Young Master Smeet
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And the way we do that is through standing in open elections, primaries are used in the states as a means of holding de facto french style run off elections so the final choice is two candidates. Different stripes of workers party can stand for election and we can contest for the votes of the workers, but Socialist Party members should control their own political activity, and our aim should be to draw workers is to become party members so the party is in effect the class.
Oh, no, like some Labourite opposed to them, I agre they conravene Freedom of association: we've come together as activist, to pick and control our candidate. Open primaries are a way to disarm organised mass parties in favour of indvidual candidates.Jeremy was very upset when I mentioned our policy of our delegates voting as instructed: he prides himself on his rebelliousness.
So, when companies cease to be about exchange of commodities, but forceable extraction, extortion and rent seeking, that is a different logic.Nor is Mason suggesting that sectional interests are surmountable through more co-operation and less competition (in fact that's the xact opposite of what he said).
No, he's saying that the rules are outmoded, capitalism has gone beyond its founding ideas. Thus even taking capitalism ack to its own ideological formation would probably destroy it.Now, forgive me if I'm wrong here, but the point of Marx's historical materialism is that the process of one social form outgrowing its own logic and becoming something else is applicable to several stages of society. The revolutionary method may differ between revolutions, but the basic motor doesn't.If capitalism has (long since) stopped operating in terms of it's own self-image, that is an interesting and useful thing to consider.
Well, he has provided a novel analysis both of Magna Carta and of present consitions in the light of the model of the transition from feudalism to capitalism…
I was reminded of this article:http://www.theguardian.com/global/2009/dec/13/drug-money-banks-saved-un-cfief-claims
Quote:Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.So, not only did criminal enterprise save capitalism, but it became a big part of the legitimate holdings of many businesses. I suppose there is a big question of the role of organised crime in primary accumulation…
I don't think that's what he's suggesting, more that if held to its own rules capitalism would eventually self destruct, or transmute into something else..
jondwhite wrote:not the Socialist Party of Great Britain enters the field of political action determined to make ourselves known to workers not trying to persuade them but to erect its banner and hope they are attracted by the clarity of our idea.Our banner is static, it is for the working class to come to the banner ad muster, not for us to take the banner to th class.
Erm, I am very much in favour of contesting elections, but as a means of making ourselves known to workers, not trying to persuade them. This distinction is against the idea that the party will persuade every last worker one at a time, rather than social conditions leading the working class to the idea of socialism off their own bat: it mans all we can do is clarify, crystalise and hopefully speed up the formation of this idea a little. It also means, to my mind, rejecting the lazy and patronising idea that the workers are asleep, and taking them at face value that they mean their support for capitalism.
Quote:the Party thus exists to persuade a majority of the population of the merits of socialismpersuasion rather than simply expressing the message is necessary since there is a mass of counter revolutionary propaganda of various formsI'd disagree with the two above premises: this comes back to the old question, is it our job to make socialists, or catch socialists? In my view, we are not rying to persuade, but to clearly mark out where we stand, and invite others to join us, when they recognise that we agree with them. The counter-revolutionary propaganda, in fact, makes simple, clear expression all the more important.
Another interesting way of looking at this is:
Quote:The cost of animal feed is the largest item of expenditure recorded in the production and income account reaching a total value of £4.6 billion in 2012.https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/208436/auk-2012-25jun13.pdfThe same source tells us that in the UK there are around 17.2 million ha of agricultural land, of which 36% is cropped. So, livestock is occupying around 9 million ha. The dairy herd is 1.8 million animals, with a furtehr 1.7 million in the beef herd. there are 32 million sheep and about 4.5 million pigs.
james19 wrote:Better Than Raising the Minimum Wage Help Americans who need it with a major, carefully crafted expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit.That is, also, an interesting example of what the welfare state is for, it's the redistribution of poverty to protect capitalist profits from general wage rises and target amelioration of suffering, rather than a full scale change in the shares between capital and labour.
I was just looking something else up, when I ran across this:http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/3/034015/article
Quote:From the 41 crops analyzed in this study, 9.46 × 1015 calories available in plant form are produced by crops globally, of which 55% directly feed humans. However, 36% of these produced calories go to animal feed, of which 89% is lost, such that only 4% of crop-produced calories are available to humans in the form of animal products.Of course, animals produce more than calories, however, protein is a factor here too:
Quote:These changes in calorie availability are mirrored by changes in the availability of protein in the food system through changes in global crop allocation. Of the total plant protein produced, only 49% is delivered as plant and animal protein to the food system. Therefore, shifting all crop production to direct human consumption could double protein availability. In the United States, only 14% of produced protein is used as food and 80% of protein is used as animal feed. Because of the high proportion of plant protein being used as animal feed, only 27% of plant protein produced in the US is available for consumption (as either plant or animal product).The paper acknowledges that plant and animal proteins are not identical, and a real shift would have to include more vegetables. Further:
Quote:Shifting all crops currently allocated to animal feed back to human food implies that either the global population would stop consuming animal products, or else the only sources of animal products would be grass fed or wild caught. However, we also investigated different scenarios of diet shifts that could increase global calorie availability. Shifting grain-fed beef production equally to pork and chicken production could increase feed conversion efficiencies from 12% to 23%, which would increase global calorie delivery by 6% (or 3.52 × 1014 calories), representing 357 million additional people fed on a 2700 calorie per day diet. Alternatively, shifting all feed directed to meat production to the production of milk and eggs (or a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet) could increase feed conversion efficiencies to 35%, which would increase calorie delivery by 14% (or 8.04 × 1014 calories), representing 815 million additional people fed. In both cases the feed allocated to livestock production stays the same as it was during this study period, but more meat, egg, and dairy calories could be produced from this feed as a result of efficiency gains. Of course, reducing the consumption of meat and dairy can also have large impacts on calorie delivery. For example reducing the consumption of grain-fed animal products by 50% would increase calorie availability enough to feed an additional 2 billion people.This needs to be part of a global democratic debate, and we need common ownership in order to even begin to deal with the implications of this work…
