Ike Pettigrew
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+ robboWhile I appreciate the replies, I don't have time to respond now. Just skimming over what you say (which is all I can now do), I suspect that this is a case of two people arguing from different basic principles, which means you will have great difficulty understanding me because, while I have understood the socialist case and been a Party member, you have not gone through the thinking process that I have. For one thing, we will be using language in semantically different ways. My concern here is with how ideas translate into practice: the praxis, if you like. One of the things I have noticed about all ideologies and the more rigid philosophies is that they tend to be idealisations of the wishes of their adherents. I realise socialism is a little different, in that you are not positing a utopia in the colloquial sense of the term, but even so, I have become convinced that socialism as a practical matter will be a very different experience to what most people on here seem to think. One more thing that puts me off slightly from responding further is that I have noticed that SPGB members are a bit like Christians (being an atheistic pagan, I have in the past had forum and real-life debates with them). Like Christians, you become very defensive, even aggressive, when your ideas are challenged, even when the interlocutor is polite and moderate, and things do start to get nasty. There's also a tendency to give canned responses or regurgitate rigid dogmas. Right or wrong, that's my impression. There's only so much time and psychic energy I can put into this and I have other things do to.
@ Alan JohnstoneI note your latest reply. I think we have both made our points now. I have nothing further to add.
@ VinAt least my insults have a sense of panache and wit. But I did not insult you. I was merely a little sarcastic. It is not in my nature to insult people. Also, your plea that I have resorted to abuse is entirely bogus, since you have raised nothing of substance with me. Had you done so, I would have responded to you, as I have to your colleague, at some length.Still, since you insult me, I should reply in kind.You are manifestly a pompous and officious dim-witted idiot, exactly the type of pea-brained bully who I imagine would be put in charge of 'democratic production' on a socialist commune somewhere, bossing everybody about under the pretense that "It's democratic, comrade, we took a vote last Tuesday" and "Are you disagreeing with the workers, comrade?"Have I summed you up accurately?Your question is nosy and I have the right to be rude in return. Anybody would be. And I see you have insulted me back. Very well, since I did not actually insult you before, we are now evens. Let that be the end of it and let no more be uttered in the matter.Is this what socialism is going to be like in practice? A bunch of nosey-parkers prying into people's lives? Have you heard of data protection? I have given information about myself where I consider it relevant. I will divulge further information as and when I am ready and if I think it relevant. In terms of why I entered the SPGB, you may assume it will be for much the same reasons anybody would. What else would it be?One more thing. Ironically, the observation about IQ doesn't strike me as particularly intelligent on your part. First, I have not expressed whether I am of the Left or Right or indeed either of those things, whatever they may mean. An opposition to enforced diversity and mass immigration is not exclusive to the political Right. Second, there's the problem of how we could possibly know about correlations between IQ and political belief. It's not something that can be reliably measured. Third, even if we accept the result s of such a dubious study, I'm not clear on why I should base my own political views on it one way or the other? It seems to me that this is more about you. You have social insecurities and frustrations, and a need to 'fit in'. You're not a very deep thinker and to pursue your own views on something would make you very anxious. Being in the SPGB allows you to adopt the pretense of bravery while aligning yourself with views that are in reality generally tolerated, if not acceptable. I'm quite knowledgeable and insightful when it comes to psychology and could in fact spend a long time analysing you, but I don't have the time or the inclination.
jondwhite wrote:Would the Amish Old Order Mennonite be an example you would use?That's the type of community that would balk at socialism and would want to retain exclusive control of land, how it is used, exchanged and inherited, in order to ensure the continuation of their culture. They won't be Amish unless they have their own land. That would in effect mean an island of property ownership within socialism. That said, I doubt they would be very disruptive, so the potential for toleration is high, but that can only be conditional on them not being disrupted by outsiders. What if people start turning up wanting to live on their "spare" land? What happens then? What we have here is the classic problem of majority versus minority rights, and I think this reveals a major flaw in the socialist case. If the majority is always right, due to your reverence for democracy, then cultural diversity will not be respected. Thus, the seeds of socialism's downfall are sown from the very beginning: what dooms the idea is this 'democracy' that you love so much.The impression I have from a reply of Alan Johnstone's on a different thread is that it is hoped that such groups can be left alone, but in principle there could be violent intervention to deny property rights where this is considered necessary. That being the case, it just seems to me that, while socialism could certainly work, it would not be expressed in the ideal sense you think, as you will have a state, i.e. a morally-privileged political entity, just not in name, while at the same time individuals will be stripped of all property rights. That sounds a lot like tyranny to me, it's just that in this case the tyranny comes with a smiley face and nice intentions. This quasi-state you will have will, among other things, have the task of enforcing 'democratic' socialist norms, using violence if needed, an expression of a Might Is Right philosophy.I think the basic flaw with a democracy of this type, which is based on delegative assemblies, is that it has to cater to the lowest common denominator, as numbers overwhelm good sense. Anybody who understands human nature and dynamics can see what will happen.Democracy is not always very nice, even when the intentions are fine. The sort of system you envisage could be like having your life run by an officious allotment committee. I shudder at the thought. Capitalism is bad, but at least under the capitalist system there is the opportunity for a good deal of practical sovereignty, if you arrange your affairs properly.
I haven't read the thread, just the opening post, so apologies if I repeat something already discussed.Different concepts are involved here in relation to commodities: – value;- labour-power;- wages;- profit;- utility or usefulness in the ordinary dictionary sense;- use-value (in the Marxian sense, which I regard as distinct from the above);- exchange-value;- money; and,- price.Prakash RP begins by telling us that money "cannot measure the WORTH ( i.e. the use-value or usefulness ) of a commodity".He refers to commodities, rather than 'things' in general, and he is defining 'worth' in a specific way, but in doing so I believe he conflates two different things. In my view, use-value is not the same as general usefulness, and 'worth' as a word does not seem to me to appropriately connect to utility or usefulness. As I explain below, when there is talk about the 'worth' of something, in ordinary non-technical language I take that to relate to a discussion of its realisable exchange-value, not use-value, a polar opposite concept. (What's it worth? normally refers to exchangeable value, whereas 'What's its worth to [you][me]?' would be more in line with the above usage). On that basis, money can be seen as a measure of worth, but I think Prakash RP meant something different by 'worth' and maybe is influenced by the idea that 'value', being synonymous with 'worth' in ordinary language, is the use-value of labour. Value is therefore being treated as synonymous with use-value, which I do not believe is quite correct. I think the opposite is the case.To take the example of labour, the use-value is not value but the production of value. My understanding is that there is a duality in the concept of value (worth): exchange value is the face of value, while its substance is simply labour, 'value' being the amount of labour necessary in the production of a community. Use-value, to be Stoic about it, can be seen as the thing in itself, what it does, whereas value can be seen as simply a linguistic regression of exchange-value, and as such things become conceptually clearer. So the value (use-value) of a lollipop could be that it quenches your thirst, but the value of the lollipop is the exchange-value of whatever commodity (whether money or otherwise) it was exchanged for. (In relation to the use-value of labour, Marx uses the expression 'socially-necessary' to denote that we are dealing with averages rather than specific production events). But use-value (and therefore, usefulness) simply does not enter into it until there is an exchange in the marketplace. There is no innate use-value, as it is 'social', but I don't believe this is what Prakash RP meant by 'worth', and I don't want to be accused of being overly-literal.To summarise, then, Use-value I would define as the usefulness of a commodity or thing when exchanged or consumed or both. It is therefore 'socialised', and Marx refers to use-value becoming social use-value. Unless there is, or prospectively will be, a transactional exchange of some kind, there can be no meaningful use-value. Marx does refer in Das Kapital to non-commodity things as having a use-value, such as the air that we breathe, but that sort of use-value can only be nominal since, in the case of the example I give, there is no transactional activity in the consumption of natural air.Usefulness, close in meaning to use-value but which I would distinguish, because the usefulness of a thing is broader than its use-value, is not 'socialised' in the same way that use-value must be (capitalists and workers producing for others, not for their own use), and is not something we can measure precisely from one 'thing' or commodity to another, but we can define it: it's simply the extent to which a commodity meets the needs of the producer or consumer. Profit is the appropriation by capitalists of the difference between the surplus of realised exchange-value of the commodity over the exchange-value of labour.Exchange-value is the general value at which commodities may be exchanged for other commodities and is synonymous with value.Money is the primary commodity through which exchange-value is expressed: it is an abstraction of value. What is legally or customarily thought of as 'money' might change from time-to-time. What is a 'price' and how it comes about is complicated and nobody seem to agree, but in simple terms we can say that price is an expression of exchange value in a commodity marketplace (it is the variable ratio of money to the commodity).Although exchange-value and price are not exactly the same thing conceptually, in everyday terms we can treat them as synonymous. Both use-value and exchange-value have 'value' in common. They require labour (unless they are nominal, as in the above example of breathable air). But there is a contradiction or tension between exchange-value (price, roughly-speaking) and use-value (usefulness of a commodity). It seems to me this contradiction is what is at the root of everything that Marx wrote on capitalism. I do think the classical economists have a point when they sometimes say that prices could be seen as an indirect indicator of utility/usefulness: in basic terms, and all things being equal, the higher the price, the more a commodity is demanded, from which we can infer that the commodity is, rightly or wrongly, perceived as having a higher utility than comparable commodities of a lower price. It follows that this utility will be seen to vary depending on price movements: classical economists call this fluctuating aspect the 'marginal utility' of a product. Not a direct measure of utility, obviously, and clearly imperfect, but indirectly an indicator.But the classical economists are not entirely right. A commodity is produced not for use, but for profit, and prices cannot accurately encapsulate the use-value of a commodity because of the basic way capitalism works. Capitalists normally have an incentive to maximise the price of their product, even at the expense of its use-value, and both capitalists and workers are not producing products for themselves, but for others: thus, workers are alienated from production, since capitalists control the means of living and force them to work not for themselves but for the benefit of others. This reality of alienation also means that use-value, in other words, has to be translated into 'social use-value'. Furthermore, sometimes exchange-value and social use-value are in direct conflict as a result of the market itself. This may seem odd, but to take an example (admittedly not a good example this, but the first thing that comes to mind): let's say I own a portfolio of real estate, I may have an incentive not to sell or let any of my properties to you, even if you are in desperate need of accommodation. My interest is not use per se, but profit. In extreme cases, I may even have an incentive to allow my properties to go to physical ruin rather than let them to you or anybody else.Conclusion – I think it follows from all this that money cannot be seen as anything more than a very indirect and unreliable indicator of the usefulness ('worth') of a commodity. I don't therefore share the dismissiveness of the opening post, but I agree with the general conclusion.
@ Alan JohnstoneYou're doing the classic lefty thing again of assuming superiority because I disagree with your self-reinforcing logic system. It's a psychological hindrance to debate. Do you really think that I believe Africans are racially, ethnically and culturally all the same? If you think I'm that stupid, then I'm surprised you're even giving me the time of day. It's obvious that I am just using the terms 'Africa' and 'African', etc. for brevity. Any tupenny halfwit can see that. I'm not some sort of naif or mangenue who's never looked at a school atlas. I am a 40 year-old man who has lived abroad and travelled around the world, and can speak a foreign language fluently; I have run several businesses and employed people, and I've known, worked with, employed and been employed by people of all races and from all sorts of backgrounds; and I'm highly-educated and I've read thousands of books; and I've had lots of different life experiences along the way, etc., etc., and so on. I'm not some ignoramus hiding in a basement, but I assumed that I wouldn't need to make the disclaimers explicit as I'm conversing with intelligent people.What you do is provide the usual stock excuses for why Africans can't feed themselves, which aren't actually on point but instead serve to divert us from asking awkward questions. I've heard it all before, so let me get to the root of the matter. My provisional view remains undisturbed. While acknowledging that Africans have significantly lower IQs than Westerners, and that this is a factor in the inability of Africans to cope under capitalism, I think the reason they have difficulty is the imposition of capitalism itself and the Western cultural hegemony that goes with it. Africa needs to be returned to the control of Africans, be that for better or ill. If as a result, they starve, that's terrible, but that's Nature. If, however, they thrive, then I'll be delighted. In any event, I do not accept that an imposed hegemonic system such as socialism would avail Africans. I think it would cause the same problems as capitalism, another Western system, just in a different way. In both systems, you are telling other people how to live, the only difference with socialism is that the totalitarianism comes with the finest of fine intentions and is rubber-stamped by the formality of "democratic consent", i.e. lots of people turning up to vote.The difference between you and I – or one of many differences – is that I acknowledge that humanity is not one 'race' but several, arguably several different species even, and that a hegemonic solution such as socialism will not address the needs of peoples who do not share our culture. It will just lead to more dependency and misery. Why do you think you know what's best for people thousands of miles away, on a different continent, with an entirely alien culture in some cases? And given that you think Africa has unique historical circumstances (I don't agree, but let's accept this is true for the sake of argument), what makes you think the solution of socialism, which arises from a peculiarly European experience of historical struggle, would be translatable to non-European societies? Isn't your attitude just a little patronising, even imperialist…?
Alan Johnstone's last post crossed with my own. I think I have dealt with most of this in the second part of my response above: I am willing to submit to an inquisition, in which case, please start a thread.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Ike, you cannot but expect a little amount of curiosity, that you are an ex-member of the SPGB. As i said, in all your previous contributions to the discussion list on many different threads, you never once mentioned or inferred former membership. In fact, you have never expressed any sympathy for the SPGB case at any level.This is not quite true: your recollection is faulty or you are perhaps inferring views to me that I do not have due to the 'noise' I make. In fact, I have great intellectual sympathy with Marxism and socialism, it's just that I depart from the SPGB on certain important points. The problem here is quite common: most people, even intelligent people such as yourself, do not treat ideas objectively and instead infer emotional allegiances. So-and-so is a 'Marxist', or a 'Nazi', etc. I am a rare type of person in that I am strictly objective about it. I look at the merits of ideas, and I recognise the merits of Marxism. I therefore treat it as nothing more or less than an analysis of society, which is either right or wrong to some degree, and I naturally look with interest at the SPGB case, which is an extension of Marxism, because I was once myself in the SPGB.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Over the years we have had ex-members of the BUF, NF and BNP and Conservatives (plus from all the left-wing groups) join the Party but it is their earlier views that changed.You are indeed the first member who i have known to resign and move to the right. It is indeed unusual.What you are referring to there are allegiances, not views. My allegiances have changed back-and-forth over the years because I was not mature enough to 'think' properly. I am now only interested in developing my own ideas, which starts with a recognition that capitalism is a bad system and is responsible for many of the problems I can see in society. What's wrong with that? But I want to be an independent thinker: not in a pretentious way, but purely for my own satisfaction. I will never influence anybody, but I have my own take on things.
alanjjohnstone wrote:You are also the first ex-member i have known to show a reticence to reveal the full details of this membership…when and where and for how long. I can understand the reluctance to reveal your identity but some other information need not be confidential. Was it an online or postal membership application or through a branch?I don't like nosy questions, and questions like that are nosy. Have you heard of data protection? You have no right to demand such information. I have always believed that the first rule of internet discussions (or really, any sort of discussion) is that you assume good faith in your opponent. It's much more productive and informative that way. You seem a bit close-minded, maybe fearful, but I am not trying to dissuade you from socialism – I have no interest in doing so – but I might broaden your mental horizons a little.
alanjjohnstone wrote:But this does explain why you still feel a desire to visit and engage on this forum, when from your own political standpoint, it is a rather much a waste of your time and energy.I doubt you know what my political standpoint is. Do I even need to have one? Does opposing enforced diversity and mass immigration make somebody a pariah among thinking people? If it does, then I think that's very sad and reflects more on the 'thinking people' than it does on the 'pariah'.
Before I respond, I want to make it very clear that I am genuinely appreciative of the replies from Alan Johnstone, and if it sounds like I am getting annoyed at times, that should not be taken personally. He's bound to annoy me, as I'm bound to annoy him, as we each have not only different views, but we come at things from fundamentally different principles, but he still defends the socialist case with good humour: he is a credit to the SPGB.
alanjjohnstone wrote:In your many posts over a very long period, this is the first occasion that you claim membership of the Party. It is understandable that some of us are sceptical of this claim.It doesn't matter: I WAS a member of the SPGB. If it really came down to it, I can prove it. In fact, start a thread for this purpose, if you like, and we can have an inquisition in which you interrogate me on the socialist case, the main traditions of the Party and key book references – Barltrop, etc.. It's been a good number of years, so I'll make some mistakes, as any genuine person would, but I can practically guarantee I will pass. You will say I can look for the information online. This is true, but cheating would only assist a charlatan to a limited degree. We both know that there is no shortcut to a genuine understanding of the socialist case or knowledge of the key books. You'll catch me out if I'm not genuine. So, over to you – that's if you think it matters.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Then don't ask for answers to any questions, then, Ike.My point is that I don't need to be lectured to in a canned manner about the socialist case. I already know it. Of course, though I have read hundreds of books on Marxism and socialism, I am not an academic expert and there will be lots you can teach me about it, I am sure. This is not arrogance on my part. I am asking a question that, I believe, cuts through your received wisdom and I am interested to see how your ideas cope with it. Parroting your rigid dogmas back at me is unimpressive in my eyes because I have already seen it all, and to me, it represents your defeat because it shows you cannot cope with new or different information. It's like watching a magician do a magic trick that I've seen before or a comedian tell the same joke: it's wearing thin.
alanjjohnstone wrote:And the length of the replies i give is to offer you the respect of a full answer and not to score debating points. In fact, as a regular visitor to this discussion ist, you should already be well acquainted with my style of writing and know i give verbose commentsJust to make something clear – I am NOT criticising you for verbosity. Please don't take offence. If you want to provide lengthy responses for the benefit of people looking in, then you go ahead and do that. I am sensitive to this criticism because we are similar. I tend to look at things a bit 'leftfield' myself and I can be quite verbose at times, which is the result of trying to 'think'. That's why I'm anxious to make clear I wasn't being offensive. I think it's horrible and small-minded when people dictate to others about their writing style or length of replies. Please continue with what you do – but I rest on the point I make above, that a canned regurgitation of the socialist case has no effect on me, since I already know it.
alanjjohnstone wrote:I mentioned more than just the market, though, in that reply i gave you on Africa. I mentioned corruption. In passing, i mentioned that there are historical events unique to Africa that still impacts on today's issues.Yes, but none of those factors tell us why Africans have this difficulty. I'm sorry to say that you still haven't answered my question, even though you think you have. Corruption is not unique to Africa. And even if we can accept that Africa has suffered unique historical troubles (I don't, by the way: I think that African problems nearly-always have had historical analogies in Europe), that doesn't explain why Africans haven't got over these problems. Haven't Europeans had problems..??? I think we have. Lots and lots of very serious obstacles and problems, but men of European descent created a space programme and don't seem to have much difficulty running capitalism and feeding themselves.
alanjjohnstone wrote:But when you have seen a hard-working Cambodian eating roasted rat, then you understand that hunger = poverty is not merely an African problem. But there has also been famines in Asia – Bangladesh being one of the later ones. But China under Mao was perhaps the worse. I recall the mis-named Irish Potato Famine. But the last European was the Dutch at the end of WW2. And one of the latest famines is in Yemen with the US/UK permitting a Saudi blockade.Of course. I agree that problems are not confined to Africa. We could broaden this out to Third World peoples (to be fair, I think I did in a previous comment). But we're still left with the same question, which still is unanswered. We could equally ask why the African-heritage peoples of Haiti can't run their own society under capitalism? I think you are in denial about differences in human types. This is partly due to what appear to be innate liberal-leftist inclinations that you have and that you fetishise, with the result that you’re sugar-coating how socialism would be experienced in practice. The lack of formal compulsion involved gives a misleading impression that people would not ‘have to’ work, when in reality they would. The nature of ‘work’ would of course be very different, in some places more like leisure, in others it would be quite similar to now. Whatever is the case, in practice there would have to be a strong sense of self-reliance, or the system could not work. Indeed, anybody who understands the SPGB case thoroughly will immediately appreciate that unless people have the capacity to look after themselves, socialism will quickly collapse. With this in mind, I might put my question a different way. Never mind asking whether Africans are fit for capitalism, we could ask: Are Africans fit for socialism? Or would people in the West find themselves in much the same position they do today, subsidising and aiding populations that would otherwise starve? If they do, I imagine some of your future socialists will be asking the same simple question I asked: Why can’t Africans take care of themselves?My provisional answer to my own question, to repeat, is that Africans CAN take care of themselves, within their own culture, but they CANNOT take care of themselves within a culture imposed on them by others, a point that I believe does not augur well for socialism – for the reasons given. [Note: I use the term 'African' for brevity, I know that it's a very broad term].One way you could address my objection is by explaining how socialism in practice could be culturally-flexible. Let's say an African community wish to maintain a traditional agricultural subsistence economy and a pagan belief system and wish to have no involvement in socialism, will they be 'allowed' to (i.e. left alone), or will they be told that property- and tradition-based societies, even very primitive ones, are no longer acceptable and that surplus produce must be circulated to other Africans? I think that, for Africans, the enforcement of socialism could be the route to squalour, corruption and starvation in much the same way that the enforcement of the market system is the route to squalour, corruption and starvation for them now. The good intentions of white liberal-minded Western socialists are not enough. The reason that Europeans can cope under capitalism, and probably in socialism too, is that they live in a 'socialised' society, i.e. civilisation, in which tradition and the natural basis of market economy, personal authority and property ownership have been eroded and dismantled in favour of depersonalised 'systems'.
@ VinI don't know if your problem is lack of comprehension skills or just obstinacy, but let me make it clear: I am not a member of the SPGB. You can infer from this that at some point my views changed. You can, in turn, infer from this that at the time I joined the SPGB, I had different views to the views I hold today. You can infer from this that "racists", as you call them, are not joining the SPGB. Therefore, any inquiry into the circumstances of my joining the SPGB would be of absolutely no assistance to you in understanding a non-issue that you have invented in your head. I hope that clears matters up, but if not, might I suggest you make enquiries at your local library about classes in adult literacy?
jondwhite wrote:"socio-biological human types and differences: everything from differences in intelligence to impactful variations in personality" participate in democracy equally now (including without getting along ie. Brexit) so there's no reason to suppose this wouldn't be feasible under socialism. By all means meet your own needs, but not at the expense of meeting those of a socialist society.Jon, thank you for the reply.That last part of what you say, which I have emboldened, is very telling and I may come back to it later. But it may be inadvertent on your part, a casual choice of words, so I don't want to make too much of it.On the main point you make, I accept that co-operation among different types of people is feasible under socalism – or rather, I am not dismissing the possibility outright, as that would be arrogant of me – and I also accept that that has its own significance on account of socialism not being a system of formal compulsion (at least in principle).And I also appreciate that the nature of the political economy will answer some of this. A farmer or aristocrat is not going to want to retain large tracts of land for ornamental purposes. You are not going to have pre-modern capitalist hold-outs in a post-capitalist commonwealth. What I'm referring to here are the groups that fall somewhere in the middle and that might, for cultural reasons, be attracted to pseudo-propertarian and distributistic models that are not capitalist, but echo capitalism, and whose preferred way of living, while not strictly socialist, would not be in contradiction to the larger socialist hegemony. Not everybody is going to get along. I'm pretty sure some serious dissent is going to arise, much of it for entirely mundane reasons. A group of people might value nuclear and extended families, might want to live in a traditional way, might value privacy and 'social order', and so on. Probably the way to address it will be to allow individuals, families and whole communities to live outside the system, as they wish. (Of course, I also appreciate that the word 'allow' might be redundant in this hypothetical future context: in futurist discussions like this, we are stuck with present-day lingo and frames of reference, which can make us look clumsy and laden with non sequuntur and other fallacies in the eyes of onlooking pedants).Would the dissidents represent a slow-burning threat to socialism? If people develop alternative cultures and systems, especially if these are based on undemocratic control of resources, how would socialists deal with this? Do you rely on a Might Is Right approach and order the dissidents to desist, using violence if necessary? And if so, aren't you then adopting, in effect, statehood to enforce socialism, and isn't then socialism itself a standing contradiction and in practice unworkable?That latter point has general application, I believe, though I don't just mean to frame it as a rhetorical question.
@ VinThe circumstances in which I joined the SPGB, or anything else, are none of your business. I only mention it because it is being assumed that I do not know the socialist case. I do. Ignorance is not what is behind my simple question, which by the way you still haven't answered.Western countries do not have any significant difficulty feeding themselves, despite capitalism. Therefore, although I do accept that the market system causes immense difficulties in its own right and I agree it probably should be abolished, it doesn't on its own explain why Africans cannot feed themselves.The best way to answer my question would be to produce some bullet points for me. I'm busy and I don't have time to read through large spamming blocks of texts that tell me what I already know or regurgitate what famous people have said. I want to get to the root of the problem. The market system does matter in this, I acknowledge that, but it's not the root issue.My view on this reflects a variety of different perspectives. I think Africans (and other non-Western peoples) are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves within their own cultures. The problems start when those cultures are taken from them. In a nutshell, I think there are different types of people, some are almost different species, and that it is best to allow separate development. I think that any 'global' or hegemonic system, be it capitalism or world socialism, will always reflect the material interests of one group at the expense of another and will harm those who cannot adapt to it, no matter how well-intended the people behind the system are.
@ Alan JohnstoneI am a former member of the SPGB. I know what socialism is. I know where all your blogs are, including the African one.I don't need you to tell me anything.I already know what the arguments are. Your post above in response to mine does not answer my question. You don't explain why Africans can't take care of themselves. In fact, if anything, your response underscores my concerns. If Africa is so rich in resources, why should there be a difficulty?You will say it's capitalism and the market system, and to an extent this is true, but even that does not help me understand why Africans seem to lack the capacity to help themselves. Even allowing for the perversions of the market, they still practically live in a natural paradise: why are they always in difficulty? This doesn't augur well for socialism. In a socialist system, there would have to be a degree of self-reliance. You will say, 'everybody will help out everybody else', and again, of course that's true in principle, but that sugar-coats how a REAL world socialist system would operate in PRACTICE.Let me put the question a different way…Do you accept that what happens in countries is at least in part due to the people in those countries?
@TheMightyTosserActually, I am a former member of the SPGB. I know what the case is. I know the script. I've already been convinced. There is no 'convincing' to be done.If I were you, I would get over the superiority complex. At the moment, we can't see your head as it's stuck up your arse.
The BBC article is intended to lay the psychological ground for further mass immigration, which I see is also what certain people on this forum want. Never mind that the working class do not want this and you claim to represent the true interests of the working class. Never mind that the working class do not want this and the BBC is funded by theft from the working class. Never mind all this. Just continue with your agenda of enforced diversity, regardless of the consequences.And the key part of that article is in the bit, not mentioned by the original poster, or anybody else here, that concedes that the physical footprint of population growth goes beyond the land actually used.The statistical basis of the article is also highly dubious. You will say the reason we need to import immigrants and other countries need to keep exporting workers is capitalism, and I would agree, but that raises the question of why so many people here are eager to promote diversity, despite its obnoxiousness, rather than make the case against capitalism. My point stands that it is because some of you are liberals, not actual socialists. You do not achieve cohesion among the working class by forcing different types of people to live together.
