[robbo203]

stuartw2112 wrote:

Robin agrees we don't really know anything about human nature, but insists that if there is one thing we definitely do know it's what he asserts as dogma. I'd go with the first proposition and reject the second.As for what humans would fight over if they didn't have to compete over natural resources and trade routes – is this a joke question? Religion and ideology, to ignore the more evil options, would seem to be prime candidates, if history is any guide.

 This is not quite what I said, Stuart , and it is odd, to say the least, that you should  characterise what I definitely said about  "human nature" as amounting to a "dogma" – the fact that we are highly adaptable social animals.  Is that a "dogma"? I don't think it is.  I think its an amply verifiable fact that human beings have lived under a huge variety of social arrangements and in a huge  variety of physical environments – from the Arctic to the Tropics – and so stands out as being  quite unique among animal species. What I was attacking was the sociobiological dogma that human beings are innately warlike.  Note that this is not the same as saying human beings are not prone to violence.  My argument, drawing on the evidence of people like Ferguson and Fry, is that that there were no wars – defined  here as systematic large scale and lethal intergroup violence – amongst Paleolithic hunter gatherers –  and that the first signs of war only appeared less than 10,000 years ago with the rise of agriculture , sedentism and the state.  This is far too short a time in evolutionary terms to have made a discernable impact on "human nature".  Ergo, war is a social institution not a biological phenomenon. This is why I think the question of why wars happen is highly relevant to this thread and I'm a little surprised that the Moderator has taken such a strict line on what is, or is not, off topic. It is relevant to the topic because the whole point of the topic is to discuss what gives rise to war. If human beings are not innately warlike (and the evidence of the pattern of violence in hunter gatherer societies – which is overwhelmingly one on one violence , not intergroup violence  – demonstrates this)  then I cannot see how wars are ever likely to happen in a future socialist society  where institutionalised scarcity and commercial rivalries no longer exist.  The argument the wars are fought for reasons other than conflicting economic interests, while true enough in itself, is not a sufficient reason, as has been pointed out. Of course organisations  like Isis or Boko Haram cite religious reasons for their murderous campaign of war – even if those religious beliefs they spout bear little or no relation to Islam as such (something which further reinforces the view that religion and ideology serve as a smokescreen to  opportunistically camouflage the underlying economic motives for war and to invest war with a necessary aura  of moral righteousness).  However, while clearly the ideology  and declared religious  beliefs of Isis and Boko Haram do help to explain their actions they do not really explain how or why such organisations have come to such prominence and gained such influence.  I suggest that part of the reason for that is that they appeal to a constituancy whose economic interests have been thwarted and refuffed and that the story of these organisations cannot really be fully grasped outside of  the context of conflicting capitalist interests and imperialist rivalry in places like the Middle East and Africa.  There is only so far you can push the argument that wars are fought over religious beliefs etc and no further and this stops well short of a fully rounded explanation. There is a great quote from Carolyn Merchant  which, for me, sums up rather well this whole  base -superstructure dialectic and acknowledges their reciprocal influence:An array of ideas exists available to a given age: some of these for unarticulated  or even unconscious reasons seem plausible to individuals or social groups; others do not.  Some ideas spread; others die out.  But the direction and accumulation of social changes begin to differentiate between  among the spectrum of possibilities so that some ideas assume a more central role in the array, while others move to the periphery.  Out of this differential appeal of ideas that seem most plausible under particular social conditions, cultural transformations develop (The Death of Nature: Women , Ecology and the Scientific Revolution,  Harper and Row 1980 p.xviii). One final point worth mentioning and this is something that Louis Dumont mentions in his book "From Marx to Mandeville" – that what we call the "economic realm", a kind of quasi-objectified , self sufficient or separate dimension of social reality , subject to its own inner laws, is something that really only came into own with the rise of a capitalist money-based economy.   The significance of this is that it is  only truly under capitalism that we are enabled to apprehend the apparent causal interrelationships between the economy and other aspects of society such as its superstructure.In hunter gather societies, or indeed traditional horticulturalist or pastoralist societies,  there was or is no such  "thing" as "the economy" as such.  Everything is mixed up.  The way you went about acquiring your daily subsistence was at one and the same time a cultural and religious activity.I think this point might have significant implications for the way in which this topic might be discussed 

[robbo203]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Robbo203,Wars within capitalism are fought within the constraints of capital and commodity relations, but once we are freed from economic constraints, and enter the realm of freedom, then we may choose to fight wars for other than economic reasons, who knows?

 For what reason, though, YMS? It hardly seems probable at all.  You say that wars are fought within capitalism  within the constraints of capital and commodity relations.  True. But at the root of that is the property relationship and the conflicting material interests that arise from that. This conflict of interest expresses itself in different forms depending on the particular form of the property – or class – relationship. The historical materialist analysis of  war does not limit itself to capitalism but purports to explain the phenomenon of war under any and every form of class-based society as the expression of conflicting material interests. My point is quite simply that , if this is the case, then this ipso facto rules out the possibility of war in a socialist society.   Socialism lacks the material basis – the private property and the conflict of interests that arise from that – that would furnish the necessary motive for waging war. Might I bring this discussion back to the question of hunter gatherer violence?  It seems to me that the arguments of people like Ferguson and Fry  that there is no evidence whatsoever of warfare – that is, of systematic organised intergroup deadly conflict – before 10,000 years ago , are highly persuasive. Ferguson in particular has been highly effective in rubbishing the interpretation of archaeological forensic record offered up by the proponents of the war-is-innate-in-humans school of thought.  The material basis upon which wars might have occurred was simply lacking in Paleolithic hunter gatherer  band societies. Indeed a key characteristic of such societies was conflict avoidance made possible by the ability of groups to simply move on in a world where there were no boundaries to contend with. Apart from  anything else, population densities were so low that the likelihood of aggressive intergroup encounters was minimal. In any case what would be the point in such aggression in the context of an "immediate return" form of society when you could just help yourselves (literally) to the fruits of nature – the equivalent of our socialist "free access".  On the contrary , the ethnographic evidence of contemporary hunter gather bands – such as amongst the Australian Aborigines – suggests that they would have been linked by cordial ties of gift exchange.No doubt there would have been some violence but overwhelmingly the evidence suggests this would have been one-on-one violence.  See Soderburg and Fry's recent survey of 21 contemporary HG groups which I referred to earlier which underlines this point.  But even such violence would have been limited by the tendency of such groups to split up or fission as a result of internal tensions Organised warfare appeared on the scene, and with it the shift from HG bands societies to larger scale, more hierarchically organised tribal societies only comparatively recently.  And the trigger for that was environmental scarcities. A classic example of this is the case of Maoris of New Zealand The rapid colonisation of New Zealand by the Polynesian ancestors of the Maori tribes some 800 years ago was facilitated  by the abundance of game they encountered there at that time,  Among these were various kinds of flightless or semi-flightless birds which, having had no natural predators to contend with, had only a poorly developed instinct to flee.  The easy availability of quarry like the large moa bird made for a good living and enabled the human population to expand rapidly on a high protein diet.  However, by the 16th century much of the mega fauna had been hunted out, while the importation of alien species (such as the Polynesian rat) may have also contributed significantly to the decimation of indigenous species.  Increasing food shortages precipitated a period of conflict between hunting groups which led to the appearance of warlike and hierarchical tendencies within Maori culture as evidenced by the remnants of numerous military compounds (called "pa")  dating from this time. Ever wondered where that traditional performance  of the "Haka" came from which the All Blacks rugby team engage in before they proceed to yet again relentlessly crush the English side?  Well, there you are – it dates from an in era in which intergroup conflict began to manifest itself within Maori culture Scarcity is something that is embedded within the very nature of capitalist commodity production and transmitted  through the diffusion of capitalist culture.  We talk about the artificial creation of scarcity for good reason; capitalism cannot cope with the stupendous potential abundance it has made possible.  It is like the proverbial snake that eats its own tail. Socialism by liberating technology from the constraints of capitalism returns us to a state of affairs in which the ideology of scarcity no longer exists.  More than anything else, this is the reason why war will not happen in a socialist  society. The suggestion that a ritualised and lethal display of large scale violence might still occur – some kind of death cult  or perverse  aesthetic appreciation of the art of killing for its own sake, perhaps – is something I find not only appalling but improbable to a vanishing point. Can one seriously regard such an idea as being compatible in any way with the whole ethos of a society in which  the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all?  

[robbo203]

stuartw2112 wrote:

It was a car crash, but would an SPGB candidate really do any better under that kind of questioning? After all, you're proposing, not 500,000 new homes, but social housing for the whole planet. How much would that cost?

 Stuart, in the UK there are an estimated 1 million empty homes. Here in Spain there are reckoned to be 3-4 million empty housing units .  And in China there are supposed to be about 64 million empty apartments.  Yes, thats right 64 million (http://www.grist.org/cities/2011-03-31-chinas-ghost-cities-and-the-biggest-property-bubble-of-all).  This is to say nothing of empty retail establishments, empty offices , empty factories etc etc.. Never mind the cost of building more houses – what about the human costs of not using those that have already been built? Just the other day in Granada (my nearest city) we had a case of a woman who flung herself from her apartment several floors up.  The reason?  The banks were going to repossess her property.  There is a glossy magazine in my local branch of the Spanish bank I bank with featuring properties for sale that have all been repossessedMany of these i guess will continue to remain empty for quite a while yet….

[robbo203]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Robbo203

Quote:

And if people are naturally warlike – that is to say, if wars will occur again and again regardless of the kind of society we live in  – then socialism must be considered dead in the water.  I do not imagine for one moment, YMS, you seriously think  we could or would divide the world up in socialism  and engage in wars with each other. How do you imagine a socialist society could survive for one second if this was true.

Socialism provides according to need, if we need war, we'll organise one, its perfectly conceivable that ritualised lethal warfare could be compatible with common democratic ownership of the means of production.  Unlikely, but who knows?

 I can't believe I'm reading this, YMS.  Its like saying that, since socialism provides for need, if there is need to exploit other people, socialism will  happily accommodate that need; notwithstanding that by definition socialism is a classless society and therefore  a non exploitative society. How on earth is warfare conceivable in the context of, or compatible with, common ownership and democratic control of the means of production? I'm talking about war here – systematic organised large scale violence –  not the occasional brawl that goes badly wrong and somebody gets glassed or knifed  and dies on the operating table. I thought we socialists argued that war in the modern world is all  about the commercial rivalries in capitalism and, as self respecting hardline materialists,  we look askance at suggestions that  wars are fought over such ethereal things as religious or political beliefs.  These later are supposed to serve merely as a kind of ideological smokescreen  to hide the real economic motives for war. Now you are telling me that wars might be fought for things other than commercial rivalries or vested economic interests.  Why?  Well, because there couldn't be such things in a socialist society so by inference there must be other reasons why wars might be fought in a socialist society.  And if those "other reasons" apply to a socialist society I cannot see how they might not also apply in capitalist society. Meaning that in capitalism wars could be fought for reasons other than commercial rivalries  which is not exactly the SPGB's position as I understand it. Is that Vin I see on the horizon, galloping on his charger in this direction with lance poised ready to strike a lethal blow against the heretics like YMS who seem to have abandoned historical materialism

[robbo203]

stuartw2112 wrote:

Robin: "There is absolutely no way round this for revolutionary Socialists.  If human nature is warlike because hunter gatherers were warlike  then that rules out socialism. QED"I really have no idea why you would want to make yourself a hostage to fortune in this way. The plain fact is that it is very hard to figure out what is supposed to count as part of our "nature" and what is not. That's why the arguments can drag on forever, as on this forum – they are unresolved issues in science. What seems equally plain to me is that it is plausible that Robin is wrong – that war, violence, greed, stupidity, you name it, is a part of our natural inheritance as human beings. 

 The problem is, Stuart, is that it is not me who is making some definitive  assertion about what  human nature consists in. The burden of  proof lies, as it should, with those – like E O Wilson – who assert quite candidly that human nature is warlike.  Such proof as they provide to back up this claim is very weak indeed.Of course people are capable of engaging  in war, violence, greed, stupidity,  etc  but that does not make these things " part of our natural inheritance as human beings".  This is where I think you go wrong. You observe human beings acting in a warlike manner and deduce that they must therefore be warlike "by nature".  Human nature, or human inheritance,  implies more than mere potentiality.  It implies an irresistible disposition to behave in the way stated and I deny that human beings have an irresistible disposition to wage war.  Wars are not the result of innate dispositions but material circumstances and, in capitalism, that means the commercial rivalries  built into the system itself

stuartw2112 wrote:

As a socialist, I am totally relaxed about whatever turns out to be the case. The classic example is a classic for a reason so I'll repeat it. If anything is part of our natural inheritance as humans, surely it is our sexual drive. We want to have sex, and the urge is a strong one, and the urge and the behaviours that go along with it must be evolved ones that have a genetic basis. It's surely totally uncontroversial to say so. And yet I have never ever come across anyone who points out this fact and then goes on to argue that unchecked population growth and rape are therefore inevitable, and hence it's not worth doing anything about it. No one argues that because it's obviously daft. We're naturally sexual creatures, yes, but we also (naturally?) come up with ways to organise our behaviours in socially acceptable ways, using a variety of things including ritual, taboo, social organisation and technology (contraception).The same applies to war. Maybe we are naturally warlike. Seems plausible. Does that mean we can't organise ways of mitigating the risks of it happening? Even in capitalism, the answer is obviously no – after all, we do it all the time.

 No, the same does NOT  apply to war.  That is the whole point, Stuart! The evidence very firmly suggests that human beings did NOT engage in war  before say 10.000 years ago.  Read what Ferguson pr Fry have to say on the matter  and the links I earlier provided.  If wars did not happen earlier than 10, 000 years ago then by no stretch of the imagination can we be described as "naturally warlike".Of course wars happen but they happen for reasons other than our human nature.  Of course, also, the fact that wars happen  does not mean  that we cannot, as you say,  organise ways of mitigating the risks of it happening. Point is you could just as easily argue (although this is not what I am arguing) that these pacific  tendencies are likewise just as much a part  of  human nature and so therefore reduce the whole argument about "human nature" to a meaningless absurdity. As I said, if there is anything we can safely say about human nature, it  is that we are highly adaptable animals capable of behaving in a wide variety of ways – both pacific and warlike. What triggers one form of behaviour rather than another has to do with our social environment and the material circumstances we find ourselves in.It has precious little to do with "human nature" as such which people like E O Wilson keep banging on about

[robbo203]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

There is absolutely no way round this for revolutionary Socialists.  If human nature is warlike because hunter gatherers were warlike  then that rules out socialism. QED

I don't think this does follow.  If in certain (knowable) circumstances prehistoric humans engaged in warfare, we can know to build around and avoid those warfare conditions.  The case for socialism certainly doesn't rest on humans being naturally angels, or need a 'New Man', and it rests on the impulse for freedom and the non-necessity of class.  If it turns out, when we are free, that humans are by nature Evil, so be it.We might even decide to divide the world up, like, like the Byzantine chariot fans, Blues and Greens, and have wars between ourselves for n o good reason, because that is our nature.  I doubt that would happen, but whether it would or not has no bearing on the case for socialism.

 Er no …this is not quite what I was saying, YMS. Both you and Vin have, I think,  possibly misunderstood the point I was driving at.  I was certainly not suggesting that the case for socialism rests on "humans being naturally angels" Not at all.  Just because I am attacking the idea that humans are naturally warlike does not mean I promoting the idea that human beings are naturally pacific.  What i am actually attacking is the belief that they are naturally anything – apart from perhaps the fact  that we are "naturally" social animals – and highly adaptable animals. Being adaptable we are capable of being either warlike or pacific but that does not mean we are "naturally" either of these things…..Vin statesThe case for socialism is based on class struggle not 'human nature' (whatever that is) It does not require 'nice' people (whoever they may be) Yes but the case for socialism has also to address the case against socialism or leave those unconvinced by the case for socialism, unconvinced. The human nature argument is  part of the case against socialism.  Just as we socialists argue against those who say "human nature" means that people are naturally lazy or naturally greedy so we have to argue against the view that view that people  are "naturally warlike".And if people are naturally warlike – that is to say, if wars will occur again and again regardless of the kind of society we live in  – then socialism must be considered dead in the water.  I do not imagine for one moment, YMS, you seriously think  we could or would divide the world up in socialism  and engage in wars with each other. How do you imagine a socialist society could survive for one second if this was true.  Of course it not because we had all been transformed into natural angels that socialism would rule this out but because there would be absolutely  no  reason for engaging in wars in the first place. Ironically I am the one who is putting forward a historical materialist position here -despite being accused of somehow departing from such a position. I repeat – if people are "naturally warlike" that means wars are likely to happen in socialism.  And if wars are likely to happen in socialism that spells the implosion of socialism itself – its collapse under the weight of a self contradiction.  Wars imply a fundamental conflict of interests which is not supposed to happen in socialism Ergo, we have to address the question of whether people are naturally warlike.  And that necessarily means addressing the question of whether hunter gatherers were warlike.  Because the argument  that people are naturally warlike takes it cue from what human society was supposed to be like when we lived as hunter gatherers – the 95% of our existence on this planet when our "human nature" was supposedly forged – at least according to those who put the human nature argument against socialism Don't believe me ? Well then read E O Wilson's essay and tell me again that this is not what he is sayinghttp://discovermagazine.com/2012/jun/07-is-war-inevitable-by-e-o-wilson

[robbo203]

duncan lucas wrote:

robbo-Why do you think the leaders of countries  and the worlds richest people meet yearly under intense protection . They are deciding how the  World shoud  be run -the IMF-Banksters-all the Worlds Leaders if  that isnt NWO I dont know what is ,its staring you in the face . Its now 2 % of the world  who are richer than over 1 BILLION  of the 98 % . THe UK/ US EU is OWNED by big business Camerons cabinet consists now of Millionaires .

 Duncan, I don't doubt that (some) world leaders and (some of) the world's richest people meet yearly under "intense protection". I don't deny that there are "conspiracies" in the loose sense of the word, hidden agendas which the influential and the powerful wish to pursue.  What I do deny though, and emphatically , is that the general outline of society and the broad pattern of developments in society is the outcome of some kind of elite conspiracy.  This is plain nonsense. You may not realise this but what you are arguing for is an incredibly disempowering and anti-working class view of the world.  It is a version of history dubbed by  Carlyle as the "Great Man" model of history -. a top down elitist version of history in which "the masses" are portrayed as a dumb, malleable putty to be shaped moulded and directed as the high and mighty see fit. Might I recommend to you Plekhanov's famous 1898 essay "The Role of the Individual in History"  (https://www.marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/1898/xx/individual.html). Seriously, give it a read.  Plekhanov  brilliantly took  apart the Great Man theory of history, arguing that it was based on a fundamental flaw – an "optical illusion".  So called Great Men are the product of their times rather than their times being a product of them. If Napoleon had not existed then a Napoleon-like figure would have emerged in France in the early 19th century anyway. That is what the mood of the times required after the chaos and dislocation of the French  Revolution: some strong arm figure to restore social order. So it is the case today.  You overlook that these world leaders you refer to are put into power by the masses voting for them. Ultimately it is the masses who are the real shapers of history, the drivers of events.  Unfortunately for socialists at the present time the masses are pro-capitalist and pro-nationalist and are willing to write a blank cheque for the politicians to get on with the job of trying to manage capitalism.  But capitalism functions  according to its own set of generic rules or "laws". No one actually controls or is capable of controlling the system. You refer to the massive inequality that exists in the world today as if this was the planned outcome decided upon by a tiny group of immensely powerful conspirators. No it is not! The implication of what you saying is that if our leaders intended otherwise  we could  have a much more egalitarian form of capitalist society. It is merely a question of goodwill and the determination on the part of these leaders. The Left frequently resorts to this kind of  bogus explanation which seeks to portray the non realisation of certain political aims or policies as being the result of "betrayal" by the leadership. If only Trotsky had come to power and not Stalin things would have turned out so differently This is nonsense. Capitalism cannot function except on the basis of gross inequality. . Consider what happened in the case of Russia when the Bolsheviks took over the reigns of power and sought to manage capitalism along the lines of a statist model. Around the  time of the 1917 Revolution,  Lenin enthusiastically endorsed the principle of equal pay for everyone – what is called uravnilovka or income leveling. However, in less than a year later, in an address given in April 1918 (published as "The Soviets at Work") he abjectly recanted:   “We were forced now to make use of the old bourgeois method and agreed a very high remuneration for the services of the bourgeois specialists. All those who are acquainted with the facts understand this, but not all give sufficient thought to the significance of such a measure on the part of the proletarian state. It is clear that such a measure is a compromise, that it is a departure from the principles of the Paris Commune and of any proletarian rule." Stalin  too recognised the importance of unequal remuneration upon coming to power and having to fashion policy to fit the needs of the developing system of Soviet state capitalism.  But Stalin but went a lot further than Lenin in denouncing the "evil of equality" and declaring Marxism to be the  "enemy of equalisation". Uravnilovka, was vigorously opposed on the grounds that it undermined incentives and economic performance.  And most surreally  of all, Foreign Minister Molotov once declared that  "Bolshevik policy demands a resolute struggle against equalitarians as accomplices of the class enemy, as elements hostile to socialism." (Tony Cliff, State Capitalism in Russia, p.69 http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1955/statecap/index.htm). In other words the Bolshevik were forced to do a complete about turn because the exigencies of running capitalism required this of them. Capitalism exists because we the masses, the  working class,  allow it to exist. We are the ultimate authors of our own fate – including the unpalatable  fact that we own so little and the !% so much 

[robbo203]

I think that even if there are conspiracies, and SP is quite right to point out that there are,  the point is surely that the overall pattern of events or the essential structure of society itself, its outline, and the way in which it basically functions, is not at all a conspiracy.   To claim that it is is to vest far too much power in a tiny minority of conspirators and to overlook the  divisions that are almost certainly going to arise amongst them.  By the same token, a conspiratorial perspective can have a disempowering effect on the majority who are the supposed victims of some conspiratorial plot. But more than that, conspiracy theory taken to its logical conclusion presumes that "the system" can indeed be controlled and regulated from above.  It feeds into the same kind of arguments that inform reformists and left wing advocates of more state involvement in the economy -the illusion that politicians can control the system when the system clearly controls the politicians.  The system – capitalism – operates according to its own generic "laws" and no one actually controls it in the way some conspiracy theorists seem to imagine

[robbo203]

Vin wrote:

Wars are not caused by the belief that we are innately violent. Wars are caused by conflicts of economic interests within the 1%. They are fought over resources, markets etc. If you were able to convince every worker that we are not naturally aggressive (which is demonstrably untrue) ) that would not result in a peaceful world.Removing the economic reasons for violence is the answer. Inate violence is less important when we have nothing to fight about. You are wasting your time asking workers not to go to war by convincing them that they are acting out of character. They will stop fight in wars when they understand the causes of wars. Then they will turn their aggression on the 1%

 I think you are missing the point here, VinI agree that wars are not caused by the mere belief that we are "innately  violent" but, rather, occur for the reasons you cite.  However, I am not talking about why wars happen but the justifications offered by the warmongerers  for engaging in wars. Warmongerers don't tend to offer justifications along the lines that wars are fuelled by economic conflicts and we have to confront what they say just as much as what they don't say about war. What they say about war is enormously influential and is one of the reasons why workers go to war against their own interests – because they actually believe the crap pumped out by the warmongerersPart of that whole elaborate structure of justification offered by the warmongerers is the belief  the war is innate in human beings and thus unavoidable.  If you believe  that war is unavoidable – because it is  "natural" to human beings – then that clearly undermines any resistance to war.  Why resist something from which there is no escape? Our alleged inborn predilection to wage war? Another aspect of this ruling class ideology is the belief that we all separate out into different groups – – nations that have competing interests and that the nation or group that we belong to can be stronger by uniting against outsiders.  Again, this is rationalised or "naturalised" by appealing to what supposedly went on in our Paleolithic past in which the outlines of our "human nature" were said to be essentially forged – the 95% of our existence on this planet when we lived as hunter gatherers.  Which is why the question  of hunter gatherer violence simply cannot be ignored or brushed under the carpet as some kind of esoteric academic topic of interest. You know as well as I do that the human nature argument is perhaps the most insidiously  prevalent objection raised by workers against the possibility of establishing socialism.  If it is believed that war is inherent part of human nature ,  how can you seriously imagine for one moment that workers who hold this belief  will ever consider the prospect of a global cooperative  society – socialism – as being possible?.  If war is part of part of our human nature then wars are likely to occur in socialism.  And if that were the case then i would argue that that in itself negates socialism.  It  is also incidentally is at odds with your own explanation  as to why wars happen – namely because of the commercial rivalries inherent in market capitalism. You therefore have as much a vested interest as I have,  as a revolutionary socialist , to debunk the myth that war is part of our human nature.  And since human nature is necessarily something that is supposed to have emerged from our overwhelmingly hunter gatherer past that necessarily means looking at the question of violence in hunter gather society. There is absolutely no way round this for revolutionary Socialists.  If human nature is warlike because hunter gatherers were warlike  then that rules out socialism. QED

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

Violence is conventionally understood in terms of the presumed death count…

For any cohort in any society, the 'death count' is always 100%!

 Of course.  But I am saying this is the formal  measure of violence which these people chose to employ and one presumes by that that they mean the intentional act to inflict harm on others resulting in their deaths (although, of course they may not necessarily have the intention to actually kill the other person even if that is the outcome) 

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

Of course there is some one-on-one violence in contemporary  HG groups as there no doubt was among prehistoric HG groups but that is not the same thing as war.

[my bold]robbo, I agree with much of your post.One key thing is your outlining of the concept of 'violence', which I've also stressed is an ideological concept, and how one regards 'violence' will determine one's view of h-g 'violence'.If the ideology being followed by the anthropologist is 'individualist', then 'one-on-one violence' counts as 'violence'.If the ideology being followed by the anthropologist is 'socialist', then 'war' counts as 'violence'.The former is about biological contact and personal pain, the latter about social conflict and widespread destruction.

 Violence is conventionally understood in terms of the presumed death count,  This is what the archaelogists and anthropologists are primarily disputing in the debate on hunter gatherer violence – how many people were actually killed – although of course there can be non fatal and also "structural" violence Also once again to remind you recognition that individuals exist or possess an individuality  is NOT to be confused with "individualism"  Individualism is a specific politico-economic doctrine which is focussed  outwardly on the relations that individuals have with one another and posits self interest as the driving force in the way they relate to each other

[robbo203]

ALB wrote:

Here's a message received at Head Office from somebody in Japan:

Quote:

To socialist party of GB: Break off relations with Rothchilds promptly 21 Feb., 2015 tatsmaki (Japan)     According to a space information from the Creators of the Space blocks control world, the Socialist Party of GB is a tool bribed for the purpose of self-protection of Rothchilds being shapeshifters of draconians of the Draco to avoid sanctions by the Creators. Draconians of the Draco are the official emblem of London city. They are bosses of leptilian-humanoids of the Lizard being the dictator-ruler of the USA. They are invaders-rulers of the Earth since the ancient times.     The GHQ of draconians and leptilian-humanoids in Agarta of inner world of the Earth was liquidated by the Creators on Aug. 17, 2014. But Illuminati, G20 leaders, ruling layers of each nation and activists elements of it's various fields are continuing wrongdoings all over the world.       The Socialist Party of GB has raised a slogan of "Abolish money! ", but it is not for social justice and is for such an ugly selfish purpose of Rothchilds.     The Creators gave them an order so that the Socialist Party GB breaks off with Rothchilds promptly and becomes the independent political party of the British people.      The Earth will be disappeared from our Space as the last general cleaning of the Earth in 2015 by the Creators.

Come to the meeting this afternoon when all will be revealed: http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/what-conspiracy-theories-arent-telling-you-head-office-3pm   

 Hilarious.  Maybe conspiracy theories are themselves  part of a wider conspiracy to entertain , distract  and generally lead  folk up the garden path – a paradox if there ever was oneIn any case whats wrong with lizards? I rather like them  – although I prefer geckos here in sunny Spain as they are better at catching flies

[robbo203]

oh,  and as an example if what we are up against as socialists, read this essay by E O Wilson on "Is War Inevitable" http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jun/07-is-war-inevitable-by-e-o-wilson then tell me why you consider the question of hunter gather violence is  a matter of little importance

[robbo203]

stuartw2112 wrote:

We see eye to eye on that at least Robin! Though don't we both come from a political tradition that, in caricature at least, makes equally mad claims about billions voting? ;)To get back to the subject of the thread, though, before we get told off by the moderator again, I think socialists should be perfectly relaxed about these kinds of questions. So what if it was found that a tendency towards violence and war is innate, hard-wired into our genes? If true, we need to know it. Not least so we can create social structures that promote peace and understanding between innately crazy creatures. State repression is hardly the only or the best way to achieve this – as anthropology shows all too well.

 Yes, Stuart, to answer your first question, we do, but  the vote in question  is presumably a  one-off thing and does not entail the necessity of acquiring an intimate close knowledge of say , String  Theory, along with thousands upon thousands of other scientific theories in order to determine their "truth" by means of a knowledgeable vote. Individuals dont have to read all 3 volumes of Capital to understand and want socialism.  There is simply no comparison here and I have no hesitation in deciding which one of these is the "mad claim". On your second point, you raise an interesting question and I link this to Vin's suggestion in another post that  hunter gatherer violence is a matter of little import in the struggle to achieve socialism and that we should be focussing on things that matter – the problems that workers have to endure under capitalism.  Of course we should be doing that but the question of hunter gather violence should not be so readily dismissed as being of little or no importance to socialist.s,  We should be aware that it is used as ideological tool  against those who question the dominant capitalist ideology and put forward a socialist alternative to capitalism. Consider what lies behind the argument  that "war is innate, hard-wired into our genes".  It stems from the idea of group selection and the notion that "in-group amity" necessitates  "out-group enmity".  Or to put in more familiar terms. we need a common enemy in order to unite and express solidarity with each other as human beings living in  distinct groups.  War, in other words, is the basis of our human sociality. It is necessary for human progress and, above all, it means violently  pitting "us" against "them". I'm astonished that any socialist cannot see the central relevance of this to the case for socialism.  How often are we told that socialism might work on a small face to face scale but "world socialism"?  – Forget it!    Human beings are naturally prone to fighting with each other rather than coming together to forge a common global society . Or as Edward Wilson  put it "War is embedded in our very nature". If so that means a permanent state of global disunity In that event  I don't see much hope for socialism ever being established and focusing on the problems that workers face now will be to no avail – all that could only ever lead to ultimately is settling for some reformist programme if you wanted to actually do something about those problems as opposed to just talking about them. Socialism would be out of question since according to the theory , global cooperation and solidarity is out of the question. Well, I disagree with the theory. Hunter gatherer groups like the Aborigines in fact maintain vast networks of solidarity extending over hundreds of kilometres and there is a degree of porosity between groups,   War in the sense of systematic organised violence between groups is a recent phenomenon as Brian Ferguson points out and I wish people here would read the links I gave earlier to the stuff he has written.  Of course there is some one-on-one violence in contemporary  HG groups as there no doubt was among prehistoric HG groups but that is not the same thing as war.  And unlike in the Paleolithic era HG groups today  do not really have the option of moving on if local resources are depleted – not with national boundaries and special reserves into which they are shunted like some endangered species for tourist to take photos of.  Nomadism , the ability to move around freely and vote with your feet, was a very major  component in the well honed strategy of conflict avoidance among prehistoric hunter gatherers.  Also there are other explanations for human solidarity than the supposed link between  "in group amity" and "out-group enmity".  In-group amity does not have entail outgroup enmity.  The awareness among members of a group that they depend on each other and benefit from each other can shift the focus instead towards the internal dynamics of the group with the application of sanctions against free riders for example At bottom what is at stake in this debate on hunter gatherers is what it means to be a human being and we should not lose sight of this. Its implications for the struggle to achieve world socialism can hardly be overstated.

[robbo203]

Vin wrote:

My feelings exactly. We could try talking about the issues that affect the working class at the moment instead of 'science for socialists' and 'hunter gatherers'

 I don't know if I would go along with that sentiment at all, Vin.  I think the question of what happened in the past , or rather how we interpret the past,  IS highly relevant.  You are not just discussing issues that affect the working class at the moment for its own sake, presumably; you are wanting to put forward  an alternative to capitalism. However you look at it,  that is an ideological battle  that you are engaged in, at the heart of which is what we perceive human beings to be and to be capable of.  On that point I agree with LBird, even  if I disagree with him on many others. Do you imagine that socialism would be on the cards if it were widely felt that we were naturally prone to inflict violence on each other on the slightest pretext and that  this alleged predisposition towards violence – justifying the need for a state  – is something that we acquired in our remote hunter gatherer  past. ?  I don't think so. These kind of theoretical issues have to be tackled – not in isolation from but in conjunction with the kind of issues you have in mind

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