[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

 So, since enlightenment has dawned, YMS, why not just say it, openly, for all to see, just like me?'Truth' in socialism will be decided by a vote.There. Easy-peasy.

 LOL 7 billion people voting several thousand times a year on the "truth" of scientific theories,  the vast majority of which, the vast majority of us (including the "scientific experts" as well), will most likely not have heard of or be familiar with – unless of course you believe in the notion that we can all attain a state of "scientific omniscience" through deep meditation and a diet of lentils "Easy peasy" indeed!It is pie-in-the-sky nonsense like this that actually makes  the case for communism look ludicrous and plain silly.  Saying that some people are more knowledgeable than others in some things  – inevitably – is not the same thing as taking up an elitist position since, though you may know more about  mechanics than I do, I may know more about chemistry than you.  LBird still cant see this point – he does not recognise that there is a social division of labour and that there are oppotunity costs involved in the acquisition of any kind of knowlege . So he rambles on irrelevantly counterposing elite science to democratic science.  The logic of his own argument is to say that we are all the same in our capabilities which is manifestly not true and by implying that it is, it is litle wonder that 99.99% of the population would scorn the case for communism if it was presented to them by the likes of LBirdAnd still we haven't been told why a vote is needed! Any scientist worth his or her salt is not going to be swayed by the fact that a majority hold a view that is contrary to his or her own. If LBird's daft ideas ever had any purchase we would still be stuck in the Middle Ages believing that the sun revolved around the earth rather than the other way round with no way of requestioing and overthrowing this orthodoxy in a totalitarian  system in which people will be told what to think (post 1260) .  If, on the other hand,  you are able to question orthodoxy then what is the point of voting for it other than to validate it as orthodoxy.  And what exactly is the point of that? It seems quite pointless.  LBird quite simply does not understand what democracy is meant to be forThat latest offering from LBird is that  the idea of voting is to curb the power  of his "experts".  How so? You could just as easily argue by that token  that it will do the exact opposite – if the expert in question finds his or her views have attracted majority support. What is to stop them capitalising on that support in that case?The mere fact that only a relatively few people are likely to know what String Theory is about, does not  and indeed, cannot, somehow give them "power" over others in a communist society where the means of production are commonly owned and all labour is voluntary.  Power to do what exactly? LBird doesn't explain.  But then he is not into "explaining" or answering questions in good faith – which is why he ducks every question asked of him.  He is here merely to pontificate –  like some kind of leftist version of a monomaniacal Jehovah Witness neophyteWe have had months and months of the most stultifyingly boring  and idiotic drivel from LBird, endlessly regurgitated.  When is he going to take the hint and realise  that continuing to shove his tedious mantras down our throats just aint gonna cut it – any more than those JW leaflets continuously shoved through the letter box?        

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

You still dont get it do you, LBird?Philosophically, I dont have a problem with what you are saying…

No, your 'problem' with 'what I'm saying' is merely a 'political' one.You won't have democratic science. You argue for elite science.The final arbiter of 'truth' must be society: if necessary, all 7 billion must vote.Socialism must start from the premise that 'scientific explanation' is understandable by all.Science must be open to all, as the producer of concepts, as a social activity to test those concepts, as the arbiter of the truth of the results of those activities.

 You wont answer those questions I asked you, will you? You continue to stubbornly evade them  by throwing up a smokescreen of strawman arguments Once again nobody is disputing that science must be "open to all" or that science is a social activity. Stop trying to put fake arguments in the mouths of your critics LBird.  You assert "The final arbiter of 'truth' must be society: if necessary, all 7 billion must vote. Socialism must start from the premise that 'scientific explanation' is understandable by all" But we are not talking  vaguely of "scientific explanation" are we? We are talking quite specifically of scientific theories. Thousands upon thousands of them. In every conceivable branch of science. You are saying that all 7 billion of us must vote on them.  I have no idea how many scientific theories come into circulation every year but let us say 10,000.  So you are proposing to organise 10,000 annual plebiscites globally on the validity of each of these scientific theories.  This is quite apart from the literally billions of decisions affecting the global production system  as a whole which, according to you, also have to be made by the global population of 7 billion in your centrally planned hyper-Leninist economy since you seem to have ruled out any kind of local decision making (it would be "elitist", according to you, for the local population to claim to know what is best for their locality. they must fall in line with what the global population decides for them) So just on the question of determining the "truth" of scientific theory that means the annual figure for ballot papers sent out (or their electronic equivalent) comes to …wait for it70,000,000,000,000.Of course all these votes have to be counted, addresses have to be checked in case of fraud and so on. So we are talking about many millions of hours of social labour being diverted away from producing food, building houses or sweeping streets… But thats only scratching the surface isn't it?   In order to vote on a particular scientific theory you need to know what the scientific theory is about. You cant just vote on something if you haven't got a clue what the issue is, can you?  So that means billions of pages of research papers, articles, books  and what not have to be made available to each of your 7 billion inhabitants .  They will be expected to digest the contents of all this material to arrive at an informed decision according to you.  'Cos there is no point in voting for something if you don't know whether to vote one way or another. I think even you, by now , can see that this whole idea of yours is well, to put it mildly ….a little silly.  There is no way on earth that it is going to be implemented.  It is logistically impossible. Even for the whole population to fully grasp  the ramifications of a single scientific theory arising in a single branch of science would require a mammoth effort.  It takes years of study to acquire the background knowledge of, say, neuroscience in order to competently  determine the validity of some scientific theory arising in the domain of neuroscience. Is this an elitist view of science? Not at all.  You constantly misunderstand this point.  Elitism implies a socially imposed barrier put in the way of individuals to advance their understanding of  and contribute to, a given discipline. I've said quite clearly that I totally opposed to any such barriers being imposed. The fact that inevitably and inescapably only a few individuals are going to end up as competent neuroscientists is purely a function of the social division of labour  and of the opportunity costs of the decisions you take. If you decide to become a competent neurosurgeon that means you are going to have to devote years of study to becoming that , time that you will not be able to devote to becoming a competent structural engineer for example.  You hate having to face up to this simple fact because it totally demolishes your entire ridiculous flimsy argument. Thats why you run away from the probing questions asked of you.  You don't want to have to face up to the absurd implications of your own arguments Instead you disssemble and deceive.  You claim that this means I am advocating a society in which there is a tiny elite of scientists on the one hand and the rest of us on the other.  You conveniently forget that the competent structural engineer is part of the "rest of us" as far the  community of competent neuroscientists is concerned while the competent neuroscientist is also part of the rest of us as far as the community of structural engineers is concernedAlso, ironically, the only one who is taking an elitist view of science is you  because you look down your nose on those of the "rest of us" as being non scientific in what we do  which is why you want us to all to swot up and study every minute of the day to become like a  "proper scientist".  But I insist that what I do as a gardener and ground maintenance worker involves "science" even if you with your elitist view of science cannot see this.  We are all scientific in that sense. Its just that we are also all different – necessarily   

LBird wrote:

And 'special individuals', like you, who will not have their comrades 'telling them what to think!'. Who needs the aid of their comrades to think, when they have access to a disinterested, neutral method, beloved of all 'special individuals', who hanker for 'free association', rather than 'workers' power'.Individualists always reject democracy, because democracy implies power outside of the individual.

 Firstly, you are assuming what you need to prove.  Democracy does indeed imply power outside of the individual but I ask you again – what is the point of voting on a scientific theory? You have never ever explained this.  Your inane response is scientific knowledge is a "social product"  which is quite true in a trite sense but I have pointed out to you that because something is a social product does not ipso facto mean it must be subjected to democratic control. My toothbrush is a social product.  Is the global population of  7 billion going to vote to decide whether I should be allowed to have a toothbrush or when I might use it Secondly regarding your jibe that 'special individuals', like me, will not have their comrades 'telling them what to think! – yes indeed!  I don't want to be "told what to think".  I'm not an 'effin sheep.  Your whole argument ironically reeks of elitism.  Note that what I am saying doesn't mean that I am not open to persuasion by others.  But if I am going to persuaded to change my mind and fall in line with what they think, I want to be persuaded on the merits of the arguments they present  not on the mere fact that they disagree with me  and are more numerous than me.  If you had your way LBird we would still be stuck in the middle ages when when people believed that the sun revolved around the earth .  There could be no structural possibility of ever changing this position because according to you the dissident minority who believed otherwise would have to stifle their thoughts and fall in line with the "majority".  That is because they would have to be told what to think. necessarily what you are advocating perpetuates the status quo by defintion In de facto terms what you are advocating is the most reactionary, anti-scientific anti-critical and  anti-communist crap ever to grace this forum. In real terms you are calling for a totally static society from which all criticism has been expunged by the alleged dictatorship of the majority which in practise because of the sheer impossibility of what you advocate will turn out to be tiny technocartic minority who will impose their will on the majority while pretending to represent that majority. And the biggest irony of all is that you are more stubbornly "individualist " on your terms than anyone else on this forum!  You will simply not have people telling you what to think but will drone on and on and one with the same old tedious mantra. Quite clearly you regard yourself as a " very special individual" who cannot possibly be wrong  even though just about everyone else regards (some of) your  views as verging on the insane So why is that the rest  of have to be told what to think by their comrades , L Bird , but not you, eh? I would really be interested to know but my guess is that once again you going to duck the question

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo, it would be a better use of your time to read one of the books that I've recommended (Delanty, perhaps?) rather than keep indulging in lengthy diatribes.Unless you engage on a philosophical level, it's pointless trying to explain to you.

 You still dont get it do you, LBird? Philosophically, I dont have a problem with what you are saying about "idealism-materialism".  That has never been the issue at least as far as I am concerned – as well you know – and doubtless others here as well.  The problem is your preposterous suggestion that  scientific theories should be subjected to a democratic vote by the global population.  You simply refuse to explain HOW or WHY, despite every request to do so. In your recent response to Vin, you say: 'Since Communist society will democratically control production, and 'truth' is produced by societies, then 'truth production' must be democratically controlled'. That is, 'Truth' will be elected, and perhaps later rejected, by society as a whole, not by 'elite experts'. Are you saying  that in a communist society as a whole – global society – will democratically control the totality of production and there will be no regional or local decisionmaking?  YES OR NO Are you saying that in a communist society everyone in society must acquire the level of expertise exhibited by experts today  not just in one branch of science but in every branch (something which no expert let alone lay person alive today can remotely claim to have acquired)  YES OR NO If the above is not what you what you are saying do you think it is possible to meaningfully vote on something if you dont have any inkling of what the vote is about?   YES OR NO Please answer these questions with an honest straightforwar answer, LBird.  Stop trying to constantly  divert attention away from these questions to irritation of just about everyone here, and try for once to once, to engage with what this debate is really about.  Stop trying to deflect blame on others when you have only yourself to blame for the complete  incredulity which your  posts give rise to

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

Back to your non-voting 'rocks', robbo. You're an individualist and an elitist, and you won't have others telling you what 'truth' is, because you claim to have an access all of your own to 'matter'.You've said all this before – you actually said that you won't have 10 comrades outvoting you on your 'own' knowledge. You really believe that you as an individual know better than a wider majority.

Are you quite well LBird and not currently partaking of some illegal substance perchance? I've "actually said" that? When? Give me the details. Thread and post number please. (Oh and I guess Saint LBird is totally different.  After all, he – god forbid! – doesnt pretend to "know better" than a "wider majority" even though the wider majority on this forum completely opposes the nonsense he spouts – even if that doesnt seem to stop him continuing to spout such nonsense! His actions speak louder than, and contradict, his words )I've said nothing of the sort and you damn well know it, LBird.  What I actually said is that I couldn't really see the point of voting for a scientific theory because, if you believe it to be correct and the majority think otherwise, then the  mere fact that majority think otherwise is not going to dissuade you and indeed ought not dissuade you from holding that theory.  If most people believed that the sun revolved around the earth  rather than the earth around would you abandon the idea of a heliocentric universe and meekly fall in line?  Yes or No LBird? Oh I forgot – you are not into answering straight questions with straight answers. Silly me

LBird wrote:

Because you, like your 'elite experts' (physicists, mathematicians and academics), regard yourselves as 'special individuals', and you won't have the 'despised mass' telling you anything, will you? 'No democracy here!', they maintain. 

 You are so full of crap, it is difficult to know where to even begin deconstructing this idiocyFor a start, I am by my own admission one of the despised mass you rant on about it.  I recognise fully my own limitations.  I could not, for example, begin to debate with a trained astrophysicist on the merits of, say , String theory  (to use my previous example) because I know next to nothing about it.  However, that trained astrophysicists may well know next to nothing about things that I know .  We are ALL special individuals LBird in that we are all different – a thought which you just cant seem to wrap your head around Secondly, nobody is saying one should not tell somebody who happens to be knowledgeable about  a particular subject a thing or two about the subject. Im all for that.   In fact I have said quite categorically that I absolutely oppose any restriction on anyone whatsoever making a contribution to scientific theory,  Restricting people in that way would indeed be "elitist" and I am opposed  root and branch to such elitism. However you cant expect people to make a contribution to some branch of scientific knowledge if they don't have some grounding in it in the first place.  Is that an unreasonable proposition to make? Of course not,  How the hell can you say something about some obscure theory in say molecular biology if you don't know what it is about in the first place, eh?.  To know what it is about you have study it, read up about it , and experiment.  All of which takes time and resources.  The difference between "elitism" and this is that this is a kind of unavoidable self imposed restriction.  It stems from the opportunity costs of decision makingwhich you dont seem to understand at all.  If you want to become a trained astrophysist then the the opportunity cost of that may be forfeiting the opportunity to become a trained molecular biologist a result We  don't all have the time to become a trained astrophysicist and we certainly don't have the time to be become BOTH a trained astrophysicist AND a trained molecular biologist.  Yet you expect all of us to be competent enough in EVERY single field of scientific endeavour in order to be able to "democratically vote" on the totality of scientific theories.  This is beyond insane

LBird wrote:

Only democracy in science is acceptable for socialists. That means all social production, including truth.

Like I said, you don't under stand either the scientific process or the democratic process.  You don't understand their purpose of function As for social production I have asked you this before but as usual you have completely ignored my question:  would there be localised decision making  in your fantasy world? Would there be say  a town or village where it is essentially only the people who live there who happen to intimately know the town or village they reside in where they want to site, say, a new medical centre.  If so how is this different from a dispersed scientific community of astrophysicists who happen to know about String  Theory unlike the rest  of us .  Most of us like me I guess couldn't  really be arsed to know om great detail. There are other things about the world that I find a lot  more interesting frankly. See, to be consistent LBIrd you would have to rule out any idea of local decision making in your fantasy world because to have local decision making by your warped logic is the equivalent of allowing experts to decide the merits id some scientific theory,   So that means in your fantasy world every decision relating to social production would be taken by all 7 billion inhabitants of planet Earth and there could be no such thing as sub-global planning – yes? That makes  you an advocate of society wide central planning .  There will be only one single mind that will address the totality of social [production and it will be global in scope. Though you don't seem to realise it your position is actually a Leninist one and while you declare yourself in favour of democracy in practise what you advocate will turn out to be the most viciously anti democratic dispensation imaginable.  The sheer futility of what you advocate will be the pretext on which a tiny elite will assuredly grasp the reins of social power and impose their decisions on the majority by diktat while pretending to embody the democratic will of that self same majority

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

Another reading recommendation, comrades, about physics and its politics.

Ball, p.25 wrote:

It became clear to [Max] Born that what he began to call a ‘quantum mechanics’ could not be constructed by minor amendment of classical, Newtonian mechanics. ‘One must probably introduce entirely new hypotheses’, [Werner] Heisenberg wrote… Born agreed, writing that summer [of 1923] that ‘not only new assumptions in the usual sense of physical hypotheses will be necessary, but the entire system of concepts of physics must be rebuilt from the ground up’.            That was a call for revolution, and the ‘new concepts’ that emerged over the next four years amounted to nothing less.

[my bold]Philip BallServing the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics Under Hitlerhttp://www.amazon.co.uk/Serving-Reich-Struggle-Physics-Hitler/dp/1847922481

 Doubt if Ball is saying what you seem to imply he is saying – at least in the context of this discussion.  He is talking about a revolutionary change in the conceptual basis of Physics; he is not talking about all 7 bllion of us- the global population – becoming knowledgeable and trained Physicists and "democratically" voting from the ground up to replace one set of concepts with another – your crackpot idea.  Some of us have got other things to do than devote years of our lives becoming acquainted with the intricacies of theoretical Physics, ya' know…

LBird wrote:

The ‘rocks’ do not talk to us, comrades. Humans employ concepts to understand. Concept formation precedes observation. We try to find what we already think exists. We select.This is Marx’s ‘theory and practice’, his ‘idealism-materialism’.Whilst comrades continue to look to ‘materialism’ (or its modern equivalent, ‘physicalism’), they’ll remain confined in a 19th century straitjacket.Societies determine what they see, not the rocks. Humans are the active side, as Marx said in the Theses on Feuerbach, not ‘matter’.

 Yes, and who exactly is it here that is supposed to be disagreeing with the above sentiments?  Your irritatingly repetitive "rocks dont talk" mantra is a boring banality.  Dont you think it is time you changed the record and moved on, eh?

[robbo203]

Richard wrote:

Regressive political parties and movements have embraced social media and the Internet and I think that progressive movements like ours should do the same. Technology probably will have long term effects on human behaviour but the technology is here to stay. I think this is something that requires a lot more study but in the meantime we should use Twitter, Facebook and text messaging to get the socialist message out there, especially to a new generation like the pre-teens in the Science Direct study you mentioned. Those pre-teens are bombarded with capitalist propaganda extolling the consumer lifestyle. By the time they're twenty, those pre-teens will be good little consumers , office workers and temp workers. Capitalists know how to get their message out, do socialists?

 This is so true, Richard.  The best book I've come across on the influence of consumerism on kids is Juliet Schor's "Born to Buy".  Here is a summary of it (http://www.thesimpledollar.com/review-born-to-buy/).  I would recommend it to others here. It is an impressively researched work which throws considerable light on the array of forces we revolutionary socialists are up against It may well be too early as you and Meel suggest , to draw any firm conclusions on the impact of communications technology on human behaviour and ideology in general. However, tentatively, what we can say on the basis of the evidence that is already in is that such technology is a double edged sword. For sure,  technology itself is not something neutral that stands apart from society and develops under its own momentum: technology is shaped by society and by the values that pervade society.  It is some time since I last read  Andre Gorz's book  "Farewell to the Working Class" but Gorz's thesis was that the the way in which technology has developed under capitalism with its increasingly complex division of labour was such that the "nature, modalities and objectives of work are  to a large extent determined by necessities over which individuals or groups have relatively little control" (p.9) .  We confront , in other words, a form of alienation that is inherent not only in the capitalist relations of production but  "in the socialisation of the process of production itself: in the workings of a complex, machine like society"(p.9).   This led him to conclude that the productive forces have been rendered incapable of being accommodated to a "socialist rationality"  (p.15) and that this impossibility has been "deliberately created in order to guarantee capitalist domination" (p.31).  It was only outside the sphere of formal paid heteronomous work, and in the sphere of autonomous activity (think here of the role of computers, for example and the "gift economy" that is the internet),  argued Gorz, that we can hope to find emancipation; paid work is here to stay because the nature of technology is such that it requires the compulsion of a wages system in order to ensure that such work gets done. I disagree strongly with Gorz who I think adopts a rather mechanistic reductionist approach to the whole subject but he does have a valid point when he says the development of technology is not something that is value free but is shaped by the imperatives of capital itself. 

[robbo203]

Hi Meel Here are a few links that might be of interest regarding the impact of computer technology On children http://futureofchildren.org/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=45&articleid=205§ionid=1343V on virtual realityhttp://aeon.co/magazine/science/can-we-tell-if-reality-is-a-computer-simulation/ on social networking http://news.softpedia.com/news/Social-Networks-Influence-How-We-View-the-World-181632.shtml on the workings of the brainhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-565207/Modern-technology-changing-way-brains-work-says-neuroscientist.html And on  how computers are beginning to think like humanshttp://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429932.300-computers-are-learning-to-see-the-world-like-we-do.html Hope this all helps….

[robbo203]

Even the Daily Mail is having a go  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2169403/Bob-Diamonds-spoilt-brat-daughter-Nell-super-rich-elite-shame.html. 

[robbo203]

Vin wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

So answer the question LBird:  would just anyone be allowed to fly a plane regardless of experience or qualifications?  Yes or No?  No beating about the bush, please.  Lets have a straight answer for once.  And, no , nobody is "separating society into a two". I can do things in my line of work which I bet a university trained nuclear physicist wouldn't have a clue about.  And I'm a horny handed son of toil and proud of it..  What is your expertise BTW?

 Robbo, this question was asked of LBird at the start of the thread by myself and others. His reply to you and Dave B is the only answer we are going to get. 

 Yes I know, Vin, but in the  naive hope that I might get a straight answer to a straight question I persisted in asking the question but to no avail. Its like trying to get blood out of stone  as I'm coming to realise. And he is at again. "since 'truth' is a social product, that the 'truth' of any scientific knowledge should be decided by society, using democratic means"This is ludicrous.  Because something is a "social product" does not necessarily  mean it should be subjected to "democratic control". That is flawed logic.  My toothbrush is a social product.  Does that mean 7 billion inhabitants on planet earth should democratically vote on whether I should be allocated a toothbrush and when I might use it. Of course not. LBird is absolutely clueless about what democracy is supposed to be for.  Ditto scientific knowledge. How in hell's name are 7 billion people expected to vote, not just on one scientific theory, but thousands upon thousands of them?  This is beyond insane. I sometimes wonder if LBird even has any inkling of what he is saying or is it just a knee jerk mantra in his case.  How is what he proposes even remotely possible in a logistic sense and what is the point of voting on a scientific theory anyway. LBird never ever answers these questions and he wonders why no one takes him seriously. Quite apart from anything else how does he imagine one would be able to vote on something without knowing what it is you are voting on in the first place.  There is  no way any one individual no matter how how brainy or highly trained can grasp more than a small fraction of the sum total of scientific knowledge. Ergo short of suggesting we should become omniscient overnight what he proposes is out of the question The irony is that he throws a hissy fit  when asked a simple question: would just anyone be allowed to fly a plane regardless of experience or qualification.  Yet in his fantasy world all 7 billion of us are supposed to eminently qualified, not only in the mechanics of flying a plane, but in every conceivable branch of science in order to  "democratically" vote on the truth of scientific theories.  Anthing short of that is advocating "elitism" in his book (another term – like democracy – he doesnt understand)How ridiculous.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

Fuck off, you knob.I can't get any clearer.

 Oh dear, someone has had his feathers ruffled hasn't  he? So I take it that means you can't provide a straight answer to a straight question or, more likely, deign in your superior wisdom  not to give one. This from the hypocrite who charges others with being "elitist". Ho humFirst warning: 7. You are free to express your views candidly and forcefully provided you remain civil. Do not use the forums to send abuse, threats, personal insults or attacks, or purposely inflammatory remarks (trolling). Do not respond to such messages.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

Dave B wrote:

Against this is the non macroscopic idea of; would planes be flown by a democratic committee or decisions about how to put out a fire not be left to the expertise of the trained fire fighters etc?

This sort of 'question' when trying to discuss the philosophical issue of the democratic production of knowledge, is similar to the 'question' of 'why are you Commies going to make us all wear the same blue boiler suits, and be forced to share our underpants?', when trying to discuss socialism.The problems are contained in the question, which is made by those who've already made their minds up about the issues at stake.Ah well, let's just leave it all to the 'elite experts'. Separate society into two.The fact that Marx, in the Theses on Feuerbach, disagreed with this, is neither here nor there, eh?And bollocks to philosophy, Marx's or anyone else's, and stick to 'facts' and the 'real world'. And those nice disinterested scientists and their neutral method.

 So answer the question LBird:  would just anyone be allowed to fly a plane regardless of experience or qualifications?  Yes or No?  No beating about the bush, please.  Lets have a straight answer for once.  And, no , nobody is "separating society into a two". I can do things in my line of work which I bet a university trained nuclear physicist wouldn't have a clue about.  And I'm a horny handed son of toil and proud of it..  What is your expertise BTW?

[robbo203]

stuartw2112 wrote:

I think Meel's concerns are to the point – these are the kinds of things we should think more carefully about, and not try to sweep under the carpet.Robin presents the SPGB case, which I presume he reiterates for the benefit of other readers and not for me! But yes, I'm afraid I do rather find Mises' argument persuasive, nor do I think the example of the Soviet Union can be so glibly swept under the carpet, along with all other difficulties, and made to vanish with a magic wand called "abundance". I've just this moment finished reading Red Plenty by Francis Spufford, so that's where I'm coming from. (Don't worry – I have no intention of becoming another McDonagh and boring the arse off everyone with talk of tons of rubber and tons of steel. And yes, I've read your detailed and in its own way impressive rebuttal of the argument Robin. It's just where I'm at at the moment and would be happy to hear from anyone who has any sympathy with the Mises' position – it was not unknown within the SPGB when I was a member.)

 Hi Stuart. Well , my feeling is that Hayek rather than Mises is of more interest to us with the former's emphasis on the "knowledge problem" in a modern economy and the dispersed nature of economic information.  Both, of course, take for granted that socialism would be a centrally planned economy in the classic sense of society wide planning and their whole critique is essentially based on this assumption.  As I have long argued, if you are going to start off on this basis then this ipso facto precludes the very mechanism that allows you to overcome the objections raised by the so called economic calculation argument. I don't think either of these two anti socialists ever seriously considered socialism from the standpoint of being a system that entailed a feedback mechanism where there is necessarily a degree of decentralisation. They did of course refer to small scale communistic experiments that involved the absence of money but this is not the same argument at all; it is an argument against autarky. I  am actually quite sympathetic to the sentiments you express here that the problems that socialism will face, certainly to begin with, cannot just be "made to vanish with a magic wand called "abundance"".  This is precisely why I feel more emphasis needs to be placed on the "demand" side of the supply- demand equation and why I would endorse your "Zen approach" to the realisation of abundance by "demanding less".  I've tried to illustrate this by showing how a socialist society would sever the link between status acquisition and material consumption, thereby rendering much of what we "demand" today quite superfluous.  It is capitalism that by its very nature necessitates and artificially maintains, scarcity.I don't think the position of the SPGB is much different,  frankly.  Although I seem to recall one or two conversations with individuals members who take an extreme cornucopian position – that socialism will produce a "superabundance" of everything – I don't think this is reflected in the official party position. I remember reading one of Hardy's articles – I think it might have been on "Marx's conception of socialism" – in which he quite blatantly stated that workers certainly in the developed world might well have to accept a cut in living standards initially to raise the standard of living elsewhere, I don't have a problem with this approach and it ties in with my argument that socialism is in part an ethical approach not just a question of "self interest". Apart from anything else there is much more to life than just the so called "standard of living".  In my book, quality of life counts as least as much, if not more

[robbo203]

Meel wrote:

I do think that our human nature was forged through a process of natural selection over countless millennia – and that one aspect of this nature is that we are inherently capable of violent behaviour as well as cooperative behaviour.  I think this is different from saying we are naturally warlike, and I think it is important to make the distinction. 

 Hi Meel,Yes I agree.   You might say, then,  that what we can say about "human nature" is that we are highly adaptable, not that we are either inherently violent or inherently peaceful  ("cooperative" is perhaps not quite the right word in this context as an antonym of "violent", since wars themselves can be a very cooperative business!).  My main argument was really to warn against the kind of crude sociobiological claim certainly expressed by people like E O  Wilson – though I agree, not Stephen Pinker – that war is "embedded" in our nature.  This is even weaker than the argument that we are inherently violent since war is  a very particular form of violence that entails inter group conflict and there is no evidence that war in this sense existed much before the rise of agriculture 10,000 years ago.  That is when territory became an important consideration.  With hunter gatherers, being essentially nomadic, the notion of territory simply had no meaning. Can I recommend this link to you and others on this forumhttp://www.nonkilling.org/pdf/nksocieties.pdfI would particularly recommend chapters one and three…

[robbo203]

Meel wrote:

I would like to think that we are able to move towards a saner society, where the means of producing and distributing wealth are no longer controlled by a small elite.  I do not think that creating such a society is dependent on showing that HG bands were peaceful.HGsFirstly, we cannot project the behaviour of current hunter gatherers backward in time, whether this behaviour is peaceful or warlike, so the enterprise is doomed from the start.  We simply cannot know what their behaviour was like, save inventing a time machine and travelling back a few thousand years…..  Therefore, I would contend, we need to think more about what humans are like when they live in larger groups, with many unrelated members of both sexes – and with several possessions.  So – HG behaviour seen from this angle is irrelevant.

 I agree with a great deal of what you say, Meel, though I don't think  the question of hunter gatherers is quite so irrelevant as you perhaps suggest. True, there are basic differences between a HG way of life and any conceivable way of life for the majority of us in the world we inhabit today.  There is no going back to a prehistoric world in which small nomadic bands of people acquired their means of subsistence in the form of an "immediate return" system of needs satisfaction  Today of necessity we live in a "delayed return" system  which requires the development of an immense technical infrastructure to support a global population that is now in the region of 7 billion people.All the same , I think  the question of how our remote ancestors lived in the past is relevant to socialists today if only because it is inextricably bound up with the question of "human nature" which presents itself as a formidable barrier to the realisation of socialism itself.  The human nature argument  asserts that the nature of human beings was forged through a process of natural selection over countless millennia and that one aspect of  this nature is that we are inherently warlike.  If we are inherently warlike that would amount to saying that a united socialist world is an impossibility since such a world would sooner or later fracture into competing entities prepared to wage war against each other as a manifestation of our in built disposition to wage war against each other.  Moreover, to wage war effectively requires an authoritarian power structure or chain of command which runs completely conter to social character of a socialist society.   One of  the ways in which to combat  this myth is to argue that our prehistoric hunting and gathering  forbears were in fact not warlike at all.  There were, quite likely, acts of individual violence but that is not the same thing as war which is by definition a collective enterprise I don't agree that we cannot know anything about what happened in the remote past – short of inventing a time machine – and it should be mentioned that this has not stopped the advocates of the human nature argument saying a lot about what THEY believed happened in the remote past.  As socialists we have to confront what they have to say since what they say is at odds  with the kind of world we desire.  We can know something about what happened in the past even it is based on informed guesswork.  The two main sources of information are1) the archaeological record2) contemporary HG groupsNeither of these support the thesis that our prehistoric ancestors were warlike.  The conflict avoidance mechanism that you refer to whereby the unrestricted freedom to roam wherever they wished, eliminated any conceivable reason for intergroup conflict is a key intellectual tool in our toolbox of concepts that would allow us to understand how our prehistoric forbears lived.  That conflict avoidance mechanism needless to say,  is today being increasingly undermined in the modern world as hunter gather groups find themselves hemmed in more and more by farmers, lumber companies , mining corporations and state authorities promoting a propertarian outlook at odds with the basic communistic worldview of the hunter gatherers I should also mention that the claim that human beings are naturally warlike is bound up with the social darwinist perspective of people like William Graham Sumner in the late 19th century.  Sumner put forward the thesis that "in-group amity necessitates out-group enmity".  In other words, for a community to flourish , it requires an external enemy to unite and fight against – social cohesion calls for conflict directed outwards towards other groups.  This is an argument also put forward by people like Samuel Bowles today – that warfare has been a great socialising force amongst human beings. But the findings of anthropologists contradict this view. These findings show that HG bands did not and, even today , largely do not relate to each other antagonistically,  that these relationships are often bound together by extensive networks of gift exchange and it should also be said of kinship relationships as well.  Hunter gatherers had far more reason to cooperate with each other than  go to war with each other and if there is anything to be said about "human nature" it is probably that

[robbo203]

stuartw2112 wrote:

Marxian socialism instead tries to have its cake and eat it too – promising material abundance, organised industrially but without markets, but anyway the result, we are promised, will be less materially motivated people, dedicated to the common good. The trouble with this approach is the problem of economic calculation and the warning of the Soviet Union.

 I'm not quite sure what you mean by this Stuart? Surely you are not suggesting that you have bought into the Misesian nonsense about socialism's alleged inability to make economic calculations in the absence of market prices? As for the Soviet Union, well, I don't think you will find many here advancing authoritarian state capitalism is either a desirable objective in itself or a  necessary means to socialism itself. On your other  point about Sahlin's two routes to affluence, I have some sympathy for what you say about the Zen route of "demanding less".  But that does not require billions of people signing up to a political (spiritual?) programme that would guarantee them lower material living standards..   The point is that people's real needs can be adequately met today if you eliminate capitalism and the massive – indeed growing – diversion of resources and labour away from the gratification of those needs that capitalism necessitates.  Most of the economic activity that capitalism generates today is socially useless and does nothing  materially to enhance the welfare and wellbeing of individuals; it simply exists to keep the system ticking over on its own terms. Think of the banking sector.  It is a complete and utter waste of resources, resources that could be used to increase socially useful productive output in a non market socialist society.  This incidentally links up with the point about "economic calculation" and the supposed advantage that market capitalism has over socialism in being able to efficiently allocate resources. "Efficient" from what point of view? But to return to your Zen approach to the question, I think the point needs to emphasised that a great deal of what we are supposed to "need" boils down to, what I think it was Marcuse said was "false needs".  Marcuse's point was that the generation of false needs was absolutely indispensable to capitalism and its competitive grow-or-die outlook. Literally billions and billions of dollars are spent on advertising to get us to feel dissatisfied with our lot. Even the millionaire with his or her luxury yacht is conditioned to feel inadequate in the face of rivals with even more financial clout. In socialism, the link between wealth consumption and social status will completely disappear.  This is because free access to the means of living completely undermines and renders dysfunctional such a mode of status differentiation.  The only  logically conceivable way to acquire the respect and esteem of your fellows in a socialist society would be through your contribution to society ., not what you take out of it.A Zen approach to wealth consumption will be the natural outgrowth of  the kind of social relations that will characterise a socialist society; it wont need some kind of mass evangelical commitment to consume less. The whole concept of "standard of living" is questionable anyway since the way in which it is calculated is on the basis of per capita GDP and a huge chunk of what constitutes GDP today is precisely all that structural waste – such as the banking sector – which socialism will eliminate

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