DJP
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gnome wrote:jondwhite wrote:With regard to "Something wrong with the party's case and/or its methods", contrary to the attitude of some determinists there absolutely is room for improvement by dispensing with traditional approaches but not in a non-materialist direction for liquidationist reasons.
OK, fine; put some meat on dem barebones. Entice us.
I don't think there is anything wrong with any activities we are doing at the minute, only that we need to do more of it. I think an area where the party has not been so strong has been in embracing the Web 2.0 era, social media and online video etc.But myself and comrades have put many hours of sweat and tears into learning to how to do these things, hence the (not so) new website. And as we read there is a group working on making short films.So in short I think our problems lie not in a shortage of ideas but in a shortage of people to put in the hard work necessary to see them put real.Also I don't see what this question has to do with the determinist / libertarian debate and I don't know what 'liquididationist reasons' are!?I was going to say some stuff about ethics but I think everyone's probably sick of that one. But there's some good stuff in the book 'Language, Truth and Logic'
I’m no expert but for a start the SPC was not formed until 1931.There’s some histories on this page:http://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/about.htmGeneral Strike is not an ‘Impossibilist’ tactic anyhow is it.
Incidentally, Hic Rhodas seemed to have raised a similar topic a few months ago but never got a reply.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/decadence-cap%C3%ACtalism
jondwhite wrote:Are the evolution of trade unions linked in any way to indicating capitalist production being ripe for its replacement by a socialist society?No.
Quote:When does the party say capitalist production became outdated?If you want a precise date you’re probably better off asking the ICC! They may be able to give you a time as well I guess there may be some kind of consensus at around the end of the first world war. But in all probability it’s probably a question with no hard or fast answers.
Quote:Wasn’t it during Marx’s lifetime – after the Communist Manifesto?No.
Fabian wrote:All action is motivated by something being valued. Some consequentialist, deontological or virtue ethical view motivates all actions of every mentally able human, the point is identifying it, and them seeing if it’s soundly argumented and if the rest of the views of the same person (or organisation) is consistent with it it. That’s what justifying your views means.All action? A bold claim!Sorry to bust your bubble but there’s plenty of evidence from neuro-science and experimental psychology that would strongly go against such a suggestion.But then we are back to the question “where do our values come from?” I believe I know what the answer is, but I’m leaving you to work it out for yourself for now.
robbo203 wrote:Why can’t it be both? Why does it have to be one or the other?Maybe it could be both ways, but the question “where do values come from?” still remains.
Do people act a certain way because of their ‘moral principles’? Or do ‘moral principles’ arise because people act a certain way?In other words “Where do my values come?” (incidentally some people I met through Zeitgeist have just released an ebook with this title) Once we can answer this question we are probably well on the way to knowing how we can go about changing them.
Quote:12 noon – 1.30pmLIFE WITHOUT CAPITALISM 2 speakers: David Graeber and Chris KnightPoliticians repeatedly tell us that we must suffer years of austerity just to revive the capitalist economy. Yet, for 95% of our time on Earth humans have lived without capitalism – and for most of that time without states, classes or money. What can we learn from our non-capitalist past and how can we live a non-capitalist future? The discussion will be initiated by two radical anthropologists: DAVID GRAEBER (anarchist and author of ‘Debt, The First 5,000 Years’) and CHRIS KNIGHT (marxist and author of ‘Blood Relations’ and (online) ‘2017 – the anthropology of the future’).Fabian wrote:I know that personal property in socialism will be respected. My question is why? What is the justification for people having the right to personal possessions that socialists adhere to?The answer is quite simple. Socialism is a system for the direct fulfilment of human need therefore it is not some abstract appeal to property rights that will offer people protection but the fact that each persons well being and security has become the interest of all.
Perhaps this passage can help our friend Fabian?
Quote:The end of propertyWhat is property? This is not so simple a question to answer. Witness the polemic between Marx and Proudhon. The latter had proposed that ‘property is theft’. Proudhon well understood that property does not originate in nature. It is the product of a society where reign relationships of power, violence and the appropriation of the labour of others. It is said that property is theft, while theft is only defined with reference to property; this is to turn round in circles.The problem becomes more complicated when you go on from property to the abolition of property. Should all property, whether involving means of production or personal possessions, be abolished? Should it be done selectively? Should there be a radical break with all property and anything that resembles it?Communism chooses this last proposition. It is not a question of transferring property titles but of the simple disappearance of property. In revolutionary society no-one will be able to ‘use and abuse’ a good because they are its owner. There will be no exceptions to this rule. Buildings, pins, plots of land will no longer belong to anyone, or if you like, they will belong to everybody. The very idea of property will rapidly be considered absurd.Will everything then equally belong to everybody? Will the first-comer be able to put me out of my house, take my clothes off me or take bread from out of my mouth just because I will no longer be the owner of my house, my clothes or my food? Certainly not; on the contrary, each person’s material and emotional security will be strengthened. It is simply that it will not be the right of property that will be invoked as a protection, but directly the interest of the person concerned. Everybody will have to be able to satisfy their hunger – and be housed and clothed – at their convenience. Everybody will have to be able to live in peace.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1979/no-899-july-1979/world-without-moneyFabian wrote:Quote:You don’t even seem to have grasped the basic ABCs of anarchism.Please explain them to me. What did I say that isn’t consistent with anarchism?
Better still here’s Alexander Berkmanhttp://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alexander-berkman-what-is-communist-anarchism
Fabian wrote:Are you kidding me? You’re talking about a world where there is abundance of everything and it’s all free for everyone to take, even if they don’t contribute, and that kind of a system will sustain itself by I don’t know what kind of magic, and I’m ridiculed for accepting moral norms? That’s not even utopianism, that’s basically a fairy tale.This seems to be a strange comment, as do some of your others, for someone who introduced themselves to the forum as an anarcho-communist. You don’t even seem to have grasped the basic ABCs of anarchism.
Fabian wrote:Appeal to authority is a fallacy, and most “experts” are ignorant in their own field of expertise, it’s something of a rule.Here’s Strawson’s full ‘Pessimism’ argument, make of it what you will.
Galen Strawson wrote:One way of setting out the no-freedom theorists’ argument is as follows. (1) When you act, you do what you do, in the situation in which you find yourself, because of the way you are.It seems to follow that(2) To be truly or ultimately morally responsible for what you do, you must be truly or ultimately responsible for the way you are, at least in certain crucial mental respects. (Obviously you don’t have to be responsible for the way you are in all respects. You don’t have to be responsible for your height, age, sex, and so on. But it does seem that you have to be responsible for the way you are at least in certain mental respects. After all, it is your overall mental make up that leads you to do what you do when you act.)But(3) You can’t be ultimately responsible for the way you are in any respect at all, so you can’t be ultimately morally responsible for what you do. Why can’t you be ultimately responsible for the way you are? Because(4) To be ultimately responsible for the way you are, you would have to have intentionally brought it about that you are the way you are, in a way that is impossible.The impossibility is shown as follows. Suppose that(5) You have somehow intentionally brought it about that you are the way you now are, in certain mental respects: suppose that you have intentionally brought it about that you have a certain mental nature N, and that you have brought this about in such a way that you can now be said to be ultimately responsible for having nature N. (The limiting case of this would be the case in which you had simply endorsed your existing mental nature N from a position of power to change it.)For this to be true(6) You must already have had a certain mental nature N-1, in the light of which you intentionally brought it about that you now have nature N. (If you didn’t already have a certain mental nature, then you can’t have had any intentions or preferences, and even if you did change in some way, you can’t be held to be responsible for the way you now are.)But then(7) For it to be true that you and you alone are truly responsible for how you now are, you must be truly responsible for having had the nature N-1 in the light of which you intentionally brought it about that you now have nature N.So (
You must have intentionally brought it about that you had that nature N-1. But in that case, you must have existed already with a prior nature, N-2, in the light of which you intentionally brought it about that you had the nature N-1 in the light of which you intentionally brought it about that you now have nature N.And so on. Here one is setting off on a potentially infinite regress. In order for one to be truly or ultimately responsible for how one is, in such a way that one can be truly morally responsible for what one does, something impossible has to be true: there has to be, and cannot be, a starting point in the series of acts of bringing it about that one has a certain nature; a starting point that constitutes an act of ultimate self-origination.There is a more concise way of putting the point: in order to be truly morally responsible for what one does, it seems that one would have to be the ultimate cause or origin of oneself, or at least of some crucial part of one’s mental nature. One would have to be causa sui, in the old terminology. But nothing can be truly or ultimately causa sui in any respect at all. Even if the property of being causa sui is allowed to belong unintelligibly to God, it cannot plausibly be supposed to be possessed by ordinary finite human beings.http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwVariousStrawsonG.html
