[robbo203]

DJP wrote:

Seems to me the WSM forum is a dead donkey. There’s been more conversaion ABOUT the forum than actual discussion on it. No-one really uses yahoo-groups these days and I wouldn’t be that suprised if yahoo pulls the plug soon.
I’ve been having better disussions on various facebook groups these days. If this online forum will catch on time will tell, I may make some changes so users can comment on articles without registering, but as far as the WSM yahoo group is concerned I think we should let it die a death, if it hasn’t died already.

Dave
 
I think you are mistaken.  Your comments remind me of something that Mark Twain was supposed to have said –  about “reports of my death being premature” or something like that.  I would say  that actually the WSM forum, in terms of the volume of posts and the numbers of contributors, is actually doing rather better than this one. Its not true that “no one really uses yahoo groups these days”.  I am on about 30 such groups and I can assure you that some of them , at any rate, have maintained a consistently high level of posting. Whether Yahoo is about to pull the plug on its groups I do not know. What makes you  think this?
 
In any event, the basic problem that I have talked about in previous posts still remains whatever the particular format or forum you adopt:  how to deal with disruptive individuals like Donut and Tetrapak.  We cant just ignore them – or rather we cant just ignore the ideas they put forward.  I reject the argument completely that in dealing with these ideas one is somehow “distracting attention away from the case for socialism”.  On the contrary., it is through dealing with their arguments that the case for socialism becomes manifest.  If you change the subject to something else all that will happen as that they will use the new  topic of conversation for their own purposes.
 
So you have a simple choice. Do you restrict membership of a forum to only sympathisers and party members or do you allow  hostile critics.  If you do allow the latter , how do you handle their hostile criticism?  Now I have suggested an approach which I think goes some way towards meeting Paul’s suggestion that we ignore the trolls completely – the oblique or indirect approach – but without ignoring the ideas they put forward . Ive started to apply this approach to Tet and Donut becuase I think they are both beyond ther pale. Ive not extended this approach to Bob Howes because I do not think he can be lumped with the former in any way .  He is confused on many points but his heart is often in the right place and he has declared his sympathy for socialism on numerous occasions.   I wish people here would not  jump on the guy in quite the way they do sometimes. It serves no useful purpose.  With Tet and Donut on the other hand we are into a quite different ball game
 
So what are you going to do then? There does not seem any sign of the WSM forum dying a death.  To contrary  it seems quite robust  and healthy  at present.  Would it not be a good idea then to make more use of it but to use it in a more appropriate fashion  along the lines I have suggested above? The nuisance effect of one or two posters would simply be drowned out if  more members actually participated in the forum rather than simply complained about how  those creating as nuisance have come to dominate it and then leave the forum allowing this dominance to increase.  A self fulfilling prophecy if ever there was one.

[robbo203]

OK look here’s how I think it is.
 
First of  all I can understand totally the kind of reaction that some comrades here have expressed in relation to the likes of Tet and McDonagh seeking to hog the discussion on the WSM with their utter inanities.  Particularly the latter who must  surely count as serious candidate for the most insufferable bore in the entire history of this planet, commencing with the neolithic period.  Part of my motivation for engaging with these people has been a determination on my  part that these people should not hog the discussion or that their crappy nonsensical  free market nonsense should not be given free rein to dominate the discussion
 
Here I am talking from bitter experience.  Adam suggested I go off and create a forum in which  to engage these  individuals in debate rather than on the WSM forum.  Well you know what, Adam? Thats already been tried. In WIC we had such a forum. It was called WICOPENDEBATE of which I was moderator . It was more or less completely dominated by Mr Donut in the end.   Everyone lost interest and did what some here advised  FInally the WIC group decided it had  to close down the forum as it was not serving the purpose for which it was intended . It had become a mouthpeice for the mad marketeer and little else.
 
This is what made  me resolve  that Im fucked if I  am going to let these idiots do the same with the WSM. OK, so  Im not a member of the WSM  anymore but I do find it a little surprising that it should be a non member who seems to have taken up a more resolute and determined stance on the question of the WSM forum than most members. See,   I have been following the discussion on the WSM forum over on SPOPEN , Adam, in which you talk of being “stabbed in the back” by a fellow member  (Alan).  I know exactly how that feels when after all the effort Ive made to defend the socialist position on the WSM forum and to promote the WSM on other forums like REVLEFT that I should then learn that a member of the WSM  – namely yourself – can even think in terms of suspending me from the forum for “feeding the trolls”.as someone put it  A very comradely gesture, I must say, and my back is still suffering from the open wound inflicted
 
As I see it you guys  have but 2 options
1) Expel people like Tet and the Donut from the forum.  This could be problematic unless you were to democratically redefine the terms of reference of the forum itself.  For example, in WiC we have 2 forums – previously 3.  One is for WiC members only- the COMMONER forum , the second is for individuals who percieve themselves to belong to the non market anti statist sector – the WORLDINCOMMON forum . And the third is – was –  was the no-holds-barred-completely-open-to-all WICOPENDEBATE forum.  What you could do is to make the WSM forum something like the WORLDINCOMMON  forum but bear in mind what that would entail.  Not only would it entail preventing mad marketeers from entering the forum but also mild mannered but somewhat confused reformists of all stripes as well as your basic Trot or Leninst type.  If you dont want to debate with such people thats fine but be aware what all this means is all Im saying.
 
 
2)  Allow people like Tet and the Donut to remain but  develop a strategy to effectively counter their disruptive interventions (incidentally I do wish  people would stop putting the likes of  Bob Howes or Nick Tapping in the same boat as Tet and Donut –  they are nothing like them even if some of Bob’s ideas are distinctly dotty – like the circle city idea). Let me say staight away that debating with people about  free market ideas is NOT a diversion from the socialist case.  Ive noticed this objection coming up time and time again  but it is simply not true.  Get this idea out off your head once and for all.  Actually , to the contrary, I strongly maintain that arguments like the Economic Calculation Argument are an extremely useful heuristic tool  with which  develop and build upon the case for socialism.  Dealing with it  enables us to call into question  all those kinds of ill- informed claims one keeps hearing such as that socialism would be some massively inefficient bureaucratic  nightmare and so on  – claims that in truth apply rather to market capitalism
 
But how to develp a strategy to counter theanarcho-caps?  Well for a start I dont think Paul’s suggestion would do much good – that we only post on, and respond to,  subjects unrelated to the ideas of the mad marketeers. This is running away from an argument rather than confronting it. It comes across as weak kneed and ineffectual in face of the brazen claims made by the latter. It suggests that we have no argument that we can make against them when we most  certainly have.
This is what I suggest and here Ive learnt from my own experience of dealing with the likes of Donut – donrt respond to their  repetitive nonsense directly.  In Donut’s case there is absolutely no point – I am now firmly convinced – becuase the guy is simply incapable or actually engaging with anyone else’s argument.  What you might want to do instead is just post something that counters the free market arguments without entering into a discussion with or even referring to the exponents of these arguments on the forum itself. This is the indirect option
Another option is to directly deal with and refer to the arguments presented by the mad marketeers but to dpo so in a manner that deals with  them in bite sized bits,  one at a time,  in a coldly factual sort of way.  An excellent example of this is Bill’s davastating point about Inca society. You can tell it completely phased the Donut who didnt know how to respond to it, kept promising he would  but then conveniently dropped the subject  . An accumulation of highlly effective little posts like this will do wonders to convey the impression to the casual visitor that the case for socialism is vastly more compelling and logically argued than the crap thrown at it by the mad marketeers.Its what I call the “hollowing out “strategy. You nibble away in incremental fashion  at the individual propositions from within, forcing their proponents to attend to these  and bringing about the subsequent collapse of the whole surperstructure thereafter – at least in the eyes of the onlooker – when it comes to be seen as being based on a series of claims each of which is utterly lacking in credibility. Once the props fall one by one, the argument as a  whole will fall – sooner or latter.
 
And this is the point isnt it.?  We shouldn’t really be complaining if our opponents present some crappy  piss poor case. Thats utterly absurd. Its very bad psychology in my view   To the contrary it is  actually a great opportunity to demonstrate how much more compelling and powerful is the case for socialism than any  rival. We should be making hay whille the sun shines, capitalising ( if I might use the expression) on the interest shown . Removing ourselves from the debate on the grounds that one cant really  be arsed with having to deal with such arguments becuase they are so offensive ive to the ear and the eye,  is actually pretty defeatist and shortsighted. Its shows a plodding lack of imagination, an inability or unwillingness to use one’s initiative and this I think is part of the problem with WSM at the present time, sad to say.  It is too staid, too conservative,  too concerned  about feeling comfortable within its own four walls that it is constantly losing sight of the bigger picture.  And,  yes I know, me telling you a few hometruths is probably going to mean anything else I suggest is automatically discounted.  But what the hell – I can only speak as I find – and, whatever you might think, I still very much have  your own interests in mind at bottom and thats the truth of it..  The SPGB is still the one political party that stands head and shoulders above any other even though I am not , and cannot be , a member.
 
So thats how I see it then – either you modify the terms of  reference of the WSM forum with all that this entails,  or you consciously develop an effective strategy that involves not simply ignoring the claims of mad markeeters but using them to your advantage in the ways I have suggested. Letting  things just drift as they are is not really on the cards.
I have resolved quite recently that I am going to take my own advice  from here on and ignore the likes of the Donut and Tet  while still obliquely countering their arguments. I suggest this is what others here do too rather thanleave the forum.  The “discipline” that Dave alludes to on the subject of ignoring them relates to them as individuals but it cannot possibly  relate to the basic arguments they represent.  If you ignore that then they already won the argument and you might as well pack up and go home
  

[robbo203]

PaulB wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

As an experiment why not just try taking on one or two of their claims in bited sized fashion.

 
And as an experiment, Robin, why don’t you just stop feeding the trolls?

 
It wont work Paul, trust me on this.  I know for a fact that what will happen is that  the forum will then become dominated  by the anarcho caps exchanging ideas between themselves.  Then you would end up having to choose between either closing down the forum or banning them which would not be particularly democratic and would not look good at all. 
My suggestion is  much better.  Look upon these interventions by the anarchocaps in a positive light as an opportunity and a heuristic tool. The idea  that they draw attention away from the socialist case is rubbish frankly if you have been following the debate. The only way in which such attention might be drawn away is if nobody bothers to respond to them with the case for socialism. Adam’s argument that we demolished them 20 years ago  so why go over old ground, is equally invalid for reasons that I pointed out in my post  on the forum. According to that argument  we might just as well have never debated, say,  the Labour  Party after 1910  or whenever  it was when we first  we “demolished”  them  as well!
Do not underrate the influence of  the free market brigade. Adam’s remark that  they are now  just an eccentric irrelevance is dangerously misguided and way off the mark in my view. They are far more influential than he seems to imagine and their ideas need to be ruthlessly countered at every opportunity.  The WSM has a unique argument to bring to bear against them. Here is its opportunity to shine and to influence..

[robbo203]

PaulB wrote:

 
Would Party members please resume posting on the WSM Forum. Not in reply to McTet but on some other issues (ANY other issues would do). I’ve tried to get discussions going, but without success. I wonder how many non-members are still bothering to look at the forum, given how boring it’s become.

 
Perhaps it  only appears “boring” precisely because of the non participation of members in the debates going on. Its a self fulfillling prophecy, in other words.
Strewth,  I can’t understand you guys sometimes. The anarcho cap arguments are piss poor and feeble and you are complaining about them hogging the discussion when you have more than ample opportunity to floor them,again and   again and again, with scintillating, incisive and above all very interesting socialist arguments that will demonstrate conclusively  to each and all the superiority of the socialist case. And yet here you are turning  down such a heaven sent  oppportunity! Nope, I just dont geddit at all.
Cmon guys  – get in there and do the job! Stop complaining and taking on this plaintive “passive -reactive” role,  As an experiment why not just try taking on one or two of their claims in bited sized fashion. Bill has  produced some brilliant short snappy posts  – like his example of the Incas refuting the claim that a large scale societies cannot exist without money.  This is the sort of stuff that any curious onlooker would appreciate and doubtless the contrast with the waffle offered up by our free marketeers would not be lost on them

[robbo203]

Nod Glodnig wrote:

“Not even an end to world hunger and the threat of ecological disaster? Well poor braindead old you.” Obviously every thinking person does. How one achieves that, is another matter.
There is enough food on this planet to feed everyone. The problem is distribution – and starvation occurs usually in war-torn or corrupt countries that prevent this – plus no infrastructure like roads, petrol stations and transport to get it there.

 
This is true but this itself is part of a larger problem that is capitalism and the priorities it pursues which often promote corruption and sometimes war

Nod Glodnig wrote:

Many countries produce surplus foodstuffs that they dump onto the world market to keep the price locally high – to please their farmers. This to me is a good solution, who cares how it comes about, if it gets food to the mouths of people who need it.

 
Dumping food on world markets can sometimes simply have the effect of transferring the problem elsewhere. If I remember correctly, India’s decision to reverse its policy on food exports a number of years ago had adverse consequences for a number of  other food exporting countries whose farmers suffered as a result.  As it happens much of the food surpluses at the time succumbed to spoilage because of inadequate warehousing facilities due to poor funding. It is also well known that well intended charitable efforts at delivering food to people who desparately need it such as in times of drought  can undermines efforts to to revive farming locally. Such is the perversity of the market system
Apart from that, there is the literal dumping  (meaning destruction) of food. – not just at the retail end of the supply chain as when supermarkets dump stuff in skips etc  but at the production end as well. Locally , here in Spain Ive seen tons of cherry tomatoes rotting in the barrancos around the grotesquely ugly greenhouse belt  along the coast  between Adra and Almeria (the only other man-made structure you can see from outer space  – apart from the Great Wall of China, apparently).  These greenhouses proliferating like a cancer are a particularly vivid illustration of the utter irrationality  of market capitalism and the ecological disasters it brings in its train. Many of the greenhouses now stand empty. Ilegal wells having drained the acquifer have enabled an inrush of sea water to fill the vacumm leading to salinisation of the water supply.. The surrounding countryside has been affected too and as the vegetation suffers erosion sets in, compounding problems
There is of course also the deliberate withdrawal of agricultural land prompted by apparent overproduction in the form of  food surpluses. Millions of hectares of land have been affected by this within the EU alone.

Nod Glodnig wrote:

Ecological disaster – another subject. One that I have been active in my own little way for many years.

 
Good . So you  are not  quite of the Im-alright-Jack-And-Stuff-The Rest-Of-You  persuasion that came across strongly in your original post. Glad to hear of it!

[robbo203]

J Surman wrote:

This seems a rather strange communication coming from out of the blue. I’m wondering what motivated ‘Nod’ to write in at this time, perhaps he’ll tell us more if he wants any serious replies.
Just one point, what’s his opinion on the really nasty parasites who cause so much death and destruction around the world while they’re focussed on their never-ending quest for accumulation?

 
Yes  very strange indeed,  He is almost a parody of your stereotypical Daily Mail reader – with his complacent,  self-satisfied , I’m-all-right-Jack–and-stuff- the-rest -of-you attitude  . And the guy clearly doesn’t have much of a clue about socialism either with his  objection to distributing  his hard-earned cash to others, who have contributed nothing to society, for the sake of equalisation. 
It just doesn’t add up .  The chirpy familiarity – “Hi Guys! (and Dolls)” – and the odd Marx quote suggesting someone  who has done a little reading around and whose outlook on life is a little broader than singlemindedly  getting on in the rat-race, making loadsa money and dying of a pre retirement heart attack,   just doesnt seem to sit easily  with the naff and drearily predictable sad sentiments of your typical right-up-your-own-backside egotistical type. “Look at  me!. Look at what a success I am,  having  got where I am through sheer graft.. Why should I share what I have achieved with you. So fuck of!!”.  Strewth,  give us break.. This is , well., so passe,  luv.  Gordon Gecko said it all back in the 1980s and we’ve moved on since then.
But what intrigues me is why reestablish contact  with an organisation with you were evidently only very fleetingly acquainted all those years ago and with which you today have so little in common.  Now there’s a mystery. Perhaps Mr Mystery Man  should tell us more about this voyage of self discovery he has seemingly embarked upon

[robbo203]

I posted something  from Yahoo news on Revleft about Clarksons’s comment on shooting strikers. To be fair though it does seem that Clarkson’s comment  was somewhat  taken out of context – it was just his feeble and rather tasteless attempt at being satirical . Someone on Revleft reproduced part of the transcript of the intereview which I had not seen before and it seems clear from this that the guy was only joking.  This was not particularly obvious from the Yahoo News article which so incensed me to begin with  Still it doesnt make him any the less an overpaid buffoon with a seemingly limitless capacity for sticking  his foot in his mouth

[robbo203]

PaulB wrote:

 
I think there’s no point in ‘discussing’ with McTet. Ignore them, and return the WSM Forum to dealing with the Socialist case.

Hi Paul
I dont quite understand your argument.  Yes, the McDonagh/Tet double act can be exasperating at times and,  yes,  they are a prize pair of twits but it is actually  through dealing with their sundry claims that the strength of the socialist case becomes all the more evident.  Ironically, they are doing socialists and the WSM a big favour by exposing the utterly nonsencial basis of their objections to socialism and this is  something which no  reasonably balanced or sensible  outside observer could fail to notice.  Like I said , the point of taking on such people  is not to convert them; it is for the benefit of those looking in on the debate and we should not forget that. (It  also benefits us by sharpening our debating skills but that is a lesser concern)
You should be capitalising on the opportunities presented by the likes of McDonagh and Tet. Grind the buggers down with logic and facts,  Dont just ignore them. Ignoring them only sends out the message that you have no confidence in your own ideas whereas socialists have every reason to feel hugely confident

[robbo203]

gnome wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

Ive noticed lately a serious drop off in participation by members in the WSM forum which seems to be increasingly monopolised by free marketeers and others. Is it being abandoned in favour of this forum? Personally,  I think that would be a great shame and a great waste

 
Well, if there has been “a serious drop off in participation by members in the WSM forum” then I would venture to suggest that it’s due, at least in part, to persistent posts by various nutjobs such as Searle, Tapping, Howes, Tet and the biggest nutjob of them all, McDonut.  I know for a fact that many members are heartily sick of reading posts from these individuals with super-egos who are, unwittingly no doubt, aided and abetted by well-intentioned folk who consider these monopolisers are ultimately capable of being swayed by reasoned argument.
There’s more chance of plaiting fog; the best way to deal with these people is to ignore them.  Eventually they’ll go away!

 
Well i for one do not entertain any illusions at all about swaying such people by “reasoned argument” (though  I dont think you can reasonably put Nick Tapping and Bob Howes in the same boat  as Tet and McDonut – NT is fervant advocate of a moneyless society even if his approach to getting there may be questionable)
 
The reason for engaging these people in debate is not to “convert” them.; it is for the benefit of any third party who may be looking in on the debate  and , indeed, ourselves too. I am a strong believer in the value of sharpening our critical teeth against any and all opponents.  We should not be running away from critical arguments or burying out head in the sand and  hoping they will go away if we ignore them.  Even the most crackpot opponent can occasionally come up with something that tests our steel and prompts us to rethink. –  even if it only means qualifying or rephrasing what we earlier said. 
All this is grist to the mill of constantly improving and enhancing the case for revolutionary communism

[robbo203]

Thanks for that Adam . Yes very interesting.  I notice on the very first page Bukharin distinguishes  Adam Smith’s subjective LTV from Marx’s objective version of the same  characterising the latter as an extreme example of objectivism.   Its a long peice so it will take some time to read through but it will be interesting to see what comments he comes up with on marginalist economics. 
This question of how to allocate inputs under conditions of scarcity in proportion to the relative importance of end uses needing them is something that is preoccupying me just at the moment.  I wonder if anyone here has any thoughts on the matter?  We cannot just assume that in socialism the available supply of an input will be ample enough to satisfy every possible end use .  We have to prioritise end uses in that case and allocate the input accordingly  but how and in what proportions?  Are we talking about some kind of cascading model of allocation – end use 1 gets is requirements fully met, end use 2 likewise and then, when the supply starts running out, end use 3’s requirements are partially met , while 4 and 5;’s are completely neglected.   And so on and so forth.
Capitalism can, of course, fall back on the “equimarginal principle” to resolve this particular problem.  But  what about socialism? Might  marginalist economics actually have something useful to say after all  about  the practical organisation of a non market  socialist system?  Hhmmm

[robbo203]

Thanks for that  DJP  – I will follow up the links
 
I wasnt thinking so much of diseconomies  of scale  which relates more specifically to corporation size but the classic presentation of diminishing marginal utility. You know –  the one about  the first ice cream consumed yielding a high marginal return in terms of the pleasure it provides, the second somewhat less and  the third even less. And so on and so forth. Granted  utility or “utils “is not exactly something that can be measured in a cardinal sense although in the early period of utilitarian thought  (a la Bentham & co) the workinga assumption  was indeed  that utility  could be thus measured.  All the same as the icre cream example demonstrates there is undeniable kernal of  truth in marginalist economics – its not alll cock and bull stuff.
 
Question is – does it have any possible appplication to the way a socialist society could organise production?  For example , given two  or more  particular ends uses how might one allocate a given input common to both of  them ?   And in what proportions? Is there a case for saying that something like the “equimarginal principle” – the opttimal allocation of an input, as in this case, between several end uses  – might  apply and, if so, how might might  we apply it?

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