[Dave B]

As tings seem a bit quieter?  I suppose ‘I’ was interested in it from the perspective how familiar in some ways ‘slavery’ proper, as in ‘Roman times’ was to modern wage slavery. Where the main difference between slave commodity production and wage slave commodity production appears to be ‘just’ the absence of wage labour and (investment or surplus value or profit in) technology to enhance, or increase, productivity. I think Karl touched on this elsewhwere;  Capital Vol. III Part VITransformation of Surplus-Profit into Ground-RentChapter 47. Genesis of Capitalist Ground-Rent I. Introductory Remarks  Where the capitalist outlook prevails, as on American plantations, this entire surplus-value is regarded as profit; where neither the capitalist mode of production itself exists, nor the corresponding outlook has been transferred from capitalist countries. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch47.htm  Thus I think you could argue perhaps that in Roman slavery there was a ‘capitalist outlook’ as well which more obviously in this case hadn’t ‘been transferred from capitalist countries’. I think in southern slavery the ‘profit makers’ expanded production by re-investing their profit in the purchase of more slaves rather than renting them. Which was presumably more cost efficient than reducing the number of slaves required by the use of technology or non human capital. That was probably a reflection of the absence of that kind of technology and the relatively low cost of kidnapping some more and working them to death etc. The Southern slave owners weren’t just bastards but ‘enlightened’ businessmen. So much so that at one stage they had carefully calculated that it was more expensive to keep them in a condition in which on average they could survive seven years (I think it was) than pay to kidnap some more. As with the rest of Karl and Marxist economics in general it was understood that the agricultural sphere of production because of its nature was less ‘susceptible’ to the advantages of mechanisation and thus capitalism. Capitalism in the sense of buying machines with your profit. Hence they are still ploughing fields with buffalo today whereas the last type of non agricultural commodity production like ‘tailoring’ is now just about extinct. I think it also raises the profile of technology as a part of the development of capitalism. Although it is obviously a dialectical chicken and egg thing as well. Technology in the abstract initially provides opportunities to apply it; using profit to buy technology. And once got going provides incentives to develop technology etc etc. I think Chrysostom, as a prolific writer of the time with perhaps a leftwing perspective, is regarded as an important resource as regards an economic analysis of 4th century slavery.

[Dave B]

There is actually a really good and rare albeit long article on the slave economy of Roman times; which incidentally includes stuff on Chrysostom. I have provided some very random quotes It sounds anachronistically familiar. I think it is clear? That maybe agricultural production, which in itself dominated the overall economy, was slave based. However the situation of the urban economy was perhaps not as clear. Ie were the carpenters, shoe-makers, bakers and manufacturers slaves or self employed simple commodity producers and artisans etc? As in;  Now then, in that city of the affluent there will be no manufacturer, no builder, no carpenter, no shoe-maker, no baker, no husbandman , no brazier, no rope-maker, nor any other such trade. For who among the rich would ever choose to follow these crafts.  If we look at what limited stuff we have on the early Christians from the 2nd to 3rd century which isn’t much; say Didache and Contra Celsum it would seem that at least some of them were from the ‘petty bourgeois’ artisan part of the economy, as was JC and his fisherman and bar keep friends. In more modern history eg 19th century europe these kind of people could be politically very hostile to the rich and harbour various types of ‘communist’ sentiments.  Eg Proudhon and Wilhelm Weitling?  Chrysostom, whilst focussing rather too much on domestic slaves ( flunkies ) opposes the general thing and when it comes to the  ‘trade’ economy,  as in craft he seems to have had a more journeyman guild system economic perspective? Chrysostom (Hom. in 1 Cor. 40.5) Therefore, if it is in their aid, I ask you not to assign any of them in ministering to yourself, but when you have purchased them and have taught them trades whereby to support themselves, let them go free. But when you threaten them, when you put them in chains, it is no more a work of philanthropy.   

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 SLAVERY IN JOHN CHRYSOSTOM’S HOMILIES ON THE PAULINE EPISTLES AND HEBREWS:  A CULTURAL-HISTORICAL ANALYSIS   The development of agricultural slavery, as we will see, had direct consequences for urban slaveholding. Furthermore, these estates were meant to be profitable to the owners. If we again take account of the previous discussion related to Philodemus, a Greek writer within Italy (Herculaneum), we see that Philodemus reacts harshly to the conventional wisdom that these large villa-estates simply had to be profitable. The slaves were not only for farming. Since many of these landowners were part of the illustrious of the Roman Republic, many had escorts of slaves and freedmen for security and show. This context serves as the backdrop for the Roman statesman Cato the Elder’s work De agricultura. Unlike Philodemus, Cato’s advice on slave-management had in mind the generation of maximum profit with a minimum cost to the owner of the estate  Moreover, Plutarch gives an account of Cato loaning money to his slaves to purchase their own slaves, which they would train and sell at a profit.178 Accordingly, care and punishment of slaves should always be in the service of ensuring an environment that will provide maximum profit.179 We see here some very potent discourses of the objectification and commodification of the slave-body, The vilicus plays a very important role when it comes to slave-management.181 Since most of the estate-owners were absent from the supervision of daily activities, the vilicus became an increasingly important office, and the model vilicus may be considered as a key construct in Roman oikonomia.182 It was often possible that the vilicus was a slave.183 The Latin word actor may be used as a substitute, with the Greeks words ἐπίίτροπος,  πραγµματευτήής  and πιστικόός as possible equivalents.184 Most importantly, the vilicus is represented as a surrogate body for the owner.185 The construction of the Roman vilicus was, in the first instance, one related to economy. The sole purpose of the vilicus was to ensure profit for the estate,186 but there were also several very important additional duties.187 As seen above, his conduct in relation to slaves should be productive. Cato even explains the punishment of the slaves by the vilicus in terms of scales and measures – the punishment should be equal to the fault. It is not so much a matter of fairness than it is one of balancing the socio-economic books. All relations with slaves should be directed at optimum productivity. He also believes in manipulating the bodily desires and passions to make slaves productive.194 Sick slaves should have their rations limited (Agr. 2.4), and if it rained slaves could have done numerous other tasks, even if it is simply mending their own apparel (Agr. 2.3). As mentioned above, when discussing rationing, Cato is again painfully specific and detailed regarding their diet, which is a high-carbohydrate diet with little protein, fruits and vegetables (Agr. 56-59).195 For instance, the chained gangs of slaves working in the fields receive specific rations which are dependent on the season and types of field-work they perform: ‘The chain-gang should have a ration of four pounds of bread through the winter, increasing to five when they begin to work the vines, and dropping back to four when the figs ripen’ (Agr. 56).196 Similar specifics are given regarding wine, even regarding feasts such as the Saturnalia and Compitalia (Agr. 57). Clothing and blankets are also strictly regulated (Agr. 59). These precise guidelines for rationing not only shows the importance and intricacy of accounting on these estates, but the exact regulations regarding the provision for bodily needs also ramify the authority-based hierarchical taxonomy, and illustrate its complexity. http://repository.up.ac.za/dspace/handle/2263/25563

[Dave B]

Well I have said before that Christianity was originally communist. And I will go even further now and say it was Marxist with a class analysis as with John Chrysostom. Who was no minor Christian bod.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chrysostom  first translation with (…Marxist inserts..)   John Chrysostom on The Rich and The Poor”From Homily XXXIV on I Corinthians 13: 8  And that thou mayest see it more clearly, let us suppose, if it seem good, two cities, (…classes….) the one of rich only, but the other of poor;  and neither in that (…city/ruling class..) of the rich  let there be any poor man,  nor in that of the poor (…city/working class..) any rich; (…that is simple enough?…)  but let us purge out both thoroughly (..and do an economic analysis..),  and see which will be the more able to support itself. For if we find that of the poor able (..working class..), it is evident that the rich will more stand in need of them. ( …the ruling class depend on the working class to make stuff for them…) Now then, in that city of the affluent (…ruling class..) there will be no manufacturer, no builder, no carpenter, no shoe-maker, no baker, no husbandman , no brazier, no rope-maker, nor any other such trade.(…yeah, yeah we got it the ruling class don’t make stuff…)  For who among the rich would ever choose to follow these crafts, ( …or work for a living..)seeing that the very men who take them in hand, when they become rich, endure no longer the discomfort caused by these works? (.. this is just a very reasonable simple commodity producing analysis for the time re the petty bourgeois becoming capitalists etc….)  How then shall this our city stand? “The rich,” it is replied, “giving money, will buy these things of the poor.”(…the ruling capitalist class will buy what they need for their own consumption from the working class..) Well then, they will not be sufficient for themselves, their needing the others proves that. But how will they build houses? Will they purchase this too? But the nature of things cannot admit this. Therefore they must needs invite the artificers thither, and destroy the law, which we made at first when we were founding the city. (….And Chrysostom’s own two classes/cities analogy, he confesses, breaks down as the two classes or cities have to necessarily coexist together; good!….) For you remember, that we said, “let there be no poor man within it.”But, lo, necessity, even against our will, hath invited and brought them in. Whence it is evident that it is impossible without poor for a city ( …ruling class…) to subsist: since if the city were to continue refusing to admit any of these, it will be no longer a city but will perish. Plainly then it will not support itself, unless it shall collect the poor as a kind of preservers, to be within itself.(..the capitalist class cannot survive without the exploited working class..) But let us look also upon the city of the poor, whether this too will be in a like needy condition, on being deprived of the rich.( …a social system without the capitalist ruling class??????????…..)  And first let us in our discourse thoroughly clear the nature of riches, and point them out plainly. What then may riches be? Gold, and silver (..money..), and precious stones, and garments silken, purple, and embroidered with gold. (…capitalist bling…)  Now then that we have seen what riches are, let us drive them away from our city of the poor (…working class..):     and if we are to make it purely a city (..social system..) of poor persons (..working class…),  (and) let not any gold (..money, blah blah..) appear there, no not in a dream, nor garments of such quality; and if you will, neither silver, nor vessels of silver. What then? (…..then this bit is really interesting, I think, what happens in a working class proletarian society without money and capitalist bling…)   Because of this will that (..working class.. ) city and its concerns live in want, tell me? Not at all. For suppose first there should be need to build; one does not want gold and silver (….money?…. )  and pearls, but skill, and hands, and hands not of any kind, but such as are become callous, and fingers hardened, and great strength,(..working class.. )  and wood, and stones: suppose again one would weave a garment, neither here have we need of gold and silver (…money..) , but, as before, of hands and skill, and women to work. (…hat tip at last to the girls…) And what if one require husbandry, and digging the ground? Is it rich men(..capitalist class..) who are wanted, or poor(..working class, including women.. )  It is evident to every one, poor (..working class men and women…. ) And when iron too is to be wrought, or any such thing to be done, this (..working class.. ) is the race of men whereof we most stand in need. What respect then remains wherein we may stand in need of the rich? except the thing required be, to pull down this city.(…revolution, get rid of the capitalist class and their bling?…)  For should that sort of people make an entrance, and these philosophers, for (for I call them philosophers, who seek after nothing superfluous,) should fall to desiring gold and jewels, giving themselves up to idleness and luxury; they will ruin everything from that day forward.   Other ‘standard’ translation; http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/220134.htm   I think that was pretty damn good for circa AD 380 if nothing else, Throw the baby out with the bath water if you must.  

[Dave B]

Thanks Adam Just before I went out for a curry I wrote the following but decided not to post it but did save it to word.  

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 There seems to be conflation of for me two different kinds of truth. Social ‘scientific’ truth that isn’t scientific in my opinion. And the so called scientific truths of pure science that doesn’t exist in the opinion of most pure scientists who don’t believe in truth. A lot of science is based on collecting data and trying to make sense of it or coming up with a logical explanation. A very simple example would be observing that ice cream consumption increases with temperature; or that there is a correlation implying a cause and effect. You could choose that eating ice cream increases temperature. Or an increase of temperature increases ice cream consumption. You could actually test the first hypothesis and if it worked we could solve the global warming crisis; which is the point of science. Ie determining or discovering laws of cause and effect and using it to predict an influence effects. Scientific Laws are in fact just formal mathematical expressions of empirically observed facts, evidence, data etc. A scientific theory or plausible logical explanation is just that; ie not the truth. But if it works then use it. We don’t give a shit if the theory is true really. If you take a scientific theory you sort of must question whether or not it is general or eternal universal ‘truth’, if you like, or whether or not it is just an artefact of a specific set of narrow empirical observations, data. If the theory is a general or eternal universal ‘truth’ then it will continue to operate in ‘applicable’ conditions outside of those from which it was derived. The Newtonian ‘theory’ of gravity failed that test and was displaced by the Einstein theory. They actually knew fairly early on that Newton’s theory was imperfect due to anomalies in the orbit of Mercury. Bad science is a result of fraudulent data or the undue or premature application and predictions therefof  of an untested theory. Sometimes it is not easy to test a theory properly, like global warming, as kind of experiment that might be perilous to perform? 

[Dave B]

Going back to post 49 and The idea (of Karl) of 1845 that somehow or another “democracy” or the equal laws of suffrage was automatically. synonymous with communism It is perhaps understandable in a way if you take a narrower view of communism as a sigh for a more equal distribution of societies blessings and of a levelling spirit. As that was indeed the position of the ruling classes themselves even in 1787 America even without its feudal heritage and its still preponderance of ‘self employed’ simple commodity production etc.  Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 by James Madison It ought, finally, to occur to a people deliberating on a government for themselves, that as different interests necessarily result from the liberty meant to be secured, the major interest might, under sudden impulses, be tempted to commit injustice on the minority. In all civilized countries the people fall into different classes, having a real or supposed difference of interests. There will be creditors and debtors; farmers, merchants, and manufacturers. There will be, particularly, the distinction of rich and poor. It was true, as had been observed (by Mr. PINCKNEY), we had not among us those hereditary distinctions of rank which were a great source of the contests in the ancient governments, as well as the modern States of Europe; nor those extremes of wealth or poverty, which characterize the latter. We cannot, however, be regarded, even at this time, as one homogeneous mass, in which every thing that affects a part will affect in the same manner the whole. In framing a system which we wish to last for ages, we should not lose sight of the changes which ages will produce. An increase of population will of necessity increase the proportion of those who will labor under all the hardships of life, and secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings. These may in time outnumber those who are placed above the feelings of indigence. According to the equal laws of suffrage, the power will slide into the hands of the former. No agrarian attempts have yet been made in this country; but symptoms of a levelling spirit, as we have understood, have sufficiently appeared in a certain quarter, to give notice of the future danger.   http://teachingamericanhistory.org/convention/debates/0626-2/

[Dave B]

 this is a bit more modern i think? Frederick Engels, Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the StateChapter IX: Barbarism and Civilization  …………And lastly the possessing class rules directly by means of universal suffrage. As long as the oppressed class – in our case, therefore, the proletariat – is not yet ripe for its self-liberation, so long will it, in its majority, recognize the existing order of society as the only possible one and remain politically the tall of the capitalist class, its extreme left wing. But in the measure in which it matures towards its self-emancipation, in the same measure it constitutes itself as its own party and votes for its own representatives, not those of the capitalists. Universal suffrage is thus the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It cannot and never will be anything more in the modern state; but that is enough. On the day when the thermometer of universal suffrage shows boiling-point among the workers, they as well as the capitalists will know where they stand.  The state, therefore, has not existed from all eternity. There have been societies which have managed without it, which had no notion of the state or state power. At a definite stage of economic development, which necessarily involved the cleavage of society into classes, the state became a necessity because of this cleavage. We are now rapidly approaching a stage in the development of production at which the existence of these classes has not only ceased to be a necessity, but becomes a positive hindrance to production. They will fall as inevitably as they once arose. The state inevitably falls with them. The society which organizes production anew on the basis of free and equal association of the producers will put the whole state machinery where it will then belong – into the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze ax. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch09.htm

[Dave B]

I think as is often with this kind of thing the most interesting stuff after the waffle is at the end although it is worth a read for some of the quotes. The idea of 1845 that somehow or another “democracy” was automatically synonymous with communism. Eg Works of Frederick Engels 1845The Festival of Nations in London(To celebrate the Establishment of the French Republic, Sep 22, 1792)[1]  Democracy nowadays is communism. Any other democracy can only still, exist in the heads of theoretical visionaries who are not concerned with real events, in whose view it is not the men and the circumstances that develop the principles but the principles develop of themselves. Democracy has become the proletarian principle, the principle of the masses. The masses may be more or less clear about this, the only correct meaning of democracy, but all have at least an obscure feeling that social equality of rights is implicit in democracy. The democratic masses can be safely included in any calculation of the strength of the communist forces. And if the proletarian parties of the different nations unite they will be quite right to inscribe the word “Democracy” on their banners, since, except for those who do not count, all European democrats in 1846 are more or less Communists at heart. http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/marx/works/1845/12/01.htm Was not exactly the same, I think, as the one in 1894 letter to Turati, which became seminal in the Menshevik-bolshevik debate. As many of the letters were they were an excuse for a to be published article.   https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/letters/94_01_26.htm  Which I think flowed from Karls more emphasised stagiest position of 1874. 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. And if it is to have any chance of victory, it must be able to do immediately as much for the peasants as the French bourgeoisie, mutatis mutandis, did in its revolution for the French peasants of that time. A fine idea, that the rule of labour involves the subjugation of land labour! 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 that is supposed to be a bit of a; Discuss! Kind of post.

[Dave B]

Karl and Fred had been non democratic Marxists The idea was simple and familiar enough in other political discourses, on the right and the left.  The masses were too stupid to fully understand what was and was not good for them good for them; and to properly implement any solutions by being directly involved in the (democratic) decision making processes. A position that a proportion of the masses can accept. But Karl and Fred  realised they had been wrong and for any solutions to work the masses had fully understand what was going on and act on it for themselves. Thus as below with Fred talking about the assumed good, honest and sincere communist leaders really acting in the interests of the majority etc etc.  The Class Struggles In France Introduction by Frederick Engels, 1895   Was not this just the situation in which a revolution had to succeed, led certainly by a minority, but this time not in the interests of the minority, but in the real interests of the majority? If, in all the longer revolutionary periods, it was so easy to win the great masses of the people by the merely plausible and delusive views of the minorities thrusting themselves forward, how could they be less susceptible to ideas which were the truest reflex of their economic position, which were nothing but the clear, comprehensible expression of their needs, of needs not yet understood by themselves, but only vaguely felt? To be sure, this revolutionary mood of the masses had almost always, and usually very speedily, given way to lassitude or even to a revulsion to its opposite, so soon as illusion evaporated and disappointment set in. But here it was not a question of delusive views, but of giving effect to the very special interests of the great majority itself, interests, which at that time were certainly by no means clear to this great majority, but which must soon enough become clear in the course of giving practical effect to them, by their convincing obviousness   …………………………………………History has proved us, and all who thought like us wrong …………………..  ………The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses, is past. Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for [with body and soul]. The history of the last fifty years has taught us that. But in order that the masses may understand what is to be done, long, persistent work is required, and it is just this work which we are now pursuing, and with a success which drives the enemy to despair………. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm Lenin reverted back to the position Karl and Fred had abandoned. Thus;  V. I. Lenin Speech Delivered At A Joint Meeting Of Communist Delegates To The Eighth Congress Of Soviets, Communist Members Of The All-Russia Central Council Of Trade Unions And Communist Members Of The Moscow City Council Of Trade Unions December 30, 1920   . But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class. The whole is like an arrangement of cogwheels. Such is the basic mechanism of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and of the essentials of transition from capitalism to communism.  http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/30.htm

[Dave B]

it worked !I will never remember that

[Dave B]

The conservatives accused the labour government of doctrinaire socialism in 1951; so perhaps it was a response to that. I really don’t know. 

Dave B wrote:

The attempt to impose a doctrinaire Socialism upon an Island which has grown great and famous by free enterprise has inflicted serious injury upon our strength and prosperity. Nationalisation has proved itself a failure which has resulted in heavy losses to the taxpayer or the consumer, or both. It has not given general satisfaction to the wage-earners in the nationalised industries. It has impaired the relations of the Trade Unions with their members. In more than one nationalised industry the wage-earners are ill-content with the change from the private employers, with whom they could negotiate on equal terms through the Trade Unions, to the all-powerful and remote officials in Whitehall.

 http://www.conservativemanifesto.com/1951/1951-conservative-manifesto.shtml

[Dave B]

Uhh?????????????

[Dave B]

how do you make quotes appear in nice boxes.a dummies guide

[Dave B]

I think actually Lenin was ‘theoretically’ principled and he knew what communism was. And I still think this is one of the best one side of a post card definitions of communism around.  V. I. Lenin, From the Destruction of the Old Social System, To the Creation of the New   Communist labour in the narrower and stricter sense of the term is labour performed gratis for the benefit of society, labour performed not as a definite duty, not for the purpose of obtaining a right to certain products, not according to previously established and legally fixed quotas, but voluntary labour, irrespective of quotas;  it is labour performed without expectation of reward, without reward as a condition, labour performed because it has become a habit to work for the common good, and because of a conscious realisation (that has become a habit) of the necessity of working for the common good—labour as the requirement of a healthy organism. It must be clear to everybody that we, i.e., our society, our social system, are still a very long way from the application of this form of labour on a broad, really mass scale.  But the very fact that this question has been raised, and raised both by the whole of the advanced proletariat (the Communist Party and the trade unions) and by the state authorities, is a step in this direction.  http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/apr/11.htm  He also knew you couldn’t go from feudalism to communism without going through capitalism. And so didn’t, and introduced state capitalism, calling a spade a spade to give him credit. And flat footing Kautsky who had advocated, albeit democratic, imaginary gold money state capitalism, but daren’t call it by its less than sweet scented name.  The only thing Lenin went against what he had formerly said was when he went into a provisional revolutionary government to run capitalism. The Bolshevik regime was just the last provisional revolutionary government that just dragged on for a bit. V. I.  LeninThe Revolutionary-Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry[2  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. The adherents of this erroneous view make an idol of spontaneity in their belief that the march of events will compel the Social-Democratic Party in such a position to set about achieving the socialist revolution, despite itself.  http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/apr/12b.htm  Background was that the Mensheviks in 1905 were against going into a transitional revolutionary government and running capitalism before elections for the inevitably capitalist orientated constituent assembly. The Bolsheviks were up for it. The Mensheviks said that the Bolsheviks had a power mad psychological problem and once they got into power they would like it to much and end up running capitalism and ‘disgracing’ themselves, The Menshevik Fydor Dan (who in the 1930’s became a theoretical Trotskyist) remembered it well enough and quoted it He translated Lenin as disgrace rather than discredit as we have it.

[Dave B]

I think the close relations of the Saudi’s with Israel is bit of old news really and has being going on for a while. And it looks like it all change again elsewhere. Erdogan Apologizes At the end of June, Erdogan apologized to President Vladimir Putin for the death of a Russian pilot who was killed when Turkey downed a bomber flying over Syrian territory last November. The shootdown prompted Putin to break off relations with Ankara ending all communication between the two countries. Then, in the last week of June, Erdogan sent a letter to Putin “expressing his deep sympathy and condolences to the relatives of the deceased Russian pilot.” He added that Russia was “a friend and a strategic partner” with whom the Turkish authorities would not want to spoil relations.” (The Turkish pilots who shot down the Russian Su-24 have since been arrested and charged as members of the Gulenist coup.) http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45150.htm I think to understand this kind of stuff properly one always has to get the DVD of the Godfather out again.  How about this from former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal.  Money corrupts everything, and it is capitalism that turns everything into a commodity that is bought and sold. In capitalist regimes everything is for sale: honor, integrity, justice, truth.Everything is reduced to the filthy lucre.???????????? http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45181.htm  

[Dave B]

Rubin for discussion re blue suede shoes and goose etc which I did 10 years agon on the old forum before I had even heard of his name.  However, S. Frank does not ask what the content of the production expenditure is for the simple commodity producer, if it is not the labor spent on the production. For the simple commodity producer, the difference in the conditions of production in two different branches appear as different conditions for the engagement of labor in them. In a simple commodity economy, the exchange of 10 hours of labor in one branch of production, for example shoemaking, for the product of 8 hours of labor in another branch, for example clothing production, necessarily leads (if the shoemaker and clothesmaker are equally qualified) to different advantages of production in the two branches, and to the transfer of labor from shoemaking to clothing production. Assuming complete mobility of labor in the commodity economy, every more or less significant difference in the advantage of production generates a tendency for the transfer of labor from the less advantageous branch of production to the more advantageous. This tendency remains until the less advantageous branch is confronted by a direct threat of economic collapse and finds it impossible to continue production because of unfavorable conditions for the sale of its products on the market.  In conditions of simple commodity production, equal advantage of production in different branches presupposes an exchange of commodities which is proportional to the quantities of labor expended on their production.  this whole chain of phenomena, which was not adequately examined by Marx's critics and was elucidated by Marx's theory of value, refers equally to a simple commodity economy and to a capitalist economy. But the quantitative side of value also interested Marx, if it was related to the function of value as regulator of the distribution of labor. The quantitative proportions in which things exchange are expressions of the law of proportional distribution of social labor. Labor value and price of production are different manifestations of the same law of distribution of labor in conditions of simple commodity production and in the capitalist society. [9]The equilibrium and the allocation of labor are the basis of value and its changes both in the simple commodity economy and in the capitalist economy. This is the meaning of Marx's theory of "labor" value.  http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/ch11.htm

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