Young Master Smeet
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
robbo203 wrote:Point is that all these different ideas hang together. The veneration of "scientific socialism" goes with a mechanical determinist outlook which goes with a rejection of choice and human creativity which goes with a rejection of any role for morality in the movement towards socialism. Within this resolutely black-or-white view of the world there is no prospect of envisaging mechanical determinism coexisting in a fruitful partnership with the human faculty of choosing and creating some new that breaks with the past rather than being determined by the past. A revolution.
No, we make the chioces we are determined to make, the meatbots make choices according to our programming, and that involves altering our programming.The notion of free will is incompatible with thermodynamics, since it implies causeless events, but that doesn't mean there is no will nor volition, only to recognise that volition is a part of the world and we are mere epiphenomena of a nuclear reaction in a star.Put another way, I am an illusion, but my illusiary nature is a product of my determinations and the vector by which they manifest. 'Thinking for myself' is thus the truest way of enslaving myself to the world about me. What is rational is actual, and what is actual is rational: the only true freedom would be in random meaningless action.
Ah, here we go:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34637068
Quote:When Gordon Brown and his then adviser Ed Balls embarked on their reshaping of the British welfare state by massively increasing benefits delivered to lower-paid, working people through the tax credit system, one of their aims was cynically political.The more people who received these credits, and the more generous they became, the more frightened those on average or lower incomes would be of voting Tory.The Labour Party is trying to mobilise political support for it and a Labour run state through the tax credits. Tehy're aim is to make themselves indispensible as the defenders of the state administered wage.Currently, the tax credits are being redistributed among employers, since labour intensive industries can spare their variable capital at the expernse of profits taken from labour un-intensive industries. The overall wage package is still determines by the labour market (except what is happening is the employer makes up the market rate on top of the basic rate administered by the state, it's the Speenhamland system again).https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speenhamland_systemTBH, I think the Tories are making a mistake by pushing the burden onto the minimum/living wage, long-term this means the unions can turn the pressure on pushing that up, which will make it a perfect political football to bribe voters with.
Ah, but beware Times spin, and look at who founded the poll:http://www.li.com/
Quote:Doubts about the importance of tackling inequality, rather than addressing absolute poverty, also emerge. At least six out of ten people in each country polled agreed with the suggestion that poverty was a bigger problem than inequality and unemployment was a bigger problem that some people being super-rich.Actually, quite damaging, so long as people are more concerned with dealing with the very worst absolute poverty (and believing that, comparatively, they're OK), then we're not going to get much traction. Our key message is a demand for practical equality. Absent that, then reforms and safety nets are a workable answer.Food for thought.
It's not that clear cut. If tax credits are a means of partly administering the wages system through the state, then it is also a way in which low labour (and 'high productivity') sectors are made to subsidise labour intensive sectors (while at the same time trying to ensure that the working class only get just enough for their needs, smoothing out the costs of childcare so they don't enter into the general wage calculation and thus go to childless workers.Undoubtedly, removing the tax credits will impoverish some of the worst off famillies, and coupled with attempts to restrict union activity it is certainly part of a general push to lower wages and increase exploitation, but the remedy is not to join the Labour party in supporting the redistribution of poverty, but standing by unions.
Quote:Although these debates will continue for a long time yet I want to start by making this clear. If all that happens is that state lands are redistributed and the large estates of the great landowners are left untouched then these large landowners will swallow up the new small holdings in short order. Establish as many regulatory safeguards as you want and the result will still be the same. Indeed land reform does not only mean the redistribution of land. Land redistribution, when carried to its full extent, means also democratization and at the very least the collective processing and distribution of agricultural products; the unity of these three elements will mean the socialization of the land and the destruction of consolidated power.Cole puts it in perspective:http://www.juancole.com/2015/11/exaggeration-shoot-planes.html
Quote:Daesh has made some of its biggest splashes with a smartphone camera and some petty thuggery. (Grabbing someone and killing him is not that hard, and illiterate teenagers in American inner cities do it every day). In a day of news as infotainment, per-minute payments for advertisements, and social media, a single beheading can create an impression. But like 15,000 people a year are murdered in the United States and since most of those murders are committed by gunmen, we’re not allowed to talk about those.The solution to IS is political, and doesn't have to involve trying to work out ways to kill people. It would probably be cheaper to just evacuate the entirety of Syria than to fight IS to the death.
SocialistPunk wrote:Then why come out with the following eye opener, in the first place?I was talking about the party getting involved in campaigns and struggles of the working class. But, the bottom line is there's not much we can do to advance the cause of socialism, except gop on expounding it and clarifying the line of march.
Arguably, tax credits are inheretly against working class interests. As this document indicates:https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/personal-tax-credits-statistics
Quote:Tax credits are a flexible system of financial support designed to deliver support as and when a family needs it, tailored to their specific circumstances. They are part of wider government policy to provide support to parents returning to work, reduce child poverty and increase financial support for all families. The flexibility of the design of the system means that as families' circumstances change, so (daily) entitlement to tax credits changes. This means tax credits can respond quickly to families' changing circumstances providing support to those that need them most.It is a system of cheese pairing and making sure that only as much state assistance as is deemed necessary is guiven (rolling, constant means testing). It's the re-distribution of poverty on crack. teh issue is the level of personal income, not support for tax credits as such.
Not necessarilly, the main factor is the absence of a Tory majority in the House of Lords, and the Lib-Dem contention that they are not bound by the Salisbury convention (added to the fact that the tax-credit cut was not specifically in the Tory manifesto). Any Labour leadership would have used the opportunity to make trouble, especially a right-facing one that wanted to throw the membership a bone.
SocialistPunk wrote:My apologies YMS.I did say the low membership issue is a hindrance when it comes to orgainising such publicity drives.Exctly, and we are organising them, at level approproate to our means and membership.
Quote:Since 2007, the pile of debt in the world has grown by $57tn (£37tn). That’s a compound annual growth rate of 5.3%, significantly beating GDP.if that is true, then we are building up trouble, unless GDP spikes soon (or the suggested remedy of an inflation push cuts some of that debt down). Basically, China is slowing, and that's what's hit the commodities markets.
SocialistPunk wrote:Alan, you've mentioned a few times now party members reluctance to appear on this forum. Indeed I have seen one or two statements being put forward by members of this forum on behalf of party members who either can't or won't post themselves.Have you, or any party forum members, any idea as to why some refuse to contribute to an open party discussion forum?Some of them don't like using computers.
SocialistPunk wrote:Another non answer YMS. I hope this is not going to be a become a habit.It was full answer, we organise anti-capitalist demos and meetings all the time, no-one shows up, we don't have the size or resources to organise an impresive demonstration (all we can demonstrate is our weakness).
