Imagine you could pass any law or regulation in a capitalist society in order to make it more socialist.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

It is crude mechanistic cum deterministic nonsense to suggest that "material conditions" per se  or on their own will somehow deliver a flourishing movement for socialism.  This ignores the key role of creativity in the historical process

And yet this 'nonsense' is precisely what you argue about the production of knowledge, robbo.Or, your notion of 'the key role of creativity' is necessarily a 'role' conducted by an elite.That is, your (I accept unconscious) political basis is Leninist.

 Thats absolute rubbish.  The one thing  does not follow from the other at all.  You are pretty much confused on this as on other things.  By "material conditions" I'm alluding to such pet notions entertained by some that for instance it needs an acute economic crisis to force people into accepting socialism.  Its nonsense because a sharp downturn in the economy could jst as easily fuel the rise of fascists ideas for example.  In other words it ideological outcome is not pre-givenHow can I possibly be unconsciously " Leninist" when I categorically accept that in order to have socialism you have to a conscious socialist majority first; it cannot be imposed from above by a vanguard.  It seems you don't understand what Leninism is about at all.  Yes the development of scientific theories tends to be a  minority concern and this is inevitable given a social division of labour or do you seriously imagine we all have the time or training to engaging in abstruse and complex debates on the cutting edge of molecular biology or astrophysics or whatever.In any event , that has got nothing to do with changing society which very clear must be the concern of the majority not a small minority

[robbo203]

Matt wrote:

Quote:

The other drawback  in the SPGB-s approach is it curiously agnostic attitude towards institutions and practices that fall outside the money economy.  So for instance the idea of setting up a commune is routinely pooh-poohed on the grounds that this has all been tried before and has singularly failed  which is really not the point at all or is  missing the point altogether.

We don't 'just' diss those Robin. We do acknowledge they may seem to have immediate benefits for some workers at the time.The problem is their inevitable failure, like all reformist failures are laid at our door and labeled as 'socialist' failures.

 Matt What I have been trying to say is that these  kinds of activities such as the setting up of communes or other forms of activities that function outside the money sector are of a qualitatively different order to "reformism",  The problem is that the SPGB has never really developed a concise clear cut  definition of reformism and that possibly shows in your comment above where you seem to categorize the failure of communes under the heading of "reformist failure" unless i have misread you. But its got nothing to do with reformism as I understand it and I'm not quite sure how you judge something like a commune or intentional community to be a "failure" anyway. There are a vey large and growing number of them all over the world if you do some research into the topic.  Sure they haven't delivered socialism but that was never really the intent anyway.  In any case , sadly, the political movement for socialism represented by bodies organisations like the SPGB can hardly be rated a roaring success from that point of view either I come back to the expression coined by David Graeber about the "communism of everyday life".  I think he on to something here –  that so much of what we do in our daily lives is unwittingly an affirmation and acting out  of communistic values and practices. This is what seperates it from refromism.  It doesn't obviously automatically lead to communism – there is still an absolutely indspensable role for abstract propagandaism  in that respect as I said which is excatly what the SPGB does  – but can be looked upon as a kind of seedbed of communist ideas. Like any seedbed it needs fertilising and watering if the seeds are going to germinate and flower in to full blown communst consciosness. You may not "diss" these kinds of activities Matt but you do clearly distance and cut yourself off from the potential assistance they could render the socialist  movement through your determination to remain completely agnostic with regard to them.  That is precisely the problem.  You need to this embrace  this "communism of everyday life" in much more postitve way and I think   you will find it will start to reap benefits  when it comes to propagating the case for socialism itself.  At the very least the political movement for socialism will begin feel itself less cut off isolated and miniscule by adopting a more accomdating and inclusive approach

[robbo203]

Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:

 thanks that was well written.  you mentioned that SPGB does campaign for certain kind of laws to be implemented.  Is it convenient for you to just link to a list of those and that would satisfy my goals for your contribution on this topic? 

 Steve  What i mean is that the SPGB supports the struggles of workers to secure basic democratic rights such as freedom of expression and assembly and the right to vote.  This is another example of what I call a " non reformist" reform  – reformism in my book being measures undertaken  by the state specifically directed at economic functioning of capitalism and not its political superstructure as such

[moderator1]

 Reminder: 6. Do not make repeated postings of the same or similar messages to the same thread, or to multiple threads or forums (‘cross-posting’). Do not make multiple postings within a thread that could be consolidated into a single post (‘serial posting’). Do not post an excessive number of threads, posts, or private messages within a limited period of time (‘flooding’).

[Anonymous]

robbo203 wrote:

Matt wrote:

Quote:

The other drawback  in the SPGB-s approach is it curiously agnostic attitude towards institutions and practices that fall outside the money economy.  So for instance the idea of setting up a commune is routinely pooh-poohed on the grounds that this has all been tried before and has singularly failed  which is really not the point at all or is  missing the point altogether.

We don't 'just' diss those Robin. We do acknowledge they may seem to have immediate benefits for some workers at the time.The problem is their inevitable failure, like all reformist failures are laid at our door and labeled as 'socialist' failures.

 Matt What I have been trying to say is that these  kinds of activities such as the setting up of communes or other forms of activities that function outside the money sector are of a qualitatively different order to "reformism",  The problem is that the SPGB has never really developed a concise clear cut  definition of reformism and that possibly shows in your comment above where you seem to categorize the failure of communes under the heading of "reformist failure" unless i have misread you. But its got nothing to do with reformism as I understand it and I'm not quite sure how you judge something like a commune or intentional community to be a "failure" anyway. There are a vey large and growing number of them all over the world if you do some research into the topic.  Sure they haven't delivered socialism but that was never really the intent anyway.  In any case , sadly, the political movement for socialism represented by bodies organisations like the SPGB can hardly be rated a roaring success from that point of view either I come back to the expression coined by David Graeber about the "communism of everyday life".  I think he on to something here –  that so much of what we do in our daily lives is unwittingly an affirmation and acting out  of communistic values and practices. This is what seperates it from refromism.  It doesn't obviously automatically lead to communism – there is still an absolutely indspensable role for abstract propagandaism  in that respect as I said which is excatly what the SPGB does  – but can be looked upon as a kind of seedbed of communist ideas. Like any seedbed it needs fertilising and watering if the seeds are going to germinate and flower in to full blown communst consciosness. You may not "diss" these kinds of activities Matt but you do clearly distance and cut yourself off from the potential assistance they could render the socialist  movement through your determination to remain completely agnostic with regard to them.  That is precisely the problem.  You need to this embrace  this "communism of everyday life" in much more postitve way and I think   you will find it will start to reap benefits  when it comes to propagating the case for socialism itself.  At the very least the political movement for socialism will begin feel itself less cut off isolated and miniscule by adopting a more accomdating and inclusive approach

 What Robbo203 is saying has been evidenced in Bolivia, they have hundred of communes, and they are reformist measures labelled as socialist,  run as capitalists entreprises. 

[robbo203]

moderator1 wrote:

 Reminder: 6. Do not make repeated postings of the same or similar messages to the same thread, or to multiple threads or forums (‘cross-posting’). Do not make multiple postings within a thread that could be consolidated into a single post (‘serial posting’). Do not post an excessive number of threads, posts, or private messages within a limited period of time (‘flooding’).

 Sorry Mod1 My duplicate posting in response to Matt was a technical cockup.  Im not quite sure how it happened and I dont know how to delete my post once it is written. Thanks for deleting it anyway….

[Anonymous]

Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:

Subhaditya wrote:

mcolome1 wrote:

He spend the whole year calling himself an anarchist, and then, at the end,  he ends supporting state capitalism, and state capitalists leaders,  and calling workers to vote for the Democratic Party which is one of the party of the USA ruling class. He is just a political pendulum, he is not a threat to capitalism

Someone explained it as to those converted he tells them to aim for the end goals i.e. anarchy while those still believing in capitalism and trying to decide between the 2 parties he tells them to vote for the pro poor party…. maybe after noticing the behavior of the pro poor party for a while they will lose faith in it became disillusioned and finally start looking for the alternatives.  Maybe this is what Chomsky is upto ?

I think both of you need to check your interpretation of Chomsky. Google "Chomsky endorses Hillary". what he said was closer to admitting that in a capitalist system in a state with a close race it might matter a little bit who you vote for and that trump was worse than Hillary and since it only takes a half hour or so to vote, then it's time well spent.  Personally, I think trump would be a better choice for president because he's likely to cause so much popular dissatisfaction that the public reaction to him would be beneficial while Hillary is just business as usual with new window dressing. If you're really of the opinion, like some cementers, that a revolution is the only way to achieve socialism, then trump seems more likely to give people a reason to revolt than Hillary, who I see as continuing the slow creeping encroachment of corporate power over peoples freedom.   

We do not need to use a searcher like Google. I had that historical information recorded in my brain.  He is just a bullshitterWhat has been said about Donald Trump is completely wrong. That has been  the conception of the Leninists that  we need an economical crisis, a financial disaster,  that we need discontent, we need  fascists,  and we need a dictator, we need to place our own class enemies in power,  in order  to take political consciousness. That is rubbish, it is just pure Masochism.Workers can take consciousness at any time, the workers in the Soviet Union never learned anything about the real conception of socialism, and there were more workers who were  anti-communists, than workers who were communists. Now 55% of the workers want the Soviet Union back again, and 45^ love Stalin due to the influence of Patriotism in their mindsNoam Chomsky is just a reformist left winger which is always supporting the lesser evil, he did support John Kerry, he supported Saint Jimmy Carter ( the man who prepared the platform for the problems of the Middle east ) he supported Hugo Chavez, he has not supported Mickey Mouse, because it is not a presidential candidate yetIn the USA they have created the conception that a president can resolve all the problems, he is the trouble shooter,  it is a  godly worshipping to the presidency, and to military peoples, or military heroes. . All presidents have their own boss. Military are just workers who are fighting to defend the interest of the ruling elites, they can be private, or employed of the stateHillary Clinton and Donald Trump are just two future representative of the US ruling class, who want to administrate their state, and become captain of their  warship, there are not essential difference between both, the only difference is that Donald Trump has not killed anybody yet, like Obama before becoming president.The emails show that the US government has always made alliance with criminals, and  with terrorists, she did what most of the Secretary of State have done ( used  to be called the Secretary of War ) it is not a problem of illegality, it is a criminal problem, it is the norm of any capitalist country, or any capitalist empire, including the Nazis, the British, or the French, etc, etc, It is not the first time that a criminal has been elected as president, Roosevelt, Hoover, Eisenhower, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and John Kennedy  were war criminalsBarrack Obama was just a Legal professor, and his parents were agents of the CIA, but he has served the US ruling class in a proper way, like all the prior presidents, the only difference is the color of the skin, which means that they can elect a Latino, an Oriental, a Native and they will do the same job, they will serve the US bourgeoisie. Nobody with humanist principles will never desire to be a presidentThere is the dictatorship of one single political parties spitted in two political fronts, but in essence is the same political party, controlled by the same ruling class, and sometimes they had minor conflicts on their own interests. In others countries the ruling have more political parties and the participation in the electoral process is larger, in the USA only a few percentage of peoples elect the president, they  have been always elected by a  minority, they are unpopular. If they are so popular why do they have to go out with some many spies and protection ? Juan Bosh who was the president of the Dominican Republic was to walk by himself along, and the president of Paraguay is living in a shack, and the week end he was seating at the porch of his house drinking coffeeAt the present time, Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump are the most unpopular presidential candidates, even more, Obama was more popular that both of them  combined into one. In a small country like Costa Rica the electoral process is more democratic than in the USA, anybody can vote, including the prisoners, and the winners is the one who obtained the majority of the votes, and they do not have an army, and the legal system is more advanced.Argentina is the only capitalist country who has taken ex-presidents, and military officers  to jail, and most of the US president they have legal immunity, and the high official of the Pentagon too,  and they can use their power to kill anybody in others countries and they are not processed by an prosecutor, on the contrary, nobody have the balls to do that. Augusto Pincohet an allied of the US capitalist was taking to a criminal court and they prolong the process until he died because they did not want the roaches to come out of the closet

[robbo203]

mcolome1 wrote:

  What Robbo203 is saying has been evidenced in Bolivia, they have hundred of communes, and they are reformist measures labeled as socialist,  run as capitalists enterprises. 

 Yes but I am not talking about capitalist enterprises, whether these take the form of worker co-ops (I think thats what you mean rather than communes which are residientially based entities) or conventional corporations,  I am talking about that whole vast range of activities that essentally fall OUTSIDE of the money economy altogether (even if they often have links with it) and would include such things as  self provisioning peasant production, the household sector, mutual aid / community projects , volunteering and so on.  This has been dubbed the Grey Economy in contradistinction to the official White economy which your Bolivian worker co-ops would presumably fall under and the unofficial or illegal Black economy Estimates I've come across from UN sources and elsewhere suggest that in terms of labour hours expanded the Grey Economy is larger in size than the the White and Black economies combined  for the world as a whole. That has got to be quite significant from a socialist standpoint surely?

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

Yes the development of scientific theories tends to be a  minority concern …In any event , that has got nothing to do with changing society which very clear must be the concern of the majority not a small minority

[my bold]These are contradictory political positions, robbo.To 'change society' (which must mean our socio-natural being, what Marx calls our 'organic nature') requires social theory and practice, which, for building a democratic society like socialism, can only be the 'theory' of the majority and the 'practice' of the majority.'Scientific theories' have everything to do with 'changing society'.Your continued failure to address this contradiction in your politics will lead you to take an essentially Leninist position – that an 'expert elite' can come up with the scientific social theories required to build our world.

[moderator1]

robbo203 wrote:

moderator1 wrote:

 Reminder: 6. Do not make repeated postings of the same or similar messages to the same thread, or to multiple threads or forums (‘cross-posting’). Do not make multiple postings within a thread that could be consolidated into a single post (‘serial posting’). Do not post an excessive number of threads, posts, or private messages within a limited period of time (‘flooding’).

 Sorry Mod1 My duplicate posting in response to Matt was a technical cockup.  Im not quite sure how it happened and I dont know how to delete my post once it is written. Thanks for deleting it anyway….

The reminder was not posted in reference to your duplicate post.  No breach of the rules there I'm glad to say.  The reminder was for a certain person who thought they had an opportunity to ride their favourite hobby horse.I will allow one bite at the cherry per thread, but after you resonded with a rebuttal that door is now firmly locked.

[Anonymous]

robbo203 wrote:

Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:

.  The idea I'm proposing is that laws can set the stage for communism or set the stage to prevent communism.  I'm not claiming what we have with some few laws we can suggest here is everything and the only thing needed for communism or socialism.  I'm just asking what laws in the currently dominant capitalist economy would help or would speed up the process.  It seems like you're saying laws are irrelevant and that's nonsense since in theory it's possible to make a law that ends this Website and that would certainly be relevant.  Anyway, this is more of a brainstorming device than map for a final solution like you seem to be focused on.  So you see the only way to a socialist society is violent revolution? I think that's been tried and failed too, but please correct me with a link to when it's worked if you have one,  In fact everything that's been tried has failed from what some of the cementers here tell me.  Maybe that means it's impossible or maybe you need to check your assumptions?  I choose to believe you need to check your assumptions.Or, If your really convinced a violent revolution to overthrow the state is required, then maybe you could suggest a law that gives every citizen the right to own a gun, a tank and some C4 explosives. plus a law that says every citizen can enter any public or government building at any time without being searched.  Or maybe a law that makes every persons net worth public information so you'd know who to shoot at when your revolution starts.  I think those would be laws very hard to get passed, but at least it's a start to get your ideas going.  

 Steve I think you are kinda missing the point here  and by the way, just for your information, the SPGB does not advocate "violent revolution to overthrow the state" and thats not what Marcos was suggesting.  Personally, I think that it would be suicidal to take on the armed might of the state – and utterly counterproductive. The means determine the end rather than justify them.  War brutalises and requires an authoritarian chain of command.  Its outcome will be a brutalised authoritarian society far removed from socialism This thread is about the potential for laws to facilitate or hinder the implementation of socialism.  The "anti legalistic" stance that has been expressed does not at all derive from any conviction that we must use violence to bring about socialism but rather is linked to the SPGB.s opposition to "reformism" which is not the same as opposing or indeed supporting individual reforms.  You need to understand this distinction in order to fully appreciate where SPGBers are coming from.  Certainly in theory there are laws we can think of, or dream up, that could facilitate the implementation of socialism and benefit workers but from the SPGB's standpoint the opportunity costs of pursuing or pressing for such legislation would be the watering down and eventual abandonment of the goal of socialism itslef. There are certainly historical precedents to support this position.  The parties of the Second International in the late 19th early 20th centuries – the largest of which was German SDP – pursued both a maximum programme (socialism as we understand it) and a minimum programme of reforms.  Predictably the former disappeared like the Cheshire cats grin as these parties succumbed to the opportunism of attracting workers on the basis of reforms and in due course all of these parties became straightforwardly pro -capitalist organisations and nothing more. There is also the sociological argument that can be traced back to people like Emile Durkheim that laws tend to reflect the social outlook rather shape that outlook and that consequently are only as effiicacious as the social environment itself permits.  Hence the primary emphasis on trying change the social environment through the dissemination of socialist ideas which is the hallmark of the SPGBs approach. I have a lot of sympathy for this approach although I do think it has its weaknesses.  One is that it is based on an insufficiently nuanced formulation of "reformism".  The whole argument against reformism is that capitalism cannot be run in the interest of workers – which is quite true – but here capitalism is conceived of as an economic construction.  In this sense these reforms are directed at (futilely) modifying  the economic base.  However there are other reforms that are directed at modifying  aspects of the superstructure (in terms of Marx's "base superstructure" model).   For instance, reforms than enhance political democracy like the extension of the franchise.  These reformsdo  not strictly come under the category of reformism in my book and to be fair the SPGB does talk about struggling to secure basic democratic rights in those parts of the world where these do not exist. That is to say, it presses or campaigns for certain kinds of laws to be implemented The other drawback  in the SPGB-s approach is it curiously agnostic attitude towards institutions and practices that fall outside the money economy.  So for instance the idea of setting up a commune is routinely pooh-poohed on the grounds that this has all been tried before and has singularly failed  which is really not the point at all or is  missing the point altogether.  True the "unconscious communism" that we all practice in our daily lives is no guarantee that it will deliver a communist society.  But the whole point is that it needs to be joined or coupled with the "conscious communism" of abstract propagandism that the SPGB practises in order to enable the former to assist the latter.  Its is like an engine that has been wilfully switched off waiting idly and in vain for the day it can help power the spread of socialist ideas. Some of us it would seem  are determined to do everything by hand rather than make use of the machinery that could enhance our productivity. if you follow my drift. But as I say the core of the SPGBs approach is, for all that, quite correct.  You cannot have socialism without socialists and you cant get socialists without actively disseminating the idea of socialism itself.  It is crude mechanistic cum deterministic nonsense to suggest that "material conditions" per se  or on their own will somehow deliver a flourishing movement for socialism.  This ignores the key role of creativity in the historical pricess

This is to clarify the idea that communists do not support violences, contrary to what was expressed above, in our particular case we do not support that  We do not support coup d'tatThat is the reason why most of the Guerrillas movement have been completely wiped out, and others have been forced to negotiate with the capitalist state, and the last example is the FARC movement from Colombia, in some way the peace agreement was not approved because they were going to have several important posts in the government of Colombia, but now their situation is very dangerous because the government and the USA know their locations, they know all their leaders, and they know their strength and their weakness, they can be hunted like pigeons In Cuba they had a victory because one sector of the ruling class started to support them, and the government collapsed, it is not the genius idea of Fidel Castro, Raul Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara, it was just the replacement of one ruling class for another ruling class, they left the Yankees and they took the soviet, they went from one empire into the hands of another empire. They did not become communist from one day to another day, they were fierce supported of capitalism, liberalism, and state capitalism, and at the beginning their favorite one, was the USA ruling class, even more, Castro himself declared that he had only read a few pages of Karl Marx, and his explanation of what socialism is,  is totally wrong. It was a Blanquist movementThe  Tupacmaros were completely wiped out and two of their members became presidents of Brazil and Paraguay., and in Nicaragua they became part of the capitalist state, they had to negotiate with the ruling class, like the case of the Vietcong, now they are allied of their own ex -enemies, and they have placed for them the working forces of Vietnam in a silver platter at their service, and they became the new ruling class, and the Western capitalist continue hanging the labels of communists on their necks, but they are extracting enormous surplus value from the sweat of the workersIn the Dominican Republic all the Blanquist groups were completely destroyed, they members were killed, forced to emigrate, and others became part of the capitalist state. They were fighting against a force that was stronger than them, and their ideas were based in false and romantic conceptions, others did like Rosa Luxembourg, they were forced to follow the pretenses of the movement itself like Manolo Tavares, he went to the mountains without having any conception about socialism, he just followed blindly, the advises of the Castroists, and they were defeated by a stronger force. The USA had also trained military with the same tactic, they were guerrilla fighters too, there were rumors that the Pentagon was reading Mao military writ tingsGroups such as the Palmeros, the Comandos, The Trinitarios, the Guerrillas of Caamano,  the MPD, the 1j4, they  lost all their membership, they were  vanished completely, their leaders were killed, they were infiltrated by CIA agents, the US ambassador had the list and the name, location of all their members, and the list was given to the military and the police, and they were wiped out completely.. One president said that real president was seating at the US embassy, he was the real presidentThe forces of the state along with the USA government they created pseudo-communist groups to be able to penetrate in the movement, they had agents who knew about Maoism, apparently they look like Maoist or Leninists, but they were agents of the repressive forces, they also created their own guerrillas groups. Nobody trusted in anybody, the members of some central committees did not trust in each others, because they did not know who was the agent.  A movement that had thousands of members , nowadays is completely dead, and the ones that stayed alive, are living like kings, they had to become part of the profit system.That is the reality of the so called revolutionary war, the main idea was  to catch the theory in route, which means: we do not need to have political education, we do not need an educated working class, they can not think, we do the thinking for them, we are the professional cadres able to build a new society for them, we are their leaders, they must follow us like little babies, but the state was stronger than them and they came with all the forces and killed everybody. The idea of the SPGB is that we must become socialist firstIn reality who is the violent one, who is the real killer ? The forces of the state killed young and inexpert peoples, many of them had a brilliant mind, they were honest and they practice what they believed,  but they were based on wrong conceptions, they were based on Lenin conception of the so called revolutionary war.The Socialist Party has never supported any kind of war, we do not even supported the Vietcong, during WWI, and WWII, we did not participate in the war, in the middle of so much patriotism and nationalism, we were forced to emigrate to others countries, to go to jail, or be placed on a black lists, we were considered as traitors. It does show that the violent one is the ruling class, if we do not support their killing, they will use the legal system to force us to become their head hunters. Can you see the difference, between the stand of socialists vs Leninists and Maoists ?  They only produced many widows and children without fathers, and without a family, because sometimes the state forces used to kill both. That was the operation: Lawn mower. Sometimes i hear peoples talking about violence, without knowning  what they are saying, living like the turtles without sticking their heads outside to see the reality, just repeating like parrots without knowing history, and without knowing the origins and the consequences, like the stupid book known as the Black book of communism blaming millions of dead peoples on the so called Communists, the Soviet Union lost 30 millions of peoples killed in a capitalist war, there are two Koreas produced by the fighting between two powerful empires, the US and Russia were experts is splitting and dividing nations in pieces. The British dismantled completely the Ottoman empire in pieces, and Kwait is a piece of Iraq, Palestine is a piece of the Ottoman empire

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

Yes the development of scientific theories tends to be a  minority concern …In any event , that has got nothing to do with changing society which very clear must be the concern of the majority not a small minority

[my bold]These are contradictory political positions, robbo.To 'change society' (which must mean our socio-natural being, what Marx calls our 'organic nature') requires social theory and practice, which, for building a democratic society like socialism, can only be the 'theory' of the majority and the 'practice' of the majority.'Scientific theories' have everything to do with 'changing society'.Your continued failure to address this contradiction in your politics will lead you to take an essentially Leninist position – that an 'expert elite' can come up with the scientific social theories required to build our world.

 There is no contradiction at all LBird and, anyway, this is not the thread to discuss your pet theory which has been blown out of the water so many times that I have lost count.   If you wnat  discuss how it is possible that even one individual0, let alone all 7 billion of us, can become experts not only in the field of say molecular biology but every other field of scientific endeavour as well then you are welcome to start up another thread.  Oh wait- you've already done that still you've flatly refused to explain how this was possible or to answer any of the other questions asked of you.

[moderator1]

Reminder: 1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.

[Subhaditya]

mcolome1 wrote:

Nobody with humanist principles will never desire to be a president

Hmm, if there is an hour to spare do check out this documentary about Aaron Swartz… he dreamed of being in the White House eventually…. but look what he was upto while he was alive….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpvcc9C8SbMYou may not get to become one but thats different from wanting to…The US governemnt killed him off as he was proving to be a genuine threat to their capitalist class and was growing in power…

[Subhaditya]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

Yes the development of scientific theories tends to be a  minority concern …In any event , that has got nothing to do with changing society which very clear must be the concern of the majority not a small minority

[my bold]These are contradictory political positions, robbo.To 'change society' (which must mean our socio-natural being, what Marx calls our 'organic nature') requires social theory and practice, which, for building a democratic society like socialism, can only be the 'theory' of the majority and the 'practice' of the majority.'Scientific theories' have everything to do with 'changing society'.Your continued failure to address this contradiction in your politics will lead you to take an essentially Leninist position – that an 'expert elite' can come up with the scientific social theories required to build our world.

A doctor may know more about a patients condition than the patient…. does not imply doctor has the patients best interest in mind… what benefits the doctor may not be in the best interest of the patient… take away power from the patient and the outcome may be great for the doctor but not so positive for the patient.Have you heard of project MKULTRA… it is described very nicely in the first chapter of the book "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" by Naomi Klein.

[Author]

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