[robbo203]

There is plenty of evidence of individuals with religious views being initially attracted to the Party, discovering its policy on barring individuals with any sort of religious views whatsoever and being put off by it.  I too was a member of the SPGB for a long time  and all I can say is my  experience was totally different from Dave’s.  There was even a member of my branch who, I recall,  developed religious ideas and despite my best efforts to persuade him not to leave, he disappeared into the ether never to be heard again. Over on SPOPEN I see an ex member of the Membership Committee revealed  that he  had to ” reject a large number of people of different religions who accepted the core meaningful points of our case for a socialist society  (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spopen/message/15142).  This would only be the tip of an iceberg.  Many more people, learning about the Party ‘s anti-religious attitude simply do not bother even to apply to join and the great bulk of those, in my experience, just drift away. One or two may stick around  but is there not something a little hypocritical or condescending about the Party’s attitude towards such individuals,  some of whom are more active , as Dave admits, than many members?   .”You can help the Party but you cannot join us because you are not socialists” seems to be the line of argument here.  If you really believed these individuals were not socialists then it would be more honest to refuse their offer help  – just as you do when you urge people not to vote for the SPGB if they are not convinced socialists. But all that is somewhat besides the main point – which is the utter irrationality of the SPGB’s  stand on the question of religious applicants.  This is richly ironic because, as we have already seen in this thread, the grounds on which religious applicants are rejected are precisely that they are supposed to hold “irrational” views. What is it with this fetishisation of “rationality” in the SPGB, anyway?   Frankly it makes my toes curl with embarrassment every  time I head this mindlessly simplistic  dyad being solemnly intoned : socialist = rational,  religious = irrational.  This comes across as so  cringingly old fashined .  The human personality  -if I can put it like that  – is inevitably an admixture of both irrational and irrational impulses whether you are a socialist or a religious believer or none of the above.. There is no such thing as a socialist without  irrational impluses any more than there is a religious believer without rational impulses.  We are all without exception a bit of both – unless you’re a computerised automaton with chip, not so much on your shoulder, but inside that cavity between your ears where your thinking feeling brain used to reside. In fact,  some religious type arguyments that have been presented in the past – like the argument from design – have been extremely “rational” and sophisticated in their structure and presentation.  Read,  for example the case put forward by William Paley. (http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/paley.shtml).  The argument might be false but it is not necessarily irrational and a notable feature of some contemporary religioinists. like Peter Russell ,  himself a physicist and mathematician , is that there is no incompatibility between religion and science  at all.  Quantum physics, the Unpredictability principle  and all that jazz has certainly done much to change our perception of the nature of physical reality and this is what the modern religionists are tapping into – not  some arcane argument about how many angels you can fit onto a pinhead.   In short, its not the metaphysics of religion that is the problem – it is the reactionary social policies of certain religions that is the problem and it is this alone that is relevant to socialist critique. The point is this –  what is a socialist? A socialist is someone who wants and understands socialism.  Period.  Is Dave seriously trying to suggest here that the Catholic sympathiser who attends  his branch meetings is not a socialist?   If so, perhaps he ought to try telling  this person and see what kind of response that will provoke.  My bet is that such an individual would not then be returning to branch meetings any time too soon and the branch would be the poorer for that – just as the Party is vastly poorer for having excluded all those religious socialists down the years. Dave knows as well as I do that he won’t be telling this Cayholic sympathiser that he or she is not a socialist becuase he knows in his heart of hearts that that is not true.  But in knowing that he must also know  that he is being fundamentally inconsistent and irrational  There is absolutely no reason why someone with religious views cannot be a socialist in the sense Ive spelt out above and I defy anyone to prove otherwise.  The plain fact  of the matter is that there is more than enough safeguards to ensure that only genuine socialists can get into the SPGB. The anti-religious clause is totally redundant and, more than  that,  it is serious impediment to Party growth though some members continue to think – irrationally – that it serves some kind of useful purpose in assisting the movement towards socialism

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“That this conference endorses the editorial Committee’s reply to a correspondent’s letter in the May 2002 Socialist Standard and holds that it is a good brief summing up of the party’s position. ‘The Socialist Party takes a non-theistic, materialist approach to things, in particular to society and social change. Religious people believe in the existence of at least one supernatural entity that intervenes in nature and human affairs. Socialists hold that we only live once. Religious people believe in some afterlife. Clearly the two are incompatible'”. A classic  example of redefining the terms of the debate to invest your argument with an aura of spurious authority:  “Socialists hold that we only live once. Religious people believe in some afterlife”. If you believe that then, of course,  the two are  going to be “incompatible”.  But if you said SOME socialists hold that we only live once then you are into a whole different ball game The only relevant form of materialism to a revolutionary and practically -minded socialist party is historical materialism –  NOT metaphysical materialism.  Discussing the ultimate nature of reality, while no doubt fascinating, has got sod all to do with changing society But for this dumbass policy of the SPGB (which I believe  it shares with Anarchist Federation), the organisation would probably now be many times larger than it is today –   considering the thousands of people who have come into its orbit but have been disillusioned by its dogmatic stance on religion.  There are more than enough safeguards built into the membership procedure to ensure that only genuine socialists join the organisation, whether they be atheists or not. I just shake my head in disbelief every time this subject is brought up.  It just goes to show that so called “scientific” socialists can be just as irrational , pig-headed and dogmatic as the rest when it comes down to it.  Such a pity.  What is more important – changing society or  shooting yourself in the foot, every time you turn away good socialists on the spurious and specious grounds that belief in an afterlife or some god is going to act as in impediment  to that end

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I see absolutely no good reason why you should not join the SPGB in that case.  It is irrational and absurd to put completely unnecessary obstacles in the way of you doing that.

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I completely agree with MichaeI  Wayne’s commentI do know that getting to the ‘majority’ on a global scale is not an easy task, nor can socialism be ‘enacted pure and simple’. Reconstructing an entire global political economy on the basis of use value rather than exchange – that is not going to be simple.This, I presume, was in response to the passage from the book review as follows@In fact, once we have a majority who understand that capitalism has outlived its usefulness, the change from capitalism to socialism will be enacted, pure and simple. You just cannot have the co-existence of socialist and capitalist relations of production in the world for any significant period of time, and certainly not for generations. This should be clear to Wayne and his readers from every observation throughout the rest of his book about the all-encompassing global nature of capitalism and, by extension, of the very different system which must replace it.What the reviewer misunderstands is that there is a difference between abstractly talking about socialism as a socio-economic system as a whole and talking about “socialist relations of production” in particular..  Socialism as an economic system cannot co-exist  with capitalism but socialist relations of production most certainly can – at the sub-systemic level. Engels, for example, long ago pointed to the existence of communistic utopian communities in North America as evidence of the feasibility of communist (socialist) principles of production and distribution inside capitalism. .  In fact, if socialist – or perhaps one should say,  socialistic – relations of production as they might be called in the sense that they entail work that is unpaid and voluntarily undertaken outside of the market, then something over half all productive work undertaken today can be deemed socialistic,  according to United Nations statistics.  Wage Labour, in other words, constitutes less than half the work we do today and it is wage labour that is the defining characteristic of capitalism.There is a further point to bear in mind. Granted that the movement to establish socialism will tend to grow in a more or less balanced or even fashion across the world, there is still  likely  to be a period of  time between when a socialist majority first captures power and  when the last remaining residual capitalist state succumbs to this democratic socialist takeover.  The idea of a simultaneous  majoritarian socialist revolution happening everywhere literally  at the same time is inconceivable and absurd.This intervening period  interests me for several reasons but I don’t think the SPGB has ever really properly theorised this period – or, if it has,  I haven’t seen any real evidence  of this  and, in which case, a link would be appreciated.If the SPGB rightly  rejects the whole dictatorship of the proletariat nonsense which I assume it does since it can only imply the continuation of capitalism, then what happens after the first capitalist state has succumbed to a majoritarian socialist takeover and capitalism along with the state is eliminated? How does this incipient socialist area organise its practical economic relationships with the surrounding residual capitalists states?I would contend that  insofar as it cannot produce everything it needs,  the only realistic candidate on offer is some kind of barter arrangement for the time being. . Nevertheless , this does go to show that the issue is far more complex than might originally be thought .  Michael Wayne is quite right to suggest that it is not quite as simple  as some in the SPGB think it might be. 

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DJP wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

It is difficult to deny that David Graeber does make a valid point.  I refer to this comment of his”The whole idea of “merchant capitalism” which is supposed to characterize the period from roughly 1500 to 1750 (or even 1800 in most of Europe) has always been a puzzle.

Graeber and anyone else interested would do well to read Ellen Meiskins Wood “The Origins of Capitalism”The genesis of capitalism is not in merchants capital but in property relations in the English countryside.Seems to me Graeber is just another sloppy reader of ‘Capital’….

 This might be a little too black-or-white.  Merchant capital certainly did play a role in the genesis of capitalism.  Marx made the point that primitive accumulation,  the slave trade and so on provided much the funds  which large landowners ploughed into their estates.  A good deal of the infrastructure upon which the industrial revolution  depended such as the canals  and railroads came from this source.  And the early small time proto-capitalists as I said were often funded by “country banks” into which wealthy individuals who had made their money abroad through the trade deposited some of their ill gotten gains in the expectation of a reyrnThe issue is not whether merchant capital played a role in the genesis of capitalism but rather whether there was such a thing as mercantile capitalism. I think Graeber is right to question this…

[robbo203]

It is difficult to deny that David Graeber does make a valid point.  I refer to this comment of his “The whole idea of “merchant capitalism” which is supposed to characterize the period from roughly 1500 to 1750 (or even 1800 in most of Europe) has always been a puzzle. If capitalism is a system based on wage labor, then it wasn’t capitalism at all. But if so most bourgeois revolutions happened before capitalism had even appeared! If merchant capitalism is capitalism, then capitalism does not have to be based on wage labor, and certainly not free wage labor, at all. Claiming that merchant capitalism was capitalism because European elites were somehow trying to create a system that didn’t exist and there is no evidence they were even capable of imagining, seems absurd.”It seems to me that the obvious way round this problem is to reject the whole idea of merchant or mercantile capitalism.  There was merchant capital before capitalism just as there was wage labour before capitalism but neither of these things in and of themselves imply the existence of capitalism as a mode of production. Thus wage labour needs to be generalised before we can usefully talk of a capitalist mode of production Where did the idea of “mercantile capitalism” come from, I wonder? Marx himself seems to analytically separate the notion of “merchants capital” from capitalism as a mode of production. I cant seem to find any reference by him to mercantile capitalism.  Incidentally, the Oxford English Dictionary attributes  the first use of the English word “capitalism”, surprisingly enough not to Marx (who preferred to use the expression “capitalist production”),  but  William Makepeace Thackeray in his  novel The Newcomes (1855, vol. 2: p. 45),  However Makepeace seemed to have meant by this the money-making activities of financiers rather than  an economic system as such.  That may or may not be signficantIn Capital Vol. III Part IV, Marx says this:”The less developed the production, the more wealth in money is concentrated in the hands of merchants or appears in the specific form of merchants’ wealth.Within the capitalist mode of production — i.e., as soon as capital has established its sway over production and imparted to it a wholly changed and specific form — merchant’s capital appears merely as a capital with a specific function. In all previous modes of production, and all the more, wherever production ministers to the immediate wants of the producer, merchant’s capital appears to perform the function par excellence of capital.There is, therefore, not the least difficulty in understanding why merchant’s capital appears as the historical form of capital long before capital established its own domination over production. Its existence and development to a certain level are in themselves historical premises for the development of capitalist production 1) as premises for the concentration of money wealth, and 2) because the capitalist mode of production presupposes production for trade, selling on a large scale, and not to the individual customer, hence also a merchant who does not buy to satisfy his personal wants but concentrates the purchases of many buyers in his one purchase. On the other hand, all development of merchant’s capital tends to give production more and more the character of production for exchange-value and to turn products more and more into commodities. Yet its development, as we shall presently see, is incapable by itself of promoting and explaining the transition from one mode of production to another.Within capitalist production merchant’s capital is reduced from its former independent existence to a special phase in the investment of capital, and the levelling of profits reduces its rate of profit to the general average. It functions only as an agent of productive capital. The special social conditions that take shape with the development of merchant’s capital, are here no longer paramount. On the contrary, wherever merchant’s capital still predominates we find backward conditions. This is true even within one and the same country, in which, for instance, the specifically merchant towns present far more striking analogies with past conditions than industrial town”In the same chapter Marx points outThe extent to which products enter trade and go through the merchants’ hands depends on the mode of production, and reaches its maximum in the ultimate development of capitalist production, where the product is produced solely as a commodity, and not as a direct means of subsistence. What this seems be saying is that for the mode of production to be called “capitalist”  presupposes the cessation of direct production for use and the transformatioin of the products into commodities. In other words, the end of  the traditional system of usufract rights and compulsory  in-kind labour services performed by serfs  under a system of feudalism and its replacement by money rents and the employment of wage labour by tenant farmers.  In short what Marx ironically called  free wage labour.  It is when capital is invested in production that the system becomes “capitalist “and this is what to an increasing extent happened with merchant capital.  It was transformed into industrial or “productive”capital and the banking system of  “country banks” in England in the 18th century arose precisely to allow this to happen and to finance yer early proto-capitalists Prior to that you could not usefully talk about there being “capitalism”. There was merchants capital yes but as Marx suggest the extent of merchant capital and its social significance in society was limited by the extent to which direct production for use prevailed .  It required the separation of the producers from the means of production,  to which they had access,  for trade to take off in a big way i.e. with the development of a working class dependent on wage labour.and this in itself calls into question the usefulness iof the term mercantile capitalism.  Almost as a matter of logical deduction,   trade is rendered not particularly or primarily important if  producers still can directly produce for themselves (not to mention for the lord of the manor).   Therefore the very term “mercantile capitalism” can hardly be said  to capture the essence of the prevailing system. It is a contradiction in terms, if you see what I mean The period under discussion might be called a transitional period between feudalism and capitalism in which, for example, the power of monarchy  expanded greatly by comparison with the traditional powers enjoyed by the aristocracy under feudalism and so paved the way to the more centralised burueaucratic structures  that capitalism would come to depend upon as well as the growth of the nation state. You could not exactly say in this period that capitalist relations of production were dominant although they were certainly beginning to become  more pronounced particularly in England and as evinced by the growth of wage labour in both the towns and the countryside. However while merchants capital played an increasing role in this period “mercantile capitalism” is a myth. There never was such a thing for the simple reason that there never could be such a thing….

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ALB wrote:

jondwhite wrote:

Couldn’t we leaflet their conference in Cardiff National Museum from 8 – 10 June – detailed below?http://www.humanism.org.uk/meet-up/events/view/172?page=1

Good idea. Maybe Robin could pester them too to admit people with religious hang-ups.

 There is a difference , as I am sure you realise, between an organisation whose purpose is specifically to combat religious ideas and a political party whose purpose is to help  transform society . If you are expecting the latter to depend on a majority becoming convinced atheists you will be waiting forever

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robbo203 wrote:

Sorry to sound dumb but there is no edit facility at the bottom of my post!  I have had repeated problems registering and made use of the temporary registration facility.  Could that be the reason?

 Correction.  There is an edit facility below this post but not below the previous post I posted and not the opening post either

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Sorry to sound dumb but there is no edit facility at the bottom of my post!  I have had repeated problems registering and made use of the temporary registration facility.  Could that be the reason?

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Quick question of a technical nature.  Just noticed after I posted the above that  I had forgetten to finish editing  for spelliing mistakes  etc etc.  For  future reference, how does one edit something that has already been posted? This forum does not seem to have such a facility unlike, say, Revleft…. Cheers Robin 

[robbo203]

There is also of course Bob Black’s essay “The Abolition of Work” (http://www.primitivism.com/abolition.htm).  I have problems with the term “work” in this context, however. Why is it assumed to be synonymous with waged employment and, if it is, what else might we call it?

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ALB wrote:

I should have know where Robin would derail this discussion to. He does it every time he gets the chance on the WSM Forum.

 Hardly , Adam. How often have you been over on the WSM forum lately anyway? Last I recall I made a contribution on a thread concerned with coops, taking up the cudgels against Bob Howes which was very much to the point.  Besides you yourself  introduced the topic of religion,  referring to  the religious supporter of the SPGB, and Alan chipped in with a suggestion that this supporter be sent my and WiC’s contact details.  It  was only then that I addressed  the religion question and, indeed,  why not? Why be so rigid about it? I bet a good proportion of the votes Danny got were from people with religious beliefs.  You complaining or summat? Darren – I did not suggest there was some massive  queue of religious believers just waiting to join the SPGB.  Thats precisely my point!. The vast majority of them who, when they  learn about the religious ban,  just don’t bother to wait  any longer; they disappear from  sight never to be heard of again!  That said,  I personally know a few  individuals who haven’t quite disappeared, who  would love to join but cannot because of their  religious beliefs, something  which perplexes and grieves them in equal measureDave – your post consists of a number of unfounded assumptions and non sequiturs,  True, belief in an  after life is incompatible with the idea that ” we only live once” but what has that got to do with the question of whether you can  be a socialist and hold religious beliefs?   It is no more true that a socialist must, by definition,  believe we only live once in order to be a  socialist – any more than believing we only live once must make one a socialist. There are plenty of pro capitalists who believe we only live once. You cannot seriously suggest here  that you cannot  be a socialist in the sense of understanding and wanting socialism  and  hold religious beliefs.  I don’t think this is even the Party’s view on the matter,  is it?:  We all know of religious sympathisers of the Party who are a living refutation of this claim.  .  Frederich Engels in his piece entitled  a “Description of Recently Founded Communist Colonies Still in Existence” (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/10/15.htm) wrote thusWhen one talks to people about socialism or communism, one very frequently finds that they entirely agree with one regarding the substance of the matter and declare communism to be a very fine thing; “but”, they then say, “it is impossible ever to put such things into practice in real life”. One encounters this objection so frequently that it seems to the writer both useful and necessary to reply to it with a few facts which are still very little known in Germany and which completely and utterly dispose of this objection. For communism, social existence and activity based on community of goods, is not only possible but has actually already been realised in many communities in America and in one place in England, with the greatest success, as we shall see…..The reader will discover that most of the colonies that will be described in this article had their origins in all kinds of religious sects most of which have quite absurd and irrational views on various issues; the author just wants to point out briefly that these views have nothing whatsoever to do with communism. It is in any case obviously a matter of indifference whether those who prove by their actions the practicability of communal living believe in one God, in twenty or in none at all; if they have an irrational religion, this is an obstacle in the way of communal living, and if communal living is successful in real life despite this, how much more feasible must it be with others who are free of such inanities. Of the more recent colonies, almost all are in any case quite free of religious nonsense, and nearly all the English Socialists are despite their great tolerance quite without religion, for which very reason they are particularly ill-spoken ‘ of and slandered in sanctimonious England. However, when it comes to providing proof, even their opponents have to admit that there is no foundation for all the evil things that are said of them  (my emphasis) Would that some SPGBers took a similarly relaxed view on the matter!You also  say that “The SPGB takes a non-theistic, materialist approach to things, in particular to society and social change. Religious people believe in the existence of at least one supernatural entity that intervenes in nature and human affairs. “,  Not necessarily.  Some religious people don’t believe in divine intervention at all and are Deists rather than Theists.   But even a theist can, in practice,   take a thoroughly materialist approach  to society and social change. A Christian scientist likewise does not necessarily abandon his/her scientific methodology just because s/he is a ChristianYour perspective on the matter is a little too rigid and  cut and dried

[robbo203]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

You could have sent the socialist with religious belief in God,  Robin’s and WIC contact details. We haven’t evoked the hostility clause against him or that organisation , have we?

  Or better still, Alan, why not consider just scrapping that archaic and ridiculous ban on religion altogether?  Seriously.  Its totally superfluous and redundant and presents just another wholly unnecessary obstacle to the Party growing.  There are more than enough safeguards built into the membership application procedure to ensure that only genuine socialists join the PartyA  religious minded socialist is very likely to lapse from a particular religion – like Catholicism, for instance   – whose social policies are anathema to socialism.  However, he or she is very unlikely to abandon  core beliefs in a god or an afterlife and if this is posited as a condition of membership  and so  will reluctantly decline to apply for membership.  By dropping  the religious ban , the SPGB would thus ironically do far more towards aiding the decline of reactionary religions than by maintaining this ban Sooner or later you guys are going to have to amend this policy anyway. It is not the position of the Party that, later on, when it is a mass Party , it would relax its attitude towards religious applicants.anyway?  Marx took the view , I believe, that banning religious minded individuals from membership of the First International was quite unnecessary – despite his opposition to religion. Why not just ban religious evangelising within the Party rather than religious applicants per se?To be frank,  this issue a constant source of frustration to me and, I can assure you, quite a few  others outside the Party too.  But for this I would probably rejoin on the spot tomorrow and I know of others who would do likewise.  For everything that is sound and good about the SPGB – and overwhelmingly most of what it says I go along with wholeheartedly –  this narrow-minded knee jerk approach to the religion question stands out as embodying and symbolising what is wrong with it.  I am convinced that had this ban not existed, the SPGB would be a vastly bigger  organisation  than it currently is.  People who actually apply to join and reveal they have religious views are only the tiny tip of an iceberg; overwhelmingly most people who learn about the SPGB’s religious ban drift way conpletely and presumably into the orbit of reformist thinking. If revolution is inextricably linked in their minds with an atheistic outlook then they will not abandon their  core religious beliefs for the sake of revolution. So it is not only the grip of of traditional religions on workers thinking that the SPGB ban on religion helps to maintain – but  also that of reformism itselfThis is the point that the Party needs to get its head around.  Tying the fortunes of the socialist cause to the spread of atheism is a foredoomed project and, even then,  there is no guarantee that atheistic ideas  will translate into pro-socialist thin king.  I can personally think of quite a few atheists who are ardent supporters of capitalism.  Perhaps the SPGB ought to also consider refusing atheist applicants! You can,  if you  like,  forward the names of religious people sympathetic to the SPGB , on  to WIC  But the problem with  WIC is that its not a political party.  I would love to be able to fully identify  with and become an active member in, a revolutionary socialist political party.  As things stands, the SPGB is the only realistic possibility on the cards but its daft policy on religion prevents me as a matter of principle from joining it.  Which in so many respects is a crying shame.

[robbo203]

Just posted on Revleft 10 minutes ago. One favourable response already.  Danny, you’re in demand…. http://www.revleft.com/vb/spgb-election-interview-t171107/index.html

[robbo203]

Well,  the debate with Cockshott & co continues over on Revleft.  If people want to join in and put the boot in they are welcome.  I can’t thnk of anything that has done more to discredit the good name of socialism than its misassociation with Soviet state capitalism.  Here’s the link:-http://www.revleft.com/vb/economic-nature-soviet-t169000/index17.html Apropos that,  I posted on Revleft a link to Fleming and Micklewright’s paper published by UNICEF some years ago on inequality in the Soviet Union.  Its really quite good as a source of information and I would recommend that the WSM takes note of it for future reference.

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