Basic questions regarding Socialism

[Young Master Smeet]

http://tinyurl.com/bme4yah

Abstract wrote:

Most hypotheses proposed to explain human food sharing address motives, yetmost tests of these hypotheses have measured only the patterns of food transfer. To choose between these hypotheses we need to measure people’s propensity to share. To do that, I played two games (the Ultimatum and Dictator Games) with Hadza hunter-gatherers. Despite their ubiquitous food sharing, theHadza are less willing to share in these games than people in complex societies are. They were also less willing to share in smaller camps than larger camps. I evaluate the various food-sharing hypotheses in light of these results.

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The Hadza expect a fair share of what others have. In real life, unlike the Ultimatum Game,this expectation is rational since the Hadza rarely face a one-shot decision but can instead keep pressure on until someone hands over a fair share. Among the Hadza, no begging or threatening is required to get food from others. The mere sight of someone’s food seems to suffice, though this applies to some foods more than others. No one would think a man stingy if he shared a small bird only with his children, but large game could never be kept within the household. Although there are no precise and formal rules about division (except for certain pieces called epeme meat, that can only be eaten by men), large game is pretty equally distributed to everyone in camp, with only slightly more going to the hunter in the case of the largest game animals (Hawkes et al., 2001b).

Obviously, such observable behaviour has implications for socialist society, and no-one is suggesting that anything remotelyu similar could happe in our vast and complex society (indeed, as the article notes, larger more fractious communities seem to promote a greater sense of fairness, the Hadza approach, it seems from the albeit very small survey, is to pitch for as much as you can get, in the expectation that everyone else will try to stop you, a bit like Ken Macleod's space Nietzschean Juchists.

[Hud955]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

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For example, if I see a banana growing on a tree, I can't claim to "own" it just like that. But if I climb the tree and pick up the banana, everyone intuitively understands that it wouldn't be appropriate for you to just take away the banana from me like I did from the tree.

Actually, ISTR when we had a talk addressed by an anthropologist, Camilla Power, she told us of the Tanzanian tribes people who had exactly the opposite view.  If one of their number has a honeycomb, someone would just wander up to them, and demand it be handed over, and they just would.  The expectation is that food is shared out. [Edited wrong country]

 Just to reinforce what you have said, young Smeet, this is an extremely common (almost universal) way of organising affairs among band hunter-gatherers around the world.  Although the social norms vary slightly, the principle is always the same: to ensure that no individual member of the band acquires more wealth or status than any other.  And the sharing of meat, or the basic foodstuff,  is completely universal in this form of social organisation.  Many band-hunter gatherer groups have very detailed rules for the sharing of meat, and are very precise about it.  In some cases it is not even the hunter who killed the animal that has the right to share it; sometimes, for instance, it is the person who made the arrow.  It is also normal among such groups for a skilled hunter to make little of his individual skill.  But it goes much deeper than this.  Band hunter gatherer groups are universally egalitarian in every way, a fact that makes nonsense of just about all the universalising claims of neo-classical and Austrian economics.Anthropologists and archaeologists are now completely agreed that it was in egalitarian groups like these that we have spent the vast majority of our time on earth as modern humans (about 200,000 years). It is only in the last 10,000 years that we have lived in propertied societies; a mere blip.      Your  'intuitive' belief, Alexander, is not a universal of human societies, but merely a reflection of the fact that you have been brought up in a private property society and have unconsicously absorbed its rules and conventions.  It is a profoundly false assumption that what seems 'intuitively' true for you as a member of one form of society is 'intuitively' true for all people whatever the form of social organisation they have grown up in. Anthropologists have done a lot of field work among band hunter gatherer groups: inuit, ju/'hoansi, aka, hadza, yamana and many others. What is intriguing is that the basic form of social organisation remains the same whether it is found in the Arctic tundra or at the equator, in mountainous regions or in the savannah.

[Hud955]

Hi AlexanderWatching  'libertarians' (and fundamental christians) go through their set routines occasionally provides some entertainment but, truth to tell, it soon starts to get boring.   And reading through your last post, I have to say, it’s been a long time since I’ve read such a litany of straw-man arguments in one place. What can I say? Judging by the rag bag of strange beliefs you ascribed to me, it’s clear you regard me as a kind of idiot, which is, I suppose, an obvious way of dealing with people whose views you don't take the time to understand.  Or maybe I wasn't clear enough? Yet it's hard to be clear with someone who is trying to corner you into a anticipated answer and then starts making wild comments when he doesn't get the expected response.You say at one moment in your last post that you 'literally' do not understand where one of us was coming from.  Can we be honest?  This is, as we both know, entirely understandable, since socialists are materialists and 'libertarians' are not.  We ground our views in the real world of social activity and the experience of real human beings.  We don't appeal to airy abstractions and self-justifying definitions, and we don't recognise the 'libertarian's' desocialised and abstract concept of 'the individual' – at least, not as anything belonging in this world.Unlike toads, humans do not live isolated lives.  Even before we were human, our ancestors were adapted by millions of years of evolution to social living.   This means that, for human beings, there never has been a time when we had an individual existence separate from society.  We only become individuals through and within society, and the individual and society are complementary aspects of a single social reality.  The productive relationships within the societies we create, moreover, are not just random constructions but have a uniform social character, providing us with a common experience and a common interest.  Almost every point of genuine disagreement we have had so far derives from this.  If you are interested in a conversation, I'm game, but really, Alexander – get to the point!     There's plenty of material to choose from, but I only have time to skim over a couple of issues.  Here are some thoughts before I go to bed.  It is perfectly legitimate to refer to workers being forced to work for a living. You are wrong, first, in your own terms, since there is no linguistic barrier to the use of the word in this sense.  ‘Forced by circumstance’ is a perfectly legitimate usage, and in this case is more accurate than 'pressured' which implies a social alternative.  Beyond that, nit-picking over words does not alter social realities.  When we consider the material conditions that workers find themselves in, it becomes abundantly clear that being 'forced' into employment exactly describes their social position.  Employment  is the only way they have of supporting their family and themselves.  It is naive to imply, as you do, that as there are opportunities for a few to find alternative ways of making a living in capitalism, this somehow undermines the social reality of the vast majority. Social mobility is very low in all capitalist countries: the alternatives to employment for workers are few, and only a few have the temperament and luck to make use of them.  Your comments about a CEO not being able to give up a job are vague or disingenuous.  A capitalist (who is not necessarily a CEO) is under no material necessity to work.  He has many options.  He may, as some do, pay others to run his businesses for him, or he may become an investor rather than industrialist and strain his hearing once a year at a company AGM to hear what income his investment has generated.  A capitalist may choose to spend time at the office, read the reports his employees provide him, do deals and make decisions on where his capital will achieve the greatest rate of exploitation.  He may, if he wishes, take an interest in the detailed productive activities of his companies, and if he is of an entrepreneurial turn of mind he may even choose to do some productive work.  The fact remains, though, that he can choose to do none of these things if it suits him.  He may choose to put his capital in the hands of a broker.   In the ultimate case, he can, for example, sell off his property and stock and withdraw to a large house in the country and live the live of a person of 'private means', as did so many British capitalists in the mid-nineteenth century.  Again, not a choice workers can make. Much the same is true of your landlord. If he owns just one or two properties, yes, he may have to do some work on his rented property to maintain its value and keep it in a condition suitable for letting – just as he would have done if he had he lived in these properties himself. He has probably bought the properties under a buy-to-let mortgage and expects the tenant to pay him enough rent not just to compensate him for the repairs he does but to pay his mortgage.  In other words, he expects the tenant to buy the house for him and provide him with an asset as well as an income.   If he has to work, then he does not fall into the clear paradigm of a capitalist, but into that grey area between the classes. But once again, cherry picking examples from the margins does not change the facts of life for the vast and representative majority.  If your landlord is anything other than in a small way of business, though, he will advance his capital and employ others to carry out all these essential tasks for him.  He will engage gas contractors, electricians, general builders, bailiffs, accountants etc.  He will set up a housing management company to administer his property, or contract the work to an agency, who will employ its own workers for the task.  And once again the same comments apply.   All of this, begins also to point to another difference between the working class and the capitalist class.  The labour of the working class is productive: it creates wealth.  The 'labour' of the capitalist class is merely directed towards extracting wealth from others.   'Wage slavery' is not a term I use myself as most people find it too demeaning to even contemplate, and they prefer to fall back on the claim that socialists only use it to make rhetorical or emotive statements.  This is short sighted, since 'wage slavery' is, in fact, an accurate and apt description of the condition of the working class in capitalism.  Your rejection of the idea, as far as I can see, is based on a very superficial reading of the various ways 'slavery' as a social relationship has actually manifested throughout history, and also upon the conditions under which the working class survive under capitalism.  There is an interesting discussion here if you want to take it further – let me know.  Right now though, it would take more time than I have available.As for 'values', I'm tired, Alexander.  I'm not going to deal with the absurd pudding you made of my last remarks on this matter.  Go back and read again what I wrote and not what you imagined I wrote, and indeed, look back at your comments before that to see why I wrote it.  Cheers

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