robbo203
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Brand seems blissfully unaware of the harsh truth that a policy of "lesser evilism" naturally paves the way for an outcome of "greater evilism". My only regret that the capitalist "Labour" Party didn't get in is that we now have to endure the same old tired special pleading next time round – "vote Labour without illusions". Couldn't exactly do that with much conviction if you have just had a taste of what a Labour Party in power meant in practice. Like I said earlier the see saw nature of capitalist politics will almost certainly guarantee the return of a Tory government – the presumed "greater evil" in this case – later on had it failed to become the government this time round . People like Brand only serve to help perpetuate this treadmill of illusions by issuing advice that we should "vote Labour". After some promising noises initially, he has proven to be a rather big disappointment,sadly
stuartw2112 wrote:The comments here have been most interesting and revealing – angry, sentimental, all about identification with an ideological position, moralising. I have some sympathy with all that has been said. But deciding who to vote for at an election just isn't a decision with the moral force and political consequence you have all invested it with. It's a purely practical matter – of no great significance, and yet of some significance. I totally agree with Brand. I vote Labour at least partly for all those people desperately hoping for a slightly less evil government, one more committed to keeping the social safety net. For myself, the election will probably have little or not effect. I'm not so sure that will be true for my friends and acquaintances and many others who have suffered so terribly at the hands of this Tory government. I applaud Brand for his decision and hope it had an effect on his followers.Hi Stuart, Your comments above are also revealing for what they say about you! Do I take it then that you regard the case for socialism is purely a matter of economic interests – pragmatism – as opposed to morality? I have always taken the postition that it is necessarily both these things and was somewhat dismayed when the SPGB elected a few years back to effectively fall in line with Kautsky's observation – namely that "it was the materialist interpretation of history which first completely deposed the moral ideal as the directing factor of social revolution” and that this theory has ‘taught us to deduce our social aims solely from the knowledge of the material foundations’ (Karl Kautsky Ethics and the Materialist Conception Of History,1906, Chapter V . "The Ethics of Marxism"). I dont think you can entirely deduce your aims from a "knowledge of the material foundations of society" – your aims are also a question of values which moreover fundamentally influence how you interpet the world – your knowledge Your supposed pragmatism in choosing to vote for a through and through capitalist political party you attempt to justify on grounds that supposedly separate you from those who express a view point that is angry, sentimental, all about identification with an ideological position, moralising . And yet there you are talking about all those people desperately hoping for a slightly less evil government. A slightly less evil government? Can you not see the fundamental contradiction in your whole posture? And if you going to be "pragmatic" about it consider the point that I made earlier. If you are recommending people to vote Labour, you doing so in the certain knowlege that a Labour government is going to disappoint and that as result of that disappointment workers in the long run are almost certainly going to switch their allegiance back to the Tories. Given the see saw nature of capitalist politics this is what invariably happens, does it not? Why not then just short circuit the whole lengthy expostion and simply say "VOTE TORY!! Because, lets face it, that is the long term consequence of voting Labour. You are simply preparing the ground for the return of a future Tory government in the wake of Labour's (inevitable) failure….
stuartw2112 wrote:Hi Alan,Brand changed his mind, something he has not been shy about doing in his public self-development and education. And as he said in his Trews show, he's well aware, and could go on for perhaps as long as you, about Labour's past and probable future failings. But the question on the table is not about Labour's failings. It's about whether we would prefer a Labour(-led) government to a Tory(-led) one. Brand says yes, and I agree with him. It's a reasonable thing to believe (a majority in the Labour movement do, don't they?), even if you're not a dupe of the system, a fool, a knave, a charlatan, have been bought off by the lizards, a careerist only out for yourself, etc, etc.Well I don't agree Stuart. Even if, for the sake of argument, a Labour government was marginally less harsh in its anti-working class policies, a vote for Labour in the short term is in effect a vote for the Tories in the long term (and vice versa I might add), given the see-saw nature of capitalist politics. Invariably the election of one capitalist party to power leads to disenchantment and the subsequent diversion of political support to some political rival, only for the whole process to repeat itself again and again. The political rival gets into power and disappoints its followers who then switch their allegiance back to other one. Its a bleedin' treadmill we are talking about here and the only way to deal with a treadmill is to get the hell off it – something that I fondly imagined Brand had originally done but sadly proved not to be the case. Honestly – at some point you just have to draw a line in the sand and say "enough is enough". Otherwise you are liable to find yourself sucked into a quagmire with no way out. and no end in sight.
jondwhite wrote:Well it was dismissed as anti socialist claptrap on here but Harold walsby made this point way back in 1949Problem is, though, that while Walsby's rather contrived and rigid functionalist hierarchy (or pyramid) or ideological types may well be a load of codswallop (and in my opinion, it is) this does not in any way invalidate the more general point being made here – that we are all subject to irrational influences and that a political style that basis itself on a purely rational approach is in a sense foredoomed to make little progress unless, as it were, it takes on or addresses those influences on their own terms. That is to say, unless it incorporates an element of "irrationalism" itself and thereby becomes more effectively able to appeal to workers on a more rounded basis and not simply regard them as mere self-interested calculating machines (which is actually what lies behind this "rationalist" paradigm). How often has one come across the reason offered as why an individual decided to join the Socialist Party: "I came across a copy of the Socialist Standard. I couldn't argue against what it was saying. It made a lot of sense to me. So I was persuaded and subsequently joined the Socialist Party…" Its a caricature, I know, but what this hypothetical example does point to and highlight is the crucial importance attached to rationality in the role of the Party in propagating socialist ideas. That in turn links up with other basic motifs commonly found in the literature – such as that socialism is a question of our economic class interests rather than a question of , say, moral indignation or that the approach of socialists to society is a "scientific" one that is value free and objective (I know I know I'm beginning to sound like LBird , god help me) or (my particular bugbear with the Party) that you can't possibly entertain the idea of admitting into Party, a socialist who holds some vague religious ideas but in all other respects is clearly socialist, because he or she is irredeemably tainted with sin of embracing irrationalism….etc etc This way of thinking goes all the way back to people like Rudolf Hilferding, who wrote in the preface to his work Finanzkapital (1910):The theory of Marxism, as well as its practice is free from judgments of value. It is therefore false to conceive, as is widely done, intra et extra muros, that Marxism and socialism are as such identical. For logically, regarded as a scientific system and apart from its historical effect, Marxism is only a theory of the laws of movement of society formulated in general terms by the Marxian conception of history; the Marxian economics applying in particular to the period of commodity-producing society It makes what we are arguing for sound like something that will be introduced by a bunch of white coated scientists… Don't get me wrong . I'm not saying saying socialists should repudiate rationality in favour of irrationality or that we should reject the notion that socialism is in our class interests in favour of the notion that it is a moral imperative. What I am saying is that we should incorporate both sides of this equation into our propaganda and practice What that might mean in practical terms I am not quite sure which is why I started this thread – to initiate some discussion on it. The point is though that if individuals are significantly affected by irrational factors – and the link I gave at the outset strongly suggests this is the case – then how do we adapt our strategy to take this into account? We cant just ignore this. If the case is so overwhelmingly strong and logical (and I believe it is) why are more workers not joining the socialist movement? Its not just because they haven't heard of us . Thats a feeble excuse. The vast majority who have heard of us still don't join. Why? Walsby came up with a reason but I think his basic argument was crap – an unconvincing and speculative schema based on a functionalist sociology. Incidentally the title of this thread I took from the pamphlet written by Maurice Brinton in 1970 . See here https://www.marxists.org/archive/brinton/1970/irrational-politics.htm. I'm not quite sure whether I go along with what he is saying but he does make some interesting points
LBird wrote:If you are like me, and consider socialism to be 'the democratic control of production', then we can move to discussing how, perhaps, possibly, being suggestive, we can democratically control the production of knowledge.robbo's problem is that he doesn't agree with workers' control of physics, which anyone agreeing with 'the democratic control of production' would obviously agree with, and so he's not concerned with how to do this, but to prove that we can't do this.Just as I predicted, LBird has refused to answer my several questions. He has refused to say why the global population has to vote to determine the "truth" of scientific theories – what is the point of the exercise?He has refused to explain what happens to the heretics who continue to espouse heretical scientific theories in the face of orthodoxy – will they be forcibly silenced, burnt at the stake or what? Again, if not , what was the point of this exercise in voting?He has refused to explain how people are going to equip themselves with the necessary knowledge in order to be able to vote – not just on a handful of theories but the totality of scientific theories. That is to say he has refused to explain how individuals – everyone! – is expected to become scientifically omniscient . Instead he comes up with the above complete aunt sally that I don't agree with workers control – completely overlooking that it is not up to me to prove that omniscience is an unattainable state of affairs as far as any individual is concerned but rather that it is up to him him to prove otherwiseHe has refused to explain in practical terms, how thousands upon thousands global plebiscites are going to be organised every year in order to determine the truth of each and every new theory that comes on stream. He say he wants to move to discussing how "we can democratically control the production of knowledge but of course this is just bluster. He has no intention of discussioing anything of the sort and has consistently declined every challenge thus far to show how this can be done.He has refused to explain what happens if the great majority have no inclination whatsoever to trudge down to the polling booth to vote on the burning issue of whether amoebic reproduction refutes "Mullers ratchet" theory but prefer to do something more interesting and he has refused to explain how the world is going to fall apart and complete chaos ensue should the show of hands in support of the theory be so pathetically small as to cast doubt on its validity. On the question of democratic control of production…. He has refused to explain how his Leninist conception of one single society wide plan in which 7 billion people – the current world population more or less – are expected to decide on the production targets of million upon millions of different kinds of inputs and outputs – from 3 inch nails to steel plates, from bags of bird seed to plastic mugs He has refused to explain how this Leninist conception of his is going to work when any change to any part of The Plan will necessitate redrafting the whole plan in its entirety – meaning in effect that The Plan will never see the light of day and will remain permanently on the drawing board He has refused to explain how this global society of 7 billion people are going to be involved in making decisions about what happens in your local community if no decentralised decision making is to be allowed in this utopian fantasy world of his He has refused to explain how, if we allow local communities to make decisions that effect only them, this is any different in principle from just letting people interested in the question of amoebic reproduction, debate among themselves on whether "Mullers Ratchet" is a sound theory Each after all constitutes only a tiny subset of the total population. Or is LBird going to argue that local decisionnaking is "elitist" because it tends to exclude people who are not local? LBird has clearly got a lot of explaining to do and until he gets his finger out , stops with the constant waffling and gets down to the hard nitty gritty issues raised by all these question , he will continue to have zero credibility in my book. Jehovah Witness type responses in the face of these probing questions is not going to get him anywhere even if might make him feel good about himself to endlessly repeat these pious mantras. One needs something a little more substantial than simply to be told ad nauseum "I am a democratic communist and democratic communism is my ideology"
steve colborn wrote:I am a worker, no different to any other worker! I can understand the "Case" for Socialism and the necessity for the same. I had no especial knowledge, when I first approached The Socialist Party, in 1980. I had a sense of disquietude with society, something was not "right". When I met The Socialist Party, the disquietude was silenced, the confusion, abated.Why????????I'm nowt special. No particular acumen, no particular insight. Just a worker who was/is unsatisfied with the way society is organised.I agree with L Bird, we are nowt special! so what makes us special?Sort that out, solve the riddle of the Sphinx, the Gordian Knot, the Rosetta Stone and we've cracked it!!!Roll on the post election symposium/post-mortem!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Its not a question of acumen or insight or intellectual ability Steve; its a question of motive or, if you like, values. Hence your paradox: we are nowt special! so what makes us special? Vastly more people have heard the case for socialism than there are socialists. Why do so few go on then to become socialists? There has to be something "special" about these few who become socialists in the sense that they are atypically predisposed more than others to become socialists. To deny that seems foolish – a case of burying one's head in the sand (not saying this is what you are doing though – you are clearly not which is why you recognise the paradox above) I think people exist along a spectrum of receptivity to socialist ideas and this may very well mean a more targeted approach to socialist propaganda is required. Part of the reason why many are currently reluctant to become socialists or work for socialism is that they think it is just not credible in the sense that it is not going to happen in their lifetime. So why bother. This of course then becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. However, as the movement grows and it crosses a certain critical threshold this factor is likely to weaken so you will start to see a significant acceleration in the growth of the movement itself Consciousness tends to expand exponentially rather than arithmetically. But, again, this reinforces the point about motive. Some people may be inherently more conformist or unwilling to break the mould and may therefore require the presence of many more socialists around them before they feel secure enough to begin to make a move in the direction of socialism
alanjjohnstone wrote:Robbo and LBird…i think we have to be sure of our words…Victor is wrong …people aren't ignorant…they are unaroused politically. We know our friends and co-workers only too well…they can analyse a football game with precision…they can judge a racehorse's capability to a photo fuinish…and they leave me mathematically dumbfounded when it comes to calculating all those complex bets at the bookies…it is certainly not from lack of intellectual prowness that workers do not understand socialism…it is the missing will that they lack.Alan, I will ignore LBird's, as per usual, idiotic drivel about democracy anbd individualism – this from someone who hasnt a clue what democracy is for and wants to organise several thousand plebiscites per year among a global population of 7 billion on the "truth" of every new scientific theory that comes on stream – and simply say that that is what I took Victor to be saying – not that people are intellectually incapable of understanding socialism but that they are "politically unaroused". In other words its motive that they are lacking, not ability. If Ive misread what Victor is saying then I take back what I said. But it seems to me to be the case that by and large the workers are apathetic and disinclined to want to do anything about changing the world fundamentally. Quite probably that stems from feelings of powerlessness and a lack of belief in themselves to make a differnece. I dont like that state of affairs any more than you do but we have to know what it is we are up against in order to be able to do something about it. Recognising what the problem is might just give us a clue as to how we go about solving it….
Victor wrote:In reality, Brand is a London media phenomenon only. Most ordinary people don't know he exists – and don't care. Which is not to dismiss him completely – what he says will have some impact, and he does come out with some intelligent and thought-through argument – but he lives in a bubble and his worldview reflects this to an extent.Any constructive discussion about how to get the message about socialism across to people would have to involve an acknowledgement of a few unspoken (and unpleasant) truths about the public. First, people are ignorant. Most people see world socialism as pie in the sky material. Find a way to make your message relevant to people's everyday concerns. Second, most people aren't literate in the sense that the average SPGB member might be. Decide on a group you want to target, consider how the message can be delivered efficaciously, look at the words used, the medium selected, etc. – isn't that what Russell Brand does? This requires an element of dumbing down, but might be effective. Brand doesn't usually tell people explicitly that he is a pseudo-socialist, New Age spiritualist….or whatever he is. Instead, he taps into the emotional brain. He knows his audience and he pushes the right buttons. He's not sincere. He's manipulative. But it works.Perhaps I am being harsh, but at the moment the SPGB in most of its publicity asks for a level of intellectual engagement that, realistically, most people just don't have the capacity for or simply don't have time for.I would endorse every word of this and, perhaps, when that much touted post mortem conference or discussion happens after the Elections to analyse the predictably dismal voting results (this is not a putdown BTW; its good that the SPGB is putting up so many candidates but Im just being realistic here) the Party would do well to reflect on all this. Hopefully that will be the cue for it to adopt a more flexible and relaxed approach generally – from modifying somewhat its admissions requirements (for example, softening its absurdly strict and largely redundant stricture against holding religious views) as well as experimenting with new ways of putting across the socialist message, capitalising fully on the potential of modern communication technologies… Brand, though he is clearly not a socialist, (his "revolutuion" does not seem to signify the transcendance of capitalism) has inadvertently ploughed a furrow for socialists. As Vin has suggested, it is up to us socialists to start sowing those socialist seeds in the soil he has turned over
gnome wrote:A James Kenny wrote:As a Manchester United fan and a voter in the Brighton, Pavilion constituency, before I vote on May 7th I would like to know whether you will support legislation to reform football governance? We believe legislative changes are necessary as outlined here: http://www.votefootball.org/proposalHoward Pilott wrote:Hello James, Thank you for your email. My understanding is that Manchester United plc is registered in the Cayman Islands and quoted on the NYSE, and as such is a multinational company. In 2014 they made over £400m. This is a business which exists for the benefit of the shareholders [mostly US family the Glazers] selling shirts and viewing rights and merchandising, oh and also playing some football. Players are predominantly from overseas. The association with the town of Manchester or England is coincidental to their activities: if they thought they could make money out of it they'd move to Milan or Los Angeles. I have nothing against those who enjoy watching football or those who play it. I have an issue with a created marketing culture which treats a local sport as a product to be ruthlessly advertised and merchandised. I grew up living locally to Arsenal football ground where you could see players walking along the local streets, and talk to them; some dated girls at my secondary school; friends went for trials and we could get in for a song. Now players earn more in a matter of months than many fans do in a lifetime; they are super celebs. The £250+m wages bill at Old Trafford means £250+m has been sucked out of our economy when it could have been spent on schools, hospitals, railways, care of the elderly, etc…but that's what happens in this cockeyed system. The current system may produce some great players and even sometimes some great games, but what is hidden is the real cost of doing so. Somehow our world spent £5.1bn on premier league viewing rights while we have 4hrs+ waits in A&E. Ask yourself if that is a good balance. Because football is now big business, you cannot make meaningful reforms: it's like trying to reform a scorpion – what will always come out top is what is good for business. A reform here and there – they'll find ways around it if they want to. However if capitalism was abolished, football and football teams would no longer be big business: the whole thing would be run by whoever is involved, not by non-doms or overseas billionaires. Games would be free and players could play for the sport of it. Ask yourself why footballers need millions of pounds to play well whereas olympiads do it for nothing. I prefer the model of the olympiads myself. Not sure this answered your questions but hopefully it may raise some others. Regards, Howard Pilott The Socialist Party of Great Britain candidate http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/Yes I agree with Northern Light – that is a model answer by Howard which exactly hits all the right spots
alanjjohnstone wrote:All my time in the party i have never encountered anybody who does not accept the importance of ideology/education in class consciousness but we do need a receptive fertile soil to sow the seeds…an a farmer like yourself, Robbo, knows you have to turn a field up before you can spread the seed …LOL. Not quite a "farmer", Alan – I keep chickens and grow some veggies – but around here people swear by goats manure if you want to have a "receptive fertile soil" to sow your seeds in! But to be serious – yes, you are quite right regarding the importance of ideology/education and I think Socialist Studies are raising a straw argument in thinking that anyone in the SPGB thinks otherwise. Even Rosa Luxemburg who held a collapsist view of capitalism maintained that workers had to come to a revolutionary perspective before you could move on to establish a socialist society. She too in other words emphasised the importance of education or "propaganda" but thought it would be assisted by the prospect of capitalist collapse. I don't think that follows necessarily and there are plenty of counterexamples to make us wary – in particular, the rise of fascism out of conditions of severe economic depression. Conversely, the 1960s when the political climate was changing in a relatively "progressive" direction, was also a time of economic boom. Which brings us back to Kliman. His arguments seems to be that the Keynesians bought into the folly that capitalist crises could be staved off or at least moderated thought the policies of deficit financing . boosting consumption etc That didn't happen but the measures that have been more recently implemented have had the effect of somewhat cushioning the destruction of capital values and thereby, as I said earlier, of ensuring that the restoration of economic growth has been somewhat more feeble than might have been expected. His position is fundamentally critical of the underlying reformist perspective of the underconsumptionost theorists grouped around the Monthly Review Press. What they are advocating could actually make matters worse for the working class in the long run. He seems to be saying that we need to grasp the nettle or grab the bull by the horns and realise that the problem is capitalism itself and that you cannot reform capitalism out of its boom/bust cycle. He does not seem to hold a collapsist position but does seem to think that things could get worse – economically and politically – as a result of a misguided attempt to reform capitalism through some kind of revamped neo-Keynesian approach. We should learn from the failure of the Keynesian experiment and get back to what the socialist movement was supposed to be about – bringing about a fundamental change in society Though I am somewhat sceptical of the emphasis he places on the centrality of the falling rate of profit as the underlying cause of economic crises – I think disproportionality theory is a more convincing explanation because, as I say, profits can fall for reasons other than the "rising organic composition of capital"- I think a lot of the political conclusions he draws from his analysis are sound But the question of how to make workers more receptive to socialist ideas still remains unanswered. Personally I think the most important proximate reason why the socialist movement remains so small is quite simply because of what I call the "small party syndrome". It tends to be a self perpetuating conation. Because you are a small you are not considered credible and that deters interest and involvement and so keeps you small. Its only when you break through a certain critical threshold numerically speaking that you will be able to overcome this condition and experience exponential growth such as certain reformist political outfits like Podemos here in Spain have been experiencing lately. That incidentally is a compelling argument for simplifying or relaxing conditions for membership of the SPGB – some of which are quite redundant, superfluous and potentially offputting, in my view – and retaining only what is absolutely essential to ensure the socialist integrity of the organisation. The quicker you can get more people into the organisation the sooner you will reach that critical threshold. But thats for another thread I guess…
Coincidentally. I came across this article in the Socialist Studies journal while surfing the Web http://www.socialiststudies.org.uk/article%20record%20straight.shtml#collapse It touches on the question of the falling rate of profit and makes some interesting claims about the SPGB and Dave Perrin's book on the Party which I had never heard of before (the claims I mean). I wondered if a response had been issued. The relevant para in the article is this one: Marx goes on to point out that the effect of over-production of capital would simply mean that some part of the capital “would lie fallow completely or partially…while the active portion would produce values at a lower rate of profit, owing to the pressure of the unemployed or but partly employed capital” (ibid). Could capitalism recover? “Yes”, said Marx, since among the consequences of this is the “slaughtering of the values of capitals”, a fall in wage-rates and a rise in the rate of profit due to the fall in prices of the elements of constant capital itself: As I understand it, Kliman's argument is in part that the “slaughtering of the values of capitals”, has not been sufficient to offset the fall in the rate of profit since the 1970s and this is why economic growth has been comparatively weak, historically speaking, despite the ending of recession
DJP wrote:robbo203 wrote:Profits can fall for reasons other than a change in the organic composition of capital and the latter is too slow a process to account for a crisis anyway – at least as I understand it.Seems to me that you've understood Kliman too simplistically. See the interview in the Standard and this exchange with David Harvey:http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/economic-crisis/harvey-versus-marx-on-capitalisms-crises.html
Interesting article but it does not dispel the argument that essentially, for Kliman, crises are linked to the falling rate of profit though he does argue that financial crisis – the credit system – can operate as a "triggering" factor. I still have this problem with the advocates of the "falling rate of profit" theses as an explanation for crisis in that they don't really explain how the one thing translates into the other. Disprorportionality theory, it seems to me at any rate, is the unacknowledged and missing piece of the jigsaw that would permit such an explanation . However, disproportionality theory has had a bad press because of its early association with reformist advocates of "organised capitalism" like Tugan-Baranowsky and Rudolph Hilferding who believed that the "anarchy of the market" could be overcome by planning, but also because it has been misunderstood to apply solely to imbalances on the demand side whereas it also applies to the supply side- the uneven development of the forces of production , The result is that commonly we find the debate on the question of "what causes crises?"as being presented as one of underconsumption theory versus the falling rate of profit thesis: disproportionality theory as a paradigm in its own right tends to be pushed out of the picture. But no explanation of crises would be adequate without a reference to the in built tendency towards disproportional growth. I think Marx said somewhere – I forget where – that all crises commence as partial crises before becoming generalised. The question is how or why the beginnings of a generalised crisis can always be traced back to one or two sectors of the economy at the outset. That said, Kliman is not an advocate of what someone called the "naive version" of the falling rate of profit theses. He gives due weight to the counteracting tendencies to the falling rate of profit caused by a rise in the organic composition of capital – such as the destruction or writing off of capital which tends to restore the rate of profit and allow economic growth to commence again. As I understand it his position is that economic growth since the 1970s has been comparatively feeble in historic terms partly because there has not been enough in the way of capital being destroyed or written off. He is however very good when it comes to exposing the futility of the reformist or neo Keynesian agenda of the underconsumptionists!
Richard wrote:robbo203 wrote:What, for example, is the extent of socialist consciousness in formally secular or atheistic states?robbo, could you please give me an example of a secular or atheistic state, past or present? The USSR? The Bolsheviks repressed Christianity and replaced it with "socialism". Work hard, comrades, and your children will live in a communist heaven! Comrade Stalin has spoken! Sounds like the same old story with new characters. Nazi Germany? The Nazis created their own religion based on racial purity, Christianity was seen as "incorrect" in National Socialist circles. Hitler wrote some nasty things about Christianity in "Mein Kampf" (which was kinda like a Nazi bible when you think about it). The Khmer Rouge? They tried to wipe out established religions in their attempt to return Cambodia to "Year Zero". I suspect Pol Pot saw Buddhism and Islam as dangerous competitors in his bid for social control of the people. North Korea? They have the state ideology of Juche and the people worship the Kim family (of course in the West we worship the Kardashian family, but that's another matter). There has never been a secular or atheistic state. You need to widen your definition of "religion".
Hi Richard.I am not quite sure where your argument is leading to – unless it is to suggest that the concept of religion should be widened sufficiently to embrace atheism as well. If so, I would be inclined to agree. Etymologically speaking, the word “religion” itself derives from the Latin word "re-ligare" meaning to re-bind or re-connect (like the “ligament” which joins the muscle to the bone). This original meaning of the term perhaps helps to explain the occasional characterisation one comes across of the state-sanctioned atheism of some countries, like North Korea, as constituting the "official religion" of the country in question. I merely qualified my argument by suggesting that in formal terms such regimes were nominally hostile to "religion"; in the wider sense of the term you advocate, insofar as it is congruent with the original meaning of the word religion, you could well say that regimes are themselves religiously based Of course, this raises all sorts of interesting questions. If we go along with your wider definition of religion for a moment then we might well ask whether any kind of human society can do without "religion" in that sense? I suspect not. In that sense the term, "religion "is stripped of any supernatural connotations, such as belief in a God or an afterlife, and is rendered virtually synonymous with the concept of "social solidarity". No society is conceivable without the concept of social solidarity. In his influential work, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912) the famous French sociologist, Emile Durkheim analysed the religious rituals of the Australian aborigines which, he argued, were based on a simple kind of religion called “totemism”. Durkheim attempted to show that the real purpose of such rituals was to revitalise and reinforce the "collective consciousness" of the participants. In short, to dramatise and strengthen the moral bonds between them in order to create a more cohesive social unity and counteract the effects of dispersal and isolation arising from a hunter-gatherer way of life. In short , what was really being worshipped behind this display of religiosity was society itself But as I say, I am using the term religion in its formal or usual sense as denoting some form of supernatural belief. Unfortunately, the decline in such belief has not at all translated into greater receptivity to socialist ideas – if anything the opposite is true and the extent of socialist consciousness now is lower than when religion was more widely upheld and practiced. More fatal to the argument that socialists must implacably opposed religion in all its myriad forms is the simple and demonstrable fact that some people who hold religious ideas in this sense are much more understanding of socialism and sympathetic to the cause than the vast majority of atheists who obediently go along and support capitalism and some capitalist political party come elections. This is why I agree with Meel that a trenchant and undiscriminating opposition to religion by a socialist political party may be very largely a waste of time and only serve to alienate those who would be our natural supporters but happen to hold some religious beliefs. There are more than enough safeguards built into the admissions process to ensure that such individuals do not stray politically from the sole objective of a socialist party: socialism
DJP wrote:robbo203 wrote:Kliman belongs to the (somewhat dodgy) "falling rate of profit" school of thought..Depends what you mean here, there isn't really a single "falling rate of profit" school, If you think he can be lumped with those that prophesied the collapse of capitalism because of this you're flat wrong.
No I dont think that. I agree that you can subscribe to the falling rate of profit theory of crises without holding a collapsist position which as far as I know is what Kliman does. Its just that I cant see how that particular theory holds water. Profits can fall for reasons other than a change in the organic compostion of capital and the latter is too slow a process to account for a crisis anyway – at least as I understand it.
