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Personally, I think voting for the lesser evil is not so much the decent, as the daft , thing to do – though it may well be motivated by decent urges.  Apart from the tricky business of determining precisely which Party is the lesser evil – Labour or Tory, Democrat of  Republican – and I must say I cannot see any real difference to speak of, there is this point to consider. We all know that capitalist  “democratic” politics is a see saw affair.  In fact, I would go so far as to say it is almost inevitable that it should be so.  No Party can ever administer the system in the way that it promises to do. Failure is thus guaranteed and cynicism and disillusionment are virtually built into the very foundations of our so called parliamentary democracy.  In short, voting for Labour is actually the same thing as voting for the Tories – eventually!- in the sense that it is only preparing the ground and paving the way for the Tories eventual and almost certain return. So I cannot for the life of me see the logic behind this tactic of voting for the lesser evil.  What is it meant to achieve? To convey some message to our would-be rulers that we would rather they not behave like the outright bastards on the Other Side and that they  should temper their ruthless pursuit of a capitalist agenda with a little more human empathy and Christian charity?   Or is it saying to the Other Side  “we know what you are up to,  you bastards, we’ve got your number and this just to forewarn that there are sufficient numbers of us who  have voted for your main opponents to make life difficult for you “.  Are either “side” really going to take note and mend their ways? To think that you would have to be extremely naive.  Capitalist politics would be a very different ball game if that were true So  I believe the logic of voting for the lesser evil is deeply flawed. And not only that, it is highly irresponsible..  If you want to convey a message to our would-be rulers then,  for chrissakes, spoil your ballot (assuming there is no socialist candidate to vote for)  or even just don’t vote at all.! That is far more effective way of telling the politicians where to get off.  Rather than give them legitimacy like the SWP does with its craven idiotic “vote labour but without illusions” (Ha!) deny them all legitimacy and don’t allow them to dictate the terms of the debate with their fake scaremongery that “if you don’t vote for us you will let the other side in”   You will eventually anyway by voting for them   

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ALB wrote:

Isn’t this dealt with, for instance, in Raya Dunaveskaya’s 1946 article on The Nature of the Russian Economy, based on how it actually functioned not how it was supposed to function in theory?It’s also dealt with in the chapter on “The Capitalist Dynamic of State Capitalist Economies”, written by John Crump, in State Capitalism: The Wages system under New Management

 Well I’ve mentioned and quoted from the above book in one or two of my responses to Cockshott in this ongoing debate on the Revleft forum  – “the economic nature of the Soviet Union” – and it would be quite useful if more WSMers could  climb on board on contribute to the debate as well. It is quite instructive and heartening to lean that 42 % of Revlefters polled think the Soviet Union was state capitalist or capitalist. Here is the linkhttp://www.revleft.com/vb/economic-nature-soviet-t169000/index11.html The gist of Cockshott’s case is that internal relationships of the Soviet Union were not  capitalist and that the buying and selling of means of production between state enterprises were  not real sales but merely internal  “transfers” of resources between enterprises.  In short that it made no sense for the state to sell to itself and that therefore these exchange  transations were fictional. or merely for “accounting purposes” (“accounting” for what , though?) This, of course, is based on the assumption that the Soviet Union was in effect one single gigantic enterprise subject to a single planning process. It is that assumption that I have been hammering away at – taking the line that the Soviet Union was compelled to reproduce a situation of “many competing capitals” to faciliate the flow of surplus value into the coffers of the central state and that the relationship between state enterprises were not equivalent to the relationship between, say ,different branches of a western cooperation.  There are a number of commentators who seem to take up this position too – including Bettelheim, Sapir, Chattopadhyay and Fernandez .  My favourite is Chattopadhyay who seems to be a real scourge of the Leninist Left and has made some devastingly powerful and impressive critiques of the whole Bolshevik scene – another is Simon Pirani – and I wonder if the Party has made any contact with Chattopadhyay.  He could prove a very useful ally. That apart, I wonder if anyone has any useful links that deal specifically with this argument of Cockshotts about state enterprises being like just branches of a single giant enterprise.  That was the view also held by Tony Cliff,  incidentally but,  in Cliff’s case, this led him to the conclusion that the Soviet Union was necessarily capitalist because of its embeddedness in the wider global capitalist economy.  Foreign trade, in short, including ironically trade with other pseudo socialist countries,  was the tail that wagged the dog and turned it into a capitalist rottweiler.  In my latest post – this morning – I wondered why Cockshott had not himself reached the same conclusion

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DJP wrote:

Overproduction is the form that crisis take in capitalism (underproduction was the form of crisis in pre-capitalist societies) but this is altogether different thing than to say that are its cause. No overproduction, no crisis – no road accident, no cars colliding. In saying one causes the other is not to say very much, in fact its completely meaningless.The ultimate cause of crisis surely has to be in the anarchy of production itself, producers do not know that there is a buyer for their commodities until after they have been put on the market.But this does not explain why a crisis should occur at one time and not another. I think this can only be understood by looking at profit rates, credit bubbles etc.

 I don’t think “anarchy of production” per se is the ultimate cause of crises. After  all,  unless you are an advocate of society-wide central planning in which the totality of inputs and outputs are consciously coordinated in an apriori sense within a single vast plan –  an absurd idea – then socialism too will be based too an an extent  on an “anarchic”, self regulating or spontaneously ordered system of production involving the mutual adjustment  of a multitude of plans to each other. Actually , there is no other way in which a large scale complex system of production can be run.. While anarchy of prediction  does indeed give rise to the possibility  of disproportionate growth, in socialism this does not present a problem. If a particular production unit or industrial sector has overproduced in relation to the demand for its products  – something which it will be able to very easily able to see from the build up of stock – this can be easily remedied by  simply curtailing  or slowing  down production. . This is an example of  what I mean by mutual adjustment. Its a feedback system In capitalism, however, this self same disproportionate growth  can lead to huge problems and ultimately economic crises and the key to understanding why this is so is contained in Marx’s aphoristic comment concerning “the very connection between the mutual claims and obligations, between purchases and sales” within a capitalist system (Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 11, 4c).  Its is this connection that creates the possibility of knock on effects that hugely amplify the consequences of disproportionate growth that periodically plunge capitalism into crisis. Workers laid off in one sector of the economy have less to spend on consumer goods produced in other sectors. Likewise the demand for producer goods declines which effects firms producing these goods who in turn lay off their workers and so on and so forth.Its is in this way that disproportionate growth can spiral out of control under capitalism .  In socialism since this” very connection” no longer exists disproportionate growth no longer presents a serious problem

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Kropotkin famously proposed a more cooperative model  of inter- and intra-species interactions.  There is  a great book I came across some years ago called Natures’ Economy by Donald Wooster (I think)  which delves into the history of  ecological ideas  in some detail and  touches on the matter of holistic interpretations  of  evolutionary development  as I recall

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Andy’s website provide some useful information in this regard.  Check out the database section http://andycox1953.webs.com/

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

The answer to Robbo’s question WDWDITM if it is aimed at the working class is that it is not for us as a Party to offer answers since WDWDITM is already taking place in all manners of ways , legal and illegal and doesn’t require the approval or sanction or encouragement of the Party. It takes place just as the class struggle does on a daily basis whether the idea of socialism or a workers  party exists or not.

 In other words Alan what you are effectively advocating is the complete sidelining of the Party and committing it to historical  irrelevance by its failure to make, let alone foster, the link  between immediate struggles and the long term goal of socialism. It must surely be obvious to everyone now that this kind of abstentionous approach  is a major reason why the party has not grown and will not grow.  Positive endorsement of forms of direct action – like squatting – does at least give it one foot in the camp of immediate struggles and so better enables it to counter the otherwise massive influence – hegemony – of the reformists in this area

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DJP wrote:

‘Direct Action’ is such a broad and all encompassing term it seems a folly to declare oneself either in support or opposition to it.

 How then do you get round the WDWDITM argument?  This is the problem, see.  If you are going to sit on the fence with regard to direct action you don’t really have anything to counter reformist claims to be doing something now.  Whether we like it or not, whether it is justified or not, socialism is then relegated an ever receding distant future – just a nice idea and nothing more — while people look to reformism as the way to deal with their problems in the here and now/  Telling them that reformism is futile is simply not going to work because the issue is precisely what to do with the here and now which at least reformism presumes to address but which for all practical purposes socialism cannot address I don t think you can be neutral about this matter if direct action a means by which one might effectively counter the massive pull effect of reformism.  Direct action may well be very broad and all encompassing but that does not mean one cannot support it in principle.  Trade Unionism too can be very broad and all encompassing too and indeed some forms of trade union activity can be highly detrimental to the interests of the working class. One example is strike action motivated by racist or nationalist concerns. Nevertheless;less the SPGB supports trade unionism in principle and I see no reason why it should not support direct action in principle too . Accordingt to Adam it has already declared its support for squatting.  And a damn good thing too!  You are surely not suggesting that it should not have done this? By all means be discriminating . Don’t just support direct action for its own sake.  But in the case of squatting  I think the situation is absolutely clear cut. Given the obscenity of millions of empty homes existing alongside homeless people I find it difficult to imagine how any socialist would not rejoice in the fact that some of the latter have taken it into their their hands to bypass the capitalist market and ignore its callous imperative that demands needs be backed up by purchasing power in order to be satisfied at all 

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ALB wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

I vaguely recall an old issue of the Socialist Standard  (from the bad old says of 70s?) severely attacking forms of direct action such as the squatters movement in the most trenchant terms. In retrospect, such attitudes have no place in a revolutionary socialist  party. None at all.  I hope and trust things are different today

Actually, Robin, your memory (or rather folk myths about the Party in the past) has got it the wrong way round. The article you are referring to appeared in the April 1969 Socialist Standard entitled “Squatters and the Housing Problem” actually said:

Quote:

The Socialist Party supports the efforts of workers to improve their housing conditions under capitalism — even by squatting. But socialists also point out that there is no solution to the housing problem inside capitalism, and even if the agitation of those who support the squatters succeeds for the families they are now trying to help, future generations will still face the same misery and hardship of homelessness. Only in a society in which production is carried on solely to satisfy human wants, without anyone having to worry about where next week’s rent or next month’s mortgage repayment is coming from, will the housing problem find a solution.(my italics)

You are right to the extent that some EC and Party members complained about this, but the statement stood.So, it was not a case of the Party saying that socialists did not support squatting and those members who weren’t against it complaining, but of the Party saying it did and those members who were against it (or at least against saying that the Party did) complaining.On the anecdotal level, I remember one party member and his partner who were squatting, but not for any revolutionary end, just to save up money to pay for a mortgage. Later on, there were actually a couple of Party squats (well, squats composed of Party members) in London. I wasn’t one of them but the current Party Treasurer was. The mid-60s to the mid-70s were in fact the good old days !

 Hi Adam No, it wasn’t that particular article I had in mind – which to be honest i cannot even recall – but another one which was, I think, to do with the theme of “direct action”. It could even  have been a special issue on that theme. I vaguely recall the image on the front cover of a copper on a horse confronting some protestors – or something like that  – and i remember  feeling somewhat uncomfortable then with the line of argument being pursued.  Of course this could well have been post mid 1970s when the bad old days set in, as you say.I am delighted to hear that the Party  actually came out with a statement supporting squatting. This is encouraging.  That great problem with the Party is the what-do-we-in-the-meantime (WDWDITM) argument  .  This puts it at a massive disadvantage vis-a-vis reformist organisations – whether these be other political parties or single issue groups that take a cap-in-hand-position of lobbying governments.  Pragmatically speaking, its why most people on encountering the case for socialism say “yeah its a great idea but in the meanwhile we’ve got focus on this or that problem”. Simply saying these problems cannot be solved under capitalism is not going to change their minds, in my opinion.  That may not be rational but people are often not rational about these things. I’m afraid. This is why I think the Party has to come up with something more plausible than saying only socialism is the answer when confronted with the WDWDITM argument.  Explicit support  for “direct action” could actually come to the aid of the Party  here  because it stands in sharp contrast to,  and arguably steers people away from,  the reformist position in so many ways and yet addresses the short term concerns of workers as well.  It by-passes all the crap about capitalist cost accounting and whether we can afford this or that and encourages people to think in naturaI would argue that this is something actually seriously worth investigating if you want to make the Party’s case more relevant and appealing.  Squatting is perhaps one of the best – if not the best – examples around and I venture to suggest  a much more positive and proactive approach could reap dividends.  Like I said , I’m not suggesting the SPGB itself gets involved in a practical sense in the squatters movement but it could certainly beef up its pro squatting position and make that known to all and sundryPerhaps a special issue of the Socialist Standard on the housing situation could serve as a trailblazer in that regard…. CheersRobin      

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As far as the Occupy Movement is concerned, well, here in Spain  we have the Democracy Now movement – or 15M  (15th of May 2011) Movement which preceded the OM and sparked similar protests in other parts of Europe.  I attended several of the encampment  meetings  and also went on two or three of the marches last year in my local city of Granada.  I posted some observations on the WSM forum at the time.I was quite frankly amazed by the sheer size of the turnout and the heterogeneity of the participants – not just your usual student activists. There might well have been one or two veterans from the Spanish Civil war there as well .  All this in a relatively small and conservative city such as GranadaThe protests were particularly directed against the banking fraternity and corrupt politicians and, of course, here in Spain,  which has been particularly badly affected by the crisis – unemployment is around 21% and higher in Andalucia where I live – almost every day we see on the news cases of protests against banks repossessing homes.  My partner, Ana, who is Spanish and a native of Granada, told me that apparently up until quite recently even if your home was repossessed you were still liable to make mortgage repayments which is absolutely outrageous when you think about it.  So if you default on a small mortgage these bastards not only took possession of an asset that could be worth several times the mortgage but continued to milk the unfortunate ex owner. Its only recently that the law has been changed and you now have the option of  “volunteering” to hand over your property to these rip off merchants and thus washing your hands of the debt. . You can kinda understand the anger people feel. Anyway I digress.  The thing is about the 15M movement  which incidentally made its presence felt throughout Spain  and of course particularly in Barcelona and Madrid  (and even in  little pueblos like Orgiva in the Alpujarras where I used to live) is that  the immediate impression one got was one of raw anger being expressed against the system.  There wasn’t much in the way of a clearly formulated list of demands to begin with – that came later.  There was also a clear determination of keep the movement out of the hands of political parties of all stripes and there was a scrupulous and very open commitment to democratic procedures which I witnessed myself at the big encampment meetings in the town hall square.  That, on its own, made the whole thing a quite positive experience.  But there was one other thing which I reported on the WSM forum which was perhaps quite significant.  At one of these meetings – and we are talking about many hundreds, if not thousands, of people participating – there was an extended discussion about the concept of a society without money .  Yes,thats right – you read it right in the first place!  A  society without money.  Bit different from the money crank schemes being discussed at Occupy London, eh?  I did not unfortunately attend this particular meeting –  I think I was still working at the time – but  Ana went and told me about it, afterwards.  To say I was gobsmacked  would be an understatement. Indeed the following day we met a young woman handing out  leaflets in the streets with whom we had a long and fruitful discussion about the previous day’s proceedings. Understandably, this has coloured my perception of the movement and it  has certainly convinced me that  the potential exists in movements like Democracy Now or Occupy to move in a revolutionary direction.  Inevitably though the list of reformist demands came to the fore.  The government must do this , the government must do that etc etc. Which is all very well but when the government does not do this or that  but ,on the contrary , with the crisis deepening, cuts back on spending even more as a way of getting out of the crisis, what then?This is what is so damnably frustrating about it all.  I personally don’t think just being there and saying that “reformism is not the answer” and that “only the revolutionary transformation of society will do”,  is enough.  This is the kind of glass ceiling approach  of the Party.  Its right  in one way but is wrong in another.  People may be come to accept  the abstract or theoretical argument but remain unconvinced and utterly  incredulous.  Its all very well in the long run but what  solution does it offer to our immediate problems in the here and now?Frankly,  I’m becoming more and more convinced that the way out of this particular  impasse lies in certain forms of direct action that get round the problem of reformism  and its ultimately futile cap-in-hand approach to governments.  I am not suggesting that this is something the SPGB should get involved in in a practical sense  – this is something for only individual socialists to get involved in, not socialist parties – but as with other things, its a question of political stance or attitude.  I vaguely recall an old issue of the Socialist Standard  (from the bad old says of 70s?) severely attacking forms of direct action such as the squatters movement in the most trenchant terms. In retrospect, such attitudes have no place in a revolutionary socialist  party. None at all.  I hope and trust things are different today The attitude of a revolutionary socialist party towards something like the squatters movement should be precisely the same as its attitude towards trades unions – they are a good thing and they are necessary. Here in Spain there are nearly 4 millions empty homes .  It is an absolutely disgusting state of affairs that this should be the case while thousands of families are being booted out of their own homes by the banks.  Instead of asking or pleading with governments to enact measures to regulate the activities of the banker barons we should go straight for the jugular.  Take possession of the homes they have repossessed. Make the costs of protecting these financial criminals too excessive for the state to bear and radically change the climate of opinion in which they are allowed to carry out their criminal acts with relative impunity A squatters movement won’t bring about a revolutionary change of society  – of course – but it does address something which a revolutionary socialist  party is unable by its very nature to address – which is what to do in the “here and now”.  And it does do  it . moreover on terms that do not draw it into the quicksand of reformism., I really think the time for a reassessment ands reappraisal of the tactics of direct actions is long overdue within WSM circles….  

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

No  magic answer here right now. Just banging away with the same old arguments in the same old way. Because what is the alternative except to maintain principles. 

 Alan There is nothing wrong with the banging away with the same old arguments,  maintaining principles etc etc. I am all for that . What I am saying is that,  in addition to that, we (or rather you,  since I am not member because I cannot accept the Party’s  daft policy on religious applicants – not that I’m religious myself ) need to expand – possibly quite dramatically – the  repertoire of approaches used in addition to the old way of doing things. Its not just a presentational issue either though of course presentational improvements are to be welcomed. But tweaking the socialist case is just a refinement of the old way of doing things – based purely and simply on abstract propaganda  – not an addition There is no one single “answer”. There is no one single magic bullet.  .  This is the mind set that needs to be jettisoned completely if the SPGB is to stop its decline,  let alone show serious signs of growth.  It is a multiplicity of approaches that is needed.  It is SYNERGY that we need to think in terms of . Brian’s example is a small pointer of the kind thinking that is desperately needed. Even if the Party itself is functionally restrained in what it is able to do there is nothing to stop individual socialists doing other things. The problem is that the Party just fence sits on the matter and will refuse to countenance a supportive and positive attitude. This is reflected in the completely negative attitudes of some members like the member form Todmorden. That I am afraid is precisely where the Party goes wrong.  Terribly wrong. It is cutting off potential channels of support that could flow its way if only it put its mind to it..  Which is terribly sad because when all is said and done, the SPGB is the only genuinely socialist political party around and here it  is fading away quietly before our very eyes like the Cheshire cat’s grin

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Socialist Party Head Office wrote:

A comrade who actually lives in Todmorden but who is not subscribed to this forum has asked for this contribution to be posted here:Let’s be very clear: There are absolutely no implications for socialism, no “lessons” to be learnt. Providing a bit (and it is a very minor bit – try to live on it and you’ll be Musselmanned in no time) of fruit and veg free cannot lead to a free society, even incrementally with other, more half-arsed, schemes such as the LETS. It’s not the “either/or thing” of Robbo but a “something else entirely thing”. It’s irrelevant (I should know – I do it!). After all, what have these glorified allotments to do with the means of production? Sweet fuck all. They’re not even peripheral. Neither is it some sort of ‘socialism in miniature’, a guide to human behaviour under “free access”. Such an attitude is the purest utopianism.

 Apart from piously announcing in ex cathedra fashion that there are “absolutely”  no implications for socialism, no lessons to be learnt,  what  actual evidence does this comrade present to back up his or her sweeping (and not a little arrogant, if I might say so) generalisation?   Its irrelevant because “I should know  -I do it”.  Oh right,  yeah  – very convincing! Why “do it” in that case?  Now theres a contradiction and a half. Obviously some benefit was perceived in doing it It strikes me if  you are determined to set your mind against something then nothing will dissuade you from that point of view. And note the gross caricature that no doubt helps to sustain this comrade in his or her oh-so-comfortable and  dogmatically smug  armchair  conviction that  ” Providing a bit of fruit and veg free cannot lead to a free society”.  Who said it could, eh?  But does that mean it could not help in some way  to do so?  Of course not. Every bit helps. FFS,  the SPGB freely and copiously cites real-life cases of people freely collaborating  outside of capitalist cash nexus as direct counter evidence  of claims that socialism is against our “human nature”. Yet here we have this comrade pooh poohing such evidence as having “absolutely no implications for socialism”.  Really?  It would be laughable were it not so tragically ironic Maybe instances of  practical non-alienated collaboration under capitalism don’t carry much weight with comrade in question who, in world-weary fashion, has tried it all and knows it all but one thing you should never ever do is generalise from your own individual experience.   What does not work for you might work for someone else and conversely  what does not work for someone else might very well work for you. A diversity of overlapping approaches and styles is much more likely to capture a larger number of  hearts and minds than just one single approach monotonously and repetitiously  delivered.I don’t know much about the “Todmorden Incredible Edible” project  – I don’t even know where friggin Todmodern is as I live in faraway sunny recession-hit Spain   – but maybe, just maybe, some  of those involved ,even if they are only a small minority in the community  – might be rendered just a little more receptive to socialist ideas as a result.  How would you know if you don’t approach them from that point of view sympathetically?  If you are determined outright to be hostile  to what they are doing then of course you are going to get a negative response. They are going to see you as a political version of the Jehovah Witnesses and quite likely your interactions with them are going to drive them even further away from socialism. But then – hey! – nothing beats the pleasure of being objectively politically soundFor all my past  criticisms of SPGB I have never ever questioned the need to carry on presenting the party case in the way the party has always done – through its literature , its meeting,  its audio visual material and so on . All that is absolutely essential but it is evidently not enough, is it.?   I  mean, seriously  – as so called “scientific” socialists  you would have thought this would have been more than apparent by now.  When is the penny going to drop that the simplistic old fashioned ways of thinking and doing things are just  not  going to work. and show absolutely no signs of ever working The Party  is half the size it was when I  first joined and is still steadily declining  by all accounts. Oblivion is theoretically  quite on the cards and still we have members displaying advanced signs of  the Titanic syndrome – lashing out at any signs of fresh thinking. Lets all gather around the piano, comrades, and sing the red flag rather than “god save the queen” as we slowly sink below the waves but, for gods sake, dont even think about organising the liferafts!!!. Don’t think outside the black box.  Just carry on as usual. Just do what we have always done  and got more oe less nowhere as a result.. What is the point of it all?  It makes me despair at times when I read comments like those from the comrade from Todmorden – and, I have to say, not a little furious. What a waste.

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DJP wrote:

Gog, If you and some friends want to get together and grow some fruit and veg and share the produce then fine, go ahead be my guest.But if you think this is a magic path to socialism you are wrong.The fact is at some point the question of state power will have to be met and that is why it is necessary to organise politically.

 But it is not an Either-Or thing is it?  I do wish people would stop thinking in these black or white terms.  Gog has a valid point. Equally valid is your point about the need to organise politically. These things can be seen as complementing, rather than detracting from, each other

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Hi Nick Hmmm. I think your analysis is a bit too pat for my liking.  Did the rulers of soviet state capitalism require belief in the existence of  a god in order to hold down the Russian working class?  Nope. Not at all. To the contrary, this was an “atheistic state”.  Are we therefore to deduce that atheism leads us unerringly towards state capitalism?   Of course not. And it’s not just state capitalism – there are some ardent atheists who strongly support the free market.  Indeed, here are one or two ex members of the SPGB I can think of here. Their atheism did not prevent them from arriving at this unedifying way of looking at the world. Ditto religion.  Some religions are fiercely critical of the establishment and mainstream religion. If anything this works to undermine capitalist hegemony rather than reinforce it. I think a more nuanced approach to the religious question is called for – one which firmly separates metaphysical or ontological materialism from historical materialism.  That latter is the only thing that really counts as far as the socialist case is concerned and religious individuals are demonstrably capable of thinking in historical materialist terms – every bit as much as non religious individuals  – notwithstanding their religious beliefs. Isn’t that all that really matters in the end? Cheers Robin

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ALB wrote:

Anthropolgy has certainly moved on since 1877!  One of the best books seeking to vindicate the idea of social evolution (which for a while some anthropologists denied) from a position sympathetic to Lewis Henry Morgan is The Evolution of Culture by Leslie A White that first came out in 1959.

 I think the issue of social evolutionism in anthropological circles is an interesting one and not quite cut and dried,   Back in the 19th century Sir James Frazer wrote an influential book The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion  (1890) which posited a so called ” primitive mind” which he portrayed as superstitious and irrational  and which he contrasted with the modern scientific rational mind.   This was representative of a kind of ethnocentric essentialistic approach to what earlier in the 18th century was called “the Problem of the Savage”.  In the  Medieval era you has this cosmological notion of a Great Chain of Being  (actually it goes back to the Ancient Greeks)  in  which human beings were seen as intermediate between the  animal world and the angels by virtue of possessing a soul. In the early modern era,  European explorers, on  first encountering the “Savage”, were  struck by  the great differences between these so called primitive cultures and modern European societies.  Hence “the Problem of the Savage” – how to accommodate the Savage within this overall hierarchical schema when all human beings purportedly occupied the same level  within this Great Chain This problem was effectively “resolved” in the course of the 19th century by the transformation of the old Great Chain idea into the notion of a racial hierarchy  under the influence of  Darwinian evolutionary theory. You can see where this kind of fits in with what I said above about the “primitive mind versus the modern mind”. Point is that quite  a bit of subsequent anthropology was devoted to combating this sort of racist ethnocentrism .  I can remember reading Evans Pritchard’s  Witchcraft , Oracles and Magic among the Azande (1937) which called into question this whole idea of the primitive mind. EP showed, for instance,  that the very procedures that the Azande adopted to determine witchcraft  – such as the famous chicken oracle –  mimicked scientific methodology e.g. double blind tests  EP was trying to say that it was quite misleading to think of human beings developing – or evolving – from one way of looking at the world into another.  Rationality – and irrationality – in other words are universal human traits  that occur throughout  our historyI note the wikipeda article on Leslie White refers to Franz Boas who was a prominent figure in cultural anthropology and a fierce critic of evolutionary theory.   But as I understand it Boas specifically rejected a teleological version of evolutionary theory  (not evolutionary theory per se) such as was apparently held by Lewis Henry Morgan – the notion that history is a process of “unfolding” and development  through predetermined stages  towards some predetermined end.  This is different  from the idea of evolution by natural selection.  Did not Marx himself welcome the fact that Darwin has banished teleology from the natural sciences? . If so, that sort of makes the relationship between Marx and Morgan a little more problematic than it might first appear

[robbo203]

ladybug wrote:

Thanks again Robin! I think that Hobson quote is a bit over my head but I look forward to your post on the ECA forum to hopefully get a better understanding. The first half of your post makes sense to me. Just a follow up question, though…You said: “It makes a lot of sense in such cases to allocate such inputs to high priority end uses first and foremost and then to other end uses lower down your ranking system.  As I said this is a matter best left to the intuitive judgment of individuals on the ground ; there is no need for society to formulate some kind of elaborate and explicit hierarchy of end uses and it would it would be absurd even to attempt that.”  By “individuals on the ground”, who are you talking about? My guess is you’re talking about the workers in the workplace that produces the good in question. They would have orders/requests from various other worker collectives and they would sort through the various orders/requests and decide which was most important using their own common sense and consideration of a hierarchy of needs. So for example if I work at a steel plant and we have too many orders/requests to meet them all, we sort through them and decide to fulfill the order for the train manufacturer 100% and for car manufacturing only 80% because we decided that public transit should trump individual transit. Is that it? Or by “individuals on the ground” were you thinking of something broader?  

 Hi Ladybug It is easier to get at what Hobson is saying about the equimarginal principle if you look at his example  of the painter.  A painter does not chose the proportions of different colours used in the painting  according to the “marginal utility” of each colour.  He or she does not say:  “I like the colour red more than green and will therefore continue using the colour red until the last brushstroke I apply yields the same amount of satisfaction or utility as the last brushstroke using the the colour green”.  Yet this is precisely what Alfred Marshall’s famous equimarginal principle implies – that comparisons are made at the margin so that the numbers of different items in your shopping basket, for example,  are adjusted in a way that ensures the last unit of each item yields the same utility as every other item.  According to Marshall, by doing this we are able to maximise the total utility we obtain across the entire range of items in our shopping basket – by ensuring that the marginal unit of each item is the same for every other item.  In other words,  we would arrive at the most efficient allocation of our  budget  by conforming to this equimarginal principle and this can be demonstrated in a simple graph Hobson’s counterargument is that this is a totally bogus way of looking at things.  The painter in his analogy does not apply different colours by comparing the marginal utility of each colour.  Rather, allocation is made from the “centre” as he put it – that is, from a holistic perspective that looks at the painting as a unity .  Try imagine what the painting would look like if the painter had a marked preference for the colour red.  Most of the painting would be cololured in red so that in the case of landscape painting, say, you might end up with most of the trees being painted in red rather than green!  It only appears that the painting has allocated different  colours according to the equimarginal principle  but this is quite misleading , argued Hobson; it is what is called a  “post hoc, ergo propter hoc” (meaning, “after the fact, therefore before the fact”)  fallacy.  What applies to his painting analogy applies to life in general – we allocate our time and effort according to our core values – from the centre and not at the margin Another early critic of marginalisim – Nicolas Georgescu-Roegen – looked at the matter from a somewhat different perspective. He argued that  the equimaginal principle was only really applicable to goods that met the same basic need – such as the need for food.  Once you start attempting to apply it to consumer goods that satisfy different kinds of needs the principle breaks down completely.  This is because of what he called the principle of irreducibility of needs.  However , for mainstream neoclassical economics it was simply assumed that everything could be boiled down to, or rendered commensurable in terms of , the abstract notion of utility. Thus , the utility of eating a bowl of rice pudding was in principle no different from the utility of riding a horse of playing a game of golf  – the only  difference lying with the amount of utility each of these activities offered the individual There are numerous other criticisms that can be leveled against the whole corpus of marginalist theory.  The key concept of diminishing marginal utility , for example, is highly questionable.  There are many  counterexamples where the exact opposite is the case such as where there is a tipping point involved.  Taking a course of antibiotic pills is an example.  If you stop halfway through the course the “utility” of the last pill would be significantly less than the last pill  if you took all the pills prescribed.  In fact the bacteria might well develop resistance and so you would incur a disutilty by not completing the course prescribed.  There are other kinds of examples that defy the law of diminishing marginal utility such as Giffen goods, Status goods and Inferior goods.  I wont go on about this except to draw your attention to them On your final point , yes.  by ” people on the ground” I mean basically the people  working in the factories or whatever – the people at the coal face so to speak –  who have to make practical day to day decisions.  In the face of multiple demands that exceed the supplies of the available product that is made in the factory  itself. They would have to make on the spot decisions about how to allocate this product among these different demands.  This is what i am getting at.  My point is that for the most part, such things can be left to the basic intuition of the individuals concerned .  You can certainly finetune the decisionmaking process by introducing into the equation other considerations such as frequency of demand amongst the different end uses to which this product would be allocated  as well as whether or not  the or how often the requirements of particular end use had been met in the pastI don’t see any real insurmountable problem with this approach, Bearing in mind we are talking about a society in which a common set of values will prevail  which will tend to be reflected in a fairly consistent pattern of decision making vis a vis resource allocation. Also bear in mind that the producer-consumer distinction would no longer apply, that individuals would not necessarily just work in one particular place of work  and that there would be no special vested interest in commandeering a particular input for one particular purpose at the expense of another Above all , and finally,  bear in mind that this whole notion of a hierarchy of production goals  only comes into play when there is a discernable  discrepancy  between the multiple demands for a particular good, on the one hand, and the available supply of said good on the other. The built in tendency of a socialist production system will always be towards the elimination of such bottlenecks since the existence of buffer stocks is a key indicator  in the management of a self regulating system of stock control.  Moreover,  whenever a bottleneck might arise this does not prevent those lower priority end uses from being  addressed.  This is because it  may well be possible in such cases to resort to technological substitution – substituting a scarce input that is mainly diverted to higher priority end uses for a  more abundant input  that is made available through the self regulating system of stock control. Hope this helps Cheers Robin

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