Young Master Smeet
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LBird wrote:And where does it say in the SPGB Object that 'there will be no democratic control in science' ?
No one here has ever said that, we have repeatedly said how scientific resources and institutions will be democratically managed. Universities would have to become democratic associations; learned societies would continue to exist and would be able to freely produce and distribute their journals to libraries which anyone would be able to access ; individuals would have the free time to study and learn. the community would allocate resources to these activities: land, buildings, lab equipment, ICT. Worlwide bodies would promote conferences and the distribution of ideas; the internet would be barrier free and all learned journals would be free to read online. etc. The whole community would have access to the information they choose to access and the capacity to join the ongoing openm ended debate, which no-one would have the right or power to shut down.Of course, democracy means the right of minorites to try and become majorities, so that must include promotion and protection of heterodox views.
Since we're being asked:
SPGB Object wrote:The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.Ah, this is the line I was looking for:
Freddie wrote:In a word: the Marxian law of value holds generally, as far as economic laws are valid at all, for the whole period of simple commodity production — that is, up to the time when the latter suffers a modification through the appearance of the capitalist form of production. Up to that time, prices gravitate towards the values fixed according to the Marxian law and oscillate around those values, so that the more fully simple commodity production develops, the more the average prices over long periods uninterrupted by external violent disturbances coincide with values within a negligible margin. Thus, the Marxian law of value has general economic validity for a period lasting from the beginning of exchange, which transforms products into commodities, down to the 15th century of the present era. But the exchange of commodities dates from a time before all written history — which in Egypt goes back to at least 2500 B.C., and perhaps 5000 B.C., and in Babylon to 4000 B.C., perhaps to 6000 B.C.; thus, the law of value has prevailed during a period of from five to seven thousand years.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/supp.htm#law
Satan wrote:We all know that at the beginning of society, products are consumed by the producers themselves, and that these producers are spontaneously organized in more or less communistic communities; that the exchange of the surplus of these products with strangers, which ushers in the conversion of products into commodities, is of a later date; that it takes places at first only between individual communities of different tribes, but later also prevails within the community, and contributes considerably to the latter's dissolution into bigger or smaller family groups. But even after this dissolution, the exchanging family heads remain working peasants, […] so that the family, or family group, is in the main self-sufficient.The little that such a family had to obtain by barter or buy from outside, even up to the beginning of the 19th century in Germany, consisted principally of the objects of handicraft production — that is, such things the nature of whose manufacture was by no means unknown to the peasant, and which he did not produce himself only because he lacked the raw material or because the purchased article was much better or very much cheaper. Hence, the peasant of the Middle Ages knew fairly accurately the labor-time required for the manufacture of the articles obtained by him in barter. The smith and the cartwright of the village worked under his eyes; likewise, the tailor and shoemaker — who in my youth still paid their visits to our Rhine peasants, one after another, turning home-made materials into shoes and clothing. The peasants, as well as the people from whom they bought, were themselves workers; the exchanged articles were each one's own products. What had they expended in making these products? Labor and labor alone: to replace tools, to produce raw material, and to process it, they spent nothing but their own labor-power; how then could they exchange these products of theirs for those of other laboring producers otherwise than in the ratio of labor expended on them? Not only was the labor-time spent on these products the only suitable measure for the quantitative determination of the values to be exchanged: no other way was at all possible. Or is it believed that the peasant and the artisan were so stupid as to give up the product of 10 hours' labor of one person for that of a single hours' labor of another? No other exchange is possible in the whole period of peasant natural economy than that in which the exchanged quantities of commodities tend to be measured more and more according to the amounts of labor embodied in them. From the moment money penetrates into this mode of economy, the tendency towards adaptation to the law of value (in the Marxian formulation, nota bene!) grows more pronounced on the one hand, while on the other it is already interrupted by the interference of usurers' capital and fleecing by taxation; the periods for which prices, on average, approach to within a negligible margin of values, begin to grow longer.Ahem wrote:The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing face-to-face with man as laws of Nature foreign to, and dominating him, will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by him. Man's own social organization, hitherto confronting him as a necessity imposed by Nature and history, now becomes the result of his own free action. The extraneous objective forces that have, hitherto, governed history,pass under the control of man himself.The Devil Himself wrote:And this can only come about by society openly and directly taking possession of the productive forces which have outgrown all control, except that of society as a whole. The social character of the means of production and of the products today reacts against the producers, periodically disrupts all production and exchange, acts only like a law of Nature working blindly, forcibly, destructively. But,with the taking over by society of the productive forces, the social character of the means of production and of the products will be utilized by the producers with a perfect understanding of its nature, and instead of being a source of disturbance and periodical collapse, will become the most powerful lever of production itself.This man is Always Wrong wrote:With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organization. The struggle for individual existence disappears. Then, for the first time, man, in a certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom, and emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human ones. The whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ man, and which have hitherto ruled man, now comes under the dominion and control of man, who for the first time becomes the real, conscious lord of nature, because he has now become master of his own social organization. The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing face-to-face with man as laws of Nature foreign to, and dominating him, will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by him. Man's own social organization, hitherto confronting him as a necessity imposed by Nature and history, now becomes the result of his own free action. The extraneous objective forces that have, hitherto, governed history,pass under the control of man himself. Only from that time will man himself, more and more consciously, make his own history — only from that time will the social causes set in movement by him have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results intended by him. It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.So, not the direct producers, except that the direct producers are the whole of society.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/27/c_135050686.htmAn interesting story that continues on the link (and also goes back to the robots thread).A Chinese built machine, costing $23,000 can turn out 2,000 hollow concrete blocks a day (perfect for hot countries). These bricks can be used for building by slotting together.
Quote:They make the blocks from quarry dust, which is mixed with sand and cement inside a mixer and fed into the compression machine, which then molds the mixture into shape of the respective blocks."This is a new technology of producing the construction materials and largely reduces the expenses of building houses by up to half the total cost," explained Ngugi."You no longer need cement as the principal material at the construction site if you are using the hollow blocks. You could only need it when plastering, and this by far is a relief to the pocket since you could require four wheelbarrows of sand for a bag of cement," he noted.The technology reduces the amount of raw input as one bag of cement can produce ready-to-use 250 concrete blocks.http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/27/c_135050443.htm
Quote:Xinjiang saw sharp declines in imports and exports with Russia and countries in Central Asia as a result of weakening currencies, slowing growth and slumping demands, according to data released by the local customs office.Foreign trade volume for the region totaled 19.7 billion U.S. dollars in 2015, down 28.9 percent year on year. Exports shrank by 25.4 percent at 17.5 billion dollars, while imports plunged by 48.2 percent at 2.2 billion dollars.Exports of electromechanical products, textiles and shoes dropped by 11.4 percent, 45.2 percent and 27.9 percent respectively, according to the data from Xinjiang Customs.The declines have been partly attributed to slower growth among emerging markets in the region, which are experiencing difficulties brought about by lower energy prices, acute structural imbalance and capital outflow, said Duan Xiufang, an economist with Xinjiang University of Finance and Economics.This explains some of the problems China is facing, and this shows the effects of the slump in oil prices (though, Shirley, someone somewhere should be booming as they buirn cheap oil to make things, but that doesn't seem to be happening, maybe the rent value is just being unrealised).Ah, maybe the African growth accounts for it:http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/27/c_135050751.htm
Vin wrote:No it wouldn't. If the account claims to be an official account of an organisation or person then then it will be closed down at their request. There is no possibility that a rogue member or non member could hang on to an account claiming to be someone elseWith the password, they could change the description, and retain the twitter handle. Or, they could claim to be the legitimate representative of the organisation. Even if twitter ruled in our favour, the time lag whilst we dealt with it would be annoying to say the least. It is a risk we have to at least consider.Just to give an example of the problems we face. The controller of the @SPGBofficial account inadvertantly forwarded a fascist meme earlier this year (mercifully they deleted it when it was pointed out). Now, if they had stuck by their guns, or continued to defend it, we could have been in for some reputational problems.
Vin wrote:wow you are really throwing the book at me. You do realise that branches and members have blogs, facebooks and twitter accounts that are ignoring rule 11 but I heard not a squeek from you about it.My point was that Rule 11 needs to be updated, possibly, to permit social media activity by branches. i.e. that the situation you're experiencing suggests, to me, that we do need an overaching discussion about how we as a party as a whole control our social media activity, and keep social media activists accountable.
Vin wrote:It is not a problem if a rogue member – and the implication is not lost on me – locks us out, as the party can claim the account from twitter as the IC have done with this account.I suspect it would be more difficult if there was an 'owner' defending their control of an account, rather than a dormant account. And, I'm not implying, or insinuating anyone is a rogue member, simply that the whole issue here (and with a friend of mine who works in such circumstances) means, I think, we need a wholesale considered approach so that the membership as a whole can retain control of social media policy.And, possibly, Hootsuite, or similar, could make it easier to encourage membership invovlement in social media.
Vin wrote:If my branch trusts me with such a position, what right have they to question its decision.Yes, possibly we need to revisit rule 11 (bit late for this years conference, unless you want NERB to perhaps raise an item for discussion on Social Media policy).
alanjjohnstone wrote:I'm not sure what you are trying to say here…that some members are not to be trusted, while others are?…No, I'm saying this discussion has reminded me of this issue of passwords, and what happens if a rogue member locks the party out: i.e. that the matter does require due deliberation and perhaps a thought through strategy, rather than ad hoc actions.
There are other issues and riks, one concern is the ownership of passwords and getting accounts back off members once they're allowed on.I wonder if it would be worth ivnesting ina somethign like a Hootsuite account:https://hootsuite.com/That might give us a safer back end and allow control.This is relevent as we're coming up to the GLA and Welsh Assembly elections, and we really need twitter accounts for the campaigns…
Went to see it last night: it's a very good attempt to analyse the 2008 crash. yes, it does appear to blame greed and corruption by big banks (strangely making the people who actuially made shit loads of money out of the crash 'heroes' because they saw it coming).It starts from the creation of mortgage bundle bonds, which were given top rating by the credit agencies. these were a safe and secure investment, based on bundling the small returns on lots of mortgages in order to make a concentrated big return. Naturally, since this brought in lots of money, the banks piled into this market, and started being less fussy about selling mortgages, and also packaging (and mixing and repackaging) their poroer quality loans into the mix.It covers the conflict of interest between the fund managers and the banks, and between the banks and the credit agencies.What it misses, is why:1) The bottom fell out of the housing market (why couldn't people go on paying for or taking out mortgages.2) Why banks would start to go into these riskier investment areas in the frist place.i.e. it misess out the real economy. The reason why banking was boring and staid in the '70s was that thre were safe and valuable returns to be made from an expanding economy.The time it goes and talks to mortgage holders (i.e, ordinary working peopel) it's a stripper who has been encouraged to speculate in buying multiple houses based on dodgey mortgages she was told she could just roll over, i.e. someone else engaged in speculation. So, effectively, it seals off any relation to wages, income or real econonomic activity.
