[robbo203]

Have recently been watching the rather good TV series Babylon Berlin. Its a few years after the time period under discussion at this meeting but if is quite atmospheric and gives you a feel of what Berlin must have ben like at the time. It is set against a background of political intrigue in the late 20s, a suspected shipment of gold bound for the Soviet Union and, of course, the beginnings of the Nazi’s rise to power. Worth looking at

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4378376/

[robbo203]

Also = a quick thought occurred to me . How about a short brief FAQ at the top for the Forum with links on how to register, how to edit posts, how to quote from previous posts etc etc . Is this do-able?

[robbo203]

Hi Matt

You are making good progress and Im sure will get in there in the end. I think it is useful to have this kind of two way interaction/ I’m not tech savvy at all so I need to know something of the kind of constraints you operate with and conversely it is useful for you to know how us techno simpletons view things. We tend to like things nice and simple and straightforward! I guess in time additional features will be built into the website (and most particularly the forum which I regard as being absolutely central to the site) which will make everyone happy. I hear what you say about it not being possible to do it all at once with only yourself and Rob working on it

Just one thing regarding the pamphlet section which is now much improved and in date order – it is not immediately obvious that there are several pages listing pamphlets . Is there a way of highlighting this more clearly – even just stating “more pamphlets” or “older pamphlets” in bold or something and making the dividing line between pamphlets and the current SS at the bottom of the page much thicker to differentiate it from the list of pamphlets. Ditto the Blog details

[robbo203]

Great stuff. Matt. A big improvement. Things are looking up and I’m sure in the end this is going to be a fantastic website and a real asset to the movement. The biggest challenge, I think, is to improve the forum and then to entice more and more workers into participating in it. We should aim to make it THE premier socialist discussion anywhere. Have all previous users been notified and what plans are afoot to publicise this facility as widely as possible? Also, would it not be a good idea to coopt comrades who have been critical of the present format and are tech savvy – like Darren for example – to informally advise on additional useful features this forum could strive to incorporate? What do you think? More hands and heads make lighter work etc

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by robbo203.

[robbo203]

Great Idea Alan and Heather Ball’s anthology should definitely be listed as a publication on this website. Why isn’t it?

[robbo203]

Yes I would echo Bijou’s sentiment. Yes there are masses of room for improvement for the site in general and this forum in particular which is unsatisfactory for all sorts of reasons. But its very early days yet. We need to be patient and keep on compiling a list of suggested improvements . Admin has said this is a “work in progress”. Lets treat it as such and not be too judgemental. The end result I am sure is going be one with which everyone will be more than happy – one of the best political websites around and a vigorous and expanding forum drawing in more and more workers

[robbo203]

That’s good to hear, Dave. I’m sure we will get there in the end. Having a really first class website and very user-friendly forum will encourage more and more people to join in the discussion. We should aim to make this the Number One socialist forum anywhere. So its important to get it right and to bear in mind that a lot of us, myself included, are not very computer-literate. The computer geeks need to make things really easy for us techno-simpletons….

One other thing – how does one go about quoting sections of text from a previous text? This facility no longer seems to exist. Ditto putting text in bold and italics etc etc or editing one’s own posts (important to me given my atrocious spelling)

[robbo203]

I have mixed views on this matter. Some aspects of the new website are good, some bad.

Since it is still a work in progress can I suggest people start compiling a list of practical suggestions to help improve the site rather than (just) make generalised statements. We need to help and encourage the people putting in all the hard graft to make this site better.

Ill start the ball rolling with some suggestions myself

– Make the log-in and registration procedure much more user friendly and obvious for us technophobes

– the text on this page under ‘upcoming events’ and the ‘latest from socialism or your money back blog’ is so faint it is barely legible. Could it not be put in bold or enlarged?

– wasn’t there talk earlier of introducing a like/dislike button for comments on the forum?

– I prefer the old way of presenting the SS in the format of separate articles. This allows you to post links on Facebook etc which refer exclusively to the article in question

Any other suggestions?

[robbo203]

Still had great difficulty logging in. Is there not a more user friendly way of doing this. How does a newcomer to the forum go about registering?

[robbo203]

Hi zhengenbin Glad to see you overcame the technical problems of contributuing to this forum!  I will transfer my comments from the "comments section" to this thread as below in italics.  The only point I would add is that I think you need to define what you mean by a family:I am curious about your reasoning for saying this,  zhengenbin What makes you think the family as an insititution will disappear in socialism?  Granted the form  that the family takes may be radically different from today but that does not necessarily entail the disappearance of the insitition per se.    Also forcing its disappearnce would be somewhat inconsistent with your suggestion that we should not use force to establish socialism. On this latter point, the problem is that the capitalist class maintains it monopoly ownership of the productive resources of society by force – by means of the state.  Surely that means that to make these resources the common property of everyone (socialism) we have to deprive them of that very force they use to maintain the status quo.  And that surely means capturng the politcal state ourselves (by democratic means) in order to strip the capitalists of their monopoly ownership which , once accomplished, will make the very insitituion of the state itself redundant. If you mean by "force", violence,  then I tend to agree that this would not be necessary and may even be counterproductive.  But force does not have to mean violence – it could also mean,simply,  social pressure or complusion – and it is this latter sense that I think that force will definitely be needed to establish socialism.  I cant see any other way….

[robbo203]

zhengenbin wrote:

A socialist society or a communist society is a stateless, classless, moneyless  and familyless society. And most importantly, a communist society or a socialist society is familyless society(familyless society). Therefore, the realization of a socialist society or a communist society is not dependent on the seizure of power. Because you can't force people into a familyless society.

 I am curious about your reasoning for saying this,  zhengenbin What makes you think the family as an insititution will disappear in socialism?  Granted the form  that the family takes may be radically different from today but that does not necessarily entail the disappearance of the insitition per se.    Also forcing its disappearnce would be somewhat inconsistent with your suggestion that we should not use force to establish socialism. On this latter point, the problem is that the capitalist class maintains it monopoly ownership of the productive resources of society by force – by means of the state.  Surely that means that to make these resources the common property of everyone (socialism) we have to deprive them of that very force they use to maintain the status quo.  And that surely means capturng the politcal state ourselves (by democratic means) in order to strip the capitalists of their monopoly ownership which , once accomplished, will make the very insitituion of the state itself redundant. If you mean by "force", violence,  then I tend to agree that this would not be necessary and may even be counterproductive.  But force does not have to mean violence – it could also mean,simply,  social pressure or complusion – and it is this latter sense that I think that force will definitely be needed to establish socialism.  I cant see any other way….

[robbo203]

Sympo wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

Personally I think the former definition of SNLT is more acceptable. 

I personally have a hard time choosing between the two But what are your thoughts on my reasoning?Summary of my reasoning:Labour must be the source of all value (I'll skip going through the reasons as every SPGB member/sympathizer in the thread knows the reasoning behind the statement).But if you make an apple, and I make an apple, and the labour time for them are different, they still have the same value.Therefore SNLT must be something that exists, because it's the only thing that can explain how two individual commodities, that are identical in everything except the individual labour time put into each of them, have the same value. Am I committing a logical fallacy? If so, which one? (Genuine question)

 Hi Sympo,   I am not quite sure what you mean when you say "Therefore SNLT must be something that exists".  It is simply a magnitude denoting the average amount of time required to produce a given commodity on an industry-wide basis.  Its like saying the "average family" has 1.9 kids.  There is no actual family to my knowlege that has 1.9 kids.   Ditto SNLT.  I guess what I am trying to say is that you cannot look at a commodity in isolation from other commodities – or for that matter the value embodied in a particular commodity.  A particular commodity requires a certan amount of actual labour to be produced but this is not its value

[robbo203]

Sympo wrote:

 So where does the idea of SNLT come from? The value of a commodity must be determined by the labour contained in it. There are two alternative views that one can hold (as far as I know): either thata) it is the individual labour time of a commodity that determines the value of said commodity.For example, if it took two hours for Arnold to pick an apple from a tree, the value of Arnolds apples would be two value units per apple. But if it took Beatrice ten thousand hours to pick an apple from a tree, then the value of Beatrices apples would be ten thousand value units per apple.or thatb) it is the "socially necessary" labour time of the apples (that have been sold) that determines the value of all apples.How one defines what "socially necessary labour time" is more or less irrelevant, because we've already accepted that the value of a commodity is determined by the labour contained in it.Alternative A is unreasonable, and as there is no other alternative than B left (and I can't think of any other option), B must be the right answer.

 Sympo I think the usual definition of SNLT is the average industry-wide amount of labour time required to produce a given commodity.   So for example if we assume there are only 3 businesses each producing exactly the same output  of a given commodity X wth firm A taking 2 hours to produce X; firm B, 4 hours and firm C , 6 hours then SNLT will coincide with  B.  If the outputs of A, B and C differ then SNLT will correspondingly differ. However, I have also come across the argument suggesting that SNLT corresponds to the "best practice" prevailing in a particular industry which in this case would be Firm A.  I think the argument is that since Firm A has adopted the best practice it will sooner or later crowd out its rivals and so its production time will then become the norm Personally I think the former definition of SNLT is more acceptable.  But of course this is a simplified example which, amongst other things,  ignores the value embodied in the machinery used to manufacture X that will be incorporated in X along with the contribution of living labour

[robbo203]

Some interesting information herehttps://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/15/why-china-holds-all-the-aces-in-a-full-blown-us-china-trade-war.html 

[robbo203]

jondwhite wrote:

hallblithe wrote:

Cited here: Cognitive Dissonance: The Psychological Phenomenon that Explains Why Intellectuals Can’t Stop Believing Socialism Works

What's the politics behind that site? It has hints of 'alt-right'.

  This info on the author of the peice tells us something about his politics"Jon previously was the Senior Editor of The History Channel Magazine, Managing Editor at Scout.com, and general assignment reporter for the Panama City News Herald. He also served as a White House intern in the speech writing department of George. W Bush. "   

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