Dave B
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i There is also the market-value — of which later — to be distinguished from the individual value of particular commodities produced by different producers. The individual value of some of these commodities will be below their market-value (that is, less labour time is required for their production than expressed is the market value) while that of others will exceed the market-value. On the one hand, market-value is to be viewed as the average value of commodities produced in a single sphere, and, on the other, as the individual value of the commodities produced under average conditions of their respective sphere and forming the bulk of the products of that sphere. It is only in extraordinary combinations that commodities produced under the worst, or the most favourable, conditions regulate the market-value, which, in turn, forms the centre of fluctuation for market-prices. The latter, however, are the same for commodities of the same kind. If the ordinary demand is satisfied by the supply of commodities of average value, hence of a value midway between the two extremes, then the commodities whose individual value is below the market-value realise an extra surplus-value, or surplus-profit, while those, whose individual value exceeds the market-value, are unable to realise a portion of the surplus-value contained in them. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch10.htm
i I think it is important to look at and talk to the ‘deplorables’ who are part of this Corbynite phenomenon. A large proportion of them are poorly paid public sector health worker, students in debt, recipients of universal credit and all that kind of stuff. They are being disproportionately ‘economically’ screwed by the system. The benefits system was never very nice but as it was in the early 1980’s when I was on the dole for 3 years was luxury compared to what it is now. You have the bedroom tax which is very nasty, changes in the ‘welfare’ payment system for rents and all humiliating hoops you have do jump through to ‘demonstrate that you are actively looking for work under constant threat of sanctions. Forcing people to take temporary work of a few weeks and then having to go through the application procedure again with the inevitable delayed payments. And the stuff that flows from it like foodbanks and payday loaners etc. The film ‘I Daniel Blake’ covered what is the norm and familiar for a lot of people and not at all sensationalist hyperbole. And the stress associated with it. Clever bods like ourselves will know how to play it better but the ‘deplorables’ are really hacked off with it all. The ‘deplorables’ and ‘trailer trash’ don’t expect or believe that Corbynism can deliver a land of milk and honey. Even if they are politically ‘intellectually challenged’ by our high standards a lot of them have a refreshingly accurate understanding of capitalism and how it works, compared to the 1980’s; when you rarely even heard the word mentioned. For them they want to improve their economic position within capitalism. The standard avenue for that ‘for us’ ? Is trade unionism. For them they believe that is not available. So they are seeking an improvement in their economic position politically; out of desperation. For many of them the political state is their employer and for the others as with changes to the ‘welfare’ Department of Stealth and Social Insecurity system, the font of their misery. And also for many the political state are their employers. There is also a Michael Moore “F**k You” aspect to it which is an anglo saxon expression of class consciousness. The more the 1% hate it the more 99% like it. We need to address this kind of stuff and countering it with it isn’t socialism and capitalism is crap and there are limitations on how far you can take etc. Won’t work because they know that; it isn’t what they are saying or thinking.
i I have seen that quote before from several independent source and it varies slightly as you might expect; from a Russian to English translation? For instance I think one said it was in November 1918 at a central executive committee meeting. However it often cited in sources you might not have 100% confidence in and they lack a more precise source eg date and primary document etc. And it isn’t in the Lenin archive; which won’t be complete anyway. This is one of them Lenin made a statement in the Russian Cabinet in October of 1918, in which he said: "I am often accused of making this revolution with German money. I never denied it and do not now. But, on the other hand, I will make the same revolution in Germany with Russian money." (See Nesta Webster's "The Surrender of An Empire," pages 76-77.) not read that book to check to see if it has source
Chapter One: Commodities4. “The natural worth of anything consists in its fitness to supply the necessities, or serve the conveniencies of human life.” (John Locke, “Some Considerations on the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest, 1691,” in Works Edit. Lond., 1777, Vol. II., p. 28.)In English writers of the 17th century we frequently find “worth” in the sense of value in use, and “value” in the sense of exchange value. This is quite in accordance with the spirit of a language that likes to use a Teutonic word for the actual thing, and a Romance word for its reflexion. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
i The argument was or inferred by neo Leninists that they could have had communism in Russia in 1914 or whatever because it was a large economy or the 5th largest etc. And was thus not a backward country. That was not Lenin’s position incidentally around the time and somewhere he said Russia as regards economic backwardness was like that of China. Regarded as the baseline for economic under development etc. That was a bit of an exaggeration but not far off? The argument which was Lenin’s explicit own in his ‘Two tactics’ in 1905 was also Karl’s in 1874 were Bakunin also said you could have communism in Russia, thus. Works of Karl Marx 1874Conspectus of Bakunin’sStatism and Anarchy Schoolboy stupidity! A radical social revolution depends on certain definite historical conditions of economic development as its precondition. It is also only possible where with capitalist production the industrial proletariat occupies at least an important position among the mass of the people. ………………..But here Mr Bakunin's innermost thoughts emerge. He understands absolutely nothing about the social revolution, only its political phrases. Its economic conditions do not exist for him. As all hitherto existing economic forms, developed or undeveloped, involve the enslavement of the worker (whether in the form of wage-labourer, peasant etc.), he believes that a radical revolution is possible in all such forms alike. Still more! He wants the European social revolution, premised on the economic basis of capitalist production, to take place at the level of the Russian or Slavic agricultural and pastoral peoples, not to surpass this level […] The will, and not the economic conditions, is the foundation of his social revolution. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/04/bakunin-notes.htm Which is interesting because Karl seems to suggest the possibility of regional or European social revolution communism in 1874? Undoubtedly there were pockets of highly industrialised and thus developed/ productive manufacturing in Russia. Some of was as quality was equal to that in the West as it was modern and not so much internally developed but the result of large scale capital investment from abroad, or foreign ‘imperial’ investment. But taken generally it was ‘diluted’ down when looked at as whole when considering the ‘Russian Empire’. The or a metric if you like for the possibility a communist revolution is the productivity of labour power which is enhanced by the accumulation of increasingly productive capital which capitalism pursues vigorously albeit not with that end in mind. In 1914 Lenin and the Bolsheviks advocated and supported a bourgeois revolution and the development of capitalism in Russia as necessary apriori established pre condition for communism there. Thus; The economic development of Russia, as of the whole world, proceeds from feudalism to capitalism, and through large-scale, machine, capitalist production to socialism. Pipe-dreaming about a “different” way to socialism other than that which leads, through the further development of capitalism, through large-scale, machine, capitalist production, is, in Russia, characteristic either of the liberal gentlemen, or of the backward, petty proprietors (the petty bourgeoisie). These dreams, which still clog the brains of the Left Narodniks, merely reflect the backwardness (reactionary nature) and feebleness of the petty bourgeoisie. Class-conscious workers all over the world, Russia included, are becoming more and more convinced of the correctness of Marxism, for life itself is proving to them that only large-scale, machine production rouses the workers, enlightens and organises them, and creates the objective conditions for a mass movement.When Put Pravdy reaffirmed the well-known Marxist axiom that capitalism is progressive as compared with feudalism, and that the idea of checking the development of capitalism is a utopia, most absurd, reactionary, and harmful to the working people, Mr. N. Rakitnikov, the Left Narodnik (in Smelaya Mysl No. 7), accused Put Pravdy of having undertaken the “not very honourable task of putting a gloss upon the capitalist noose”. Anyone interested in Marxism and in the experience of the international working-class movement would do well to pander over this! One rarely meets with such amazing ignorance of Marxism as that displayed by Mr. N. Rakitnikov and the Left Narodniks, except perhaps among bourgeois economists. Can it be that Mr. Rakitnikov has not read Capital, or The Poverty of Philosophy, or The Communist Manifesto? If he has not, then it is pointless to talk about socialism. That will be a ridiculous waste of time. If he has read them, then he ought to know that the fundamental idea running through all Marx’s works, an idea which since Marx has been confirmed in all countries, is that capitalism is progressive as compared with feudalism. It is in this sense that Marx and all Marxists “put a gloss” (to use Rakitnikov’s clumsy and stupid expression) “upon the capitalist noose”! Only anarchists or petty-bourgeois, who do not under stand the conditions of historical development, can say: a feudal noose or a capitalist one—it makes no difference, for both are nooses! That means confining oneself to condemnation, and failing to understand the objective course of economic development. Condemnation means our subjective dissatisfaction. The objective course of feudalism’s evolution into capitalism enables millions of working people—thanks to the growth of cities, railways, large factories and the migration of workers—to escape from a condition of feudal torpor. Capitalism itself rouses and organises them.Both feudalism and capitalism oppress the workers and strive to keep them in ignorance. But feudalism can keep, and for centuries has kept, millions of peasants in a down trodden state (for example, in Russiafrom the ninth to the nineteenth century, in China for even more centuries). But capitalism cannot keep the workers in a state of immobility, torpor, downtroddenness and ignorance. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/jun/19.htm There is a secondary and correct ‘Marxist’ argument that people working collectively and thus in forced co-operation in the factory system provides the ‘cultural’ and ‘intellectual’ preconditions for communism? There is an early chapter in Volume one on it; you can take or leave it as with the other stuff. I am laying out ‘Marxist theory’ as I believe it is correctly interpreted rather than expressing my personal opinion on it. And?; This absurd idea boils down either to the hoary Narodnik theory that a bourgeois revolution runs counter to the interests of the proletariat, and that therefore we do not need bourgeois political liberty; or to anarchism, which rejects all participation of the proletariat in bourgeois politics, in a bourgeois revolution and in bourgeois parliamentarism. From the standpoint of theory, this idea disregards the elementary propositions of Marxism concerning the inevitability of capitalist development where commodity production exists. Marxism teaches that a society which is based on commodity production, and which has commercial intercourse with civilized capitalist nations, at a certain stage of its development, itself, inevitably takes the road of capitalism. Marxism has irrevocably broken with the ravings of the Narodniks and the anarchists to the effect that Russia, for instance, can avoid capitalist development, jump out of capitalism, or skip over it and proceed along some path other than the path of the class struggle on the basis and within the framework of this same capitalism. page 44 All these principles of Marxism have been proved and explained over and over again in minute detail in general and with regard to Russia in particular. And from these principles it follows that the idea of seeking salvation for the working class in anything save the further development of capitalism is reactionary. In countries like Russia, the working class suffers not so much from capitalism as from the insufficient development of capitalism. The working class is therefore decidedly interested in the broadest, freest and most rapid development of capitalism. The removal of all the remnants of the old order which are hampering the broad, free and rapid development of capitalism is of decided advantage to the working class. The bourgeois revolution is precisely a revolution that most resolutely sweeps away the survivals of the past, the remnants of serfdom (which include not only autocracy but monarchy as well) and most fully guarantees the broadest, freest and most rapid development of capitalism. That is why a bourgeois revolution is in the highest degree advantageous to the proletariat. A bourgeois revolution is absolutely necessary in the interests of the proletariat. http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/TT05.html#c6 Lenin in 1905 said introducing socialism in Russia like the SR’s and anarchists wanted to would result in failure and predicted that if social democrats {bolshevikss} went in for that they would make fools of themselves. On spontaneity etc he was probably having a pop at Trotsky’s permanent revolution which he completely dished in the middle of 1917; still. The Revolutionary-Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry This argument is based on a misconception; it confounds the democratic revolution with the socialist revolution, the struggle for the republic (including our entire minimum programme) with the struggle for socialism. If Social-Democracy sought to make the socialist revolution its immediate aim, it would assuredly discredit itself. It is precisely such vague and hazy ideas of our “Socialists—Revolutionaries” that Social-Democracy has always combated. For this reason Social-Democracy has constantly stressed the bourgeois nature of the impending revolution in Russia and insisted on a clear line of demarcation between the democratic minimum programme and the socialist maximum programme. Some Social-Democrats, who are inclined to yield to spontaneity, might forget all this in time of revolution, but not the Party as a whole. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/apr/12b.htm It is just ironic that he ended up adopting much of the theoretical ideas of the SR’s The historical gdp per capita data is here I think and you have play around with it to sort it from the top tags etc ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
iThis subject gets increasing complicated the more you go into it. Although GDP as a metric is flawed it has some value for general purposes of comparison. There is some interesting data on GDP per capital below. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita It is obviously skewed in places due to the actual technical Marx surplus profits available from increased profits that can be obtained from more productive mineral extraction due the reduced amount of labour required to extract it etc. Karl went into that fascinating topic under differential ground rent in volume III. I guess there is a skew in ‘finance’ as well. There is another set of ‘Mason’ Data looking at it more historically going back 100+ years. That we looked at or I presented on libcom a few years ago. It was due to the nonsense about Russia being the 5thlargest economy in the world in 1905 or whatever. Which wasn’t Lenin’s position as he took the position that Russia was one of the most backward. Which was closer to the truth when you looked at the per capita data as then Russia slid right down the scale on that; below Mexico for instance and not far off China. Tarriffs makes things even more complicated not to mention bounties where the state will pay exporters or subsidise the cost. When looking at tarrifs it is probably more interesting to look at commodities that can be produced by both the exporting and importing countries like sugar or beet sugar versus say cane from the ‘third world’. Thus I think the world spot price for sugar is 50%? of that of the ‘production’ price in Europe, northern Europe or the UK or whatever. Thus all other things being equal, which a big thus, you could argue perhaps that third world farmers labour power is 50% that of first world farmers? Sticking with food production for the moment several years ago there was a series of tv programmes by the BBC. They took ordinary UK workers and sent them off to work in typical third world food processing factories around the world, rather than just farms. As that was the subject which was more about do you know what goes into making your Kentucky fried chicken thing. I don’t think there was anything more politically subversive than that. Some of the third world factories were quite modern and capital intensive; I remember a chicken processing plant in somewhere like Thailand I think. And got them to live of the income or wages etc. The results were fairly predictable and the conclusions all too obvious; they were working a lot harder and longer for less. The only one that shaped up to any extent so happened to be young fit looking ‘white’male UK agricultural worker from Essex of all places. To make things even more complicated re tariffs as it has a ‘famous’ Manchester school precedent from the 1800’s. If raw materials and consumer products for the working class like coffee, sugar and bread or wheat are being sold at inflated prices due to tariffs sections of the capitalist class who aren’t interested in that kind of thing will have to pay their workers extra for them to be able to purchase it. And that will eat into their surplus value. Thus in the 1800’s the manufacturing capitalist complained that bread prices were inflated and that getting rid of it would lower the price of bread. And of course only being concerned about the workers they would have more money to spend on other stuff. The real idea according to Fred was the opportunity for the manufacturing class to cut wages to levels where the workers would just be able to buy the same amount of bread as before. And thus the manufacturing capitalist class could reap the benefit. The landowning class would be stunked but so what. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/07/09.htm This stuff can be quite important and relevant re the American civil and the bollocks about it being about slavery etc. Paul Craig Roberts did an interesting article on it recently. The North wanted to put tariffs on British manufacturing goods to force the Southerners to pay more for northern produced spades, finished textiles and furniture etc. The southerners didn’t like that idea very much and feared retaliatory tariffs on cotton from elsewhere etc so it was a lose, lose for them. The real metric for measuring value and the value of labour power is basically objectified subjective graft and effort. Time is just a convenient metric assuming everything else is equal. If someone is getting more stuff for their objectified subjective effort, like a computer programmer versus a taxi driver, then you switch, if you can. If everything else is OK then you get an equalising supply and demand effect in the labour power commodity market. That is what all this economic migration is about, a notion that first world unskilled, semi skilled or skilled workers are getting more for their objectified subjective effort than they are where they are. It works differently at different ends of the pay scale. If you take skilled computer programmers on 30K the capitalist class don’t like that very much as they are getting paid too much. So if look at some software house computer companies you see something somewhat unusual. Lots of people from outside the EU from all sorts of strange places like South America, non passport holding Pakistani’s and even Cuban’s. So will advertise a job for 30K that in the past UK programmers wouldn’t get out of bed for. In fact it was an insult and even on principle they would refuse to take it and go on a pay strike. And sit it out on their ill gotten £80 per hour contract savings for which they paid no income tax. They called themselves a company and paid themselves a minimum wage; so £70 per hour was the company profit subject only to the lesser capital gains tax. There were additional benefits to that if you decided to loaf about and do nothing for 6 months of the year. It has all gone pear shaped for them now importing eager third world workers who if they stick it out over here of 5 years can get a residency permit passport for first world wages. Some of them will stick it out just for that and their employers like it as well as if they walk they haven’t got long before they get kicked out; a couple of weeks I think. At the other end of the scale things are a bit different. So there is interest in driving down the price of expensive labour power. But there already a floor at the other end with the minimum wage. But they can increase the standard intensity of work for minimum wage work. That is what is hurting the low paid end of scale workers; what you are expected to do for your crappy £7 per hour as the youthful, energetic set that standard.
i I think it is an interesting topic I have thought about it before; not that I take the Lenninist super exploitation point of view. It starts to get very complicated the more you go into it. It is possibly more useful to start at first from the other side of Marx’s theory than value. And that is that labour power as concrete labour is sold as a commodity. And for the capitalist buy it at that; it is no more than a raw material to them. As Karl admitted the price of all commodities including concrete labour power or the ability to perform tasks fluctuate according to supply and demand. And thus they can theoretical be sold and bought at above or below their value. Thus if there is a high demand and under supply of computer programmers the price of their labour power will be that much higher. People like the highly paid computer programmers themselves might argue that they get paid more because they are more ‘skilled’. But actually the Marxist skill analysis only works when comparing a skilled bricklayer to an unskilled one ie comparing otherwise identical types of concrete labour. We are used to thinking of concrete mental labour as being more skilled to physical labour. And somehow or another mental labour is more skilled and useful than physical labour and thus ‘justifying’ a higher price. [There is grain of truth in that which I will go into in a bit.] However in the supply and demand market place for the commodity of concrete types of labour power this is a ‘illusion’ that can be shattered; apart from being intrinsically subjective. Like the concrete labour power of refuse collectors is ‘subjectively’ less useful than accountants or stockbrokers or for that matter computer programmers working in the finance industry which many of them do. Thus; The distinction between skilled and unskilled labour rests in part on pure illusion, or, to say the least, on distinctions that have long since ceased to be real, and that survive only by virtue of a traditional convention; in part on the helpless condition of some groups of the working-class, a condition that prevents them from exacting equally with the rest the value of their labour-power. Accidental circumstances here play so great a part, that these two forms of labour sometimes change places. Where, for instance, the physique of the working-class has deteriorated, and is, relatively speaking, exhausted, which is the case in all countries with a well developed capitalist production, the lower forms of labour, which demand great expenditure of muscle, are in general considered as skilled, compared with much more delicate forms of labour; the latter sink down to the level of unskilled labour. Take as an example the labour of a bricklayer, which in England occupies a much higher level than that of a damask-weaver. And?; https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm Secondly, because the necessary training, knowledge of commercial practices, languages, etc., is more and more rapidly, easily, universally and cheaply reproduced with the progress of science and public education the more the capitalist mode of production directs teaching methods, etc., towards practical purposes. The universality of public education enables capitalists to recruit such labourers from classes that formerly had no access to such trades and were accustomed to a lower standard of living. Moreover, this increases supply, and hence competition. How well this forecast of the fate of the commercial proletariat, written in 1865, has stood the test of time can be corroborated by hundreds of German clerks, who are trained in all commercial operations and acquainted with three or four languages, and offer their services in vain in London City at 25 shillings per week, which is far below the wages of a good machinist… https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch17.htm#2 The capitalist class who run the show do not operate on the ‘value’ perspective. As far as they are individually concerned they buy a collection of stuff including labour power at a lower price than they sell the output of it. Making a standard increment of profit. So I suppose if they are purchasing labour power at below its value and/or other raw material produced by other labour power that is also bought at below its value then the selling price of the final commodity will also be concomitantly sold at below its value. That is not to say they are making above the average rate of profit; which they are not. It is just at that point ‘rate of exploitation’ as in ‘rate of surplus value’ becomes delinked from rate of profit. The standard counter argument to super exploitation is that if workers were super exploited in a value sense the capitalist class employing them, according to a calculation based on labour power selling at its value, would make an above average rate of profit which could not be maintained. Looking at counter arguments to this you could say that ‘unskilled’ third world workers are performing socially unnecessary labour eg a peasant farmer producing rice and a waged agricultural worker using a combine harvester or something. Or a factory textile worker in Asia working with antiquated capital as opposed to a first world worker working with more advance machines. Perhaps or not requiring more ‘skill’ to operate. Again skill on its own is subjective. Thus Karl talked about artisan tailoring in volume IV versus machine and factory produced coats; although I think he talked about trousers for what it matters. In the economic transition the skilled artisan got ‘paid’ less for his labour power than the machine operators even though even subjectively the skill of the former was greater. But it was a socially unnecessary skill or concrete labour power? With the free movement of labour power which is a condition for Karl’s analysis the artisan taylor does have a ‘choice’ to give up his skills to work with more advanced capital and get a higher price for his labour power. However if he couldn’t do, or was prevented from that, that he would be locked into performing the socially unnecessary labour power of artisan tailoring. And be remunerated appropriately or in other words get paid less for his effort. You could argue perhaps that capitalism sectionalises or locates its crap capital or certain spheres of production in some places and its advanced stuff elsewhere for it own reasons. Thus geographically ‘socially unnecessary labour power’ is predominantly carried on in some places with is concomitantly lower prices for the labour power employed in it. Socially necessary labour power is a thorny problem when looked at in more detail as Karl examined in Volume III with his market price and market value etc. Thus if you invent a new machine or labour saving chemical process like making dyes that requires massive capital injection to employ. And as the necessary process of social-economic introduction has to be somewhat slow and staged. What is the socially necessary labour value of a commodity where 10% of it is being being produced at one hour per tonne and 90% of it at 10 hours per tonne? The capitalist solution to the problem is transparent. First of all they can afford to pay the workers using the better and more expensive machines more. But they are inclined to and can also afford to locate their expensive capital in politically safe and stable places with good infra structure and with established political ideology conducive to capitalisms idea of fair play*
And with other acceptable social infra structure or social capital like welfare systems, education, training, housing and healthcare to patch up and maintain socially necessary and trained labour power. It is possible to organise things so you only patch up and house socially necessary and trained labour power and weed out the rest. But they can come in all looking the same and jumbled up. And allocating kidney dialysis machines to the accountant and ten a penny refuse worker can be an administrative headache. And to make matters worse refuse workers are part of the infra structure for accountants etc. They can deal with that by playing the system as they find it or in other words trans nationally. However rarely you see the capitalist class having to deal with the problem intra nationally The Chinese state capitalism solved the problem in the 1980’s with the residency permit system preventing peasants coming into the cities taking advantage of the cotton wool looking after the ‘skilled’ workers infra structure. *This becomes particular more transparent when you see them looking at and investigating mineral extraction opportunities, which are unfortunately for them are in ‘unpleasant places’, and see how they evaluate them. When reading their stuff you see them salivating at the advantageous yields on ores etc and bemoaning the lack of infrastructure, political instability or their vulnerability to Mafia like extortion from the indigenous ruling class who don’t appreciate capitalist ethics. This isn’t ethnicist; or something worse. There was a recent study of 2ndand third generation skilled south east Asians from the UK who decided to go back to India to give something back to their mother country etc. Who were totally appalled by the amount of low level greasing of the wheels of bribery and corruption that was necessary to make stuff happen. Not that it doesn’t happen in the first world of course it is just that much more in your face. Where I work anybody who controls an external purchasing budget even if it is less than 50K has to go on a capitalist ethic non bribery course. It can be a real pain in the arse for the capitalist class who have to trust their ‘workers’ to be honest. A very senior accountant type manager in our place got sacked for recommending the purchase of a factory based on a book and going concern business value which was a piece of shit. Against the advice of a ‘spanners’ proper worker who went with him and said the place was pile of old shit; but he couldn’t talk the talk and didn’t have a degree in business management and probably wouldn’t have taken a payoff anyway. Things have changed a lot over the last twenty years in industry and it has been introduced into Law recently. There was a system operating 20 years ago where suppliers would send in Christmas gifts to the buyers and some of it was ok. And we would get a lorry load of goodies as well to send to our customers. Often it was directed at relatively low level people just to keep them sweet. Then they introduced a system in out place when this stuff continued to come in if not sent out. When it was pooled and distributed by lottery; after which it started to dry up.i For what it matters. I think the theory that JC wasn’t from Nazareth is possible. He could have been a nassorite or whatever like someone could be a Newtonian. And some bods not that familiar with stuff might interpreted than as from a place called Newton a found one. There is a massive problem with names of places eg Bombay and Mumbai and Peking and all the variants. It can obviously spill over into other things like the rope thing, which is a on the face of it a ‘Greek’ problem. It is interesting from a class analysis thing to sort of apologise for becoming a bit anal? Apparently the Georgian and Armenian versions all have rope as do the most of the Syriac ones? It is a special kind of rope by the way; a thick one used by sailors for anchor cables. But it might not have just been a Greek originated split as apparently Aramaic words for this kind of rope and camel are similar as they are in Arabic? Also switching to another argument it may have been an Aramaic pun as Camel ‘sounds’ a bit like vermin or louse/gnat. There is interest here as JC mentioned camels and gnats elsewhere when attacking organised religion as lackeys of the ruling class etc; Matthew 23:24 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You pay tithes of mint, dill, and cumin, but you have disregarded the weightier matters of the Law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24You blindguides!You strain outa gnatbutswallowa camel.25Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.… That would be an another example of several identified examples Aramaic puns in the JC material? So it starts to look like a bit of a very clever triple pun in Aramaic then with a camel like jumbo jet flying through a keyhole that is also a thick rope and vermin as well. Aramaic puns give it a bit of contemporary historical legs as opposed to the Greek creationist theory.I think Origen queried the camel thing in his commentary on Luke of Matthew? He could be OK Origen; he didn’t seem to like the census of Quirinus thing in Luke as if he realised it must be bollocks. Assuming JC babbled away in Aramaic which would be reasonable.
iI was vaguely aware of the Donaldson argument and counter arguments but still can’t remember them all properly. I have got a memory pro Donaldson person fraudently putting Nazarene in brackets in a Jospehus quote implying I think that when josephus was babbling about the Judaic sects he was referring to the Nazarenes. I remember it because when I read that I went oh shit I don’t remember that bit and went looking for the Joesphus quote and of course it wasn’t there. Lingustics and 1stcentury phonetics etc isn’t my bag really but it is conceivable to me that people were mixing things up them like we are now. Isn’t it even more of a problem in Hebrew as they don’t have vowels and we are talking about translating Hebrew words into greek? For instance, again this not my area, but JC was supposed to have been crucified on the mount of the skull or something or Golgotha or whatever? Some people I believe that it might have been a miss translation of a Hebrew phrase meaning execution hill? That just sounded like mount of the skull. Then there is there was it a camel or a rope that wasn’t going to pass through the eye of needle? They are similar in Greek or Hebrew I can’t remember. The Quran has rope I think; it is an old debate it was in 19thcentury novel by Trollop I think. There has been some recent developments on that. The old position was that there were no similar literary metaphors but it looks like some more have been found, including old testament ones. I had been a rope person myself but a camel was a relatively large object so it come be a jumbo jet flying through a keyhole thing. Camels were also regarded as animals who lacked a moral compass unlike smallercommunist sparrows. Can’t take the piss out of communist sparrows too much as I have done Arabian babblers myself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabian_babbler I think sparrows are bourgeois myself. It is of interest that our Salamis ‘Historian’ said Nazzareth was a (now) a village in 375AD. Actually in an interesting quote Celsus doe mention Nazareth in 180AD but he is obviously pulling that out of the gospel material that he has in front of him and isvery familiar with. He doesn’t dispute the existence of the place. Celsums point is more interesting in relation to the excellent point that Marcos made; which was the same. In other words the God in the old testament wasn’t a kind of accumulation of money and making a pile of dosh is shit kind of guy like his supposed son was. Origen goes onto to dodge the question by suggesting that the old testament shouldn’t be taken literally. ………….Celsus adds:"Will they not besides make this reflection? If the prophets of the God of the Jews foretold that he who should come into the world would be the Son of this same God, how could he command them through Moses to gather wealth, to extend their dominion, to fill the earth, to put their enemies of every age to the sword, and to destroy them utterly, which indeed he himself did–as Moses says–threatening them, moreover, that if they did not obey his commands, he would treat them as his avowed enemies; whilst, on the other hand, his Son, the man of Nazareth, promulgated laws quite opposed to these, declaring that no one can come to the Father who loves power, or riches, or glory; that men ought not to be more careful in providing food than the ravens; that they were to be less concerned about their raiment than the lilies; that to him who has given them one blow, they should offer to receive another? Whether is it Moses or Jesus who teaches falsely? Did the Father, when he sent Jesus, forget the commands which he had given to Moses?Or did he change his mind, condemn his own laws, and send forth a messenger with counter instructions?" ……….. Origen replies with; …Celsus, with all his boasts of universal knowledge, has here fallen into the most vulgar of errors, in supposing that in the law and the prophets there is not a meaning deeper than that afforded by a literal rendering of the words… Followed by a load of wriggling around. The idea of small villages not being mentioned anywhere else is normal; you only have to look at a OS map of Britian or the index of a road map to see how many of them there are; or watch timeteam. Not to mention no mention of Hadrians wall. There is also an important celebrated and potentially exaggerated concept in the gospel stuff about non entity low social class of JC himself. It is a bit like us boasting about our real working class roots for those that can. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo So locating JC as part of that as having been brought up in some insignificant back water rather than being a city boy could be looked at in that context. A bit like claiming you went to an inner city comprehensive and lived on a council estate. The political implications of that re the Jesus movement I will leave. The supposed royal line from David etc was possibly introduced later. Although the linking up JC to old testament prophesy was an integral part of the ‘proof’ that JC was the messiah. If you believe that part of the narrative you could argue that JC played up to that like his riding into Jerusalem on a mule etc. It wasn’t just the ‘Jews’ who liked some of the prophetic stuff in the old testament, the romans liked it as well in a Nostradamus kind of way. Thus Josephus, Vespasian’s poodle and post occupation Vichy France collaborator, claimed that Vespasian, who trashed Jerusalem, was the one prophesised in the old testament who would ‘emerge’ from Judea to be the new ruler of the world etc. More to do with being a toady than anything serious presumably. Hence the testimonian stuff by Josephus as we have is an obvious fraud. I think I agree with Roman’s general take on that and Eusebius is in the frame on that ‘interpolation’ as it seems to have Eusebian phraseology written into it. Also Origen said circa 240AD that Josephus didn’t believe JC was the Messiah. Origen clearly had a copy of Josephus’s stuff as he accurately quotes from it citing the correct chapters and books etc. Interpolation isn’t quite the same as fraud and tampering with text. They didn’t have a footnote system then and people when copying stuff down would helpfully provide additional information which was thus included into the text. Like the brackets nazzorean thing if that wasn’t a dream. I don’t think they had brackets either. I have done it myself with Lenin quotes, but with internet links. If we take pliny, philo and josesphus as read on the communist Essenes, that is a slam dunk on written history. Then we have the gospel stuff not ‘criticising’ and thus not mentioning the Essenes according to Roman.? There are two very strange passages in the gospel stuff one is on the ‘son’s of light in Luke I think that has exercised the minds of greater minds than my own. I couldn’t work it out at the time and internet access hasn’t helped much. And there is the Eunuch passage as well. Like JC is covering all the socio economic bases and starts to talk about Eunuch’s? And there is; Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. Matthew 5:15 The essenes were celibate and believed that they had secret knowledge and opposed the idea of taking it to the masses. Kautsky entered into the debate thus which I think is overlooked. Roman is actually not the first person to have dipped into this. There was a American intellectual bod who I think came from the US hutterite community who did it. He was called Friedman or something a read some of his stuff a while ago. Amongst other things he was pulling out or referring to early Christian and thus communist stuff that the Anabaptist claimed to have or ‘pseudo’ early church farther stuff. By the way I don’t think there should be a problem about throwing ‘unsubstantial shit’ around. Let it be washed out or not. I am winging a lot of this myself.
i I didn’t think Josephus mentioned the Nasoreans or Nazzoreans. There is some stuff on it that you take or leave in. The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis -A Treatise Against Eighty Sects circa AD375 5:3………….Seven Jewish sects as follows: Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, Hemerobaptists, Ossaeans, Nasaraeans, Herodians………. ……….Next I shall undertake the describe the sect after the Hemerobaptists, called the sect of the Nasaraeans…….. ……….the sect of Nasaraeans was before Christ and did not know Christ.6:2 But besides, as I have indicated, everyone called the Christians Nazoraeans…… ………In those days everyone called Christians this because of the city of Nazareth—there was no other usage of the name at the time. And so people gave the name of 'Nazoraeans' to believers in Christ, of whom it is written, 'because he shall be called a Nazoraean………..6:8 because of his upbringing in the city of Nazareth (now a village) in Joseph's home, after having been born in the flesh at Bethlehem, of the ever-virgin Mary, Joseph's betrothed. For Joseph had settled in Nazareth after leaving Bethlehem and taking up residence in Galilee. http://www.masseiana.org/panarion_bk1.htm#43. I suppose it is at least interesting as list of the many Christian sects in the 4thcentury? Including mary having sex with Joseph after giving birth to JC Jesus having been conceived naturally with Joseph; rather than a Roman soldier. Epiphanius opinion that James was the progeny of Joseph by a prior marriage etc. He also talks about an alleged book by Philo on the 'Jessaeans,' which he claims were Christians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutae "they are not waited on by slaves, because they deem any possession of servants whatever to be contrary to nature. For she has begotten all men alike free" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naassenes
Yes re Q it is pretty shit Tim. I suppose it is about matching stuff up in the gospel material and back tracking it to an original hypothetical document. Roman is a bit of a non tota scriptua document on this, So my little Christian on libcom became a redactionist, He decided he wanted to dump the gospel of John for its deviant Platonism; ; which is the best in my opinion. He is a bit of an old fashioned 4thcentury orthododox Christian when it comes to that kind of thing. He got quite upset by the women caught in adultery in John 8 which as I pointed to him was highly seditious in its political content. Although as new testament scholars have realised it was in fact probably pulled out of Luke as a bit too dangerous and slotted back into the more leftwing John Identified as Lukan as with his habit of using classic Greek future pluperfects mixed with split infinitives etc. It is a bit like seeing a Jayne Austen passage slotted into in a Phillip K Dick story apparently. Eusibius, who isn’t reliable, seems to suggest that there was some original ‘Georgdy’ type version of Matthew that people couldn’t work out properly. Not having vowels in badly spelt/written lumpen Hebrew wouldn’t help.
i There is a lot here. I think around 400AD Platonisn was purged from Christian orthodoxy for reasons that I won’t go into. Most of the early Christian intellectuals came from an intellectual Platonic background eg Justyn, Tertullian and Origen. That I also won’t go into. As is obvious most of the intellectuals came from the upper classes; as with the Bolsheviks. Thus we have to expect some kind of skew regarding what we have available on that basis. Although the raving Maoist nonsense in Revelation of John sensibly dated to 70AD by Fred amongst others might be closer to the mark. There were more wealthy supporters of the JC movement; you make the case that they tended to be women, in the gospel material anyway? Paul and maybe Marcion were exceptions as non Platonist although both of them were from the ruling class also. Roman is a Paulinist; and I am most definitely not. On Paul the supposed argument goes that he was a Jewish artisan tentmaker? And Paul claims quite unequivocally in Acts that he was by birth I think a citizen of Rome. Supported by his alleged mode of execution decapitation which was a mode of execution for the privileged that is somewhat cross referenced? This is a paradox for many reasons. Although it is possible I suppose for members of the ruling class to slide down the scale a bit and after having gone to Eton or Harrow or whatever for a good education ending up becoming a plasterer. One has to start from a sceptical position. As regards being a Jewish ‘citizen of Rome’ as well there similar parallels in modern British history re the catholic and Jewish emancipation acts eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_of_the_Jews_in_the_United_Kingdom But you can keep your head down on that kind of thing. So we are looking a suggestion or likelihood of a Jewish cobbler who has gone to Eton and Harvard being in the House of Lords in 1850. Paul went to a posh school and could or chose to write in excellent polished classical,non common, Greek. When JC was faced with the Roman imperial state or Pilate he did a bit of a F**k you rather than wriggled and squirmed; and got a good lashing for his impudence before a working class crucifixion. When Paul got into trouble with the Roman police he told them who do you think I am a ‘black lives matter’ ‘person of colour’ or something? Don’t mess with me you oink I am a member of the white ruling class. The Roman police officer who is a bit of a provincial low level bureaucrat realises his mistake and apologises profusely. I guess the accent and the dress Armani toga and shoes might have given the game away. Anyway Paul demands to go off to have a personal interview with the Emperor to explain himself. That would have probably been the Anti-Christ Nero although one can’t totally rule out Claudius who had recently married his Niece I suppose. Just as when Paul said one should obey the emperor as God put him there, in Romans was it?, It is just possible he was talking about Claudius. I think that Paul was a tentmaker in the same way as the Duke of Northumberland was a coal miner. He was probably supplying tents to the Roman army as part of the military industrial complex with slave labour no doubt. The attitude of the Roman ruling class to Judaism was complicated and changed; but I think having loads of lolly helped to grease the wheels. It was the same in South Africa with the petty bourgeois middle class Asians and special privileged attention to investing Japanese industrialists who didn’t like being insulted by such things. So in that sense being an ethnic Jew and a member of the imperial ruling class wasn’t totally exclusive. Roman totally ruins his otherwise interesting pamphlet with a load of ‘crap’ at the end about Paul the communist as well. Focusing on the his; “…who does not work shall not eat….” What is it in thesalonians is it; Jesus I am so sad! But not to worry as ‘we’ have it as well. It is Lenin’s State and Revolution. This is regarded as a classic text by the Bolsheviks, Roman, but we hate them like we hate Paul; Thus for interest; However, it persists as far as its other part is concerned; it persists in the capacity of regulator (determining factor) in the distribution of products and the allotment of labor among the members of society. The socialist principle, "He who does not work shall not eat", is already realized; the other socialist principle, "An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor", is also already realized. But this is not yet communism, and it does not yet abolish "bourgeois law", which gives unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products. This is a “defect”, says Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of communism; for if we are not to indulge in utopianism, we must not think that having overthrown capitalism people will at once learn to work for society without any rules of law. Besides, the abolition of capitalism does not immediately create the economic prerequisites for such a change.Now, there are no other rules than those of "bourgeois law". To this extent, therefore, there still remains the need for a state, which, while safeguarding the common ownership of the means of production, would safeguard equality in labor and in the distribution of products.The state withers away insofar as there are no longer any capitalists, any classes, and, consequently, no class can be suppressed. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm Lenin, spit, uses it several times I think this is another one from 1921; ….we are feeding many extra people, former government officials who have crept into Soviet agencies, bourgeois lying low, profiteers, etc. There must be a determined drive to sift out these superfluous mouths who are breaking the fundamental law: He who does not work shall not eat….. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/may/21.htm Trotsky used it as well somewhere. But he who does not work shall not eat was used by the 19thcentury British ruling modern Christian class, with their wages of supervision, against the able bodied work house poor. Lenin went onto say that the real workers were in the 1% Bolshevik supervisors of state capitalism, his analysis, and that the people who worked in factories were ‘casual elements’. There are non holy trinity Christians eg the Unitarians that incidentally also had a non conformist sympathetic to the working class position; I think Lizzy Gaskel came from that background ? With quite an impressive list of bods; like Darwin’s grandfather. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarianism On the Western orientated Marco Polo the dug a bod up from the 12thcentury recently in Tunbridge Wells or something equally stupid and somehow or other by DNA from his teeth or something decided to their satisfaction that he was ‘Chinese’. Some of the gem stones in the recent 6th century Staffordshire hoard came from and were unique to, according to the gravel monkeys, Sri Lanka. There has also been a total rethink on the Saxon German invasion myth and whimpy English Romano British Celts. From DNA analysis and isotope data on bones etc. As it looks like it happened pretty fast. And the clan oriented Saxons were in fact pseudo communists and the Romano British oppressed class preferred that and the general culture to what they were used to. Roman, like Bart Erham, says JC couldn’t have been communist Essene because they had ‘profound’ theological differences. Like they Christians don’t have ‘profound’ theological differences? That will do.
