[Dave B]

The quantity of social labour contained in a product need not then be established in a roundabout way;……………..[it] could therefore never occur to it still to express the quantities of labour put into the products, quantities which it will then know directly and in their absolute amounts, in a third product,…… Ie money. Or imaginary gold money as Kautsky put it later. My definition of the value of something is the amount of effort required to make it. What is yours? If you want to go back to the argument that as soon as something that isn’t obvious and ceases to produce a [platonic] phenomena eg exchange value that does makes an impact on your sense perceptions then it no longer exists. With it not being ‘written on its forehead’. And when you close your eyes your laptop disappears well so be it. I think people are missing my point on measuring value in communism a bit although I am sympathetic to the idea a bit. It is merely to illustrate a theoretical point to understand what I think Karl was on about in chapter one.   Actually the idea that chapter one is about private labour simple commodity production (‘self employed’ ) and the primordial division of labour where ‘wage labour as a category’ has no existence is more obvious in the first version of chapter one eg ……Now as far as concerns the amount of value, we note that the private labours which are plied independently of one another (but because they are members of the primordial division of labour are dependent upon one another) on all sides are constantly reduced to their socially proportional measure by the fact that in the accidental and perpetually shifting exchange relationships of their products the labour-time which is socially necessary for their production forcibly obtrudes itself as a regulating natural-law, just as the law of gravity does, for…. And also the first version of the Robinson allegory of value;  …….and our Robinson who saved watch, diary, ink and pen from the shipwreck begins to keep a set of books about himself like a good Englishman. His inventory contains a list of the objects of use which he possesses, of the various operations which are required for their production, and finally of the labour-time which particular quanta of these various products cost him on the average. All relationships between Robinson and the things which form his self-made wealth are here so simple and transparent that even Mr. Wirth can understand them …(in your dreams) …. without particular mental exertion. And nevertheless all essential determinations of value are contained therein.  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/commodity.htm  And; Thus, the Marxian law of value has general economic validity for a period lasting from the beginning of exchange, which transforms products into commodities, down to the 15th century of the present era. But the exchange of commodities dates from a time before all written history — which in Egypt goes back to at least 2500 B.C., and perhaps 5000 B.C., and in Babylon to 4000 B.C., perhaps to 6000 B.C.; thus, the law of value has prevailed during a period of from five to seven thousand years. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/supp.htm#law

[Dave B]

To add the following 15As long ago as 1844 I stated that the above-mentioned balancing of useful effects and expenditure of labour on making decisions concerning production was all that would be left, in a communist society, of the politico-economic concept of value. (Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, p. 95) The scientific justification for this statement, however, as can be seen, was made possible only by Marx's Capital. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/notes.htm  And the Emile Burns translation; 15As long ago as 1844 I stated that the above-mentioned balancing of useful effects and expenditure of labour on making decisions concerning production was all that would be left, in a communist society, of the concept of value as it appears in political ecomomy (Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, p. 95) The scientific justification for this statement, however, as can be seen, was made possible only by Marx's Capital  There are a few points here I think. For Robbo  I would expand on Fred; With balancing of useful effects and expenditure of labour on making decisions concerning personal consumption. As regard how hard it is it is very easy and takes about 15 minutes to calculate how much labour time we add to the raw material to produce a litre of juice. It was about 6 seconds I think last time I did it. I am on the production plan circulation list so I know what is being produced so I can check it and know how many people work on site and nearly all of them are productive workers. Another guy I know worked in milk packing his number was 7 seconds or something unbelievably similar. In capitalism, say, labour time expresses itself in exchange value. The social system or social relations of capitalism whatever act on labour time value and the EFFECT is exchange value. In Karl’s analysis of capitalism he works back from the consequence to unravel the cause, as we all do. The social relations of communism could act on labour time value in communism in a different way the EFFECT being to minimise the value of everything?; which is something capitalism also does by a slightly different mechanism. Minimising the value of everything is no small part of what capitalism does.   The other thing is a bit deeper and that is value being ‘real’ or a concept. Concept being what otherwise would be called a scientific abstraction or as Fuerbach might have it a scientific object. Or in other word this kind of stuff about chapter one commodities being material envelopes that contain expended, past tense, human effort. Fred in 1844 was far less ambiguous about what communism re his thing on the moneyless shaker communes etc. There are arguments in the scientific community related to this kind of thing like do imaginary numbers represent anything real and is gravity a force re Einstien. I am actually not that bothered much one or another to what extent if at all we will measure value in free access communism and whether value will express itself at all. With it just disappearing like Bishop Berkely’s furniture does when he leaves the room. I am just using it as an illustration on the substance of value.

[Dave B]

Capital Vol. III Part VIIRevenues and their SourcesChapter 49. Concerning the Analysis of the Process of Production   Secondly, after the abolition of the capitalist mode of production, but still retaining social production, the determination of value continues to prevail in the sense that the regulation of labour-time and the distribution of social labour among the various production groups, ultimately the book-keeping encompassing all this, become more essential than ever.  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch49.htm   OK from my perspective. I propose that Karl was using an old Greek logic analysis, that also has its place in science. It goes something like this. The generalisation If two things are equal in some way or another, then there must be something about them that is the same, identical. When two things are equal it automatically pre-supposes that they are being measured in some way or another. It is probably easier to start with the weights as an analogy; and one Karl used with his sugar loaf and block of iron. What is happening in reality is that ‘gravity’ is acting on something, a ‘substance’, in the sugar loaf and in the iron. That same identical (“third”) substance (“common to both”) is present in equal amounts in the sugar loaf and the iron. Gravity doesn’t see a sugar loaf and the iron all it recognises or acts on is the substance of mass which is identical and the same in both and present in the same amounts in both. We can’t see the (at first) baryonic matter eg the (two types) protons and neutrons in the iron and sugar but they are there and there in the same amount. If you bothered to count them up. We have moved on now to higgs bosuns. Actually this logical proposition ignores at first what the measuring device is or how it works. We can think about that later when we discover what the common substance is. So lets go back to Karl in chapter one volume 1 ……….wheat, x blacking, y silk, z gold, &c., must, as exchange values, be replaceable by each other, or equal to each other. Therefore, first: the valid exchange values of a given commodity express something equal; secondly, exchange value, generally, is only the mode of expression, the phenomenal form, of something contained in it, yet distinguishable from it.  Let us take two commodities, e.g., corn and iron. The proportions in which they are exchangeable, whatever those proportions may be, can always be represented by an equation in which a given quantity of corn is equated to some quantity of iron: e.g., 1 quarter corn = x cwt. iron. What does this equation tell us? It tells us that in two different things – in 1 quarter of corn and x cwt. of iron, there exists in equal quantities something common to both. The two things must therefore be equal to a third, which in itself is neither the one nor the other. Each of them, so far as it is exchange value, must therefore be reducible to this third. …………   https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm   and …….……………In fact we started from exchange value, or the exchange relation of commodities, in order to get at the value that lies hidden behind it. We must now return to this form under which value first appeared to us.   The amount of effort or work expended on something exists independently of whether or not it is measured ‘directly’ or in the market place or even if we know or aware about it or it influences human activity or not. Of course I have this debate before in a long running thread on libcom. And there is a bishop Berkley counter argument that if we are not aware of it doesn’t exist and Neptune didn’t exist in 1533 or whatever. Labour time value manifests itself in exchange most simply in simple commodity production where it is even obvious to the participants exchanging an equal amount of my effort for an equal amount of someone else’s. I can rummage about for the Rubin quote if required. It is fairly simple really in simple commodity production and capitalism the exchange value system is ‘accurately’, like the ‘true born Briton Robinson’ decided to do, measuring something , imperfectly mostly; human effort or value. In agricultural, feudalism because of the nature of its system- which we can go into if required- stuff didn’t exchange at its value. However that did’t mean that value and even suplus value didn’t exist.   ……….But this identity of surplus-value with unpaid labour of others need not be analysed here because it still exists in its visible, palpable form, since the labour of the direct producer for himself is still separated in space and time from his labour for the landlord and the latter appears directly in the brutal form of enforced labour for a third person………..  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch47.htm as for Robbo SNLT was required to bat away some daft objections and more importantly to deal with the fact that the analysis required to look at the whole thing in terms of it being dynamic rather as a static one. I am not suggesting accurately measuring the value of products. Just enough to allow us to understand how much effort has gone into making one thing versus another so we can consume responsibly. I think will stop there as I am sure it will run on.

[Dave B]

Ok The value of something is the amount of human effort that has been expended to produce it; for convenience measured in labour time. At this point whether you accept that or not or whatever it is a definition, predicate, premise blah blah. What you can’t or shouldn’t do, or if you do you get yourself in a mess is start with a definition, predicate, premise blah blah and start messing around with it later on. So then if idealistically, from a formal logical proposition etc; if the (‘substance’) of the value of something is the amount of human effort that has been expended to produce it then; in feudalism, simple commodity production, capitalism, communism and Robinson Crusoe on his non social Island of one, things that are produced have value. Karl and Marx also said they did, and would, and had. This is hard for some of us, particularly value in communism; Fred covered that part of it in Ante Durhring, under socialism theoretical. And I think it is illustrative of the conceptual problem. In my communism I want the amount of human effort required to make everything, it’s value, in the free access store recorded and displayed on the label. [Just like you get nutritional information you get on food products. Which, as part of my game, is notoriously systematically inaccurate and is in fact only a guideline.] Why? Because I don’t want to be consuming gold toilet seats which whilst, it might not be a problem now for me now because I can’t afford them. Could otherwise become a problem for third generation socialists who don’t have our helpful market price system to give us any indication of what things are ‘worth’ or their value. You see my stupid proletarian factory farther used to tell me to look after stuff because a load of work had gone into making stuff; which for me hit home more than its price, which was all a bit confusing at the time. Anyway the scientific Greek logic? If two things are equal (In exchange value), then for whatever reason, it is because something about them is the same.

[Dave B]

I am linking two seminal passages from Karl below. I think the general idea is that prices do vary according to supply and demand, but as our marketers are always telling us they are always gravitating towards an ‘equilibrium’. But how and why by what force? The answer using the labour theory of value is not only simple but it is also an answer. When demand exceeds supply you can sell it at above its labour time value and make a bigger than average profit. And when supply exceeds demand you have sell it at below its labour time value and make a below the average rate of profit. It is simpler to see directly and first in simple commodity production as Rubin laid out somewhere but I will use my own example. If I am a artisan in a village making new fangled and popular  blue suede shoes I can sell the product of my 20 hours of labour for what most people have to work 40 hours for [making their own commodities and selling it] The goose egg market in the same village for example might be over supplied and the goose herders have to work 60 hours. Some goose herders change profession and turn their hand to blue suede shoe making driving down the remuneration for blue suede shoe making; and increasing the remuneration for goose egg production for the ones that stick with it. Until a price equilibrium is reached until what can be got for 40 hours worth of blue suede shoes is the same as what can be got for 40 hours worth of goose eggs. The same thing works in capitalism except all capitalist insist on getting on getting 50 hours worth of stuff for 40 hours of paid labour or whatever.  And as far as workers are concerned selling their own only commodity, labour power, lorry drivers become computer programmers etc.   Value, Price and ProfitVI. Value and Labour  So far the market price of a commodity coincides with its value. On the other hand, the oscillations of market prices, rising now over, sinking now under the value or natural price, depend upon the fluctuations of supply and demand. The deviations of market prices from values are continual, but as Adam Smith says: “The natural price is the central price to which the prices of commodities are continually gravitating. Different accidents may sometimes keep them suspended a good deal above it, and sometimes force them down even somewhat below it. But whatever may be the obstacles which hinder them from settling in this center of repose and continuance, they are constantly tending towards it.” I cannot now sift this matter. It suffices to say the if supply and demand equilibrate each other, the market prices of commodities will correspond with their natural prices, that is to say with their values, as determined by the respective quantities of labour required for their production. But supply and demand must constantly tend to equilibrate each other, although they do so only by compensating one fluctuation by another, a rise by a fall, and vice versa. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ch02.htm    Capital Vol. III Part IIConversion of Profit into Average ProfitChapter 10. Equalisation of the General Rate of Profit Through Competition.Market-Prices and Market-Values. Surplus-Profit  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch10.htm  Actually in capitalism it can get even more complicated as what happens when a new fangled labour saving method of making something springs into existence. If 5% of the stuff is being made by the new method and 95% by the old what is the real socially necessary labour time to make something in the inevitably slow transition period from one general method to the other? He dealt with that elsewhere in Volume III as the market [labour time] value I think. 

[Dave B]

 Hi Robbo is the evil of equality stalin thing this one do you suppose? This Doc  is quite and important one for Stalin Watchers I think J. V. Stalin NEW CONDITIONS — NEW TASKSIN ECONOMIC CONSTRUCTIONSpeech Deliveredat a Conference of Economic Executives,June 23, 1931Pravda, No. 183,July 5, 1931From J. V. Stalin, Problems of Leninism,Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1976pp. 532-59.Based on J. V. Stalin, Works,Foreign Languages Publishing House,Moscow, 1955Vol. 13, pp. 53-82.  …………..In order to put an end to this evil we must abolish wage equalization and discard the old wage scales. In order to put an end to this evil we must draw up wage scales that will take page 538 into account the difference between skilled and unskilled labour, between heavy and light work. We cannot tolerate a situation where a rolling-mill worker in the iron and steel industry earns no more than a sweeper. We cannot tolerate a situation where a locomotive driver earns only as much as a copying clerk. Marx and Lenin said that the difference between skilled and unskilled labour would exist even under socialism, even after classes had been abolished; that only under communism would this difference disappear and that, consequently, even under socialism "wages" must be paid according to work performed and not according to needs. But the equalitarians among our economic executives and trade-union officials do not agree with this and believe that under our Soviet system this difference has already disappeared. Who is right, Marx and Lenin or the equalitarians? It must be assumed that it is Marx and Lenin who are right. But it follows from this that whoever draws up wage scales on the "principle" of wage equalization, without taking into account the difference between skilled and unskilled labour, breaks with Marxism, breaks with Leninism.     In every branch of industry, in every factory, in every shop, there is a leading group of more or less skilled workers who first and foremost must be retained if we really want to ensure a constant labour force in the factories. These leading groups of workers are the principal link in production. By retaining them in the factory, in the shop, we can retain the whole labour force and radically prevent the fluidity of manpower. But how can we retain them in the factories? We can retain them only by promoting them to higher positions, by raising the level of their wages, by introducing a system of wages that will give the worker his due according to qualification. page 539      And what does promoting them to higher positions and raising their wage level mean, what can it lead to as far as unskilled workers are concerned? It means, apart from everything else, opening up prospects for the unskilled worker and giving him an incentive to rise higher, to rise to the category of a skilled worker…………..  http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/NCNT31.html

[Dave B]

 there is a easy 10 minute youtube clip of corbyn's on 'socialism' if it hasn't already been put up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZvAvNJL-gE

[Dave B]

Fred in 1872, presumably with Karl’s agreement, withdrew important elements of the communist manifesto; Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today. In view of the gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848, and of the accompanying improved and extended organization of…….. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/preface.htm When it comes to this kind of thing I think there is a really important issue for them in 1872 even that is often overlooked whether you agree with it or not. I can provide supporting quotations for it if required. Then for them the actual capitalist class where a functioning capitalist class. By that they meant they played an important ‘technical’ role in capitalist production and where 'working' on site in their mills and factories etc. There were also more of them. Karl and Fred  saw correctly that increasingly in manufacturing their technical roles would be increasingly taken over by salaried workers with the expansion of large enterprises and joint stock companies etc. As they were lazy gits and they became fewer their capitals or factories would become too large for them to run for themselves even if they wanted to. Actually state capitalism and nationalisation offered another potential fast track route to that situation. Now we are in the situation where much of the capitalist class are purely the finance capitalists or even just shareholders. They probably have no clear idea of what they even own, where it is or what it does. There is thus no longer a necessity  to physically take it over from the personal owners who are unlikely to fly in on their Lear jets with baseball bats; and it just requires a political/legal  act to transfer ownership and prevent their state goons from stopping the workers cutting of the source of their ill gotten surplus value.

[Dave B]

Lenin, and Stalin had also supported the idea of bourgious revolutions as progressive in Russia eg in his seminal two tactics pamphlet.  But it is entirely absurd to think that a bourgeois revolution does not express the interests of the proletariat at all. 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 civilised 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. 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 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. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/tactics/ch06.htm  %5BThe Mensheviks were in fact, contrary to what the lying Leninist tell us, took a dim view of over egging that pro capitalist argument too much] A position he supported unreservedly right through to 1916, opposing the position of the left SRS and anarchists of attempting some-kind of ‘socialist’ revolution.  Published: Trudovaya Pravda No. 19, June 19, 1914. Published according to the text in Trudovaya Pravda.Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1972, Moscow, Volume 20, pages 372-374.Translated: Bernard Isaacs and The Late Joe FinebergTranscriptionMarkup: R. Cymbala   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,[1]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 Russia from 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.The centuries of feudalism were centuries of torpor for the working people.The decades of capitalism have roused millions of wage-workers.Your failure to understand this, gentlemen of the Left Narodnik fraternity, shows that you do not understand a thing about socialism, or that you are converting socialism from a struggle of millions engendered by objective conditions into a benevolent old gentleman’s fairy-tale!To advocate the slightest restriction of the freedom to mobilise allotment land actually amounts to becoming a reactionary, an abettor of the feudalists.Restriction of the freedom to mobilise allotment land retards economic development, hinders the formation, growth, awakening and organisation of the wage-worker class, worsens the conditions of the workers and peasants, and increases the influence of the feudalists.The Peshekhonovs and Rakitnikovs are in fact abettors of precisely these “categories”, when they advocate restriction of the freedom to mobilise peasant land http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/jun/19.htm  The Bolsheviks through most of 1917 supported the convocation of the constituent assembly, right up to the eve of the October coup. In fact the initial excuse that was given, in a speech by Trotsky as it happens, was to guarantee the elections. Which he ended with “long live the constituent assembly”. ‘–……… We appeal to the people: Long live an immediate, honourable democratic peace, all power to the Soviets. All land to the people, long live the Constituent Assembly!’  All the Bolsheviks stood up and walked out of the assembly hall to the accompaniment of shouts ‘Go to your German trains!’ http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1989/trotsky1/15-towards.html Lenin in 1917 had gone on the run basically to avoid being interviewed about allegations of German funding of the Bolshevik party. [Recently established as fact after the discovery and publication of German foreign office documents in 1950.] He had said he would only do so under the auspices of a government elected by the constituent assembly.   In the never ending irony the Bolsheviks at the end of 1917 essential adopted the SR and mainstream anarchist position. Alexander Berkman for instance had said that the Bolsheviks Russian state capitalism was a historic necessity.  I think Karl would have supported a united states of Europe in the same way as he supported the unification of Germany I seem to remember. I think from a Marxist theoretical position having a United States of Europe or even for that matter a united states of the world would simply the tasks of the conquest of political power as it would lessen? the problem of uneven economic development and the rolling piecemeal capturing of political power etc. And as I said in an argument with a Brexit SWP hack; better having all the capitalist governments in one bucket. We are supposed to be internationalist so you would thing we should think the dissolution nation states as something ‘progressive’. I actually didn’t vote.  FYI Lenin on the united states of Europe. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/aug/23.htm

[Dave B]

I think ‘original’ or perhaps ‘spontaneous’ religions emerge as 'justifications' for what its adherents ‘want’ to do. Why they want to do one thing or another might come later, as it should, in the analysis. In psychoanalysis as well as in psychology [there are in fact subtle nuanced differences] it is called, as a technical term, ‘rationalisation’ it basically means that you select they way you think about things, from a shopping list of ideas, that fits in conveniently with your wants, desires or even material necessities. An example might be people who like driving around in big cars preferring to think that all this global warming stuff is a load of fanny and a conspiracy of lying self serving scientists etc etc. Because otherwise it is a criticism of their decadent consumerism; to put my eco warrior bicycling spin on it.    It is in fact just finding a good excuse or ‘other reason’ than the real one for what you want to do. For it to occur generally the real reason you want to do something has to be socially unacceptable or ‘not normal’ eg ‘immoral’, otherwise you wouldn’t need an ‘excuse’ or to create an alternative reason. Thus WMD for invading Iraq and bombing Syria for democracy etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalization_(psychology) The idea has been kicking around for a long time and is replete in good fictional literature eg from Jane Austen to George Elliot. There has been some interesting hard science done on it recently with brain scan stuff and there was some stuff on it on Radio 4 a few weeks ago.   A rationalisation that is conscious is just a lie of course; people often are reluctant to admit to themselves that they are lying. Even though you can rationalise lying. Doing it because that’s what God wants and he is on your side is always a good one. And for a long time that was the prevailing or preferred system of rationalising attitudes and ideology. Which is why details of religious ideologies can be interesting reflections of historical political and economic material conditions etc and why I am really interested in it.  It is not God that made man in his own image, it was men that made God(s) as an image of their own state of mind, value systems, wants desires and needs etc. It was the subject matter of Fuerbachs ‘Essence of Christianity’; the Essence being what it probably was originally. A religion of the oppressed ‘working class’ where God hated the rich and their lackeys in the organised religion of the day. Who else would believe in something like that apart from the poor labouring class? Actually originally in early Christianity, and the gospel stuff, God wasn’t formally omnipotent. Luke 4;5 The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7 If you worship me, it will all be yours.”   There are several other examples; and that was obvious to a critic of Christianity circa 170AD eg Celsus, if it isn’t obvious to moderns like ourselves. This what Celsus said for example whilst casting derogatory rational aspersions as to the likelihood of an omnipotent God appearing as someone like JC ; “Jesus had come from a village in Judea, and was the son of a poor Jewess who gained her living by the work of her own hands[.. I think it was said weaving cloth somewhere else in the same document..] His mother had been turned out of doors by her husband, who was a carpenter by trade, on being convicted of adultery [with a soldier named Panthéra (i.32)]. Being thus driven away by her husband, and wandering about in disgrace, she gave birth to Jesus, a bastard. Jesus, on account of his poverty, was hired out to go to Egypt. While there he acquired certain (magical) powers which Egyptians pride themselves on possessing. He returned home highly elated at possessing these powers, and on the strength of them gave himself out to be a god.” Re ‘Egyptian magic’ Celsum, being a relative materialist for his time was referring to Darren Brown type stuff of which ‘he’ and the Christian Origen were quite familiar with.  The theological idea that God had left the ‘good’ to hang out to dry and put the world in charge of Satan and his helpers probably emerged in the so called “Jewish Apocalyptic theology” that meshed in neatly with the idea that God and Jesus were working class communists; and Satanic ‘capitalism’. As the Roman empire and their ideological systems, that were an anathema to Jewish culture, became more obviously materially successful, something had to give. And thus Satan was theologically promoted from a mischievous imp to a mover and shaker.   The central point is that it is the belief system of the, in that case, the imperially oppressed. It persisted in Europe until the cathars; no prizes for guessing what happened to them. The good Godwas the God of the New Testamentand the creator of the spiritual realm, contrasted with the evil Old TestamentGod—the creator of the physical world whom many Cathars, and particularly their persecutors, identified as Satan. All visible matter, including the human body, was created by this evil god; it was therefore tainted with sin. This was the antithesis to the monotheistic Catholic Church, whose fundamental principle was that there was only one God, who created all things visible and invisible.[9]Cathars thought human spiritswere the genderless spirits of angelstrapped within the physical creation of the evil god……..  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharism

[Dave B]

eg? http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44997.htm

[Dave B]

Well things are heating up a bit re hacked Hillary’s Emails. This could turn into a fascinating soap opera. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-36695722  Apparently she has ‘lost’ a load of them because they were ‘deleted’; but the Russians say that they could help out there because they already have them along with Wikileaks. The private social meeting, with drinks, of husband Bill with the Attorney General on private Lear Jets after bumping into each other in a VIP lounge is factual apparently, exposed by gobshite leftists? There is also a allegation of a rape of a 13 year old girl against Trump running around the media mill that will probably end up having enough legs to run into the election.

[Dave B]

I think it was only a matter of time before the labour mps or PLP organised a rebellion. The issue for them might be the threat of de-selection which may come to a head soon with new boundary changes. Hilary is one of those in the crosshairs. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/mar/06/mark-serwotka-make-it-easier-to-deselect-blairite-mps

[Dave B]

I think xennophobia is too simplistic. I got the impression from talking to 'them' that many “UK” workers operating in the low wage economy were getting pissed off with “eastern Europeans” taking jobs. But even that is more complicated as it wasn’t so much taking jobs and lowering of wages per se; but the driving down the working conditions in that sector. All this split shift, agency work, zero hour contracts and the general increase in the intensity of labour stuff. It isn’t even just the so called “eastern Europeans” it’s the often young energetic and often quite well educated Portuguese and Spanish with the appropriate energy and middleclass work ethic etc. It shouldn’t be that hard to understand, and I realise that English is the international language etc ; but how many fluent bilingual UK council estate workers are working in Portugal cleaning toilets on £7 an hour doing 6-9am and 5-8pm? Or doing care work , serving in bars and restaurants, shops, checkout tills at Lidl; or in the grey economy driving taxis clearing £100 for a 60 hour week? A lot of this will be superficially beneath the radar for a lot of us middleclass skilled workers on this forum, maybe; when it comes to bars and restaurants, shops, checkout tills at Lidl. But it doesn’t take much to watch what is going on. Our contact with these kind of people is often admittedly brief and transient; but could you as a 35+ something keep that up for 10 hours a day?  The service sector often involves human contact and taking on board all the shit associated with it. Given that, it is a bit of a dumbass question to ask why a pretty, young, educated and fluent in English Polish workers are waiting on tables in a Manchester curry house of all places? We I think as privileged western aspirational middleclass workers like our own domestic workers to be presentable and don’t want to be served by the likes of the Royle family; much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Royle_Family I have no illusions about the general vulnerable intellect of the unskilled section of the UK working class. But I think ‘xenophobia’ can be a consequence of ‘genuine’ economic ‘material’ concerns.    I hope that will stir the pot a bit.

[Dave B]

There was an intriguing case in China until very recently where there were restrictions placed on workers coming in from the rest of China into the industrial areas. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-02/15/content_19597767.htm Although not particularly discussed in that article; the concern of the industrial capitalists in the cities was ‘overburdening’ the social welfare, education and superior healthcare systems etc in place there that were important for the maintenance of a ‘superior’ workforce. And even housing. These are similar kind of issues that can be raised by certain sections of various  national capitalist classes, as well as workers. But I suppose it is interesting as in China it was looked at from intra rather than inter ‘state’ perspective. I don’t think it is always the simplistic case that the capitalist class just want to pay their workers as little as possible. I think forward thinking capitalist can realise that a straightforward race to the bottom on wages. Driven by a lowering of the market price for wage labour by an influx of migrant labour is not in the long term always profitable idea or in the interests of a national capitalist class. I suppose the seminal example being the poor state of English military recruits for the Boer War? Robert Owen was considered a genius by the capitalist class, as for them, he had discovered the economic phenomena of the cost-benefit of raising the productivity of workers by paying them more than you had to. The ‘philanthropic’ Quaker capitalists were equally ‘accidentally’ successful. Although you could argue that by offering higher wages one could easily recruit the cream of the working class avoiding the ones that  “…. waste his wages on spirits, etc……….” Perhaps the way you can look at a basic income depends on which end of the spectrum of wage labour one is looking at? At the lower end it might look like the state topping up the wages of unskilled labour. And in that sense it is not much different to the Speenhamland system.    ………The system allowed employers, including farmers and the nascent industrialists of the town, to pay below subsistence wages, because the parish would make up the difference and keep their workers alive. So the workers' low income was unchanged and the poor rate contributors subsidised the farmers…….. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speenhamland_system  I suppose if that kind of system was introduced in Switzerland the Swiss capitalist class who employed mostly unskilled workers would get a state subsidy to the wages bill. That might not be such a massive problem for the majority advanced capitalist section in Switzerland as long as the unskilled labour there was providing products, services and commodities to the more general advanced section and its workers as it would presumably lower those internal national costs. Thus if the Swiss state was, say for example, subsidising the wages of refuse workers or cleaners etc then the advanced capitalist class could claw it back in the lower costs of those industries. If there were lots of sweat shop workers in Switzerland producing products for the international market it might be somewhat different. Providing you could keep a lid on the bottom end of the wage labour market and stop a ‘streets made of gold’ economic migration it doesn’t seem to be a problem. Potentially there could be a cascade type of affect pushing up wages at the middle to top end.  Using the UK as an example that is something that can be easily kept in control by having a total open door policy to economic migrants who are snapped up by employers offering over 30K; as it stands at the moment I think.    As far as the capitalist class in the UK is concerned we have plenty of unskilled labour at the moment and they are all on the legal minimum wage (however you might want to interpret that). Allowing ‘more’ to come in isn’t going to lower the wage bill. They are just going to slip in and back out of the expensive ‘welfare’ safety net and clog up the healthcare, education and housing system as in China. That is not to say it has no advantages at all as it can raise the standard of intensity and quality of labour that can be obtained for the minimum wage and lowers taxi bills, and stuff that falls out of wage labour and is provided by the so called self employed. On the Aristocracy of labour I thought there was a really interesting theoretical and almost modern prescient piece by Karl.. I think the capitalist class in an ever technologically developing and dynamic labour market needs it to; …provides a spur to the development of the individual’s own labour capacity… Letting their beloved market do the work to motivate the workers to re-skill themselves, driven by differential levels of remuneration. ….Hence in so far as the division of labour has not made his labour capacity entirely one-sided, the free worker is in principle receptive to, and ready for, any variation in his labour capacity and his working activity which promises better wages……….  And; ……….If the developed worker is more or less incapable of this variation, he still regards it as always open to the next generation, and the emerging generation of workers can always be distributed among, and is constantly at the disposal of, new branches of labour or particularly prosperous branches of labour….  Or factory workers send your kids to university to do chemistry or whatever. And! …….it remains possible for isolated individuals to make their way upwards into higher spheres of labour by particular energy, talent, etc., just as there remains the abstract possibility that this or that worker could himself become a capitalist and an exploiter of alien labour…….. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch02a.htm

[Author]

Posts