[robbo203]

Sepehr wrote:

alanjjohnstone wrote:

 If "First World" workers have been "bribed", that is because they have forced the bosses to bribe them.

Oh really?! Then how come only after US industries began to outsource their production to other countries (Mexico, Chine, etc.), American workers' wages stopped rising? How can you "force you boss" to bribe you, if there are no industries and no bosses? As I expected, your views are too Euro-centric and entirely baseless when it comes to the "Third World" countries. In this you share the ultra-right-wing creed of "You are responsible!… it's your choice!… You are lazy!…"

 This doesnt follow at all. Actually, if anything, it proves the opposite. The whole point of Lenin's daft theory is that the Labour Aristocracy in the developed capitalist economies – sometime he implied the entire working class in the developed capitalist economies – benefit from the payment of a "bribe" out of the proceeds of the "super-exploitation" of the Third World by the capitalists of the developed capitalist economies exporting their capital to the Third Wolrd.  Yet here you are saying, as proof for the existence if the imaginary bribe,  that when US industries outsourced their prduction elsewhere, American workers wages stopped rising!  On the face of it, you would expect these wages to go up  insofar as US industries profited from the superexploitation of these  other countries in the Third World where they outsourced their production to and that these industries would then pass on part of the benefit to the workers  in the mother country in the form of  a bribe .Its all a load of codswallop.  Lenin's used his Labour Aristocracy thesis to try to explain the social basis of reformism or opportunism.  The Labour Aristocracy – the labour lieutenants of capital – would form the leadership of  reformist political  parties that that would limit the aspirations of workers to getting a better deal under capitalism and so steer workers away from agitating for social revolution. In return the Labour Aristocracy would be rewarded with a "bribe"Ths begs  a nnumber of questions.  Firstly how does one identity this bribe and distinguish it from the wages and salaries the labour aristocrats receive.? The fact is, if such a bribe existed , it would be part of the wage packet. That being so you would expect the capitalists to be more amenable to demands for higher wages by these same workers they were allegdly bribing.  Why did they resist them as fiercely as they did if they were going to benefit from the loyalty of the labour aristocrats to the capitalist order? It makes no sense.  Also contrary, to Lenin's sociological explanation for the Labour Aristocracy, this section of the working class was characterised by a higher degree of militancy than average. Its ironic that many of the core membership of the Bolshevik Party were themselves members of the Labour AristocracySecondly, it is often easily overlooked that the interests of individual capitalist enterprises do not necessarily coincide with the interests of the capitalist class. as a whole  In theory , if such a bribe existed, one could see how it might be in the interests of the capitalist class as a whole to bribe the Labour aristocrats – so as to secure their political allegiance to capitalism.  In practice however, it not the capitalist class as a whole that pays the wages of these workers but their direct employers.  These capitalist businesses are in competition with each other and one of the ways in which they effectively compete is to cut costs including labour costs.  – not add to them unneceesarily in the form of a bribeAnother reason why the notion of a bribe being paid out  for some nebulous political objective is without any kind of basis in reality

[robbo203]

ALB wrote:

So, not only has socialist society no need of the concept of "value" which is a market concept but it won't need a general labour-time unit of account either. It will just need to calculate what particular types of labour power are available or needed (measured by skill and time) just as it will to calculate the particular types of materials (measured in physical quantities)..

 Yes I agree 100% .  I just dont see the point in labour time accounting in a socialist society (not to be confused with labour vouchers but I dont see much point in them either).  Quite apart from the bureauccacy involved in monitoring labour time there is the intrinsic problem of how you weight differnet kinds of labour.  For example skiiled versus unskilled Concerning , "socially necessary labour time" (SNLT).I dont see how this could be applicable  in a socialist society  In Marxian theory, this forms the very substance of value and in the long run determines the ratios in which commodities exchange. However,  SNLT  is not something that you can measure with a stopwatch.   It boils down to kind of "social average" for the amount of labour required to produce a given commodity under the prevailing industry-wide  technical conditions (although, confusingly, it has also been interpreted by some  as  referring  to "best practice" techniques within a given industry) .  This is why inefficient producers using outmoded technology cannot be said to produce more "value" than efficient producers simply because they use more actual labour to produce a commodity by comparison with the latter.  The additional labour they contribute over and above SNLT does not count towards value –  or, to put it differently, the goods that they produce cannot be deemed more valuable  and thus able to command a higher price, because more actual (past) labour went into making them.  On the contrary,  their relatively lower level of productivity  is one reason why these producers might find themselves squeezed out of the market by their competitors who are able to undercut them  pricewiseFurthermore, what is  deemed "socially necessary labour" depends finally upon the commodity produced actually being sold on the market.  No value is produced to the extent that there is an overproduction of commodities in relation to what the market can absorb and, of course, this makes the question of measuring "value" all the more problematic  because we cannot exactly know in advance whether a commodity that has been produced will be sold.  It is only in the process of exchange that value manifests itself so to speak.  It is then that the value of goods, the SNLT embodied in them, will express itself indirectly, and in the long run, through the prices such goods command – which prices will tend to vary in proportion to the quantitity of  SNLT embodied in them. In other words,  the expression of value  is mediated through money units – prices.  As Marx put it: "Social labour-time exists in these commodities in a latent state, so to speak, and becomes evident only in the course of their exchange…. Universal social labour is consequently not a ready-made prerequisite but an emerging result’ (Marx, K, 1981, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Lawrence and Wishart, London, p.45). Another reason why SNLT would have no purpose in  a non market socialist society

[robbo203]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

An update on this thread that some may find of interesthttp://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/20/stone-age-massacre-offers-earliest-evidence-human-warfare-kenya

Quote:

“The deaths at Nataruk are testimony to the antiquity of inter-group violence and war,” said Marta Mirazón Lahr, from the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies at Cambridge, who led the study. “These human remains record the intentional killing of a small band of foragers with no deliberate burial, and provide unique evidence that warfare was part of the repertoire of inter-group relations among some prehistoric hunter-gatherers…The Nataruk massacre may have resulted from an attempt to seize resources – territory, women, children, food stored in pots – whose value was similar to those of later food-producing agricultural societies among whom violent attacks on settlements became part of life…Nataruk may simply be evidence of a standard antagonistic response to an encounter between two social groups at that time.”

 I dont quite undestand the logic behind this.  The  attempt to "seize resources – territory, women, children, food stored in pot"  surely presupposes a sedentary society which is not what hunter gatherers are. The standard response of HGs to external aggression is flight not warfare.

[robbo203]

Sepehr wrote:

You wrote: "This sums up your misunderstanding neatly"Quite contrary, it shows your own misunderstanding. "If everything is held in common how can exchange take place?" Who said that everything would be held in common?! That is a common misunderstanding about Marx's idea of "abolition of private appropriation of means of production".Besides, I did not invent that statement myself. Go back and read the statement I had quoted from Marx.

 "Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. The phrase "proceeds of labor", objectionable also today on account of its ambiguity, thus loses all meaning" Critique of the Gotha Progamme K Marx

[robbo203]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

Dont you mean surplus PRODUCT?  Im not sure this would even be meaningful in the context of a socialist society.  There will just be different products satisfying different ends and that there will be opportunity costs involvd in producing anything at all

No, surplus product is what peasants make over subsistance.  Surplus profit is where a capitalist firm produces at a rate below the average socially necessary labour time (though technical innovation, say) but can still sell 'above value' by selling at the prevailing market rate.

 OK Im with you now…

[robbo203]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Also, I note you are still conflating surplus value with surplus profit, as clearly explained, average socially necessary labour time is the definition of the total value of a commodity: surplus value is the difference between the value of labour power and the average socially necessary labour time that goes into a  commodity.  What you are arguing is closer to Proudhon than it is to Marx.

 Dont you mean surplus PRODUCT?  Im not sure this would even be meaningful in the context of a socialist society.  There will just be different products satisfying different ends and that there will be opportunity costs involvd in producing anything at all

[robbo203]

Sepehr wrote:

 . It also shows how a socialist society could replace the chaotic capitalist markets with a conscious social plan, and that is never possible without value measurements and system. …….The concept of communes is at the core of communism. Notice that communes is in plural form, i.e. there are several communes interacting with each other in a given society and that interaction will definitely include commodity exchange too. However, this exchange will acquire new qualities and is different from that undertaken between capitalist firms. Therefore it is impermissible to suggest a communist society is no different than a Ford plant!

 This does not follow at all.  In fact you whole argument seems to be based on a contradiction.  First you assert socialism  or communism , according  to Marx,  will be a based on a "conscious social plan" i.e  society wide central planningThen you assert it will involve communes interacting with each other spontaneously i.e. that planning occurs at the level  of the communes and not society – and that these unplanned interactions will "defintely include commodity exhange too".  Thats nonsense.  When did Marx ever suggest commodity  exchange would continue in communism?.  As the Communist Manifesto itself noted, communism would entail the "communistic abolition of buying and selling" i.e. commodity productionI think where your reasonuing goes wrong is in assuming that anything short of full scale society-wide  central planning must entail market exchange.   I totally reject that argument.  Its the kind of argument put forward by the Ancaps to justify the need for a market.  In fact I would argue that the only realistic model of a totally non market socialist or communist economy would be one which would be very largely self regulatng  and decentralised. We see this in embryonic form today in the system of physical accounting   – stock control – that exists alongside the system of monetary accounting linking business enterprises along a supply chain. Socialism will dispense with monetary accounting  but will retain the physical accounting aspect of this relationship There would be no economic exchange in the quid pro quo sense since this necessarily implies private property and hence the absence of common ownership.  It would be very wrong to deduce from the mere existence of numerous planning bodies e.g. your aforementioned communes, the existence of private property as such which is what, I think , you are doing.

[robbo203]

Vin wrote:

It is possible that Hardy was correct then but not now. There will be no need for any cut in living standards. Workers suffering extreme poverty only need to be free from capitalism to rapidly increase their living standards.But even if we in the 'west' did have to lower our living standards briefly, how does that invalidate the Party's (and indeed that of Marx and Engels) claim that the case for socialism is based on the material interests of the working class? People all over the world and in poverty have material interests in common with mine.My interests are inextricably tied to all workers. If we wait for 'Morality' to bring about socialism, we will wait a very long time

Hi VinIm not too sure that Hardy's view would be incorrect now.  Could you substantiate this claim? I think in the early days of socialism there will indeed be a need to redirect resources to areas of the world where current living conditions of most people is pretty appaling and that this will necessitate some self restraint and reduced consumption levels on the part of workers living in areas that are much more favourably endowed.  I honestly cant see any way round this but nor do I see it as presenting a problem.  I believe people would be willing to assist  in this way as part of the caring ethos of socialism and, as I said before, there is a lot more to life than one's standard of livingAlso I am not suggesting the argument that socialism is based on material interests is invalid.  Of course material interests are involved  But the case for socialism is also based on morality – necessarily.  Indeed , I would argue that  the very concept of class consciousness is itself an implicitly moral concept. That is to say, you consider the wellbeing of others (fellow workers in this instance) as having value in itself.  That is a moral position, by definition.  If on the other you take what is called an "instrumentalist" view of others, seeing them as merely a means to your own end then I would suggest this would  seriously subvert the very reason for wanting to work for socialism.  It would be more profitable for you to redirect your efforts into becoming a rich capitalist (which would certainly be in your in your material interests as an individual!)So no, socialism is about both "morality" in this broad sense and "material interests" and I think these thing would nicely complement each other in the way a socialist world would tackle the enormous structural problem of spatial inequalities inherited from capitalism.  Over time this will diminish but it aint gonna happen overnight

[robbo203]

Just a few random points on this threadIn response to Alan’s point Ike says:

Ike Pettigrew wrote:

“Are you saying that British workers should not be allowed to defend their living standards?” Are you saying the English are not entitled to defend their standards from in-coming Welsh and Scots? That those in the Home Counties should not defend themselves from those Northerners new-comers. Should east-enders in London should now stop those from south London from re-locating.If we're talking about what happens in reality, then we're talking about 'British workers'.  You hypothesise a labour conflict between various sub-nationalities, but that is not a current issue, and I also made it clear why the issue of imported labour might be raised by trade unions when we discussed the Lithuanian workers, your example.  It's not a dislike of other nationalities, or any sort of racial bigotry, it is rather a reflection of the right of workers to defend their livelihood, living standards, families and way of life.  It seems to me that you sneer at all this from a metropolitan standpoint, and that would explain the irrelevancy of your Party, notwithstanding that you are theoretically correct about capitalism. 

 I find this riposte weak and unconvincing. It doesn’t really address the argument Alan raises at all which is why, if you are going to stop outsiders from entry ,do you stop at the boundaries of the nation state. What is it about boundaries of the nation state that makes it significant as a socio spatial entity? Why not oppose workers from the north of England or Scotland from relocating to southern England or vice versa. Or people from Devon relocating to Cornwall  (I lived in Cornwall for a while and knew a bunch of Cornish nationalists  whilst there).  Or West Londoners from taking jobs from East Londoners. Ike does not really answer this point  at all.Presumably the “theoretical correctness” of the Socialist Party includes its analysis of the nation state as a capitalist construct.  Yet here Ike is seeking to validate and reinforce the nation state as the organising principle of social life and by extension the capitalist ideology that underpins the nation state and its stratagem of divide and rule.  By identifying with the nation state in this way this can only have consequence of cutting across and undermining our class identification with fellow workers right across the world.  However you look at it, that is necessarily to work directly against the struggle to realise a world socialist society. Another point.  Ike says he is a socialist in sympathy with the goal of world socialism.  Let’s look at this.He talks in highly melodramatic terms of the negative impact of immigration on workers living standards. Actually the statistics refute his claims and I see Alan has beaten me to it in listing some sources which show Ike’s claims to be based on a gross exaggeration.  The impact is negligible and moreover he fails to take into account emigrationBut let’s look at this question from the perspective of world socialism. Imagine for a moment that we have just brought into being a global socialist society.  This society will have inherited to a great extent the spatial inequalities of capitalism. How would such a society deal with thus?I recall an article by the late comrade Hardy that was printed in the Socialist Standard many years ago  (I think it was a part of a series on the subject of Marx’s conception of socialism). Now I seem to remember Hardy suggesting somewhat controversially that , come the revolution, a substantial chunk of the working class in the West may well have to endure a short term fall in living standards to enable the rest of the world to catch up.  That idea stuck with me and I think there is something in it.  It’s part of the reason why I don’t agree with Vin wen he says the case for socialism is not based on morality but on material interests  I think it is necessarily both and the above illustrates neatly illustrates this very point.There is, in any case, lot there more to life than one’s “standard of living” – quality of life, for instance – and I for one would happily reduce my standard of living if it ensured a better quality of life.  This obsessive preoccupation with living standards is bound up to a large extent in my view with ethos if crass consumerism which I earnestly hope will disappear come socialism The point of my mentioning Hardy’s argument is that it hones in on what Ike is saying in a very direct way.  Ike is suggesting that workers should organise to protect their living standards by opposing immigration.  Quite apart from deflecting attention from what is the overwhelming and primary threat to their living standards  which is the constant downward pressure exerted by capital (which is amplified at times of capitalist crises), has Ike considered the implications of what he is saying here from the standpoint of a world socialist society? I think the persistence of such a nationalist perspective on the interest of workers which he seems to be calling for, would not only obstruct the realisation of a world socialist society but, were such a society to be realised, would fatally undermine it. It would set the stage for intolerable competitive tensions over the spatial distribution of resources. You cannot separate the end and the means to achieve that end.  The ethos of a socialist society has to be prefigured in the movement to bring about that society. Ike’s approach to this subject will not bring about socialism; it will entrench capitalism 

[robbo203]

I like it Vin.  There are a few small errors but it is on the right lines.  Incidentally have a look at the youtube jondwhite posted under general discussion on "political language".  An interesting  analysis of Trumps style of verbal delivery which is very effective even if he  is talking utter crapI think Tim makes a valid point about including  a bit with Neill from the point of view of enhancing credibility.Some official facts and figurse would not go amiss either e.g. the number of empty homes compared with the number of homeless people. I have some data on that…

[robbo203]

Vin wrote:

Come on cdes! Some input so I can move on with it. 

What about something from capitalism & Other Kids Stuff?  Or that rather good video by Spencer CathcartThe Lie We Live

[robbo203]

Mike Foster wrote:

2016's Summer School will be held over the long weekend 22nd – 24th July, at Fircroft College in Birmingham. The theme of the event's talks and workshops is… up to you! There are four potential subjects – Democracy, Money, Borders, and Left and Right – which anyone can vote for by posting a ballot paper at head office. There's a small display there about the event, and a ballot box. So, if you're going to ADM, please take the time to have a look and give your opinion. The theme with the most votes after 4th November will be the one chosen for Summer School. This isn't an official party vote, by the way.

 Of the four potential subjects, "money" sounds the most interesting.  It might also be the most potentially fruitful if you can engage organisations like TZM and the Money Free Party

[robbo203]

jondwhite wrote:

It reminds me of this story from 2012 about the test revealing Michelle Obama's speech which was the highest grade level in history and was contrasted with Ann Romney's which was at the lowest grade level in historyhttp://editions.lib.umn.edu/smartpolitics/2012/09/05/michelle-obamas-dnc-speech-wri/Does simpler language resonate more?

 It seems to resonate more with the  more dogmatically minded who are comfortable with vague and vacuous  generalisations as in the case of Anne Romney.  Not that that necessarily means we should forsake simpler language for more complex sentence constructions.  Quite often the latter can camouflage muddleheadedness behind a screen of apparent profundity

[robbo203]

Yes it is interesting. Perhaps those organising "speakers classes" (do these exist?) in the SPGB ought to take note. Not too sure that the conclusions apply so readily to the written format though…

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

I think that you severely underestimate the support for my criticism, alan, based on two factors:1. the continued statements of all the members/supporters of the SPGB who post here (including you, even though you still seem to be unaware of it, even given your openly stated lack of knowledge), and all those who read and fail to post against, that they will not have workers' democracy in the means of production; and

 Here we go again. More misinformation from LBird.  "Workers democracy in the means of production" is one thing; workers democratically voting to determine the "truth" of scientific theories is a totally different thing.No one on this forum that I am aware of has posted anything remotely suggesting that there will not be democratic control over the means of production in a socialist society.  What has been attacked is LBird's absolutely balmy idea about the global population voting on thousand upon thousands of scientific (and other ) theories.  There is absolutely no point in that and it is totally impractical anywaySo not only has our resident elitist snob, LBird, deigned not to answer our humdrum practical questions concerning the feasability of what he proposes –  he prefers not to dirty his hands with such lowly matters to and to keep to the rarifed air of philosophical abstractions –  but now he resorts to lying through his teeth to shore up what credibility  he has left which is rapidly draining away through through the many, and by now pretty much gaping,  holes in his argument.Its quite pathetic really…

[Author]

Posts