rodshaw
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Perhaps to give a brief overview of their life, particularly how they were influenced by socialism, and to say our sympathies are with their family. The person who has died will neither know nor care.
Whether such a group or list is desirable depends partly on what is meant by sympathiser. Is it people who agree 100% with the Party case but for whatever reason don't join, or would it include people who disagree with some aspect or other of the Party's case? Eg our stance on religion, the use of Parliament, outright opposition to reformism, etc?
A very good video.As to a title, I think 'An Introduction to World Socialism' is fine. Certainly the words 'World Socialism' should figure, they encapsulate what we're all about. And the word 'Introduction' suggests that it's something new for people to think about.How about having a subsidiary bit, something like 'An Introduction to World Socialism…and how we can take the whole cake.'
Vin wrote:In stark contrast to LBird's view of communism as a Borg take over. Where there will be no local communities or individuals making decisions. Issues will be decided by the global community(Borg) and imposed on local communities. Sends a shver down my spine.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsUndkXAQ_8LBird ensuring the global extinction of the individual and the establishment of his communism. Decisions are made by the collective. brrrrrrrrrAs I understand it, in this monolithic view of communism, all the world's population will all be equally educated and will be equally informed on every single issue. In fact, they will seemingly be expected to vote on every single issue, whether global or local.Such a thing could only happen if we were all telepathic and could all communicate with one another more or less instantly. Which, by the time this monolithic socialism comes about, we might be.But barring this eventuality, it raises the question who proposes what to vote on? Surely anyone individualistic enough to suggest a new idea isn't playing the game, so nothing will ever change because there's nothing to vote about, and society will quickly stultify.Unless, of course, there's some kind of elite making all the proposals "on behalf of" the community, and the community vote in line for fear of being too individualistic.
robbo203 wrote:I guess "earned income" would cover every contingency but then "abolition of earned income" doesnt have quite the same ring to it as "abolition of the wages system"…And it implies that unearned income is ok!
I think that wage and salary are commonly understood to cover different types of income, the latter being more 'middle class' than the former, probably paid monthly rather than weekly. By using both we include both types of worker.Self-employed income is a bit more problematic and to include it we'd probably have to use more words not less. Unless we used 'income' to cover everything. But then we'd probably have to use more words explaining that we excluded capitalist income, or income from shares etc.Pensioners are another category not strictly being paid a 'wage or salary' (although we regard a pension as deferred wages, which in itself takes more explaining).Rod
I've always struggled with the notion that the working class as a whole don't have a significant tax burden. It's a very hard idea to sell. The amount workers pay may be insignificant compared to the capitalists, but there again so is what they receive.Payslips show a deduction for tax. There's council tax to pay, water rates, and heaps of indirect taxes. The self-employed don't get tax deducted at source but have to put money aside to pay it later on.And council tax isn't deducted by employers but comes out of net wages. Ok, you can budget for it, but you still have to pay it, or apply for relief.
As regards costing money, I think it fair to point out that until recently, although it didn't cost anything to join, it did cost an annual fee (dues) to stay a member, subject to applying for exemption if you were unwaged or for certain other reasons. At the moment there are no dues and contributions are voluntary but there is a move within the party to re-introduce dues in some form.
As to your question about China etc. – we refer to them as state capitalist because they had all the features of capitalist society – a state, production for profit, money, buying and selling, an exploiting and an exploited class – the same as all avowedly capitalist countries do. The difference is that in the so-called communist or socialist countries, effectively the state and the ruling class were one and the same set of people, rather than the state acting on behalf of a private capitalist class.So what we see with these countries, rather than the demise of real socialism, is the move from strictly controlled state capitalism to private capitalism.For members of the World Socialist Movement, real socialism (or communism) entails the abolition of the ruling class and the state – in all countries – and its replacement with worldwide common ownership of resources.
The strapline to an article in The Times today:'Wealth gap shows that capitalism is failing'.But it was only Matthew Parris saying there really are some poor people about, the very rich are too rich and the free market needs reforming.
Interesting.The day after Bowie died I went to have my hair cut and my barber, in his early 70s so not much older than Bowie, said (and I paraphrase), 'What's all this fuss about David Bowie? I've never heard of him'. Then Barry Manilow came on the radio and he said, 'Now that's what I call music'.I was never a big Bowie fan actually (only really know the greatest hits, and only then because one of my daughters (!) bought the CD), but in the few interviews I saw he did come across as very articulate and intelligent.Did he have anything to say about socialism? Guess I'll find out next month.He certainly attracted a lot of hero worship and adulation. What are we to make of the outpourings of grief at his death? Some social media commentators who dared to suggest they were over the top became the subjects of the now almost standard vitriolic remarks, death wishes etc.
I'm not a scientist but am very interested in science programmes on the telly. In particular, there was one on recently about Einstein and discoveries since his death. At the risk of repeating some of what's already been said, let me give my own slant on them.Einstein showed theoretically that there is such a thing as space-time and that it gets warped near large objects. He couldn’t prove it in practice, but scientists since then have found examples of this warping in the universe.Einstein also did the maths to show that time travels faster the further away you are from a large object. Again he couldn’t prove it in practice but it has since been found to be so because the clocks on satellites have to be updated periodically to keep the same time as on earth.Einstein knew that his view of the universe doesn’t apply to the quantum world, where particles behave very unpredictably indeed, and a unified theory to explain both the Einsteinian view and the quantum world has yet to be found. In time, I daresay it will.Of course, all the above has been determined by a small group of scientists living in capitalist society, and ratified more or less only amongst themselves. There is no way that more than a handful of people, with specialised training, a certain aptitude, and the time, could do the maths and go through all the experiments needed to arrive at conclusions like the ones above. The rest of us can either accept it or look on sceptically when we’re told about it. Or not give a shit, as may be. That is, if we know about it at all. There are people in all four camps. I can’t imagine it being different in a socialist society.So how is all the above knowledge, whatever we think of it, inextricably linked to class rule?In a socialist society, knowledge would be a common resource. Scientists would not be an elite group with any special hold on it, or in thrall to a ruling class that would manipulate that knowledge for their own ends. They would be regarded as people with a particular interest or mandate to study their specialisms and presumably report on their findings. But would all scientific knowledge to date have to be considered unsound, because it was decided in a class-based society? I think not.If applied to all aspects of scientific knowledge, for example how a steam engine or an iphone works, the decision-making process could otherwise take a very long time indeed.
Rocks are matter.Humans are matter.Rocks do not create.Humans do create.Therefore (and you can call me picky if you like), humans are a different kind of matter from rocks, a kind which embodies creativity.There's a certain amount of deliberate obfuscation going on in this thread, but so many seem to go that way eventually.Have an idealist-materialist new year one and all, and let's hope we material beings get nearer to creating socialism in 2016.
Damn! How wrong could Madonna be? All together now…'cause we are living in a material world, and I am a material girl.
