stuartw2112
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Thanks Bill for doing my homework for me. I'm aware of course that there's a huge debate about what "planning" or what "plans" there will be under socialism, to what extent such planning will be centralised, and the debate about whether such planning is even possible in a complex industrial society. But what's uncontroversial, as I said at the start, is that socialism has always been about replacing the anarchy of the market with a planned economy. To say that socialism won't have an economy is surely just to start piddling around with words. Socialism, like every other economic system, will have to produce goods and services, distribute them, consume them. The way in which this is done is known to most people who speak English as an "economy".
Adam: better quote from Homer. He looks up to sky and says, 'I've never asked for your help before and I don't know if you even exist. But if you do exist, please, Superman, save me now'. A different Homer though. Ed: read Engels and you'll see I'm right. cheers
Ed:Have a look at Engels' Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. Or Marx's Capital. Both talk, there and elsewhere, about the anarchy of the market giving way to a planned society, ie, socialism. As I said, and as is entirely uncontroversial, it is a commonplace of socialist thought that socialism will be a planned society. "Gift economy", on the other hand, is not really the same thing as socialism, at least, not as conceived in the Marxist tradition.
"So what then? Will you again apply to join the SPGB for a third (or is it fourth) time and repeat the cycle all over?"Twice bitten, thrice dangerously allergic."And, most importantly, stand for socialism."Lie down for it more like.Cheerio, I'm off to transform again.
Ed: it's a commonplace of socialist thought (you'll find it in Marx and Engels) that the alternative to the anarchy of the market is a planned economy, ie, socialism.Adam: Oh, I don't know. Zeus?
As Bill said, I was "late of this parish", and I still pop in ocassionally to see if the village shop is still open. Nice to see it is and that the same old boys hang around outside on the green, chewing the fat.Gnome says I am a master of transformation – why, thank you very much, it's kind of you to say so! But Ed is wrong to imply that I've changed my mind about all that much. Back in 1999 when I joined your party, I signed up to the belief that socialism was about the emancipation of the working class, and that the work of this emancipation "must be the work of the working class itself". I still believe that, and is why I was an enthusiastic supporter of Occupy, and now of Left Unity. Adam says it will end in tears. Most people in Left Unity expect it to. But we do the work anyway and leave the results to 'god', as Ghandi put it.It has been an interesting experience in Left Unity so far, getting up close to the organised far-left sects again. I hadn't noticed before (another transformation!) just how exactly like you lot they are. Of course, you're nicer, and more democratic. But the basic assumptions about the "tasks of Maxists" are the same; the dreary speeches, unchanged for a century, sound the same. Not that it matters: people generally have the good sense to ignore them. As does the majority in Left Unity. In that, at least, there's hope!All the bestStuart
What's disturbing is that the statement, and no one on this thread as far as I can see, has mentioned the main horror: that the SWP, when faced with an allegation of rape against one of its leading members, investigated the matter itself. Presumably the silence on this reflects a basic agreement that this was the right thing to do, if bodged, if not as democratic as might be liked.
A rape allegation has "snowballed" (ie, presumably, become much worse) now that the SWP CC stands revealed as somewhat lacking in democracy? And leaving aside the allegations of sexual abuse, SWP members are finally waking up to the real sickness, ie, their inadequate democratic procedures? Shudder.
The controversy in the SWP, as anyone who reads a tabloid newspaper will know, is about an allegation of rape, which the SWP leadership decided to investigate for itself, by a committee made up of the alleged rapist's mates. By issuing a statement about it that drivels on about democratic procedures, you've made yourselves look about as out of touch and loopy (and potentially dangerous) as the SWP. Quite some going.
OldGreyWhistle: “Why should I read or listen to what Chomsky has to say about the mind?”Er… because he’s a founding father of the whole discipline of cognitive science? I thought that might make what he has to say interesting for people discussing the subject. I apologise: my mistake.ALB:”Let’s not forget that what we are really discussing here is the most adequate way of describing observable events from the point of view of human survival.”No, what we were discussing was abstract philosophies about the nature of mind and reality. Kicking a stone proves nothing about that one way or the other. The fact that you can say that as if it is pertinent to the discussion, and OldGreyWhistle can talk about ideas outside the head as if that is pertinent to the discussion, proves that neither of you watched the video or engaged with the ideas presented in it. Fair enough, you’re under no obligation to, but why the felt need to indulge instead in aggressive stupidity, I’ll never understand. Again, I posted the video because I thought it of relevance to this (interesting) discussion. I apologise once again for my mistake.
OldGreyWhistle,You read an intolerable attitude in my post, I read an intolerable attitude in yours. It’s part of the hazards of this kind of communication, I’m afraid. No offence was intended.I did in fact read your link, which was a Wikipedia post introducing the subject, but there was nothing I could find of pertience on this topic.I don’t agree with what Chomsky says because he is Chomsky. I don’t even agree with Chomsky, nor disagree, having no knowledge of the subjects he was talking about – I just assume a position of “basic respect” towards what he has to say.
Old Grey,Chomsky’s comment is not “I don’t know” but “We don’t know”, ie, science doesn’t know. As he discusses in the video which you didn’t watch, the problem of consciousness is considered in the relevant branches of philosophy and science to be the “hard problem”. If you’ve thought about it and got it all sussed, then you’re wasting your talents on here – please do send in a submission to a relevant journal, which I shall read with interest when it is published.
Says Chomsky: Nobody knows what material is, or what physical is, let alone what mind is, or what else there might be or might not be. Modern science has expelled the machine, and left the ghost. Most of the discussion on here, by these standards, is pre-Newtonian!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5in5EdjhD0
