robbo203
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LBird wrote:robbo203 wrote:I'm not saying that this is what you are actually suggesting LBird but it could be interpreted in that way. Which is why I suggest you need to clarify what you mean by "democratically controlling the production of scientific knowledge".
Yes, I DO MEAN what you've suggested I might mean.I can't be any clearer.The production of 'scientific knowledge' (and 'truth'), whether by astrophysicists or ANY other form of 'scientist', involves social decisions, which are intertwined with politics and ethics.
OK then if that really is what you mean could you then address the two points in my earlier postFirstly, how is possible for everyone to make an informed decision as to "truth" of a scientific theory when most of us are never likely to possess the necessary information to make such a decision? And we are not just talking about one scientific theory but thousands upon thousands of scientific theories. If you don't know what you are voting about then what is the point of voting? True, there would be no barrier in communism to you equipping yourself with the necessary knowledge to vote on some of the scientific controversies raging but there is a limit – if only a time limit – to how much knowledge you as mere mortal can humanly accumulate that would allow you to meaningfully participate in every scientific controversy going. Ergo, if scientific debates are to boil down to a democratic vote then of necessity only a tiny minority are ever likely to be involved in casting such a vote. What then becomes of your "workers democratic control of the production of scientifc knowlege"? I might as well just thrown in a further, related, questions at this juncture which is what precisely are the mechanics of this democratic control going to be in practical term? What are the practical means by which a global population of 7 billion people are going to meaningfully participate in and cast their votes on the scientific veracity , or otherwise, of String Theory for example? Secondly, and perhaps more to the point – even if you could somehow managed to collate global opinion on the veracity of String Theory -what then? What exactly was the purpose of that whole (very costly) exercise. Was it just for the benefit of the main protagonists of the theory so they could bask in the glow of public approval? Is no one henceforth allowed to question what they say because it has been duly stamped with the seal of approval of the a democratic vote. You see this is what I don't really understand about your argument at all. On the face of it what you are seemingly promoting – though I dont want to put words in your mouth – is not a self critical experimental and open ended (and open minded) model of scientific endeavour but a rigidly controlled, centrally planned, model of the same. A kind of Lysenkoist version of science With respect I think your problem is that you don't really understand what democracy is about and what it is actually needed for . Of course the production of scientific knowledge is a social activity but it does not therefore follow that it must be under democratic control – at least not in the sense you seem to mean (I agree that when it comes to providing the MEANS by which scientific knowlege is produced then a democratic input is needed but that is different to what you are proposing) . You are trying to stretch the term "democracy" to cover virtually everything that is entailed by the term "social" which is absurd. Democratic praxis is part of what is meant by the term "social" – it is not and cannot be everything "social" I repeat – the need for democratic decision making arises in the specific context of social activity where there are conflicts of interests – not conflicts of theory – that needed to be resolved. Trying to extend democratic decision into areas where it is simply not needed and would be actually quite pointless is playing into the hands of those who wish to caricature communism as an endless round of public meetings and heated debates where nothing ever actually gets done and the drains continue to remain stubbornly blocked.
Vin wrote:LBird wrote:Even if you are unable to answer that question, Vin, I'm very surprised that the SPGB can't answer so fundamental a question regarding the prospective limits of 'workers' power'.That is because you believe that there will be 'class conscious workers' in a classless communist society. No wonder your arguments are confusing. You have a completely different view of communism/socialism than I have. Your idea of communism/socialism is closer to the left wing.To answer your question : there will be no class control of science because there will be no classes.
To be fair, though, LBird may have been using the term "worker" in the sense of someone who works without this implying the existence of economic classes in the Marxian sense and the reference to "class conscious workers" may simply be a slip of the tonque (or the pen). I'm sure he understands well enough that a communist society would be a classless society. I dont think oine should make a big thing about it, to be honest. Marx himself used the term "worker" in the above sense as well – for instance in his Critique of the Gotha Programme when he was talking about the lower phase of communismBut one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege.
LBird wrote:robbo203 wrote:Some of the points you make, LBird, strike me as being pretty sound and spot on; others I'm not too sure about. It perhaps with regard to the latter that much of the confusion and subsequent backbiting has arisen.Thanks for your considered questioning, robbo.I'm afraid I'm just going to have to settle for the result of you thinking that some of what I say as being 'pretty sound and spot on'. The rest, that you're not sure about (ie. the 'democracy' bit), I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave for you to investigate elsewhere, and with other contributors.I haven't got the heart any longer to carry on, having to argue the benefits of 'democracy' with comrades.
Hi LBirdWell I have read a fair bit of this lengthy thread, off and on, so I do kind of get the general drift of what you are saying. But, with respect, I still don't get your point which I see you have expressed in your response to YMS that "workers must democratically control the production of scientific knowledge". What does this actually mean?If you said workers must "democratically control the means of producing scientific knowledge'" that would make more sense. But the production of scientific knowledge itself? At first blush that seems to be like suggesting that "the workers" will be voting on rival scientific theories in the various fields of scientific endeavour. You can't surely be suggesting that, can you? That would be daft because1) In order to vote on the matter you have to know what you are voting about.. An astrophysicist might be able to competently judge the merits of string theory but I freely admit I know virtually bugger all about it and am never likely to. That is not to make a case for a "them" and "us" set up – the elite versus the rest. That same astrophysicist may know virtually bugger all about things I know something about. Point is that none of us can ever know enough about everything to be able to competently vote on everything which means that, perforce, for any particular scientific controversy the voting is only ever likely to be done by a tiny minority2) What would be the point of voting anyway? If I were to be very literal minded about it, it sounds almost like what you are proposing is a form of thought control to steer scientific thinking in the direction that the workers had democratically decided upon in advance. Initiative, spontaneity , creative and lateral thinking would all seemingly go out the window because you can't produce new scientific knowledge off your own bat without this having been democratically sanctioned in the first place. On the other hand , if you could then where would your "democratic control of the production of scientific knowledge" be in that case. As I said, democracy is about practical choices. It is where there is a conflict of interests – where you want to do one thing and I want to do another and we have to decide which of these option to pick. This simply does not arise with the "production of scientific knowledge". There is conflict but the conflict lies in the rival theories or hypothesis; interests are not at stake. Which theory should be prevail should be be a matter of which bests fits the facts (with all the caveats that go with that). A democratic vote in itselfs adds nothing to the merits of otherwise of the scientific arguments being used. Democratic decision making will of course be important to a communist society but is needs to be applied where it is needed and not where it is actually not needed. Its a matter of sheer logistics. I still maintain that most aspects a of communist production system will not require democratic decision making but will be a part of normal automatic response process at the heart of that system. To suppose that every little decision that has to be made in a communist society has to be subject to democratic scrutiny and a vote is frankly ludicrous and logistircally impossible . It a raises the farcical spectre of a society in which there is endless talk and heated debate but nothing actually ever gets done. I'm not saying that this is what you are actually suggesting LBird but it could be interpreted in that way. Which is why I suggest you need to clarify what you mean by "democratically controlling the production of scientific knowledge"
LBird wrote:I've said all this before, though, Brian, and those who disagree with workers' control of scientific knowledge (ie. the 'materialists') will never tell us what their method is.If I might intervene in what, unfortunately, seems to have become a perpetually belligerent and pointless slanging match….Some of the points you make, LBird, strike me as being pretty sound and spot on; others I'm not too sure about. It perhaps with regard to the latter that much of the confusion and subsequent backbiting has arisen. So it would be mutually beneficial for all concerned if you could perhaps clarify your position with respect to the latter.You see,its like this. I'm totally in agreement with you when you say science is a social activity. We don't live in the 18th century era of amateur "gentleman scientists" (and even their activity was still "social" inasmuch as their discoveries were built on the discoveries of others). I also fully agree with you that in a communist society the barriers between the so called "scientific community" and the "general public" should be broken down as far as possible, Science should become a matter of concern and interest to everyone.Where I begin to depart from you is what I perceive to be – correct me if I am wrong – your apparent fetishisation of , or a totalising approach towards, the "democratic control of science" and scientific endeavour. I really don't get the point of this but then again I might have misread what you are saying…Let me explain myself by way of an analogy. I look at this matter from the perspective of someone who has engaged in numerous debates over the years with individuals of an anarcho-capitalist persuasion. Almost all of them, I find, are wedded to the idea that a communist or socialist economy would be a centrally planned economy – that is, one in which there would be one single society wide plan (or matrix) covering to the totality of inputs and outputs for the entire economy and specifying in advance the quantitative targets for each and every single conceivable good that would be produced. There are several different arguments our anarcho-capitalist friends make against this proposal, the most important of which is the informational complexity argument chiefly associated with FA Hayek. Hayek's argument is that the dispersed nature of knowledge in society necessitates a self regulating market. Trying to concentrate this vast amount of information within the rigid framework of a single giant plan is totally unrealistic. Moreover, we are talking about millions upon millions of different kinds of goods – from 3 inch screws to stainless steel tumble dryers. Trying to reach a decision about how much each of these goods ought to be produced is daunting enough in itself; trying to reach that decision democratically would be infinitely more difficult. How on earth is the global community going to decide on the global output target for, say, 3 inch screws? The whole idea is a preposterousSo Hayek and co are correct in that respect and they are also correct in deducing that if you are going to have centrally planned economy in this classic sense it almost lends itself to a form of governance that might be called a technocracy – rule by a tiny technocratic elite. The logistics of decision making under this hypothetical arrangement virtually guarantees such a form of governance.My response to our anarcho capitalist friends is to say this is a complete straw argument. Communism will not and cannot be, a centrally planned economy but, on the contrary, will be a mainly decentralised economy Indeed, most of the decisions that will be made in a communist system will not even need to be subjected to democratic control at all but will simply be part and parcel of an automatic self regulating system of stock control. Production unit X123 receives an order for 200 tins of baked beans from distribution centre Y445. You don't need a democratic debate on whether to meet that order; you just do it! Because a communist society is about meeting needs, which needs are expressed as an order for 200 tins of baked beans in this case. This kind of response, of course, always floors our anarcho-aps since they imagine in their folly that they have cornered the market in the idea of a "self regulating system of production" . The market is such a system but there is another much more effective version of that which dispenses with the market altogether: real communismSo what place has democracy in this mainly decentralised communist scheme of things? The need for democracy arises where there is a potential conflict of interests and this has somehow to be resolved. This can happen at different levels of spatial organisation – local regional and national. It would not make much sense, for example, for the global community to debate on whether my local community should go ahead and construct a childrens nursery but it would make sense for the global community to talk about action to counter global warming for example. The level of decision making should be appropriate to the kind of decision that needs to be made and vice versa.So returning from this longwinded detour back to where we started off – what precisely is the point of the democratic control of scientific activity and how precisely would it be implemented? Forgive me if I am grossly misinterpreting you but you seem to be almost suggesting that if there are several rival theories attempting to explain a particular phenomenon a vote needs to be taken to determine the truth of the matter. But why? This seems to me to be a very peculiar way of proceeding. You are not going to dissuade a person from holding a particular theory just because he or she discovers s/he finds her/himself in a minority. Nor should you even try to – at least not on those grounds! Several centuries ago if the advocates of a heliocentric universe had had their theory tested against the rival theory of geocentric universe by democratic debate and voting rather than by authoritarian diktat on the part of the Church authorities would you have recommended that the former relinquish their silly idea about the earth revolving around the sun just because a majority believed to the contrary that it was the sun that revolved around the earth? No of course you wouldn't. A sample poll of scientists might conceivably be useful for some purposes but I don't quite see where the need for democratic control of scientific knowledge as such comes into the picture. A healthy science is a self-critical science – one which always opens itself up to rival theories as opposed to bludgeoning its practitioners into conformity with the prevailing paradigm – duly interpreted as the democratic will of the majority. There is also the also the question of whose democratic will are we talking about. To go back to my argument-cum-analogy about central planning, you wouldn't expect the citizens of Shanghai to vote in a communist society on where the citizens of Seattle should site their brand new mainline railway station. Unless maybe you had been to Seattle and knew its layout. Similarly there is little point in democratically voting on certain rival scientific theories unless you were familiar with the subject matter. Its a question of what is humanly and logistically possible.It is thus not really the scientific knowledge as such, I suggest, that should be the subject of democratic control but rather the application of that knowledge or even the process of making resources available for specific areas of scientific endeavour to generate more such knowledge. These latter things I can sort of understand as being appropriate to democratic control but I would still like to hear from you how in practical terms you would want to have democratic control implemented in these cases. What would this democratic control actually look like?
stanislavdoskocil wrote:It seems you brain washed "Socialists" or whatever you may call yourself, don't understand the idea of owning what you worked for. I guess you slaves of collectivism don't have a sense of entitlement to your work, or as SocialistPunk suggested you could live in a system where there is no ownership for an individual and the man is simply a slave to the global Zionist system. Wow i knew you "Socialists" loved to sit on your masters lap and beg to have you property, wealth, work, everything even your humanity taken from you by not one man, but everyman. Thinking all the propaganda and all the altruism you thought saving the world was just enslaving it. I envisioned a dream where all men worked and they benefited from the labor they produced, a world where a crook government didnt strangle money from you, a world were people didn't ask for there share, instead they picked up there shovels and worked for it.So lets get this straight – you want a world in which individuals are not beholden to anyone else, do not ask for their share from others but simply takes possession of what they themselves produce by picking up their shovels and working for it, so to speakWell lets look at this. Of course I assume your shovel is a metaphor for any kind of tool or implement – from JCB diggers to data communication equipment. But sticking with the idea of shovel in a literal sense, allow me to ask – who do you think made this shovel? Where did the steel that constitutes the shovel's blade come from? What about the wood that forms the handle of the shovel? Who operated the saw mill that sawed the wood out of which that handle was fashioned? Who produced the energy that powered the saw mill? Who produced the the rivets that hold together the turbines that produces the energy that powers the sawmill that saws the wood that forms the handle of your shovel? And so on and so forth. You get my point, yes? The world we live in today is the product of our COLLECTIVE labour. So for all you going about the evils of "collectivism" we live in a world that is, as a matter of fact, essentially collectivised. You and your little shovel wouldn't last one day without you sharing in the fruits of other people's labour The problem is, Stan, it is not us, but you, who does not understand the idea of "owning what you work for". We socialists understood all too clearly the totally interdependent nature of modern production. We understand that nothing that is produced today does not also involve, directly or indirectly, the labour contributions of millions upon millions of other workers – all over the world Furthermore , since production is socialised so , we argue, ownership should likewise be socialised and that, when it comes down to it, there can be no justification whatsoever for private or sectional ownership of the means of production – the factories, farms , utilities etc However, the world in which we live is precisely one in which, overwhelmingly, theses means of production are owned by a tiny minority. According to a just released Oxfam report . The combined wealth of the richest 1 percent will overtake that of the other 99 percent of people next year unless the current trend of rising inequality is checked http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2015-01-19/richest-1-will-own-more-all-rest-2016. The richest 80 individuals in the world own more wealth than the bottom 3.5 billion put together – thats 3,500,000,000 people!Now I ask you, Stan – do you think that those 80 stupendously wealthy individuals "worked" for their wealth? Do you not consider that it is far more likely that they got their wealth from employing others to work for them? That means paying these others less than the value of what they produce while grabbing the surplus for themselves Actually for all your muddleheaded grasp of even the most basic facts about society, the nature of work and so on, we socialists want the very opposite of what your claim. Far from wanting to "beg" our masters to take our property and our dignity away from us , we want to get rid of our masters completely – or rather to get rid of a situation in which there exists masters and underlings at all. If you want that as well then there is hope that you might also some day become a socialist But please don't confuse us with the "Bolsheviks". The Soviet Union was a state capitalist society , opposed by socialists right from the start, and one in which masters and underlings existed just as they would under your own absurd little anarcho-capitalist dystopia even if you cannot yet see this.
ALB wrote:Your (Robbo, that is) long well-argued postings are a good example of the rationalist approach of trying to convince people by argument Keep it up.Hi Adam. Well yes- there is nothing wrong with the rationalist approach. Im all for it but I do think it needs to be complemented at times with another approach. These things are not mutually exclusive – and thats me thinking with my rationalist hat on!
twc wrote:It sends to that “more politically inclined”, and so already politically committed, section of the population the anarchist message: Abolish the national state! The national state is a necessary part of the social superstructure of capitalism. All the hating in the world won’t abolish the nation state before we capture it and change its social base from private to common ownership and control of the means of social life.Yeah and thats precisely why this would afford you the opportunity to explain in your press statements leaflets etc that the nation state is bound up with capitalism and can only be made to disappear with the elimination of capitalism itself. Your argument is akin to saying socialists shouldn't talk about abolishing poverty because poverty too is bound up with capitalism. You have to start where people are at – with their existing state of consciousness. Some people are vehemently opposed to nationalism without being necessarily socialists. Its up to socialists to help them to join up the dotted lines
twc wrote:Really? Do you imagine we have so little confidence in our science that we can’t foresee the consequences?I think our "science" should always be self critical, open minded and experimental in approach. We are not in the business of consulting crystal balls. We cannot really know apriori what the consequences of a publicity stunt like this may be
twc wrote:No, I don’t think, maybe or otherwise, that people might sit up and ask anything at all; they’ll already “know” all they need to “know”, because provocative stunts fuel little more than existing prejudice.No I don't think so. Here, I can only speculate but, for the nationalistically inclined, I think the shock of an incident that calls into question ALL nationalisms could, if anything, be disconcerting and disorientating, causing the person to rethink his or her position. I say this because I think the logic of nationalism grounds itself and sustains itself within a conceptual framework within which all other nations are viewed in fundamentally antagonistic terms – as "The Other". I don't want to get into a long winded sociological treatise on the ontology of nationalism but I think at a fundamental level nationalism sees difference as an existential threat to itself – different cultures , different people, different ways of living. Louis Dumont had something interesting to say about this and talked of the connection between nationalism and individualism. In individualist mythology, the individual is pre-social or "natural" – which, incidentally, is why capitalism relies so heavily on the "human natrure" argument. We are said to be "formed in nature". Remember Hobbes and Locke and all that nonsense about the Social Contract? Well, "the Nation" is the Individual writ large in nationalist ontology. Consequently, differences between individuals must therefore signify the influence of society upon the individual which, in turn, represents a threat to the sovereign autonomy of the individual. Which is why "other nations", being other Individuals writ large, are perceived as being in some deep sense a threat to the thoroughgoing nationalist.. It ties in with individualistic basis of modern nationalism Anyway, to cut a long story short, I think the only way you are going to break through this nationalist-cum-individualist thinking is to fundamentally attack its basic premiss through the deployment of shock and awe tactics, so to speak. How else are you going to shift those "existing prejudices" you speak of? It is precisely because they are prejudices – pre-judgments – that the mere presentation of the "scientific case for socialism" is just not gonna work, TWC – or at least not to any significant extent. This bears it my long standing critique to the traditional SPGB approach to doing things – its hyper rationalism. Rationality is a very good thing and I'm not knocking it, but it needs to be complemented by other ways of doing things that engage the more irrational side of human beings and tap into the enormous power of symbolism. And we all have an irrational or emotional side to us. You too TWC
stanislavdoskocil wrote:Hello, my name is Stanislav Doskocil I was born in communist controlled Czechoslovakia in 1966. I was a rather regular individual, but I believed in a certain conviction that would rouse me above the collectivists and made me truly great. This conviction was one could own what one earned. So in 1989 I made my exodus of such insanity, I left the collectivist Marxists to there collective farms and there four year plans. I came to America were I believed with the sweat of my brow I could create all that I have envisioned. I have been very successful, I have earned for all i have worked for. But you may ask what is the difference between me and others, nothing simply but i believe in working for what one earns. But it sickens me when parasites asks "wheres my share?", you create something they say "what will the neighbors think", you invent they say "watch out, or you might tread on the toes of god". This is what the collectivists long ago said to me. People like this only exist to weigh down the greatness of man.Yeah, but according to you these collectivists are "altruists" and I'm still waiting to hear from you how you figure that a bunch of parasites " weighing you down" and leeching on your efforts are altruistically inclined? The poverty of your argument is exposed for all to see and yet you make not the slightest attempt to address this great big glaring contradiction in your whole argument.. How come? And for your information, revolutionary socialists have been opposing what you call "communist controlled Czechoslovakia" and the like – in reality, state capitalist Czechoslovakia – from the word go and long before you were even a twinkle in somebody's eye. You need to acquaint yourself with some elementary political facts before spouting your ill-informed nonsense. "Collectivism" is one of those empty headed terms bandied about by deluded free marketeers who still think America is the Land of the Free. Its more the land of Big Corporations, Big Brother NSA and Big Rip Offs inflicted on those whose labour has ensured a tiny minority enjoy stupendous wealth while a majority endure varying degrees of poverty and debt servitude. Talk about "working for what one earns". Do you seriously believe that the leaching billionaire class have …erm …"worked" for what they earn? For some reason, the words "pig" and "fly"spring to mind. We live in a "collectivist" world anyway. Who produced the laptop your are typing your posts on? Actually, directly and indirectly , your laptap is ultimately the product of the the world's entire collective labour force. The only question is do we want this collective world to be run in the interest of the few or in the interests of all. You have made it quite plain where you stand on this matter.
twc wrote:Totally agree with ALB.Such provocative voluntarism kindly gifts those in political power the opportunity to distort the self-styled “critical thought” supposedly behind the action in countless ways prejudicial to the Party.All voluntarist political “thought” should seriously think beyond the stunt itself to the political consequences of its proposed action. Unfortunately, it is prevented from doing so by its essentially creative free-wheeling seat-of-the-pants nature. Like Robbo’s proposal, voluntarist “thinking” stops short at the “cunning plan” stage.Beyond that, voluntarist “thought” turns into voluntarist delusion, imagining miraculous consequences of its action, where it perpetually dwells as “half thought”—or only half thought out—best characterized as thought’s coitus interruptus.Not quite sure what you are going on about, mate. Nor would I think Joe or Jill Public down in the Duck and Hounds enjoying a swift half. But I would say this, though – whatever we do and however we do it, is going to be "distorted" in an environment that is fundamentally antithetical to socialist ideas at the moment. Socialists just have to live with that and do they best they can.I repeat again – a publicity stunt of this nature doesn't have to be at the expense of critical thought; it can be accompanied by critical thought throughout in the form of press statements, leaflets and whatnot. Don't you want more publicity? Why is the SPGB standing in the General Election at great expense, if not? Of course you cannot control the way others perceive you at the moment but the more publicity you generate the more the public takes note of you and the greater the chance that people on the same wavelength making the effort to approach you.I can imagine a certain section of the population, the more politically inclined – the people you ought to be targeting first in my view – sitting up and saying "Blimey, the SPGB! Who would have thought of it., Good on 'em. I hate effing nationalism too!"As I said , you don't know until you try it. The uniqueness of a publicity stunt of this nature is that it doesn't discriminate between any flag; it burns the lot. Don't you think maybe, just maybe. that might make people sit up and ask – what are these guys on about?
stanislavdoskocil wrote:Let me ask you, what is the greatest lie ever created. What is the most vicious obscenity ever perpetrated on mankind. Is it slavery, the holocaust, dictatorship. No its the tool with which all that wickedness is built, altruism. Whenever someone wants to do there work they call upon there altruists, never mind your own needs they say, think about the needs of whoever, of the state, the poor,of the army, of the king, of god, the list goes on and on. What catastrophes were launched with the words "think of yourself", its the king and country crowd that light the torch of destruction. This ancient lie has chained humanity to this endless cycle of guilt and failure.I would still like to hear from this poster how he or she can come to this conclusion when manifestly it is not the altruist that is the cause of the "vicious obscenity" referred to but rather those who "thinking only of themselves" cynically exploit the good intentions of the altruistically inclined This whole line of argument presented here is positively Randian in outlook. The poster refers to the "Bolshevik poison" and the "parasites of Moscow" he or she left behind behind and in so doing perhaps unwittingly echoes a comment made by Ayn Rand in a lecture delivered at Yale University on February 17, 1960, namely that the “ultimate monument to Kant and to the whole altruist morality is Soviet Russia” (http://freedomkeys.com/faithandforce.htm) But hold one here! That doesn't make sense at all does it now? How is a "parasite" compatible with altruism, eh? Soviet Russia cannot possibly stand as the "ultimate monument" to altruism if it happened to be administered by a bunch of parasites which in fact it was. The Soviet capitalist class was a tiny parasitic class – effectively, the apparatchiks – that brutally and systematically exploited the Russian workers through its complete stranglehold on the state machine and economic decision makingOf course the Soviet Union would have talked about "working for the common good" etc but – Hells Bells! – name me one capitalist state that doesn't talk in these terms? Cameron is forever going on about working together for the "good of the nation". So is Obama. So is Hollande or Merkel . So is every other capitalist statesman. Whats so unusual about that?. All this disreputable bunch of good-for-nothing smooth-talking inveterate liers have in common is that they are more than willing to cynically exploit the altruistic tendencies of people for their own ends and the capitalist class they represent. Just like in the Soviet Union in fact…..
sarda karaniwan wrote:I'm sorry, but I don't believe altruism exist and those capitalists have proven that.About that "drowning child" (the usual argument case), it is not about altruism or being a hero, it is only about responsibility, if everyone took up responsibility accident will not happen.Sarda,Of course altruism exists! I suspect you have a very narrow and misleading interpretation of what altruism means. All it boils down to basically is concern for the welfare and wellbeing of others. Everyone exhibits such a concern in their daily lives – perhaps barring the odd sociopath – from the mother who provides milk for her newborn to the young person who vacates her seat on a crowded bus to allow some elderly person to sit. Charities would cease to exist if altruism did not exist. Come to think of it, even the capitalists exhibit altruism contrary what you claim. Capitalists after all frequently bequeath their worldly goods to their kin or endeavour to assist the latter in numerous other ways in life. This is a variety of altruism dubbed "kin altruism" in evolutionary psychology; another is "reciprocal altruism". Google the terms and see for yourself As for your argument about the Drowning Child example – well, how on earth do you figure this is not altruism. The "responsibility" you refer to presupposes an altruistic concern for the child in question and the moral imperative to act on that concern. Being altruist doesn't make you a socialist but it does make you a human being . So, no, you are quite wrong to sayIf altruism exist in every human being then we don't need to change anything at all, all we need to do is wait for those capitalists to show their altruism and everything will work out fine. This is a misunderstanding of what the argument is about. Altruism doesn't necessarily have socialist implications. Actually, the rabid nationalist -or indeed suicide bomber – who professes to be willing to die for his or her "nation" is, in an important sense, thinking as an altruist. Socialists reject nationalism, of course. Our concern lies primarily with the welfare of our fellow workers with whom we express solidarity. That is why we refuse to cross a picket line when workers strike. That is why we protest when workers are evicted from the homes. And so on and so forth. We take these actions because the welfare of those workers matter to us. We are being altruistic in other words We need much more of that kind of altruism – socialist altruism. The ridiculous idea that seems to be implied in your position – that socialism is purely a matter of self interest – is actually the most insidiously anti-socialist argument imaginable. If self interest is all that matters – the Smithian paradigm of the Market's Invisible Hand – then socialists might just as well shut up shop and busy themselves with advancing their own careers and stabbing their fellow workers on the way up the greasy pole of job promotion. Self interest is part of the reason for wanting socialism but it can never ever be the whole reason. If it were that would negate everything that socialism stands for which is implied in the very word itself – SOCIALism
stanislavdoskocil wrote:Let me ask you, what is the greatest lie ever created. What is the most vicious obscenity ever perpetrated on mankind. Is it slavery, the holocaust, dictatorship. No its the tool with which all that wickedness is built, altruism. Whenever someone wants to do there work they call upon there altruists, never mind your own needs they say, think about the needs of whoever, of the state, the poor,of the army, of the king, of god, the list goes on and on. What catastrophes were launched with the words "think of yourself", its the king and country crowd that light the torch of destruction. This ancient lie has chained humanity to this endless cycle of guilt and failure.This is a ridiculous argument, frankly. Its the same naff argument trotted about by the likes of Ayn Rand and the Objectivists. It doesn't even make sense. You are misattributing the blame to "altruism" yet telling us that the problem arises when some call upon others to behave altruistically in the name of whatever cause. You could just as easily argue that it is the egoism of the former in cynically exploiting the altruism of the latter that is the real cause of the problem. Altruism and self interest are two sides of the same coin that is our human species. Neither are dispensable. Its what makes us human beings In evolutionary psychology there is an argument gaining ground that "group level" selection – not just individual selection – may have been a powerful factor in the evolution of our species. That is to say, groups exhibiting a stronger degree of solidarity amongst it members tended to be those that survived. In other words, concern for the wellbeing of others – and the word "altruism" derives from the Latin word “alter”, meaning “other” – was a factor in group cooperation and survival. Put simply those groups whose members did not display a minimal degree of altruistic feeling towards others in the group simply perished. The development of Game Theory in the post war years has massively reinforced these conclusions and has shown that purely egoistic strategies are very clearly sub-optimal. Google the "Prisoners Dillemma" and see for yourself. Altruism is the basis of morality and there is a strong argument (promoted by the likes of Chomsky and others) for saying that our disposition towards moral behaviour., like our capacity for language, is something that is hardwired into us. Its not the specific moral beliefs or practices that I am talking about – these things are indeed culturally and historically conditioned – but the fact that we are inclined to think and behave in moral terms at all. The discovery of “mirror neurons” in the brain by Giacomo Rizzolati and his colleagues in the 1990s, which neurons seem to be linked to our capacity for empathy – a basic building block of morality – supports this argument. At the end of the day we are neither purely egoistic or altruistic but both – and necessarily so. The nonsensical rant of the Objectivists against what they call "altruism" underscores their totally impoverished worldview. It hasn't got a leg to stand on. To use Peter Singer's classic example of the Drowning Child, would you pass by a pond in which a child was drowning without being perturbed in the slightest, without wanting to help? No of course you wouldn't. No normal human being would – though a clinical sociopath might. Your "praxis" in the world , to coin a phrase, thus stands in total contradiction to your absurd claim that altruism is some kind of unmitigated evil.
jondwhite wrote:I'm happy for it to be suggested, and wouldn't object to members of the general public doing it but flag-burning is not something the party or members should be doing. It doesn't encourage critical thought, rather the opposite. Nationalists (ever-ready to shut down critical faculties) would readily be enraged and respond emotively, and the apathetic would remain apathetic.Stunts are not the way to raise our profile. They're certainly not a shortcut to consciousness raising either. Stunts aren't a strategy, they're the absence of one.Ok, its just a suggestion and I'm not too hung about it but I would have thought it would be quite possible to combine an approach that embraces "critical thought" with a symbolic gesture of this sort. – for instance in the form of a leaflet opposing nationalism which could be distributed before, during and after the event in question.. Ditto a press statement to explain the significance of the event. Things are not black-or-white.
Came across this site – the US Holocaust Memorial Museum – which makes a distinction between "holocaust denial" and "holocaust distortion": http://www.ushmm.org/confront-antisemitism/holocaust-denial-and-distortion Amongst other things, it asserts that "Common distortions include, for example, assertions that: the figure of six million Jewish deaths is an exaggeration" and that "Denial and distortion of the Holocaust almost always reflect antisemitism". If that is the case then it would appear that a large number of historians, including Israeli historians, are guilty of distortion and are likely harbouring anti-Semitic sentiments. I cannot pretend to know much about historical details of the holocaust.. Like most people, I suspect, I simply took it for granted that 6 million was the correct figure. Now I discover that many historians themselves dispute this figure and that some put the true figure at around 1 million. As I said, even 1 million is bad enough. It is a grotesque obscenity that it should have happened at all that so many Jews (and, of course, many others too) should have died in this fashion. But, apparently, to say this and to suggest that the numbers involved might have been only 1 million and not 6 million is highly likely to indicate "anti-Semitism". I think the reasoning behind such a claim is utterly absurd and spurious. Frankly I smell a rat. It is a way of silencing criticism through the manufacture of a taboo. Without going along with any particular figure as such – I simply don't have the knowledge yet to reach an informed decision – I would nevertheless assert that it is entirely possible to reject the official figure as a literal statement of fact AND reject anti-Semitism as a repugnant and totally unacceptable standpoint. . The US HMM seems to presume from the outset that the matter has already been settled and that anyone who dares question the figure it bandies about is engaged in a "distortion". This is actually a close-minded, dogmatic and arrogant approach to history. Paradoxically, IF it so happens that the figure is a gross exaggeration then the effect would actually be to cheapen the memory of those Jews who lost their lives in this horrific fashion by feeling the need to embellish the historical record in such a fashion: do we really need to artifically boost the numbers involved in order to find the whole thing morally repulsive? The link I referred to at the outset suggests that those who accuse others of distortion are themselves guilty of a gross distortion. It suggests also reasons why they might want to engage in such a distortion. The Israeli capitalist state is no different from any other capitalist state in wanting to clothe itself in the mythology of nationalism. As in war, truth is often the first casualty. "History" becomes just another propaganda tool. And the holocaust, I think, plays a central role in the ideology of a state that seeks, as all states must do, to justify its own existence from some morally unassailable or impregnable high ground. Not just history but prehistory too . I recall Steven Pinkers arguments in "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined" (2011). According to him, violent deaths have declined dramatically from about 15% in pre-state societies and "today we may be living in the most peaceable era in the existence of our species" ("Violence Vanquished " , The Wall Street Journal, September 24, 2011). The hidden agenda behind such thinking is to justify the existence of the Hobbesian state: we need the state to quell our "natural instinct" to inflict violence on each other at the slightest pretext. It is, of course, a junk theory that Pinker and others have been busily pushing . First off, he overlooks the distinction between band societies and tribal societies. The former characterise the vast majority of humankinds existence on this planet and exhibited a built in mechanism of conflict avoidance through fissioning and nomadism. Tribal societies, though not yet class societies, are much more recent and arguably did show signs of militarism and hierarchy. Also as anthropologists like R. Brian Ferguson, considered to be the foremost expert on the early history of war, has pointed out Pinker and co have grossly misinterpreted the evidence of forensic archeology: "Many hominid remains once thought to establish the most ancient evidence of homicide or cannibalism were actually gnawed by predators or just suffered postmortem breakage ("The Birth of War" R. Brian Ferguson , Natural History Jul/Aug 2003, Vol. 112, Issue 6). This is to say nothing of the findings of studies on contemporary hunter gather groups – like the one recently conducted by researchers from the Abo Academy University in Finland looking into violence in early human communities. That study concluded that such violence was "driven by personal conflicts rather than large-scale battles" and that "war is not an innate part of human nature, but rather a behaviour that we have adopted more recently" ( "Primitive human society 'not driven by war' ", BBC News: Science and Environment, 18 July 2013). The point that I'm making here is that there may well be parallels between the way prehistory has been rewritten to suit the ideological outlook and prejudices of establishment thinkers and the way in which recent history has also been presented. The holocaust phenomenon is a case in point. Mass murder is an obscenity, however you look at it, but there is undeniably also something quite distasteful about the way in which states cynically and sanctimoniously employ the evidence of "history" for their own ulterior purposes.
Hi all, Thanks for your obsrvations and suggestions. Incidentally, specifically in relation to the question of inflation I came across these two references in the wiki entry on QE which appear to contradict each other until you realise that "money supply" or "injecting more money into the economy" may not be the same as printing more currency. But can QE involve an element of printing more currency and if so how does this happen? What is the process?Quantitative Easing Explained. London: Bank of England. 2011. The MPC's decision to inject money directly into the economy does not involve printing more banknotes. Instead, the Bank buys assets from private sector institutions – that could be insurance companies, pension funds, banks or non-financial firms – and credits the seller's bank account..Bank of England . The Bank can create new money electronically by increasing the balance on a reserve account. So when the Bank purchases an asset from a bank, for example, it simply credits that bank's reserve account with the additional funds. This generates an expansion in the supply of central bank money
