Socialist Party's policies

coolemon

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

It has, massively. Most employees in the company I work for own shares in the company.

And where are you living?

That means employees collectively own part of the company that's supposedly exploiting them and their net worth is tied with the company.

It is not about 'ownership'. That is not how Marxian class is defined.

Marxian class is about ones position in relation to the control, distribution and production of surplus value.

coolemon

Valmont wrote: »

Exactly Coolemon, if employers did not make a profit then who would purchase expensive new equipment or update systems to stay competitive? If a company plowed all of its profits into the hands of staff it would quickly become obsolete and out-competed - then nobody would have any jobs to moan about!

You are asking that question within a particular (capitalist) framework and economic logic.

In a socialist society there would be no distinction between "employer" and "employee". Neither would exist.

"Risk" would be taken socially - Indeed as it is in capitalism only for the obfuscation caused by money and the existing social relations.

coolemon

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Marxian class is not defined by status or income hierarchies or social mobility.

Friedrich Engels himself noted the increasing blurring of class boundaries as Britain became a wealthier country. "The English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois," Engels wrote to Marx in 1858. "This most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat alongside the bourgeoisie."

That is not a very descriptive quote. It is difficult to know what it is he is talking about without greater context.

This complication of the simplistic binary class structure of bourgeoisie and proletariat, already noted by Engels, has continued into the 21st century.

I wouldn't say it is simplistic. It has great utility in that it identifies and applies to a particular economic logic within capitalism.

You're claiming now that societies, economies, and political systems have not radically changed since the days of Marx and Engels? So we're all essentially still living in the 19th century?

No. Just that the general class structure of society has not changed.

Yes, I'm afraid he did. Here's one instance:

"The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable." -- Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (my emphasis)

Marx wrote quite a great deal and often contradicted himself. His earlier writings are quite different to his later writings. You cannot take quotes like that and make a generalised conclusion about his entire life's work.

For example Marx often wrote about a future between socialism and barbarism. Neither of which to him were inevitable.

Iwasfrozen

coolemon wrote: »

And where are you living?

'm not answering another string of irrelevant questions, if you have a point to make, make it.

It is not about 'ownership'. That is not how Marxian class is defined.

Marxian class is about ones position in relation to the control, distribution and production of surplus value.

Those who own the company are in receipt of the surplus value of production. The employees collectively own part of the company.

That makes us, in Marxian terms, partially in receipt of the surplus value of our own production. You see how this doesn't fit into your neat little Marxist pigeon hole?

coolemon

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

'm not answering another string of irrelevant questions, if you have a point to make, make it.

I already did make it in a previous post.

You cannot take the class composition of a service based economy and project that as being the norm for global capitalism.

Shared ownership I suspect makes up a very small percentage of employees in global capitalism.

Depending on where you live you may be of the delusion that it is a growing phenomenon and a new 'feature' of contemporary capitalism.

Those who own the company are in receipt of the surplus value of production. The employees collectively own part of the company.

That makes us, in Marxian terms, partially in receipt of the surplus value of our own production. You see how this doesn't fit into your neat little Marxist pigeon hole?

Well there were three components to what I said. Each or all of which would place such employees in a qualitatively different social class than the "owners" and "directors".

Iwasfrozen

coolemon wrote: »

I already did make it in a previous post.

You cannot take the class composition of a service based economy and project that as being the norm for global capitalism.

Shared ownership I suspect makes up a very small percentage of employees in global capitalism.

Depending on where you live you may be of the delusion that it is a growing phenomenon and a new 'feature' of contemporary capitalism.

It's the norm in the West, and as 2nd and 3rd world countries develop it will become the case there too.

Regardless I only need one example to break your generalization.

Well there were three components to what I said. Each or all of which would place such employees in a qualitatively different social class than the "owners" and "directors".

And the actual distribution of surplus value would disagree with you, so your own theory is contradicting itself when applied to companies like mine.

How can employees be a different social class to owners when they are owners?

oscarBravo

Valmont wrote: »

Similarly, JRG's latest concession to OB involves explaining that it's not his fault he believes in capitalism because his social position as a business owner determines he think that way - he has no brain he is simply determined by the existing superstructure.

You would have to wonder, if such were true, how I ever managed to migrate from the working class to the bourgeoisie? Surely such class mobility would be logically impossible?

coolemon wrote: »

In reality the employees must take "less than their value" because of a competitive market where surplus value is re-invested in forms of capital to keep up with competition and keep the entire system motoring.

Actually, in my case surplus value is re-invested to stay in business. Equipment doesn't last forever; it wears out and needs to be replaced. Also, growth in customer demand requires the constant upgrading and expansion of the infrastructure needed to supply the required service.

If you believe that it's possible to keep a business running without constantly sinking all or part of its profits back into it, you're simply demonstrating (and not for the first time) that you don't know a great deal about what's involved in running a business.

And that is before the "grubby capitalist" gets his cut to invest in superyachts and what not.

I'm smiling wryly at the thought of my 15-foot sailing dinghy being described as a superyacht.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

coolemon

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

It's the norm in the West, and as 2nd and 3rd world countries develop it will become the case there too.

'Norm' in the west. What is that supposed to mean?

As for your other point. Is that a crystal ball prediction?

And the actual distribution of surplus value would disagree with you, so your own theory is contradicting itself when applied to companies like mine.

But the production and control of distribution wouldn't. Indeed your share of distributed "surplus" may be substantially different than your directors and non-employee owners.

How can employees be a different social class to owners when they are owners?

Because ownership does not define Marxian class. Fifth time I have said that in this thread.

coolemon

oscarBravo wrote: »

If you believe that it's possible to keep a business running without constantly sinking all or part of its profits back into it.

I never said that. Indeed in answer to a post you never replied to I said that depending on your businesses sector, and the economic conditions within which it operates, the contradictions outlined by Marxism may feature less.

I can very well understand that an employer may make very little form himself and I stated as such to you in a previous post.

oscarBravo

coolemon wrote: »

I never said that. Indeed in answer to a post you never replied to I said that depending on your businesses sector, and the economic conditions within which it operates, the contradictions outlined by Marxism may feature less.

I can very well understand that an employer may make very little form himself and I stated as such to you in a previous post.

So you're accepting that what you said (and I quoted) isn't necessarily true?

coolemon

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I assume she has a business empire which extracts surplus from a base of employees. She is of the bourgeoisie.

It's quite evident what he is talking about. Marx believed that as the bourgeoisie continued to exploit the proletariat, the latter would become so impoverished that they would inevitably revolt against their oppressors.

I disagree with that assessment.

Impoverishment doesn't come into it. It was rather due to a conflict caused by economic antagonisms that would bring a socialised workforce to develop a specific consciousness.

And he was wrong about that. Or at least it has yet to emerge in the way he believed it would.

I don't think you're managing to convince anyone that the class structure in 2015 is identical to the class structure in 1860.

Likewise. I am too lazy to dig up statistics to prove my point. I see the other side are too.

You said Marx never claimed that a class revolution was inevitable. I've pointed you to a direct quote from the Communist Manifesto where he does claim that it's inevitable. Therefore, your statement is wrong.

You took my statement to mean something I myself never meant it to. It was a generalised stamen about his work. Not of an isolated quote.

Iwasfrozen

coolemon wrote: »

'Norm' in the west. What is that supposed to mean?

As for your other point. Is that a crystal ball prediction?

It means it's the norm in the West, I don't know how to expalin that any differently.

Yes it's a prediction, Marx and I have something in common.

But the production and control of distribution wouldn't. Indeed your share of distributed "surplus" may be substantially different than your directors and non-employee owners.

The employees "share" is irrelevant, Marx claimed the working class are exploited by their employers as they do not get to hold onto the surplus value of their own production but if the employees hold shares in the company that is benefiting from their surplus value then are employees only partially exploited

But how can a person be "partially" exploited? This is where Marxian theories fall short when applied to the modern world. (and I should stress they are theories, sometimes you seem to treat Marx's theories as if it were gospel.)

Because ownership does not define Marxian class. Fifth time I have said that in this thread.

It does when the owners are the recipients of surplus value.

coolemon

oscarBravo wrote: »

So you're accepting that what you said (and I quoted) isn't necessarily true?

It is true of some businesses. Many others make large profits for individuals while also reinvesting in necessary capital to remain competitive.

I don't see what your point is.

coolemon

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

It means it's the norm in the West, I don't know how to expalin that any differently.

With statistics maybe?

As a percentage of society with shares in companies (or their company of employment)? - and then globally?

If it were, say, 5% of employees in the west. That would hardly be "the norm" or a defining "feature" would it?

It may well be higher. But I doubt it is substantial.

Yes it's a prediction, Marx and I have something in common.

He outlined historical tendencies. Piketty outlined historical tendencies last year that would seem to disagree with you.

The employees "share" is irrelevant, Marx claimed the working class are exploited by their employers as they do not get to hold onto the surplus value of their own production but if the employees hold shares in the company that is benefiting from their surplus value then are employees only partially exploited

So you are an expert on Marx now are you?

Share is highly important.

But how can a person be "partially" exploited? This is where Marxian theories fall short when applied to the modern world. (and I should stress they are theories, sometimes you seem to treat Marx's theories as if it were gospel.)

Its funny how you ask a question and then make what you think is a damning critique and statement about something you have marginal knowledge of.

It does when the owners are the recipients of surplus value.

Not in Marxism it doesn't. Unless you think the USSR (where everything is state owned) was a classless society?

That would be a bizarre claim.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

coolemon

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

That is generally what differentiates class from caste.

This impoverishment is what leads to revolution.

Not at all. It may have been one of many contributing tendencies that he outlined but certainly not that which leads to revolution.

Revolution is caused by contradictions between the social productive forces and social relations. Impoverishment is not a necessary feature of that.

But Marx was wrong about wages, which he believed would never rise above subsistence level, and he was wrong about the "inevitable" revolution that he believed the exploitation of the proletariat would bring about.

I already stated that taking his work as a whole you cannot conclude that he believed revolution was inevitable.

oscarBravo

coolemon wrote: »

Revolution is caused by contradictions between the social productive forces and social relations.

What does that even mean? Why is it impossible to have a conversation with a socialist without having to constantly hear glib phrases like this (and "eliminating the profit motive") that are trotted out without explanation?

I'm reminded of a thread on the Atheism forum where one poster tries to convince us that intelligent design is scientifically true. The problem is, he keeps using phrases like "complex specified information" that don't mean anything, but have been invented in order to prop up a pseudo-scientific theory.

hmmm

oscarBravo wrote: »

What does that even mean?

If one examines subdeconstructivist narrative, one is faced with a choice: either reject the predialectic paradigm of expression or conclude that consensus must come from communication. Marx’s essay on textual postmaterial theory suggests that truth has objective value, given that narrativity is interchangeable with language. In a sense, several theories concerning the postdialectic paradigm of reality exist.

Iwasfrozen

hmmm wrote: »

If one examines subdeconstructivist narrative, one is faced with a choice: either reject the predialectic paradigm of expression or conclude that consensus must come from communication. Marx’s essay on textual postmaterial theory suggests that truth has objective value, given that narrativity is interchangeable with language. In a sense, several theories concerning the postdialectic paradigm of reality exist.

Arts students.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

coolemon

oscarBravo wrote: »

What does that even mean? Why is it impossible to have a conversation with a socialist without having to constantly hear glib phrases like this (and "eliminating the profit motive") that are trotted out without explanation?

It means that when the economic base of society (technology, levels of production) become in conflict with how the economy is organised at a super-structural level (legal structures, ideological structures, organisational structures) - then the superstructure and social relations (a term referring to both micro and macro levels of social organisation) - require changing in order to progress economically.

"In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure." - https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm

To give a quick (non-revolutionary) example of that:

The marriage bar in Ireland was a legally codified rule which required women, upon being married, to retire their (mainly) public service and civil servant jobs for domestic duties. It was a rule created in the 1930's during a period of high unemployment in Ireland. During improved economic growth and greater levels of industrialisation, urbanisation and consequently employment during the 1960's and 70's - that "superstructural" law became increasingly incompatible and conflicting with the "economic base"/forces of production. That is, of economic requirements for more (women) labour. This spurred a change in "consciousness" with the emergence of the second wave women's liberation movement. Protests, occupations and demands for the abolition of the marriage bar followed. This eventually occurred in the 1970's.

Now there are other theoretical "frames" to explain those events, but that would be a general Marxist one.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

coolemon

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

If there were no mobility we would be talking about caste.

You might also want to note that recent sociological research has identified seven different social classes in Britain, rather than the two identified by Marx. The researchers also note that the size of the traditional working class, which has fallen to 14% of the total population, is "fading from contemporary importance."

Where, then, is a socialist revolution to come from?

There are many theoretical frameworks to explain and identify class structures. They do not necessarily contradict one another, but rather, attempt to explain different patterns and social phenomenon.

I assume that research is based on the BBCs "Great British Class Survey" - http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22000973

This appears to have been mainly based upon Pierre Bourdieu's "three forms of capital". It asks questions about cultural interests, education level, ones social circle and also economic questions.

This does not contradict Marxian class. Rather, it is attempting to explain and identify something else quite different within the field of class studies. If anything it complements the general Marxist approach, something I find with Bourdieu's work in general.

For example from that study - Precariat, Emergent Service Workers, Traditional Working Class and New Affluent Workers will have distinct patterns of consumption, will have different cultural tastes and a different demographic within their social circle. They may even have different levels of power within their workplace.

Marxian class is not particularly useful for this -> it is limited in its utility. To Marxism, these are all proletariat - wage sellers. The Marxian class framework sets out to identify a social phenomenon quite different - which is economic interests and economic antagonisms.

The BBC survey will not identify such interests. It is not designed to.

So you can have various class structures depending which framework is used. But they wont identify the same social patterns.

From the BBC survey one could probably take a guess and say 75%+ are members of what Marxian class would call the proletariat - or wage sellers. But the survey is not designed to identify that.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

coolemon

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I decided to take that one minute survey after my last post. Did you? - its deeply flawed, even in what it sets out to do. But leaving that aside.

Even if they were doing well for themselves. What are we actually looking at? - only the affluent end of a globalised production economy. One reliant on wars and intensive human and resource exploitation. Is that nonsense? - see how "well" they do for themselves if the Bangladeshi sweatshop worker who stitched their shirt gets paid an equivalent wage.

In this day and age, and even in Marx's time, when talking about class structure one really needs to look at the global class structure.

You assume that if someone is a "wage seller," he's part of what Marx would have called the proletariat.

Broadly. But there is debate as to where the likes of say a legal consultant fits in. His only means of production may be his brain. The self employed - who tend to make up a sizeable portion of any society - can also be difficult to place. But these have always been the case.

But when Marx described the proletariat, he was talking mostly about uneducated, illiterate factory workers who labored 18 hours a day in dangerous conditions for very low pay.

No, not really. When he is talking about proletariat he is talking about people who have a particular inherent economic relationship. That relationship - between, say, employer and employee - does not change, irrespective of whether the employee is illiterate, educated, poor, works 3 hours or 18 hours.

If a middle-class "wage seller" of 2015 works 40 hours a week in safe and pleasant surroundings; earns 50,000 euros a year; owns a home and a nice car; has savings, investments, and a pension; and enjoys a generally stable and happy life under the current system, what incentive does she have to man the barricades in support of a socialist revolution?

Probably, none.

But - and I said it earlier - we are living in a temporality. All of those conditions you mention can change very rapidly.

The value of Marx's analysis is that he outlined, or attempted to outline, the general contradictions and logic of capitalism. These contradictions within the system are very much the same as they were 150 years ago.

They are not to the fore at this moment in time (at least not in Ireland to an great extent), but they have the potential to surface in the future. Marx was aware that such contradictions were not always apparent in historic societies at all time:

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes." - https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007

Can you not see that there are categorical differences between an illiterate factory worker of 1860 and a college-educated middle-class office worker of 2015? The latter would not benefit in any way from a socialist revolution to abolish private property, eliminate money, and get rid of the stock market in favor of a new world order that, by your own admission, is hypothetical and vague. She is far more likely to prefer her current way of life and be willing to defend it.

What I will say is that how or why exactly that "shift" in consciousness required to get "her" to support a revolution may come about in future is impossible to answer. What we can do is look back in history to understand the present and to make inferences about the future.

We are facing a potential future of automation and job displacement, of increasing wealth concentration in fewer hands, of increasing global unemployment and environmental limits on economic growth.

All or any of these could create new ways of thinking for "her" in the future if she is alive to see their consequences.

You don't take any of this into account. Adhering rigorously to Marx's historical teleology, refuse to admit that the dramatic social, cultural, and economic changes over the past century and a half might have rendered his prophesies irrelevant.

Well I haven't seen any great reason why things have changed as much as you claim they have. Attitudes have changed, consumption patterns have changed, living standards have changed significantly in the west, identities have changed.

But yet underlying all of this are the empirically observable economic relations outlined by Marx.

You insist that history will unfold as Marx predicted, toward a final climactic conflict between proletariat and bourgeoisie, with the former emerging victorious to live happily ever after in a new socialist world order.

Whether there will be a final "climactic conflict" I don't know. But there is a continuous "low intensity conflict" at all times based upon the contradictions observed by Marx. Strikes, trade union and labour disputes, political disputes and agreements and continuous economic adjustments.

The sociopolitical reality of 2015 simply doesn't point that way. The world is becoming more capitalist rather than more socialist, with even bastions such as Cuba enacting free-market reforms to revive their moribund economies. But rather than admit that Marxists might be promoting outdated theories that point toward highly unlikely outcomes, you just keep insisting that Marx got it right and the revolution just hasn't happened yet.

If they are outdated theories I am open to reason and correction.

Depending on where you are there is growth in the socialist left. Greece, Turkey, Japan and Spain come to mind.

The anti-capitalist left is in bits though. I will grant you that. Pragmatic and workable anti-capitalist solutions are few and far between. In many respects not enough people are "thinking" about it and putting their minds down to it. But at the same time the world has become globalised and the range of policies available without making a fcuk of things are few.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

oscarBravo

coolemon wrote: »

It means that when the economic base of society (technology, levels of production) become in conflict with how the economy is organised at a super-structural level (legal structures, ideological structures, organisational structures) - then the superstructure and social relations (a term referring to both micro and macro levels of social organisation) - require changing in order to progress economically.

"In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure." - https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm

I've read that three times now, and I still have only the vaguest idea what it's trying to say. And I'm of above-average intelligence by any objective measure.

If that's the ideology that's supposed to motivate the proletariat into a revolution, I'm afraid you're going to have to get a hell of a lot better at explaining it in plain English.

To give a quick (non-revolutionary) example of that:

The marriage bar in Ireland was a legally codified rule which required women, upon being married, to retire their (mainly) public service and civil servant jobs for domestic duties. It was a rule created in the 1930's during a period of high unemployment in Ireland. During improved economic growth and greater levels of industrialisation, urbanisation and consequently employment during the 1960's and 70's - that "superstructural" law became increasingly incompatible and conflicting with the "economic base"/forces of production. That is, of economic requirements for more (women) labour. This spurred a change in "consciousness" with the emergence of the second wave women's liberation movement. Protests, occupations and demands for the abolition of the marriage bar followed. This eventually occurred in the 1970's.

Now there are other theoretical "frames" to explain those events, but that would be a general Marxist one.

You accept that significant positive changes can come about without revolution. Why the fixation on revolution? What's wrong, precisely, with evolution?

coolemon wrote: »

When he is talking about proletariat he is talking about people who have a particular inherent economic relationship.

There's that insulting and patronising language that socialists seem incapable of avoiding.

Nobody - nobody - has an inherent economic relationship. Talk of inherent economic relationships logically contradicts the possibility of class mobility, which you've already acknowledged exists.

Doesn't it bother you that the ideology you adhere to is so utterly full of contradictions?

oscarBravo

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I got "emergent service worker". I guess I'll be seeing you up against the wall, comrade.

Iwasfrozen

coolemon wrote: »

Saying that.

I do think something like the USSR has a lot of potential in solving a lot of the problems associated with market capitalism. I find inspiring the attempts by the Allende regime at real-time central planning using very basic telex machines in a system called cybersyn - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn

Using modern computers to solve problems of resource allocation would be an interesting route to take I think. It would overcome a lot of the lag and information problems associated with Soviet style planning.

Professor Paul Cockshott gave a lecture last month in Ireland on just that issue:

I finally got time to watch that video. Using computers to vote and plan resource allocation? He even goes as far as to suggest using social media to vote!

Dear oh dear I shouldn't have to explain but this video from computerphile gives a good rundown of why this idea is bogus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI

karma_

oscarBravo wrote: »

I got "emergent service worker". I guess I'll be seeing you up against the wall, comrade.

Hehe and to think a few posts ago you were chastising someone for being glib.

What exactly is the problem with wanting a classless society? What is so despicable for wanting a society where none have to be poor? Why should someone have to do without when some who have so much already want more?

Thats one of the keep problems with the ideology behind free market capitalism, you believe that the poor should be punished and it is right that they suffer.

karma_

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I finally got time to watch that video. Using computers to vote and plan resource allocation? He even goes as far as to suggest using social media to vote!

Dear oh dear I shouldn't have to explain but this video from computerphile gives a good rundown of why this idea is bogus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI

It's an interesting idea and sufficiently different from traditional forms of electronic voting to be debated rather than being completely dismissed in such a casual fashion, which makes that video you linked fairly redundant.

marienbad

karma_ wrote: »

Hehe and to think a few posts ago you were chastising someone for being glib.

What exactly is the problem with wanting a classless society? What is so despicable for wanting a society where none have to be poor? Why should someone have to do without when some who have so much already want more?

Thats one of the keep problems with the ideology behind free market capitalism, you believe that the poor should be punished and it is right that they suffer.

What makes you think he doesn't ? And who said anything about the poor suffering ?

karma_

marienbad wrote: »

What makes you think he doesn't ? And who said anything about the poor suffering ?

Marie, because for free market capitalism to succeed there needs to be an underclass kept poor, and poverty leads to suffering. If you think that's not the way of the world, well it's time you woke up.

Iwasfrozen

karma_ wrote: »

It's an interesting idea and sufficiently different from traditional forms of electronic voting to be debated rather than being completely dismissed in such a casual fashion, which makes that video you linked fairly redundant.

It's pretty simple to dismiss something that isn't possible.

Iwasfrozen

karma_ wrote: »

Hehe and to think a few posts ago you were chastising someone for being glib.

What exactly is the problem with wanting a classless society? What is so despicable for wanting a society where none have to be poor? Why should someone have to do without when some who have so much already want more?

Thats one of the keep problems with the ideology behind free market capitalism, you believe that the poor should be punished and it is right that they suffer.

Western captalism aims to have high social mobility, if you have any ideas how to increase social mobility we can certainly discuss them but to have a totally classless society requires an all powerful state to enforce equality. We know from history the leaders of these all powerful states become corrupt with power.

marienbad

karma_ wrote: »

Marie, because for free market capitalism to succeed there needs to be an underclass kept poor, and poverty leads to suffering. If you think that's not the way of the world, well it's time you woke up.

That depends on how you look at it , in real terms or in relative terms . And in is undeniable that what is defined as below the poverty line in Ireland today would be at least lower middle class/working class when I was growing up in the 50's and 60's .

By todays standards I and all my friends and neighbours had a an economically deprived childhood .

And we are where we are today not because of a planned economic policies but free market capitalism . That is just undeniable .

I know it shouldn't be relevant but I do sometimes wonder at the age of posters on threads such as this - do they really understand how far Ireland has come since Lemass and Whitaker ? And why ?

karma_

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

It's pretty simple to dismiss something that isn't possible.

Not when you fundamentally don't understand the concept.

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Western captalism aims to have high social mobility, if you have any ideas how to increase social mobility we can certainly discuss them but to have a totally classless society requires an all powerful state to enforce equality. We know from history the leaders of these all powerful states become corrupt with power.

marienbad wrote: »

That depends on how you look at it , in real terms or in relative terms . And in is undeniable that what is defined as below the poverty line in Ireland today would be at least lower middle class/working class when I was growing up in the 50's and 60's .

By todays standards I and all my friends and neighbours had a an economically deprived childhood .

And we are where we are today not because of a planned economic policies but free market capitalism . That is just undeniable .

I know it shouldn't be relevant but I do sometimes wonder at the age of posters on threads such as this - do they really understand how far Ireland has come since Lemass and Whitaker ? And why ?

Serious myopia going on here. As long as you are doing well then all is well, but some bloke in a far off corner of the globe is working 80 hours a week for 10c to provide all the tools of modern comfort for you and I. And I bet you don't consider yourself entitled eh?

And Iwasfrozen, don't think the capitalist world you so admire was built freely. Western society post WW1 was no place to be for anyone on the left, they were violently oppressed.

coolemon

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I got traditional working class. Yay!

So does that imply that we in the west are the new bourgeoisie and low-income workers in Asia are the new proletariat?

Some have argued that. "Maoists" often subscribe to the idea of superexploitation - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superprofit

I myself think that it is difficult to quantify the labour and value contributed to the production of a commodity on a global production chain. The lorry driver in Bangladesh is as necessary as the European lorry driver in terms of delivering the goods to the consumer - despite the pay differentials. Both will also largely have the same economic relations, and therefore class.

What it may mean is that 1) different ideological structures and systems may be required to justify the economic order depending on location (religiosity is quite strong in developing countries, for example) and 2) The European, in this temporality, may be more comfortable and less exposed to economic contradictions than the Bangladeshi.

But I would say their class position is largely the same. Their consciousness will reflect the different living standards and economic conditions they face.

But surely I'm in a different economic relationship to my employer if I work 7 hours a day for $150,000/year than if I work 16 hours a day for $20,000? It's difficult to make the claim that they have the same "inherent" economic relationship.

Generally you would. If the company is under pressure to reduce wages, then both you and the lower wage workers will be on the same side of the hatchet. You will feel it less, of course, but the economic relationship is largely the same.

Unless, that is, you receive a larger share of the "surplus value" produced versus what you have contributed to production. But share and production are only two components of Marxian class. The other being control. Control is most often asserted legally through property rights, but also through power within an enterprise.

So a non-owning director will have a different level of control over what is done with surplus than a supervisor or a human resource manager. He is often chucked in there with bourgeoisie or petit-bourgeoisie.

Some occupations are difficult to categorise and "shoe-horn" into Marxian class. But Marxian class has only ever made generalisations of the broad identifiable class patterns within society. No class theory is ever all encompassing.

I just can't agree with that. It's much easier to agree that Victorian factory workers, including children as young as 7, laboring long hours in highly dangerous conditions, were exploited. I fail to see how the same "logic of capitalism" can be applied to the average middle-class office worker in 2015.

I think you are looking at the word "exploitation" wrong. In todays society it is used for morally and ethically repugnant labour practices. That is not how Marx used it. Marx used it simply to refer to profit and "surplus extraction" - or the rate of exploitation.

Marx outlined numerous "contradictions" within the capitalist system. I cannot recall them all now or explain them for the purposes of this discussion - and also because economics is not my strongest point - but for example a mine enterprise for which a child is labouring 150 years ago will be under similar economic pressures as a mining operation today. Competition from other mines, from mineral prices and alternative minerals, requirements for new machinery, improved labour efficiency and so on. Whether you are a child in a mine 150 years ago or an office administrator for a mine today the same economic principles and contradictions will apply. They are both subject to the same economic logic.

Their living standards will be different of course. But Marxian class is not a question of living standards.

But that's exactly what people on this thread are doing. Historically speaking, attempts to achieve a socialist society have always ended in tyranny, famine, genocide, and poverty. And when it comes to making inferences about the future, based on trends since the 1980s, the world is clearly embracing democratic market capitalism rather than socialism.

People are looking back at history but using what analytical frame?

If they were using historical materialism and Marxism then I think it would be plainly obvious what attempts at "socialism" were in actuality.

People cant lambast the failures of 'socialism" on 'Marxism's terms' while looking such failures through a non-Marxist perspective.

To "defeat" Marxism would require directly attacking and pointing out the failures of Marxism on its own terms. Lesek Kolakowski in his book "Main Currents of Marxism" did just that. And it would be uncomfortable reading for many Marxist tendencies.

One of the reasons I am an Anarchist is that I think Anarchism is that bit more sophisticated than Marxism in terms of integrating theories of hierarchy and the state into a more multidimensional outlook. Many Marxists in the past - like Lenin - would have taken a strictly economic interpretation of Marxian class and ignoring other forms of class and social stratification -> like organisational hierarchy. What he attempted was then a failure - on his terms.

I disagree. On an average day in Ireland or the USA, I don't see any "empirically observable" conflict between the "bourgeoisie" and the "proletariat."

Of course there is. Between labour and capital. Rick Wolff gives an example of it in the USA:

http://vimeo.com/1962208

I don't see anyone inclined toward launching a socialist revolution.

Which has been one of the failures of Marx's inferences and assumptions so far. Other Marxists have built upon this failure with other explanations. Antonio Gramsci would be a prominent example.

but these kinds of things have always happened.

Precisely. Because they are inherent.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

p1akuw47h5r3it

marienbad wrote: »

I know it shouldn't be relevant but I do sometimes wonder at the age of posters on threads such as this - do they really understand how far Ireland has come since Lemass and Whitaker ? And why ?

As do I:pac:

coolemon

oscarBravo wrote: »

You accept that significant positive changes can come about without revolution. Why the fixation on revolution? What's wrong, precisely, with evolution?

Evolution happens of course. Indeed I don't think I could rule out even an 'evolutionary' road to socialism.

However some superstructural features are very embedded, rigid and controlled. To discuss these fully would be a long discussion in all sorts of tangents.

But for example, if a socialist mode of production requires the dismantling of property and private ownership - you would be going against a very deeply rooted super structural system. Of the entire legal system and constitution, of the entire political structures and against powerful vested interests.

For such a transformative social change we can assume that in many instances, violent revolution will become necessary.

And we don't need to look far back in history to see similar examples of such social change where existing power and social relations are embedded within the political and state structures to the point of the being irreformable.

Nobody - nobody - has an inherent economic relationship. Talk of inherent economic relationships logically contradicts the possibility of class mobility, which you've already acknowledged exists.

You are misunderstanding what I mean by inherent economic relationship. It has nothing to do with class mobility.

What I mean is that a persons occupation at a given moment in time will have an inherent economic relationship to others in society.

For example a non-owning wage-seller (as a position) has an inherent economic relationship while remaining a wage-seller and non-owning.

That is not to say he cannot become an owner himself. But when he does, he will then have another rigid and fixed (inherent) economic relationship.

marienbad

karma_ wrote: »

Not when you fundamentally don't understand the concept.





Serious myopia going on here. As long as you are doing well then all is well, but some bloke in a far off corner of the globe is working 80 hours a week for 10c to provide all the tools of modern comfort for you and I. And I bet you don't consider yourself entitled eh?

And Iwasfrozen, don't think the capitalist world you so admire was built freely. Western society post WW1 was no place to be for anyone on the left, they were violently oppressed.

No myopia at all . you just need to see what posters write and not what you think they write .

Permabear in just a few post above

''But Marx was wrong. In 1949, Truman lamented that "more than half the people in the world are living in conditions approaching misery." But over the period from 1990 and 2010, with free-market capitalism newly in ascendancy after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the number of impoverished people fell by half as a share of the population in developing countries, from 43 percent to 21 percent.

That represents almost 1 billion people lifted out of poverty, in the astonishingly brief span of 20 years.''


They are, by any standard ,an astonishing few lines , do you dispute them ?

Even in Africa we are seeing improvements , is it enough ? Of course not .but is better than ever before and shows the way to go.
http://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/africa-is-rising-is-poverty-falling

Iwasfrozen

karma_ wrote: »

Not when you fundamentally don't understand the concept.

Watch the video, they explain why it's not possible.

Serious myopia going on here. As long as you are doing well then all is well, but some bloke in a far off corner of the globe is working 80 hours a week for 10c to provide all the tools of modern comfort for you and I. And I bet you don't consider yourself entitled eh?

Capitalism has lifted hundreds of millions of people in 3rd world countries like China and India out of abject poverty. I've just read Permabears post, make that almost a billion.

And Iwasfrozen, don't think the capitalist world you so admire was built freely. Western society post WW1 was no place to be for anyone on the left, they were violently oppressed.

More so than the right in the East?

karma_

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Watch the video, they explain why it's not possible.


Capitalism has lifted hundreds of millions of people in 3rd world countries like China and India out of abject poverty. I've just read Permabears post, make that almost a billion.


More so than the right in the East?

Were we having a discussion about that, or just more irrelevancy on your part?

Iwasfrozen

karma_ wrote: »

Were we having a discussion about that, or just more irrelevancy on your part?

You wrote:

"Serious myopia going on here. As long as you are doing well then all is well, but some bloke in a far off corner of the globe is working 80 hours a week for 10c to provide all the tools of modern comfort for you and I. And I bet you don't consider yourself entitled eh?"

I wrote in response:

"Capitalism has lifted hundreds of millions of people in 3rd world countries like China and India out of abject poverty. I've just read Permabears post, make that almost a billion."

If the welfare of people in third world nations is irrelevant point out how but it seems to me that's what you were getting at in your post.

oscarBravo

karma_ wrote: »

What exactly is the problem with wanting a classless society?

The same as the problem with wanting everyone to have free unicorns. Until it's explained how exactly it will work, it's nothing more than a nineteenth-century fantasy.

If you want me to be in favour of a classless society, explain to me - in detail - how it will work, ideally without all the mutually contradictory guff that I've already failed to have explained to me so far.

What is so despicable for wanting a society where none have to be poor?

Nothing at all, unless it's also a society that nobody would want to live in.

You don't get to just claim that wonderful things would happen in your ideal society and then berate anyone who doesn't fall unquestioningly into step. I'm not interested in a form of society that can't even be coherently explained, never mind implemented.

Thats one of the keep problems with the ideology behind free market capitalism, you believe that the poor should be punished and it is right that they suffer.

That's one of the key problems with ideologues: they insist on telling other people what they believe, because anyone who doesn't agree with them must, of necessity, be evil.

coolemon wrote: »

You are misunderstanding what I mean by inherent economic relationship. It has nothing to do with class mobility.

What I mean is that a persons occupation at a given moment in time will have an inherent economic relationship to others in society.

For example a non-owning wage-seller (as a position) has an inherent economic relationship while remaining a wage-seller and non-owning.

That is not to say he cannot become an owner himself. But when he does, he will then have another rigid and fixed (inherent) economic relationship.

As is so often the case when arguing with an ideologue, I find myself in the frustrating position of dealing with someone with different definitions of well-understood words. In this case, "rigid", "fixed" and "inherent".

If someone can move from being an employee to being a business owner, then - by the very meaning of the words - his economic relationships are neither rigid, fixed nor inherent.

I'm sitting on a sofa as I type this. Using your definitions, my posture is rigid, fixed and inherent. Until, that is, I stand up, at which time I will be in an inherently rigid and fixed standing position, which will last until I start walking... it doesn't make any sense.

coolemon

oscarBravo wrote: »

I'm sitting on a sofa as I type this. Using your definitions, my posture is rigid, fixed and inherent. Until, that is, I stand up, at which time I will be in an inherently rigid and fixed standing position, which will last until I start walking... it doesn't make any sense.

Except we are talking about the social relationships of and between people - not of the people themselves per se.

It is an inherent feature of capitalism to have (definte, fixed and rigid) social relationships of a certain form.

That is all that is being said.

People move in and out of certain social relationships with class mobility. But the system within which they are moving has definite forms of social relationships between people (in general) for the system to operate.

That people sell their labour for a wage is an inherent feature of capitalism. It is not an inherent feature of other modes of production.

pollyannawins

red baiting aside, isn't the question of public ownerside a purely practical issue resolving largely around the question of to what extent is profit a guarantee of product quality?

the socialist party are brave not to water down their message (and their message is appropriate to their mandate of representing socialist sentiment in a democratic environment). vitriol and spite should be conserved for and limited to the voting booth

marienbad

pollyannawins wrote: »

red baiting aside, isn't the question of public ownerside a purely practical issue resolving largely around the question of to what extent is profit a guarantee of product quality?

the socialist party are brave not to water down their message (and their message is appropriate to their mandate of representing socialist sentiment in a democratic environment). vitriol and spite should be conserved for and limited to the voting booth

I don't see any vitriol or spite to be honest with you. And voting should be conserved for the voting booth .