jondwhite
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wiscalatus wrote:Nations are needed to support the innate human need for an in-group.People that think, look and act in the same way are more likely to build unity – too much diversification causes distrust and a breakdown of solidarity.
Sorry but the stuff about nations when you look into it is extremely dubious to say the least.Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson is described;
Quote:What makes people love and die for nations, as well as hate and kill in their name? While many studies have been written on nationalist political movements, the sense of nationality – the personal and cultural feeling of belonging to a nation – has not received proportionate attention. In this widely acclaimed work, Benedict Anderson examines the creation and function of the "imagined communities" of nationality and the way these communities were in part created by the growth of the nation-state, the interaction between capitalism and printing and the birth of vernacular languages in early modern Europe.Also The Invention of Tradition by E J Hobsbawm is described;
Quote:Many of the traditions which we think of as very ancient in their origins were not in fact sanctioned by long usage over the centuries, but were invented comparatively recently. This book explores examples of this process of invention – the creation of Welsh and Scottish 'national culture'; the elaboration of British royal rituals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the origins of imperial rituals in British India and Africa; and the attempts by radical movements to develop counter-traditions of their own. It addresses the complex interaction of past and present, bringing together historians and anthropologists in a fascinating study of ritual and symbolism which poses new questions for the understanding of our history.The UK is only a few centuries old. Britain a bit older.
Poor Jamie, he's only worth £150m. All through his own hard work too! Must be putting in 300 hour weeks.
Why wouldn't you seek to overthrow the capitalist system if this is the cause? Because its easier to blame immigrants? Because its easier to blame particular employers? Or if you want to divide workers, why stop at nations? Why not the north-south divide? Why not town and country? Why not capital cities from the rest?
Are these permissions specific to particular pages? Are page-editing capabilities corollary with banning/suspending users?
Anarchist FAQ isn't too bad on some of these issues with a stateless societyhttp://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secA2.html#seca215http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secA2.html#seca216http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secA2.html#seca217
So the scenario being put forward is thousands and millions of workers become class conscious and overthrow capitalism, only for warlords and gangsters to enslave them and re-introduce serfdom with warlords as the new aristocracy? Meanwhile, production and modern industry plummets, I'm not sure even modern capitalists would willingly let the restoration of feudalism. But if that's human nature and definitely going to happen, I guess there's nothing I can do about it.
I may have lost track of this topic, but assuming a steady level of migration (hasn't immigration gone down since the recession?) and outsourcing, how is it when an economic recession hits, that unemployment goes up by orders of magnitude greater than immigration and outsourcing, almost as much as labour discipline gets imposed on workers by an eager ruling class who sees an opportunity to bolster the myth we need to 'tighten our belts' because we're 'all in this together'. Well yes, workers globally are affected adversely by the recession in a way newish to the 21st Century.
From a purely chronological perspective the question for any 'socialist' groups formed after 1904 is why they did not join the SPGB.You won't get a definitive answer from SPEW on immigration because they happily lend their support to fronts such as No2EU arguing for a sort of 'fortress Europe'.An article from the a small Leninist group here explains some of the issueshttp://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/793/nationalist-common-sense
The institution of marriage with all its negative connotations will wither away. But agreed with DJP, nothing wrong with public vows.
What's to stop feudalism coming back? Society doesn't move to more primitive forms of production systems. Thousands and millions of class conscious workers who have overthrown capitalism would not suffer warlords or gangsters. Sorry if that sounds determinist.
Marx wrote Wage Labour and Capital and Value Price and Profit as two simple short pamphlets aimed at ordinary workers. The Communist Manifesto is short (by Marx standards) too. I quite like what little I've read of Engels work, and prefer his writing style. The German Ideology and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (part of a larger work called Anti-Duhring). Like many, I've tried to read Capital and given up before I got into it.What is your academic level and how straightforward would you like the text to be? What subject would you like, economics, philosophy, history? You can always read modern interpretations of Marx if you like.
