Young Master Smeet
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I love that on the main link the headline is 'Socialist Party's capitalist windfall' — cheeky sub. Of course, the point is the value of HO is fictional, unless we actually sell up. Mind, we better brace ourselves for potential carpet baggers and entryists now…
Here it is again (with preceeding sentence included):
Quote:What we understand by the economic conditions, which we regard as the determining basis of the history of society, are the methods by which human beings in a given society produce their means of subsistence and exchange the products among themselves (in so far as division of labour exists). Thus the entire technique of production and transport is here included.(emphasis in the original), the techniques of production include ideas, and the ideational input into production. I mean, further:
Quote:Political, juridical, philosophical, religious, literary, artistic, etc., development is based on economic development. But all these react upon one another and also upon the economic base.Clearly stating 'superstructural' ideas/notions /forms can change the economic base. Engels is a long way from being a mechanical materialist (also, lets not forget, most of the manuscript for German Ideology was in his handwriting, significant, dontcha think?).
It would seem that Engels agrees with you:https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/letters/94_01_25.htm
Quote:So it is not, as people try here and there conveniently to imagine, that the economic position produces an automatic effect. Men make their history themselves, only in given surroundings which condition it and on the basis of actual relations already existing, among which the economic relations, however much they may be influenced by the other political and ideological ones, are still ultimately the decisive ones, forming the red thread which runs through them and alone leads to understanding.and by economic conditions:
Quote:Thus the entire technique of production and transport is here included. According to our conception this technique also determines the method of exchange and, further, the division of products, and with it, after the dissolution of tribal society, the division into classes also and hence the relations of lordship and servitude and with them the state, politics, law, etc.Except that the key texts are the ones they both authored, or put their names to, like the German ideology:
Quote:The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their production.and of course:
Quote:Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. In the first method of approach the starting-point is consciousness taken as the living individual; in the second method, which conforms to real life, it is the real living individuals themselves, and consciousness is considered solely as their consciousness..
Wishy washy words from the ETUC:https://www.etuc.org/press/catastrophe-avoided-incredibly-high-price#.VaODkCxmpMF
Quote:“The EU has avoided the catastrophe of Grexit. But it comes at an incredibly high and hard price for the Greek people.To condemn Greece to years’ more recession would be a very bad outcome for all.The EU now has to deliver its rescue package without adding further conditions or even more austerity in the negotiations that will follow.As a few commentators have said, Spain's turn next to try something, if Podemos win. France sems to have shown a bit of solidarity, offering bilateral loans (One theory doing the rounds is that germany's treatment of Greece is a shot across the bows of Hollande).Sadly, I don't expect the German SPD to suffer at the ballot box for their basic shafting of the Greek workers, more's the shame.Paul mason is sounding angry:http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/greece-wins-euro-debt-deal-democracy-loser/4155
Quote:The big powers of Europe demonstrated an appetite to change the micro-laws of a smaller country: its bakery regulations, the funding of its state TV service, what can be privatised and how. Whether inside or outside the euro, many small countries and regions will draw long-term negative lessons from this. And from the apparently cavalier throwing of a last-minute Grexit option into the mix by Germany, in defiance of half the government’s own MPsThe big powers of Europe demonstrated an appetite to change the micro-laws of a smaller country: its bakery regulations, the funding of its state TV service, what can be privatised and how. Whether inside or outside the euro, many small countries and regions will draw long-term negative lessons from this. And from the apparently cavalier throwing of a last-minute Grexit option into the mix by Germany, in defiance of half the government’s own MPs. – See more at: http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/greece-wins-euro-debt-deal-democracy-loser/4155#sthash.iniOj89z.dpufThe big powers of Europe demonstrated an appetite to change the micro-laws of a smaller country: its bakery regulations, the funding of its state TV service, what can be privatised and how. Whether inside or outside the euro, many small countries and regions will draw long-term negative lessons from this. And from the apparently cavalier throwing of a last-minute Grexit option into the mix by Germany, in defiance of half the government’s own MPs. – See more at: http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/greece-wins-euro-debt-deal-democracy-loser/4155#sthash.iniOj89z.dpufThe big powers of Europe demonstrated an appetite to change the micro-laws of a smaller country: its bakery regulations, the funding of its state TV service, what can be privatised and how. Whether inside or outside the euro, many small countries and regions will draw long-term negative lessons from this. And from the apparently cavalier throwing of a last-minute Grexit option into the mix by Germany, in defiance of half the government’s own MPs. – See more at: http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/greece-wins-euro-debt-deal-democracy-loser/4155#sthash.iniOj89z.dpufThe big powers of Europe demonstrated an appetite to change the micro-laws of a smaller country: its bakery regulations, the funding of its state TV service, what can be privatised and how. Whether inside or outside the euro, many small countries and regions will draw long-term negative lessons from this. And from the apparently cavalier throwing of a last-minute Grexit option into the mix by Germany, in defiance of half the government’s own MPs. – See more at: http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/greece-wins-euro-debt-deal-democracy-loser/4155#sthash.iniOj89z.dpufThe big powers of Europe demonstrated an appetite to change the micro-laws of a smaller country: its bakery regulations, the funding of its state TV service, what can be privatised and how. Whether inside or outside the euro, many small countries and regions will draw long-term negative lessons from this. And from the apparently cavalier throwing of a last-minute Grexit option into the mix by Germany, in defiance of half the government’s own MPs. – See more at: http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/greece-wins-euro-debt-deal-democracy-loser/4155#sthash.iniOj89z.dpufThe big powers of Europe demonstrated an appetite to change the micro-laws of a smaller country: its bakery regulations, the funding of its state TV service, what can be privatised and how. Whether inside or outside the euro, many small countries and regions will draw long-term negative lessons from this. And from the apparently cavalier throwing of a last-minute Grexit option into the mix by Germany, in defiance of half the government’s own MPs. – See more at: http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/greece-wins-euro-debt-deal-democracy-loser/4155#sthash.iniOj89z.dpufThe big powers of Europe demonstrated an appetite to change the micro-laws of a smaller country: its bakery regulations, the funding of its state TV service, what can be privatised and how. Whether inside or outside the euro, many small countries and regions will draw long-term negative lessons from this. And from the apparently cavalier throwing of a last-minute Grexit option into the mix by Germany, in defiance of half the government’s own MPs. – See more at: http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/greece-wins-euro-debt-deal-democracy-loser/4155#sthash.iniOj89z.dpuf%5B
Just seen this:https://twitter.com/FrancesOGrady/status/618777305943556096Now, I think O'Grady is largely right, not in so much as the campaign has been listened to, but that the need has been recognised, from a market perspective. I doubt the Tories would be doing this if there wasn't an organised working class pushing for its interests (then again, they'd probably have to create yellow unions to help administer the labour market if that was the case).
Ironically, this image posted by Guido Fawkes (I won't link, cheers), shows a lot of what is happening: The blog's point was that if you include Pensions in the welfare budget, they take up a huge slice, and inflate the total value, making it seem more people are in the firing line. But, if you minus pensions from the target list, the above is what you have: there is no traction in cutting unemployment benefit, it's already minimal. Disability is intractable, because they really can't work, the only viable targets are housing and family, and that's what they've gone for, these can lead to adjusted market relations.
I'd dispute that the ruling class can impose a dictatorship at a whim, they lack cohesion and they lack the basic power (and, yes, they would destroy their profit base, which is the essnce of their existence as a class). They might make history, but not in conditions of their choosing. the working class has imposed political democracy on them, and has imposed the burden of making up for the market failures of the labour market.Political democracy m,akes teh working class the decisive power in the land, it is they who have not chosen to use that power (which they could) to create socialism.
Yeah, it's probably at the air vent near Clapham Common Tube statiopn, but who knows how far thoseservice tunnels run? Anyway, interesting nonetheless
This is interesting from Varoufakis (and is from his book:http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/06/yanis-varoufakis-angela-merkel-crisis-global-minotaur-capitalism-europeHis game theory background is on display here, since he's looking at how Germany's self interest conflicts with itself.
Quote:Interestingly, one of the great secrets of the post-2008 period is that the Minotaur’s death adversely affected aggregate demand in the eurozone’s surplus countries (Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Finland) more than it did the deficit member states (like Italy, Spain, Ireland, Portugal and Greece). While the sudden withdrawal of capital from the deficit countries brought about their insolvency, countries like Germany saw their “fundamentals” more grievously affected by the crash of 2008. This fact, in conjunction with the terrible squeeze on German wages, explains the deeper causes of the animosity in places like Germany that so very easily translates into anger against the Greeks and assorted Mediterraneans – feelings that are then reciprocated, thus giving the wheel of intra-European animosities another spin, favouring the rise of xenophobia, even Nazism (in countries like Greece, quite incredibly), and thus leading to a wholesale readiness to push all the yellow, as opposed to the red, buttons in sight.And he was quite clear eyed:http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/07/06/our-no-is-a-majestic-big-yes-to-a-democratic-rational-europe/
Quote:spread the word that the Greek ‘bailouts’ were exercises whose purpose was intentionally to transfer private losses onto the shoulders of the weakest Greeks, before being transferred to other European taxpayersarticulated, for the first time in the Eurogroup, an economic argument to which there was no credible responseput forward moderate, technically feasible proposals that would remove the need for further ‘bailouts’confined the troika to its Brussels’ lairinternationalised Greece’s humanitarian crisis and its roots in intentionally recessionary policiesspread hope beyond Greece’s borders that democracy can breathe within a monetary union hitherto dominated by fear.An impressive list of quite limited achievements.Here's Paul Mason's asessment (presumably written still wearing his Varoufakis tribute t-shirt:http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/yanis-varoufakis-economist-play-politics/4081
Varoufakis has gone, which is interesting:
Quote:I shall wear the creditors’ loathing with prideA hell of a political epitaph.http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/07/06/minister-no-more/In the grand scheme of things, it may not change the need for yet furtehr cuts, but we can at least say that, like good trade unionists, Syriza have negotiated cannily, and may well get the best deal available: our job is to say how rotten the choices were when there is a real alternative available, but that it takes a nmassive movement to achieve it.I popped along to the Oxi demo in trafalgar square, organised by some Greece Solidarity front, it got speakers from all over Europe, and the leader of the Green Party, but only six men and a dog turned up to listen. Still, the horror of what has already happened to Greece, including the drying up of vital medical supplies, was put across.
Hmm, just found a new powertool online: http://www.opavote.org/It allows for many different voting methods (including my new favourite of Approval voting). We really should look into finding some way of integrating online voting into the party's decision making…
