robbo203
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Here’s another bunch of right-wingers who might be worth contacting with a view to a public debate
And I would hope, actually insist, that taking the piss is a prerequisite of any socialist society.
Actually, BD, that is a very perceptive point and one that directly connects with the topic under discussion
In hunter-gatherer societies, one of the ways in which the group ensured its egalitarian nature was by taking the piss out of anyone who sought to get above their station and lord it over others (remember the distinction between status hierarchies and dominance hierachies – this would be a case of wanting to transform the former into the latter)
Anyway here’s an interesting peice on the subject:
The writings of anthropologists make it clear that hunter-gatherers were not passively egalitarian; they were actively so. Indeed, in the words of anthropologist Richard Lee, they were fiercely egalitarian.[2] They would not tolerate anyone’s boasting, or putting on airs, or trying to lord it over others. Their first line of defense was ridicule. If anyone—especially some young man—attempted to act better than others or failed to show proper humility in daily life, the rest of the group, especially the elders, would make fun of that person until proper humility was shown.
The difference between ‘personal, individual consumption’ and ‘social production’.
Conflating the two is a common conservative tactic – “The Communists will force you to share your underpants!”. “The Communists will collectivise your window-box
This is precisely why you are playing into the hands of those very conservatives by suggesting that that is precisely what communism would do!
LBird
You are misrepresenting what I said. I did not say democracy was a bourgeois obsession. What I was referring to was the bourgeois obsession with quantifying everything (with the emphasis on everything)- in this context counting heads and determining the weight of public opinion on every subject under the sun. That’s just ridiculous – totally impractical and uncalled for.
As a socialist of course, I hold that democracy is a key aspect of a socialist society – far more so than is possible under capitalism. Nevertheless, the fact remains that for a huge amount of what will go on in a socialist society formal democratic decision-making will simply not be required. To keep it simple, society is not going to vote on what I eat for breakfast or what clothes I put on when I get up in the morning, is it?
Lastly in response to my point “Society’s dominant values which will arise quite naturally out of the interactions of individuals…“ you say “But how, robbo? This political claim makes humanity passive and ‘nature’ the active subject.” Rubbish.
The opposite is the case. I am actually investing human beings with agency. That is precisely why I referred to the interactions of individuals. There is no such thing as society without individuals and there is no such thing as individuals without society. The relationship between them is a dialectical one.
This is very different from either a holistic perspective or an individualistic perspective as well you know
The point about status or esteem is that it tends to reflect the values and concerns of the society in question. A skilled hunter or forager in a hunter-gatherer band would be esteemed precisely for the skills she or he brings to bear for the benefit of the band itself.
It would be the same in socialism, I think. The distribution of esteem or status would tend to adapt itself to reflect the concerns and the needs of society. As I say, this is a very effective counterargument to those who say socialism will be undermined by freeloading. The need to feel esteemed by our fellows is a very important human need (see Maslow’s hierarchy of needs) and you are unlikely to gain the respect of your fellows by freeloading. Quite the opposite.
I see this process of adaption as organic and as the expression of evolving culture. You don’t need to formalise it in the guise of a democratic vote. This absurd bourgeois obsession with quantifying everything, – counting heads – apart from being totally impractical, completely misses the point. Society’s dominant values which will arise quite naturally out of the interactions of individuals are already in a sense the expression of the outlook of the majority of those individuals
A human individual is impossible without society – I always find that rather dialectically liberating.
Yes, and the converse is equally true. Society is equally impossible without human individuals
But anyway – all this is moving slightly away from the topic under discussion: status differentiation in a socialist society
Yes, ‘individuals‘, collectively, not an ‘individual’, alone.
Of course. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a democracy, would it? But the collectivity of individuals is obviously comprised of a number of singular individuals in the sense of empirical human beings who participate in, and make possible, democratic decision-making. There is no such thing as a society without individuals in this sense any more than you can have individuals without society
In effect, ‘esteem and respect’ are democratically elected, not chosen by an individual.
Democracy requires the practical involvement of empirical individuals making choices. Otherwise, the term is meaningless
Ex-comrade Watkins recidives (I think that’s a word, anyway he’s done it again, this time with knobs on):
Its pretty cringeworthy as an article and some of the stuff he writes seem questionable. Am I mistaken in thinking he implies Marx held a theory of absolute immiserisation? That would seem to follow from the view he attributes to Marx of capitalism being a zero sum game
Its not just Trots who are speculating on the supposedly imminent fascist takeover of the US
Leonard Peikoff, Ayn Rand’s self appointed successor argues in his 2014 book, The Cause Of Hitler’s Germany as follows:
As Ayn Rand indicates in her introduction, this book demonstrates how German philosophy led to Hitler and the Holocaust.
The Cause of Hitler’s Germany is about two-thirds of The Ominous Parallels, a book of mine first published in 1982. In the book, I intended a warning: If Americans continue to accept and act on the same philosophic ideas that led to the Third Reich, then America will have to follow a parallel course and suffer the same result.
The book, accordingly, studied American culture and history in as much detail as that given to Germany. Given our cultural state, however, I did not expect any such warning to be heeded or even heard, and it wasn’t. There is no improvement in the thirty years since, no change in the basic ideas ruling the United States (and the West as a whole). The Soviet Empire has collapsed, but the ideas of irrationalism, self-sacrifice, and collectivism still dominate and fuel murderous tyrannies, primarily now in the upsurging Middle East, but elsewhere, too.
Doesn’t look like he wants to be a “federal dictator”, then.
Agreed. It’s another example of how politicians are trapped or hedged in by their own ideological rhetoric which restricts their room for manoeuvre. “Freedom luvvin”, Trump-supporting, NRA types who wanna get the state “off our backs”, don’t immediately strike one as the footsoldiers of an impending fascist regime presided over by a re-elected President-cum-dictator Trump
A very de-stabilised USA is far from political fiction. There are those who genuinely believe the 2nd Amendment rights are to defend the threat to their perceived liberties and the idea of armed resistance is being increasingly legitimised by the Right
So this is predicated on an individualist worldview in which case how is this compatible with the idea of a hypothetical fascist takeover of America? A deeply polarised and destabilized America is highly plausible and to an extent already exists and could continue for a long time into the future. A fascist America, on the other had, is quite another scenario and far less plausible for all sorts of reasons
Capitalism can exist under authoritarian regimes, China and Vietnam one-party states, being examples.
Alan,
That may be the case but I think there is a difference in the case of the US or the UK inasmuch as China and Vietnam and others of their ilk have not really gone through a sustained period of liberal bourgeois-democratic governance and, associated with this, the cultivation of an individualist ideology. This is different in the case of the US/UK. Once the bourgeois-democratic genie is out of the bottle it is very difficult to put it back in again.
This is particularly true of the US where individualist values, that are incompatible with totalitarian governance, have been able to set down deep roots over several centuries. These values will not be so easily thrown off. Even some of those NRA types that form the bedrock of support for Trump, ironically and enthusiastically assert their right to bear arms under a constitution that is at odds with totalitarian governance.
I am not convinced at all by the suggestion that the US is headed for a political dictatorship and if an attempt was made to institute such a dictatorship, it would come up against overwhelming resistance. The federal nature of the US would further undermine this attempt for reasons already given on this thread
An apparent counter-example might be the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany before the war. Germany overtook the UK as an industrial power sometime around the beginning of the 20th century. It was also the first significant practitioner of state capitalist policies and for which reason Lenin later urged that Russia imitate the German wartime model of state capitalism.
After WW1 we did see the establishment of the Weimar republic after decades of autocratic government under Bismarck. But the Weimar republic was just too short-lived a period for bourgeois-democratic-cum-individualistic values and expectations to take hold and set down deep roots. That takes time for that to happen and in the US these values and expectations became deeply embedded in the culture of that country over a very long period of time. The past as Marx said weighs like an Alp on the minds of the living.
We should not be misled by the populist struttings of a political clown like Trump. He is a prisoner of the ideology that brought him to power and the authoritarian sentiments he gives voice to are but the expression of the suffering and frustrations of his supporters under so-called neoliberal capitalism which has seen a significant widening between the haves and the have nots. Those sentiments don’t represent a fundamental challenge to the status quo, only a criticism of the status quo. Trump himself while claiming to be anti-establishment is part of the very establishment that is being blamed for the woes of these have nots.
Ultimately, the logic of capitalist development is to push countries towards a bourgeois-democratic-cum-individualist model of governance. Present-day autocracies and one-party states like China will also sooner or later succumb to this logic in the long run, notwithstanding apparent but temporary reversals in the direction some current events seem to be taking us…
Would it not be an idea to publish a party pamphlet on the subject of a Universal Basic Income as it is a subject that keeps on cropping up
Seems the stoppingsocialism site has an audiovisual facility. Perhaps they could invite a party member to debate Haskins on the subject of socialism and the latter’s references to the SPGB. It will be interesting to see if they chicken out at the prospect of a debate
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgZeFXOjOCNq7QMgTEKNgJQ/featured
