twc
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robbo wrote:The share of spending devoted to education has risen over time; it almost doubled between 1953–54 and 1973–74, from 6.9% to 12.5% of total spending. It then remained fairly stable, dipping in the early to mid 1980s, before rising to around 13% throughout the 2000s.
Precisely. Like health, it’s threateningly expensive to support. It threatens return on investment.
robbo wrote:I think (twc) has an overly mechanistic ring about it.No. A scientific determinist ring, like all science—the science of necessary process, or else no science at all.In place of deterministic science you skirt perilously close to the fantasy fiction:Socialist representatives get magically elected to parliament, under a South-American old-style dictatorship,where they defiantly denounce the tyranny that elected them and advocate the universal right to parliamentary democracy?The Party case has always been that capitalism requires democracy to legitimate itself.So far, democracy has not lived up to its originally perceived threat to the capitalist system, and has so far failed to put a dent in capitalism itself, which continues to rule triumphant over whichever democratic team has the dubious privilege of “running” it.On the contrary, capitalism has knocked “capitalist sense” into its left opponents, democratic or anti-democratic as the case may be.Once Socialism is on the move, a parliamentary electoral system—no matter how gerrymandered or jury rigged—is powerless to stop it.You seem hung up on the meerest details of hypotheticals.
That challenge is one of the greatest weapons a World Socialist can wield against all reformism and for Socialism.A World Socialist challenges our opponents, “whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist” (a perfect phrase taken from our Declaration of Principles, Clause
:“How on earth can anyone tell what reforms will benefit the working class in a society based on robbing it?”ALB wrote:There are even some reforms that benefit workers that actually do help capital's ability to expand itself, e.g. education and health provisions.Really?It is precisely education and health provisions that currently threaten capital’s ability to expand itself.That’s why they are currently being screwed.The capitalist class would dearly rather it didn’t have to screw the provision of education and health, but it has no other choice because it perceives—rightly or wrongly—that they obstruct capital’s ability to expand itself.It perceives them as a financial burden—upon its long-suffering self—that must be minimised.Of course, it’s quite another matter if education and health provisions can be hijacked by capital to expand itself.In those circumstances, should a “socialist representative” support private provision of education and health because it, incidentally, “benefits the working class” while directly benefitting the capitalist class?I repeat, how on earth can anyone tell what will “benefit the working class” in a society based on robbing it?
robbo203 wrote:Socialists…, in office and whilst still a minority, should consider voting in favour of certain reforms on the basis of their merits in benefitting the workers, however temporarily.Capitalism can’t be reformed to benefit workers without threatening its very own conditions of existence—capital acting as capital, i.e. private capitalist-class return on investment dominating all social practice, i.e. dominating the working class.By what criterion can anyone judge that a “reform” will bring “benefit”, to the working class, when the entire social system reproduces itself by exploiting the working-class?Capital necessarily reproduces itself to the detriment, not to the benefit of the working class!The process of capitalist reproduction ensures that its conditions of continued repetitive existence are necessarily self-correcting, self adjusting, self adapting.In short, if you temporarily weaken capital, it systemically reacts and survives, because society must function and, under capital’s domination, society must function on its terms of existence, or not at all.And because capital adapts to its very own nature, any temporary “benefit” to its class enemy necessarily succumbs to capital’s own necessity.The class struggle, fought out under capitalist conditions, of capital simply acting out its very own inflating self—expanding itself through employing the working class—cannot permanently be won against it on a field it already controls.If working-class benefits, that threaten capital’s ability to expand itself, could be won under capitalist dominant conditions, why Socialism?
ajj wrote:Italy makes a spoiled paper a crime.Surely not in the act? I thought, in the act, it was a secret ballot.
Unless registered, the name “Socialist Party” gets hijacked by the big boys of the capitalist left. That happened in Australia.All companion parties (adding New Zealand to the list) do assert belonging to the “World Socialist Movement”.Hence, don’t abstain, but write “World Socialism”—or, as you imply, “World Socialist Movement”—across the ballot paper. That’s our sole political stance, to which all else in politics, like imagined “capitalist concessions” such as bike lanes, are essentially inconsequential, no matter how passionately desired.Should bike lanes ever become a political object of desire above World Socialism—or misconceived as a concessionary political precursor to World Socialism—the universal rule of “return on investment”, i.e. of capital, smiles condescendingly in political triumph over World Socialism.
ALB wrote:There are a number of benefits that can be obtained for workers even under capitalism (not just by trade union action), e.g. health & safety laws. repeal of anti-union laws, less restrictions on meetings and publications, voting against a war.Not permanently obtained “benefits for workers”. At best, temporarily lessened “detriments to workers”.So long as private return on investment, i.e. capital, remains the pre-condition of all social life, permanent “benefits for workers” remain an impossible fantasy. Otherwise, why Socialism?The pre-condition for permanent “benefits to workers” is abolition of private ownership of the World’s means of production—the foundation upon which private return on investment, i.e. capital, rests.That pre-condition is common ownership and democratic control of the World’s means of production—the foundation upon which rests World Socialism.
ALB wrote:bringing about some benefit for workers when in a position to do so.This is universally impossible under capitalism, where all “benefit for workers” is deterministically subservient to capitalist return on investment, i.e. to capital, which is necessarily of “benefit to capitalists”.The only lasting escape from our inexorable grinding by capitalist return on investment, i.e. by capital, is World Socialism.
If “public office” means “member of parliament”—since that’s what candidates stand for—then refusal to accept “public office” upon winning it is tantamount to denying the platform the candidate for “public office” stood on.To refuse “public office” won solely for World Socialism is the most overt and effective way of denying World Socialism. [By comparison, mere salaries and benefits are inconsequential.]More importantly…Refusal to take “public office” abnegates our Declaration of Principles, Clause 8:
Declaration of Principles wrote:8. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore,enters the field of political actiondetermined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist,and calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system …Refusal to take “public office” is the surest way ofvacating the World Socialist “field of political action”repudiating the World Socialist “war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist”silencing the World Socialist “call to the members of the working class to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system”…consigning the will of World Socialist voters to impotence,converting trust to disillusion,turning political power into a political death wish.The proposed motion is tantamount to a World Socialist political suicide note!***By contrast…A World Socialist Party candidate, clearly and unequivocally,stands solely for World Socialism.advocates voting solely for World Socialism.repudiates voting for the candidate.A World Socialist Party candidate then achieves “public office”, only, as part of a growing popular movement towards World Socialism.A World Socialist Party candidate, so voted into “public office”, is—clearly and unequivocally—a representative solely of World Socialism.***A World Socialist Party representative of World Socialism therefore accepts “public office” in order to promulgate World Socialist Declaration of Principles, Clause 8:to enter the “field of political action”to “wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist”to “call on the members of the working class to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system”…Unlike the death-wish of the proposed motion, Clause 8 is an affirmation of World Socialism.
The distinction should be clear to socialists.For example, the WSP of Australia always took the occasion to register a vote for World Socialism, to which all capitalist issues are subservient, and find their resolution.In the absence of (1) a world socialist candidate or (2) a referendum/plebicite on world socialism, write WORLD SOCIALISM across your ballot paper. “If you ain’t going to vote for it, You ain’t going to fight for it, It ain’t going to happen.”
What’s in a Name?Dawkins’s Selfish Gene is not, as its name might suggest, a theory about a gene for human selfishness. It is not a theory of human selfishness.Instead it is about the [metaphorical] “selfishness” of genes—the genes, not us, are [metaphorically] “selfish”.The theory emerged in the 1960s as a dissenting view to current thoughts on the underlying mechanism of Darwinian evolutionary selection—the dynamic process of speciation through the differential survival and reproduction of heritable characteristics.Since genes express themselves as [heritable] characteristics, Dawkins decided to give genes their prominent due as the fundamental selection units of the grand process of speciation, instead of, as before, the gross biological organisms themselves. [The scientific merit of Dawkins’s move is not under consideration here.]Such an outlook, termed “selfish”, was preordained to offend social sensibilities. But that was nothing new in Darwinian theory, which from the start affronted social sensibilities. Darwin, like his contemporary Marx, confidently went his “own way, and let people say what they will!”***Further to understand Dawkins’s motivation…Darwin had drawn attention to the self-sacrificing behaviour of certain species, in particular, the eu-social insects [ants, termites, bees]. Evolutionary scientist W. D. Hamilton coined the equally affronting biological term ‘Altruism’ to describe self-sacrificing behaviour in the animal kingdom.The idea seems to have been spawned by evolutionist J. B. S. Haldane, who did the biological-kinship mathematics, and apparently joked he would lay down [self-sacrifice] his life for “two brothers, but not one; or eight cousins, but not seven.”To make sense of Haldane’s answer, recall that organisms share heritable characteristics with their nearest kin, and that evolutionary selection is entirely a process of the differential survival of heritable characteristics that confer advantage under changing environmental constraints — hence the survival of genetically close kin that share spots, stripes, long necks, etc.***ALB, who has studied its history, points out that Dawkins’s biological co-opting of the word ‘Selfish’ and promoting the phrase ‘Selfish Gene’ was very much in line with the temper of the time [Ardrey, Lorentz, Eysenck, …]. Dawkins added fuel to the battles that ensued, such as that against Sociobiology, which consciously extended genetical explanation precisely to human social behaviour. However, my current focus is much narrower and relates to scientific terminology.All scientific theories adapt everyday terminology, and migrate it from its familiar social environment into a quasi-unfamiliar technical environment, thereby giving common words a peculiar twist when they are re-employed in their unfamiliar scientific context.Literary art lives and dies by co-opting familiar words to unfamiliar contexts, implicitly relying on our ability to appreciate common words transported to uncommon contexts. Just so, scientific contexts are non-literary, socially uncommon, contexts for most of us.Scientists, for want of a ready-made terminology, regularly describe uncommon phenomena in common everyday words. Take force, tension, potential, energy, power, work, creation, annihilation, attraction, affinity, imaginary, rational, irrational, transcendental, labour, value, exploitation…Yet, when scientists break the mould, and deign to coin new terms, like entropy or enthalpy, they face the accusation of deliberate obfuscation by complainants who neither comprehend the novel concept nor exhibit competence to propose adequate synonyms.To all of the above carping over scientific terminology, the scientist can only reply with Hamlet “There are more things in heaven and earth… than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.***Science does not deal in Definitions—mere words like “Selfish”.Science deals exclusively with dynamical processes. It only considers static things—stasis—as (1) moments in a dynamical process or as (2) invariants that persist throughout these moments, and so characterise that changing dynamical process conceptually as a persistent conceptual “thing”.Science subsumes definitions—mere words—under the process they feature in. Its terminology is subservient to process. Definitions—words—remain stillborn without a process theory to vivify them.My point is a minor one, yet it merits minor consideration.
A decade after Engels’s Conditions of the Working Class in England in 1844, Jevons (still in his late teens) travelled to Australia.Though far from Engels’s working-class standpoint, an outraged William Stanley Jevons nevertheless reported in ascerbic disgust, in his social map of Sydney, the grim plight of those unfortunates dwelling in the Sydney Rocks (formerly Gallows Hill).
Quote:Standing in many parts of Sydney, noting the bright sky above, the clear blue waters below … one is compelled to acknowledge how much Nature has done for us; how little we have done for ourselves….It was once my fate to enter [one of the many dwellings in the Rocks he visited] but I know not how to describe to others its filthy appearance—the wooden partitions covered by rotten, torn canvas, the uneven blackened floor, not free from human exuviae, the dark miserable rooms let out to different occupants.One small room was the only abode of a family, including several children….[Nether drainage nor sewerage; instead stagnant pools, runoff, and rejectamenta of a solid nature.]The rents of such a place are indeed filthy lucre….If Dr Aaron is really a city officer of health at all, why do ‘The Rocks’ find no mention in his reports?What are we to think of aldermen, who meet opposite the Supreme Court to talk, vote other people’s money away, and sometimes to quarrel, yet always neglect the social plague spots and cesspools of the city?Here we glimpse Jevons as incensed railer against the disastrous social effects of capitalism, comparable in passion to, though perhaps not as deep nor sustained as, the criticisms of Charles Dickens, Jack London of the Abyss or Orwell of Wigan Pier. Surely this side of the multi-faceted scientist William Stanley Jevons is astonishingly unexpected by socialists. For we acknowledge him to be, as Dave quite correctly points out, the father of modern marginalism.We may pause to consider. All of us support the system, by default, until we recognise how to change it.
Dave wrote:Actually marginalism and utility theory … was invented by a British bod [William Stanley Jevons] in the 1860’s, a bit before Walras I think.Actually, a thought as powerful as marginalism was anticipated long before Jevons, e.g., in the 18th century by Swiss mathematical physicist Daniel Bernoulli, and earlier in the 19th century by Italian engineer Jules Dupuit and German economist Heinrich Gossen.I mentioned Léon Walras because he is widely credited with founding so-called general equilibrium theory by simultaneous equations which describe conditions for equilibrating a capitalist market based on subjective utility.Walras’s significant achievement led the economic historian [and student of Bohm Bawerk] Joseph Schumpeter to consider “Walras … the greatest of economists”.The point I am making is that the simultaneity of [Walrasian-style] general equilibrium theory—independent of that theory’s basis in subjective utility—is its Achilles heel for application to actual capitalist conditions.Marginalist economics, like Sraffian economics, is inescapably and ineluctably riven with physicalism. It too predicts positive profits for zero labour values.On Robbo’s issue — Hic Rhodus!
