ZJW
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This same Jacob Blumenfeld is also the author of this concisely written article ‘The Socialization Debate:
Revolutionary Confusion after the German Revolution of 1918’: https://philpapers.org/archive/BLUTSD-2.pdfRe O’Neil:
In the book by Tony Smith that I attempted to draw attention to at https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/topic/socialist-planning-beyond-capitalism/page/2/#post-262661 , there is this paragraph :
‘In contemporary social theory the two most well-known and influential proposals for a better, more coherent, republicanism are PROPERTY-OWNING DEMOCRACY and MARKET SOCIALISM. Both are understood here as variants of what will here be termed SOCIAL REPUBLICANISM.21 Both reject ‘state socialism’ on grounds like those given above. And both claim to overcome the incoherence of liberal democratic republicanism by rejecting the capitalist property and production relationships that undermine core principles of liberal democracy and social democracy alike. NONETHELESS, SOCIAL REPUBLICANISM ALSO DOES NOT OFFER A SATISFACTORY ALTERNATIVE TO CAPITALIST MARKET SOCIETIES.’
That footnote 21 reads:
‘Defences of property-owning democracy are found in Rawls 2001 and O’Neill and Thad Williamson 2014. For arguments for market socialism by prominent contemporary social theorists see Honneth 2017 and Piketty 2021.’
(The book referenced is: O’Neill, John, and Thad Williamson 2014, ‘Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond’,
Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.)I don’t know whether to take that to mean O’Neil (/Williamson) therein themselves expressed support for so-called Property-Owning Democracy; or, if they only cited arguments in favor of it.
From the current issue of Jacobin magazine:
“But Cohen believed that rank-and-file socialists who think the LTV is obvious are moved by something other than Marx’s technical claims about value. Instead, what moves them is something like a “labor theory of things that have value,” which is very obviously true! Regardless of what value is, no commodity that has value has ever been the product of anything except some combination of (a) the nonhuman natural world and (b) human labor.”
https://jacobin.com/2022/06/karl-marx-labor-theory-of-value-ga-cohen-economics/
Later, Andrew Kliman argued against both the GA Cohen argument, and what he considered even worse, the version given by Ben Burgis: https://marxisthumanistinitiative.org/economics/marx-systematically-exploited-by-burgis-marxs-exploitation-theory-vs-g-a-cohens-plain-argument.html
Here is a book, published last year, that ought to be reviewed from an SPGB point-of-view: Tony Smith’s “A Socialism for the Twenty-First Century: Towards the ‘Full and Free Development of Every Individual’”:https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/22322_a-socialism-for-the-twenty-first-century-towards-the-full-and-free-development-of-every-individual-by-tony-smith-reviewed-by-stephen-darling/
Gauntlet thrown down:
In his most recent contribution insisting on labor-time-accounting (LTA), Hermann Lueer explicity states: ‘More than a century has passed since Otto Neurath formulated the idea of economic planning in physical units. Yet no workable method has been found that would allow producers to *self‑manage* a complex, interdependent economy on this basis.’ That’s here:https://leftdis.wordpress.com/2025/12/17/the-forgotten-logic-of-communism
Given that at start of his publication of the 2020 publication of the GIC’s [expanded 1935 version of] Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution, he gives his email — herluee@yahoo.com — he could easily be invited by Robbo or others to publicly debate his views. (In his two posts just above this one, DPP has already made a couple fundamental objections, the first of which I don’t recall having read in previous argument against LTA.)
From a few weeks back, see topmost letter (by B. Lazare) on the page at this link: https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1559/letters
It’s about the Weekly Worker group’s pro-Hamas’ism.
‘Rubio Neo-conned Trump’s Ukraine Peace Plan’:
https://original.antiwar.com/daniel-mcadams/2025/11/27/rubio-neo-conned-trumps-ukraine-peace-plan/
From the blurb shown on this page it’s a worthlessly Leninist (stalinist? maoist? critique of Frankfurtism: https://nyupress.org/9781685901356/who-paid-the-pipers-of-western-marxism
I’d take WSWS-brand anti-Frankfurtism over this kind of ‘actually existing socialism’ cheerleader garbage any day.
In the course of the press conference, Mamdani was asked about the resolution against ‘socialism’ that had just been passed by the lower house of the American parliament. Here’s about that resolution:
Or, skip directly to the text of it: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-concurrent-resolution/58/text
A more entertaining article than the BBC’s is this, where the keyword may be ‘surreal’: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/21/trump-mamdani-make-love-not-war-00665861
As for the David North Trots (i.e the WSWS), they title their article ‘Mamdani announces “partnership” with hated would-be dictator Trump’. Here, the keywords are ‘disgusting’ and ‘grotesque’:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/11/22/mzez-n22.htmlIf you want to actually watch the 30-minute Mamdani-Trump news conference (never a dull moment), it’s here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDanzN1EUeE
‘The October 7 Industry’:https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-october-7-industry
