DJP
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Hi,I don't think our level of success is something that can be measured by looking at membership figures. Currently we reject more membership applications than those that get accepted. I think that the fact that the socialist party has managed to exist for so long in a hostile environment is an indication that we are doing something right. But social evolution is a slow process, the transition from feudalism to capitalism took a couple hundred years and our party was formed before capitalism had fully spread across the globe. Many people are attracted to the 'next big thing' because these to offer the appearance of numbers but as has been shown time and time again these groups fade into nothing as they do not share the common theoretical basis that is the requirement of SPGB membership.It is not the socialist party that makes the revolution but the working class as a whole and many groups and individuals do formulate ideas similar to ours without coming into contact with us. I think the transition from minority to majority understanding will take the form of a 'tipping point', once acceptance of socialist ideas reaches a fairly low amount, say 5 or 10%, this will suddenly swing the majority over since everyone shares the same material conditions. It just will take a long time to reach that 5 or 10%.I joined the SPGB after independently forming a socialist type understanding of society and then finding them on the internet. I don't think there's anything that special about myself so there must be a lot of other people out there thinking similar things.. For example the website libcom.org has nearly 17 000 people that 'like' it on Facebook. The 'Zeitgeist' films advocated a nonmarket society and where well received. Other writers along similar lines to that such as Buckminster Fuller (don't know much about him) seem to be fairly widely read. Russel Brand who has recently made some rather vague comments about 'revolution' and 'socialism' has 171 000 people 'liking' his 'Russels Revolution' page, that's more than the conservative party. Now of course I don't think any of these mean that revolution is round the corner or that anything too concrete can be drawn from it but never the less it would seem that something is bubbling away.Of course there is no guarantee of success. But the choice between getting involved with the world socialist movement and drinking beer is not of a either / or nature. I have done plenty of drinking with comrades!My joining the socialist party came from trying to understand how and why things are the way they are (and if later observations imply that socialism is not possible or undesirable I would leave). The way I understand things as they are now (and I have no good reason for thinking them wrong) voting for social democrats or liberals or greens or whatever only helps contribute to the problem…
I don't think this topic can be done justice through a forum discussion but anyone who is interested should read "The Brenner Debate" (edited by T H Aston) and Meiksins Wood's book which builds on it. Her more recent books "Liberty and Property" and "Citizens to Lords" are well worth reading to.
Young Master Smeet wrote:in terms of wage labour, the first proto capitalists will have been the guild masters who would take on apprentices to work for them. There were also the merchants, going back centuries (some of these ancient guilds still survive in London (link)). Eventually they threw off the shackles limiting the numbers of journeyumen and apprentices they could have.The modern factory system is credited to Richard Arkwright – the creation of the cotton industry was a combination of the likes of him and the merchants.That's a very short answer. Hope that leads you in roiughly the right direction.This has been somewhat of the traditional explanation, but it raises more questions than it answers. I suggest you read either the Meiksins-Wood book or "The Brenner Debate". In short, the mere existence of commodity production, merchants’ capital and money lenders capital are necessary but not sufficient conditions for the full development of capitalism. “Or else ancient Rome, Byzantium etc. would have ended their history with free labour and capital” (Karl Marx).The "commercialization" model outlined by YMS above can explain how capitalism was spread but cannot explain how it started. Once relations in land ownership began to take the form of commercial rents it was the imperitive of the renting farmer to increase productivity and the rate of exploitation of wage labour, failure to do so would result in the farmer no longer being able to rent. So it is market imperatives not market opportunities that drove the whole process.
Hi,The origins of capitalism have their roots in the english countryside. The first capitalists where tenant farmers.Read this article written by my good self.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2011/no-1284-august-2011/rise-capitalismIt's essentially a condensed version of "The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View" by Ellen-Meiksins-Wood
You can also try Project Gutenburg http://www.gutenberg.org/And the MIA http://www.marxists.org/ebooks/index.htm
LBird wrote:My failure to get us beyond 19th century positivism (see DJP's post about questions of the Holocaust and Armenocide, etc.), doesn't give me much hope.Like I said Your mistake seems to be to think that the only options are 'niave realism' or all out epistemic relativism.But we're way off topic here it would seem…
LBird wrote:The only answer is a 'social' answer. Here's the bad news, comrade: 'societies' differ, and so knowledge is relative to the society which produces it.Oh, sorry, you think 'science' is 'objective', and not 'bourgeois'. Oh well, back to the 19th century…You've failed to answer the objection.Is the truth or falsity of the Holocaust or the attempted genocide of the Armenians in 1915 relative to socety?Your mistake seems to be to think that the only options are 'niave realism' or all out epistemic relativism.Last chance saloon.
Lbird your epistemic relativism is nothing new and is self contradicting at base, if you don't work this out you will continue to be away with the faries. I've spent to much time on this but I suggest you read this:http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/#5.9"If the epistemic relativist argues that all justification or rationality is framework relative, he lays himself open to the reply that his very claim is at best justified relative to his framework, only rational by his own standards, only defensible by his own guidelines, just as much a social construction as he insists everything else is.""[…] either the claim that truth is relative is true absolutely (i.e., true in a non-relative sense) or else it is only true relative to some framework. If it is true absolutely, all across the board, then at least one truth is not merely true relative to a framework, so this version of the claim is inconsistent. Furthermore, if we make an exception for the relativist's thesis, it is difficult to find a principled way to rule out other exceptions; what justifies stopping here? "It's turtles all the way down.But it's never to late to turn back…
You might like this LBird:http://philosophynow.org/issues/97/How_Old_is_the_Self
Brian wrote:By the way, from a materialist perspective Descates' got it wrong. Indeed he forgot to put his individual thinking cap on regarding an understanding of matter. Matter is primary and its impossible to isolate the individual thinking process from it. Which means in effect 'I am, therefore I think'.Actually Descartes was wrong but not for the reason given here. He assumed an "I", a self, when by his own logic he should not have. So he should have said "it thinks, therefore thinking" or something like that…Now Brian, for the purposes of this thought experiment, what irrefutable reason have you got for thinking that matter exists? Lets presume that all our sensations and perceptions are just fed to us by an evil demon that is trying to deceive us. How can we prove that this is not the case?
zundap wrote:This value does not evaporate, it would accrue to that section of the capitalist class that inflation rewards.Your mistaken here. The loss of value that is represented by a decrease in the value of money (inflation) does not go to anyone. Think about it, what would the mechanism be for this to occur? There is none. That's why those who say that inflation is like a stealth tax are wrong, the lost value does not go to anyone.Inflation benefits borrowers and hurts lenders since for example, the £1000 borrowed 10 years ago is now worth a lot less then it was then.If we don't invest or bank our money no capitalist will benefit from us not doing so. If we do invest or bank some capitalist will make money out of our money but our funds will not be knawed at by inflation.
LBird wrote:Anyone else care to discuss robbo203's suggestion about 'transhistorical individualism', and my counter-suggestion about 'historically specific individualism'?If you want to think there was a period in time when people did not distinguish there own arse from the others elbow be my guest. But it seems to me that survival of the species requires some sense of the individual. If not I would not be able to distinguish my pains or my hungers as my own and would soon get into trouble.But of course the sense of what an individual is and how it is related to a seperated from the group does change over time, no one has denied that.
LBird wrote:Would you like to give the rest of us the benefit of your 'training', DJP, and explain how either 'individualism' or 'the concept of an individual' are 'transhistorical', as robbo203 suggests?My expert training tells me to tell you to re-read post 48.
LBird wrote:Ruling classes always try to 'eternalise' their rule, and present their ideas as 'natural'. I think that this is what happens when people view the past through the lens of our 'ruling ideas' from the present. I regard 'individualism' as historically specific. That's why Descartes' claim of 'I doubt, therefore I think; I think, therefore I am' was so revolutionary. It represented a way of thinking that was entirely new. Before that 'individuals' didn't 'think'; it was left to their 'betters' (like the pope and lords) to do that!LOL You're not getting the wrong end of the stick again are you!? What was new in Descartes was not the idea that individuals could think or view themselves as individuals but the idea that the only thing that cannot be disolved by scepticism was the fact that if I am thinking there must exist an 'I' that is doing it.Everything could be halucination or deception, the only indisputable thing is that if there is a thought going on something is doing it. It is impossible to disprove the claim that we are just brains in a vat and the richness of our experiences comes from electrical signals fed to us by a mad scientist. But there's no good reason to accept that either. I should know I am a trained philosopher after all.Also the concept of an individual and 'individualism' is not the same thing….
I don't take your post as snotty as it has some useful points in there. But development and betterment of the website is temporarily on hold as we have some structural matters that need fixing first.The more places the stuff is the merrier. Incidently I think the first time I actually came across the party was via the myspace that you(?) used to do.
