Young Master Smeet
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So, it's all over: Mosul has been liberated, at huge cost. Over 100,000 Iraq troops were used to crush 3,000 fighters, tens of thousands of munitions were rained down on osul. We'll not know the extent of the civilian dead, but 5-8K seems to be th quoted range. Amnesty has a report here:https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/07/at-any-cost-civilian-catastrophe-in-west-mosul-iraq/We mustn't forget IS' ruthless use of civilian hostages.
Usefully, this blows away the fractional reserve/banks create money conspiracy theory: anyone can create circulating medium (IOUs), but they are limited by their ability to (eventually) repay in Real money (eliberate capital, real=Royal, i.e. authorised money from the state). Attracting money still relies on genuien economic activity, and backing notes up with wealth.What the article doesn't mention is, were the Irish transactions taxed, that's usually been the thing that has hampered LETs scheme, because the British state has always asked for tax in sterling even if the transactions were in lets. there is an argument that it is the tax system that backs up fiat money.
https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2017/07/05/2nd-anniversary-of-the-oxi-vote-our-parallel-payments-system-its-importance-confirmed-by-the-oligarchic-press-continuing-ritualistic-distortions/Varoufakis is out to justify himself, however, these excerpts from his book do seem to suggest a workable way that an insolvent state could refinance itself viably (and at the same time clear a lot of debts to the state as well):
Quote:Suppose that the state owes Company A €1 million but is delaying payment due to the state’s liquidity squeeze. Suppose also that Company A owes €30,000 to Jill, one of its employees, plus another €500,000 to Company B, which supplied it with raw materials. Meanwhile, Jill and Company B also owe, respectively, €10,000 and €200,000 in taxes to the state. Now imagine that the tax office creates a reserve account for each taxpayer (per tax file number, to be precise), including for Companies A and B and Jill. The state can then just ‘deposit’ €1 million into Company A’s reserve account simply by typing it in and provide each taxpayer with a PIN to be used to transfer ‘funds’ from one taxpayer’s reserve account to another. Company A could then transfer €30,000 to Jill’s reserve account and €500,000 to Company B’s reserve account, which Jill and Company B could then use to repay the €10,000 and €200,000 they respectively owe the state in tax arrears. The immediate cancellation of many arrears would have been thus effected.The infrastructure is there, and, technically, no market principle has been violated, the state would just have to be crafeul not to end up with massive inflation. Technically, this could be used to clear a lot of bad debts out of the economy, preumably just as the state could invite direct loans from citizens, firms could sell their debt to each other on a secondary market…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40506570
Quote:Demotivated workforces tend not to work more efficiently.And if productivity is falling and labour costs are rising, as they are, then that leads to a profits squeeze.And means that the prospect of pay rises recedes – creating something of a vicious circle and going someway to explaining why wage growth is falling.This is Philip Hammond's headache.I interviewed Lord Adair Turner, the former head of the Low Pay Commission, yesterday and he made a rather startling – but correct – admission."The UK over the last 10 years has created a lot of jobs, but today real wages are below where they were in 2007," he said."That is not the capitalist system delivering its promise that over a decade or so it will raise all boats, and it is a very fundamental issue."There is something about the economy which – left to itself – will proliferate very, very low paid jobs."Sympo wrote:Are there really more workers who would have voted on socdem/leninist parties today than a hundred years ago?Well, Labour got 8 million votes in 1929, they got 13 million ths year, so empirically thee has been froward movement. But it's not just compared to 100 years ago, but two hundred (or more).
I think we do hold a list of contacts and sympathisers (certainly I suspect most branches have such a list of people who have filled in contact forms at meetigns), and, of course, pople who have responded to adverts and taken out a 3-free.
EC resolution https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/SPINTCOM/conversations/topics/1998 Must have been the end of 2002 (looks like October, this was before routine publishing of minutes on Spintcom).
EC wrote:This E.C. considers that, whereas a WSM Supporters Association, such as proposed by Cde. Cox, would operate separate membership criteria from that of the Socialist Party; and whereas said body would be necessarily without the rule-book and democratic mechanisms of the Socialist Party; therefore that a WSM Supporters Association would constitute a separate political organisation.Further, this E.C. notes that, whereas, rule 17 states that the function of the Executive Committee is to:" generally administer the work of the party in accordance with Party polls, Party rules and conference decisions ;"and, whereas conference has repeatedly expressed opposition to entering into front-organisational arrangements; and, whereas rule 5 states:"A member shall not belong to any other political organisation or write or speak for any other political party except in opposition, or otherwise assist any other political party;"and, whereas Clause 7 of the Socialist Party's Declaration of Principles states:"That as all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party;"this E.C., therefore, considers that, it would be ultra-vires for the Executive Committee to establish or provide material support for a WSM Supporters Association; and, that it would be an Infringement of the Principles and Rules of the Socialist Party for branches or individual members, to establish, or help establish, such an organisation; and, that the proper procedure for such a proposal as a WSM Supporters Association would be to first present it to a branch ("the unit of organisation" rule 7); and from thence to Conference for the democratic deliberation of the membership of the party as a whole."We'd need a change of rule to be able to do it: we as a party should not be offering any alternatives to party membrship, if you support the socialist case, join the party as a democratic member, or don't. Non-members are free to form their own supporters club, but no socialist party money nor resources should be involved, and members would be forbidden by rule 6 from joining or assisting. As Imposs1904 says, it is a route to two tier membership (that would also requrie a rule change).For example, the reason we continue to oppose the Ashbourne Court GFroup is not that they have different ideas to us, but that they are not accountable to our membership through conference, likewise Zeitgeist. Our aim is to build a single movement of self-organised socialists, not to be one of a thousand micro-sects.The alternative to 'readers groups' is branches running Socialist Standard reading sessions, or the like (also, lets not forget, that Militant posed for a long time as a readers group).
It's nearly over:https://airwars.org/news/mosuls-capture-sees-isil-vanquished-but-at-a-terrible-cost/
Quote:But the civilian toll too has been high. Over the course of the Mosul assault, Airwars tracked over 7,200 alleged civilian fatality allegations in the vicinity of Mosul which were blamed on the US-led Coalition. Most of these incidents remain difficult to vet, and in the majority of cases several actors in addition to the Coalition are blamed – including ISIS and Iraqi security forces.Iraq Body Count estimates that in 1 week over 100 children died of malnutrition and dehydration.The end of the Mosul Meat Grinder has been a footnote on the media, as will any final tally of the dead. Mosul has been destroyed.
Sympo wrote:"People who are not themselves personally capitalists, but who benefit through inflated salaries from the largess of capitalists and through corruption."Why does concentration of wealth lead to a larger amound of "hangers on"?Well, firstly because administering vast amounts of wealth requires people to do the work, who themselves don't own it: their loyalty must be bought (to avoid moral hazard and principal agent problems). Secondly, as wealth concentrates, there's more spare to buy people with largess, and there are fewer personal capitalists upholding the "virtues" of thrift and personal property. There have always been hangers on, but rarely has wealth evr been so concentrated.
Sympo wrote:"Class consciousness developed through people identifying, and importantly, voting as working class: many do(…)"Are you referring to people who vote on social democratic and leninist parties?Yes.
LBird wrote:Young Master Smeet wrote:…you appopriate the whole house. If you appropriate a street, you are not making slections, you're taking the whole street.[my bold]'Whole house' or 'whole street' is a selection between two 'wholes', YMS.'If' is the clue. Your 'appropriation' is a conscious choice by you, a part of what Marx calls 'the active side'.One could also note that you've chosen not to appropriate 'whole estates', 'whole towns', 'whole urban sprawls', and several other 'concepts' that we could take account of.
I'm afraid one does not have to make a conscious choice to select, selection can occur randomly, as can appropriation (e.g., a disease). To maintain that the theory your are propounding is Marx' you will need to find a different (and preferably published in his lifetime) quote, or simply assert that what you are propounding is your own theory. There is no plausible way that what you are putting forward is a legitimate extrapolation from my quote from Marx.The clear point is, there is no reading of appropriation that implies selection, you can simply appropriate what is before you: like appropriating a good meal when it is laid on the table. Or you can appropriate everything within reach.
Sympo wrote:What do you mean with "hangers on"?People who are not themselves personally capitalists, but who benefit through inflated salaries from the largess of capitalists and through corruption.
Sympo wrote:In what way has class consioussness developed?Looks like that part of my previous post disappeared. Class consciousness developed through people identifying, and importantly, voting as working class: many do, and they understand that position, thr point is that they need to go on to develop socialist consciousness, which requires active work ofcurrent conscious socialists to help persaude them.
You don't select the rooms, you don't select the chimney, you appopriate the whole house. If you appropriate a street, you are not making slections, you're taking the whole street. Selection is not a synonym, nor a metonym, of appropriation, nor can appropriation be read as selection. Selection may occur prior to appropriation, butr you cannot read appropriation as a form of selection.Words can have ideological connotations and meanings within them, but these are derived historically through use: if you cannot provide an account of why your reading of Marx' passage differs from the common language understanding, then the fair minded reader will be left to judge which account more readily explains and interprets the text.The appropriator is active, as I think I've noted three times now, but the appropriator takes the appropriated as is.
LBird wrote:All you are saying now, YMS, is that one's ideology determines how one understands Marx.I've been saying this for years, and have argued that the only way forward is to examine the content of our differing ideologies.'Appropriation' is an act of selection, and selection requires a prior theory which provides the parameters of selection for that act.Your ideological reading regards 'appropriation' as an act of the thing appropriated, in which the appropriator remains passive.It's nothing to do with Marx, YMS, but with pretty standard bourgeois individualism, which pretends that 'matter is active and talks to passive humans'.Well, I've presented my reading of Marx, supplemented with evidence of the meaning of "appropriate". Fair minded readers will note that Lbird is substituting "appropriate" with "selection" without supporting evidence that the latter is a synonym. I stated that the appropriator is active, the thing apro[priated remains itself, but we appropriate it into ourselves, as it is. When I appropriate a house, I am not making selections, I take it tout court.Lbird is, of course free to present his argument as his own, but at present has not presented any substantive evidence to support his claim that Marx's statement support his, his argument of 'selection', above, has just falled at the first simple hurdle.
European Messenger of St. Petersburg wrote:“The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. …Marx described that as a "striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous" depiction of his method, in one of hios few public discussions of his investigative methodology.
Lbird wrote:To 'appropriate', 'analyse' and 'trace out', is to apply a 'theory' to 'the material' ('material', here, meaning 'our selected object of study', not 'matter').For your reading to stand, we need to look at the meaning of "appropriate",
OED wrote:To take possession of for one's own, to take to oneself.So, whilst we remain active, it is to bring the material under consideration, into ourselves, not to apply a theory outwards. It is taking it on board, bringing it in, absorbing it. I know that, Humpty-like, Marx's words, for you mean whatever you want them to mean, but for those of us practied in close reading, "appropriate" seems a very appropriate barrier to your reading.
