[twc]

Richard Seymour (Guardian) wrote:

To paraphrase Karl Marx on religion, the demand to abolish banking is a demand to abolish the state of affairs that needs banking.

   … is the demand to establish our Object.

[twc]

David Harvey Accuses Marx of “Arbitrary” Value AccountingDavid Harvey’s unprecedented video lectures on Marx’s Capital [http://davidharvey.org] contain deep flaws that arise from his serious doubts over Marx’s materialist conception of history and the foundational role that it plays in Capital.Nevertheless, Professor Harvey clearly describes the aspects of Marx’s Capital that trouble him beyond his capacity to understand them. He thereby simplifies the critical task of any reviewer of his course who understands how Marx grounds Capital on the materialist conception of history.In a Q&A session within lecture 8 for Volume 2, David Harvey reiterates his utter bafflement over why the labour associated with distribution is socially necessary, while that associated with exchange is not.Q&A — starting 53m:30s into the lectureQuestion [Interviewer]In Chapter 14 of Volume 2, Marx singles out “communication” and “transportation” as “special sectors” that have important knock-on effects upon the rest of the economy. How do you think about Marx’s approach to these two sectors?Answer [David Harvey]At first sight it seems a little strange.Marx says “most things that go on in the marketing process are not productive of value”.“They are necessary costs of circulation”.But, with transport and communication, Marx says “No, they add value”.It’s often seemed rather curious to me why he decided that they were productive of value, and retailing was not.Marx’s argument is that a commodity is not complete until it has arrived at market. [If it’s at the factory gate, it’s not complete because it hasn’t got to its market place yet.]On the other hand, there’s a separate kind of addition of value that has nothing to do with the original production process.It’s a complicated kind of argument he’s making here.I’m sometimes not sure it all adds up right.Still Poisonous Academic ContextWhat is striking about David Harvey’s noncommittal waffle — make up your mind, Prof. — is its serene academic unconcern over finding Marx’s value theory incomprehensible, and so nonchalantly disposable.The understandable context, of course, is that attacks on Marx’s value theory became a mark of academic pride after Baran and Sweezy (1966) resurrected Bortkewicz’s Marxian demolition accounting for [but actually against] Marx’s value theory, and attained their zenith when genial Meek and hostile Steedman (1977) turned sympathetic Sraffa (1960) diametrically against Marx’s value theory.Thanks to Andrew Kliman (2006), that context has been well and truly subverted, and these assaults upon Marx’s value theory should really have lapsed into history. Except they haven’t, and academic vestiges of them persist, with varying degrees of hostility [e.g. Steve Keen].Reproductive CyclesDavid Harvey’s confusion over Marx’s value accounting is best understood by reference to reproductive cycles (1) and (2), and their capitalist [mis]conception (3), quoted here from the previous post:

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social-reproduction ≡     production → distribution → consumption ↻ (1)

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capital-reproduction ≡      production → distribution               ➚ profit          ⇥ exchange  [= market]               ➘ consumption  ↻ (2)

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capitalist-class-false-consciousness ≡               ➚ profit            exchange  [= market]               ➘ consumption  ↻ (3)

The Materialist Conception of History is the Theoretical Foundation of CapitalOf course, David Harvey can’t formulate his bewilderment in terms of our cycles (1) and (2) because he has already dismissed the materialist conception of history as plain wrongheaded [“reductionist” in his terms] — an approach that prevents him from taking Marx’s claim seriously that the materialist conception of history is absolutely foundational.To us, Marx means exactly what he says in his famous Preface that the materialist conception of history is the “general conclusion at which I arrived and which, once reached, became the guiding principle of my studies”. If the materialist conception of history is flawed then so is most of Capital.David Harvey mistakenly confuses circulation [the transformation of capital through all its forms, the most obvious being the tangible ones of commodity and money] with distribution [the movement of commodities from their productive “source”, e,g. a mine, farm or factory, to their consumptive “sink”, the consumer].In his confusion, he blends distribution into exchange — an understandably capitalist misconception. Despite Marx, he misconceives capitalist reproduction from the narrow standpoint of the capital-reproductive sub-process exchange [cycle (3)].Capital-reproductive cycle (2) makes it abundantly clear that distribution facilitates [→] circulation, while exchange impedes [⇥] it. The two are not identical as he assumes. They are fundamentally antagonistic.Thus his limited viewpoint generates an implied accusation that Marx adopts “arbitrary” value accounting practices in Capital — a very serious charge indeed!While seemingly innocent, this episode is characteristic of the long line of ultimately mischievous anti-Marxian accusations that arise from confusion and misunderstanding.David Harvey well knows what Marx says, but arbitrarily selects those bits of Marx that appeal to his still bourgeois-clouded mind. Marx is all or nothing. Marx is a scientist who is never arbitrary. David Harvey, however, is. His own arbitrary selectivity is the onlie begetter of his claim of arbitrariness.Realizing Surplus Value is a Cost to the Capitalist — the Market is a Drain on ProductionThe capitalist market is not just a barrier to distribution — as we see from the circulation of capital, cycle (2) — but the labour and means of production consumed in setting up the market and realizing surplus value impose a gigantic drain on production. These two observations are proof positive that the market is a parasite imposed-upon and living-off an absolute social necessity — cycle (1).The economic cost of the gargantuan capitalist mechanism of exchange is something way beyond David Harvey’s comprehension, but it is plainly there for all to see in Marx. Value associated with the parasitic edifice of the capitalist market is negative — not “additive” in any way at all as David Harvey thinks, but rather “subtractive”. The market is — how shocking — a cost to capital.The reason, of course, lies in the deterministic necessity of social-reproductive cycle (1). That is fundamental to social reproduction. It is the inescapable invariant of social reproduction.Though capitalist-reproductive cycle (2) is autonomous and independent, it is ultimately subservient to the determinism of cycle (1). This subservience relays to cycle (2) the purely dependent determinism of a parasite that is ultimately bound to a genuinely deterministic process, which it must preserve in order to preserve itself.The determinism of the circulation of capital — the blather about “unseen hands” — the patently false assertions about “market efficiency” — derives solely from the necessity for a parasite to preserve its host.The proof that Marx sees the circulation of capital from the standpoint of cycle (2) is that he sees all labour and means of production associated with exchange [the market] as a cost to capital. Precisely the destructive role of a parasite.In other words, Marx sees the market as a necessary cost to capitalism. He sees it as destructive to value, and any labour or means of production involved in exchange [the market] as mathematically negative value, or value destroying, not creating.Since labour and means of production in the advanced capitalist world are increasingly associated with exchange [the market], a huge proportion of labour is now destructive of value. This is entirely so in capitalist terms.Marx’s “Socially Necessary” refers to Cycle (1) — Exchange is not Socially NecessaryWilliam Morris and Robert Tressall long ago showed that labour and means of production associated with exchange were unnecessary for social reproduction. But Marx had already shown that, in capitalist terms, they were essentially destructive of value — the very thing the capitalist seeks.If the costs of marketing are too high, distribution falters, and so production grinds to a halt. Society cannot live off exchange — only the capitalist class can. Society cannot live off the market — only the capitalist class can.The parasite must bear the burden of its parasitism. The capitalist must carry the cost of extracting surplus value. Capitalists don’t get to consume all the surplus value that arises in production and distribution because those pesky workers engaged in exchange must consume part of it. And, shockingly, their labour is not productive of surplus value, but effectively consumptive of it!The modern capitalist class employs a vast destructive labour force economically analogous to the drone Roman proletariat, but one that is actively engaged in extracting surplus value for the capitalist class, and therefore consuming what rightly belongs to the “deprived” capitalist class.What a degrading social system it is for workers of the world that it must of necessity employ the relatively well-to-do workers of the advanced capitalist world to exploit the relatively impoverished workers of the developing capitalist world to maintain the extremely well-to-do capitalist ruling class of the world in the luxury that these world-class parasites claim as a social — but actually their class — right!Re-stated at the Level of David Harvey’s DiscussionDavid Harvey naturally states the reproduction of capital in Marxian value terms as value-schema (4):  M — C ··· P ··· C′ — M′             (4)where M = value in its money form;  C = value in its commodity form;  P = the process of producing surplus value:    production → distribution    [as in cycle (1)];  M′ and C′ = money and commodity forms expanded with surplus value.As does Marx, David Harvey divides the value of the commodity C into socially-necessary means of production MP and socially-necessary labour power LP, value-schema (5):       MP   M — C ≺  ··· P ··· C′ — M′          (5)        LPWe’ll now make explicit the “socially-unnecessary” [or Marxian value destructive] means of production mp and labour power lp that are exclusively involved in changing the form of value from M to C and from C′ to M′. These constitute Marxian socially-unnecessary means of production and labour power, as expressed in value-schema (6):     mp    MP        mp′   M ⊀  — C ≺   ···  P ··· C′ ⊀  — M′    (6)      lp      LP       lp′The fact that exchange [or the market] and the means of production tied up in it [buildings, communications] and the labour devoted to it [retailing, marketing, advertising, stock-trading, and general swindling] are socially unnecessary is at the core of the case for replacing capitalism with socialism.Socially Necessary means/implies DeterminismMarx states point blank in Capital Volume 1 that political economists have “never once asked the question why labour is represented by the value of its product and labour-time by the magnitude of that value. These formulae, which bear it stamped upon them in unmistakable letters that they belong to a state of society, in which the process of production has the mastery over man, instead of being controlled by him”. This is the expression of determinism.The fact that the market — a necessary cost to society for capital to rob society — is generally perceived as being socially necessary is part of the protective illusion of the capitalist superstructure that must be unveiled.A socialist society based upon our Party Object will deterministically relate through socially necessary labour and means of production [cycle (1)], entirely free of any vestige of a market excrescence that the capitalist class now imposes upon it [cycle (2)] to enslave the rest of society in its narrow venal class interest.[The views expressed are not necessarily those of the Party.]

[twc]

OffenceThe term "drone" describes someone who takes a stance against working for society — nothing more; nothing less. It was originally coined to refer to the Roman proletariat by analogy with the non-working caste of the beehive.You repeatedly argue against socialist cooperation by claiming that our "drone mentality" makes us fit only for capitalist exploitation. "Drone consciousness" is your trump card against socialism — your apology for class rule; your license for capitalist drones to exploit proletarian ones; your justification for suspending working-class liberty; your rationalization of one man's social superiority over another in order to extract socially necessary labour out of him.You will retract this calumny against all mankind only after you are satisfied of its untruth. Then will you lift your veto and grant us permission to proceed towards socialism — an unlikely concession "on the available evidence".Your Religious SarcasmAn idle bread-and-circuses Roman proletarian — the profanum volgus [Horace] — could take moral comfort from your account of why unfree slaves needed to be whipped because every last Roman was, like him, an unregenerate drone.This proletarian drone belonged to the mob with the leisure to spread Christianity. Socially useless, they desired to be eternally so — saecula saeculorum.The "necessary exploitation of drones" took its sanctimonious form over that most-unfortunately un-Christian commercial need for Christians to rape, pillage and colonize the world. It helped the Southern slaveholder salve his conscience in the new nation founded on the self-evident truth that all men are created equal. There are clear affinities between selective dronism and racism. You have illustrious predecessors.Dronism is always the universal justification for reactionary coercive powers over people — bringing back the barbarity of times considered long since past. People are just plain lazy! Employers and politicians use our low rates of productivity to curtail our benefits. There are numerous unspeakable instances of social barbarity on the grounds of dronism.If you now take offence at my use of the term drone, I can only conclude that you intended to offend us all. No-one resents his own considered pronouncements, served back to him, unless he's shocked by the picture of himself they reveal for everyone to see.You think this a caricature of you. No. It is the image you repeatedly paint of yourself. Tis your arrogant misfortune to have offered yourself up as exemplar of this anti-socialist category.RefusalI gave you every opportunity to distance yourself from the drone claim, but you stuck to it like a limpet. You re-affirmed that the insipid Roman proletarian's prejudice-against-work was your adopted capitalist proletarian mentality.Recall, I carefully asked you what social stance you'd take, not now under capitalism, but as you would under socialism. And you contemptuously shrugged your shoulders at me, snorting "I don't know."Since you choose to equivocate on this absolutely central point for socialism [as you well understand, since you consider this central point to be socialism's achilles heel, and therefore refuse point blank to commit yourself], I have no choice but to break your artificial deadlock, and decode your equivocation as a "non" on Roman patrician Cicero's sound advice about interpreting equivocations of your political variety — take pretence as rejection ["mihi simulatio pro repudiatione fuerit" Atticus XII, 51].You never intend to work under socialism. That leaves you with two alternative strategies for your personal survival:react against it — sabotage socialism. Not practically, of course, since that involves "hard work", but intellectually, as suits your Marat mind.sponge upon it — parasitize socialism. That seems more you. Less Roman proletarian; more English aristocrat!What are you going to be: a socialist saboteur or a socialist parasite?Saboteur — then our political swords are well drawn.Parasite — then you depend crucially for your survival on the survival of your host. [Beware, socialism swallows its parasites whole. For their benefit, as it turns out.]Socialist reproduction is easily understood by humans [unlike the mystifying capitalist process, which thrives as long as it veils its purpose of exploitation]. Socialist reproduction is able to serve the possibilities of human needs, free of privileged sectional class control. Its scope exceeds our present socially-limited imagination.[An open cooperative technical process, such as socialist reproduction, unlike the closed antagonistic process of capitalism, performs the open-collaboration miracle. Its clarity of vision and humanity of purpose turn reluctant drones into workers, automatically attracting them to participate.]In socialism, we are developing an adaptive system in which the dominating emergent phenomenon will no longer be socially oppressive like value and surplus value, but will be a finer, not yet properly understood, expression of our collective sociability after its curtailed possibilities have been cut loose from private greed and authoritarian control.IncommensurabilityThere can never be a suitable yardstick for comparing successive social formations like capitalism and socialism along the limited lines you seek. One social formation succeeds another because it solves a deep social crisis [not just an economic one] that is unsolvable in the former because it arises as an essential condition of the system's reproduction process. Such a social system has outlived its utility.The social transition happens not because the successor [or child process] is better than its predecessor [or parent process], but because the child can pass through its parent's impenetrable barrier to social progress. It does so because the child has its own different [actually more restrictive, because more determinate, but its consequences are more open] social reproductive basis that solves the crisis.Marx's reproductive social bases are social relations of ownership and control of the means of social reproduction. This is what his materialist conception of history is about. Read Marx's famous Preface, which puts it far better than I can. That's also why we read his Capital indirectly for the "evidence" you seek. That's why our Party Object is precisely as it is. Ownership and control of social reproduction is the basis of everything social — the basis of us as individuals.Different social formations are incomparable because their social reproductive bases are different. Social attributes are incommensurable across different social bases, as is the case across all dialectical transitions.Thomas Kuhn pointed out that the same incommensurability occurs in science. Aristotelian, classical, relativistic and quantum world views necessarily deal with similar phenomena [appearances] but interpret them quite differently within differently-based scientific frameworks [paradigms]. These frameworks, like Marxian social formations, smash barriers to progress by solving deep obstructive crises within their parent frameworks.Consequently, comparison along your default bourgeois lines is meaningless, because your terms and connotations are bound to incommensurable systems. This renders your whole enterprise meaningless. It is impossible to cast it in any meaningful form in your terms.There is little further to discuss about the evidence or lack-of-evidence you seek for socialism, or the problems of the actuality of socialism, if it's never going to happen or, if instituted, it will never work because of the prevalence of human drones. But I'm happy to discuss the evidence in another post, even though your stance renders this pointless.ScalabilityDid it ever occur to you that capitalist scaling is hampered all the way up by social [not technical] antagonisms at every conceivable level — political and economic? In hostile capitalist circumstances, scaling is a miracle. It should never work through lack of cooperation.The solution to this apparent impossibility is our underlying social interdependence. Capital, being parasitic upon it, cannot destroy our social interdependence. Its expansion depends crucially upon our sociability.Our social interdependence is the secret to why capitalistic antagonism at every level scales into pseudo cooperation. It is only in times of war that our social interdependence finally ceases to hold the edifice together.It is not difficult to conceive how this pseudo cooperation [or its collapse] is a potent source of the most amazing rationalizing ideology. Before one gets carried away with the cooperative wonders of capitalist scaling, it is sobering to recall that it rests on armed force from the small scale up to the global. Of course capital scales coercion! That's what it's all about. [The technical problem is trivial by comparison.]Socialist interdependence rests not on coercion but on cooperation. It will remove the barriers to sociability thrown up in the interests of private capital. This will happen irrespective of unimaginative toy algorithms preconceived on unrealistic capitalist assumptions.Satis satisque.

[twc]

Quote:

Rather than dealing with particular issues that I raise and explaining why they are invalid or misguided….

I'm working through your contributions from their start in the Comments forum.I owe you the courtesy of first comprehending your political standpoint — the context within which you formulate your political ideas about socialism.

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… you instead claim that I am some kind of brain washed drone.

Not "brain washed". Materialists recognize that everyone succumbs to capitalist ideology to various extents.Here's the evidence for your own declaration that capitalism has turned you into an anti-social "drone":"… still requires people to choose to spend a couple of days working rather than not; people can be selfish arseholes, maybe socialism will change people but I don't want to bank on it.""… many jobs require people [to] spend years of their lives training: doctors; or engineers; or well anything..""… mechanism for solving the 'I don't want to do that shitty job!' problem""How do you get people to work hard on boring/unglamorous/hard jobs of which there will still be many?"… As someone who has done hard labour I am fairly sure that many people's short answer is "Someone else can do it ."How then do you plan to spend your social time on Earth — lazing away anti-socially in category 1?

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It is worse, however, that you persistently attribute views to me that I don't hold and have never expressed.

Not necessarily expressed explicitly. You reveal much implicitly. "Hard work" for you is a "work ethic". How capitalism maims us!Work should be the joy of life — but is so now only for a lucky few. Your explicit horror of "hard work" helps us comprehend your inability to support socialism. But we'll examine that anon.

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You have not bothered to understand my issues or reply to them.

Don't worry.

[twc]

Unconvinced and UnconvincableYou are a person not inspired by much social confidence or social drive. Capitalism has turned you, as it has turned so many people, into a social drone, unwilling to help, unwilling to solve problems, and ever ready to obstruct those who are. So you pose social problems and demand social solutions at the adequate level of a dispirited wrecker, unwilling to be roused to help their fellows.SocietyIn human society, everything without exception depends on our common sociability — our language, our goals, our institutions, our relationships. We are in this together. Together we must produce and reproduce society in order to produce and reproduce ourselves.Antagonistic capitalist society, where for you "life under capitalism is not hell", can only survive and reproduce by milking our common sociability. It does so within a class division that arises naturally out of class ownership of the means whereby society must survive and reproduce itself.Your dismissal of our sociability is based upon the perverted form it necessarily assumes under capitalism, where our sociability is split at the most fundamental level of social reproduction. There is nothing more fundamental for us than the necessity for society to reproduce itself.Society and our sociability are split because capital demands it. They are split to serve capital, and they must continue to be split as long as capital controls our social being because capitalist social reproduction is a necessarily self-replicating process.Our social existence is thus reproduced as split, so long as we allow capitalism to exist — so long as we allow it wreck our lives.Capital's socially necessary perversion of our sociability — the consciousness of our split social being — creates a social hell for most of us. A hell, whose hellishness increases as capital finds it harder to expand at our expense.Capitalism may yet stoke its hell fires sufficient to convince even you — let alone the four billion social beings already frying in them. Your acquiescence in capitalism — for all its faults — succeeds in transforming you into a socially callous drone without your even trying.Once humanity at large sees capitalism for the social hell it actually is, and must continually reproduce itself to be, it will throw off its capitalist yoke. It will no longer let a class own and control the means of life for all. It will ensure that its social being reproduces undivided sociability.With common ownership and democratic control of the means of social living, there will be no fundamental division of our sociability that constantly arises directly out of the absolutely necessary conditions of our social being. On the contrary, the commonality of these necessary conditions of life becomes itself the necessary condition for the survival and reproduction of our common humanity — our sociability.Our Party Object is the sought-for self-perpetuating social unity. It is the socialist analogue of capitalist self-perpetuating social division.We will then be free to embrace our common sociability as something natural, something not sundered by class control over the very foundation of our existence.Your Capitalist Economics For you, economics is "the study of the allocation of scarce resources, and that's how the Nobel Committee understands it too"!As such, your economics is an artificial non-science. Its problem domain does not apply to actual human society [this is acknowledged by its domain founder, Nobel laureate Debreu]. Its "scientific" principles have been demonstrated to be false [this is openly acknowledged by its guru, Nobel laureate Samuelson] (see Keen "Debunking Economics").Your economic "science" cannot be and never will be used by actual practitioners in commerce [this is commonly acknowledged in the trade]. Take cunning Merton and Scholes, whose spectacular losses stampeded the Federal Reserve into saving Wall Street from the havoc wreaked by their Nobel Prize winning scheme awarded for its "infallibility".You might consider applying your "reluctance to be convinced by the evidence" to the misconceptions of bourgeois economics Nobel laureates.Much Nobel work is "phenomenological" science — practical "science" that is acknowledged to be disconnected from the stupefying theoretical "science" taught by the universities, and tacitly ignored by the market.You might also consider applying your reluctance to be convinced to bourgeois economic "theory" itself. Andrew Kliman ["Reclaiming Marx"] has conclusively demonstrated that bourgeois economic "theory" is irredeemably flawed in both its conservative Walrasian neo-Classical General Equilibrium formulation and in its radical Sraffian neo-Ricardian formulation:The theory describes physical relationships [not social ones], and so inevitably has no choice but to identify profit with surplus physical product [like the physiocrats]; whereas even a five-year old knows that over-abundance of physical product lowers prices;Its determinism is simultaneous [either an instantaneous Walrasian auction or Sraffian simultaneous linear equations]; whereas capital's determinism is essentially temporal, with production, where capital is expanded, separated by distribution from exchange, where capital is realized [at least in intent] within the market — the only state of capitalist "production as a whole" that the bourgeois economist considers.[In passing, Keen's rabid Sraffian reservations on Marx are revealed as pure drivel after Kliman].Your willing embrace of bourgeois economics leaves you bereft of science, of consistency, of reality. Only economic theology remains — a self-affirming apologetics — and even here its priesthood prefer 18th century free-market delusionism.This then is the apologetic economic platform from which "you" confidently launch "your" skeptical assault on those of the Party working to expose the capitalist economic deception and to overthrow a system of society that needs to rely on such dishonest support to continue robbing us of our common sociability. And you confidently embrace it.Fancy you, who "tries to support things based on expected outcomes", falling hook, line and sinker for something whose only expected outcome is to bind us in deeper bondage. [As an aside, that bourgeois term you parade as your gold-standard criterion, "expected outcomes", strikes me with terror as the language of capitalist coercive control over labour in the workplace.]Your economics is their economics, not ours. Your thought is their thought, not ours. Yours is an instance of Marxian "social being determining consciousness" — your own. We have established where you are coming from.

[twc]

What you Don't [or Won't] Understand

TR wrote:

this is not an academic discourse.

Academic trivia are not the question. I winced at your academic sneer at "social constructs", given that the case for socialism is based on Marx's scientific [non academic] insight that "social being determines consciousness".No socialist is haughtily superior to "social constructs". I took your main argument seriously, not academically, but as science.I saw you increasingly depicting yourself as the scientific martyr. A pale shadow of Homer's noble Cassandra — the truthful prophetess fated forever to be disbelieved. The seer who now warns against humanity uniting itself under socialism, prognosticating that such reckless mixing of the "races" will be the Trojan Horse that destroys the grand illusion of cooperative humanity.If you are equally serious about our inability to achieve our Object, without first conducting scientific research into "race", your genuine concerns for socialism need to be addressed.So I confronted your motivating definition of "race" and found it to be not only non-scientific but to be essentially anti-scientific.Your definition assumes "race" but, as you formulate it, it is incapable of proving "race". On your definition, "race" can't be demonstrated scientifically to exist in the "material" sense you want it to.On the contrary, I see your definition as showing no concern for anything other than establishing the existence of "race" as such to wield it for unspecified purposes. To that extent, as far as attaining socialism is concerned, your definition is merely "academic".

TR wrote:

I should certainly be in a better position to respond to you if you would convey your thoughts in clear English

I'm happy to walk you through, step by step, whatever unclear English confuses you.

TR wrote:

rather than wrapping yourself in academic terminology and…well…sesquipedalian rumination.

Don't you dare pull the ruse that you can't understand most of what I'm saying. Don't you dare shift the blame onto me. You want analysis, and it's what you've got.Don't you dare dodge the many issues on the grounds of their being incomprehensible to you. Make the effort to understand them, just as you demand that we make the effort to understand you.

TR wrote:

 However I suspect you're just being facetious here 

Oh no, I'm not. You are not sneaking out of science by your own convenient academic quibble about my critique amounting to inconsequential facetiousness.

TR wrote:

You start by asserting that my definition of race defines race "in terms of itself."

I explained to you that its circularity doesn't necessarily bother, if you could explain to me how to terminate it. I believe that you can't without violating your inviolable metaphysical stance that "race expresses itself".For you, "race" is expressed by that which expresses "race". Your circle remains vicious — circulus vitiosus.

TR wrote:

This [that my definition of "race" is circular] could be true,

You concede that your definition "could be" circular. But, as is consistent with your behaviour, you twist your limited "could be" concession into a full-scale attack. You now discover that "most" definitions are circular anyhow!

TR wrote:

I would suggest the very definition of a 'Jew' is recursive.

So for you "a Jew is a Jew". Recursive and forever.You really are unconsciously insensitive or consciously inflammatory. Last time you chose "sub-populations of other human populations" and "subject population". I am not prepared to fuel this line of argumentation.Merely lingering over your provocative example is enough to reveal your signature cunning stamped all over it. It's another instance of smuggling into the discussion a tacitly "agreed-upon" instance of "race". This strikes me as consistent with all of your "deployments of racism" in practice.What you Do [or Choose to] UnderstandPosition StatementThe Position Statement on "Biological Aspects of Race" is filed on the official AAPA website underHome > About > Position statements > Biological Aspects of RaceFollow the parent linkHome > About > Position statements to the association's collected position statements  http://www.physanth.org/association/position-statementsThis page is headed Position statements.You originally pontificated on this statement's status. I generously assumed that you first must have bothered to check the obvious facts.Since the actual status of this position statement stares you in the face on the official AAPA website, it is evident to me that a preconceived idea of yours consistently blinds your vision. You consistently see [or fail to see] exactly what you want to see [or fail to see].Since you confidently attribute the term "Position Statement" only to me and not to the AAPA, I take this as revealing just how shoddily you are prepared to operate in defence of "race". You may be stunned to learn that others just don't make things up as you allege — that their scholarship is not as cavalier with the facts as you incorrectly assumed mine to be.Do you still assert that this Position Statement is not one of the AAPA's position statements?

TR wrote:

twc makes a rather extravagant claim that I, "…question the political motives, and so the scientific integrity, of some of the great theoreticians of evolution and anthropology,…"scientists are human and will sometimes exhibit bias in their public representations, especially when those representations are explicitly designed to serve a political purpose in that they represent the views of a body of scientists, as opposed to a single scientist or a single research unit whose findings and summative conclusions would necessarily be more rigorous.

Setting aside your waffle about scientists being human — and setting aside your academic word "summative" which I needed to look up, and strikes me as inappropriately teaching-oriented rather than research-oriented — you perform a neat double pike and unintentionally support my claim about your assertion that scientists will distort the facts to serve a political purpose.Science is based on trust and integrity. You are here questioning scientific integrity. This is almost word-for-word identical to the strategic assault mounted by climate skeptics upon the political motives and scientific integrity of climate scientists.You will never comprehend how I winced when I read the names of those scientists whose integrity you unintentionally impugned. You were not to know!Again, consistently adopting the "race" vision leads you where angels fear to tread.

TR wrote:

This is another example of yours that I must learn from in order to deploy "race" conceptually.

[For your benefit…  Thomas Kuhn pointed out that science is learned by emulation — performing classical experiments and solving classical problems — in order to discover how to act and think for yourself, consistently within a scientific framework. These are his original "paradigm" examples that characterize scientific practice within his scientific Paradigms.]I am following your "paradigm" examples that your definition encourages me to follow in order to learn how to "deploy race" in your "racial" Paradigm. My intention was to let you glimpse just how your encouraged "deployment of race" appears to others, in case you really are a genuine enquirer who honours scientific integrity.I don't believe that you comprehend the simple social necessity for scientific integrity.You want to divide people — so you emphasize love of one's own kind. But "race" always expresses itself as hatred of the other kind. Scientific integrity would consider that.You emphasize commonality only so far — just as Jefferson does in his otherwise brave words "we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal", in which he stops short of exceeding the bounds of a slaveholder's economic standpoint [one in which white owners are equal and so are his black slaves].You don't want integration — so you emphasize like-minded people living in communal harmony. But "race" always expresses itself as ghetto, as segregation, as communal discord. Scientific integrity would consider that.In your noble wants, you suppress the negative. Yours are not Just-So stories, but Just-So-Far stories. You seem to be ignorant of scientific integrity, or you are consciously devious.

TR wrote:

No-one on this thread has been able to state coherently what a 'racist' is if 'race' does not exist.

You really are obtuse or devious.Take the equally spurious analogy of a spiritualist  "So what's a spiritualist if spirits don't exist?"These academic questions only make scientific sense if rephrased in general terms: "what's a social construct that asserts a basis, where no such basis exists?"In your case, "what's a social construct that asserts a biological basis, where none exists?".By haughtily sneering at "social constructs" and by flatly denying "biological determinism", you have already burnt your bridge. You have nowhere scientific to go.You don't know what "race" is yourself. You can't define it coherently.You should at least have bothered to look into the science. But you, someone proven to be inadequate to the task, take it upon yourself to favour us all with your own socialism-saving definition of "race". Why should any socialist take you seriously?While preferring your own non-scientific brew to existing science, you impetuously challenge scientists who have spent lifetimes engaged in more than just academic musings over the bleeding obvious like yourself.Like a fanatic, you naively flourish your trump card in the abstract academic construction that "race exists because racism exists". You don't take science seriously. You rely entirely on academic  artifice.I gave you an opportunity to draw your own conclusion from a simple syllogism at the end of my previous post. Its two propositions [major and minor premises] derive directly out of your own definition. I refuse to hold your hand and walk you through its conclusion.

[twc]

Are we ready to go?I'm about to start reading Rubin up to Chapter 3 for discussion starting 26 January.Anybody else in?

[twc]

twc wrote:

[By the way, can Admin offer us an icon for making lists? That helps to identify individual points, as here.]

Thank you for the list icon.

[twc]

How's this.TextTitle —  Essays on Marx's Theory of ValueAuthor — I I RubinYear — 1928Source —  http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/index.htmPrice  — Links —  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaak_Illich_RubinStart — 18 Jan 2013 Discussion Timetable26 Jan — Introduction,  Section I  &  Chapters 1 to 32 Feb — Chapters 4 to 716 Feb — Chapters 8 to 122 Mar — Section II  &  Chapters 13 to 1616 Mar — Chapters 17 & 1830 Mar — Chapter  19We'll soon get complaints if the reading/discussion timetable is too spun out over time, and we can adjust it accordingly.[By the way, can Admin offer us an icon for making lists? That helps to identify individual points, as here.]     

[twc]

DJP wrote:

What I was thinking was having a subforum for reading groups, then within that have subforums for each book. That way there should be scope for discussion on multiple books and topics without it getting too much of a confusing mess. 

That's a perfect structure for book discussion.

Mike Foster wrote:

I think we should be wary of discussing whole books, especially something as weighty as Capital, where chapters or sections should be discussed in more digestible chunks.

Agreed, Capital should be discussed in chunks.However, is this what you have in mind for books like Rubin?choose bookchoose reading period [month, fortnight, week]start reading book"library silence"end reading bookopen topic up for discussion

DJP wrote:

I would have thought that just the normal forum rules would be all that is needed.

Ignore my list if normal WSM Forum rules are adequate. I would simply amend normal WSM Forum rules to impose a period of "library silence" before discussion can take place, as courtesy to let members read undisturbed.A period of "library silence" is merely the reading group analogue of courtesy silence in a public meeting that lets the speaker hold the audience's attention until the meeting is formally thrown open for general discussion.What do people think about imposing a period of "library silence", so that all may read — on their own and with their own thoughts — in peace?[Of course, once the period expires, it's open slather.]

[twc]

My thoughts…Aim — to study a text in order to understand and evaluate it in socialist terms. The text may be a book, pamphlet, video or music. It should be expected to stand the test of being taken seriously as a socialist text. It should be conveniently accessible, and not costly to purchase.Size — unlimited discussion group size, but conditions apply [see Membership] — if ever the group of participants gets too large, we'll have exceeded our wildest dreams.]Invitation — invitation to join the discussion group for the test run should be posted on the WSM Forum. Advertise more widely if/after the test run proves to be a success.Membership — discussion group to be restricted to any WSM Forum member who is willing to "sign up" to discuss the particular text. A discussion group needs an indication of its participants' willingness to discuss the text, as against those just wllling to read it. [Of course, reading the discussion of the discussion group aways remains open to everyone.]Test Run — the first text should be considered to be a trial. [DJP has suggested "Essays  on Marx's Theory of Value" by I. I. Rubin.] The discussion group for this text should be open to any WSM Forum member who is willing to "sign up" to discuss the text.Closed or Open — the discussion group [after the test run] should simply be open to any WSM Forum member who is willing to "sign up" to discuss the selected text. The group will elect an ad hoc chairperson with discretionary powers to issue warnings ("yellow"/"red" cards) for off-topic, irrelevant or offensive contributions that stray from the chosen text. [Forum Admin to implement chairperon's umpiring.]Latecomers — latecomers may "sign up" for late membership of an active discussion group for a time after the reading starts, but before a decided "cut off" date. The group democratically decides when it becomes too late for latecomers to join, and may decide that it's never too late.Structure — to be determined by democratic vote of the membership of the discussion group. Example: Week 1 — Chairperson sets the chapters to read. Week 2 — Discussion of last week's chapters. Week 3 — Chairperson sets the next lot of chapters, Week 4 — Discussion of this lot of chapters, and so on…Discussion — The format of discussion, if applicable, is to be decided democratically by the discussion group. Members are expected to discuss only the text, and not to discuss themselves or other discussion group members. Other discussion group member's contributions should be discussed only where absolutely necessary, and always in relation to the text under discussion. It is the text that we want to understand, and not group members. Chairperson to adjudicate on this. Offenders to be removed from the discussion group.Contributions — length of contributions to be at the chairperson's discretion. Relevance and concision is the goal.Procedure — Start at the start and proceed systematically to the finish. Chapters may be skipped or emphasized by group democratic consent.Decisions  — subject to offensive behaviour being monitored by Forum Admin. The general list of suggested texts is open to suggestion by all WSM Forum members. The actual text is to be chosen from the general list of suggested texts by democratic vote of the discussion group, since its members have "signed up" their willingness to discuss. [Maybe WSM Forum Admin know how to manage a static list of texts that people can add to, and vote on.]Timetable — Suggestion: Read one week; discuss the next. This gives readers a fortnight to consider the set material. It also gives people a week to read "on their own" without being influenced by other people's early views.Final ThoughtsThere is no reason why this proposed new forum can't have several discussion groups running simultaneously, discussing their own texts in their own independent threads.[Apologies to WSM Forum Admin for loading you already hard working fellows with additional hard work. Presumably, if things take off in this forum, there should be only one topic per selected text, and you'll have to prevent users from starting their own topics in this rather specially structured forum.   With all this bother, it's no wonder we all want socialism to come as soon as possible.]

[twc]

Take that as a Yes from me..Suggested conventionThe first post should tell us…Title — book's or article's titleAuthor — authorYear — when first publishedSource — web, bookstore, library…Cost — price, if applicable.Links — wikipedia, http://www.marxists.org.Then we can get on with reading and discussing the item.

[twc]

Yes, that's a better way to choose texts.If the idea catches on, can you think of a better name for it?

[twc]

Tom Rogers wrote:

Right, so what is a racist [if race does not exist]? This still doesn't answer my question.In that respect [of my definition], race is both a social construct and a physical and material reality and can be deployed conceptually using various modes and means.

I have studied your definition of "race". It defines "race" in terms of itself. Your definition is either circular or recursive [which is fine if intended to be algorithmic, although no algorithmic targets and processes are specified, and the terminus is subjective]. Either way, your definition of "race" is preloaded with itself, and can be presumed to exemplify to others how you and they might deploy the concept.So I stand on  equal footing regarding what you mean by "race" and on how you deploy it conceptually, and am now able to answer in your  terms your unanswered question "what is a racist if race doesn't exist?".But first I must  teach myself how to emulate your conceptual deployment of "race".Your definition starts with "race" as an abstract concept that initially signifies nothing. It seeks determinations based on measurable human differences until the abstract human nothing becomes concrete human everything — for if any belong to "race" so do all. We are in this together. As outcome of your recursive definition we are now concretely racial.I now must become adept at wielding your algorithmic selector — "whatever is statistically different among humans is an expression of race", and must be popped into its own "racial box". This is how your definition teaches me to deploy "race" conceptually "using various modes and means".So your definition and your conceptual deployment are exclusively "racial" because you unquestioningly attribute "racial expression" to statistical difference. They are "racial" because they do not countenance any other explanation. No other explanation is possible because if one "racial" explanation of human difference is subverted by another kind of  explanation of it, then so might they all. Your project would be wrecked.So your necessarily exclusive combination of racial definition, racial selection and racial deployment provides a perfect instance of "racism" — seeing "race" circularly in appearance interpreted racially as "expression of race".Your definition is adequate to "racism" even if not to "race".Your exclusively racial vision appears when you question the political motives, and so the scientific integrity, of some of the great theoreticians of evolution and anthropology, and re-appears when you challenge a Position Statement of an anthropological society as not being a position statement of that society. This is another example of yours that I must learn from in order to deploy "race" conceptually.But to the pressing question:Your definition of "race" is far too imprecise to deliver anything conclusive. It is incapable of proving that "race" exists as a "physical reality". In that important sense your "race" doesn't exist.Your conceptual deployment of "race" resolves into seeing "expressions of race" in measurable human differences. In that important sense you are teaching and you are deploying racism.Your own exemplary definition and your own conceptual deployment of "race" supply the answer to your own pressing question "what is a racist if race doesn't exist?"

[twc]

Yes, I support your suggestion for collaborative discussion of [often difficult] Marxian and Socialist texts in the forum.An open web forum is an excellent place — it attracts non-members and opponents with differing interpretations to share.Socialist Book ClubIf your idea takes off, it might bode well for the long-term success of a [book of the month] Socialist Book Club forum,  e.g.Home – Forum – General DiscussionHome – Forum – CommentsHome – Forum – Socialist Book Club…Apart from the forum's administration — to which we are indebted to you — there remains the issue of how to draw up the annual book list.Presumably we seek submissions in advance and vote on them over the web, if voting is possible on this site.Alternatively we rely on selections made by an ad hoc committee with extensive knowledge of the literature or of its reputation, though not necessarily being familiar with all of its detailed contents. [The detailed contents are what we hope to discover through the Socialist Book Club.]Yes, I agree with yout suggestion.Would anyone benefit from mine — a Socialist Book Club forum?

[Author]

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