Paul Mason: a proper thread on his book
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Alan wants me to provide an answer to the problems workers face in Asia, and is righteously angry with everyone who doesn't agree with him. Well, that really is his whole problem in a nutshell. Maybe things are a bit more complex than that.
What Greece has learnt is that it cannot both write off its debt and stay in the eurozone. Not sailing through the strait was not an option for them. It's not an option for anyone – surely the moral of the story is that sometimes you have to choose between two evils whether you like it or not.
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YMS, not wrong – but an objective observation of how the world is and will be under captialism.Those ghost cities in China were not built by 3-d or robots but by human labour, if in a science lab they have built a house. Sure – prototype 3-d – stuff has hit the headlines…i recall the gun making the news…but certainly the day 3-d weapons replace the AK-47 isn't here. We have that solar powered airplane flying around the world, does that change things? I don't think so. War atrocity won't end with drones and so-called selective targetting. Hunger won't end with 3-d food, (nor with every field growing GMO) It may well be the case that the problem for capitalism is that it has outlived the capability of technological advances and development and may well purposefully slow down or retard its potential. But, it reached that point over a hundred and odd years ago. It is not a new problem. Robotics is increasing that is for sure. But is it contributing to a trend to make things free as the singularityists expect? I don't think so. It simply doing what machinery has always done since the 19th C. Nothing qualitative is changing ….Uber is another name for sub-contractors and even then, plenty of legal cases contest that claim and declare them employees. If Mason and others wish to study Elysium (and i dare say for all practical purposes it is already in existence for the 1% without the necessity of 3-d and nano tech) by all means but not at the expense of ignoring the reality of those who are still chained to wage-slavery and substituting a struggle-free evolution towards socialism to free us, just as not all of us will be in a caring sharing co-op where capitalists companies don't deem of sufficient importance or market necessary to compete with. When they do, just which of them go out of business?
How convenient, Stuart, that you entirely ignore a clear reference i made in a post to developments in the US of A. as part of my arguments. Not only do you pose your own question to answer but you now tell others what their questions are so that you can answer them (or casually dismiss them) Capitalism hasn't ended because the 9-5, 5-day contract has disappeared and replaced by zero-hour contracts…we'll text you when we want you…and fro tax purposes, consider yourself self-employed so we don't pay benefits…People only need to look at the labels on the clothes they wear and the goods around their house to understand that capitalism hasn't disappeared because the local factory got knocked down and made into a tech-park that is experimenting with 3-d and nano-technology. Capitalism merely moved location….and again this is not new…nor will it end…Asian manufacturers now look towards nations in Africa as their next new sweat-shops …once again i refer to our blogs.http://socialistbanner.blogspot.com/2015/07/search-for-ever-cheaper-labour-leads-to.htmlJust how many times do we need to be treated to intellectuals telling us the world has changed or is changing, when nothing of substance really changes, just outward appearances. Is what we now being lectured on much different from the Technocrats of the 30s.https://www.marxists.org/archive/novack/1934/12/utopia2.htmhttps://www.marxists.org/history/usa/unions/iww/1933/wiener.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/hardcastle/technocracy.htm Same old story in a new cover.
I read this and found it an interesting topic and not too far removed from the topichttps://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22730310-300-after-the-crash-can-biologists-fix-economics/No mention of class conflict…orthodox economics, oh , yes…but any other type…doesn't appear to exist…only the model they made up in their heads …
Quote:For would-be revolutionaries, it’s not just a question of whether economists should do biology. It’s about viewing the world through a different lens. It’s about basing economic modelling on what biology tells us about human behaviour – and how we can channel that into creating the outcomes we desire. What is the right balance between competition and cooperation? How should we value welfare? Can we pull together to solve global problems? How do we create a more equitable form of capitalism? These are daunting questions – but all revolutions have to start somewhere.my emphasisYup…lets not question capitalism existence…for sure, lets view the world from different angles…lets relate it to actual human behaviour…but lets make sure we discuss only how we can make capitalism niceLBird might well be right…science is not reality. It creates a false world so it can answer its own a prior questions and answers… bit like you, Stuart Now i'm becoming more anti-science as i am anti-intellectual because of this thread..
Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HMs0kkUvq8Paul Mason on the End of Capitalism and a debate over his views
This also may be of interest https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2015/07/21/paul-mason-and-postcapitalism-utopian-or-scientific/The comments are also worthy of read but a bit confluted in parts for my limited knowledge.
alanjjohnstone wrote:LBird might well be right…science is not reality. It creates a false world so it can answer its own a prior questions and answers… Now i'm becoming more anti-science as i am anti-intellectual because of this thread..It's important to realise that those espousing Marx's 'idealism-materialism' are not 'anti-science', alan.We have to define 'science' and its activities/methods in a different way to that of the bourgeoisie.So, we are pro-proletarian science, and we are anti-bourgeois science.You're correct to say that 'science creates the world' (human theory and practice), but it doesn't create a 'false world', but a world which 'makes sense' to the class that controls (and defines) 'science'.Clearly, our 'science' will understand the world in a different way to the bourgeoisie: one example of this science from the proletarian viewpoint is Marx's Capital. This critiques bourgeois ways of creating the world we live in, from a different class perspective.
Another article to read once the busy weekend is over. http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/07/24/reports-capitalisms-death-have-been-greatly-exaggeratedAs the video referred to, "post-capitalism" is to be treated as a holding term for …the transitional society ….and that is what most Trotskyists strive for and expect to happen…. so just how far forward has Mason pushed the debate? Not far from where he originally started from, it seems. And count how many times the word taxes is used in the positive manner by all the speakers to regulate this "not-capitalism but not socialism" system.Plus listen to the contradictory roles they all give the State…first it is the accomplice of the information monopolies then it is transformed into a nurturing State…And how vague is that panel upon how that change of the State's role takes place…Mason side-steps it even more than what Stuart thinks we in the SPGB do. Post-capitalism is not socialism and nor is it new in describing a world of potential abundance…Jeez…i'm sure these intellectuals all read Paul Lafargue so why the blinkers in claiming something fundamental has now changed.Will Mason's book be a tool for revolution…i doubt it. Capitalism does have a beginning, a middle and end as Mason suggests capitalism has ….but its end isn't the same for him as it is for us.I dare say all the media attention to Graeber and Piketty and Brand that has dissipated into the ether will be the fate of Mason's book…But before it does, i have no problem cherry-picking whatever is of value to our own case from his book and using it for socialism and against him.Hmmm???..i recall i was very iffy about Piketty, too, at the time, much to the annoyance of some. (The token prat from the Henry Jackson Society, his smarmy facial expressions simply wanted me to smash his face and my proletarian background reacted to that public school accent by wanting to rip out his tonsils…but i suppose as an intellectual i should respect him …no doubt he writes well …but does he mean well…!!!!)
Oh, i am sure some will say Mason's strategy is through all those self-help schemes…after all, he kept telling us about his visit to Greece and witnessing all those enthused young folk doing lots of imaginative stuff…Graeber gave us roughly the same narrative with his visit to Rojava …I suppose when necessity is the mother of invention many innovative initiatives are created……1917 war and famine in Russia made the workers committees…(not the soviets, they were started by the parties unlike 1905) …1919 saw city-wide general strikes with all the local services placed under the administration of the people, a civil war in Spain offered an opening for the syndicalists to implement workers councils…Likewise a Russian invasion in Hungary …Argentina's economic melt-down and absentee owners created the space for workers to take over to survive…..The insurgent Zapatistas resisting central government buildin a civic society based on their existing indigenous structures.So is it only if capitalism is doomed and in a death-throes that will bring people to applying alternative strategies of living and defending their standards but which will also offer socialists like us an opportunity of arguing for a non-exchange economy. Or will chaos and barbarism get there first? …"the mutual ruination of the contending classes"…
Another related optimistic video to watch is by Jeremy Rifkind https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=37&v=EW3pQ0IXAPo
YMS, i stand corrected, if this story is more than just promotional and is more practical.http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33656489
I see that tomorrow's Independent on Sunday is trailing an interview with Mason with these words:
Quote:Channel 4 firebrand tries to convince John Rentoul that bartering is the future.The future? More like the past. He's not going to convince us to go "back to barter"? How about forward to free access according to self-determined need? Sounds like his book should have been called Precapitalism but I'll suspend judgement till I've read it.
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