[robbo203]

JohnnyFBM wrote:

Hi Rob, I think everything you have said about the need for such a site is spot on particularly in terms of the need to come up with some solid facts about capitalism that can be backed up with solid evidence. For example I have often heard is said that 80% of Labour goes into running capitalism rather then being socially useful but no one has ever managed to tell me where that comes from! I have a friend who is also a computer programmer (and agrees with socialism if not a member) he may be able to help you? 

 Hi Johnny Yes, the subject of "structural waste" as I call it, is something that ought to figure prominently in socialist literature.  I remember corresponding with Hardy many years ago and he was insistent that this was by far the most important productive advantage that socialism would have over capitalism.  I agree.  Yet we find very little written about it in the Socialist Standard. If I were on the editorial committee I would devote a special issue to the subject.  At the very least the Party should consider bringing out a pamphlet on it There is, of course, a distinction to be made between "socially useless labour" and "unproductive labour".  Some occupations fall under both categories but others might fall under one but not the other.  Socially useless labour – structural waste – is only really discernable from a standpoint that is non-capitalist i.e. one that takes as its starting premiss the notion of use value.  It is a uniquely socialist perspective on the world and it needs to be expressed Regarding the extent of structural waste, estimates vary.  Buckminister Fuller memorably suggested a figure in the region of 95% of the workforce.  I think that's somewhat over the top.  60-70 % would be more like it.  Stefan in the WSPUS did some research on the subject some years ago and came up with a figure of, I think, 60%.  It is impossible to reach a precise figure and we depend for data on bodies like the American Bureau of Labour statistics which tend not to organise their data in a way that is easily assimilable to socialist economic categories.  The difficulty is compounded by the fact that much of this structural waste is hidden or indirect.  For example banks which are obviously a clear case of socially useless activity operate out of buildings so the extent of structural waste extends also to the construction industry itself and so on and so forth. One other point that must be born in mind is that if we are talking about work in its technical sense as purposeful  and useful activity then just over half of all the work we do falls outside of the money economy – it is unpaid work .  I have data from sources like  the UN Development Programme and iothers  which shows this to be the case.  I assume that most of this work will continue in a socialist society e.g.. household work, volunteer community work and so on.  When we are talkuing aboiut strucutural waste we are talking about monetised sector which in terms of labour hours worked is slightly smaller the non monetised sector. Just to put  matters in perspective…. The project that my brother Andy had started  was intended to provide a database on this and other subjects relevant to the socialist case.  It is a great pity that the Party does not seem interested enough to take on this project.  Its not as if it hasn't got the resources and it takes only a few volunteers to get the ball rolling.  Once you start publishing regular updates I am sure this will attract increased interest not only within the Party itself but far beyond  

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Young Master Smeet wrote:

No, we make the chioces we are determined to make, the meatbots make choices according to our programming, and that involves altering our programming.The notion of free will is incompatible with thermodynamics, since it implies causeless events, but that doesn't mean there is no will nor volition, only to recognise that volition is a part of the world and we are mere epiphenomena of a nuclear reaction in a star.Put another way, I am an illusion, but my illusiary nature is a product of my determinations and the vector by which they manifest.  'Thinking for myself' is thus the truest way of enslaving myself to the world about me.  What is rational is actual, and what is actual is rational: the only true freedom would be in random meaningless action.

Well no YMS I can't  really go along with this. You talk of "causeless events" as if to rule such a thing out of the question.  Everything that exists must have a cause.  But must it?  The principle of indeterminism is somethimng that is pretty much well established in physics and when we are talking about physics these days we are talking about some pretty weird stuff, stuff  that seems far removed from the mechanical determinism of traditional Newtoniam physics . Like the theory of "entanglement", for example, which I still cant quite get my head around It strikes me as a little odd that a hardline materialst like your good self  would rule out indeterminism.  Afterall if everything must have a cause then what "caused" matter. God? .As I see it, determinism and indeterminism coexist as a kind of yin/yang of the cosmos   Mechanical determinism is valid up to a point in the same sense that Newtonian physics is valid up to a point – that is up to the point at which Einsteinian physics kicks in I have a problem with this mechanistic cause-and-effect  approach to understanding reality for precisely  that reason,  To refer to  Hume again – to posit something as the cause of  an effect is to assert that the former is prior to the latter.  But the logic of that is  "physical reductionism" which rules out downward causation (since how can there be downward causation if all causation is one way in the strict temporal sequence  that Hume suggested).  Yet , higher levels of reality though dependent or supervening  on lower levels, can nevertheless influence the latter .  Mind-brain interactions being a cause in point  (e.g. the placebo effect).  We can also apply this to the relation between individuals and society.  Durkheim made the comment that "social facts" are "sui generis" and cannot be reduced to the  mere biological or psychological facts pertaining to individuals –  even though society cannot exist without individuals as its constituent members.  However mechanical determinism would forbid us to even talk about of "society" as a causal influence. Is that compatible with a socialist perspective? This is why I am wary of the kind of one way causation implicit in the model of mechanical determinism  – "one way" for the reason Hume gave that causes necessarily precede effects in a strict  temporal sense,  All this ties up with the question of free will and by extension moral choices.  As John Horgan has noted to argue that all our choices have prior causes and are therefore determined and not free, but "caused",  is to entirely miss the point,  The point is what "causes" them? To reduce an explanation as to why  Joe Bloggs has chosen not to kill a stranger for his money, to the gyrations of subatomic particles, or perhaps not even that,  (which is what physical reductionism boils down to really) just seems to me utterly absurd. Meaning threre are definite limits to mechanical determinsm  itself.  It is useful for explaining bits of reality but not reality in its entirety

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gnome wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

To argue as I have heard some members do, that socialism is a matter of "self interest" is actually to endorse Adam Smith's atomistic view of the world in which the individual is driven by nothing other than his or her self interest.

Not wishing to sidetrack or derail this thread but isn't it curious, given what you call his "atomistic view of the world", that Smith, in his "Theory of Moral Sentiments", should begin with the following assertion:

 Yes this is true. There is a certain incongruity in Smith's works-  that is between his earlier and his later works.  Theory of Moral Sentiments was written prior to the Wealth of Nations and if I remember correctly I think the catalyst for this change in outlook  was Smith's reading of Bernard de Mandeville's  "Fable of the Bees" which shocked public opinion with the suggestion that private vices could generate public virtues.  Smith was initially appalled at the thought but seemed to have found it irresistible in the end Louis  Dumont in his book from Mandeville to Marx which is about the history of individualist thought deals with this subject in some depth.  Dumont,   interestingly,  also contends that there is strong streak of individualistic thought in Marx.  I am reminded of this whenever a party member asserts that the case for socialism is not about morality at all but rather what is in our "self interest".  He or she is unwittingly projecting the atomistic thinking that underlies Smith's metaphor of the  market's invisible hand

[robbo203]

I think there is a distinction to be made between teleological determinism  (fatalism) and mechanical determinism.  Marx explicitly rejected the former in the German Ideology when he dismissed as a "speculative distortion" the idea that "later history is the goal of earlier history".  However, teleological or goal directed behaviour, while it might not operate at a social level, does certainly operate at the individual level in the sense that the individual selects a goal and strives to realise it.  We are in that sense goal directed Mechanical determinism is, in a way, the opposite of teleological determinism for here the past determines the future rather  than the future, the past.  Science in its classical form is predicated on mechanical determinism.  It deals with cause and effect. As David Hume put it "the cause must be prior to the effect" meaning the past determines the future Now clearly cause and effect relationships exist in abundance all around us and are discoverable through the application of scientific methodology in the identification of such causal connections.  The question is how valid is it to transfer such an approach to the question of the transformation of society itself? To what extent is this possible? This touches on why I have serious reservations about the term "scientific socialism" which implies a mechanical determinist ourlook and by extension rules out the question of human choice and volition.  This was no better summed up than by Kautsky's absurd and sweeping statement that the materialist conception of history has "completely deposed the moral ideal as the directing factor of social revolution".  Now morality necessarily  implies the ability to choose and, in rejecting a role for morality in the "social revolution" Kautsky was in effect arguing for a completely mechanical determinist approach to society which the very term "scientific socialism" seems to denote. It is to be noted that the SPGB.s view on morality is not dissimilar to that of Kautsky's.  As I understand it,  the Party's current position is that the case for socialism  does not involve a moral aspect at all but is purely and simply a matter iof  working class interests.  Personally I think this argument is fatally flawed by an internal contradiction for how can you identify with the welfare and wellbeing of other members of the working class without this involving a moral aspect.  To argue as I have heard some members do, that socialism is a matter of "self interest" is actually to endorse Adam Smith's atomistic view of the world in which the individual is driven by nothing other than his or her self interest..  It is actually an anti socialist position. Point is that all these different ideas hang together.  The veneration of "scientific socialism" goes with a mechanical determinist outlook which goes with a rejection of choice and human creativity which goes with a rejection of any role for morality in the movement towards socialism.  Within this resolutely  black-or-white view of the world there is no prospect of envisaging mechanical determinism coexisting in a fruitful partnership with the human faculty of  choosing and creating some  new that breaks with the past rather than being determined by the past.  A revolution. I think this is part of the problem with the Party .  The dead hand of Kautsky still guides its thinking in many ways

[robbo203]

I don't want to get sidetracked into some kind extended philosophical debate on positivism etc as that is not what this thread is about.   As Andy's brother, I know what he had in mind by this project as we discussed it on occasions.  He wanted to build up a kind of database of information and links that would be useful to socialists. I am talking about subjects like, for example, the extent of capitalism's structural waste – the kinds of occupations related to the maintenance needs of capitalism (e.g. the finance sector) as opposed to the satisfaction of human needs.  In  other words what are the approximate figures for workers employed in these socially useless occupations and how much do they use in the way of resources etc.  There is precious little research done in this  particular subject area which I consider to be quite an important aspect of the case for socialism. There are many other aspects of the socialist case that could likewise benefit from a more wide-ranging and systematic approach to research along the lines that Andy proposed.  I would urge people here to have a look at his website  and look under the heading  "database", in particular Here is the linkhttp://andycox1953.webs.com/ Since Andy's death last year I have been sort of caretaking for his site.  There has not been much traffic but someone has recently enquired about the possibility of developing the project further.   Perhaps the SPGB might like to officially take it on (as I have suggested it should) or if not, I suppose it could be continued and expanded upon on an informal collaborative basis.  If anyone is interested in doing that please feel free to get in touch with me.

[robbo203]

Its a sad state of affairs when it comes down to two non members generating a lot of publicity for the SPGB on a public forum with no members getting involved at all apart from the occasional intervention of one or two members.  I refer to the Socialism v capitalism website which I mentioned before, at  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1434654420087854/?fref=ts.  Completely absent is the reinforcement effect of many members contributing to the arguments and raising the profile of the Party.I'm with Alan and Private Fraser on this one.  What is it with the SPGB?  Its like a black hole into which good ideas and practical suggestions are sucked never to see the light of day again. The title of a leaflet it has recently produced  "Too little, to late" (or something like that) could apply to itself.  Mention something like setting up an internet based research project which could involve many currently isolated and dispersed members and one is greeted with nothing more than a stony silence and complete apathyDoes the SPGB have a death wish I wonder? Sometimes it seems well on the way to fulfilling that wish….

[robbo203]

DJP wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

I put forward the idea of a socialist research centre or website which could engage the collective efforts of many dispersed members but no one seems to have taken up the idea.

How is that any different to what is in the education section of this website? And if you're so enthused by the idea why not rejoin and make it a reality? After all, it seems that "World in Common" is now defunct?

 No, I had something quite different and more ambitious in mind – a kind of data  or fact collecting and categorising service.  Have a look at Andy's website which I provided a link to and you will get an idea of what I am talking about.   This is precisely the kind of collaborative effort that could involve many dispersed members around the countryI cannot rejoin, unfortunately, while the existing policy on the question of religion – not that I am religious myself – remains in force for the simple reason that I cannot accept the assertion that religious beliefs are necessarily incompatible with socialism

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ALB wrote:

Another thread for Private Fraser, Cassandra, Jeremiah and Moaning Minnie but:this might prevent a few suicides:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/world-socialist-movement/are-physical-meetings-best-form-democratic-control-2015?page=5#comment-26497

  The slight growth in new members reported by the Membership Application Committee doesnt really tell us much about the overall situation. If  more members are leaving than joining then the Party would still be declining in numbers. Also what about new members coming directly through branches . Is this up or down?  I would imagine it is down if only becuase there are fewer branches around compared to a few years back My impression is that  the Party has been shrinking and is certainly significantly smaller than when I first joined  – probably about 200 members less.  If this decline has bottomed out recently then that is welcome news but I dont think that is a reason for complacency at all.If it is the case that new members are increasingly joining via the internet then I put it to you again – why not tailor activities in such a way as to involve isolated members more directly (otherwise you will just lose them).  I put forward the idea of a socialist research centre or website which could engage the collective efforts of many dispersed members but no one seems to have taken up the idea. Oh well.Another thing I find very surprising is that hardly any pamphlets seem to be published these days.  You should be knocking out at least half a dozen each year, if not more , perhaps dealing with more specific and narrowly  focussed topics e.g. the war in Syria. Ive made umpteen links to party pamphlets in various forums I have been engaged in but the lack of variety is very limiting, frankly

[robbo203]

Exactly, Alan. Which is why the SPGB cannot afford any longer to to continue as it has been doing. Amongst other things, it needs to fundamentally rethink its stand on a number of its policies and I wont say more than that for fear or risking the ire of some rather touchy members.  People will know what I am talking about and I've said it often enough…But to be a bit more positive, there has been one proposal that has been bandied about from time to time, which has never really been taken up but which, I think, could make a bit of a difference , That is to create a kind of internet based socialist research centre which could over time become (hopefully) a widely referenced source of information, conveniently packaged from a socialist point of view.  Those members who are presently reluctant to be physically active might well be inclined to contribute in this way.My late brother, Andy, had in fact started on something like this  (see his website http://andycox1953.webs.com/database1.htm)   Its an idea worth considering  and could possibly help to improve the prospects of the Party a little.

[robbo203]

dedelste wrote:

As an aside, even if socialism really is in his self-interest, it seems to me your chances of convincing him are near zero.

That's assuming the case for socialism is solely based on  self interest. I don't think it is and I don't see how it can be.  Necessarily the case for socialism is also a moral one.If the case for socialism was solely based on socialism why would a capitalist like Marx's friend and collaborator, Frederich Engels, take an interest in socialism at all? Saying that there is more to the question of "self interest" than an increased standard of living (which surely would not  be a reason for a capitalist to want socialism since her standard of living is almost certainly going to drop substantially and quite rightly too!) and that it would be in the self interest of capitalist to want socialism for other reasons (e.g. a  society without war), could be construed as suggesting that the capitalists and the workers have a commonality of interests in seeking socialism.  That's skating on thin ice in my view.  We have to recognise that it would not be in the interest of the capitalists to want socialism and insofar as they do as individuals, it is for reasons other than their self interest I think this whole argument that "I want socialism because it is in my self interest" plays directly into the hands of the capitalist ideologists.  Actually if all you were concerned about was your self interest as an individual then what's the point in advocating socialism? You might as well get out there, make a few millions bucks and feel nothing about stabbing your fellow workers in the back as you clamber up the greasy pole.  The unbridled pursuit of self interest was the fundamental premiss behind Adam Smith metaphor of the invisible hand of the market and it is astonishing, to say the least,  that any socialist would want to accept that self same premiss unalloyed and without any question asked.What about class interest? Doesnt that count?  If you accept the necessity for pursuing our class interests as a working class then ipso facto that position necessarily and logically  entails an altruistic aspect.  You are concerned for the welfare and wellbeing of your fellow workers, not just yourself.That is why the case for socialism has to be a moral one  as well as one based on self interest

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Young Master Smeet wrote:

I'd be opposed to dropping the off-topic rule (though not against a more generous handling off it) since it is a useful tool against trolls and monomaniacs pursuing their hobbyhorse across multiple topics.  yes, a soupscon of drift should be allowed *where it flows naturally from the topic at hand* and a gentle reminder from time to time to run back to topic is perfectly in order.

 YMS, the monomaniacs and trolls would do that anyway by simply setting up a new thread and pursuing their hobbyhorse there. Far better I think to scrap the off topic rule completely which seems to account for most of the the friction between moderators and contributors. Retaining the rule but allowing a "soupscon of drift" is only asking for trouble because then it becomes a  matter of perception as to how far you stray off topic before the rule should kick in.  What is within the limit for one person may be well outside for another. I say let the contributors take over the role of gently reminding other contributors that they are straying well off course but without any compulsion being involved.  If the latter persist in doing that, then you have the option to do what the monomaniacs and trolls can do now – start another thread

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moderator1 wrote:

Comrades if you disagree with the off-topic rule despite the changes to protocol get it changed by drafting a resolution to Conference.  With the new protocols now in place it is only under extreme circumstances that the off-topic rule be implemented.

 Yes , I think  that would be a good idea – to scrap the off-topic rule completely. It serves no purpose other than to stifle the free flow of the conversation and it is highly divisive. I can't be absoutely sure but probably the vast majority of moderator interventions are prompted by this rule. I say let the people moderate themselves as far as the drift of the conversation is concerned. The task of the moderator should be limited to curtailing clear cases of personal abuse and removing spam. I dont know of any other forum that takes such an over zealous view of  the role of moderator as this one

[robbo203]

 I  agree with Alan's suggestion regarding a "guest column".  Great idea.  It would reduce the kind of "samey" feel to the SS though I dont think it needs to be confined to obscure details of Marxian economics.  There are all sorts of subjects I can think of  – from the threat of global climate change to the nature/nature controversy to issues around the subject of hunter gatherer societies.  Eminent scientists or theorists in their particular field could be asked to write something of interest to readers and it would certainly enhance the appeal of the SS if a regular guest column could be establishedAnother suggestion is something like a debate forum to reflect the interesting diversity of opinion within the SPGB itself and to help break away from this idea that it is some kind of monolithic organisation.From Adam's comment , do I take it now that it is the policy of SS team to accept articles from non members providing the article in question does not fall outside the parameters of the "party case"? Who knows – I might submit an article or two myself

[robbo203]

Vin wrote:

stuartw2112 wrote:

I will no longer be contributing to this forum due to the moronic moderation. I don't suppose anyone will care in my case, but assuming you care about your party's ongoing reputation for competence in debate, I'd get someone with some intelligence and discrimination to do the moderating.All the bestStuart

 I agree stuart and would go further. I do not recognise this forum as being worthy of being part of the world socialist movement.

 I think thats a bit harsh Vin but I do largely go along with your criticism of the moderation procedure on this site and consider the suspension of Stuart to be quite apalling and utterly short-sighted.Ive increasingly come to the view that the problem really centres on the abritrary ruling on what constitutes off topic posts.  I propose a radical break and that this whole rule be scrapped completely. If the drift of the discussion moves well away from the original title of the thread so be it.  What's wrong with that?  There is usually some kind of underlying dynamic steering the direction of the thread, anyway and it is far better to let the conversation flow naturally than railroad it along narrow rigid  lines. Where is the harm in doing this.  Let the contributors themselves / not the moderators – remind each other if the conversation is seemingly getting a bit too off topic in their judgement – they can always start up new threads if they are that unhappy. This will immediately and dramatically reduce the scope for conflict between moderators and contributors  and reduce the workload of the former.There is too much control freakery in the Party as it is and this is perhaps part of the reason why it is languishing.  Dressing it up in the name  of democracy is all very well but you do need to balance that with other concerns – like freedom of expression, for instance

[robbo203]

Could someone please explain why some posts have been deleted from this thread?

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