robbo203
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
In effect, ‘esteem and respect’ are democratically elected, not chosen by an individual.
Democracy requires the practical involvement of empirical individuals making choices. Otherwise, the term is meaningless
Ex-comrade Watkins recidives (I think that’s a word, anyway he’s done it again, this time with knobs on):
Its pretty cringeworthy as an article and some of the stuff he writes seem questionable. Am I mistaken in thinking he implies Marx held a theory of absolute immiserisation? That would seem to follow from the view he attributes to Marx of capitalism being a zero sum game
Its not just Trots who are speculating on the supposedly imminent fascist takeover of the US
Leonard Peikoff, Ayn Rand’s self appointed successor argues in his 2014 book, The Cause Of Hitler’s Germany as follows:
As Ayn Rand indicates in her introduction, this book demonstrates how German philosophy led to Hitler and the Holocaust.
The Cause of Hitler’s Germany is about two-thirds of The Ominous Parallels, a book of mine first published in 1982. In the book, I intended a warning: If Americans continue to accept and act on the same philosophic ideas that led to the Third Reich, then America will have to follow a parallel course and suffer the same result.
The book, accordingly, studied American culture and history in as much detail as that given to Germany. Given our cultural state, however, I did not expect any such warning to be heeded or even heard, and it wasn’t. There is no improvement in the thirty years since, no change in the basic ideas ruling the United States (and the West as a whole). The Soviet Empire has collapsed, but the ideas of irrationalism, self-sacrifice, and collectivism still dominate and fuel murderous tyrannies, primarily now in the upsurging Middle East, but elsewhere, too.
Doesn’t look like he wants to be a “federal dictator”, then.
Agreed. It’s another example of how politicians are trapped or hedged in by their own ideological rhetoric which restricts their room for manoeuvre. “Freedom luvvin”, Trump-supporting, NRA types who wanna get the state “off our backs”, don’t immediately strike one as the footsoldiers of an impending fascist regime presided over by a re-elected President-cum-dictator Trump
A very de-stabilised USA is far from political fiction. There are those who genuinely believe the 2nd Amendment rights are to defend the threat to their perceived liberties and the idea of armed resistance is being increasingly legitimised by the Right
So this is predicated on an individualist worldview in which case how is this compatible with the idea of a hypothetical fascist takeover of America? A deeply polarised and destabilized America is highly plausible and to an extent already exists and could continue for a long time into the future. A fascist America, on the other had, is quite another scenario and far less plausible for all sorts of reasons
Capitalism can exist under authoritarian regimes, China and Vietnam one-party states, being examples.
Alan,
That may be the case but I think there is a difference in the case of the US or the UK inasmuch as China and Vietnam and others of their ilk have not really gone through a sustained period of liberal bourgeois-democratic governance and, associated with this, the cultivation of an individualist ideology. This is different in the case of the US/UK. Once the bourgeois-democratic genie is out of the bottle it is very difficult to put it back in again.
This is particularly true of the US where individualist values, that are incompatible with totalitarian governance, have been able to set down deep roots over several centuries. These values will not be so easily thrown off. Even some of those NRA types that form the bedrock of support for Trump, ironically and enthusiastically assert their right to bear arms under a constitution that is at odds with totalitarian governance.
I am not convinced at all by the suggestion that the US is headed for a political dictatorship and if an attempt was made to institute such a dictatorship, it would come up against overwhelming resistance. The federal nature of the US would further undermine this attempt for reasons already given on this thread
An apparent counter-example might be the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany before the war. Germany overtook the UK as an industrial power sometime around the beginning of the 20th century. It was also the first significant practitioner of state capitalist policies and for which reason Lenin later urged that Russia imitate the German wartime model of state capitalism.
After WW1 we did see the establishment of the Weimar republic after decades of autocratic government under Bismarck. But the Weimar republic was just too short-lived a period for bourgeois-democratic-cum-individualistic values and expectations to take hold and set down deep roots. That takes time for that to happen and in the US these values and expectations became deeply embedded in the culture of that country over a very long period of time. The past as Marx said weighs like an Alp on the minds of the living.
We should not be misled by the populist struttings of a political clown like Trump. He is a prisoner of the ideology that brought him to power and the authoritarian sentiments he gives voice to are but the expression of the suffering and frustrations of his supporters under so-called neoliberal capitalism which has seen a significant widening between the haves and the have nots. Those sentiments don’t represent a fundamental challenge to the status quo, only a criticism of the status quo. Trump himself while claiming to be anti-establishment is part of the very establishment that is being blamed for the woes of these have nots.
Ultimately, the logic of capitalist development is to push countries towards a bourgeois-democratic-cum-individualist model of governance. Present-day autocracies and one-party states like China will also sooner or later succumb to this logic in the long run, notwithstanding apparent but temporary reversals in the direction some current events seem to be taking us…
Would it not be an idea to publish a party pamphlet on the subject of a Universal Basic Income as it is a subject that keeps on cropping up
Seems the stoppingsocialism site has an audiovisual facility. Perhaps they could invite a party member to debate Haskins on the subject of socialism and the latter’s references to the SPGB. It will be interesting to see if they chicken out at the prospect of a debate
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgZeFXOjOCNq7QMgTEKNgJQ/featured
Socialism is evil because it forces socialists to commit the following “immoralities”.
I find Haskin’s argument curious for in what sense does, or can, socialism “force” people to commit the various immoralities he cites? If anything the exact opposite is the case. Socialism provides the optimum circumstances in which a truly “free” society can flourish.
To argue from the example of traditional nomadic hunter-gatherer (or “segmentary lineage”) societies. Part of the reason for their fundamentally egalitarian character lies in the ability of bands to “fission” at any point in time, and vote with their feet, should undesirable hierarchical tendencies and personal animosities build up within the band itself.
Analogously speaking, the structural features of a socialist society – notably, free access and voluntaristic labour – would similarly work to undermine any coercive-cum-hierarchical tendencies that might otherwise emerge in such a society. Quite simply, there would be no leverage – economic or political – that could enable any individual or group to exercise power over any other group in socialism – as there certainly is under capitalism (which Haskins defends).
Then there is this whole argument about “morality” that I find intriguing. Haskins seems to counterpose “morality” to “coercion” as indicated by his use of the word, “force”. Classical sociologists like Durkheim tended to argue to the contrary that “society is a moral order” and that morality itself is essentially coercive or imperative by its very nature. It instructs us as to what we ought or ought not to do.
The difference, I suppose, is that morality, or our acceptance of moral norms, is something that is internalised within the individual in the process of socialisation as we are progressively inducted into society from an early age. External coercion, notably in the form of the state, is something quite different and may or may not align with the moral outlook of individuals
Haskin’s argument that socialism is evil “because it forces people to commit certain immoralities” seems to hinge on this “external” concept of force or coercion as represented by some social institution, such as state, rather than an internalised concept of force which is implicit in the very idea of morality itself. However, he completely fails to demonstrate what this externalised social mechanism could be in a stateless (because classless) socialist society that would force individuals to commit immoral acts or how this mechanism could arise and maintain itself in a social environment in which individuals enjoy free access to their own means of subsistence and voluntarily cooperate with their fellows to produce these means.
One last thing – socialism has sometimes been characterised as a system of a generalised reciprocity or what is called a “gift economy”. I question the idea that socialism can be called an economy at all. The idea that there is such a thing as a separate realm of reality called “the economy” is peculiar to capitalism alone, Adam Smith probably being the first serious commentator to conceptualise the economy in this way.
In pre-capitalist societies, it was difficult if not impossible, to disentangle the moral, political, religious etc aspects of life from the economic aspects. So it will be in a post-capitalist society as well.
Unlike the “balanced reciprocity” of the market which requires equivalence in exchange almost by definition (and hence also a focus on quantification expressed through money), generalised reciprocity essentially entails a moral transaction in the sense of an ongoing obligation to contribute to society and not just to take from it.
Again, this completely undermines the entire thrust of Haskin’s argument because what it suggests is that, in a socialist society, without the kind of class conflict we find in capitalism that reduces the force of morality to a kind of hypocritical humbug or mere moralizing, the power of moral persuasion will, if anything, be greatly enhanced. If morality has hitherto been mere class morality, in a classless society of the future, it will be the much clearer expression of what is in the common interest of everyone. As such, it will have a much more significant and effective role to play in the life of a socialist society, compared to capitalism
Anyway, I couldn’t resist posting, so my apologies to those who detest the notion of ‘Politicised Science’, and prefer a self-selecting elite to hold power in science.
Power to do exactly what LBird????
Specialists, and you long ago agreed there will be specialists as well as generalists in socialism, will by definition always know more than the non-specialists on the subject in question. But they will have zero power over the latter given the nature of a socialist society in which labour is performed on a completely free voluntary basis and goods and services can be freely appropriated without any form of quid pro quo exchange
Free access/voluntary labour eliminates or negates the very mechanism by which some hold power over others. Period
TS yet again airs his obnoxious nationalist views and nationalist assumptions for all his pathetic attempts to present himself as some sort of faux communist (“Communism brings uplift to marginalised groups” – the same sort of argument the British imperialists used to justify their own imperial conquests – that it was good for the natives)
You cannot be a communist and a nationalist. You can only be one of these by jettisoning the other.
Perhaps our resident bootlicker of the billionaire-friendly Chinese capitalist regime should consider changing his pseudonym. Anyone who considers themselves to be a “True Scotsman” is a world away from the kind of thinking that asserts “The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got” (Communist Manifesto)
TS
That’s precisely what I’m doing right now. I’m trying to learn what is your strategy for combating the inevitable counter-revolutionary violence. Instead I hear there will be none, Lol, or I’m insulted. Why won’t anyone directly answer the question?
Your question has already been answered but you are refusing to open your ears and listen
Our conception of socialism – the Marxian one – requires that a significant majority of the population first want and understand it. It cannot be imposed from above by some tiny clique of Leninist vanguardists
In the process of arriving at that socialist majority, the entire social outlook will almost inevitably and progressively change in an incremental fashion. Socialist and democratic ideas cannot gain traction, grow and flourish in the same soil as undemocratic or pro-capitalist ideas. One can only grow at the expense of the other
What does that mean? It means by the time socialists constitute a significant majority of the population and socialism is on the cards, the character of the opposition to socialism will have changed as well in line with the change in the entire ethos of society. Even socialism’s sternest opponents will be far more heavily be influenced by democratic values than is the case today.
In this situation, the likelihood of a recalcitrant minority attempting to violently resist the democratic will of the majority is absolutely minimal. Even in capitalism, as has been explained to you many times, when the will of the majority is peacefully and vigorously asserted, dictatorships crumble. The collapse of state capitalist dictatorships in Eastern Europe was accomplished with little or no bloodshed (apart from Rumania, if I remember correctly).
The “people’s will” is an irresistible force once it gets going and no army however heavily armed can defeat it. Besides the armed forces by the time socialism is on the cards will itself have been heavily influenced by socialist ideas as well as the climate of opinion in society changes. The idea that some crazed General can direct soldiers to flout the clear will of the majority is ludicrous and there are plenty of historical precedents to prove this point.
So it’s sheer romantic nonsense on your part to imagine you need some kind of large-scale military force organized on authoritarian lines to deal with some imagined counter-revolutionary threat. Since you are not a socialist but a bourgeois nationalist, you take as your template of “revolution”, the violent civil wars to eject some existing capitalist government and install another. This is implicit in your whole line of thinking. You are not looking at this issue as a socialist might.
The SPGB does not rule out completely the possibility that there might some small-scale violent resistance. This will have to be dealt with but it doesn’t require battalions of military personnel to squash the resistance. That’s an absurd scenario on your part. The vast majority of non-socialists – a minority of the population – by the time socialism is on the cards will almost certainly just go along peacefully with what society as a whole has decided. It would not be in their interests to support a handful of nutters taking to the hills with their Kalashnikovs to foment violence and they would see this.
And any minimal support for violently resisting the new freely established social order will pretty soon die out as the benefits it brings soon enough become apparent to all
Interesting article
People are animals, but we’re unlike other animals. We have complex languages that let us articulate and communicate ideas. We’re creative: we make art, music, tools. Our imaginations let us think up worlds that once existed, dream up worlds that might yet exist, and reorder the external world according to those thoughts. Our social lives are complex networks of families, friends and tribes, linked by a sense of responsibility towards each other. We also have awareness of ourselves and our universe: sentience, sapience, consciousness, whatever you call it.
And yet the distinction between ourselves and other animals is, arguably, artificial. Animals are more like humans than we might think – or like to think. Almost all behaviour we once considered unique to ourselves are seen in animals, even if they’re less well developed.
—-
And in the past, some species were far more like us than other apes – Ardipithecus, Australopithecus, Homo erectus and Neanderthals. Homo sapiens is the only survivor of a once diverse group of humans and human-like apes, the hominins, which includes around 20 known species and probably dozens of unknown species.The extinction of those other hominins wiped out all the species that were intermediate between ourselves and other apes, creating the impression that some vast, unbridgeable gulf separates us from the rest of life on Earth. But the division would be far less clear if those species still existed. What looks like a bright, sharp dividing line is really an artefact of extinction.
