Money free party
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“The message and methods of the Shitegeistery Penis Project is totally unacceptable. What the hell are you doing toadying up to these elitists? Fuck ’em. And the shitty Labour Party.”
Indeed, and I suspect those “toadying up” to the technocrats will be in their element with a 2020 Summer School topic on ‘Technology’.
https://groups.io/g/spintcom/topic/summer_school_2020/59777786
Indeed, and I suspect those “toadying up” to the technocrats will be in their element with a 2020 Summer School topic on ‘Technology’.
I cant quite see the logic of this. I voted for technology as the subject for discussion at the Summer School and there multiple aspects to this including the point that technology is never neutral in its impact on society and has negative as well as positive effects from a socialist point of view. In fact, there is a whole school of thought that focuses on how technology is structured in ways that reinforce and perpetuate existing power relations in society and thus takes , if any thing an anti technocratic stance. I hope this aspect of technology will be discussed as well as the potentially liberating aspects of technology which of course we must discuss as well (which does not mean falling back on some kind of crude technologically determinist view of the world)
So I, for one, think it was an excellent choice for a theme at Summer school and not before time. We have tended to neglect the subject and its many ramifications for too long
I agree that discussing technology does not imply an attitude, one way or another, to it. But I would hope that some sophisticated “technological determinism” will be part of any discussion since this was an element of Marx’s materialist conception of history.
As the basis of any human society is how its members are organised to produce what they need to survive and as the technology at their disposal will influence this, the particular technologies used will be part of what determines the other aspects of their social living. Of course social change occurs through class struggle, with a new class championing some new technological way of producing what is needed to survive against an entrenched class defending an outmoded method from which they benefit.
I have nothing against the views of any anti-technology “caveman tendency” , that seeks to attribute current problems to technology rather to than capitalism, being discussed either.
What age are you Kaz?
I ask because your style of posting makes me think it is coming from one of the Inbetweeners, in particular, Jay.
It might amuse some on the forum, but i’m not one. (but I’ve never been known for my sense of humour)
Meet the other side:
The Luddites of course weren’t anti-technology philosophers but independent producers defending themselves against competition from capitalist factory owners in the only way open to them.
The others are not our “fellow travellers” but people we pass on the road to socialism who are going back in the opposite direction. Who wants to toady up to them?
Our blog has a post on Luddism and also explains that they should not be portrayed as simply machine-breakers.
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2013/01/blood-for-blood-says-general-lud.html#more
“The Luddites were rebelling not against machines, but against ‘The Machine’ ”
But also as we recall General Ludd, we cannot neglect Captain Swing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Swing
Bookchin did a very effective demolition job on the deep green primitivists
“…people we pass on the road to socialism who are going back in the opposite direction….”
My concern, ALB, is that nobody is bothering to ask us for directions and when we plant our sign-posts indicating the right way to go, nobody is seeing them.
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