong.   Never mind that the article uses a quite ridiculous definition of the working class whereby “only 65% of those who receive incomes in the First World are actually workers”, the facts of the matter speak otherwise.  I can cite tons of evidence to support the contention that workers in the so called First World are indeed exploited like their fellow workers in the so Third World.  For instance, Bonnie Kavoussi, writing in the Huffington Post, points out that while the average hourly cost of employing factory worker was $23.32, these same workers produced on average an hourly output of $73.45   In other words, your average American factory worker produced over three times as much wealth as she received back in the form of wages. (Bonnie Kavoussi, Mar 8, 2012,“Average Cost Of A Factory Worker In The U.S., China And Germany”,Huffington Post) Another proxy indicator of the rate of exploitation is the gap between wage growth and productivity growth   Over the past few decades wage growth in the US has been noticeably sluggish, though still on an upward trend, while productivity has soared.  According to the Economic Policy Institute, between 1979 and 2009 U.S. productivity increased by 80 percent, while the hourly wage of the median American worker went up by only 10.1 percent.  ("The Sad But True Story of Wages in America", Lawrence Mishel and Heidi Shierholz, Economic Policy Institute, Issue Brief no.297, March 14, 2011).  Relatedly, in an article for the New York Times in 2013, Steven Greenhouse notes: "Wages have fallen to a record low as a share of America’s gross domestic product. Until 1975, wages nearly always accounted for more than 50 percent of the nation’s G.D.P., but last year wages fell to a record low of 43.5 percent. Since 2001, when the wage share was 49 percent, there has been a steep slide" (Steven Greenhouse, "Our Economic Pickle", New York Times, Sunday Review, January 12, 2013). The main beneficiaries of all this productivity growth have been the top 1% of the population in terms of wealth ownership –essentially the capitalist class – in what is becoming increasingly unequal society.  The imperialism.org article you linked to seems to base its whole argument on the premiss that while some workers in the First World are clearly exploited, as the example above shows, most workers in this part of the world are not productive – that is to say, they do not produce surplus value in the sense that they do not produce commodities that are sold on a market with a view to profit.  Rather they are financed out of surplus value.  For example, workers employed in some government department or a teacher in a state school.  But this is a completely non Marxist way of looking at the matter.  Just because a worker is employed in the non-productive sector of the economy does NOT mean that this worker is not exploited. Rather, the process of exploitation is an economy-wide phenomenon in the sense that fruits of exploitation – surplus value  – is something that is, as it were, pooled and redistributed to ensure an average rate of profit across the (global) economy as a whole (and the very fact that there is tendency for profit rates to average out argues against the notion of any kind of fixed or localised phenomenon of “super exploitation”)  The non-productive worker may not directly produce surplus value but he or she is just as essential to the process by which surplus value is generated and extracted as the productive worker.  That teacher in that state school is involved in a process of equipping pupils with a skill set that they will later sell to employer in exchange for a wage perhaps earned working in a factory or a some McJob somewhere. Then we have the absurd claim by imperialism.org, “that a majority of workers in imperialist centers have been “bought off” using super-profits generated from Third World labor, and thus they have a material class interest in maintaining the order of capitalist-imperialism”.  This demonstrates very well the utterly reactionary character of these Leninists who seem to have an overriding mission to sow divisions among the global working class which, naturally, can only work to the benefit of the global capitalist class If there was any semblance of truth in this nonsensical Leninist idea that first world workers are “bribed” by the metropolitan capitalists in the “imperialist nations” (actually, all nations are technically imperialistic, latently or manifestly, since all nations, even the little ones, are capitalist and therefore subject to capital’s self-expanding thrust) then we are entitled to ask – where is this mythical bribe that Lenin went on about?   Does it come in a little brown envelope furtively handed over to the “labour aristocracy” of the First Word by their capitalist employers?  No, of course not.  If such a bribe exists it would surely be incorporated into the wages received by these workers. But that then begs the question – why when these workers ask for a wage rise would their employers so ferociously resist this?  Why is there this constant downward pressure on workers’ wages in the First World as in the Third World?  Why have wages in the First world stagnated while productivity has soared? The Leninists have no answer to these questions   Their whole reactionary way of looking at this matter is to provide a pretext for support for petty bourgeois third world nationalism. That is their agenda.  Leninism is the ideology of the frustrated comprador bourgeoisie of the so called Third World looking to expand their sphere in influence and market share.  The guy who has done most to demolish the Leninist inspired   of Third Worldists like Zac Cope and others is Charlie Post .  Here is a link to some of the stuff he has written http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/128   

[robbo203]

MBellemare wrote:

 Marx had the notion that value was finite and quantifiable and that price was also finite and quantifiable. Because price/value were finite and quantifiable, at the macro-level, they could equate, but equate only in a simple reproductive model where things are finite and quantifiable, thus balanced and stable. In an exansive-reproductive-model, something unquantifiable always reaches out, introducing a new variable into the system, which destabilizes the system, which destablizes aggregate value and aggregate price at the micro-level, constantly. In my estimation, this proves the multi-varied nature of value as something which is creative, unquantifiable and infinite, meaning that price can be unquantifiable, creative and infinitely increased (in theory, may be not in actuality).         

 If prices can be" infinitely increased" or even massively increased, Michel. what would be the point of the exercise  if it meant the workers/consumers could no longer afford the commodities in question? Any capitalists who priced their goods too high would simply price themselves out of the market and out of business.  The law of competition has historically entailed businesses undercutting each other pricewise and if perchance certain prices  do go up for reasons of fashion or fad then necessarily certain other prices have to come down as the pattern of market demand shifts from the latter to the former.  You cannot conjure market demand out of nowhere or pluck it off a magic money treeAlso while we are talking of prices, what about the price of labour power – our wages?  Would you say that this too "can be unquantifiable, creative and infinitely increased"?  I only wish that were true!    

[robbo203]

MBellemare wrote:

@Robbo  post number #241, the last paragraph Again, in post-industrial, post-modern capitalist society, every moment of a workers life is immersed in production and in consumption, simultaneously, both mental and physical, whether he is at the office and/or at home and/or on holiday. So the lines are blurred between production and consumption, as a result, surplus value is realized in the two forms, both quantifiable and unquantifiable. Why do you hold on to the idea that somehow value must be solely produced in production, as Marx did. Marx seem to think production and consumption were rigid, separated, definite spheres, and maybe, in 1867, they were. But they are not anymore, they are blurred.  Increasingly, in this thread, me and some are speaking from two different epistemes, paradigms etc. I am speaking from the 21st century, dealing with real 21st century issues such as inflated CEO salaries that have nothing to do with labor-time expenditures, while, many of the responses on this thread are speaking from a by-gone era, really, out of date stuff.I understand Marx quite well, I've been reading him for 20 years, and I don't think another 20 years will bring me to ever accept that his 1867 analysis is whole-heartedly valid, across the board, for the current post-industrial era, we are currently living in.The fact that capitalism has not come to an end, as Marx predicted a long-time ago, is because capitalism has found a way to subvert socially necessary labor-time as the determinant of price, value and wage. Capialism has unshackled itself from any rational labor theory of value. Hence, capitalism's jump to post-industrialism and post-modernism in many spheres of production and consumption. This incongruity in capitalism and in its relation to a rational labor-theory of value has made Marx's analysis suspect. Hence, for the last 5 years, I've been reading Marx trying to pin-point areas where capitalism has overturned his rational analysis. Where capitalism has out-done itself in relation to Marx's analysis. And a primary area where capitalism, is outdoing Marx's analysis, is the area concering value, price and wage. Another glarring area, I have discovered, is where Marx discusses decreasing production costs in relation to decreasing prices. I have found the socio-economic phenomenon of decreasing productions costs in relation to ever-increasing prices. This is fundamentally, a post-industrial, post-modern, socio-economic phenomena, not a modern one. Where modernity still holds then Marx's notion still exists. But the post-industrial, post-modern, socio-economic phenomena, I've outlined, is real and is occuring, as well.It may be that both the socio-economic phenomena, the one I outline and the one Marx outlines, are part of one mechanism by which capitalists can shift gears. (That is where my thinking is at with this socio-economic analysis).I am not on this forum to argue whether I am right or wrong, whether I have understood Marx correctly or Not!I am here to explore, constructively, our contemporary socio-economic situation, specifically, these areas. Not to get Marx regurgitated at me, verbatim. Because my socio-economic analysis does not fit his analysis. My analysis is not suppose to fit Marx's analysis verbatim, we are living in two different eras, two different types of capitalism.I would like to hear from others on this forum where my socio-economic analysis overlaps with Marx's analysis, instead. Where are our points of agreement, rather than our points of disagreement.          

  Michel, I would not disgaree with your point that Marx got it wrong on occasions.   He clearly did make mistakes. And I understand your point about the tendency in the modern world for production to become more blurred with consumpton.  Years ago I read several books by the futurologist, Alvin Toffler , in which he talked of an emerging "prosumer economy" (the combination of prpducton and consumption) and the decline of Fordist mass production  techniques being increasing crowded out by computer-aided "Lean  production" techniques originating  after the Second World War in Toyota's factories So yes in many respects the world is a very different place today compared to the one in which Marx wrote Das Kapital.  Even so, I have very serious reservations about your claim that his core theory his been marginalised by the development of capitalism into a post-modern post-industrial system (though you seem to acknowlege that his theory still holds good in some parts of the world where old fashioned factory production cntinues such as in the export processing zones of so called Third World countries and elsewhere You say "Increasingly, in this thread, me and some are speaking from two different epistemes, paradigms etc".  This may be part of the problem – that you are employing a definition of "value" that is radically different from Marx's.  But that doesnt invalidate Marx's definition or marginalise its significance and you can only attempt to demonstrate that it does by starting  from within the theory itself and relating it to the world around us. As I said, the basic postulate of the theory is that aggregate prices must equate in the end with aggregate values and that this logically follows from the very essence of the theory itself – that value only reveals itself in exchange, in market sales.  Individual prices can and must diverge from their values but overall, in the aggregate, they must logically equate .Your argument however, as  I understand  it, is that they increasingly do not equate and  that there is growing divorce at the macro or aggregate level between Value and Prices and this is expressed as a tendency for the costs of production to decline and for the price of commodities to keep on rising. I have pointed out that while it is certainly true that some prices notably those of branded goods have risen it is equally true that other have fallen in relative terms.    I have also pointed out – see the detailed arguments in post 198 – that if prices in general were rising then this would include also the prices of  inputs or intermediate goods and that would then contradict your claim about the costs of production declining since in this case they would be rising.  And finally I have pointed out that there are opportunity costs involved in just arbitrarily raising proces.   Consumers have limited budgets and if they have to pay more for some things then that means they have less money to spend on other things.  That means the market for those other things must surely contract and the way businesses responding to contracting markets is not to raise their prices but to lower them. Therse are important criticisms of your main theory, Michel, and I do urge you to deal with them.  There is a lot of useful stuff that you say in your theory but I think by accommodating more of what Marx has to say on the subject of value and price, a more robust theory could emerge as result

[robbo203]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

 LBird's contributions to an analysis of the Party's case may well be rejected by many of us, but should it be jettisoned completely? Does it hold some element of truth? 

Well, as far as I am concerned, Alan, the one element of truth in LBird's stance is his rejection of positivist thinking.  Other than that, the guy is very obviously a troll who is not interested in constructive debate at all, who ignores any kind of question asking him to explain how his proposal could work in practice and who will lie through his teeth to score a point as he sees it. – such as robbo is an opponent of democracy – when I am very obviously counterposing my conception of democracy to his conception of democracy as society wide centralised decisionmaking without any kind of localised or intermediate levels  of democacy at all.  Similarly his stupid  characterisation of his opponents as "bourgeois individualists"; by that warped reasoning Marx would qualify pre-eminently as a bourgeois individualist! The guy is simply not interested in debate and – Gawd knows – Ive tried like others here to encourage him to explain his ideas and justify them.   All he is interested in is the sound of his own voice.  I  wouldnt waste any more time on him, Alan, to be brutally frank  Socialists have better things to do than indulge a monomaniac whose only interest here is to push his pet theory to the exlcusion of anything else

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LBird wrote:

I've got no problem whatsoever with robbo peddling his anti-democratic shite openly – it should help to provoke thought amongst democratic socialists. What concerns me is that I'm the only one here openly challenging him, and defending democracy in social production.

 Youve got some barefaced cheek, LBird, lying through your teeth like that.  Ive stated on umpteen occasions and I am getting bored with having to repeat myself – I support the concept of democracy fully.  For me, a socialist society  will be a society in which democracy will flourish  at many levels – local , regional and global.  I just do not support  YOUR concept of "democracy" as society wide totally centralised, decision-making with no other form of decisionmaking being permissable. In practice YOUR concept of "democracy" will turn out to be the absolute opposite of democracy.  You dont care to admit this because, at base, your ideology is a Leninist one and you are embarrassed  to have been outed as a Leninist

LBird wrote:

So, here goes – does the SPGB (or even just one member) argue for the democratic production of social truth? If not, who or what is to be the social producer of social truth within the 'socialism' that the SPGB envisages?

 You will be had pushed to find anyone, let alone any member of the SPGB,  to support your crackpot idea of holding, literally, tens of thousands of global plebiscites every year to determine the "truth" of  all those scientific theories that are chruned out each year.  I cant believe anyone can come up with such a dumb idea.  What on earth would be the point of the exercise, anyway?. If I believe in a particular scientific theory and a majority vote against what is supposed to happen? Am I suppose to relinguish the theory I support or what?  You dont explain .  You NEVER explain.  You have no idea of what democracy is supposed to be for.  Frankly I  think you are just a poseur  who has fallen in love with the sound of your own voice. That is why you are not prepared to seriously argue your case and persistantly back away from any kind of searching question that exposes your ideas for the nonsense they clearly are 

[robbo203]

I dont know  if folks here have come across this site which seems to be operated by a rabid anti marxist (I have an inkling who he may; he signs himself off as LK).There is an article in it which is fundamentally critical of what the writer sees as  Marx's bleak and erroneous views on the effect of increasing productivity leading to the cheapening of commodities – namely, to shorten the amount  of time spent on necessary labour, thereby increasing the amount of time spent on surplus labour.  In other words, the writer thinks Marx thought the worker got absolutely  no bnefits at all from increased productivity in term of a higher standard of living          http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com.es/2016/02/marxs-capital-volume-1-chapter-12.html .  

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

LBird wrote:

When I ask you, or robbo, or anyone else, to answer the question 'Do you support the democratic production of social truth?', you answer 'No'.

Yes thats quite true. I dont support the "democratic production of truth"  …

So, you are quite openly making a political decision without, and prior to, the organised, class conscious, working class.Why this doesn't ring massive alarm bells with those in the SPGB who really believe that they are democrats, I don't know. Perhaps no-one gives a shit.

robbo203 wrote:

…The idea is totally impractical as well as totally unneccessary.  That is not what democracy is for.  Democracy is about practical decisons… 

Here, again, is an ideology that has pre-decided for workers, what is impractical, what is necessary, what democracy is for.Surely, for anyone hoping to build for democratic socialism, only the workers themselves can determine these issues, not The Great Man robbo, who has as much regard for workers' democracy as Uncle Joe, never mind Lenin.And, once again, 'practical' is put ahead of 'theoretical' in robbo's political method – and this is the exact opposite of Marx's social method of 'theory and practice'.This means, in political terms, according to Marx's method, that robbo himself will supply the 'theory' that precedes his 'practice' – he's hiding his 'theory', and pretending that it's all just 'practical' stuff (and by this he means 'individual practice').robbo is lying to workers, when he denies having any theory. He has a theory, and it's an elitist one. Workers, beware.'Socialism', for robbo, is robbo's theory and practice.

 LOL LBird – I am not the one who is "pre-deciding" anything .  The only one who is doing that is you, chum!  Show me a single living worker apart from yourself who seriously argues  that tens of  thousands  of scientific theories that are churned out every single year should be subjected to a global plebiscite involving 7 billion plus individuals.  Why you would want to implement such a monumentally stupid, pointless and wasteful procedure I have no idea but  you seem quite determined that this is what "democratic communism"  should entail though, as I say, I have yet see anyone else  rallying to support your madcap idea.   Seriously you are a one off.  Absolutely unique and idiosyncratic. Still, I guess its what makes the world go round – and a little more interesting than it would otherwise be

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

 So, if the SPGB is not 'Leninist' in its ideology (even I'll grant that the SPGB's is not a 'democratic centralist' organisation, like the SWP, of which I have personal political experience), why does it publish documents and threads that claim to support 'democracy', but it doesn't support democratic social production (including ideas, of course)?When I ask you, or robbo, or anyone else, to answer the question 'Do you support the democratic production of social truth?', you answer 'No'..

 Yes thats quite true. I dont support the "democratic production of truth"  not because I am not a democrat but because the idea of putting scientific theories etc to a global democratic vote  is PLAIN BONKERS.  Its as simple as that.  When is LBird going to get that through his skull? The idea is totally impractical as well as totally unneccessary.  That is not what democracy is for.  Democracy is about practical decisons that affect us – locally regionally and globally – and I support that. LBird, however,  does not    He wants a system of totally centralised decisionmaking whereby literally the whole of society is supposed to decide on literally everything.  Since there are billions of decisions to be made and since LBird has emphatically ruled out any kind of devolved or local desicionmaking whatsoever who is going to make these decisions since clearly 7 billion people  will have neither the time nor the inclination to make them?  Thats right – the people who will make these decisions will be a tiny techncratic elite.  In the name of democracy LBird's daft ideas will kill democracy stone dead. This is what makes LBird in de facto terms a Leninist and it doesnt surprise me in the least given his background as a one time supporter or member of the Trotskyist SWP

[Author]

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