Is the case for socialism, one of morality, cold logic or long term survival of our species?
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stuartw2112 wrote:LB: Yes, OK, that's where we disagree. I think that, actually, with training, it is possible to turn off the ideology in your head, and that, when you do, the result is peace and happiness. Sometimes, you turn it back on again, that's fine. But the ability to turn it off and not be ruled by it – that's freedom.
Yes, It's the 'freedom' to 'donate' unconsciously to the 'vampires'!As you've said, we've resolved the problem of identifying our differences, which is what discussion should be about.I regard 'turning off ideology in one's head' as a bourgeois myth, and that 'turning off one's chosen ideology' merely let's your socially-implanted one return to normal running. One reverts to 'willing-donation-mode'.As you say, you are now in a very personal state of 'freedom', the 'individual' allowed to 'run free' between their own ears.But, in reality, according to Marx's science, you're still a donator of value to the vampires, no matter what your 'free consciousness' is telling you.Perhaps that is your answer to the FT and TE question. They both insist that you can have 'freedom', now, in this society of donators.'Economics' does not highlight 'donating'. Marxism does.
LB: It's not bourgeois, it's pre-bourgeois, dating from at least 600BC, but probably long before that. I learnt it from Buddhists, but you can learn it from many places, including secular ones. And it is irrelevant to the question of whether or not you donate to the vampires. All workers have to donate to the vampires, regardless of what's going on between their ears.My point about the FT and Economist is not that they sing from the same hymn sheet as Marx. It is that someone who wants to learn about economics, including what Marx had to say about it, could get most everything they need to know from these publications. They don't need to do a three year course in Marxist 'science'.
stuart2112 wrote:My point about the FT and Economist is not that they sing from the same hymn sheet as Marx. It is that someone who wants to learn about economics, including what Marx had to say about it, could get most everything they need to know from these publications.But I've already shown that this isn't true, stuart.The most important thing to learn about 'economics' is the theft by vampires from victims.This is not mentioned in the FT or TE. Without that starting point, one can't understand economics.I'm defining 'economics' as the theft of wealth by a minority from the majority. I think that this is in line with Marx.If you wish to define 'economics' as something else, that's fine, but don't pretend that that is the same as the 'vampire/victim' relationship of exploitation.The FT and TE are not a source for 'economics'. They are a source for bourgeois mythology.I think that reading them is the source of your confusion about the capitalist economy. Put simply, they lie.If you're not a Communist, stuart, that's OK. The answers you get from the FT and TE will be determined by whichever ideology you use.It's just that you said you were confused, and I've been trying to help you understand why you are confused.If you don't accept my explanation, that's OK. But I think that if you just continue to read The Economist with your default ideology, you'll remain confused about 'economics'.
stuart2112 wrote:LB: It's not bourgeois, it's pre-bourgeois, dating from at least 600BC, but probably long before that. I learnt it from Buddhists, but you can learn it from many places, including secular ones.You're moving away from your original concerns with this post, stuart.If you regard yourself as an 'individual' (from any era), then we also differ on this, too.I'm not an 'individual', but a 'worker'.If you use your ideological concept of the 'individual' to inform your views about 'economics', they'll be very different from mine, which are informed by Marx's views about the exploitative relationship between bosses and workers.Bosses push the ideology of 'individualism' to help them hide the exploitation. We have to criticise this social and class brainwashing.
It seems, LB, that your ideology is preventing you from understanding my meaning, which is making you very confused! I've already told you that I am a communist – although to make such a big deal out it is more identity politics than anything else. As for the FT and Economist, you haven't grasped my point. But actually, even your point is wrong. Read enough issues and you'll find the concept of vampires discussed often enough – the term they usually use is "rentier".
And yes, I am an individual – a scientifically well established fact. Assuming I don't have an identical twin, I am genetically unique. I am a free agent. Anthropologically, I am also an individual, even if one that takes on a variety of roles: brother, partner, worker, friend, enemy, etc. "You are all individuals!""I'm not!"
stuart2112 wrote:I've already told you that I am a communist…Yeah, this is the source of my confusion! To me, one can either be an 'individual' or a 'Communist'!They are entirely different ideologies, and you seem to be mixing them up.
stuart2112 wrote:As for the FT and Economist, you haven't grasped my point. But actually, even your point is wrong. Read enough issues and you'll find the concept of vampires discussed often enough – the term they usually use is "rentier".I'm sure that they do use the term 'rentier'! But that is very different from putting a banner at the top of every front page, saying 'The owners are thieves', which they would have to do, to make plain their Communist views.I'm inclined to think that neither they nor you are 'grasping the point'!There is no 'objective' position of viewing the 'economy'. One must declare one's 'observation point'. To not do so, is unscientific. And if consciously hidden, deceitful.I'm inclined to think you are being deceived by the bourgeoisie. Some of them, anyway, if not the foolish and unwary at the FT and TE!
stuartw2112 wrote:And yes, I am an individual – a scientifically well established fact. Assuming I don't have an identical twin, I am genetically unique.You're making a common mistake by those influenced by bourgeois ideology, here, stuart, of mixing up a 'biological' category with a 'social' category. You're an 'individual' in the former, but not in the latter. The bourgeoisie always encourage this confusion, and it's widespread, even amongst Communists.
stuart2112 wrote:I am a free agent. Anthropologically, I am also an individual, even if one that takes on a variety of roles: brother, partner, worker, friend, enemy, etc. "You are all individuals!""I'm not!"You're closer to the truth, here. You're not an 'isolated individual', of bourgeois ideology, but, as you say, a 'brother, partner, worker, friend…'. And a 'victim', of an exploitative relationship with the vampires, as we all are.Funnily enough, Python really capture the irony of someone, in our society, claiming 'not to be an individual' as being the real individual in the crowd!I'm with the lonely scruffy get, at the back!
Sorry, but I think LB is doing such a lousy job at keeping up his end of the argument that I'm going to take it over. The reason, Stuart, that you think you can get everything you need from the FT, and can make some kind of critical sense of it, is because you have had such a thorough grounding in Marxism and socialism, thanks to the SPGB and your own efforts. Even if you are not always conscious of it, this provides a narrative framework, an ideology, a theory, through which you can observe the otherwise disconnected facts presented in the Economist, and make sense of them. This is what Marxism, and all science, provides – a story that makes sense of the facts. As time goes on, you're not even aware that it is a story – it's just "how things are", and it takes an effort of will and thinking and imagination to even begin to see things differently.To which I would say, yes LB, precisely, but sometimes we do need to see things differently if we are to learn anything new.
Well, stuart, at least we've had a discussion here; it makes a refreshing change!I'll leave it at that, and let other comrades draw their own conclusions from our comradely exchange.Thanks!
Thanks LB, I enjoyed it too. Don't think by the end we were really disagreeing about all that much, which is nice! All the best
stuartw2112 wrote:Sorry, but I think LB is doing such a lousy job at keeping up his end of the argument that I'm going to take it over. The reason, Stuart, that you think you can get everything you need from the FT, and can make some kind of critical sense of it, is because you have had such a thorough grounding in Marxism and socialism, thanks to the SPGB and your own efforts. Even if you are not always conscious of it, this provides a narrative framework, an ideology, a theory, through which you can observe the otherwise disconnected facts presented in the Economist, and make sense of them. This is what Marxism, and all science, provides – a story that makes sense of the facts. As time goes on, you're not even aware that it is a story – it's just "how things are", and it takes an effort of will and thinking and imagination to even begin to see things differently.To which I would say, yes LB, precisely, but sometimes we do need to see things differently if we are to learn anything new.Well I don't think anyone will disagree with much of that that. In fact you'll even be taught this in the borgoiuse university…The trouble is there's more to it.For starters the question remains when faced with competing 'stories' how do we go about choosing one of them.
"For starters the question remains when faced with competing 'stories' how do we go about choosing one of them."If Kuhn is right, you don't. You just wait till the last old fucker desperately clinging on to the old ideas is dead, and the new generation can take up the better ones.
stuartw2112 wrote:"For starters the question remains when faced with competing 'stories' how do we go about choosing one of them."If Kuhn is right, you don't. You just wait till the last old fucker desperately clinging on to the old ideas is dead, and the new generation can take up the better ones.Hmmm, not sure about that one.What is it that makes some theories better than other ones?
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