SocialistPunk
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Regarding the EU.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqH21LEmfbQ
Young Master Smeet wrote:The point is the service is currently free at the point of use: whetehr firms are called in to do the work or if it is state directed is neitehr ehre nor there. If capitalists want to rob the tax payer, that's fine, no concern of ours.You said the magic word there YMS, "currently". It's the aim to introduce an American insurance based health care system. Meaning a two tier health system, whereby if you don't have insurance, or you have limited cover, you'll get the bare bones of health care.It's a drip by drip process. Every accepted change gets the public ready for the next one until it's done. Then it's too late.I guess the question for us socialists is what concern is it of ours other than as one part of the whole anti-worker package that is capitalism? We want to change society so that everyone on earth has access to quality health care.
Oh well, I see LBird has declined the offer to construct a coherent explanation of his theory for us to digest. Instead preferring the practice of elitist….err…"intellectual" trolling.In my experience if a person can't explain in simple, coherent terms what they want to convey, it usually means they don't know what they're on about.I'm out, and I strongly suggest everyone else avoids temptation to counter attack. It's what LBird wants.
I have a very strong tendency to agree with you DJP. Bu tas socialists we do advocate a voice for the minority view. So in that spirit I simply suggest LBird takes the offer to once and for all coherently lay out his theory in one go.
LBird wrote:SocialistPunk wrote:Why some people fail to heed the law of holes is beyond me.Bruce Lee wrote:Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.I'm waiting for you to do so, SP.
We are all waiting for you to answer questions put to you. All you keep saying is "I'm a Marxist your Engelist materialists, "theory and practice"."You haven't yet explained in simple language what you mean. You just keep dishing out vague statements. The people you were discussing the same stuff with on the ICC website couldn't get what you were on about either. One of them even suggested you lay out your theory in an essay, but you didn't.http://en.internationalism.org/forum/1056/link/13470/what-lbirdismSeems everyone else is wrong.I've got a suggestion that could suit us all. Lay out your theory in a post. Take your time, it can be as long as needed. That should help us to get to grips with what your theory is. Then perhaps some informed, positive discussion could take place.If you choose not to do this, we can only draw one conclusion, that you are a troll. In which case I would suggest everyone ends all discussion with you.What do you say?What does everyone else think?
LBird,In your post #142 you decide to rewrite Marx claiming to know his mind better than he did.You then accuse YMS, "You very conveniently ignore Capital," and "Try reading Marx". Then when YMS posted the following you conveniently ignore it, instead launching in to your usual "Leninists", "Engelist materialists" accusation strategy, designed to distract by provoking emotional responses.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Oh, I forgot capital:Quote:The Devil Himself wrote:My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of “the Idea,” he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of “the Idea.” With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.So much for your claim to be a Marxist, in fact you keep claiming to be the only Marxist in the village.To think myself and one or two others once gave you the benefit of the doubt, in the hope that given time you may have been able to explain clearly what you thought you understood. It's clear to me now that you are seriously confused and rather than admit it, you bluster on, accusing everyone else (living and dead) of being wrong.Why some people fail to heed the law of holes is beyond me.
Bruce Lee wrote:Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.I doubt we'll get that, Vin.I was under the impression the flag function was for serious problems, such as reporting abuse and serious breaches of "off topic"?It seems someone has taken offence.Perhaps you offended someones moral sensibilities, lol.
I've just noticed that two of Vin's posts #65 and #67 have been flagged.Who on earth has flagged those, there's not a single thing problematic with them!!!? This flagging shit is fucking ridiculous!
Vin,Sorry for any offence caused, it wasn't intentional.I only mention Robbo because, although we have no direct evidence, he presented a solid argument. I thought that's what is done in the absence of direct evidence.I still find it bizarre that this word is so problematic for some socialists. I don't see any similar objections to the word democracy. Afterall our socialist concept of democracy would seem pretty odd to the ancient Greeks. Yet we don't recoil from the word democracy in horror, because it was the ideology of a ruling elite over two thousand years ago.But I agree we're getting nowhere.
Vin,Robbo already suggested that pre-property society would have had rules of conduct, that were adapted for use by the ruling class when propertied society came into existence. I take it your Social Contract or social rules would encourage or discourage certain behaviour. In other words what would be deemed anti-social?It seems you object to the word, which I find a little amusing. You seem to be fetishising a word.What about the word "ethics"? Is that an word objectionable?
Vin,Once again you put it as an "either or" issue. It was obvious from the quote I reused from Engels that he was referring to what Robbo and myself call, socialist morality, or from Engels himself, "A really human morality..".What's with the obsession of presenting it as a case of one or the other?I have always said that morality is a fluid concept, with no eternal moral truths. A socialist society would have rules of acceptable conduct that may change over time. In fact one of the big issues in a socialist society would be ethics, how we interact with one another as a social species. Children aren't born with a set of rules of social conduct hardwired into them and something tells me that would still continue within a socialist society.
Young Master Smeet wrote:How does activity create matter?Does "inorganic nature" exist prior to activity?What's your opinion? I'm not the only person here, others watching might be interested to hear, ignore me, reply as if I were dead and my ideology with me. Give your opinion to the world.There are others watching who would be happy to hear LBird provide actual answers for a change.
Vin,I'm well aware that you do not think it is acceptable for children to starve in our world of plenty, while a tiny minority live in absolute luxury. I tried hard to avoid using emotive words and phrases, but even the word "acceptable" is loaded.Come the revolution, if a minority tried to use violence against the majority to take us back to capitalism I would expect the majority to wipe that vile minority off the face of this planet, and I would say it would be moraly justifiable.Why? Because if a minority then tried to enforce todays vileness back on to a majority who'd made a collective democratic decision to end the inhumanity of capitalism, that majority would be understandably pissed off and need to defend itself. As I've said before morality is a fluid concept.I know there has been a previous thread discussing this subject so I did a bit of searching and found Robbo had posted a couple of good quotes, one from Engels. I normally don't like to quote the usual suspects but seeing as they seem to have some weight with many socialists, I thought why not.
Quote:We therefore reject every attempt to impose on us any moral dogma whatsoever as an eternal, ultimate and for ever immutable ethical law on the pretext that the moral world has its permanent principles which stand above history and the differences between nations. We maintain on the contrary that all moral theories have been hitherto the product, in the last analysis, of the economic conditions of society obtaining at the time. And as society has hitherto moved in class antagonisms, morality has always been class morality; it has either justified the domination and the interests of the ruling class, or, ever since the oppressed class became powerful enough, it has represented its indignation against this domination, and the future interests of the oppressedWe have not yet passed beyond class morality. A really human morality which stands above class antagonisms and above any recollection of them becomes possible only at a stage of society which has not only overcome class antagonisms but has even forgotten them in practical life(Anti-Dühring).Some words used by Marx himself in describing capitalism seem to point to him having a very moral based dislike of the system he spent most of his life fighting against.
Quote:Hence all the passages in Capital about ‘naked self-interest and callous cash payment’, ‘oppression’, ‘degradation of personal dignity’, ‘accumulation of misery’, ‘physical and mental degradation’, ‘shameless, direct and brutal exploitation’, the ‘modern slavery of capital’, ‘subjugation’, the ‘horrors’… and ‘torture’ and ‘brutality’ of overwork, the ‘murderous’ search for economy in the production process, capital ‘laying waste and squandering’ of labour power and ‘altogether too prodigal with its human material’ and exacting ‘ceaseless human sacrifices.’ (Lukes S Marxism and Morality, 1985 Oxford Clarendon Press p1).Perhaps I need to point out that he never stated that capitalism was morally wrong, but I guess he had his reasons. One reason, I suspect, was linked to the early utopian socialists who pushed a moral argument, appealing to the capitalists and politicians to do the right thing. Unsurprisingly that went nowhere.
Vin wrote:SocialistPunk wrote:When you see a picture of a child bloated from starvation on the verge of death, it evokes powerful empathic emotions within you, as it does me. I expect you would agree with me that to allow that child to die from such an easily preventable cause is wrong?Yes I feel powerful emotionsTo say something is 'wrong' is meaningless to me. It is like saying it is a sin.Empathy and biliousness doesn't amount to 'morality' Some animals show emotion and vomit when they see other animals' in accidentsAs I am the disbeliever on this subject surely it is for 'moralists' – for the want of a better word – to prove the point. As with christianity – for the want of a better anology, it is not up to me to disprove the existence of god.So could you and Tim give me a list of 'wrongs' and 'rights' that should guide socialists to the revolution and beyond. Have I already proved that we cannot claim that war is immoral or are you still not convinced?
Vin,Robbo already provided some good points in post #33 of this thread. I would go as far to say he made a good case for morality. The quote below was your rebuttal. If you read #33 you'll find Robbo made no mention of religion.
Vin wrote:I don't need to be religious to be caring and compasionate; nor do I need an imposed 'morality'The whole argument on morality assumes that which needs to be proven. We will have to agree to disagree, it is an endless debate.You might not think it's wrong to allow children to die of starvation, but I certainly think it's wrong.It's not a matter of logic, logic doesn't make me feel empathy. It's the empathy I feel that leads me to say it is wrong, not economic interests. The issue of economic interest is simply the way to change the situation.As for socialist rights and wrongs the DoP already seems to think freedom is crucial as well as non discrimination on the grounds of race and sex. It's a start I guess.
