[Dave B]

I think when it comes to ISIS etc there was an very interesting article by Orwell on the fascists written in 1940 on the two links below.   https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzmBhYakPbYtT3k5cDd4Sm1SRUE/edit?pli=1  https://danymihalache.wordpress.com/george-orwell-collected-essays-journalism-and-letters-my-country-right-or-left/george-orwell-the-collected-essays-journalism-and-letters-2-review-mein-kampf-by-adolf-hitler-unabridged-translation/ An easy to listen to radio four religion programme on ISIS http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06sb42j and some background on the fertile soil from which they have grown; probably pretty close to how the foot soldiers and cannon fodder see things? http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43546.htm

[Dave B]

 he said something similar? as below War is not inevitable, but unless we understand the commercial, military and xenophobic forces that are able to promote war, we will have great difficulty in stopping the wars of the future. http://stopwar.org.uk/index.php/news/jeremy-corbyn-mp/how-do-we-stop-endless-war-waged-across-the-world-by-us-and-its-allies

[Dave B]

I think the old and orthodox SPGB position on the anti war people, that I have had thrown in my face, was that it was a moralist position that was devoid of a class analysis and lacked an understanding of its economic causes etc. That is just a load of bollocks now in my opinion; even my stupid mother understands that the middle east wars are about the black gold. And in wars the little ordinary people get killed and loose their homes etc and that is not very nice and horrid because, I am a little ordinary person as well- a class analysis? Suspected moralist could be called out by the suggestion that the ‘chicken-hawk’ ruling classes should tool up and batter shit out of each other and leave the workers and peasants out of it. I would be up for that as a reform; as long as it was televised on real time TV. The Koch brothers versus Putin in a cage fight; who wouldn’t watch it?

[Dave B]

I am not going criticise one way or another what has been said or even for that matter passing comment on whether Karl was even right or wrong. I think what matters is a lack of understanding of the fundamental (Greek) logic from which Karl starts from. That is if two ‘apparently different’ things are equal in some way or another, or in anyway or another; the starting premise must be that something about both of them must be the same, identical or “qualitatively equal”. Thus if we go back to the kindergarten we might be presented with a reality of a small red box being equal in weight to a large blue box. We might then think that size has nothing to do with weight? And/or red is heavier than blue maybe?  But when another small blue box has the same weight as a large red box that theory collapses. The lesson or question, either never learned and understood or forgotten, is what is ‘hidden’ in the F**king boxes; or to quote from Karl chapter two, volume One, what is in the ‘material envelope’. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch02.htm  Well it is, following on from ‘Aristotle’s Greek logic’’, marbles! They have the same number of “qualitatively equal” marbles in them! So one should learn not to be bamboozled, or at least be cautious, about how the ‘apparent’ sense perceptions about big and small multi coloured boxes can throw you off track as regards the causes of equality. That is not to say of course that the colour or size theory of weight was stupid. It just didn’t stand up very well to empirical experimental testing. So Karl introduces this mode of thinking in chapter one re Aristotle;  In the first place, he clearly enunciates that the money form of commodities is only the further development of the simple form of value – i.e., of the expression of the value of one commodity in some other commodity taken at random; for he says: 5 beds = 1 house is not to be distinguished from 5 beds = so much money. [Or in other words Aristotle is not thrown by the idea that one small red box is equal to one big blue box because both are equal to a medium sized green box; as going nowhere.] He further sees that the value relation which gives rise to this expression makes it necessary that the house should qualitatively be made the equal of the bed, (contain the same number of marbles) and that, without such an equalisation, these two clearly different things.. or material envelopes, as we experience them.   …could not be compared with each other as commensurable quantities.  “Exchange,” he says, “cannot take place without equality, and equality not without commensurability". Here, however, he comes to a stop, and gives up the further analysis of the form of value.“It is, however, in reality, impossible, that such unlike things…. Ie big, small and medium sized different coloured boxes  …can be commensurable” – i.e., qualitatively equal. He gives up! Such an equalisation can only be something foreign to their real nature, consequently only “a makeshift for practical purposes.. Ie he couldn’t imagine the marbles in the boxes. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm Democritus the first chemists and scientist was light years ahead of Aristotle on this kind of thing and Karl did his Phd thesis on Democritus which was also covered in Star Trek the Next Generation where Data lost his memory; but not his logical reasoning. But there is a real challenge in human economics. In science the relative weight of sucrose, or a sugar loaf, to iron is stable and constant  at; 342.3: 55.84 If you can count the molecules/atoms; which we can. But the relative value or relationship of tables and beds to houses changes? What is happening, as Adam Smith noted, is that tables, houses and beds etc as nothing more than ‘material envelopes’ remain the same and it is  ‘the human labour spent upon it’ that changes, as the “qualitatively equal” thing that makes them, well, marble like, equal.  At the end of the day it is another blue, green and red, big and little box and marble theory. And does it stand up, what are the implications and what happens if we stress test the theory?

[Dave B]

I still think people might be drifting into the popular materialist analysis of ‘bad and mad’ people versus the not so bad people etc. ISIS is a Moony and scientologist type death cult created out of a massive infusion of monarchist oil money from the Gulf states; for a purpose. As a counterweight to ‘Iranian/Shia’ influence in the region; which really means the working model of nationalisation of the ‘surplus profits’ and income stream from oil extraction. The gulf states are as horrified at that idea as the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries in the US are of the concept of a national healthcare systems. The people that the ISIS ideology works on are marginalised with low self esteem within the capitalist framework. The ISIS ideology raises them to an exceptional elite and God’s chosen people which successfully ignores, trivialises and removes any disturbing self estimation based on economic position and provides an emotional release. You become a martyr to greater transcending cause, complete with a new found sense of solidarity and community with others which also relieves the sense of atomisation and isolation one can feel in modern society. (there can be bit of that in the leftist community if you feel you need to get an emotional handle on it?)  What matters then, more than death itself, is that you are an Arian German, white Anglo Saxon English, a Jehova’s Witness, Japanese Kamikaze or early Christian martyr etc etc. (There was some what I think good stuff written on that kind of thing by Marxist trick cyclist community on the development of fascism in Germany in the 1930’s by the likes of Fromm et al.) The closest modern example of the more pragmatic political economic objectives of these ‘caliphate’ people, ironically, are the ‘Zionist’s’; they obviously want their piece of real estate and everyone else can put up with grief of get out as well. There is also the added absurdity now that they are calling these shits ‘cowards’ which is exactly what they are not. I also think, as regards the UK, it is mainly, as a cultural political base/heritage thing, a middle eastern and North African. You can get some radical Islamism in the south eastern Asian community of the UK but I really don’t think they are into this ISIS kind of thing. I can’t find them in Manchester and I have tried talking to loads of muslims; maybe they are all in London or something.

[Dave B]

I think it was premature to look at ISISas anything other than a Frankenstien’s monster created and manipulated by sections of the middle eastern ruling class for geo-political and economic reasons; and even the religious Sunni-Shia thing is at least for its creators, a fig leaf for more pecuniary general interests. Although the time may have arrived when the creators of ISISmay start to loose control of it as it spontaneously begins to follow and act on its own ideology. I believe ISIShas been developed with massive infusions of Gulf ‘capitalist’ oil money to combat the pernicious influence of the Iranian state capitalist model; which so happens to be also Shia. There are pressures or economic desires within the gulf stateseven amongst the petty capitalists and larger non oil sector capitalists to have the oil industry revenues nationalised and taken out of the hands of the private individuals and clans of the feudal monarchies. And the revenue spread around a bit more for general nationalist economic development. Eg from elsewhere; After Hugo Chávezofficially took office in February 1999, several policy changes involving the country's oil industry were made to explicitly tie it to the state. In addition, he attempted to strengthen Venezuela’s infrastructure and other national industries to move the country towards a more developed nation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Venezuelan_oil_industry#Nationalization and;  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway “The Nordic model is underpinned by a free market capitalist economic system that features high degrees of private ownership with the exception of Norway, which includes a large number of state-owned enterprises and state ownership in publicly-listed firms.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model  I don’t think that is always the case that all the indigenous capitalist and petty capitalist class are opposed to this kind of thing; as well as it being an idea that can have superficial appeal to the lower ‘working classes’. Often dressed up in leftist sounding ideological rhetoric. The leftish (and libertarian catholic) rhetoricof Chavez etc is too familiar to bother expounding upon. However what is often overlooked is very similar material that has come out of Iranrecently; despite perhaps a more recent slight move towards the ‘right’. Thus in 2012 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speech at the UN General Assembly he denounced, actually free market, capitalism as opposed to state capitalism in terms that could have straight out of the mouth of Chavez or Castro himself. “-Development planning based on capitalist economy that runs in a vicious circle, triggers unhealthy and devastating competitions and is a failed practice.” “Fortunately, we are now at a historic juncture. On one hand, Marxism is no longer around and is practically eliminated from the management systems, and on the other, capitalism is bogged down in a self-made quagmire. It has indeed reached a deadlock and does not seem to be able to come up with any noteworthy solution to the various economic, political, security and cultural problems of the world. NAMis proud to once again emphasize the rightfulness of its historic decision to reject the poles of power and the unbridled hegemony ruling the world. On behalf of the members of NAM, I would like to invite all countries of the world to play a more active role in making it possible for everybody to contribute to the global decision-making processes. The need to remove the structural barriers and encourage the process of universal participation in global management has never been greater before.”  http://mic.com/articles/15364/mahmoud-ahmadinejad-un-general-assembly-speech-video-translation-full-transcript#.9pBsh4N0w  And; http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-01-11/Ahmadinejad-Iran-Cuba/52509546/1  In fact in some ways the ‘Iranians’ look like theocratic Bolshevik state capitalists of the 1920’s with their own version of an Islamic Comintern.  In Europe, as Bolshevik state capitalism at least captured the imagination of the masses, it lead to terror amongst the capitalist class leading to the support of ‘national socialist’ fascists to hold it in check. Not that the ruling class was particularly in political harmony with the fascists; rather following the principal of an enemy of an enemy is a friend. As the Iranian regime and theocracy is irretrievably entangled with the Shia branch of Islam the gulf state ruling class have decided to exploit that difference; rather than the one that really matters to them the threat of being nationalised. As far as the ‘West’ or Americais concerned its real objection to Iranis probably of the same nature as it is to Cubaand Venezuela. If Iran, Cubaand Venezuelaall consider themselves state capitalist fellow travellers why not take their word for it? It shouldn’t be a surprise that the USin particular has been taking a somewhat ambivalent position to ISIS and their ilk as it is only a repeat of history re the Contra’s in Nicaraguaand the kaleidoscope of fascist regimes it supported in central and South America. In a world of my enemies enemy is my friend we can a bewildering array of strange alliances.  eg http://www.mintpressnews.com/the-alliance-between-israel-and-saudi-arabia/209548/ The Israelis are no doubt delighted to see the Muslims of all descriptions knocking seven shades of shit out of each other and desperately need the water resources of Shia occupied south Lebanon. Ironically I think these ISIS people, apart from their more obvious anti Shia takfiri position; may also have an political/economic agenda that has the potential bite back at the gulf stateshands that have fed it. The problem passages in the Quran are the ones juxtaposed to each other below.  Sahih International Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land – it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one – it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. And our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, [even] after that, throughout the land, were transgressors. http://quran.com/5/32  Sahih International Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment, http://quran.com/5/33 The first is often interpreted as prohibiting killing anyone of the Abrahamic faith (Jews Christians and any other self described muslisms)  apart from murder or ‘corruption’. The second can be interpreted as a freedom to mutilate anyone who opposes the true faith

[Dave B]

On Revleft recently some Trots wanted me banned for being a homophobe for citing the following;  Today, LGBT citizens have most of the same legal rights as non-LGBT citizens and the UKprovides one of the highest degrees of liberty in the world for its LGBT communities. In ILGA-Europe's 2015 review of LGBTI rights, the UKreceived the highest score in Europe, with 86% progress toward "respect of human rights and full equality" for LGBT people and 92% in Scotlandalone.[2]Recent polls have indicated that a majority of British people support same-sex marriage[3]and 76% of the UK viewed that homosexuality should be accepted by society, one of the highest in the world.[4]Additionally, the UKcurrently holds the world record for having the most LGBTI people in parliament with 27 LGBTI MPs elected at the 2015 election.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_Kingdom The context was, I seem to remember, the sensible capitalist class realising that all this stuff is of no interest to them and even gets in the way of things as gender orientation etc does not affect exploitability. The company I work for is owned by the ever pragmatic Japanese capitalist class and they are mad on it. We all have to go on regular training courses to teach us not to be horrid to our fellow workers of different gender orientation ‘colour’ etc etc as it is not very nice, gets in the way of the team co-operative spirit and these people can be very clever and talented. It is amazingly currently topical as today, I tell no lie, we all got another email/ computer refresher course to complete; which ‘only’ takes 15 minutes to complete. Like that one in the ‘Big Bang Theory’ TV programme that Sheldon Cooper had to do. I thought that was a good episode On the last group training session there was about 30 of us, mostly grunts, even most of the middle management are cultural proles  by origin (it probably helps in that environment- the workers don’t like toffs) and we had to split up into teams to do a picture quiz on famous people who weren’t ‘normal’. The team I was in won because we were well balanced with football fans and Hayley Anne Cropper coronation street watchers ( although I knew that one) and me who got the hard ones like deaf Beethoven and Alan Turing ( I think the woman who was running it was a bit pissed off that someone got that one). The factory I have worked  in is full of ‘classic proletarians’ located in Bernard Manning country and I have seen a massive change in attitudes over the last 20 years. I don’t think it is just a case of the introduction of formal disciplinary procedures. They are not great though I think on the disabled and other stuff that can interfere with things. We have some strict QC Muslims in Manchester and Bradford site who are supposed to taste the product (fruit juice) as part of their job. It is pleasantly surprising how ordinary working class bods try to accommodate ‘them’ by agreeing to switch shifts during Ramadan etc. Although you would think people would like to swop and be taken off the 10-6 night shift some of them like the money. Although I was told off recently by a longstanding Trot friend for being a ‘chauvinist’ for being horrid to German intellectuals on Libcom.

[Dave B]

For interest of the historical political development; this section maybe the most relevant APPENDIX B.EARLIER DISCUSSIONS OF IMPROVED HEALTH SERVICES AND AN OUTLINE OF EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE PREPARATION OF THIS PAPER http://www.sochealth.co.uk/national-health-service/the-sma-and-the-foundation-of-the-national-health-service-dr-leslie-hilliard-1980/a-national-health-service/

[Dave B]

CONSERVATIVE PARTY: 1945Mr. Churchill's Declaration of Policy to the ElectorsHEALTHThe health services of the country will be made available to all citizens. Everyone will contribute to the cost, and no one will be denied the attention, the treatment or the appliances he requires because he cannot afford them.We propose to create a comprehensive health service covering the whole range of medical treatment from the general practitioner to the specialist, and from the hospital to convalescence and rehabilitation; and to introduce legislation for this purpose in the new Parliament.The success of the service will depend on the skill and initiative of doctors, dentists, nurses and other professional people, and in its designing and operation there will be full scope for all the guidance they can give. Wide play must be given to the preferences and enterprise of individuals. Nothing will be done to destroy the close personal relationship between doctor and patient, nor to restrict the patient's free choice of doctor.The whole service must be so designed that in each area its growth is helped and guided by the influence of a university. Through such a service the medical and allied professions will be enabled to serve the whole nation more effectively than they have yet been able to do. At the same time Medicine will be left free to develop along its own lines, and to achieve preventive as well as curative triumphs. Libertyis an essential condition of scientific progress.The voluntary hospitals which have led the way in the development of hospital technique will remain free. They will play their part in the new service in friendly partnership with local authority hospitals.Motherhood must be our special care. There must be a large increase of maternity beds and convalescent homes, and they must be provided in the right places. Mothers must be relieved of onerous duties which at such times so easily cause lasting injury to their health. The National Insurance Scheme will make financial provision for these needs. All proper arrangements, both voluntary and State-aided, must be made for the care of other young children in the family, in order that the energies of the male breadwinner or the kindness of neighbours and relations, which nevertheless must be the mainspring, should not be unduly burdened. Nursery schools and nurseries such as have grown up during the war should be encouraged. On the birth, the proper feeding and the healthy upbringing of a substantially increased number of children, depends the life of Britainand her enduring gloryhttp://politicsresources.net/area/uk/man/con45.htm  Henry Willink Pathe youtube clip (Tory as if you couldn’t guess) http://www.britishpathe.com/video/a-healthier-britain/query/Henry

[Dave B]

  Below I think is a link to a radio four prog on an early 1894 full blooded albeit 'Liberal' capitalist advocating the minimum wagehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b068tz6d Adam Smith wasn't in fact quite the Arch neo conservative he is believed to be by Neo Adam Smithist Wealth of Nationsby Adam Smith 1776Book 1, Chapter 8Of the Wages of Labour"Is this improvement in the circumstances of the lower ranks of the people to be regarded as an advantage or as an inconveniency to the society?The answer seems at first sight abundantly plain. Servants, labourers, and workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged."it is an important chapter as it includes "that original state of things" or "simple commodity production" and thus the suibject of chpater one of capital. Which Bamboozled  proffessor michael Hienrich "[02] In that original state of things, which precedes both the appropriation of land and the accumulation of stock, the whole produce of labour belongs to the labourer. He has neither landlord nor master to share with him. " http://geolib.com/smith.adam/won1-08.html

[Dave B]

I think people tend to take the piss out of science fiction etc but I think as a genre it provides an excellent fictional opportunity or platform to explore ideas as what some would label as ‘intellectual’ abstraction and challenge, as regards a socio-economic analysis of, well, society and stuff. One of the better episodes of Star Trek TNG was "Who Watches the Watchers”.  Probably a play on a famous ancient Roman Bod who said ‘who watches the watchmen; which Karl changed to ‘who educates the educators’.  As regards this topical to the jokey thread so far as regards; historical materialism, uneven economic development and the possibility of free access socialism introduced into backward economies/ cultures, or not, the role and even the status of ‘women’ in society, and religion. What we have in this episode is a ‘race’ of Spock like Vulcan’s, or just Vulcans, really living in in the bronze age stage of economic development.  They are very Spock like but the older ones still logically think there must be divine being or overseer. And we have a Bronze age Vulcan daughter who likes to spend her spare time dabbling in science and looking at the stars and planets etc and is beginning to have second thoughts. Women are portrayed quite positively in general in star trek I think. The Federation historical materialist anthropologists are interested in these people and want to watch their development and set up an observation post. There is a technological glitch and our militant atheists daughter sees some magic as the anthropologists holographic observation post reveals itself etc. After one thing leads to another and a ‘Men in Black’ mind wipe fails the scientific materialist daughter thinks briefly Picard is God.      When concellor Troi (a woman) and Ryker beam down disguised as bronze age Vulcans in an attempt to retrieve the situation she advises him that they have to get into and adopt their cultural economic norm.  Whereby the women are in charge of things like that, and walk in front of the man and negotiates economic arrangements as to the value of his labour power which she sells. The Star Trek non interference of the ‘natural’ evolutionary socio economic development of societies becomes a bit of a moral paradigm I think, but a very Hegelian historical materialism non the less.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Watches_the_Watchers  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive

[Dave B]

ReligionThe Ferengi concepts of the afterlife are a mirror of their pursuit of wealth in life. When a Ferengi dies, he is said to meet the Blessed Exchequer, who reviews the financial statements of that Ferengi's entire life. If he earned a profit, he is ushered into Ferengi heaven: the Divine Treasury, where the Celestial Auctioneers allow him to bid on a new life. Ferengi who were not financially successful in life are damned to the Vault of Eternal Destitution.[3]When a Ferengi prays or bows in reverence, he holds his hands in a bowl shape with his wrists together. A typical Ferengi prayer begins with this phrase: "Blessed Exchequer, whose greed is eternal, allow this bribe to open your ears and hear this plea from your most humble debtor." As is typical, this is accompanied by placing a slip of latinum into a small statue made in the Exchequer's likeness.Ferengi make regular pilgrimages to Earth's Wall Street, which they view as a holy site of commerce and business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi That is just straight out of Marxist economic base ideological superstructure play book.Although with early christianity the early christians were the the oppressed and dispossed workers etc hence they had a communists interpretation. EGThe Epistle of BarnabasThou shalt communicate* in all things with thy neighbour; thou shalt not call things thine own; for if ye are partakers in common of things which are incorruptible, how much more [should you be] of those things……….. Thou shalt not join thyself," he means, "to such men as know not how to procure food for themselves by labour and sweat, but seize on that of others in their iniquity, and although wearing an aspect of simplicity, are on the watch to plunder others.http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/barnabas-roberts.html *Apparently the greek word that was translated as 'communicate' had a more general meaning as share. These modern christian translators try and rip the share stuff out as much as they can. It is the same with Latin i think with commūnicāre.I 'think' all this shared root meaning of communicate, share, commune and communism etc goes back to this Greek word the begins with K i think.Not my game really.It was attributed to Barnabas but it is unlikely it was.That attribution is probably interesting in itself in that Barnabas was one of the communists in Acts.So you could make the case that the attributiion was based on the communist content of the 'Epistle' and that was considered the central and the main theme of the text?Barnabas was hanging around circa 60AD apparently and the text is as good as internally date stamped as any can be at 132AD

[Dave B]

I think it is ‘interesting’ that when it comes to ‘old science’ fiction eg Ursula’s ‘The Dispossessed’ we are all on board  as regards a bourgeois intellectual seminal piece of communistic literature. Personally I thought it was a bit of a grubby communistic paradigm. In contrast when it comes to popular and modern communistic material eg Star Trek The Next Generation, it is only fit for the working classes and thus beneath intellectual analysis and is ignored.   I don’t deny that Star Trek The Next Generation is padded out with 95% crap probably just like the film ‘Spartacus’ was. I think the last episode of Star Trek The Next Generation has Picard working in ‘his’ or ‘a’ French vineyard as a labour of love.  I didn’t like Deep Space 9 much.

[Dave B]

I am remain a sceptic and still have flash backs to the colin Powell UN moment and the Hutton report etc etc.Although if it turns out have tampered with forensic evidence they will have really outdone themselves this time around. 

[Dave B]

that Karl quote in the standard on universal suffrage is better source as below I think. It even has a image of the original Egalite.  Karl Marx and Jules Guesde 1880The Programme of the Parti Ouvrier  Considering, That this collective appropriation can arise only from the revolutionary action of the productive class – or proletariat – organized in a distinct political party;That a such an organization must be pursued by all the means the proletariat has at its disposal including universal suffrage which will thus be transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation;  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htm  there was another similar one from Fred later. The franchise has been, in the words of the French Marxist program, "transformé, de moyen de deperie gu'il a été jusqu'ici, en instrument d' émancipation"—they have transformed it from a means of deception, which it was heretofore, into an instrument of emancipation  http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm apologies if it has already been covered

[Author]

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