[DJP]

We don’t even have to pay attention to Marxism, in fact it’s irrelevant to the question, to answer this question all we need is simple logic.If matter is deterministic and the mind is matter then we cannot have free will since the mind must also run on deterministic methods.Now we could presume that matter is not deterministic i.e. things just happen at random, but this does not help us either. Since now the activity of minds just occurs at random, we have not made them happen.A ‘two horned dilemma’ if ever there was one!The only way ‘free will’ as traditionally conceived could possibly exist is if we could be the cause of our own being i.e. if we existed before we came into existence, which is of course an impossibility.To me it seems to me that with the traditional concept of ‘free will’ we are demanding a logical contradiction, like wanting a round circle. Sure we have a will, but this is not ‘free’ in the sense that it can do anything at any point as libertarians such as Sartre seem to suggest.

Cornelius Castoriadis wrote:

Determinism only has meaning as total determinism

Indeed, and that is what I am talking about.Since everything is on the same footing total determinism is not the same thing as economic determinism etc. where one factor is said to cause all effects regardless of other factors.Neither is it the same thing as fatalism where something happens in spite of what has gone before. Determinism says that things happen because of what has happened before.I have yet to come across an account of libertarianism (free will) which seems to make sense logically, Castoriadis certainly hasn’t provided one.If there where such a thing as uncaused events it remains unclear to me how you would be able to identify them anyhow, there could always be the possibility of some remote cause we have not yet noticed.

[DJP]

Which commentators equate fascism with socialism anyhow? You’re really clutching at straws here.

[DJP]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Socialists must be present and vocal within Occupy to combat such reformism masquerading as revolutionary before it takes root.

I don’t know what the situation is like in London but where I live it’s already died a death.

[DJP]

I think there’s two problems with this kind of communication. 1. You can’t hear the other persons tone of voice or see their facial expressions, that’s why irony works really badly. 2. There’s a kind of road rage element to it all, you’re locked away in your own box so there’s no immediate physical danger if you lash out.

[DJP]

TheOldGreyWhistle wrote:

DJP wrote:

TheOldGreyWhistle wrote:

Derision! Sure to chase off potential members! And any others watching!

Patronising crap

Moron

Ha ha, I’m sure if you met me we’d best of friends !)

[DJP]

jondwhite wrote:

Using “One World, One People” would be a gift to those commentators who equate National-Socialism with Socialism since the main slogan of National Socialism began with “Ein Volk, Ein Reich”. I can only hope that we have long since consigned “One World, One People” to the rubbish bin where it deserves to be by then.

Utter nonsense! The phrase “One World, One People” is not saying the same thing as “One people, one empire, one leader”. By the same logic we should drop the word “socialist” and be done with it.

[DJP]

TheOldGreyWhistle wrote:

Derision! Sure to chase off potential members! And any others watching!

Patronising crap

[DJP]

It would seem that the bank in your first example would go bankrupt the first time a single withdrawal of £100 or more was made, quite likely since the bank has to account for £1000. That’s why the situation doesn’t hold in real life.I think this can be solved by getting balance sheets for all the major UK retail banks totalling them up and seeing if deposits increase in parallel with loans.

[DJP]

…Maybe Hardy can help us out:http://libcom.org/library/banking-credit-myths-socialist-view” If it is bank loans which create bank deposits then deposits ought to increase in parallel with bank loans. Instead of this happening, Walter Leaf’s figures showed that bank deposits fell when bank loans increased.”

[DJP]

Hud955 wrote:

True but I’m not sure what demonstrating this for a single bank would mean, except that it is either lending more heavily than other banks or failing to attract an equal market share of depositors.   

Here’s a balance sheet for hsbchttp://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=HBC+Balance+Sheet&annualDoesn’t this prove that banks do not make loans of 900 for every 100 deposited with them, as that guy in the green party video claims. Wouldn’t you expect their assetts to be 90% greater than there liabilities if that were the case?

[DJP]

I’m talking about a single bank, not the banking system as a whole. What is true for the system as a whole is not true for an individual bank. Perhaps that’s where the confusion comes in? Haven’t read all the previous posts properly.

[DJP]

Hud955 wrote:

Well, not really.  I doubt it.  Demonstrating it is a different matter.The problem I have with your reply (and all the replies I’ve been getting here and elsewhere) is that the evidence you give will support both the ‘intemediary’ scenario AND Positive Money’s.  I still haven’t seen anything yet that shows conclusively that  Positive Money is wrong about this and the ‘intemediary’ claim is correct.

Wouldn’t a cursory glance at a Banks balance sheet do this? If there assetts (loans) and liabilities (deposists) are equal we are right, if there assetts are 90% greater than there liabilties then they are right. Not sure where you’d get the data, maybe here http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/index.html

[DJP]

Normally I would be game but right now and for the next few weeks I’m having to write “The link between wages and productivity – an econometric comparison of different industries” set to be a bestseller for sure!

[DJP]

davidgraeber wrote:

 The Beginning of History where he notes among other things that thinking there even _could_ be a theory of prices based exclusively on the LTV means you’re ignoring the role of political struggle at every point in the process.

The rate of surplus value is determined by the struggle between labour and capital; and how this is distributed amongst the various capitals is the result of a struggle between competing capitals. The form of the struggle can take many different guises. So yes it would seem I agree with that.I haven’t read any of the ‘autonomous’ Marxists and aside from a critique I read many years ago in the journal Aufheben don’t know that much about them.  Do you suggest something similar to Rosa Luxemburg, that without constant appropriation from outside the sphere of capitalism the system would collapse? 

[DJP]

ALB wrote:

Socialist Party Head Office wrote:

Among other things Lanchester claims that Marx never used the word “capitalism”:

I’m not sure how significant this is. After all, language like everything else changes, but I suppose it could tell us what Marx would have meant by the word had he used it rather than the term he did use, i.e. the capitalist mode of production. In other words, capitalism is a way of producing things, based, as he explained, on the production of commodities by wage-labour.

I don’t think it’s that significant, the word wasn’t in common use at the time he was writing. The only difference I can think of is that the word capitalism could refer to an ideology as well as a mode of production.With regards to Marx and ‘the labour theory of value’. I’m beginning to suspect that this was first used by the neo-classical economists so that they could lump Marx, Ricardo and Smith together then attempt to trash Marx by critiquing Ricardo.Just to be clear I’m not saying that Marx did not have a theory of value, but when it is (mis)understood as a theory of the prices of individual commodities (i.e price=value) it doesn’t add up properly.

[Author]

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