Wednesday 1 April 2009

All Fool’s Day

I had thought of writing some clever April’s Fool piece for today. After all even the Economist has come out with a story saying its establishing a macro-economic theme park with rides mirroring the ups and downs of markets. But, then I thought there were enough fools making stories today without adding to it.

The main Fools are those arriving for what must be one of the most expensive pointless exercises imaginable – the Heads of State coming to the G20 Summit. No one seriously believes that these summits actually achieve anything, no one believes that the real work of trying to come up with policies or actions to deal with the world’s problems is actually undertaken by the political figureheads wheeled out for such occasions. That work is done in the real corridors of Capitalist power by those who really exercise power under Capitalism, by the managers of the top bosses, by their counterparts and Executive Officers in the Capitalist State machineries, by the top Capitalists themselves through their personal and social relations with each. Whatever decisions are going to be made to rescue global capitalism from the current recession have already been made through those channels, and will continue to be so made. In fact, some of these things get in the way of that job. Take the position of the French and Germans. Germany has made several statements about opposing further fiscal stimulus. In fact, Germany has already spent 1% more on fiscal stimulus than has Britain. But, the main reason these statements are being made is that Germany has elections coming up, and traditionally German people remembering the hyper-inflation of the Weimar Republic are wary of such inflationary measures. German politicians with an eye on the elections are playing to the gallery, knowing full well that after the election is over they will by fiscally stimulating their economy like every other capitalist state. Sarkozy the showman already in trouble at home, is playing the traditional French Bonapartist card of populism attacking others for the present crisis and blaming the “Anglo-Saxon” model for the crisis, as though he didn’t fight the election on trying to implement precisely that model in France itself!!!

In fact, data out this morning again shows more green shoots even in Britain. The Purchasing managers Index was quite sharply higher against expectations from the previous month, and Reuters also had a note out saying that UK New Orders were up from around index 33 to index 39, the highest since August 2008. Korea has also announced its exports have at least stabilised with a modest rise last month, and sees further signs of stabilisation if not yet recovery. More on that when I’ve digested the figures – the sun’s out, and I’m planning a day out.

But, the G20 leaders aren’t the only fools in London today. No doubt Newsnight in its piece last night looked for all the wackos to interview for its piece on the G20 demonstration today. There was some woman wittering on about rain forest polyphonic chanting the relevance of which completely escaped me. Perhaps she was following up on the reactionary nonsense environmental guru Jonathan Porrit was coming out with earlier in the day. Porrit has followed the logic of environmentalism and arrived at the same reactionary politics as the Reverend Malthus at the start of the 19th century. He’s now condemning all newborn babies in the West for using up valuable Earth resources and polluting the Planet, and wants measures to restrict population growth in Western countries! One of the people interviews labelled “The Revolutionary” did say, “Capitalism has created this problem, and we the workers are going to get ourselves out of it by our own self activity”, which I thought sounded good. But, as we weren’t given any further information on what this self-activity was I can’t say whether I agree or not. Then there was the lovely but completely wacky Chris Knight who told us that “Tomorrow we won’t be demonstrating we’ll be overthrowing the Government”.

It’s the typical kind of statement from Chris. I remember back in late 1984 during the Miners Strike being at a meeting with Chris of the National Labour Briefing Editorial Board in Birmingham. At the meeting Chris confidently pronounced that we were in a dual power situation, if not a pre-revolutionary situation as a result of the actions in the coalfields. As I pointed out at the time I actually lived in a mining village, and in the North Staffordshire coalfield. I was on miners’ picket lines every day, and was the Secretary of the local Miners Support Committee. Chris lived in the middle of London, which if it has ever seen a coal mine in its history lost sight of it at least a couple of hundred years ago! In fact, all the Miners I spoke to had a much more realistic view of what was going on, and at that stage their prospects for success. Most couldn’t understand why they had gone into such a strike without first a long overtime ban to get rid of all the huge stockpiles of coal that had been built up in preparation for the Tories provoking the strike.

But, no doubt on the demonstrations today their will be lots of such people believing that they are playing their part in bringing down global capitalism. There will be lots who like many “Marxists” for the last 50 or more years have had an apocalyptic view of Capitalist collapse seeing with every downturn the final denouement, which “must” as one comrade suggested in a discussion recently force the workers to react. Not only do these apocalyptic views have nothing in common with the ideas of Marxism, but more commonly they simply reflect the frustrations of petit-bourgeois elements who seek just yet another short-cut to revolution without the need to do the more laborious and tedious work of sticking with the workers, and providing them on a daily basis with practical solutions to their problems. Instead they just want to go straight to the building of barricades. In fact, if there were a Capitalist collapse at the moment we can pretty much guarantee given the level of class consciousness within the class, and the absolute poverty of political leadership for the class, what would emerge would not be socialism, but some form of barbarism, whether it be a vicious fascism or something worse. It’s a good job that no such collapse is going to happen.

I was going to say that despite all that these kinds of protests are a good thing. Marx argued that although strikes by workers could never solve their problems, the strikes themselves were necessary because they were the basic means by which the workers maintained their dignity, defended their interests, and prevented themselves sinking into the mire. I was going to say that demonstrations like those today are similar, they allow workers to show their anger, to demonstrate their collective power and so on. Indeed, in a truly revolutionary situation such demonstrations would be a useful means of a revolutionary party gauging the mood and combativity of the masses. But, in truth, I doubt any of those things can be said of today’s demonstration. The main workers in London will probably not be on the demonstration, unless they join in during their dinner hour! The main workers in London today will be trying to get through the demonstrations of largely middle class people who can afford to take a day of work, some to travel from other countries to demonstrate, of students and so on, in an attempt to get into work. Quite a few will, in fact, be ordinary workers, clerks, typists, administrators, cleaners, porters and so on who work in those very financial institutions that many of the demonstrators would want to close down throwing those workers on to the dole, the same businesses that in the last ten years or so have earned billions in foreign currency earnings to finance the jobs in service industries, the Health Service and so on! The best that can be hoped for is that many workers when they get home from work tonight will following on from the general antagonism towards bankers, see the demonstration and think “Good someone is doing something.” But, I doubt it. More likely most workers having done a hard day’s work will get home, see the demo and say “Bloody students.” Just as they did in relation to the Anti-Vietnam demonstrations of the 1960’s.

We have to build a movement that really can challenge Capitalism rather than just plays toy town revolutionaries, more concerned with massaging their own egos, and romantic fantasies. We have to do the boring work of standing alongside workers in their daily lives, doing the same jobs, being in the same Trade Unions, in the same Labour Party, and in place of all the Utopian solutions to workers problems that rely on either calls to the bosses state, or else demand that if the workers really want a solution they have to overthrow capitalism now, we have to provide them with the real practical solutions to those problems that workers really need. Then we might convince them of the need for something more, then we might get them to take us seriously, then those workers might actually be confident and conscious enough to take their self-activity further and really challenge the basis of Capitalist power. Instead, the majority of workers will simply look at what is going on in London and see just Fools on both sides of the barricades. No better day for it.

39 comments:

"Axel" said...

Greetings,
I can't say I am a fan of Google, but I have to say that if it weren't for Google's News I would have never found your blog. Please check out the Network of Bay Area Worker Co-operatives/Collectives. I am associated with this network.

I just finished your two part essay "Economics of Cooperation" and have begun the four part "Can Co-ops Work?"

You are making an excellent contribution to the, what should I say - "theorization"? of the, somewhat dormant, worker co-operative current.

Regarding today's post: I agree, protest has been spectacularized - which means commodified - but what is the alternative? The supercession of this caged reaction?
Given your experience I am certain you have a proposal, or a direction to offer beyond what I see as essentially christian "witness" posturing. And beyond what sounded like, to an American, a neo-workerist position. (I don't mean this as a slam, btw.)

We are very near the tenth anniversary of Seattle '99 - an event that I was viewed by the populace in the US much as you depict. But that event had traction for all sorts of reasons, not the least that there was a significant labor union presence... but more importantly that it brought together of the first time an amazing diversity of "single-issue" activists who for the first time saw the connections between their, foundation funded, causes.

Maybe one idea would be to suggest a simple action that all those office drones in the City sitting at their workstations could do to register their contempt for the G20 charade. At Noon a mass email barrage of 10 Downing, with cc to the Economist? Simple, but at least it penetrates the veil of media manipulation...like the current BBC "Have Your Say" program. (We get lots of BBC programs out here in San Francisco.)

"Leaving comments" is not conducive for a longer conversation and like you (though 9 hours later here!) the sun is out and I have to get into it!

Cheers!
"AZ"

Boffy said...

Axel,

Thank you very much for your comments and kind words. Can I just begin by saying that I would guess that your “sun” is rather more inviting than here at this time of year. It was a nice day, but still only around 10 degrees centigrade.

What was the thing about Google News by the way, was my blog mentioned or something? I most certainly will check out your network, and thank you for informing me about it. I am trying to build a database of links to all significant Co-op sites.

“I just finished your two part essay "Economics of Cooperation" and have begun the four part "Can Co-ops Work?"

You are making an excellent contribution to the, what should I say - "theorization"? of the, somewhat dormant, worker co-operative current.”

I’m glad you enjoyed it. As I replied to MARWRA, I have not yet finished the “Economics of Co-operation” series. I hope to deal with some of the actual micro-economic analysis, but I got those out while I could. On the general point I am heartened by the fact that an increasing number of groups and individuals are looking more closely at the question. That fits in with my general thesis on the nature of the Long Wave, and its correspondence at this stage with a revitalisation of the movement, a confidence to consider new ideas, and the gradual emergence of new leadership. In Britain, the Labour Representation Committee, which is a group of socialists and Trade Unionists on the left looking at how political representation for workers can best be rebuilt, has recently agreed to look at the whole question of self-management.

”Regarding today's post: I agree, protest has been spectacularized - which means commodified - but what is the alternative? The supercession of this caged reaction?
Given your experience I am certain you have a proposal, or a direction to offer beyond what I see as essentially christian "witness" posturing. And beyond what sounded like, to an American, a neo-workerist position. (I don't mean this as a slam, btw.)”


I was aware when I wrote the piece that it might in some quarters be seen as contentious. On the news last night one of the protesters – of which I have to say there were far, far fewer than I was expecting – echoed your comment. She said words to the effect, “The politicians don’t listen to what we have to say, so what is their left for us to do, but to protest?” And that to me sums up the nature of the protesters and the protests. Other protesters were asked, “What is it that you want to see happen?”, and in reality none of them had a clue WHAT they wanted!

What I draw from that is that what you have is a load of Middle Class people, who do have a kind of moralistic objection to Capitalism – as you put it “Christian witness posturing”. But, because they are middle individuals, not part of an organised Labour Movement – or perhaps to some extent they are, but the more mundane job of schlepping away in the workplace building workplace organisation amongst people who are ‘hard work’ isn’t appealing – they really do see no option no alternative to simply venting that moral outrage and anger by protests. But, because that is what it is, because it is AGAINST something, rather than FOR something, that explains the vacuous nature of the protest, the fact that people on a whole gamut of causes can simply latch on to something to protest AGAINST, without having any clear programme whatsoever, any programme, or set of practical achievable demands let alone solutions to put forward.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not opposed to protests. 6 years ago me and my sons joined 2 million other people to march and protest against the upcoming invasion of Iraq. But, that was different. There was a clear stated goal of the demo – “Don’t Attack Iraq”. It was not just a bunch of middle class people voting, but a representation of working class opposition to the war too. Of course, it was never going to “Stop the War”, because as Trotsky says, you can’t control the foreign policy of the State unless you control the State! But, it COULD had their been adequate leadership – which there wasn’t – have mobilised workers to oppose the war in ways, which would have both been effective and consciousness raising. Focussing on workplace actions etc such as those of the US dockworkers to black supplies to Iraq.

So, I suppose that my answer to you, and to your fear that what I was saying was “workerist” is that my focus, yes is on how do you mobilise workers as workers, how do you organise action by workers to deal with those situations and problems, not just on the basis of some blind faith that workers instinctively arrive at some progressive solution, but how can Marxists intervene to provide that solution those practical actions that the workers can pick up and run with?

In other words I’m not criticising the protests because they weren’t by workers, I’m criticising them because they were necessarily ineffective, unfocussed and without any kind of programmatic base. As such they could not link in or provide a spark to the working class to action – in the way for example the French students did in May 68. In fact, given the condition of the workers at the moment it was likely to have the opposite reaction, the reaction I suggested – which I was not welcoming, but simply trying to tell the truth about.

”We are very near the tenth anniversary of Seattle '99 - an event that was viewed by the populace in the US much as you depict. But that event had traction for all sorts of reasons, not the least that there was a significant labor union presence... but more importantly that it brought together of the first time an amazing diversity of "single-issue" activists who for the first time saw the connections between their, foundation funded, causes.”

In fact, in 99 before Seattle I had begun to write a novel about an unfolding World Revolution. A lot of it weaves into the story the real events of the next two or three years after Seattle. The reason I raise that is that the important part of what you say here is the involvement in Seattle of a significant union presence. I picked up on that too, and part of my story involves tying that in with a transformation of the amorphous, anarchistic nature of the anti-capitalist movement prior to Seattle, with the increasing role of an organised revolutionary nucleus mobilising such a Labour Movement to take hold of that movement by the throat, organise it, discipline it, and provide it with an adequate series of demands on which to mobilise, and to draw in popular anger into an escalating movement. Of course, it failed to happen that way because we have neither an adequate revolutionary nucleus, or such a Labour Movement at present. So it has sunk bank into the amorphousness.

”Maybe one idea would be to suggest a simple action that all those office drones in the City sitting at their workstations could do to register their contempt for the G20 charade. At Noon a mass email barrage of 10 Downing, with cc to the Economist? Simple, but at least it penetrates the veil of media manipulation...like the current BBC "Have Your Say" program. (We get lots of BBC programs out here in San Francisco.)”

At least the BBC isn’t Fox News! I watch quite a bit of US News and particularly Business News on CNBC. I wanted to see the Jon Stewart interview with Jim Cramer, but missed it. The problem is, how do you get to a position whereby those City drones DO engage in some action of the kind you suggest. This is my whole point. We have not done that necessary groundwork yet. Trotsky once commented that Transitional Demands were like a bridge. In fact, most Trotskyists misunderstand the nature of Transitional Demands, misunderstand the conditions under which the TP was developed, and the state of the class struggle Trotsky and his comrades thought – incorrectly – existed at the time. That is they are designed for a period in which if not pre-revoluitonary, it is potentially pre-revolutionary. That is a number of conditions exist. Sizeable revolutionary organisations with an implantation in the class. The Trostkyists then were small, but much bigger than today, much more integrated into the Labour Movement, and they had the perspective that a large revolutionary mass of workers would soon fill out their numbers – as it had done for the Bolsheviks in 1917 – some of whom would come from existing organisations, centrist, reformist and Stalinist. So, they saw that under certain conditions these demands could quickly mobilise a large mass of workers creating the necessary revolutionary situation. Take Trotsky’s comments about nationalising the banks under Workers Control for example. He says plainly that such a demand has no progressive content outside the context of the workers assuming State Power, outside the context at least of a Workers Government! No serious Marxist believes that is on the cards today, so all the demands for Nationalising the banks under workers control are not just utopian, but actually reactionary! If Transitional demands are a bridge you have to have a road to that bridge. At the moment we have neither such a road, nor even a footpath leading to that road, or signposts leading to some future footpath. We have to do the work of building that infrastructure before we start thinking about crossing any bridges.

The class struggle always has to proceed on three broad fronts. Through the Trade Unions on the Industrial Front, through the Co-operatives on the Economic and Social Front, and through the Workers Party on the ideological and political front. All three are dialectically linked. Marxists have to work in all three to rebuild them, to provide them with an adequate foundation on which to move forward, and to strengthen the links between them.

”"Leaving comments" is not conducive for a longer conversation and like you (though 9 hours later here!) the sun is out and I have to get into it!”

If you want to e-mail me you can do so at the e-mail address on my profile.

CharlieMcMenamin said...

Hi Arthur,
I've got tagged by Tom P of the Labour and Capital blog to write something on the theme of "the problematic nature of ownership in public companies. The shareholder-company relationship doesn't seem to function much like ownership.." He's particularly interested in pensions I think.

http://labourandcapital.blogspot.com/2009/04/ownership-meme.html

Your writings on co-ops and the like are voluminous. I'd be interested in your direct response to this. I won't 'tag' you as Tom did me, as, to be frank, I'm not 100% sure what that actually means!

TrumptonRiots said...

Let me get this straight, the G20 leaders, who have bailed out the banks with trillions of workers money, gather in London and you think the correct Marxist position is to completely ignore it, sit on our arses watching deal or no deal and moaning about the loonies protesting?

Boffy said...

To,

Trumpton. No my option would be to provide workers with something useful as a counter to those G20 leaders as opposed to a bunch of middle class people protesting with very little in the way of clarity as to what the aim of their protests were. My option would be to look to ways to mobilise those workers effectively rather than engage in actions, which could have exactly the opposite effect in terms of what impression they give to workers.

I think Axel's comments on that in respect of Seattle are interesting.

Boffy said...

To Charlie,

I'll try to have a look. I've written a number of things about the role of Pension funds in the past, so some of it may be relevant. I have a few commitments at the moment though, so you'll have to bear with me.

BCFG said...

Your conservatism comes shining though once again.

Very Marxist to criticise a protest against the representative of world capital, just before going for a country walk! I am sure Marx would have done the exact same thing…NOT!


Boffy said,

“the same businesses that in the last ten years or so have earned billions in foreign currency earnings to finance the jobs in service industries, the Health Service and so on!”

How was this wealth created, seems like a nationalist statement to me. What happened to workers of the world unite??


More form you,

“More likely most workers having done a hard day’s work will get home, see the demo and say “Bloody students.” Just as they did in relation to the Anti-Vietnam demonstrations of the 1960’s.”

And this is a good thing is it????


You said,,

“We have to do the boring work of standing alongside workers in their daily lives, doing the same jobs, being in the same Trade Unions, in the same Labour Party, and in place of all the Utopian solutions to workers problems that rely on either calls to the bosses state, or else demand that if the workers really want a solution they have to overthrow capitalism now, we have to provide them with the real practical solutions to those problems that workers really need.”

So there is no room for protest? How very Marxist. Though the fact that bourgeoisie freedom (of which you are such a fan) didn’t allow the protests within 2 miles of the leaders, did make it seem to some biased eyes a little aimless.

I think the biggest fools are those sitting at home in blissful ignorance that their money is bankrolling the most privileged people in society, and those that rejoice in them doing so.

Boffy said...

“Your conservatism comes shining though once again.”

Really? Coming from someone who supports clerical-fascists, and told us how the BNP could by the same route evolve to be progressive, I find that a bit rich!!!

“Very Marxist to criticise a protest against the representative of world capital, just before going for a country walk! I am sure Marx would have done the exact same thing…NOT!”

I’m sure Marx being in London might have taken some time out from his activities to have a walk to see what was going on. I’m sure he would have been as critical of the forces involved, and the inadequate basis of the protests as I am.

“the same businesses that in the last ten years or so have earned billions in foreign currency earnings to finance the jobs in service industries, the Health Service and so on!”

“How was this wealth created, seems like a nationalist statement to me. What happened to workers of the world unite??”

What’s nationalist about it for God’s sake. Do you not think they have a financial service industry in every country in the world that also makes money from its foreign activities as well as its domestic activities????? What happened to Workers of the World Unite? Well you certainly don’t unite them by calling for them to lose their jobs by closing down the businesses in which they work without being able to provide them with an alternative do you???

“More likely most workers having done a hard day’s work will get home, see the demo and say “Bloody students.” Just as they did in relation to the Anti-Vietnam demonstrations of the 1960’s.”

“And this is a good thing is it????”

Absolutely, not, which is why I previously said,

“The best that can be hoped for is that many workers when they get home from work tonight will, following on from the general antagonism towards bankers, see the demonstration and think “Good someone is doing something.””

But, once again we see your continual tendency not only to see what you want to see, read what you want to read, but to cocoon yourself away from the reality. You don’t WANT to think that workers will look on and say “bloody students”, so you don’t even want anyone to point out the painful truth for you that it likely what their response WILL be.

“We have to do the boring work of standing alongside workers in their daily lives, doing the same jobs, being in the same Trade Unions, in the same Labour Party, and in place of all the Utopian solutions to workers problems that rely on either calls to the bosses state, or else demand that if the workers really want a solution they have to overthrow capitalism now, we have to provide them with the real practical solutions to those problems that workers really need.”

“So there is no room for protest? How very Marxist.”

Once again we see your ineluctable tendency to see what you want to see, read what you want to read, and to misrepresent in order to make your point. Not only did I NOT say that there is no room for protest, but I said the VERY OPPOSITE.

I said,

“I was going to say that despite all that these kinds of protests are a good thing. Marx argued that although strikes by workers could never solve their problems, the strikes themselves were necessary because they were the basic means by which the workers maintained their dignity, defended their interests, and prevented themselves sinking into the mire. I was going to say that demonstrations like those today are similar, they allow workers to show their anger, to demonstrate their collective power and so on. Indeed, in a truly revolutionary situation such demonstrations would be a useful means of a revolutionary party gauging the mood and combativity of the masses.”

How is any of that consistent with your allegation that I said there is no room for protest??????

“Though the fact that bourgeoisie freedom (of which you are such a fan) didn’t allow the protests within 2 miles of the leaders, did make it seem to some biased eyes a little aimless.”

And once again by the nature of your comments we see how little value you place in even the bourgeois freedoms that thousands of workers, socialists, and democrats gave their lives to establish. Not surprising given your political acquiescence and support for some of the most anti-democratic, reactionary, anti-socialist forces around the globe. It wasn’t the fact that the demonstration wasn’t allowed anywhere near the G20 leaders that made it seem aimless, it WAS aimless. There was no clear objective for the protests, no clear set of demands, let alone practical set of solutions around which workers could organise or move forward, and so its no wonder that not only did virtually no workers take part in it, but very few even students and middle class people took part either!!!!

”I think the biggest fools are those sitting at home in blissful ignorance that their money is bankrolling the most privileged people in society, and those that rejoice in them doing so.”

Then instead of fooling yourself that you are doing something positive through such a pointless, unfocussed protest, you should start demanding that all that money in workers pension funds controlled by those privileged people be brought under workers control so that workers can use it to establish their own Co-operative enterprises. But, you won’t do that because you prefer the politics of vacuous gesture, of placing your faith in some supposed “anti-capitalist”, or “anti-imperialist” force, who turns out in reality to be just this decades flavour of demagogue, or totalitarian dictator who screws the workers as bad as those he replaced. Just look at the people you support to see that. Even the Holocaust Denier Ahmedinejad in your eyes is “progressive”. At least the Fool’s who sit at home blissfully unaware do no harm to the working class, which is more than can be said for your politics. For myself I prefer to reject both options, and to put my faith in the working class, and in place of meaningless gestures to use the time more wisely in rebuilding the Labour Movement on a solid basis.

Boffy said...

I'm also not alone in describing it as aimless as one person on the demonstration described it,

"Yesterday's demonstration outside the bank of England was directionless and leaderless, but otherwise vibrant."

What "conservative" made that comment?

Vicky Thompson from Permanent Revolution!

See: PR

BCFG said...

Boffy,

I support the Palestinians in their struggle against brutal occupation with no strings attached and in spite of who they vote for. I also think this brutal oppression can at the same time create “negative” movements/tactics and “positive” ones. Often people living under such oppression have become receptive to socialist/moralist ideas, such as community and compassion for suffering. Though your uber rationality will certainly leave them cold.

But do we really want to get into that argument again?

Anyway, Boffy said,

“I’m sure Marx being in London might have taken some time out from his activities to have a walk to see what was going on. I’m sure he would have been as critical of the forces involved, and the inadequate basis of the protests as I am.”

At least Marx would be basing his opinions on first hand experience and not on stereotypes and the bias of the bourgeois media.

You said,

“What’s nationalist about it for God’s sake. Do you not think they have a financial service industry in every country in the world that also makes money from its foreign activities as well as its domestic activities?????”

You haven’t answered how this wealth was created but you have just looked at it in a nationalist, what did it do for us way.
This actually ties into a perception I have about your analysis, which is, that you seem to focus on the consumer more than the worker. You often talk about cheap products as a result of capitalism’s “civilising mission” and you seem to relate the impact of decisions on the impact of the consumer. I see little evidence of analysis of actual work, of the work experience, i.e. the worker. You talk about increased efficiency and productivity in glowing terms but often without the context of how this impacts on the worker.

You said,

“You don’t WANT to think that workers will look on and say “bloody students”, so you don’t even want anyone to point out the painful truth for you that it likely what their response WILL be.”

This is incorrect. I am painfully aware this kind of response will be prevalent.
I wouldn’t apologise for it but try to point out to workers that mass demos are a very useful way of asserting ones democratic “rights”. Much better than relying on bourgeois “freedoms”.

You said

“Once again we see your ineluctable tendency to see what you want to see, read what you want to read, and to misrepresent in order to make your point. Not only did I NOT say that there is no room for protest, but I said the VERY OPPOSITE.”

Then later you said,

“But, you won’t do that because you prefer the politics of vacuous gesture, of placing your faith in some supposed “anti-capitalist”, or “anti-imperialist” force, who turns out in reality to be just this decades flavour of demagogue, or totalitarian dictator who screws the workers as bad as those he replaced. Just look at the people you support to see that. Even the Holocaust Denier Ahmedinejad in your eyes is “progressive”. At least the Fool’s who sit at home blissfully unaware do no harm to the working class, which is more than can be said for your politics. For myself I prefer to reject both options, and to put my faith in the working class, and in place of meaningless gestures to use the time more wisely in rebuilding the Labour Movement on a solid basis.”

Well maybe I should have said populist protest. However, your further comment shows precisely why I said you see no room for protest. To you it’s all about building the grass roots, and anything else is pointless, aimless, statist and romantic. At least until the grass roots have been built. Hardly the outlandish misrepresentation of your position you claim it to be.

You said,

“It wasn’t the fact that the demonstration wasn’t allowed anywhere near the G20 leaders that made it seem aimless, it WAS aimless. There was no clear objective for the protests, no clear set of demands, let alone practical set of solutions around which workers could organise or move forward, and so its no wonder that not only did virtually no workers take part in it, but very few even students and middle class people took part either!!!!”

I find it alarming that when the
G20 leaders come to our country in the current climate so little protest was made. The ruling class must be laughing their bollocks off. The servile acceptance that people just sit back and let their “betters” do everything should alarm you as well, considering your views on co-operatives. I don’t accept this was anything to do with lack of demands but more a state of mind where we follow the leader and swallow everything they say, e.g., about mad clerical fascists ready to destroy “our” way of life.

You said,

“Then instead of fooling yourself that you are doing something positive through such a pointless, unfocussed protest, you should start demanding that all that money in workers pension funds controlled by those privileged people be brought under workers control so that workers can use it to establish their own Co-operative enterprises. But, you won’t do that because you prefer the politics of vacuous gesture,”

This sounds like a great idea and one I would support, why that precludes me from joining anti capitalist protests I can only imagine.


Finally you commented,

“I'm also not alone in describing it as aimless as one person on the demonstration described it,

"Yesterday's demonstration outside the bank of England was directionless and leaderless, but otherwise vibrant."

What "conservative" made that comment?

Vicky Thompson from Permanent Revolution!”

Well you are not alone in missing the value of protests, as a show of strength and vitality to the ruling class, as a way of putting them on the defensive and as a way of building new movements. Sounds like the opposite of permanent revolution to me, more permanent subservience.

Also judging by your sympathy for Israeli troops, you must have the same for the brutal actions of the police described by Vicky, I hope you told her to stop being so moralistic!

Boffy said...

“I support the Palestinians in their struggle against brutal occupation with no strings attached and in spite of who they vote for. I also think this brutal oppression can at the same time create “negative” movements/tactics and “positive” ones. Often people living under such oppression have become receptive to socialist/moralist ideas, such as community and compassion for suffering. Though your uber rationality will certainly leave them cold.”

I support the struggle of the Palestinians too, but like Marx and Lenin I do not put that struggle for the bourgeois democratic right of self-determination on a higher plane than the struggle for socialism, and the fight for the interests of the working class. That is why, unlike you, I do not end up supporting the enemies of the workers within that struggle! Its not your support for Palestinians, but your support for assorted reactionaries and enemies of the working class that I found a bit rich in your comment about my supposed conservatism.

“At least Marx would be basing his opinions on first hand experience and not on stereotypes and the bias of the bourgeois media.”

It wasn’t just the bourgeois media I was basing myself on, but all of the discussion and information that was available before hand, which showed that there was no real focus to any of these demonstrations, and certainly that there was no real attempt to mobilise the working class as part of them. Vicki’s account that confirms that view is not bourgeois media bias either. I regret that the G20 leaders were able to come to London without the kind of mobilisation of the working class they should have been faced with, or even that has been mobilised on previous occasions, for example in Seattle, but that regret cannot change the fact that it wasn’t, and that that defined the nature of what the protests would be. As I said, on several occasions during the 1920’s, Trotsky opposed similar protests in Germany, and the calling of General Strikes, precisely for that kind of reason that they had been called without any kind of meaningful attempt to build support for them within the working class over the previous months leading up to them, and which therefore had a negative effect on the working class, because not only did they portray a picture of weakness, but they led to a lack of faith by the workers in those who called them.

“What’s nationalist about it for God’s sake. Do you not think they have a financial service industry in every country in the world that also makes money from its foreign activities as well as its domestic activities?????”

“You haven’t answered how this wealth was created but you have just looked at it in a nationalist, what did it do for us way.”

It does so in the way every other business does, by buying and selling products and services!!! There is nothing nationalist in that.

“This actually ties into a perception I have about your analysis, which is, that you seem to focus on the consumer more than the worker.”

But, the complete opposite is true here. I am saying I would be opposed to workers losing their jobs as a result of some unspecified desire to close down the industry in which they work. In other words I am defending workers as workers. In opposing that you are putting some other concern – presumably some concern about the nature of Financial Services as an industry that you object to – a concern, therefore, for the consumers of that industry, above the interests of those workers! Its you that has a consumerist perspective here not me! Moreover, whether we live in the present Capitalist society or in some future society in transition to Communism, the reality is that if you want to allocate resources to things such as Health Services you have to provide the resources for doing that from somewhere. To the extent that a country has to engage in foreign trade in order to provide those resources it has to also sell some of its products overseas too. Recognising that fact, is the complete opposite of a nationalist argument! In fact, to the extent that many of these financial institutions had overseas operations that employed foreign workers the very opposite again of the point you seek to make is the case! But, if you want to press your point then fine go ahead, tell every worker in Britain whose products are sold on the world market that they should stop work because in making profits by selling such goods they are acting nationalistically!!!!!

“You often talk about cheap products as a result of capitalism’s “civilising mission” and you seem to relate the impact of decisions on the impact of the consumer.”

Not at all, the improvement in technology often makes the worker’s task less dangerous, less arduous and so on. Moreover, in raising the productivity of labour, then as Marx demonstrates, it enables the workers real as well as nominal wages to rise. Like Marx, I am only interested in the effect it has on consumer’s in so far as those consumer’s are workers. That is that the “civilising mission” as Marx describes it, creates the conditions under which workers living standards rise, their access to leisure, to education, to culture rise, and all of those things are the precondition for the working class developing its own class consciousness, and are, therefore, the precondition for socialism!

“I see little evidence of analysis of actual work, of the work experience, i.e. the worker. You talk about increased efficiency and productivity in glowing terms but often without the context of how this impacts on the worker.”

On the contrary. Look at what I’ve written on the question of the Alienation of Labour. Look at what I’ve written about the dangers of atomisation of the working class as a result of the introduction of new technology and home-working. Look, indeed at what I’ve written to the contrary on why that technology makes possible the development of high-tec Co-operative enterprises. Look at what I’ve written in relation to the correct application of the Marxist method in relation to the use of “technology agreements”, by unions. But again, your reactionary ideas shine through, because its clear that alongside your support for reactionary political forces who stand to the rear even of bourgeois democrats, in the same way that you stand on positions that would lead to workers losing even the limited benefits of bourgeois freedoms, so your attitude to technology here puts you in the camp of the pre-Marxists again, in the camp of the Sismondists and the Luddites.

“You don’t WANT to think that workers will look on and say “bloody students”, so you don’t even want anyone to point out the painful truth for you that it likely what their response WILL be.”

“This is incorrect. I am painfully aware this kind of response will be prevalent.
I wouldn’t apologise for it but try to point out to workers that mass demos are a very useful way of asserting ones democratic “rights”. Much better than relying on bourgeois “freedoms”.


What nonsense. When you assert your “democratic right” to take part in a mass demo what the hell do you think you are doing OTHER THAN relying on the basic BOURGEOIS FREEDOM, to do so?????????????????????????????????

It’s the fact, that you are not prepared to recognise the need to defend such freedoms that workers, democrats and socialists have fought for over the last few centuries, that instead, you side with those reactionaries who deny those basic BOURGEOIS FREEDOMS, such as the right to assembly, to free speech, to combination, to vote etc. that most starkly puts you into that camp described by Marx as Reactionary Socialists, though in truth the more I read your views the more there is of the reactionary, and the very little there is of the socialist.

“Once again we see your ineluctable tendency to see what you want to see, read what you want to read, and to misrepresent in order to make your point. Not only did I NOT say that there is no room for protest, but I said the VERY OPPOSITE.”

“Then later you said,”

“But, you won’t do that because you prefer the politics of vacuous gesture, of placing your faith in some supposed “anti-capitalist”, or “anti-imperialist” force, who turns out in reality to be just this decades flavour of demagogue, or totalitarian dictator who screws the workers as bad as those he replaced. Just look at the people you support to see that. Even the Holocaust Denier Ahmedinejad in your eyes is “progressive”. At least the Fool’s who sit at home blissfully unaware do no harm to the working class, which is more than can be said for your politics. For myself I prefer to reject both options, and to put my faith in the working class, and in place of meaningless gestures to use the time more wisely in rebuilding the Labour Movement on a solid basis.”

“Well maybe I should have said populist protest. However, your further comment shows precisely why I said you see no room for protest. To you it’s all about building the grass roots, and anything else is pointless, aimless, statist and romantic. At least until the grass roots have been built. Hardly the outlandish misrepresentation of your position you claim it to be.”

Of course its outlandish, precisely because it is the VERY OPPOSITE of what I said!!!! Nor, in what I said, does it say that there is no room for such protest without having been the base, though I think that such protest is not likely to have much consequence without that. It depends upon the nature of the protest, and the demands it raises etc. The demonstration against the Iraq War had not been preceded by a building of the grass roots within the workplaces on a basis, which could have prevented or frustrated the war, but nevertheless, given the amount of opposition that existed, given the narrow focus on which the protest could be centred i.e. “Don’t Attack Iraq”, it could act as a powerful basis on which to have gone forward, and built such a movement in the workplace. As it happened it didn’t, because the focus of those leading the Stop the War Movement lay elsewhere in trying to recruit to the SWP not on the basis of building such working class activity in the workplace, but by more such protests and appeals to the periphery of that anti-war movement on pacifist, and “anti-imperialist” bases. Its why ultimately, not only was no effective working class opposition to the war developed – not even such as the action of the US dockworkers in blacking supplies to Iraq – but why the demonstrations themselves dwindled, and the masses originally mobilised were dissipated.

”I find it alarming that when the G20 leaders come to our country in the current climate so little protest was made. The ruling class must be laughing their bollocks off. The servile acceptance that people just sit back and let their “betters” do everything should alarm you as well, considering your views on co-operatives. I don’t accept this was anything to do with lack of demands but more a state of mind where we follow the leader and swallow everything they say, e.g., about mad clerical fascists ready to destroy “our” way of life.”

I’m not over the moon about the fact that there was so little opposition either, but I cannot accept your pessimism in relation to the cause of that. There was no such apathy when it came to the Seattle protests, or even the Gleneagles Protests. But, there is an oft used phrase on the Marxist Left, about Grand Old Duke of York tactics, of leading workers up the hill, only to lead them back down again, resulting in demoralisation. If you keep calling demonstrations, that are badly focussed, have inadequate demands, fail to address workers needs, and the movement around which continually fails as a consequence to go anywhere, then workers will indeed say, I’ve got better things to do.

I’d also suggest that part of the reason this time was the attitude of the TU leaders. From what I can see from has come out the TU leaders hoped that Brown would come out with some measures at the Summit, which would be seen as helping to end the economic crisis. They didn’t want to rock the boat, or be seen to be attacking Brown while they were hoping for him to provide them with crumbs off the table. Indeed, in recent documents I’ve seen that is precisely the message the TU tops are giving out i.e. Brown sorted it for them. But, you are right, about not simply sitting back, and its why I disagree with your political method of hitching your cart to whoever the latest anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist demagogue might be, if you place your faith in such people rather than building workers self-reliance and self-activity then that is what you will get. Its why its necessary to rebuild the Trade Unions at their base. Its why its necessary to build Co-ops, its why its necessary to rebuild the Labour Party.

“Then instead of fooling yourself that you are doing something positive through such a pointless, unfocussed protest, you should start demanding that all that money in workers pension funds controlled by those privileged people be brought under workers control so that workers can use it to establish their own Co-operative enterprises. But, you won’t do that because you prefer the politics of vacuous gesture,”

“This sounds like a great idea and one I would support, why that precludes me from joining anti capitalist protests I can only imagine.”

I’m glad you agree. I never said that it did preclude you or anyone else from joining anti-capitalist demonstrations, nor did I come close to suggesting that anyone should participate in them. I only described how workers were likely to view the ones that took place, and why the basis of those demonstrations was inadequate.

“Well you are not alone in missing the value of protests, as a show of strength and vitality to the ruling class, as a way of putting them on the defensive and as a way of building new movements. Sounds like the opposite of permanent revolution to me, more permanent subservience.”

How you can say that about someone who was ACTUALLY ON THE DEMONSTRATION I really don’t know!!!! But, the fact is that as you said yourself, the fact that the protests were so poorly supported, means that not only would that lead to the bosses laughing their bollocks off, but it would have the complete opposite of the effect you want to ascribe to it in relation to workers. Instead of it being a “show of strength and vitality to the ruling class”, it becomes a show of weakness. Instead of it putting the bosses on the defensive it was more likely to put workers on the defensive, because they would see that weakness. Instead of it being a way of building a new movement it would put potential recruits for such a new movement in the working class off. If any of the goals you set out here are to be achieved then any future demonstration needs to begin from the question of programme and politics, needs to be properly focussed as a result of that, and needs to be properly mobilised for for months in advance at the grass roots of the Labour movement, and most importantly has to have as its aim, the mobilisation from there of the workers in the workplaces and communities around that programme, and stimulated and motivated by it. None of that has even begun to be done, and given the divisions within, and the nature of the politics of the Left, I can’t see it being done either. That is why such a wholesale rebuilding of the labour movement is required because the existing left, and the existing leadership are simply obstructions in the path of it, apart from a few exceptions.

“Also judging by your sympathy for Israeli troops, you must have the same for the brutal actions of the police described by Vicky, I hope you told her to stop being so moralistic!”

More total bollocks. I don’t have sympathy for Israeli troops committing atrocities, anymore than I would have sympathy for some bully boy cops beating up demonstrators. I do in both cases though reserve the focus of my criticism for the State that sends those troops and cops in to do its dirty work, and for the class society that brutalises people in such a way that human beings can be led to act in such a way.

MARWRA said...

I agree with you Boffy,demos can only have impact if they are MASS demos.In France and Germany the labour movement is much more integrated in protests. Though they show the limits of demos as a means of change, which can only come through a change in the economic system.

PS When can we expect your further articles on the economics of co-ops

BCFG said...

Boffy,

I’ll leave the Palestinian debate alone.

You said,

“In opposing that you are putting some other concern – presumably some concern about the nature of Financial Services as an industry that you object to – a concern, therefore, for the consumers of that industry, above the interests of those workers! Its you that has a consumerist perspective here not me!”

I was actually thinking more about workers in other countries and how them being ripped off to fund our services was not my idea of workers of the world unite!!

You continued,

“Recognising that fact, is the complete opposite of a nationalist argument! In fact, to the extent that many of these financial institutions had overseas operations that employed foreign workers the very opposite again of the point you seek to make is the case! But, if you want to press your point then fine go ahead, tell every worker in Britain whose products are sold on the world market that they should stop work because in making profits by selling such goods they are acting nationalistically”

I am not against world trade that would be insane. However, under socialism certain industries/jobs would eventually disappear because they were a feature specific to capitalism!! Unless you want some kind of Socialist/Capitalist hybrid????

You said,

“But again, your reactionary ideas shine through, because its clear that alongside your support for reactionary political forces who stand to the rear even of bourgeois democrats, in the same way that you stand on positions that would lead to workers losing even the limited benefits of bourgeois freedoms, so your attitude to technology here puts you in the camp of the pre-Marxists again, in the camp of the Sismondists and the Luddites.”

Again you claim my position to be something it isn’t. Your statement here clearly shows that you want to ignore the impact of technology and just celebrate it unthinkingly.
You call me a Luddite for even raising the question.
I am not advocating ludditism but neither am I ignoring the negative aspects of work under capitalism. I was arguing that this analysis was lacking in your arguments and that your emphasis seemed to be on the worker as consumer.
But even this relationship, worker as consumer, isn’t straightforward. At the same time they are exactly the same thing but also the exact opposite. What is good for the consumer can be bad for the worker. When you deride the inefficiency of the public sector, the consumer cheers, the worker sighs.

Boffy said,

“That is that the “civilising mission” as Marx describes it, creates the conditions under which workers living standards rise, their access to leisure, to education, to culture rise, and all of those things are the precondition for the working class developing its own class consciousness, and are, therefore, the precondition for socialism!”

I don’t see much evidence of this process at the moment. Yes we work less than we did in the 19th century but in the last 30 years work has become more measured, more intense (partly due to new technology), continued rationalisation that means fewer people have to do more work and unless there is opposition to it, this trend will continue. But because you still live in the 19th century due to your Marxist fundamentalism you think work is becoming a more pleasurable experience!!
Now I accept that improving technology can lead to less physical work, though many of the arduous jobs in this country have just been shipped overseas, but the nature of modern work under capitalism can have an extremely detrimental affect on mental health as the evidence clearly shows.

Boffy said,

“What nonsense. When you assert your “democratic right” to take part in a mass demo what the hell do you think you are doing OTHER THAN relying on the basic BOURGEOIS FREEDOM, to do so”

No you are standing up and making your own voice heard and not relying on the news media or “experts” to sort out things on your behalf. Seeing demos as a bourgeois freedom is the wrong way to look at it, it is people taking the decision to take opposition to the state. The ruling class didn’t one day say let’s invent demos and make them legal, they try to control and negate them just like every regime. And while ever you have society divided into classes they will continue to exist, whether you or Trotsky like it or not.

You said,

“It’s the fact, that you are not prepared to recognise the need to defend such freedoms that workers, democrats and socialists have fought for over the last few centuries, that instead, you side with those reactionaries who deny those basic BOURGEOIS FREEDOMS, such as the right to assembly, to free speech, to combination, to vote”

This is total lies.
I am the one praising the Protestors???????????????????
You are the one deriding it like Tony Parsons is yesterday's Daily Mirror!!!!!!!!!!
These are the reactionary tossers you line up with.

You said,

“though in truth the more I read your views the more there is of the reactionary, and the very little there is of the socialist.”

This coming from the man who criticises Chavez, the most progressive leader on the American continent, George Galloway, the most left wing MP in parliament and almost the entire left for the last 100 years.
The man who constantly lauds capitalism’s civilising mission, its “freedoms”, its affect on work and the consumer, you want to see it replaced in a process that could take millennia to achieve, any alien visiting earth for the first time would think you are capitalisms greatest champion!
I think capitalism is a disaster and believe that a socialist system cannot come quick enough.

Boffy said...

MARWRA,

Glad you agree, and I agree in relation to the differecne compared with recent protests in France etc., where it was the Labour Movement that was leading them. There is a danger, I think, otherwise of going down the route of what we saw in the 1970's, frustration leading to individualistic acts of terror, the trade mark of the petit-bourgeois. That led to groups like Bader-Meinhof, or the Red Brigades who though they could substitute for the working class, and by its acts, provoke some kind of revolution.

As Lenin put it, "The Anarchists and Terrorists go in for violence retail, where as we Bolsheviks go in for it wholsesale." There in lies the sociological and ideological difference. The petit-bourgeois starts from there own individualistic concerns, and hte need to do something as an individual. The Marxist, the revolutionary starts from the posiiton not of themselves as an individual, not from what makes them simply feel better, but from the position of the class, what will best serve its interests, mobilise it, organise it, educate it and so on, because it is only the class not the individual or groups of individuals that can bring about progressive change.

On the Co-ops. I've not done much the last few days, because of other commitments. I have made some notes and should be able to write something more in the next few days. Completing this section is likely to take some time though, because the theorising of the actual micro-economics is something new, and technical. I want to present some of the theoretics of it in the same orthodox economic terms that others have used to present their arguments, particularly those in Vanek's book, some of which I would accept, but a lot which I would not. I have to get my head around how to present thopse arguments in graphical form so that they can be compared and contrasted. But, I think (hope) that ultimately that will be worthwhile.

Could I recommend having a look at the Network of Bay Area Co-operatives website, for which I'm grateful to Axel for bringing to my attention.

Boffy said...

BCFG,

“I was actually thinking more about workers in other countries and how them being ripped off to fund our services was not my idea of workers of the world unite!!”

a) So its okay for British workers in those companies to be ripped off, but not foreign workers???
b) So its okay for those foreign workers to be ripped off by foreign Capitalists but not by British Capitalists??

Once again its you that sees things in nationalist rather than class terms. I see the spread of Capitalism on a global scale, of the development of multinational companies as progressive, because it represents a more mature form of Capitalism – indeed the highest stage according to Lenin – and thereby closer to its dissolution, closer to the form in which Socialism will take it over and develop it logically and rationally. For on thing, it facilitates the coming together on a global scale of the workers in those companies in common Trade Unions to fight a common single employer, and is thereby one of the most powerful means by which that idea of “Workers of the World Unite” can be brought about. Its you in opposing that who stands in the way of such workers unity.

“I am not against world trade that would be insane.”

Well, it certainly sounds that way, if you are opposed to companies from one country operating in other countries on the basis that it means Capitalists of one country exploiting workers from another!!!

“However, under socialism certain industries/jobs would eventually disappear because they were a feature specific to capitalism!! Unless you want some kind of Socialist/Capitalist hybrid????”

Of course, under Socialism there will be some types of activity that will not be undertaken. But, unless it wasn’t on the news I hadn’t realised that we already had Socialism.

“But again, your reactionary ideas shine through, because its clear that alongside your support for reactionary political forces who stand to the rear even of bourgeois democrats, in the same way that you stand on positions that would lead to workers losing even the limited benefits of bourgeois freedoms, so your attitude to technology here puts you in the camp of the pre-Marxists again, in the camp of the Sismondists and the Luddites.”

“Again you claim my position to be something it isn’t. Your statement here clearly shows that you want to ignore the impact of technology and just celebrate it unthinkingly.”

Not at all, which is why I have written about the experience of Technology Agreements as the correct way in which workers should deal with the issue. That is we say, “We are certainly not opposed to the introduction of new technology, because we recognise its function in raising productivity and having the potential to make work easier etc., but in accepting its introduction we demand some control over its implementation, we demand that it be implemented in such a way that those benefits are actually accrued by us as workers and not just by Capital in profits.” But, it is precisely, because like Marx I recognise that as long as Capitalism exists workers ability to impose such control is severely limited, that I argue for Co-operatives as being the only means here and now by which workers can benefit from such technology, can thereby demonstrate the full potential of that technology when combined with the superior productivity and efficiency of Co-operative production.

“You call me a Luddite for even raising the question.”

No I am criticising the way you raised your objection, which essentially confuses productivity and efficiency with exploitation. If the worker is confronted with the same technology as before, but simply with a higher degree of exploitation through speed-up then that is not increased productivity, because ultimately, the worker will be worn out more quickly, there is greater likelihood of shoddy production and so on. If, however, a new machine is introduced, it is possible that the individual worker may actually work less hard than previously, live longer, and produce more. That is greater efficiency and productivity.

“I am not advocating ludditism but neither am I ignoring the negative aspects of work under capitalism. I was arguing that this analysis was lacking in your arguments and that your emphasis seemed to be on the worker as consumer.”

It is impossible to separate the worker as worker and the worker as consumer for the reasons that Marx sets out. When the worker produces he also consumes, and when the worker consumes he also produces.

“But even this relationship, worker as consumer, isn’t straightforward. At the same time they are exactly the same thing but also the exact opposite. What is good for the consumer can be bad for the worker. When you deride the inefficiency of the public sector, the consumer cheers, the worker sighs.”

You’ve obviously never worked in the public sector!!!! I can take you to lots of Public Sector workers and former Public Sector workers like myself who would completely disagree with you. There is nothing more alienating and demoralising than to work under such conditions of bureaucracy, inefficiency and petty tyranny. No worker with pride in their work or concern for their fellow workers can work in the Public Sector without being disgusted by the bureaucratism and inefficiency that stems from a State Capitalist organisation, run by and in the interests of the top bureaucrats, and the assorted private Capitalist enterprises that leach off it. I’d suggest you ask all those workers in Eastern Europe whether they sighed at criticism of such inefficient, and bureaucratic enterprises, and the tyranny they inflict upon their workers. Just look at the recent TV programmes of nurses from the NHS recalling their own stories about the way it operates.

Once again you put yourself on the side of our class enemies – this time the State Capitalist bosses – out of some misplaced notion that just because these enterprises are run by the State they have something in common with Socialism!!!!

“That is that the “civilising mission” as Marx describes it, creates the conditions under which workers living standards rise, their access to leisure, to education, to culture rise, and all of those things are the precondition for the working class developing its own class consciousness, and are, therefore, the precondition for socialism!”

“I don’t see much evidence of this process at the moment.”

Do you not? When I went to University in 1977 only 2% of the population had a degree. Now, the aim is to get 50% of kids to go to University, and already the numbers able to access Higher Education are way above what they were back then. The vast majority of my friends left school at 15, whereas now most kids stay on until they are 18. In 1977, few people had access to information unless they could spend the time to go to the local Library. Today, a majority of people access vast amounts of information via the Internet, and are able to do so as a result of much higher levels of general education. Despite the inefficient, bureaucratic, state capitalist nature of the NHS, the general standard of health of the majority of people is far higher than it was 30 years ago. In part that is due to better healthcare provision, and in part better living conditions. The Household Survey shows a marked decline in the percentage of the family budget spent on food, and a corresponding increase in the amount spent on leisure, entertainment and so on. A look at the profusion of homes with several cars, of mobile phones, of digital cameras and videos, of iPods, of computer games, of designer clothing, of people spending time in restaurants, going to the cinema and other such pursuits, going on more exotic foreign holidays, and on and on, I would have thought shows PLENTY of evidence of that going on!

“Yes we work less than we did in the 19th century but in the last 30 years work has become more measured, more intense (partly due to new technology), continued rationalisation that means fewer people have to do more work and unless there is opposition to it, this trend will continue.”

Hold on, you’ve just told us that you were not a Luddite, now you are telling us that you DO want to oppose it! I agree that work has become more intense for some people in the last 30 years. That is because the intensity of work that used to be done by manual workers is now done largely by robots, and the shift in employment away from manual labour towards white collar labour has shifted that intensity with it. That is why we see the nature of industrial illness shifting. Where it used to be the body that was damaged by the work process, today increasingly it is the mind, because it is increasingly the mind not the body that the worker uses. It is not the technology that is responsible for that, any more than it was the power loom that was responsible for the injuries suffered by textile workers. It is capitalism, and the lack of control the workers has over the production process. But, the solution to that is not to thereby reject the machine, but to demand control over the work process. But, as stated above short of socialism that is not possible other than for short periods. So you are left with the option of advising workers that their only solution is socialism now, or else as I do advising them that there best immediate course is the only alternative which DOES give them immediate control over the work process – to own and control the means of production themselves by establishing their own Co-operative production!

“But because you still live in the 19th century due to your Marxist fundamentalism you think work is becoming a more pleasurable experience!!”

That’s just silly, as anyone can see who has taken the trouble to read what I say as opposed to you who just accuses me of saying things I’ve never uttered. However, there is no denying that some developments HAVE made work more pleasurable. If it were not for the introduction of Health and Safety regulations many more workers would have lost their limbs, and their lives. And Capital CAN afford to accept some of those changes in relation to Health and safety and better working conditions, precisely because technology HAS increased the productivity, of labour and thereby enabled a portion of the increased profits to go to those things. The same thing is true of developed economies who through their greater wealth are able to spend money cleaning up the environment through Clean Air Acts, or the cleaning of formerly polluted rivers etc., whereas less developed economies cannot afford such things, because they would impinge too much on their need to accumulate Capital.

A while ago, I went to a Salt Mine in Winsford in Cheshire, where now the salt is extracted by a long wall cutter operated by one man in fairly pleasant conditions – certainly pleasant compared to the conditions my granddad worked in down the pit lying on his back in a 2 or 3 foot shaft hewing coal with a pick and hand drill – and with the salt taken directly out on a conveyor that ran off the back of the cutter. In fact, there was enough space down there that other workers were driving around in transit vans.

“What nonsense. When you assert your “democratic right” to take part in a mass demo what the hell do you think you are doing OTHER THAN relying on the basic BOURGEOIS FREEDOM, to do so”

“No you are standing up and making your own voice heard and not relying on the news media or “experts” to sort out things on your behalf.”

Without the basic bourgeois democratic freedom TO stand up and make your voice heard you couldn’t do it!!!! Two hundred years ago you didn’t have that right in Britain, and only a decade before that nor the right to belong to a Trade Union. It was only because socialists, workers and democrats fought for those rights along with others as part of the bourgeois revolution that you can take them for granted today. Without that, not only would you have faced being beaten up, but you’d have faced being shot, mowed down by cavalry as happened in the Peterloo massacre, and locked up and the key thrown away!!!! Those are the bourgeois freedoms you are so willing to give up, the freedoms that your friends the Ayatollahs and clerical-fascists and various other reactionary demagogues you associate with TODAY deny to their workers and people!!!!

“Seeing demos as a bourgeois freedom is the wrong way to look at it, it is people taking the decision to take opposition to the state. The ruling class didn’t one day say let’s invent demos and make them legal, they try to control and negate them just like every regime.”

But, you DO have a LEGAL right to demonstrate because of those bourgeois freedoms, you cannot be locked up simply for doing it. In Iran, or in Gaza you have no such right, and you will face being shot at or thrown off the top of a building if you do. In the same way, in your friend Ahmedinejad’s Iran, you face being locked up at the very least for Trade Union activity, something which bourgeois freedom in Britain didn’t even allow Thatcher to get away with! And actually, yes the bourgeoisie DID decide that those basic freedoms had to be fought for and implemented, because they were basic to its rule, and its opposition to the former feudal rulers who denied those freedoms in order to rule.

“And while ever you have society divided into classes they will continue to exist, whether you or Trotsky like it or not.”

What “they” are you talking about?

“It’s the fact, that you are not prepared to recognise the need to defend such freedoms that workers, democrats and socialists have fought for over the last few centuries, that instead, you side with those reactionaries who deny those basic BOURGEOIS FREEDOMS, such as the right to assembly, to free speech, to combination, to vote”

“This is total lies.
I am the one praising the Protestors???????????????????”


Besides the point, no one was trying to remove the bourgeois democratic right to protest here, so there was nothing to defend. But, its you that lines up with all those who DO deny those freedoms to their workers and masses, in Iran, in Gaza etc. Its you that would have been happy to see even the British bourgeois State abrogate the right to free movement by preventing a Dutch politician coming to Britain, and so on.

“You are the one deriding it like Tony Parsons is yesterday's Daily Mirror!!!!!!!!!!”

But, I am certainly not siding with those who would prevent such a demonstration as you do in your support for the reactionaries aforementioned!!!!

“These are the reactionary tossers you line up with.”

Except, of course I haven’t, whereas you have lined up with Ahmedinejad and so on.

You said,

“though in truth the more I read your views the more there is of the reactionary, and the very little there is of the socialist.”

“This coming from the man who criticises Chavez, the most progressive leader on the American continent, George Galloway, the most left wing MP in parliament and almost the entire left for the last 100 years.”

What better proof of the statement could there be in the examples you choose, bourgeois demagogues both!!!! The first tries to control the Venezuelan workers like a Stalin or a Bonaparte, the State over which he presides sacks and locks up militant Trade Unionists, its police goons physically assault strikers and so on, and this is your role model????? The other when he isn’t making money prostituting himself in puink tights, prostitutes himself in front of the Butcher of Baghdad, who murdered workers and socialists by the town full at a time, a man who tells us that he couldn’t possibly survive on less than £150,000 a year, and who represents all that is vile and reactionary in the modern world. What a choice for your second role model, wholly fitting for your own vile, reactionary politics.

”The man who constantly lauds capitalism’s civilising mission, its “freedoms”, its affect on work and the consumer, you want to see it replaced in a process that could take millennia to achieve, any alien visiting earth for the first time would think you are capitalisms greatest champion!”

Yes, I agree with Karl Marx’s statement about the civilising mission of Capitalism, and its role in preparing the working class for the assumption of power. Yes, unlike you I am prepared to defend those freedoms which our forefathers gave their lives to achieve, and which you would give up so readily for a place at the side of your reactionary demigods or more correctly at their feet as your whole approach is that of some fawning sycophant slavering at the thought of them engaging in some reactionary act against your perceived enemies be it some ill-defined “imperialism” or “Zionism”. Unlike you I see all those things as fundamental to the achievement of socialism, because you do not go forward by supporting blindly those who are trying to go backwards.

“I think capitalism is a disaster and believe that a socialist system cannot come quick enough.”

Which just shows what little grasp you have about what the struggle for socialism is really about. And from those you look up to from your prostrated position we know that what you view as Socialism has been seen before, and for the working class your version of socialism has always meant Hell on Earth. Go there quickly yourself if you wish by all means, we will take a different path.

BCFG said...

Boffy,

I said,

“I am not against world trade that would be insane.”

And you responded,

”Well, it certainly sounds that way, if you are opposed to companies from one country operating in other countries on the basis that it means Capitalists of one country exploiting workers from another!!!”

World trade doesn’t have to be like this does it??? Would it not appear differently under socialism??? I am criticising how things work under capitalism and arguing things would be better under socialism!!!

You said,

“Of course, under Socialism there will be some types of activity that will not be undertaken. But, unless it wasn’t on the news I hadn’t realised that we already had Socialism.”

Then you said,

“Not at all, which is why I have written about the experience of Technology Agreements as the correct way in which workers should deal with the issue. That is we say, “We are certainly not opposed to the introduction of new technology, because we recognise its function in raising productivity and having the potential to make work easier etc., but in accepting its introduction we demand some control over its implementation, we demand that it be implemented in such a way that those benefits are actually accrued by us as workers and not just by Capital in profits.””

But as you say we don’t live under socialism yet, so this is not how the process works. You, like me, are imagining what things could be like under socialism, except you miss out the critique of how this works under capitalism!

You said,

“No I am criticising the way you raised your objection, which essentially confuses productivity and efficiency with exploitation. If the worker is confronted with the same technology as before, but simply with a higher degree of exploitation through speed-up then that is not increased productivity, because ultimately, the worker will be worn out more quickly, there is greater likelihood of shoddy production and so on. If, however, a new machine is introduced, it is possible that the individual worker may actually work less hard than previously, live longer, and produce more. That is greater efficiency and productivity.”

No I am criticising how the process works under capitalism and how under socialism it would be better. I don’t think all technology is bad or even all badly applied under capitalism (as you correctly commented on Health and Safety) but I do try to look at in the context of capitalism and not in the context of technology. The atomic bomb was a great feat of technology but would it have developed under a socialist system?

“It is impossible to separate the worker as worker and the worker as consumer for the reasons that Marx sets out. When the worker produces he also consumes, and when the worker consumes he also produces.”

Well let me attempt the impossible by using the example of a busy restaurant in a competitive market. The consumer who happens to also be a worker enjoys nights out at the restaurant, he expects a first class service delivered with a smile. He expects his food to be served in a timely fashion and cooked to a high standard. The worker in the restaurant is thus worked off his feet, is abused by the head chef and often by the customers and is expected to remain polite and courteous at all times. He can also be hired and fired at a moments notice. In this situation who does the owner have sympathy with, the put upon worker as worker or the impatient worker as consumer? More to the point where does the sympathy of the socialist lie?


You said,

“You’ve obviously never worked in the public sector!!!! I can take you to lots of Public Sector workers and former Public Sector workers like myself who would completely disagree with you. There is nothing more alienating and demoralising than to work under such conditions of bureaucracy, inefficiency and petty tyranny.”

Absolute total bollocks. I know many people who work in the public sector and they tell me the increased measuring and monitoring and efficiency drives are extremely demoralising and all done with the aid of the latest technology.
You need only to look at the long term sickness statistics to see that! This is how state capitalists have responded to consumer gripes about the service, by making the workers life’s hell.

You then said,

“Once again you put yourself on the side of our class enemies – this time the State Capitalist bosses – out of some misplaced notion that just because these enterprises are run by the State they have something in common with Socialism!!!!”

I am criticising the public sector and how it is applying technology to make workers life’s more intolerable! You are the one who wants to deem me a luddite for doing so!

You said,

“Despite the inefficient, bureaucratic, state capitalist nature of the NHS, the general standard of health of the majority of people is far higher than it was 30 years ago. In part that is due to better healthcare provision, and in part better living conditions.”

Having your cake and eating it again! Anyway, it’s a rather poverty stricken use of statistics. You could have developed this a little further. I mean certain WORKING CLASS neighbourhoods have a lot lower life expectancy than people from more affluent BOURGEOIS neighbourhoods, the incidence of drug and alcohol abuse is higher also. What an astonishing use of the statistics from someone on the left!


You then said,

“The Household Survey shows a marked decline in the percentage of the family budget spent on food, and a corresponding increase in the amount spent on leisure, entertainment and so on. A look at the profusion of homes with several cars, of mobile phones, of digital cameras and videos, of iPods, of computer games, of designer clothing, of people spending time in restaurants, going to the cinema and other such pursuits, going on more exotic foreign holidays, and on and on, I would have thought shows PLENTY of evidence of that going on!”

What relevance does this have to workers being readied for socialism? Seems like a shitload of opium to me and it doesn’t tell us about the workers making these products does it! Typical of your consumerist bias!

You said,

“Hold on, you’ve just told us that you were not a Luddite, now you are telling us that you DO want to oppose it!”

No, I am arguing that when applied under capitalism, technology tends to be an aid to extend work and intensify it. I am not arguing against technology but against capitalism. And until we are looking at those socialist news channels, this will continue. Your argument about technology implies that this technology has been positive without the need for socialism.

You said,

“Without the basic bourgeois democratic freedom TO stand up and make your voice heard you couldn’t do it!!!!”

Demos occurred before the bourgeois decided to control them. This happened in Tsarist Russia and royalist France. People don’t demonstrate because they are free to do so. It isn’t about right but about necessity. So your point here is utterly nonsensical.

You said,

“Two hundred years ago you didn’t have that right in Britain, and only a decade before that nor the right to belong to a Trade Union. It was only because socialists, workers and democrats fought for those rights along with others as part of the bourgeois revolution that you can take them for granted today. Without that, not only would you have faced being beaten up, but you’d have faced being shot, mowed down by cavalry as happened in the Peterloo massacre, and locked up and the key thrown away!!!! Those are the bourgeois freedoms you are so willing to give up, the freedoms that your friends the Ayatollahs and clerical-fascists and various other reactionary demagogues you associate with TODAY deny to their workers and people!!!!”

I am the one defending the protests not arguing against them!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They have an important part to play in any society where class divisions exist, however the state reacts to them. When the racist bourgeois South Africans massacred ANC supporters that oppression didn’t stop protests or make them ineffective.

You said,

“In Iran, or in Gaza you have no such right, and you will face being shot at or thrown off the top of a building if you do.”

How typical of you to give the example of Hamas when looking at Palestinians demonstrating. The fact is most Palestinians demonstrating are killed by Israeli troops, acting on behalf of the BOURGEOIS Israeli state!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In fact the same can be said of the bourgeois reaction to demonstrators in Iraq. But your rose tinted bourgeois glasses fail to see this. Unlike Marx, who recognised the true nature of the bourgeois, you see only inalienable rights and freedoms.

You said,

“What better proof of the statement could there be in the examples you choose, bourgeois demagogues both!!!! The first tries to control the Venezuelan workers like a Stalin or a Bonaparte, the State over which he presides sacks and locks up militant Trade Unionists, its police goons physically assault strikers and so on, and this is your role model????? The other when he isn’t making money prostituting himself in puink tights, prostitutes himself in front of the Butcher of Baghdad, who murdered workers and socialists by the town full at a time, a man who tells us that he couldn’t possibly survive on less than £150,000 a year, and who represents all that is vile and reactionary in the modern world. What a choice for your second role model, wholly fitting for your own vile, reactionary politics.”

Am I the only socialist to praise and defend Chavez? Are those that do, not socialists? Do you agree that he is a progressive step forward from what went before??

Galloway went on Big Brother to connect with young people, now I agree there are better ways to do this but your statement is hysterical nonsense. There are things about him I don’t like but I recognise that he is a genuine socialist and his record proves it. To say he represents all that is vile and reactionary in the modern world shows how utterly depraved your Marxist fundamentalism is. More vile than Bush, more vile than Netanyahu, more vile than Nick Griffin. Let me repeat that, Boffy thinks George Galloway is more vile and reactionary than Nick Griffin!

PS I don’t look up to any of these people, but your hopeless prejudice assumes all their supporters do.

You said,

“Yes, unlike you I am prepared to defend those freedoms which our forefathers gave their lives to achieve, and which you would give up so readily for a place at the side of your reactionary demigods”

Very Churchilian or is it Bushilian. Anyway, so you are no longer saying these are bourgeois freedoms but freedoms that have to be constantly battled for. So instead of criticising people exercising these hard won freedoms, you should praise them for honouring the struggles of the past!

Boffy said...

To be honest I think that your argument here is more surreal than normal.

You: “I am not against world trade that would be insane.”


Me: ”Well, it certainly sounds that way, if you are opposed to companies from one country operating in other countries on the basis that it means Capitalists of one country exploiting workers from another!!!”

“World trade doesn’t have to be like this does it??? Would it not appear differently under socialism??? I am criticising how things work under capitalism and arguing things would be better under socialism!!!”

So, let’s get this right you argue that you are not against world trade, because “that would be insane”, but then say that you are not opposed to world trade under socialism only in its present Capitalist form!!!!!! So, in other words here and now, under Capitalism, which is what we have to deal with, because we do not have socialism YOU ARE AGAINST WORLD TRADE!!!! In fact, your argument as you have set it out saying that British Capitalists should only exploit British workers, and presumably then French Capitalists French workers and so on is fully consistent with your Nationalist as opposed to socialist politics. It’s the same kind of politics as those being put forward by the nationalists of the CPB alongside Bob Crow in the “British Jobs 4 British Workers” sorry “No2EU” reactionary stunt, which in turn is barely distinguishable from the economic policies of the BNP!

And how do you think that trade would be different under socialism at least in the first stage of Socialism i.e. before full Communism. Workers in one country as now would produce goods, which would have an Exchange value as now, and that Exchange Value would include a certain amount of Surplus as now required to cover accumulation, to cover the costs of those in the economy engaged in non-productive activity etc., and in selling or trading these goods on the international market those buying them would pay the full Exchange value of those goods including that element of surplus. A Socialist State might itself, or else independent Co-operative enterprises within that state, might establish businesses in other countries for various purposes employing foreign workers, and the laws of economics would still apply. Those businesses too would need to produce a surplus i.e. the workers in them would work for longer than was needed to reproduce the value of their Labour Power, both for the reasons set out above, and also because if the country in which the business was established was a Capitalist State, there would be no motivation for a socialist state investing in production there unless it was profitable for it to do so!

Then:

Me: “Of course, under Socialism there will be some types of activity that will not be undertaken. But, unless it wasn’t on the news I hadn’t realised that we already had Socialism.”

and,

“Not at all, which is why I have written about the experience of Technology Agreements as the correct way in which workers should deal with the issue. That is we say, “We are certainly not opposed to the introduction of new technology, because we recognise its function in raising productivity and having the potential to make work easier etc., but in accepting its introduction we demand some control over its implementation, we demand that it be implemented in such a way that those benefits are actually accrued by us as workers and not just by Capital in profits.””

“But as you say we don’t live under socialism yet, so this is not how the process works. You, like me, are imagining what things could be like under socialism, except you miss out the critique of how this works under capitalism!”

This argument is nonsensical! I argued that under Socialism there would be some types of production that would not be undertaken, but pointed out that this is irrelevant because we don’t have socialism. What does that have to do with the argument about Technology Agreements????? You seem to be wanting to say that technology Agreements could only be established under Socialism!!!! But, as any Trade Unionist will tell you that’s nonsense we have negotiated lots of them!! So, we DO NOT have to wait for socialism to apply that method, which is why I wrote about using that method for workers to try to have some control here and now over the work process!!! Again contrary to your assertion about me only talking about consumers!!!!!! What, I do point out, as did Marx, is that so long as Capital retains ownership of the means of production such negotiations and agreements can only be seen as temporary victories, which Capital will seek often to claw back – though not always if it can live with them as a result of rising productivity i.e. the Civilising Mission – and consequently that is why only if the workers take control of the means of production by establishing Co-operatives, and ultimately State Power, can the workers secure the benefits of such changes.

“No I am criticising the way you raised your objection, which essentially confuses productivity and efficiency with exploitation. If the worker is confronted with the same technology as before, but simply with a higher degree of exploitation through speed-up then that is not increased productivity, because ultimately, the worker will be worn out more quickly, there is greater likelihood of shoddy production and so on. If, however, a new machine is introduced, it is possible that the individual worker may actually work less hard than previously, live longer, and produce more. That is greater efficiency and productivity.”

“No I am criticising how the process works under capitalism and how under socialism it would be better.”

Well we hope everything will be better under socialism, but that doesn’t help us to orientate to the problem at hand, which is what the attitude to technology should be. The reality of your position as previously set out is that you would be opposed to it, precisely because you can only see such technology under Capitalism as detrimental to the worker by increasing his exploitation. That is clear from what you go on to say.

“I don’t think all technology is bad or even all badly applied under capitalism (as you correctly commented on Health and Safety) but I do try to look at in the context of capitalism and not in the context of technology. The atomic bomb was a great feat of technology but would it have developed under a socialist system?”
You fail to recognise that the task is not to reject the technology because it is Capitalist technology, but to accept the technology and reject and struggle against the Capitalist use of it! What is missing from your thoughts – not just in this, but in much of what you say – is any concept of class struggle, any concept of the working class actually having a say in what happens to it! Given the way you simply follow on behind whoever is this year’s flavour of radical from reactionary clerics, to bourgeois demagogues such as Galloway and Chavez that is not surprising, because for you socialism is obviously that top down, Stalinist bureaucratic model whereby some figure from on high leads the way, and the masses function is merely to follow on, do as they are told, ask no questions and be good foot-soldiers!

As for the atomic bomb I would hope that a socialist society would have developed such technology. We might need it to protect the planet against comets. Its possible that such technology might even be necessary for large-scale reshaping and restructuring of the planet. Who knows. Its not the technology I’m afraid of, its who controls it.

“Well let me attempt the impossible by using the example of a busy restaurant in a competitive market. The consumer who happens to also be a worker enjoys nights out at the restaurant, he expects a first class service delivered with a smile. He expects his food to be served in a timely fashion and cooked to a high standard. The worker in the restaurant is thus worked off his feet, is abused by the head chef and often by the customers and is expected to remain polite and courteous at all times.”

Hold on, why “thus worked off his feet”, and so on. The worker is not “thus” worked off his feet, because the consumer, having paid good money, and having done a hard day’s work himself, thinks he has the right to some value for his money. If you believe that to be true then you should forget about attacking Capitalists, and simply blame all those evil consumers i.e. workers for being so unreasonable as believing that they should get what they’ve paid for!!!!! The worker is rushed off his feet not because of the fairly reasonable demands of the consumer, but because of the UNREASONABLE demands of the Capitalist employer!!!! Once again we see you on the wrong side of the class divide. You let the employer off the hook, and blame the worker as consumer for other workers plight.

“He can also be hired and fired at a moments notice. In this situation who does the owner have sympathy with, the put upon worker as worker or the impatient worker as consumer? More to the point where does the sympathy of the socialist lie?”

I have no interest in who the owner has sympathy with I’ll leave the poor hurt feelings of employers for you to concern yourself with. As for me as a socialist I would have sympathy with both workers, and argue that they should seek to resolve their problem in the most obvious way possible. They should by-pass the employer altogether, and set up a worker owned restaurant, where the worker could share some of the employer’s profit in higher wags and better conditions, and the other part of it, he could share with the worker as consumer, perhaps in the form of hiring more workers who would thereby not have to work so hard, and who would then provide a better service and in a better frame of mind to their comrade the worker consumer!!!!


“You’ve obviously never worked in the public sector!!!! I can take you to lots of Public Sector workers and former Public Sector workers like myself who would completely disagree with you. There is nothing more alienating and demoralising than to work under such conditions of bureaucracy, inefficiency and petty tyranny.”

You say,

“Absolute total bollocks.”

and then go on to repeat in other words exactly the argument you have just described as bollocks!!!!!!

“I know many people who work in the public sector and they tell me the increased measuring and monitoring and efficiency drives are extremely demoralising and all done with the aid of the latest technology.

You need only to look at the long term sickness statistics to see that! This is how state capitalists have responded to consumer gripes about the service, by making the workers life’s hell.”


Precisely the point I was making, so why do you want to protect those inefficient, bureaucratic State capitalist enterprises from criticism?????? Why do you want to shield from criticism those who run those inefficient, bureaucratic, state capitalist enterprises i.e. the state capitalist bureaucrats who are responsible for that inefficiency, who are responsible for all of that measuring and monitoring and petty tyranny????? Your argument makes no sense whatsoever!!!!

The criticism of that state capitalist enterprise you want to shield from criticism – which mirrors your reluctance to criticise other organisations such as Hamas, or individuals such as Galloway or Chavez out of some misplaced notion that such individuals or organisations are in some way progressive – is not a criticism of those who work in them, but a recognition of their plight, and of the need to replace those organisations with something that really is progressive, something that is in the ownership and under the control of precisely those workers!!!!!

“Once again you put yourself on the side of our class enemies – this time the State Capitalist bosses – out of some misplaced notion that just because these enterprises are run by the State they have something in common with Socialism!!!!”

“I am criticising the public sector and how it is applying technology to make workers life’s more intolerable! You are the one who wants to deem me a luddite for doing so!”

For the simple reason that it is not the technology, for God’s sake, which is making their life intolerable, but the fact that they work for a state capitalist institution!!!! The target is not the technology, but the state Capitalists, and to do otherwise IS LUDDISM!

“Despite the inefficient, bureaucratic, state capitalist nature of the NHS, the general standard of health of the majority of people is far higher than it was 30 years ago. In part that is due to better healthcare provision, and in part better living conditions.”

“Having your cake and eating it again!”

In what way????? The NHS is State capitalist, is bureaucratic, is inefficient. But, if something is very bad to begin with and you throw enough money at it, you will undoubtedly get some improvement. The question is, is the improvement as much as you should have got for that investment, how much more improvement would there have been were it not for the NHS being so bureaucratic and inefficient. If you compare the costs of socialised healthcare in Europe, for example, with that in Britain, and then look at the effectiveness of those systems compared to the NHS the difference is striking. Compared to say France or Holland or Spain or Germany the NHS is very inefficient. IN the last few years huge sums have been thrown at the NHS, and there has been some improvement as a result, but nothing like what should have resulted form the investment, much of which went into feeding the empire building of the top bureaucrats, into expensive prestige projects and hospital building when it would have been more effectively used in the less sexy, but more cost-effective primary care sector.

“Anyway, it’s a rather poverty stricken use of statistics. You could have developed this a little further. I mean certain WORKING CLASS neighbourhoods have a lot lower life expectancy than people from more affluent BOURGEOIS neighbourhoods, the incidence of drug and alcohol abuse is higher also. What an astonishing use of the statistics from someone on the left!”

Except, that your use of statistics here is completely fraudulent. No one doubts that huge inequalities exist between affluent and deprived areas in health care as in every other area you care to mention. But, comparing those statistics tells you absolutely nothing about whether any improvement in the condition of workers has improved or not, which can only be done by comparing the condition of workers at some previous time to now!!!! Again, your reluctance to deal with facts when they contradict your bigoted and ridiculous view of some kind of absolute impoverishment is amazing!

“The Household Survey shows a marked decline in the percentage of the family budget spent on food, and a corresponding increase in the amount spent on leisure, entertainment and so on. A look at the profusion of homes with several cars, of mobile phones, of digital cameras and videos, of iPods, of computer games, of designer clothing, of people spending time in restaurants, going to the cinema and other such pursuits, going on more exotic foreign holidays, and on and on, I would have thought shows PLENTY of evidence of that going on!”

“What relevance does this have to workers being readied for socialism?”

Absolutely everything!!!! How on earth do you expect workers to raise themselves up to become the ruling class unless their living standards are raised, so that they no longer have to grovel before their masters for crumbs, so that they have time to read, to think, to engage in discussion and political activity, to absorb culture and thereby to become truly class conscious??????

“Seems like a shitload of opium to me”

Oh I see, your vision of socialism as hell on Earth is made clear again. Socialism is not about workers having a decent standard of living, being educated and cultured, socialism is only possible in your world if the workers are deprived, depraved, cringeing masses there to do the bidding of the next Stalin or Mao, that way when those new leaders, God save us, like Galloway, ascend the throne and simply replace the old rulers as exploiters of the workers, the workers will just grin and bear it for the Glorious leader!

“and it doesn’t tell us about the workers making these products does it! Typical of your consumerist bias!”

And you don’t think that those workers producing those goods are also the ones consuming them????? Who are these workers who in your world only work but don’t consume, who only have an interest in what they do at work and not in their real lives outside that? But, then its no wonder you have that vision, because it pretty much was the life that workers had in your vision of socialism in the USSR, the vision of your friend Galloway, in which workers work and do as they are told by the Glorious Leader, who couldn’t as he told us possibly live on a salary of less than £150,000 a year, and put up with having to buy shit products when they can get them, while the Glorious Leader lives in luxury!

“Hold on, you’ve just told us that you were not a Luddite, now you are telling us that you DO want to oppose it!”

“No, I am arguing that when applied under capitalism, technology tends to be an aid to extend work and intensify it. I am not arguing against technology but against capitalism. And until we are looking at those socialist news channels, this will continue. Your argument about technology implies that this technology has been positive without the need for socialism.”

But, you have not argued against Capitalism you have argued against technology!!!!! You can’t say I’m not opposed to technology as long as its under socialism, because we don’t have Socialism. So the question is what is your attitude to technology here and now, and you have made your point absolutely clearly you oppose it because you argue it is used by Capital to make workers’ lives worse! And that my friend is Luddism. It is precisely the argument that the Luddites and Saboteurs used when they broke the machines, and socialists have always opposed it as reactionary. But, I’m not surprised you argue that now, because as I’ve pointed out repeatedly whatever you may think you are, you are no socialist, and your politics are consistently reactionary.

And yes, my argument is that this technology has been progressive. It has raised workers productivity to unheard of levels and thereby raised the living standards of workers to unheard of levels. It has meant that changes in dangerous working conditions have been either replaced by machines, or else have enabled Capital to live with health and Safety and Environmental controls that mitigate some of the worst effects of the industrial process, they have enabled workers to reduce their working-time, and to enjoy better healthcare, and living conditions with a subsequent improvement in their lifespan. Yes, I would say that technology has been hugely progressive DESPITE the limitations of Capitalism, and mankind should be proud of its achievements in that regard, proud that we continue to raise ourselves up out of the primordial slime from which we came onwards and upwards to the socialist future.

“Without the basic bourgeois democratic freedom TO stand up and make your voice heard you couldn’t do it!!!!”

“Demos occurred before the bourgeois decided to control them. This happened in Tsarist Russia and royalist France.”

And when they did they got massacred, imprisoned and deported!!!! Moreover, who do you think it was who led those demonstrations in Royalist France in particular, but also in part in Tsarist Russia????? It was that very bourgeoisie whose freedoms you decry. That was why that bourgeoisie had on its banner first and foremost the word “Liberte”, alongside “Fraternite” and “Egalite”!!!!!

And, what do you think would have been the response back then to a demonstrator being killed. Would the press have been full of stories setting out how that death might have happened at the hands of the forces of the State, as is happening now in Britain over the death of the G20 protester, even by Murdoch’s media. No, of course it wouldn’t, anymore than it would in your mentors society in Stalin’s Russia, or today in Iran, or Gaza. Why not, because in order to do that effectively you have to have the basic bourgeois democratic right of freedom of the press, another one of those freedoms you would give up to meet the needs of your reactionary politics, and the reactionary politicians you fawn to.

“People don’t demonstrate because they are free to do so. It isn’t about right but about necessity. So your point here is utterly nonsensical.”

No, its your argument that is nonsensical. If people can only demonstrate when they are forced to then that is no freedom, no right at all. And if they can only demonstrate under those conditions then the prospects of them undertaking such demonstrations are that much more reduced. The likelihood of those demonstrations being successful even more reduced, and the chances of being locked up, killed, exiled etc. that much greater. It is nonsensical to suggest then that not having the Right to demonstrate is irrelevant. When at the end of the 18th century Trade Unions were made illegal, it did not prevent workers from combining, they did it underground, but was it then irrelevant to demand the basic bourgeois freedom of the right to organise????? Of course, not, because ask the workers from Eastern Europe, or of China or of Cuba, or of Iran if the legal right to organise free, independent Trade Unions of their own would be irrelevant!!!! Of course, you stand on the opposite side of that divide because as a reactionary you stand not with those workers but with their oppressors, the Stalin’s, the Mao’s, the Ahmedinejad’s, the Castro’s and so on.

“Two hundred years ago you didn’t have that right in Britain, and only a decade before that nor the right to belong to a Trade Union. It was only because socialists, workers and democrats fought for those rights along with others as part of the bourgeois revolution that you can take them for granted today. Without that, not only would you have faced being beaten up, but you’d have faced being shot, mowed down by cavalry as happened in the Peterloo massacre, and locked up and the key thrown away!!!! Those are the bourgeois freedoms you are so willing to give up, the freedoms that your friends the Ayatollahs and clerical-fascists and various other reactionary demagogues you associate with TODAY deny to their workers and people!!!!”

“I am the one defending the protests not arguing against them!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

You say that as though I were arguing for such demonstrations to be banned in the same way your friends in Iran, or in Gaza would ban such demonstrations!!!! That, of course is ridiculous. The difference between us is that I defend that basic bourgeois democratic right to protest here, and in Iran and elsewhere, whereas you do not. In fact, you don’t even defend the right of free speech, or free movement here when it is infringed by the bourgeois state!

I absolutely defend the right of people to protest everywhere. My criticism of these protests is not that people should not have that right, but the very opposite the criticism is that the protests were not BIG ENOUGH, not effective, and were so because of the inadequate politics behind them, the lack of any kind of clear working class programme, and the lack of any effective campaigning and mobilisation of the working class that could have achieved those aims!!!! My objection as with the Bolsheviks arguments against the Anarchists, or of revolutionaries arguments against people like the Baader-Meinhof gang, Red brigades etc during the 1970’s is precisely that what these movements amount to is frustrated middle class elements seeking to substitute their own acts of bourgeois individualism – however worthy and brave – for the actions of the working class! In so doing, they can often work against rather than for the task of mobilising the workers on an adequate basis.

“They have an important part to play in any society where class divisions exist, however the state reacts to them. When the racist bourgeois South Africans massacred ANC supporters that oppression didn’t stop protests or make them ineffective.”

It certainly didn’t make them MORE effective, easier to organise either!!! Do you think the South African workers would have PREFERRED to have the legal right to have protested, or do you think such a right would be pointless. Did the right to belong to a Trade Union make it easier for black workers to organise or not???

Workers in Iran still demonstrate against Ahmedinejad, despite the vicious oppression and murders his regime carried out against them, despite their leaders being locked up in gaol and deprived of basic humanitarian care. What a pity you side with Ahmedinejad, and not with those workers.

“In Iran, or in Gaza you have no such right, and you will face being shot at or thrown off the top of a building if you do.”

“How typical of you to give the example of Hamas when looking at Palestinians demonstrating. The fact is most Palestinians demonstrating are killed by Israeli troops, acting on behalf of the BOURGEOIS Israeli state!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
And how typical of you that you spring to the defence of the bourgeois reactionaries of Hamas, rather than to the defence of the workers oppressed, and murdered by them!!!!! But, of course, its no surprise its been characteristic of your reactionary politics throughout that continually puts you on the other side of the class barricades to the working class in support of some group or other of bourgeois reactionaries. And again that is no wonder because it is precisely the method of your mentors the Stalinists. It was their method too. Faced with criticism of the Glorious leader and the reactionary bureaucracy that oppressed and exploited the workers, they too responded by accusing all those leaders of the revolution who tried to defend the ideals of the revolution and of Marxism, of being traitors, of being in the same camp as the imperialists and so on, just as you do now. It was the basis on which those Stalinist reactionaries destroyed the revolution, and murdered all the real revolutionaries and leaders of the revolution, and then millions of Russian workers and peasants too. That is the reactionary camp to which you clearly belong.

Fortunately, with the demise of the Stalinist bureaucracy in Eastern Europe its sycophants like you ar left gasping for air trying to latch on to any other reactionary in a position of power be it, Ahmedinejad or Castro, like a fish finding itself on dry land. The last thing socialists should do is let people like you get back into the water once more to pollute it with your reactionary ideas. In fact, the best thing is a sturdy hammer of Marxist polemic to put people like you out of the working class’s misery.

The reason I referred to Hamas was precisely because it demonstrates that difference – the fact that I oppose both the bourgeois Israeli State, AND the reactionaries of HAMAS in their attacks on Palestinian workers, whereas once again you line up with our class enemies against the workers.

”In fact the same can be said of the bourgeois reaction to demonstrators in Iraq. But your rose tinted bourgeois glasses fail to see this. Unlike Marx, who recognised the true nature of the bourgeois, you see only inalienable rights and freedoms.”

What on Earth are you talking about? This makes no sense. What bourgeois reaction to demonstrations in Iraq, which demonstrations, demonstrations by who? As far as I am aware generally even bourgeois democrats SUPPORT the right of people in Iraq to demonstrate. The main people opposing demonstrations by workers, women, gays etc. in Iraq are the very clerical-fascist groups YOU support! Its those people who are attacking and murdering Trade Unionists, socialists, women, gays etc.

And its precisely because of that, and because of attempts by the State to limit even bourgeois freedoms that I DO NOT see those rights and freedoms as being inalienable!!!! Its precisely because of that I recognise the need for workers to defend them by class struggle, as opposed to you who would give them up in order to uphold the rights and privileges of some reactionary group or other.

“What better proof of the statement could there be in the examples you choose, bourgeois demagogues both!!!! The first tries to control the Venezuelan workers like a Stalin or a Bonaparte, the State over which he presides sacks and locks up militant Trade Unionists, its police goons physically assault strikers and so on, and this is your role model????? The other when he isn’t making money prostituting himself in pink tights, prostitutes himself in front of the Butcher of Baghdad, who murdered workers and socialists by the town full at a time, a man who tells us that he couldn’t possibly survive on less than £150,000 a year, and who represents all that is vile and reactionary in the modern world. What a choice for your second role model, wholly fitting for your own vile, reactionary politics.”

“Am I the only socialist to praise and defend Chavez? Are those that do, not socialists? Do you agree that he is a progressive step forward from what went before??”

Yes, I agree that Chavez is a step forward from what went before, yes to the extent that he undertakes progressive acts socialists should support those acts. But supporting those acts does not mean supporting Chavez himself or his bourgeois nationalist politics, especially those aspects of his politics which involve trying to incorporate the workers movement into a Corporatist State, and thereby remove the independence of the working class from the bourgeois state. It certainly does not mean supporting those reactionary acts of the bourgeois State over which Chavez presides when it physically attacks the workers on strike, sacks their militants or in fact puts them in gaol!!!! Once again we see you on ht opposite side of the class barricades to the workers, supporting some bourgeois politician simply on the back of their radical bourgeois nationalist politics.

As for are you the only socialist to praise and defend Chavez I’d have to say that apart from a few assorted Stalinist sects then largely yes. The majority of the organised left would criticise Chavez in similar terms to those I have used, and if you actually knew anything about Left politics you’d be aware of that. The main differences on the Left in regard of Chavez is in fact whether to describe him and his regime as Bonapartist, or some form of Left Social Democracy.

“Galloway went on Big Brother to connect with young people, now I agree there are better ways to do this but your statement is hysterical nonsense.”

Total bollocks. Galloway went on to Big Brother because he is an attention seeking demagogue, who saw yet another opportunity to grab some limelight, and thereby once again to fill his pockets from the associated TV appearances, and newspaper stories. Everyone on the Left knows, and most say this about Galloway, and I find it amazing that you try to defend his reactionary politics as being in anyway Left-wing. You described him as being the most Left-wing politician in Britain!!! Yet, when real left-wing politicians such as John McDonnell or Jeremy Corbyn were busy doing their job speaking up for the working class, voting against anti-working class measures being put forward in Parliament by Blair’s Government, Galloway was nowhere to be seen. His attendance and voting record on all these anti-working class measures was appalling, and according to a number or reports on several occasions the reasons he wasn’t in Parliament to oppose them was because he was busy somewhere once again filling his pockets. After all, your most Left-wing of politicians has told us that he couldn’t possibly live on less than £150,000 a year!

“There are things about him I don’t like but I recognise that he is a genuine socialist and his record proves it.”

What record???? His record of even failing to be in Parliament to oppose the anti-working class measures put forward by Brown and Blair, his record of prostituting himself in front of Saddam Hussein who butchered workers by the thousand, his reactionary politics in respect of women and homosexuals? Exactly what record is it that you want to tell us is left-wing or socialist in any of that?????

“To say he represents all that is vile and reactionary in the modern world shows how utterly depraved your Marxist fundamentalism is. More vile than Bush, more vile than Netanyahu, more vile than Nick Griffin. Let me repeat that, Boffy thinks George Galloway is more vile and reactionary than Nick Griffin!

PS I don’t look up to any of these people, but your hopeless prejudice assumes all their supporters do.”


I’d say your sycophancy demonstrated here shows that you DO look up to these people. I didn’t say that Galloway was worse than any of those people, but I’m certainly not going to go out of my way to say that he is any better. I don’t know outside a few old tankies who you think you are appealing to here, though, because my views of Galloway and his reactionary politics is after all pretty much the view of the entire Left. Its an indication of not just how little of the basic principles of socialism you understand, but even how much of current left politics in Britain you aware of. That’s why you ended up appealing to the politics of the AWL over Israel, a group whose actual politics are diametrically opposed to you on that issue!!!!

And just to save my time on listing further the reactionary nature of Galloway’s politics let me just refer you to the dossier of documents they have produced on him.

Workers Liberty on Galloway

I only use that because of ease of access, you could find similar articles against him throughout the Left press.

Even Galloway’s erstwhile allies in RESPECT – a misnamed organisation if ever there was one – the SWP, were forced eventually to break with him because of his reactionary politics. Now the right-wing of the SWP responsible for that horrible abortion are paying the price, and what is Left of the reactionary, communalist organisation that was RESPECT is fortunately, collapsing rapidly. The air of working class politics is cleaner as a result.

You said,

“Yes, unlike you I am prepared to defend those freedoms which our forefathers gave their lives to achieve, and which you would give up so readily for a place at the side of your reactionary demigods”

“Very Churchilian or is it Bushilian. Anyway, so you are no longer saying these are bourgeois freedoms but freedoms that have to be constantly battled for. So instead of criticising people exercising these hard won freedoms, you should praise them for honouring the struggles of the past!”
Total bollocks. Of course, they are bourgeois freedoms they are the basic freedoms fought for by bourgeois society as against feudal absolutism. As such they are progressive, they are beneficial to workers as well as the bourgeoisie that introduced them for its own interests. THAT, is why socialists defend them doggedly through class struggle, its why they fight or them where they are lacking for example in Iran, or Gaza or previously in South Africa, not because we think they are adequate, but because they help the working class to organise and defend itself, and thereby to move forward!

I did not criticise people for exercising that right, I criticised the inadequate basis on which it was being exercised, criticised the fact that it was not being exercised ENOUGH.

Boffy said...

The link to the list of AWL posts on Galloway doesn't seem to work. This link to one post that pretty much sums it up should.

Galloways Vile politics .

A simple search on their site for Galloway will bring up a very long list of similar articles.

Boffy said...

Charlie,

I now have some time to look at the stuff you mentioned on "Companies and Ownership". Actually, I have quite a bit of old stuff on this from when I was at University. The argument that Public Companies, because of the diffusion of ownership through "shareholder democracy" do not fit into the model of class ownership is not new.

In fact, it is the basis of the thesis of the "Managerial Revolution" put forward by James Burnham in the 1930's, and from which arose the crass subjectivist notions of "bureaucratic Collectivism". Those ideas were also taken up by the Right, by Hayek and so on to show how the growing involvement of the State, alongside the development of Monopoly businesses led to totalitarian systems, and udnermined freedom - Hayek is keen to differentiate between "Freedom" and "Democracy" however, arguing that democracy can lead to less freedom than a "Benevolent despot", by which of course he means the freedom of the rich!

The 1960's saw a revival of these ideas in the form of the "Post-Capitalist Thesis" put forward by Ralph Dahrendorf and others. It argued that Companies were now run by Managers and technocrats who had their own private interests etc. The material conditions leading to those ideas at the time was clealy the "Technology Revolution" of the 60's, and the rise of meritocratic and technicist ideas.

However, Robin Blackburn et al did a thorough job of trashing these notions, both showing that the big companies continued to be controlled often by a single family - because you really only need around 30% of the shares to exercise control - and also showed that in fact, the professional managers under mdoern Capitalism are forced by the laws of accumulation to adhere to the classic Marxian cocnepts of profit maximisation than is the individual Capitalist - because failure ot do so means the firmn might be taken over etc. a threat the private capitalist owner does not face.

The basic argument is in Blackburn's reader "Ideology in Social Science", which has a number of good articles on these themes. The argument in relation to Pension Funds is an extension of that. The Pension Funds run by Managers have to maxiise returns, so they are forced to act in their share ownership fucntion to achieve that. Otherwise Trustees might switch to a different Manager.

I think there are nuances to the argument. Clearly, examples such as Enron, TYCO and so on show that the Managers do have some leeway, and can act in their own private interests. But, particularly in the US the consequences of that ar quite clear - you may at the least get sent to gaol! The bourgeoisie might be prepared to accept some losses to corrupt behaviour, which are for it the faux frais of production, but it will still demonstrate that it is boss, that the managers however highly paid remain its servants.

I'll try to look out some of the old stuff, and may reproduce it here as a blog. Hope that helps as a starter.

BCFG said...

What is surreal is how you misrepresent my arguments. This is why I will be tediously repeating my comments from the previous post, though this tactic will not deter me. It is also surreal to be arguing with a socialist who is telling me how great capitalism is!

I said,

“World trade doesn’t have to be like this does it??? Would it not appear differently under socialism??? I am criticising how things work under capitalism and arguing things would be better under socialism!!!”

then you said,

”So, let’s get this right you argue that you are not against world trade, because “that would be insane”, but then say that you are not opposed to world trade under socialism only in its present Capitalist form!!!!!! So, in other words here and now, under Capitalism, which is what we have to deal with, because we do not have socialism YOU ARE AGAINST WORLD TRADE!!!!”

How can anyone living on planet Earth come to that conclusion? I am not saying abolish world trade but criticising it in it’s current form in the context of saying under socialism world trade would function differently, i.e. be based on need, not profit, on co-operation not exploitation. If you think world trade would be no different under socialism then why bother with socialism at all, why be a socialist?????

The following extract from an article called “G20: Capitalism has failed” on the Marxists.com website, in stark contrast to your analysis, shows that not all the left describe the world in your way,

“Capitalism is incapable of solving the problems of ordinary working people at the best of times. A billion people, almost a sixth of the world’s population, have to make do on a dollar a day. They are in absolute poverty. Around 2.6 billion, nearly half of us, have to survive on less than $2 per day. The poor spend 50-80% of their income on food just to keep body and soul together. Capitalism offers no hope for these people.
At the same time capitalism is poisoning the planet with its pollution and wilful misuse and guzzling of natural resources. Through climate change accelerated by carbon emissions, it even threatens the future existence of humans on earth. Basic resources such as water are becoming unaffordable and unavailable to the world’s poorest. 17% lack clean drinking water and 37% lack water for hygiene. 4,700 die every day because they have no access to clean water, and they are mainly children under the age of 5.
The G20 was formed out of the G7, whose meeting in 1999 marked the beginning of the anti globalisation movement. Really the anti-globalisation movement was a movement against the symptoms of capitalism. It was a protest about what capitalism is doing to the planet, both to its people and to the earth as our home. We must set as our aim the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by socialism, planned production for social use, not private profit.
The world is more than ever dominated by large scale capitalist industry and large scale capitalist agriculture. Marx summed it all up when he said in Capital, “Large scale industry...lays waste and ruins labour power and thus the natural power of man, whereas industrially pursued large scale agriculture does the same to the natural power of the soil.”
Capitalism has failed. It offers humanity nothing but hardship and insecurity. It is high time we got rid of it. “


You said,

“The reality of your position as previously set out is that you would be opposed to it, precisely because you can only see such technology under Capitalism as detrimental to the worker by increasing his exploitation. That is clear from what you go on to say.”

Clear to anyone with no sense of reality. Are you saying you think my position is that we should go back to horse and cart? Can you not critique the application of technology; is the new left not allowed to ask questions anymore??

You said,

“You fail to recognise that the task is not to reject the technology because it is Capitalist technology, but to accept the technology and reject and struggle against the Capitalist use of it!”

Is this some kind of perverted joke? My whole point is to accept the technology and reject and struggle against the Capitalist use of it. I am simply arguing the APPLICATION of technology will work better under socialism: you can only make that argument if you point out the flaws under capitalism!!


You said,

“Given the way you simply follow on behind whoever is this year’s flavour of radical from reactionary clerics, to bourgeois demagogues such as Galloway and Chavez that is not surprising, because for you socialism is obviously that top down, Stalinist bureaucratic model whereby some figure from on high leads the way, and the masses function is merely to follow on, do as they are told, ask no questions and be good foot-soldiers!”

More bullshit. I agree that socialism must come from the bottom up but I, as a worker, reserve the right to critique the god damn system I live under. And when someone like Chavez gets elected I see this as a positive sign for socialism that the neo liberal consensus is beginning to weaken. This doesn’t mean I have to start holding up pictures of the Dear Leader, does it.
You offer no vision of what the future may be like but then you tell us to work within the workplace to facilitate your co-op movement. But what do we say, capitalism is great, look at all it has given you.

You said,

“As for the atomic bomb I would hope that a socialist society would have developed such technology. We might need it to protect the planet against comets. Its possible that such technology might even be necessary for large-scale reshaping and restructuring of the planet. Who knows. Its not the technology I’m afraid of, its who controls it.”

Using Atomic bombs to reshape the planet, more proof of your lunacy!
Anyway, Atomic bombs were not invented to protect the planet! The socialist society you imagine here would be one riven by nationalist tensions!

You said in relation to my restaurant example,

“Hold on, why “thus worked off his feet”, and so on”

Maybe I watch too many cookery programmes on TV but this seems the reality of modern day kitchens.

You continued,

“The worker is rushed off his feet not because of the fairly reasonable demands of the consumer, but because of the UNREASONABLE demands of the Capitalist employer!!!! Once again we see you on the wrong side of the class divide. You let the employer off the hook, and blame the worker as consumer for other workers plight.”

No I am blaming the profit motive and the capitalist system!! I recognise that blaming the owner or consumer is nonsensical because this implies that if only the owner were less miserly and more reasonable then there would be no need for socialism and capitalism would solve its own problems!!! Do you blame the current financial crisis on greedy bankers?

All I am trying to do is look at the problem of worker as worker and worker as consumer and how this plays out under capitalism. Now I would accept that this equation would have to be considered even in a socialist system and it seems like an important question to me, because it asks what the priorities of a society are. This balance between worker and consumer may be dictated by the level of technological advancement or would worker control over the means of production change this balance?


You said,

“Precisely the point I was making, so why do you want to protect those inefficient, bureaucratic State capitalist enterprises from criticism??????”

This whole public sector argument is based on crossed wires. I am arguing that there is an increasing drive politically to make the public sector more “efficient” than in the past, the argument put forward by the political parties and you is that there was great waste and inefficiency in the public sector. The state capitalists are responding to the criticism of people like you by applying all modern management techniques/technology and making workers increasingly feel overworked and underpaid. Many workers, such as cleaners have been moved out of the public sector and seen their pay and conditions deteriorate but you don’t see any of this because all you concentrate on is the consumers of public services and not the workers in those organisations.


I said on the technology issue within the public sector,

“I am criticising the public sector and how it is applying technology to make workers life’s more intolerable! You are the one who wants to deem me a luddite for doing so!”

You responded,

“For the simple reason that it is not the technology, for God’s sake, which is making their life intolerable, but the fact that they work for a state capitalist institution!!!! The target is not the technology, but the state Capitalists, and to do otherwise IS LUDDISM!”

Once again I am arguing how this technology is applied under capitalism (see my comment above –APPLYING technology), something you utterly fail and refuse to do!! You indulge in intellectual Ludditism by refusing to ask questions.

You said,

“But, comparing those statistics tells you absolutely nothing about whether any improvement in the condition of workers has improved or not, which can only be done by comparing the condition of workers at some previous time to now!!!! Again, your reluctance to deal with facts when they contradict your bigoted and ridiculous view of some kind of absolute impoverishment is amazing!”

If you want to analyse the condition of the working class then please don’t give me the stats for overall population but please compare like with like.
This means going behind the statistics to a large degree. Your version of the facts is truly amazing, no amazingly amazing!

You said,

“Absolutely everything!!!! How on earth do you expect workers to raise themselves up to become the ruling class unless their living standards are raised, so that they no longer have to grovel before their masters for crumbs, so that they have time to read, to think, to engage in discussion and political activity, to absorb culture and thereby to become truly class conscious??????”

Do you have no critical view of consumerism at all? No analysis of the negative side and what that may mean for working class consciousness. If you think all this is happening under capitalism why even bother to argue for socialism?

If people buy these consumer goods on credit, then the burden of debt can mean that workers are less likely to strike etc. I would say they still do grovel to their masters to some extent. The fact that you miss out this sort of analysis is staggering.
On reading, would technology not make reading become more moribund? I am only raising this as a possibility.

You further said,

“Oh I see, your vision of socialism as hell on Earth is made clear again. Socialism is not about workers having a decent standard of living, being educated and cultured, socialism is only possible in your world if the workers are deprived, depraved, cringeing masses there to do the bidding of the next Stalin or Mao, that way when those new leaders, God save us, like Galloway, ascend the throne and simply replace the old rulers as exploiters of the workers, the workers will just grin and bear it for the Glorious leader!”

You take an amazing, if not uncharacteristic, leap here. I simply question how all these consumer goods readies us for socialism and point out they could have the opposite affect and you extend it to a call for all consumer goods to be banned! You obviously don’t believe in the axiom, question everything.


You said,

“And yes, my argument is that this technology has been progressive. It has raised workers productivity to unheard of levels and thereby raised the living standards of workers to unheard of levels. It has meant that changes in dangerous working conditions have been either replaced by machines, or else have enabled Capital to live with health and Safety and Environmental controls that mitigate some of the worst effects of the industrial process, they have enabled workers to reduce their working-time, and to enjoy better healthcare, and living conditions with a subsequent improvement in their lifespan. Yes, I would say that technology has been hugely progressive DESPITE the limitations of Capitalism, and mankind should be proud of its achievements in that regard, proud that we continue to raise ourselves up out of the primordial slime from which we came onwards and upwards to the socialist future.”

Fine and you make some fair points but it’s a rather one sided picture isn’t it? For a start are you talking about the whole world here or just England? I mean are mine workers in say Colombia today better off than British mine workers 20 years ago?
Your last sentence seems to be bordering on crude determinism!


On the Demos, let’s just run through this argument again,

You said,

“Without the basic bourgeois democratic freedom TO stand up and make your voice heard you couldn’t do it!!!!”

then I responded with,

“People don’t demonstrate because they are free to do so. It isn’t about right but about necessity. So your point here is utterly nonsensical.”

“Demos occurred before the bourgeois decided to control them. This happened in Tsarist Russia and royalist France. People don’t demonstrate because they are free to do so. It isn’t about right but about necessity. So your point here is utterly nonsensical”

and you said,

“No, its your argument that is nonsensical. If people can only demonstrate when they are forced to then that is no freedom, no right at all.”

Clearly you stated that without these bourgeois freedoms to demonstrate you couldn’t do it, but that is preposterous and nonsensical. Demonstrating isn’t some kind of right of rights of passage but a response to some injustice, people can only ever be forced to demonstrate. It’s not like a day out in the country!

you said,

“And how typical of you that you spring to the defence of the bourgeois reactionaries of Hamas, rather than to the defence of the workers oppressed, and murdered by them”

It’s telling you failed to mention how the bourgeois Israeli state treats Palestinian demonstrators. I think it reasonable on my part to give examples of the bourgeois massacring protesters seen as you are calling them bourgeois freedoms and rights!

As an aside to that, did you see the large demos in Baghdad protesting against American imperialism and privatisation? A demo organised by clerical fascists. How do you view this development?

you said,

“What on Earth are you talking about? This makes no sense. What bourgeois reaction to demonstrations in Iraq, which demonstrations, demonstrations by who? As far as I am aware generally even bourgeois democrats SUPPORT the right of people in Iraq to demonstrate.”

Early after the “liberation” and just before the civilising mission got into full swing 12 Iraqi demonstrators were killed by US troops, acting on behalf of US bourgeois imperialism. The history of the bourgeois is filled with such instances, remember bloody Sunday?
However, I fully understand why these facts are being filtered out of your message to the workers. You have abandoned socialism, you have retreated into a meaningless fantasy world where socialism and capitalism mean the same thing, and the failure of the Soviet Union has turned you into a coward. You explain it all by the failure of Stalin and his personality but you ignore all the economic arguments, the problems with planning and the realities of world power.

You said,

“And its precisely because of that, and because of attempts by the State to limit even bourgeois freedoms that I DO NOT see those rights and freedoms as being inalienable!!!!”

Everything you say tells a different story. You attach these rights to the bourgeois because of the struggles of the past but as these rights are whittled away by the struggles of the present you don’t remove this attachment, instead you blame the state, and therefore you see these as inalienable BOURGEOIS rights, forever attached to bourgeois banners!!


You said in relation to Chavez,

“Once again we see you on the opposite side of the class barricades to the workers, supporting some bourgeois politician simply on the back of their radical bourgeois nationalist politics.”

There are no barricades in your socialism, you have clearly ditched all radicalism, and you have retreated like a frightened mouse to abstract ideas in an abstract world.

You continued,

“The main differences on the Left in regard of Chavez is in fact whether to describe him and his regime as Bonapartist, or some form of Left Social Democracy.”

Fundamentalist labels once again. How about looking at who benefits from his policies and judging him in that way.

On Galloway, your mind is so poisoned with hatred that a rational debate is impossible. I mean you can’t make any distinction between him and Nick Griffin. This new look left certainly has some interesting positions.

TonyM said...

Have you read the Philosophical Crisis of Marxism by Phil Sharpe?

Very relevant to this debate.

Boffy said...

“It is also surreal to be arguing with a socialist who is telling me how great capitalism is!”

You’d have hated arguing with Marx, Engels or Lenin then!!!

“How can anyone living on planet Earth come to that conclusion? I am not saying abolish world trade but criticising it in it’s current form”

Because you repeat it again here!!! We can only deal with your attitude to trade as that trade exists here and now, not how that trade might be in the future. As it is now, trade is trade conducted on the basis of Capitalism. So the simple question to you is do you oppose world trade here and now? Yes or No?

“the context of saying under socialism world trade would function differently, i.e. be based on need, not profit, on co-operation not exploitation. If you think world trade would be no different under socialism then why bother with socialism at all, why be a socialist?????”

This is Proudhonist utopianism. Firstly, of course under socialism in any country workers would operate under the basis of Co-operation. But, in the first phase of socialism it will not be possible to get rid of market relations. That is only possible through a long process of learning first how to control the market, and then to gradually replace it with planned socialist relations. The main initial gain for workers from socialism – to answer your question “why bother with socialism at all” – will be not that profit is abolished, nor that “exploitation” is abolished, but that the workers themselves and not the Capitalists will own the means of production, and so the profit will be theirs to dispose of, and the “exploitation” will amount to the workers controlling how their own labour is exploited. But, as Marx explains in the Critique of the Gotha Programme, and as Lenin explains in “State and Revolution” basing himself on Marx’s writings there short of full Communism – which Marx himself said he didn’t even know whether it was possible – when society WOULD proceed on the basis of “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need” – then bourgeois Right would continue to operate, choices would have to be made, and the “exploitation” of labour meaning the need for workers to produce more than they consume would itself have to continue. As I said, to believe otherwise is not socialism, not Marxism certainly, but Proudhonist petit-bourgeois utopianism.

“The following extract from an article called “G20: Capitalism has failed” on the Marxists.com website, in stark contrast to your analysis, shows that not all the left describe the world in your way,

“Capitalism is incapable of solving the problems of ordinary working people at the best of times. A billion people, almost a sixth of the world’s population, have to make do on a dollar a day. They are in absolute poverty. Around 2.6 billion, nearly half of us, have to survive on less than $2 per day. The poor spend 50-80% of their income on food just to keep body and soul together. Capitalism offers no hope for these people.”


This is not Marxism its what Marx called petit-bourgeois socialism when he criticised Sismondi for coming out with this kind of stuff. Its what Lenin described as “Economic Romanticism”, following on from Marx when the same kind of nonsense was put out by the Narodniks. My answer is the same as that which Lenin gave to the Narodniks, the problem for these people “is not Capitalism, but not enough Capitalism”. (See Lenin’s many writings on this in Vols 1 to IV of his Collected Writings”.

Or his quote,

“As to whether the development of Capitalism in Russia is slow or rapid, it all depends on what you compare this development with. If we compare the pre-capitalist epoch in Russia with the capitalist (and that is the comparison of the situation which is needed so as to arrive at a correct solution of the problem) the development of social economy under Capitalism must be considered extremely rapid. If, however, we compare the present rapidity of development with that which could be achieved with the modern level of technique and culture as it is in general, the present rate of development of capitalism must be considered slow.”
“The Development of Capitalism in Russia” p659
Just look at many of the people in Asian countries who 30 or 40 years ago were also in similarly dire conditions. Their condition like the condition of those referred to above was a result of the lack of modernisation, and industrialisation of their economies i.e. the fact that they were in essence pre-capitalist. In the space of 30 years Capitalist development has lifted millions of them out of that poverty. As Lenin said, for them the problem was not Capitalism, but NOT ENOUGH Capitalism. These ideas you reproduce have nothing to do with socialism, certainly not Marxism they reflect only the extent to which the Labour Movement and sections who call themselves Marxist have become infected with petit-bourgeois nationalism and third Worldism. That is not to say that socialism could not develop the productive forces even faster even more efficiently, as Lenin argues above, that is why we argue for socialism.

“At the same time capitalism is poisoning the planet with its pollution and wilful misuse and guzzling of natural resources. Through climate change accelerated by carbon emissions, it even threatens the future existence of humans on earth. Basic resources such as water are becoming unaffordable and unavailable to the world’s poorest. 17% lack clean drinking water and 37% lack water for hygiene. 4,700 die every day because they have no access to clean water, and they are mainly children under the age of 5.”

More petit-bourgeois romanticism and Third Worldism.

In Britain before the Industrial Revolution all of the above kinds of problems were rife. It was the development that Capitalism brought that enabled the solution to those problems as again Marx and Lenin point out. When I was a kid the houses were black, the sky was full of sulphur from the local gas works, and the rivers were polluted. Today as a result of Capitalist economic development the air is much cleaner, and the pollution in the rivers has been removed with fish swimming there that were not seen in a hundred years. Medical developments mean that diseases that once killed millions have now been eradicated not just here, but throughout the world. And in fact, that process of development has in the last century speeded up phenomenally. Like Marx and Lenin I have no need to deny these real achievements of Capitalist development to argue for Socialism.

“The G20 was formed out of the G7, whose meeting in 1999 marked the beginning of the anti globalisation movement. Really the anti-globalisation movement was a movement against the symptoms of capitalism. It was a protest about what capitalism is doing to the planet, both to its people and to the earth as our home. We must set as our aim the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by socialism, planned production for social use, not private profit.”

The last part of that I absolutely agree with, but how on Earth you do that whilst at the same time arguing against “Globalisation” i.e. the very process that offers the possibility of industrialising those countries that do suffer from “Not Enough Capitalism”, the very process which by raising the division of labour to the kinds of heights needed to solve the world’s problems, God only knows. Once again it is petit-bourgeois romanticism, and reactionary Nationalism, not Marxism.

“The world is more than ever dominated by large scale capitalist industry and large scale capitalist agriculture. Marx summed it all up when he said in Capital, “Large scale industry...lays waste and ruins labour power and thus the natural power of man, whereas industrially pursued large scale agriculture does the same to the natural power of the soil.”

But, unlike you Marx was aware of the contradictory nature of Capital, so that alongside that process it also raised the power of the productive forces to unheard of heights. That is why alongside that process he was able to argue against the kind of Malthusianism you put forward here, and condemn it for the reactionary nonsense it was and is.

“Capitalism has failed. It offers humanity nothing but hardship and insecurity. It is high time we got rid of it.”

Total bollocks. Even in the developed economies Capitalism today continues to raise living standards. Socialism would raise them more, would organise production on a more rational basis, which is why Capitalism is reactionary vis a vis Socialism. But, in huge swathes of the world such as those you describe above, pre-capitalist societies in complete deprivation, Capitalism would be a wholly progressive step forward from their present condition, offering them a way out of those conditions, just as it lifted millions in the past out of those conditions. If we had a socialist society in a number of large developed economies we might be able to offer such people a way out that by passed Capitalism, and thereby avoided them suffering the negative aspects of that development. But, we don’t so the sooner they can enjoy Capitalist development the better. To the extent that globalisation is able to bring that about it fulfils an historically progressive function.

“Clear to anyone with no sense of reality. Are you saying you think my position is that we should go back to horse and cart? Can you not critique the application of technology; is the new left not allowed to ask questions anymore??”
No, not to go back to the horse and cart, but your position has been to argue against the introduction of technology on the basis that it would be used against workers!

“You fail to recognise that the task is not to reject the technology because it is Capitalist technology, but to accept the technology and reject and struggle against the Capitalist use of it!”

“Is this some kind of perverted joke? My whole point is to accept the technology and reject and struggle against the Capitalist use of it. I am simply arguing the APPLICATION of technology will work better under socialism: you can only make that argument if you point out the flaws under capitalism!!”

No that is not the position you have argued, which is why you replied to my argument about using technology agreements to do precisely that, that this wasn’t possible because we don’t have socialism!!!!

“Given the way you simply follow on behind whoever is this year’s flavour of radical from reactionary clerics, to bourgeois demagogues such as Galloway and Chavez that is not surprising, because for you socialism is obviously that top down, Stalinist bureaucratic model whereby some figure from on high leads the way, and the masses function is merely to follow on, do as they are told, ask no questions and be good foot-soldiers!”

“More bullshit. I agree that socialism must come from the bottom up but I, as a worker, reserve the right to critique the god damn system I live under.”

No one is challenging your right to criticise the system. What I am challenging is the fact that your whole perspective is based around picking some demagogue or other or some supposed radical and seeing them as the saviour to whom we must all bow down.

“And when someone like Chavez gets elected I see this as a positive sign for socialism that the neo liberal consensus is beginning to weaken. This doesn’t mean I have to start holding up pictures of the Dear Leader, does it.”

But, the neo-Liberal consensus could be weakening in favour of something worse!!!! Herein lies precisely the problem of your approach. That Neo-Liberal consensus you speak of picks out some bogeyman or other be it Chavez, or Ahmedinejad, and immediately your response is, “Ah that must be someone I support because the neo-Liberals oppose him”!!!!! And that is a thoroughly crass, mindless basis on which to base any kind of politics. In fact, what you do is you allow that neo-Liberal consensus to DETERMINE your politics, because it simply means that every where it puts a negative sign you simply put a positive sign, you proceed on the bais of my enemy’s enemy is my friend, when frequently you should decide to put an even bigger negative against some of these people, to recognise them as even bigger enemies.

And, unfortunately, as anyone can see from your writings here, your sycophantic approach to all these assorted reactionaries is hard to distinguish from you simply holding pictures up of them like some icon.

“You offer no vision of what the future may be like but then you tell us to work within the workplace to facilitate your co-op movement. But what do we say, capitalism is great, look at all it has given you.”

Of course, that is what I say, I am a Marxist, and that is what Marxism says. It says that every development of society builds on the achievements of the society that went before it. It does not seek to demean those achievements as you and the petit-bourgeois moralists do, but to take everything that was good from it, to build upon it and thereby develop society. That is why the co-operative nature of socialised Labour that Capitalism creates DOES form the basis the very foundation of what Socialism is!!!! And I do offer a vision of the future based precisely on that Co-operation, whereas you can only provide us with a vision of despair and hopelessness, a vision that the majority of workers themselves would reject.

“Using Atomic bombs to reshape the planet, more proof of your lunacy!”

Why, exactly?

“Anyway, Atomic bombs were not invented to protect the planet!”

This shows your Luddism yet again, despite your attempts to change what your argument has been above. The point is that it does not matter what atomic bombs WERE invented for, you said a socialist society wouldn’t have invented them, and I say that it might well, because they might well have a great use for such a society.

“The socialist society you imagine here would be one riven by nationalist tensions!”

On what basis do you arrive at this conclusion????? In fact, its you that from the beginning has argued in Nationalistic terms!!!

“Hold on, why “thus worked off his feet”,

“Maybe I watch too many cookery programmes on TV but this seems the reality of modern day kitchens.”

Maybe, you do, but that doesn’t change the fact that you sought to place the blame for this on the consumer and not the Capitalist who was exploiting the worker!!!!

“The worker is rushed off his feet not because of the fairly reasonable demands of the consumer, but because of the UNREASONABLE demands of the Capitalist employer!!!! Once again we see you on the wrong side of the class divide. You let the employer off the hook, and blame the worker as consumer for other workers plight.”

“No I am blaming the profit motive and the capitalist system!! “

But, you clearly were not, you were arguing the case that the interests of consumers and workers are antagonistic to each other in response to my point that workers as workers cannot be separated from being workers as consumers!!!!

“I recognise that blaming the owner or consumer is nonsensical because this implies that if only the owner were less miserly and more reasonable then there would be no need for socialism and capitalism would solve its own problems!!! Do you blame the current financial crisis on greedy bankers?”

but, that is not the argument you made, which located the problem of the worker as arising directly from the demands of the consumer, and you did so precisely because you wanted to argue against my point that the worker as worker cannot be separated from the worker as consumer.

“All I am trying to do is look at the problem of worker as worker and worker as consumer and how this plays out under capitalism.”

But, that is not what you do, because you want to present the case that the interests of the worker as worker and the worker as consumer are antagonistic. You want to do that because you were led to describe my concern for the living standards of workers as consumerist, as though that concern could be separated off from the concern for the worker as a worker!!!! You wanted to do that because you have this odd petit-bourgeois moralist attitude to Capitalism that seeks as you have above to deny that it has played or continues to play any progressive role, and thereby to deny that there has been any improvement in the condition of the working class. Consequently, you decry any concern for the actual real-life worker in terms of his standard of living as consumerism, that can only be achieved by worsening the condition of the worker as worker hence the above example. But, this not only demonstrates the Luddism of your argument, but also demonstrates how remote it is from reality. Luddism, because it asserts clearly that the interests of the worker as consumer cannot be met by the improvement in technology without an attendant worsening of the condition of the worker as worker, and divorced from reality because even a casual examination of the work process demonstrates that that is far from being the truth! It is clear to anyone that the vast increase in workers living standards over the last 150 years has not been accomplished by the kind of continued worsening of conditions of the worker as worker that you have portrayed, and would were it true have long sicne seen the physical destruction of the working class under the pressure of that increasing exploitation whether of body or mind.

“Precisely the point I was making, so why do you want to protect those inefficient, bureaucratic State capitalist enterprises from criticism??????”

“This whole public sector argument is based on crossed wires. I am arguing that there is an increasing drive politically to make the public sector more “efficient” than in the past, the argument put forward by the political parties and you is that there was great waste and inefficiency in the public sector. The state capitalists are responding to the criticism of people like you by applying all modern management techniques/technology and making workers increasingly feel overworked and underpaid. Many workers, such as cleaners have been moved out of the public sector and seen their pay and conditions deteriorate but you don’t see any of this because all you concentrate on is the consumers of public services and not the workers in those organisations.”

Complete bullshit. I worked for a Local Authority so I know all about the contracting out of jobs and services. You do not, for all the guff you came out with above about wanting to analyse workers as workers and workers as consumers, take on board the fact that the consumers of these services ARE workers, and that they are badly affected when they pay over huge sums of money in taxes, and the services they get in return are not what they should be. Indeed, many of those workers are workers who work in the Public Sector themselves. The State Capitalists are not responding to criticisms from me at all, and the introduction of the various metrics for performance are not the work of the State Capitalists running these organisations, but those imposed on them by the politicians. The State Capitalists who run these organisations would very much like to get rid of those performance indicators if they could, and in the absence of that, get round them by whatever means they can just as their equivalents did in the State enterprises of the USSR and Eastern Europe. The politicians introduce the metrics because they have to respond to the fact that they have pumped vast amounts of money into these organisations without getting the output that should have resulted. The bureaucrats who run the organisations use that to impose further pressure on the workers, whilst continuing to line their own pockets, to push where its in their interests for the contracting out of services – especially where they can take over as Chief executive of the new private business at a much higher salary – and so on.

I fail still to see why you want to avoid criticism of such behaviour, of such inefficiency that works against the interests of workers as a whole, and thereby to side with those very same bureaucrats.


I said on the technology issue within the public sector,

“Once again I am arguing how this technology is applied under capitalism (see my comment above –APPLYING technology), something you utterly fail and refuse to do!! You indulge in intellectual Ludditism by refusing to ask questions.”

But, in that case why bring the issue of technology into it at all???? If all you want to say is that workers are exploited under Capitalism including in the Public Sector, if that is what you want to criticise then the question of technology is irrelevant!!!! The question is does the introduction of technology fulfil a progressive role, and for a Marxist the answer to that question is a resounding YES.

“But, comparing those statistics tells you absolutely nothing about whether any improvement in the condition of workers has improved or not, which can only be done by comparing the condition of workers at some previous time to now!!!! Again, your reluctance to deal with facts when they contradict your bigoted and ridiculous view of some kind of absolute impoverishment is amazing!”

“If you want to analyse the condition of the working class then please don’t give me the stats for overall population but please compare like with like.”

What does this mean? It sounds like gibberish! As the working class constitutes the overwhelming majority of the population figures for trends for the whole pretty much are trends for the working class, but even the differentiated figures by socio-economic group show significant improvements in all classes.

Overall improvements in a range of areas are seen in the data here

“This means going behind the statistics to a large degree. Your version of the facts is truly amazing, no amazingly amazing!”

What the fact that I point out contrary to your bizarre notions that the standard of living of workers is higher now than it was, that workers live longer now than they used to do, that diseases that were common in the working class such as rickets that arose from malnutrition have long since disappeared, in fact that on the contrary the main problems are arising from eating too MUCH, not too little.

“Absolutely everything!!!! How on earth do you expect workers to raise themselves up to become the ruling class unless their living standards are raised, so that they no longer have to grovel before their masters for crumbs, so that they have time to read, to think, to engage in discussion and political activity, to absorb culture and thereby to become truly class conscious??????”

“Do you have no critical view of consumerism at all? No analysis of the negative side and what that may mean for working class consciousness. If you think all this is happening under capitalism why even bother to argue for socialism?”

Of course, I have a critique of consumerism as many of my blogs here attest too, but that is completely different from your ridiculous claims on the one hand that workers conditions have not improved, and claims that even if they have it is wholly negative in its consequences on the other!!!!! My argument for socialism like Marx’s is not based on the idea that Capitalism is bad or evil, but on the idea that Socialism is possible and offers now a more rational basis for society to develop. I can see why you want to portray Capitalism as being wholly detestable, because quite honestly your version of socialism as presented in your writings here, and in the kind of societies and people you look to is indeed much worse than currently exists in reality under Capitalism.

“If people buy these consumer goods on credit, then the burden of debt can mean that workers are less likely to strike etc. I would say they still do grovel to their masters to some extent. The fact that you miss out this sort of analysis is staggering.”

Except I haven’t missed it out at all as a casual perusal of all my blogs on the question of debt makes clear!!!!! In fact, the period when debt first rose most sharply in Britain was in the post-war period when consumer credit via HP came in, and people bought a whole range of new consumer durables. Not only did that period see a marked rise in workers living standards, but it also saw a marked rise in workers militancy, so the conclusion you arrive at has been shown to be false. Moreover, the more Capitalist development, and the introduction of technology reduces prices of commodities the less need there is for such commodities to be bought by credit. When I was a kid, most workers if they were buying a TV or a washing machine would have to use HP, or for TV’s most were rented. Today the price of TV’s and washing machine and other such goods has fallen to such a level that nobody rents TV’s today, and TV’s and Washing Machines are so cheap that most people would just pay cash for them.

“On reading, would technology not make reading become more moribund? I am only raising this as a possibility.”

Given the amount of reading now done over the Internet I doubt it!

“You take an amazing, if not uncharacteristic, leap here. I simply question how all these consumer goods readies us for socialism and point out they could have the opposite affect and you extend it to a call for all consumer goods to be banned! You obviously don’t believe in the axiom, question everything.”

You were not questioning everything you were just trying to use the stale unsocialist argument about workers only fighting for socialism if they are poor and have nothing. A thoroughly reactionary argument.

“And yes, my argument is that this technology has been progressive. It has raised workers productivity to unheard of levels and thereby raised the living standards of workers to unheard of levels. It has meant that changes in dangerous working conditions have been either replaced by machines, or else have enabled Capital to live with health and Safety and Environmental controls that mitigate some of the worst effects of the industrial process, they have enabled workers to reduce their working-time, and to enjoy better healthcare, and living conditions with a subsequent improvement in their lifespan. Yes, I would say that technology has been hugely progressive DESPITE the limitations of Capitalism, and mankind should be proud of its achievements in that regard, proud that we continue to raise ourselves up out of the primordial slime from which we came onwards and upwards to the socialist future.”

“Fine and you make some fair points but it’s a rather one sided picture isn’t it? For a start are you talking about the whole world here or just England? I mean are mine workers in say Colombia today better off than British mine workers 20 years ago?

Your last sentence seems to be bordering on crude determinism!”


Its certainly true that the condition of workers in Britain is better than it was 20 years ago. Taken as a whole the position of workers (taken as workers exchanging their Labour with Capital not people in pre-capitalist societies) globally is better than it was 20 years ago too. I’m sure that its possible to pint to some examples of where that is not true, but taken as a whole yes, definitely better.

I don’t see what is crude or deterministic about the last sentence. Its not saying that the process has been linear, but the History of mankind has been one of overall progress, and I think that is undeniable.

“Clearly you stated that without these bourgeois freedoms to demonstrate you couldn’t do it, but that is preposterous and nonsensical. Demonstrating isn’t some kind of right of rights of passage but a response to some injustice, people can only ever be forced to demonstrate. It’s not like a day out in the country!”

Nonsense. No one “forced” people to demonstrate over G20. There was no “necessity” to demonstrate. That’s illustrated by the fact that very few people actually did!!!!! People demonstrated because they chose to do so. The point is that they had the RIGHT to make that choice, and the backing of bourgeois law to exercise that RIGHT. That is a consequence of the bourgeois freedoms that arose as a result of the bourgeois democratic revolution, freedoms which did not previously exist, which still do not exist in some parts of the world including in places whose governments you support, and freedoms which we should attempt to defend, whereas you seem more than willing to let go!!!!

“And how typical of you that you spring to the defence of the bourgeois reactionaries of Hamas, rather than to the defence of the workers oppressed, and murdered by them”

“It’s telling you failed to mention how the bourgeois Israeli state treats Palestinian demonstrators. I think it reasonable on my part to give examples of the bourgeois massacring protesters seen as you are calling them bourgeois freedoms and rights!”

I call them bourgeois freedoms because that is what EVERY Marxist calls them, because they are the freedoms that the bourgeoisie fought for as the basis of its revolution against the old feudal society!!!!!! The fact, that the bourgeoisie seeks to limit on occasion the use of those freedoms by the workers to attack the bourgeoisie itself does not change the nature of those freedoms, and the fact of what they are simply shows up the true nature of bourgeois rule! That is one of the reasons that Marxists argue that it is necessary to defend those freedoms and why we oppose people like you who are prepared to see those freedoms trampled upon by reactionaries!

I have not failed to mention how the Israeli State treats Palestinian demonstrators. However, it should also be pointed out that the Israeli State DOES allow demonstrations in Israel against that State, and they frequently occur, organised by various groups. You do not have to be a supporter of the Israeli State to point out the difference here arising from the existence of those bourgeois democratic rights, and the situation in say Gaza or Iran, where no such rights exist, and where even a peaceful demonstration against the state would be met with repression!

“As an aside to that, did you see the large demos in Baghdad protesting against American imperialism and privatisation? A demo organised by clerical fascists. How do you view this development?”

I uphold the right to demonstrate whoever is demonstrating. In the absence of a large organised Labour movement in Iraq, Sadr’s forces represent the Jacobins, the radical social forces based on the small traders, the poor workers, and the unemployed. Its no wonder that such forces – despite their conservative social politics – tend towards radical economic positions, and its no wonder that the forces of the Iraqi bourgeoisie and of its US allies have sought to destroy Sadr’s forces.

As I have written elsewhere it is necessary for the Iraqi Labour Movement to gain the support of the masses, and to take that support away from both the supporters of Sadr, and the bourgeois clerical-fascist forces. I suggested that one method for doing that might have involved offering a military alliance with Sadr against the Occupation, whilst maintaining a thorough political separation and critique of Sadr and his supporters. The reason for Sadr’s recent demonstration seems to be a recognition of the fact that the US troops are going to leave, and that the Iraqi bourgeoisie will ensure their outright domination in the intervening period. It is an indication of what I suggested some time ago that the real Civil War in Iraq, may be one based on class not on sectarian division, and for that reason the building of the Iraq Labour Movement on an adequate basis, its orientation to those layers of society currently under the influence of Sadr is vital.

“What on Earth are you talking about? This makes no sense. What bourgeois reaction to demonstrations in Iraq, which demonstrations, demonstrations by who? As far as I am aware generally even bourgeois democrats SUPPORT the right of people in Iraq to demonstrate.”

“Early after the “liberation” and just before the civilising mission got into full swing 12 Iraqi demonstrators were killed by US troops, acting on behalf of US bourgeois imperialism. The history of the bourgeois is filled with such instances, remember bloody Sunday?”

Bloody hell, no wonder I hadn’t got a clue what you were talking about. Even with this garbled explanation its still difficult to understand the relevance of what you are trying to say. I have not suggested that the bourgeoisie does not try to limit or remove any bourgeois democratic freedoms where its interests are seriously threatened. That does not change the fact that these freedoms are “bourgeois” freedoms that they formed the basis of the bourgeois democratic revolution, and that socialists should defend them rather than let reactionaries like you allow ruling groups to abolish them. The fact remains that under normal circumstances the bourgeoisie does not abolish these rights, and they are a powerful weapon in the hands of workers. Workers in Iraq, do demonstrate today, and in fact it is largely the forces you support that try to prevent them from doing so! Certainly, that is true in respect of women or gays in Iraq, as in other areas of the middle east ruled by the reactionaries you support.

In Ireland workers do demonstrate and so on. I fail to see the point you are trying to make. Its rather like your claims that workers living standards haven’t risen or that technology has been used exclusively to further exploit workers!

“However, I fully understand why these facts are being filtered out of your message to the workers.”

But, nowhere have any of those facts been filtered out of my message to workers as a simple reading of everything I say will easily demonstrate. I couldn’t respond to what you said, because as now can be seen your reference was so obscure!
“You have abandoned socialism, you have retreated into a meaningless fantasy world where socialism and capitalism mean the same thing”

Where on Earth have I said that Capitalism and Socialism mean the same thing. But, I do agree with Marx and Lenin and others that Capitalism is abridge to socialism that whole swathes of progress that capitalism provided us with from development of the productive forces, to morals and culture, to technology and science and so on, will simply be taken over by socialism and further developed in a way that Feudalism did not provide for capitalism. As Bill warren points out in his “Imperialism, Pioneer of Capitalism”, which I would recommend your read to divest yourself of some of these reactionary notions, Marx was fully aware of the degree to which Capitalism and Socialism stood on very similar ground compared to every other kind of society that had gone before. Its reactionaries like you that do not recognise that fact.

“and the failure of the Soviet Union has turned you into a coward. You explain it all by the failure of Stalin and his personality but you ignore all the economic arguments, the problems with planning and the realities of world power.”

That’s clearly not true, because as a former Trotskyist I was criticising the USSR long before its collapse, and indeed I was criticising a long time ago the kind of reactionary ideas that you put forward here. How that makes me a coward God only knows. Generally speaking it takes far more courage to stand out against the streams of reaction on both sides than it does to follow your example, and simply jump into one of those streams and be taken along with the current!

“And its precisely because of that, and because of attempts by the State to limit even bourgeois freedoms that I DO NOT see those rights and freedoms as being inalienable!!!!”

“Everything you say tells a different story.”

Only when you don’t understand basic political theory or the fundamental principles of Marxism as you clearly do not.

“You attach these rights to the bourgeois because of the struggles of the past but as these rights are whittled away by the struggles of the present you don’t remove this attachment, instead you blame the state, and therefore you see these as inalienable BOURGEOIS rights, forever attached to bourgeois banners!!”

They are bourgeois rights and freedoms because they are the rights and freedoms that flow from the interests of the bourgeoisie as a revolutionary class, the rights and freedoms it advanced not just because they were the rights and freedoms which represented its own interests but the interests of all other classes behind it. Moreover, they are the rights and freedoms which lie at the heart of bourgeois society and ideology. That is why the bourgeoisie has sought to introduce those same rights and freedoms elsewhere as the basis under which Capitalism can best develop. That is why it has spread bourgeois democracy into Latin America and Asia. Contrary, to your assertion about those rights and freedoms being whittled away the opposite is the case. That is why even today we see the bourgeois right of free speech being used to question and criticise the power of the State in relation to the death of a G20 protester, something which would never happen in some of those anti-democratic regimes you glorify.

“Once again we see you on the opposite side of the class barricades to the workers, supporting some bourgeois politician simply on the back of their radical bourgeois nationalist politics.”

“There are no barricades in your socialism, you have clearly ditched all radicalism, and you have retreated like a frightened mouse to abstract ideas in an abstract world.”

But then please tell us what radicalism is it that you advocate that leads you to line up with the oppressors of workers in so many parts of the world, the people who physically attack, lock up, sack and intimidate the workers. If its abstract to oppose such actions then by all means call me abstract, either way it puts me on the side of the workers and you on the other side of the barricades with the bosses.

“The main differences on the Left in regard of Chavez is in fact whether to describe him and his regime as Bonapartist, or some form of Left Social Democracy.”

“Fundamentalist labels once again. How about looking at who benefits from his policies and judging him in that way.”

Because its thoroughly meaningless for one thing. For another, it depends on what time period you are speaking of, for another some of the people benefiting under Chavez are Venezuelan bosses, in particular those who support him, and who benefit from his nationalist agenda by removing foreign competition. The fact is that there have been lots of examples of populist leaders in Latin America like Chavez, people like Cardenas in Mexico or Peron in Argentina for whom the same thing could be said. None of them were socialists, none of them created socialism all of them ultimately when the needs of Capital dictated turned on the workers. In fact, if we used your criteria here we could even use it to present Hitler and Mussolini as radical!!!! After all, they got workers back to work and thereby raised workers condition. Hitler’s policy of giving grants to firms that employed labour-intensive production methods benefited workers. Now you can use your method and give your support to Hitler if you like – after all you support clerical-fascists and other reactionaries so you may as well go the whole hog – but I’ll stick with using Marxist criteria to determine the nature of political figures and movements thank you. That way I know I’ll remain on the side of the workers rather than joining you on the other side of the barricades with the bosss.

“On Galloway, your mind is so poisoned with hatred that a rational debate is impossible. I mean you can’t make any distinction between him and Nick Griffin. This new look left certainly has some interesting positions.”

Oh I can make a distinction alright, but its not a distinction that leads me to describe Galloway for anything less reactionary than he actually is. And as the various characterisations of him referred to show, as the fact that even his allies in the SWP ditched him illustrates, its not my mind that’s poisoned with hatred, but your mind that is poisoned with reactionary garbage that leads you to line up behind such vile people, and to continually find yourself in opposition to the workers.

Boffy said...

TonyM,

Could you give us a summary?

BCFG said...

You said,

“You’d have hated arguing with Marx, Engels or Lenin then!!!”

If you could just provide the quotes where Marx tells us how great it is to be a worker under capitalism then I can respond.


You said,

“So the simple question to you is do you oppose world trade here and now? Yes or No?”

The main question for a socialist is not whether we support world trade under capitalism but how we bring about socialism. I therefore reserve the right to criticise the system in its current form, this is how things work in the real world. People take positions based on personal opinions/values and debate them with other people in order to get things changed.
This is why Marx said, in 1864, in his inaugural address to the International Workingmen’s Association, “free trade will not do away with the miseries of the industrious masses”.-Classic petit-bourgeois socialism in your view!


You said,

“This is Proudhonist utopianism. Firstly, of course under socialism in any country workers would operate under the basis of Co-operation. But, in the first phase of socialism it will not be possible to get rid of market relations. That is only possible through a long process of learning first how to control the market, and then to gradually replace it with planned socialist relations.”

Fine but as I said the world doesn’t work in this way. People want to know what socialism will look like, to say well pretty much like capitalism would make any argument worthless. You have to imagine what the differences would be. This is how human beings behave!

You said,

“The main initial gain for workers from socialism – to answer your question “why bother with socialism at all” – will be not that profit is abolished, nor that “exploitation” is abolished, but that the workers themselves and not the Capitalists will own the means of production, and so the profit will be theirs to dispose of, and the “exploitation” will amount to the workers controlling how their own labour is exploited.”

Well then the argument will be that are workers capable of this and the idea that genius entrepreneurs create all capitalism’s dynamism will have to be challenged. This will require concrete arguments, not abstract intellectual theories.

You said,

“Like Marx and Lenin I have no need to deny these real achievements of Capitalist development to argue for Socialism.”

This is because you have no idea how politics works.

You said,

“No, not to go back to the horse and cart, but your position has been to argue against the introduction of technology on the basis that it would be used against workers!”

This really is a straw man. I am criticising your position, not giving you mine.
I am pointing out that under a system where profit is the primary motive, i.e. the need to exploit the worker to the maximum, then technology will be applied to achieve this and that anyone with any interest in the worker should analyse this process. I see this lacking in your work. This in no way means we should ignore the positive aspects of technological advancement.

You said,

“No one is challenging your right to criticise the system. What I am challenging is the fact that your whole perspective is based around picking some demagogue or other or some supposed radical and seeing them as the saviour to whom we must all bow down.”

I have never described anyone as a saviour and have never asked anyone to bow down. I don’t regard any of these people has better or worse than me. You continually say we don’t have socialism so we must accept world trade as it is but we live in a world of nation states that have people elected who can have great influence on lives, you want to hide your head in the sand and pretend none of this matters. You asked if I oppose world trade in the here and now with all its benefits, well do you oppose Chavez in the here and now?


You said,

“But, the neo-Liberal consensus could be weakening in favour of something worse!!!! Herein lies precisely the problem of your approach.”

Total crap. I can make a distinction between a Chavez and Manuel Rosales or between Chavez and Adolph Hitler based on their policies and ideas. It was obvious that Chavez would be an improvement on what went before and that the tide in South America was turning leftward away from the neo liberalism that had impoverished the people.
The idea that this wasn’t something to be welcomed is a very strange position to take and one Marx would certainly have rejected.
Your approach means you have no opinion at all on these matters. It doesn’t matter who leads nations, whether it be Hitler in Germany, Chavez in Venezuela or Nick Griffin in Britain. This is the BIG problem with your approach, which stems from your refusal to engage in the reality of a world of nation states and your idea that everyone is a winner under capitalism.

You went on,

“In fact, what you do is you allow that neo-Liberal consensus to DETERMINE your politics, because it simply means that every where it puts a negative sign you simply put a positive sign, you proceed on the bais of my enemy’s enemy is my friend, when frequently you should decide to put an even bigger negative against some of these people, to recognise them as even bigger enemies.”

Clearly you see the current trend in South America as being more negative than the previous status quo, it clear from this passage. At best you see the shift as irrelevant. This is where your crazed Marxist fundamentalism has led; Marx would be turning in his grave!

You said,

“Of course, that is what I say, I am a Marxist, and that is what Marxism says. It says that every development of society builds on the achievements of the society that went before it.”

Why bother getting involved in politics then if all of this is so inevitable. Leave the moralising and asking questions to us and you spend the rest of your days on country walks and sun bathing outside your villa!

It was previously said,

I said,

“Using Atomic bombs to reshape the planet, more proof of your lunacy!”

you said,

“Why, exactly?”

Um. Let’s let that hang in the air for a minute shall we. Why would the planet need reshaping in your view? Or is this just wild speculation? I think for now we should stick to the good old fashioned bulldozer!


You said,

“This shows your Luddism yet again, despite your attempts to change what your argument has been above. The point is that it does not matter what atomic bombs WERE invented for, you said a socialist society wouldn’t have invented them, and I say that it might well, because they might well have a great use for such a society.”…………………
“On what basis do you arrive at this conclusion????? In fact, its you that from the beginning has argued in Nationalistic terms!!!”

What is the opposite of Ludditism, because this is what you suffer from. Anyway, Atomic bombs were invented for military purposes. The atomic Bomb is a weapon and was invented for such use; the fact that it can be applied to other things doesn’t change this fact. Now you say a socialist society could have invented this, I say it would have to have been one riven with nationalist tensions.

You said,

“But, you clearly were not, you were arguing the case that the interests of consumers and workers are antagonistic to each other in response to my point that workers as workers cannot be separated from being workers as consumers!!!!”

No I was critiquing your lack of analysis of the worker as worker and the work experience itself. All you do is give generalised statements about technological advancement does this or history proceeds in this manner. Marx explained how railway workers were expected to work long shifts etc, he actually analysed the worker as worker. You don’t separate the two in anyway but many products are produced by people a lot poorer than the people who buy them- this is a fact of uneven economic development. To some degree the worker and consumer are separated. This isn’t criticising the worker as consumer but analysing the capitalist system in a critical manner. I mean the new left are allowed to do that aren’t they?

You carried on,

“but, that is not the argument you made, which located the problem of the worker as arising directly from the demands of the consumer, and you did so precisely because you wanted to argue against my point that the worker as worker cannot be separated from the worker as consumer”

I said a busy restaurant in a competitive market. The owner, driven by competition and the profit motive is compelled to put the needs of worker as consumer above those of worker as worker. The worker as consumer may have a great night out but the worker as worker may have increased stress and health problems. This explains the reality of the capitalist system, it’s not a morality tale damning the consumer or owner but it goes back to my critique of your analysis. You ignore the worker as worker and how this interacts with the worker as consumer. It may be that in a worker owned co-operative society this antagonism remains the same as before but surely an analysis is still important.

You said,

“It is clear to anyone that the vast increase in workers living standards over the last 150 years has not been accomplished by the kind of continued worsening of conditions of the worker as worker that you have portrayed, and would were it true have long sicne seen the physical destruction of the working class under the pressure of that increasing exploitation whether of body or mind.”

This revisionism allows for no analysis of the worker as worker, so thanks for confirming my point. It says that the past has seen technology raise workers living standards to great levels and to even analyse the worker as worker is to threaten this standard of living. In which case all you argue about is what to do with all those lovely profits! Your socialism comes down to pure materialism. You obviously see poverty in absolute and not relative terms and you see it in purely terms of wealth. This is why you laud capitalism, because you ignore the fact that relative poverty is key. Tribesmen in the jungle only see that they are poor if they come into contact with rich westerners. People only think they are wealthy now because of poor people in other parts of the world. But even within wealthy countries great inequality does matter. Other things come into play such as freedom and power, the richer you are the more powerful and more free! Dare I say that something as unmaterialistic as dignity also plays a part.

You said on the public sector,

“I worked for a Local Authority so I know all about the contracting out of jobs and services. You do not, for all the guff you came out with above about wanting to analyse workers as workers and workers as consumers, take on board the fact that the consumers of these services ARE workers, and that they are badly affected when they pay over huge sums of money in taxes, and the services they get in return are not what they should be.”

Please, of course I recognise that the consumers of these services are workers. I am not arguing that the worker as consumer should be ignored; I am arguing that you ignore the worker as worker as you have clearly demonstrated with your last recent replies. I think this omission from your analysis is a serious error.
My mother is a nurse who has worked in the Health service for many years, she often tells me about the lowering of staff morale and the negative impact this has upon care.

You said,

“The State Capitalists who run these organisations would very much like to get rid of those performance indicators if they could, and in the absence of that, get round them by whatever means they can just as their equivalents did in the State enterprises of the USSR and Eastern Europe.”

Really!! These people have been educated for that entire purpose. Shows how remote you are from the actual struggle in the workplace!!!!!!!!

You said,

“I fail still to see why you want to avoid criticism of such behaviour, of such inefficiency that works against the interests of workers as a whole, and thereby to side with those very same bureaucrats.”

I don’t but I feel your analysis, being one-sided, will lead to wrong conclusions. The drive for “efficiency” in hospital cleaning actually ended up killing people!

You said,

“If all you want to say is that workers are exploited under Capitalism including in the Public Sector, if that is what you want to criticise then the question of technology is irrelevant”

But the question of how it is applied is not irrelevant is it. I mean your Atomic bomb idea makes the same point for Christ’s sake.

You said,

“The question is does the introduction of technology fulfil a progressive role, and for a Marxist the answer to that question is a resounding YES.”

Again confirming my point that no questioning is allowed under your logic. No looking at the worker as worker, no looking at the negative impact of capitalism, just generalising about great historic sweeps.

It was previously argued,

I said,

“If you want to analyse the condition of the working class then please don’t give me the stats for overall population but please compare like with like.”

you said,

”What does this mean? It sounds like gibberish! As the working class constitutes the overwhelming majority of the population figures for trends for the whole pretty much are trends for the working class, but even the differentiated figures by socio-economic group show significant improvements in all classes.”

But that tells half the story doesn’t it? How has the living standards of people producing products changed in the last 30 years? How do you make this comparison in the light of the de-industrialisation that has occurred? For example, should we compare average workers living standards in car plants as limited to this country or take an average across the world? How should these stats be presented? Please give me your definition of standard of living etc etc. Tell me how you see this trend developing.

You said,

“Of course, I have a critique of consumerism as many of my blogs here attest too, but that is completely different from your ridiculous claims on the one hand that workers conditions have not improved, and claims that even if they have it is wholly negative in its consequences on the other”

I have not made any such claim; I am critiquing your lack of analysis of the negative side of capitalism. If you set up a blog for the world to read then please expect that when people make criticism’s they are not actually giving you their entire position. I would set up my own blog if I wanted to do that. Time allows only for me to react to your articles.

You said,

“Moreover, the more Capitalist development, and the introduction of technology reduces prices of commodities the less need there is for such commodities to be bought by credit”

What was this financial crises caused by? Was it not an increase in credit?

You said,

“You were not questioning everything you were just trying to use the stale unsocialist argument about workers only fighting for socialism if they are poor and have nothing. A thoroughly reactionary argument.”

Marx made a similar argument with religion. However, I was more concerned with consumerism’s impact on class consciousness, something you seem to shy away from.
Anyway, so we must avoid issues in case we come across as reactionary. We can’t say that the X-Factor is not the cultural sign that socialism is just around the corner without seeming like conservatives! We can’t point out that socialist ideas have never been remotely popular in advanced capitalist societies but have gained ground in developing nations, we ignore all this, we don’t ask why in case we look bad to Marxist fundamentalists. Maybe progressive fascists would be a better label.

I think this would be a good point to introduce some reflections by Engels on Marx’s speech in favour of free trade (in speech marks), something he may have regretted if he could see your writings today.

“The question of Free Trade or Protection moves entirely within the bounds of the present system of capitalist production, and has, therefore, no direct interest for us socialists who want to do away with that system.”

Note that Engels sees socialism to be very different from capitalism, a system he wishes to do away with! He also gets to the crux of the equation for socialists; it is not to laud or support the system we have now but to imagine how we do away with the system.

“Indirectly, however, it interests us inasmuch as we must desire as the present system of production to develop and expand as freely and as quickly as possible: because along with it will develop also those economic phenomena which are its necessary consequences, and which must destroy the whole system: misery of the great mass of the people, in consequence of overproduction. This overproduction engendering either periodical gluts and revulsions, accompanied by panic, or else a chronic stagnation of trade; division of society into a small class of large capitalist, and a large one of practically hereditary wage-slaves, proletarians, who, while their numbers increase constantly, are at the same time constantly being superseded by new labor-saving machinery; in short, society brought to a deadlock, out of which there is no escaping but by a complete remodeling of the economic structure which forms it basis.”

This shows that Engels believed change was possible because of what he calls the “misery of the great mass of the people”. It seems he has the same reactionary instincts as I do!
He also see workers as wage slaves, hardly the highly cultured, educated beings you describe bringing about change. He also sees that it is stagnation in the economy due to among other things, technology and therefore, not the “cultured” worker but the “impoverished” worker that will bring change.

“From this point of view, 40 years ago Marx pronounced, in principle, in favor of Free Trade as the more progressive plan, and therefore the plan which would soonest bring capitalist society to that deadlock. But if Marx declared in favor of Free Trade on that ground, is that not a reason for every supporter of the present order of society to declare against Free Trade? If Free Trade is stated to be revolutionary, must not all good citizens vote for Protection as a conservative plan?”

Here Marx supports free trade not because of the great civilising mission but because of deadlock, i.e. a breakdown in the system and not some magical evolution into socialism that you imagine! Again what a reactionary!

“If a country nowadays accepts Free Trade, it will certainly not do so to please the socialists. It will do so because Free trade has become a necessity for the industrial capitalists. But if it should reject Free Trade and stick to Protection, in order to cheat the socialists out of the expected social catastrophe, that will not hurt the prospects of socialism in the least. Protection is a plan for artificially manufacturing manufacturers, and therefore also a plan for artificially manufacturing wage laborers. You cannot breed the one without breeding the other.
The wage laborer everywhere follows in the footsteps of the manufacturer; he is like the "gloomy care" of Horace, that sits behind the rider, and that he cannot shake off wherever he go. You cannot escape fate; in other words, you cannot escape the necessary consequences of your own actions. A system of production based upon the exploitation of wage labor, in which wealth increases in proportion to the number of laborers employed and exploited, such a system is bound to increase the class of wage laborers, that is to say, the class which is fated one day to destroy the system itself. In the meantime, there is no help for it: you must go on developing the capitalist system, you must accelerate the production, accumulation, and centralization of capitalist wealth, and, along with it, the production of a revolutionary class of laborers. Whether you try the Protectionist or the Free Trade will make no difference in the end, and hardly any in the length of the respite left to you until the day when that end will come. For long before that day will protection have become an unbearable shackle to any country aspiring, with a chance of success, to hold its own in the world market.”

Clearly the main consideration for socialists is not the civilising mission but the revolutionary class of labourers. Engels only states that in a capitalist system free trade is the rational choice and therefore the one the capitalist will make. If you ask me what choice the capitalist will make it will be the one from which he profits the most but I am more interested in how to bring about socialism and I believe taking a critical look at the system is an important part of that.

To quote the end of Marx’s free trade speech,
“But, in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favour of free trade.”

Marx sees free trade as creating antagonism that leads to social revolution, this is not the Ipod playing, couch potatoes you imagine bringing about socilaism!

You said,

“I don’t see what is crude or deterministic about the last sentence. Its not saying that the process has been linear, but the History of mankind has been one of overall progress, and I think that is undeniable”

I was being ironic. This is exactly what you accused me of when I was making exactly the same point!

You said,

“You do not have to be a supporter of the Israeli State to point out the difference here arising from the existence of those bourgeois democratic rights, and the situation in say Gaza or Iran, where no such rights exist, and where even a peaceful demonstration against the state would be met with repression!”

This difference in the way Israel treats Palestinian demonstrators to its own shows that these are not Bourgeois freedoms at all. The bourgeois have always reacted very repressively when these demos have been lost from THEIR control. Remember Genoa? It’s like the old adage, “if voting changed anything they would abolish it!”


You said,

“In the absence of a large organised Labour movement in Iraq, Sadr’s forces represent the Jacobins, the radical social forces based on the small traders, the poor workers, and the unemployed. Its no wonder that such forces – despite their conservative social politics – tend towards radical economic positions, and its no wonder that the forces of the Iraqi bourgeoisie and of its US allies have sought to destroy Sadr’s forces.”

So are you saying the clerical fascists are acting progressively?

You went on,

“As I have written elsewhere it is necessary for the Iraqi Labour Movement to gain the support of the masses, and to take that support away from both the supporters of Sadr, and the bourgeois clerical-fascist forces. I suggested that one method for doing that might have involved offering a military alliance with Sadr against the Occupation, whilst maintaining a thorough political separation and critique of Sadr and his supporters.”

So, in other words, you wish to line up with clerical fascists fighting against western imperialism. My position in relation to Palestine.

You said in response to my explanation of Bouregois massacring protesters,

“Bloody hell, no wonder I hadn’t got a clue what you were talking about. Even with this garbled explanation its still difficult to understand the relevance of what you are trying to say. I have not suggested that the bourgeoisie does not try to limit or remove any bourgeois democratic freedoms where its interests are seriously threatened.”

The bourgeois, who have freedom to protest attached permanently to their banners, killed 12 protesters in Iraq, people protesting the occupation. How the fuck is this garbled? This was a well known story to those interested in the anti-war movement. It comes as no surprise you were unaware of it.
If when their interests are threatened they would remove these freedoms how the hell can they be considered inalienable rights for Christ sake?

You said,

“The fact remains that under normal circumstances the bourgeoisie does not abolish these rights, and they are a powerful weapon in the hands of workers”

They were a powerful weapon in the hands of Russian workers against the Tsar or French peasants against the royalists. Nothing to do with bourgeois rights.


You said,

“In Ireland workers do demonstrate and so on. I fail to see the point you are trying to make. Its rather like your claims that workers living standards haven’t risen or that technology has been used exclusively to further exploit workers!”

You ignore the recent legislation against these rights both here and especially in the US. Because 150 years ago people were gunned down for demonstrating you think this precludes any criticism of the present! Very much like your analysis of technology and capitalism in general. You look at the graph and follow the line.

You said,

“But, I do agree with Marx and Lenin and others that Capitalism is abridge to socialism that whole swathes of progress that capitalism provided us with from development of the productive forces, to morals and culture, to technology and science and so on, “

The bridge must be built first of course. It’s not a given. On morals, let’s put that to the test. Do you see the rise of animal rights as a progressive step, what are your views on vivisection? Is the increased sexualisation of young girls a progressive step that we can thank capitalism for? Is lap dancing the next progressive move from Ballet dancing? Do we view any of these movements of society as progressive?

You said,

“Marx was fully aware of the degree to which Capitalism and Socialism stood on very similar ground compared to every other kind of society that had gone before. Its reactionaries like you that do not recognise that fact.”

I am not convinced Marx quite realised how similar! Now I do kinda understand what you mean here but your refusal to look at things critically and your insistence that capitalism is a one way train to progressville is not a view that I share, if that makes me a reactionary then so be it.

You said,

“That’s clearly not true, because as a former Trotskyist I was criticising the USSR long before its collapse, and indeed I was criticising a long time ago the kind of reactionary ideas that you put forward here. How that makes me a coward God only knows”

It makes you a coward because you lay the failure of the USSR entirely at the feet of Stalin but you fail to confront the problems of trying to achieve a genuine socialist society. You instead retreat to capitalism lite! You have abandoned all radicalism.

You said,

“That is why even today we see the bourgeois right of free speech being used to question and criticise the power of the State in relation to the death of a G20 protester, something which would never happen in some of those anti-democratic regimes you glorify.”

I don’t think the poor guy was a demonstrator but somebody in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was an unprovoked attack by some bully boy policeman. If some passer by had not filmed it then it would probably have been reported as petit-bourgeois fantasists getting out of hand, well at least by you.
Anyway, the capitalists know that a critique of the state is not a critique of capitalism. This is not how the workers see it anyway, for them the state is whoever is in political power. So to criticise the state is to criticise New Labour.

You said in relation to Chavez,

“In fact, if we used your criteria here we could even use it to present Hitler and Mussolini as radical!!!! After all, they got workers back to work and thereby raised workers condition. Hitler’s policy of giving grants to firms that employed labour-intensive production methods benefited workers.”

If you have a problem distinguishing between Hitler and Chavez then fair enough, shows the flaw of your Marxist fundamentalism. Thankfully I think most on the left do have the ability to make the distinction, even the new left you talk about.

TonyM said...

It's a very long book and I would urge you both to read it. I have copied some paragraphs below to give you the general gist.

The worker-consumer stuff is an intersting debate.

Marxism is in a situation of crisis, which is a product of the alienated conditions of capitalist social relations. This means Marxism cannot abstract itself from the crisis of the absence of world socialist revolution, but instead its crisis is an expression of this important political problem. These political
problems are an expression of the spiritual crisis which means that Marxism either intentionally or unintentionally, scapegoats the working class for the absence of world revolution. In other words, the working class is considered
instrumentally by Marxism as a either a political agency of social change, or as a totally alienated class and subservient to the ruling class, and this
standpoint leads to various forms of elitism, snobbishness and mindless activism. For example, the impatience of the SWP about its lack of recruitment from the Stop the War movement and the trade unions has led it to promote the Respect coalition on an openly reformist platform. They argue
that socialist principles are unrealistic and cannot build a mass movement!
The SWP upholds the politics of the lowest common denominator, and rejects even minimal demands to uphold the most basic equality. So, at the founding conference of Respect, the SWP voted against the principle of socialist
representatives in Parliamentary institutions having the wages of average skilled workers.

However, the point to be made is that this unprincipled situation is not unique to the SWP, but is only a specific expression of the dogmatism and instrumentality of the ˜Trotskyist” left. This is because of a generalised and
rigid adherence to the perspective of the working class as a revolutionary class or it is nothing. Consequently, the ideological and alienated result is that the working class is considered as a political abstraction that only has utility
and usefulness as a vehicle of political change led by the self-appointed vanguard party. What these parties don’t understand is that the October
revolution was only made possible because the working class recognised that the Bolshevik party loved the working class, and on that basis was considered part of the working class. This process of interaction and love between party and class was made possible by the irreducible spiritual qualities of the working class despite its alienated limitations. Thus the working class could
objectively overcome its oppression because of the quality of love, which was itself a product of its collective class condition. Hence, Marxism could only relate in an non-instrumental manner to the working class if its shared this quality of love. If this love was absent, as Orwell was aware, the result was
totalitarianism and the regressive voluntarist and idealist justification of 2+2=5
in the name of the working class, whilst always acting against the working class on behalf of the historical process and the requirements of so-called
Marxist ideology. (George Orwell, 2000)

Contemporary Marxism effectively rejects the role of the ethical within politics.
In contrast, Hegel argues that the individual and universal can be united in terms of the ethical expressing the development of self-consciousness as spirit. Hence, the failure of orthodox Marxism to understand the Hegelian
philosophical role of the ethical is problematic. Marxism conceives the ethical as opportunism, and this means that instead of reconciling the individual to the universal through the role of the ethical the individual becomes subsumed to the abstract universal requirements of the party apparatus. Furthermore, because Marxism rejects the importance of the ethical spirit, and its
relationship to the possibility to develop the self-consciousness of the working class, the role of Marxism is to facilitate both party and class remaining in an
alienated condition. Consequently, what is necessary in terms of the
development of self-consciousness as spirit is the realisation of the ethical, and this success can enhance the possibility for the individual to connect to
the universal and facilitate the advance in the collective consciousness of the working class.

Marx showed that this capital-labour relation was a necessary part of the historical development of the productive forces, and establishing the material
conditions for the realisation of a communist society. This historical process means that labour can consciously recognise the objective situation of its
alienated condition within the production process, and so can potentially aspire to transform this relation through revolutionary and political measures.(Meszaros, 1995) In other words, the working class has the objective prospect to recognise both its alienated condition and the potential to overcome it. This
is because capital is only made possible by the role of alienated labour, which means that capital is dependent upon the labour and not vice versa. Thus, to Marx, the development of a revolutionary class-consciousness within the
working class is an objective material development of capitalism, and which is expressed by the possibility for the working class to be transformed from a
class-in-itself to a class for-itself. Revolution seemed to be an expression of historical necessity that was ontologically located within the very antagonistic character of the social relations of capitalism.

Boffy said...

Cluffy,

“You’d have hated arguing with Marx, Engels or Lenin then!!!”

"If you could just provide the quotes where Marx tells us how great it is to be a worker under capitalism then I can respond."

There you go again lying about what I said. You really can’t help yourself can you. Lying is obviously the mainstay of your politics. You live in this binary world of Good and Evil where everything is either Good and has to be supported, including lying about or denying anything about it which is bad, and on the other hand where everything is irretrievably bad and can only be condemned including lying about or denying anything that is good.

I never said that it is “great” being a worker under Capitalism or that Marx, Engels or Lenin had said any such thing. I only said that it was better than what existed before, and Marx, Engels and Lenin agree. There are endless statements in which they all say that. For example,

In the Communist manifesto Marx not only sets out the tremendous revolutionary role played by Capitalism in Britain, but its continuing revolutionary role in spreading itself to all those pre-capitalist societies in India and the rest of Asia, to Africa, and those backward parts of Europe, by destroying “barbarism”, but he also speaks of it “rescuing millions from the idiocy of rural life”. You can see the same attitude in his writings on India for example, where he writes,

”These small stereotype forms of social organism have been to the greater part dissolved, and are disappearing, not so much through the brutal interference of the British tax-gatherer and the British soldier, as to the working of English steam and English free trade. Those family-communities were based on domestic industry, in that peculiar combination of hand-weaving, hands-spinning and hand-tilling agriculture which gave them self-supporting power. English interference having placed the spinner in Lancashire and the weaver in Bengal, or sweeping away both Hindoo spinner and weaver, dissolved these small semi-barbarian, semi-civilized communities, by blowing up their economical basis, and thus produced the greatest, and to speak the truth, the only social revolution ever heard of in Asia.
Now, sickening as it must be to human feeling to witness those myriads of industrious patriarchal and inoffensive social organizations disorganized and dissolved into their units, thrown into a sea of woes, and their individual members losing at the same time their ancient form of civilization, and their hereditary means of subsistence, we must not forget that these idyllic village-communities, inoffensive though they may appear, had always been the solid foundation of Oriental despotism, that they restrained the human mind within the smallest possible compass, making it the unresisting tool of superstition, enslaving it beneath traditional rules, depriving it of all grandeur and historical energies. We must not forget the barbarian egotism which, concentrating on some miserable patch of land, had quietly witnessed the ruin of empires, the perpetration of unspeakable cruelties, the massacre of the population of large towns, with no other consideration bestowed upon them than on natural events, itself the helpless prey of any aggressor who deigned to notice it at all. We must not forget that this undignified, stagnatory, and vegetative life, that this passive sort of existence evoked on the other part, in contradistinction, wild, aimless, unbounded forces of destruction and rendered murder itself a religious rite in Hindostan. We must not forget that these little communities were contaminated by distinctions of caste and by slavery, that they subjugated man to external circumstances instead of elevating man the sovereign of circumstances, that they transformed a self-developing social state into never changing natural destiny, and thus brought about a brutalizing worship of nature, exhibiting its degradation in the fact that man, the sovereign of nature, fell down on his knees in adoration of Kanuman, the monkey, and Sabbala, the cow.
England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution.
Then, whatever bitterness the spectacle of the crumbling of an ancient world may have for our personal feelings, we have the right, in point of history, to exclaim with Goethe:
“Sollte these Qual uns quälen
Da sie unsre Lust vermehrt,
Hat nicht myriaden Seelen
Timur’s Herrschaft aufgezehrt?”
[“Should this torture then torment us
Since it brings us greater pleasure?
Were not through the rule of Timur
Souls devoured without measure?”]
[From Goethe’s “An Suleika”, Westöstlicher Diwan]”

See: Marx – The British Rule in India

And which was based not just on his own observations and theory, but on observations by Engels, who had also pointed out the progressive role playe by colonialism in Algeria and elsewhere by uprooting these old reactionary regimes in favour of Capitalism.

And we have Marx’s Comment in the Grundrisse,
”In spite of all 'pious' speeches he therefore searches for means to spur them on to consumption, to give his wares new charms, to inspire them with new needs by constant chatter etc. It is precisely this side of the relation of capital and labour which is an essential civilizing moment, and on which the historic justification, but also the contemporary power of capital rests.”

See: Grundrisse .

Or in his criticism of your ridiculous claims about living standards in their first garb presented by Lassalle in his “Iron Law of Wages”, where Marx writes,
“It is as if, among slaves who have at last got behind the secret of slavery and broken out in rebellion, a slave still in thrall to obsolete notions were to inscribe on the program of the rebellion: Slavery must be abolished because the feeding of slaves in the system of slavery cannot exceed a certain low maximum!”

See: The Critique .

The same is true of Lenin who in no uncertain terms opposed the kind of reactionary nonsense you come out with by the Narodniks. He continually emphasises the progressive role of Capitalism in Russia, he pointed out in meticulous detail in his The Development of Capitalism in Russia how the condition of workers was better in the small capitalist handicraft manufactories to the condition of the peasants working under the “putting-out” system, how the condition of the workers was better in the small capitalist enterprises proper compared to the small handicraft manufactories, and better still in the large Capitalist Factories – usually foreign owned – than in the small Capitalist enterprises. He attacks your position and that of the Narodniks, who could only condemn Capitalism, and says that the problems of the workers in Russia stemmed “not from Capitalism, but NOT ENOUGH CAPITALISM”

See Also for example: A Characterisation of Economic Romanticism which could have been written as a direct condemnation of your reactionary views.
“You said,”

“So the simple question to you is do you oppose world trade here and now? Yes or No?”

“The main question for a socialist is not whether we support world trade under capitalism but how we bring about socialism. I therefore reserve the right to criticise the system in its current form, this is how things work in the real world. People take positions based on personal opinions/values and debate them with other people in order to get things changed.

This is why Marx said, in 1864, in his inaugural address to the International Workingmen’s Association, “free trade will not do away with the miseries of the industrious masses”.-Classic petit-bourgeois socialism in your view!”


In other words no you cannot give us an answer to this straightforward question, and from which plus your misrepresentation of Marx’s position we can deduce that your position is actually, no yes you oppose world trade here and now, a thoroughly Nationalist and reactionary position and the same as that of the BNP!

As for Marx, his position was given clearly,

“Moreover, the protectionist system is nothing but a means of establishing large-scale industry in any given country, that is to say, of making it dependent upon the world market, and from the moment that dependence upon the world market is established, there is already more or less dependence upon free trade. Besides this, the protective system helps to develop free trade competition within a country. Hence we see that in countries where the bourgeoisie is beginning to make itself felt as a class, in Germany for example, it makes great efforts to obtain protective duties. They serve the bourgeoisie as weapons against feudalism and absolute government, as a means for the concentration of its own powers and for the realization of free trade within the same country.

But, in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade.”


And I vote clearly and unequivocally, and for the same reasons with Marx. I’ll leave you in the company of the Conservative nationalists and protectionists like the BNP.

“This is Proudhonist utopianism. Firstly, of course under socialism in any country workers would operate under the basis of Co-operation. But, in the first phase of socialism it will not be possible to get rid of market relations. That is only possible through a long process of learning first how to control the market, and then to gradually replace it with planned socialist relations.”

“Fine but as I said the world doesn’t work in this way. People want to know what socialism will look like, to say well pretty much like capitalism would make any argument worthless. You have to imagine what the differences would be. This is how human beings behave!”

But, I have spelled that out, and it is not at ll the problem you make it out to be. Ask a worker in some undeveloped country would you like to stay at your current condition or would you like to live like a worker in Britain, we know what their answer would be. That is why so many come here to try to find work. They do not have the problem you have in recognising the progressive nature of Capitalism compared to pre-capitalist societies! And the majority of workers in Britain do not have the problem or view of Capitalism that you have either! That is why they haven’t overthrown it, its why they vote for Capitalist parties in their millions at elections, its why they give the vision of socialism presented by people like you and Galloway the cold shoulder. The problem actually lies in trying to persuade workers that they would be in any way better off in the kind of society you ask us to support, where even the standard of living and basic freedoms they currently enjoy are absent!!!!! Again ask those workers if they would like to exchange what they have now for what existed in the USSR, or what exists in Iran, and again we both know what the answer is. The key to winning workers to socialism is to guarantee them all of those things that Capitalism has already provided, and to show them how the disadvantages can at the same time be avoided. Simply pretending that Capitalism hasn’t provided those advantages when every worker knows they have will just get you laughed at and scorned and rightly so.

“The main initial gain for workers from socialism – to answer your question “why bother with socialism at all” – will be not that profit is abolished, nor that “exploitation” is abolished, but that the workers themselves and not the Capitalists will own the means of production, and so the profit will be theirs to dispose of, and the “exploitation” will amount to the workers controlling how their own labour is exploited.”

“Well then the argument will be that are workers capable of this and the idea that genius entrepreneurs create all capitalism’s dynamism will have to be challenged. This will require concrete arguments, not abstract intellectual theories.”

Which is precisely why I have given all of the examples of workers Co-ops that have proved precisely that over the last 150 years!!!!! Its why I’ve pointed to the fact that in a number of areas of production and distribution throughout Europe, Co-op production already constitutes a large percentage and in some cases a majority of turnover. Its why I’ve pointed to the fact that history has seen an upsurge in workers creating Co-ops every twenty years as they DO recognise their capability of doing it, and the superiority of CO-ops over private industry, which is why Co-operatives provide over 100 million jobs around the world, 20% more than multinational enterprises!!!!

See Co-op Facts , which gives an even more astounding array of data on just how capable workes are of doing that!

“Like Marx and Lenin I have no need to deny these real achievements of Capitalist development to argue for Socialism.”

“This is because you have no idea how politics works.”

I have enough idea both from practical experience and from theoretical knowledge to understand that as usual when you have no arguments to use you simply resort to insults like this. Provide some kind of argument and I’ll respond then we’ll see who understands politics and who doesn’t. As it stands I’d say you shouldn’t throw stones from within your glass house.

“No, not to go back to the horse and cart, but your position has been to argue against the introduction of technology on the basis that it would be used against workers!”

“This really is a straw man. I am criticising your position, not giving you mine.”

So it doesn’t work both ways????? You get to criticise my position but I don’t get to criticise yours!!!!! In criticising my position you set out your own. I’ve described it for what it is – Luddism.

“I am pointing out that under a system where profit is the primary motive, i.e. the need to exploit the worker to the maximum, then technology will be applied to achieve this and that anyone with any interest in the worker should analyse this process. I see this lacking in your work. This in no way means we should ignore the positive aspects of technological advancement.”

Then let us see if what you claim here is true. Has technology been used as you claim “to exploit the worker to the maximum”. No it clearly has not. In fact, its clear that technology has been used not only to raise workers living standards, which Capital has to do because it needs to continually sell more and a wider range of Use Values to those workers, it has also been used to lessen the burden of work by replacing some of the most back-breaking jobs by automation, and likewise has improved working conditions and environment accordingly, and it has been able to do that precisely because that technology so raised labour productivity that Capital was able to make greater profits, and at the same time share some of those benefits with the working class. Moreover, the benefits of the rising productivity from that technology were such that not only could it afford to do that, but it could also afford to introduce a whole host of other improvements for workers including some of those listed in the Communist Manifesto such as Free State Education, as well as some that were not such as Free Healthcare. In other words it clearly HAS NOT used this technology to more greatly exploit workers, which would have meant them working even longer hours and for less real wages, but has done the exact opposite!!!! It has not done that out of the goodness of its heart, but because the very laws of Capitalist production lead it to do so i.e. Marx’s Civilising Mission.

“No one is challenging your right to criticise the system. What I am challenging is the fact that your whole perspective is based around picking some demagogue or other or some supposed radical and seeing them as the saviour to whom we must all bow down.”

“I have never described anyone as a saviour and have never asked anyone to bow down. I don’t regard any of these people has better or worse than me.”

But, that is precisely the attitude you take to them, which is why whenever any criticism is raised you react like some devotee whose appalled that someone drew a picture of Mohammed!! We have yet to see you make one single criticism of the Iranian Mullahs who daily attack workers, or of Hamas that do the same thing, or of Chavez for attacking Venezuelan workers or Galloway for his reactionary politics. What does that tell us?

“You continually say we don’t have socialism so we must accept world trade as it is but we live in a world of nation states that have people elected who can have great influence on lives, you want to hide your head in the sand and pretend none of this matters.”

I’ve never said we have to accept world trade as it exists! Look at what I wrote recently about a European Co-op providing Capital for workers in a developed economy to establish a Co-op to produce goods to sell in Euro Co-op. Look at what I’ve said about Co-ops increasingly integrating their activities so as to subvert market relations!!!!

What I do say is that we can develop such progressive alternatives here and now, and that this is what we should do rather than propose some reactionary protectionism or Nationalism which appears to be your position!!!! And simply telling us that your alternative is socialism is no alternative here and now is it!

“You asked if I oppose world trade in the here and now with all its benefits, well do you oppose Chavez in the here and now?”

I did, but of course you didn’t answer!!!! My answer is clear here and now I oppose Chavez. He is a bourgeois Nationalist, and as a Marxist my job is to oppose him as it is to oppose any other representative of the bourgeoisie, however, radical and populist their garb. My position is exactly that of Lenin under such circumstances. Lenin did not say “Kerensky is better than the tsar so we must support him”!!!! That was Stalin’s position when Lenin was out of the country, so its no wonder you adopt it. Lenin roundly criticised Stalin for that position even threatening to split from the party if it wasn’t immediately overturned. Lenin said that the Bolsheviks were finished if they didn’t demarcate themselves from bourgeois politicians like kerensky, and instead demanded unremitting criticism of him, and the call for “All Power to the Soviets”!!!!! No doubt on that bais you think that Lenin didn’t understand polticis and wasn’t living in the real world!!!!! But, Lenin was able to argue that position consistently whilst recognising that the attempt at counter-revolution by Kornilov had to be defeated, and that the Bolsheviks had to oppose Kornilov. Yet even when they did they did not drop for one minute their hostility to and criticism of Kerensky!!!!

My position is exactly the same and I argue here and now for workers to have the same attitude to Chavez, to go beyond his limited bourgeois nationalist politics, and to rely on themselves to create their own independent Workers Party, to defend their Trade Unions against his Corporatist policies that seek to remove their freedom, and to develop their own worker owned enterprises so as not to be oppressed by the Venezuelan bourgeoisie or their state.

“But, the neo-Liberal consensus could be weakening in favour of something worse!!!! Herein lies precisely the problem of your approach.”

“Total crap. I can make a distinction between a Chavez and Manuel Rosales or between Chavez and Adolph Hitler based on their policies and ideas. It was obvious that Chavez would be an improvement on what went before and that the tide in South America was turning leftward away from the neo liberalism that had impoverished the people.”

You can’t make that distinction on the basis of the criteria you gave of “who benefits” thought an you, an that is the point! Why was it obvious? It appears that way now because Venezuela has had the benefit of huge oil revenues that has allowed some of Chavez’ populist policies to be financed, but what if there had not been such an oil bonanza, what would have happened then? It is not at all clear that Chavez would not have done what many other such leaders in Latin America have done before, which is to throw that burden on to the backs of the workers. On your argument it would have been “obvious” that Kerensky would be an “improvement” too.

But, my argument was not in relation to Chavez, but your use of that approach in general. Its why you see Hamas, and Ahmedinejad as in some way a good thing, because they represent a weakening of that neo-liberal consensus, but it is quite clear in those cases they represent a weakening of it most definitely for something worse, which is why we are seeing a follow though of it here too now with the resurgence of religious fundamentalism of all kinds on the back of the spineless response of Liberals and many socialists to the attacks of the clerical-fascists.

“The idea that this wasn’t something to be welcomed is a very strange position to take and one Marx would certainly have rejected.”

I didn’t say it wasn’t to be welcomed. I would have welcomed the election of Clement Attlee in 1945, whose politics and measures were probably as left-wing as Chavez, but I wouldn’t have failed to warn workers about what his politics really were, and why they should continue to rely on themselves and to organise against him!!! I would have welcomed the overthrow of the Tsar in February 1917, but wouldn’t have failed to warn the workers against Kerensky!!!!

“Your approach means you have no opinion at all on these matters.”

Of course, I have an opinion, but my opinion is that workers should not put their faith in bourgeois politicians even if they have some aura of radicalism about them. Its not my job as a Marxist to act like some football supporter who has to pick one side o another in some match in order to cheer somebody on. I have only one side to cheer on and that is the working class!

“It doesn’t matter who leads nations, whether it be Hitler in Germany, Chavez in Venezuela or Nick Griffin in Britain.”

Of course it makes a difference, which is why I said that I would support Chavez against some reactionary alternative, but that doesn’t change my opinion of him!!!! It doesn’t change the fundamental necessity to warn workers about such people, about what is likely to happen if they place their faith in them rather than organising themselves and fighting for socialism!!!!

Your position is precisely that of Stalin who supported Kerensky who went on to attack the workers. Fortunately, Lenin was there to correct that mistake, but when Lenin was gone Stalin made exactly the same mistake again supporting first Chiang Kai Shek in the way you support Chavez, until inevitably Chiang murdered thousands of Communists, the Stalin chose another bourgeois nationalist Wei, to support and the same thing happened again!!!! Not having learned his lesson he did the same thing in Spain during the Civil War supporting the Popular Front Government in the same terms you support Chavez now, and the result was the same the murder of thousands of Communists and workers, and the ultimate triumph of fascism!!!! Yet, despite that you STILL haven’t leanred that lesson and continue to send workers to their deaths by following this crazy Stalinist political line. You should read this .

“This is the BIG problem with your approach, which stems from your refusal to engage in the reality of a world of nation states and your idea that everyone is a winner under capitalism.”

On the contrary its you that doesn’t recognise the right of the nation state of Israel to exist!!!! I fully recognise the existence of Nation States, and of the reactionary Nationalist ideology that follows from it. But, whereas you apparently glory in that fact, and want to spread that nationalist ideology in a way that IS indiscernible in many ways from the attitude of the BNP, as a Marxist I see it as my job to oppose that reactionary Nationalist ideology relentlessly, and to stand on the ground of Marx and all subsequent Marxists in arguing for internationalism and the greatest possible unity of workers throughout the world.

“In fact, what you do is you allow that neo-Liberal consensus to DETERMINE your politics, because it simply means that every where it puts a negative sign you simply put a positive sign, you proceed on the basis of my enemy’s enemy is my friend, when frequently you should decide to put an even bigger negative against some of these people, to recognise them as even bigger enemies.”

“Clearly you see the current trend in South America as being more negative than the previous status quo, it clear from this passage. At best you see the shift as irrelevant. This is where your crazed Marxist fundamentalism has led; Marx would be turning in his grave!”

On the contrary, as in many of those countries what has arisen has been progressive compared with what went before so that would not apply. But, it certainly does apply in relation to the way you suck up to reactionaries like Ahmedinejad, or Hamas!!!! The US only puts a minus sign against them because they are not the kind of bourgeois they would like to see in power. Workers put an even bigger minus against them because they are both bourgeois LIKE the US, AND because they are even more reactionary bourgeois than is the bourgeois in the US, which at least rules on the basis of bourgeois democracy!

“Of course, that is what I say, I am a Marxist, and that is what Marxism says. It says that every development of society builds on the achievements of the society that went before it.”

“Why bother getting involved in politics then if all of this is so inevitable. Leave the moralising and asking questions to us and you spend the rest of your days on country walks and sun bathing outside your villa!”

Where did I say it was inevitable here or anywhere else!!!! You are making things up again!

” Um. Let’s let that hang in the air for a minute shall we. Why would the planet need reshaping in your view? Or is this just wild speculation? I think for now we should stick to the good old fashioned bulldozer!”

Precisely, its SPECULATION. I am not saying we would need to do that, I’m saying we MIGHT, and having the technology gives you the option! For example, if as a result of global warming some major population area was going to be flooded, the least worst option might be to divert rivers, and you would not have several years to do it using bulldozers!!!!

“What is the opposite of Ludditism, because this is what you suffer from. Anyway, Atomic bombs were invented for military purposes. The atomic Bomb is a weapon and was invented for such use; the fact that it can be applied to other things doesn’t change this fact. Now you say a socialist society could have invented this, I say it would have to have been one riven with nationalist tensions.”

For goodness sake! Gunpowder was developed for military purposes, but it doesn’t stop it being used for wholly worthwhile purposes such as mining or driving tunnels through solid rock!!!!! There have been a whole series of things developed for military purposes which have very useful civilian applications!

“But, you clearly were not, you were arguing the case that the interests of consumers and workers are antagonistic to each other in response to my point that workers as workers cannot be separated from being workers as consumers!!!!”

“No I was critiquing your lack of analysis of the worker as worker and the work experience itself.”

No you weren’t you gave a definite example that you even said was intended to show the contradictory interests of a worker as a worker and a worker as a consumer!!!!! I doing so you ended up attacking the worker as consumer, and thereby letting the boss off the hook. As with all your analysis you failed to locate the workers common interests, and the possibility that those interests could be combined via class struggle against the interests of the bosses.

“All you do is give generalised statements about technological advancement does this or history proceeds in this manner.”

No I didn’t contrary to your inability to see any shared interests between the workers in the example I gave a definite response based on that shared interests of how they could resolve the situation to their mutual gain at the expense of the employer!!!! And indeed, how they might utilise technology in that process to their mutual gain again!!!

“Marx explained how railway workers were expected to work long shifts etc, he actually analysed the worker as worker.”

He also spent a long time analysing him as consumer!!!! Look at all the details he gives for example about the way food was corrupted, and the effect it has on workers. He also analysed the effect that railways had on workers as consumers opening up markets to reduce the price of goods etc. In particular he eulogised the role that Britain had played in building railways in India that improved the conditions for Indians vastly, not only in terms of their living standards, but in terms of its effect on helping to implant Capitalism in India which he saw as thoroughly progressive both because it improved living standards, and because it demolished all of those reactionary elements of Indian life upon which the caste system and the terrible oppression of Indians had been based.

”You don’t separate the two in anyway but many products are produced by people a lot poorer than the people who buy them- this is a fact of uneven economic development. To some degree the worker and consumer are separated. This isn’t criticising the worker as consumer but analysing the capitalist system in a critical manner. I mean the new left are allowed to do that aren’t they?”

But, its clear that if you had your way they would be a lot poorer!!!!! Not only do you oppose the introduction of Capitalism into their backward economies, which is their only possible way out at the moment of that poverty, but you also oppose the world trade which enables them to produce those goods to sell to western consumers, and thereby to develop and industrialise their economies!!!!! You oppose the very mechanism by which every country on the plant other than Britain, which industrialised first, has been able to industrialise and develop its economy i.e. the benefits they have from having cheaper labour than their competitors, and the ability to use with it the latest technology!

“but, that is not the argument you made, which located the problem of the worker as arising directly from the demands of the consumer, and you did so precisely because you wanted to argue against my point that the worker as worker cannot be separated from the worker as consumer”

“I said a busy restaurant in a competitive market. The owner, driven by competition and the profit motive is compelled to put the needs of worker as consumer above those of worker as worker.”

Actually, he doesn’t he puts the need of maximising his profit above the needs of either the worker as consumer or the worker as worker!!!! If he put the needs of the consume first he would employ more staff, or more technology to make the workers life easier, and so they would give them worker as consumer a better service. One again we see you letting the bosses off, and blaming workers. Why do you do that? Because, you have boxed yourself into a corner whereby you have to oppose the worker as worker to the worker as consumer in order to persist with your fantasy that workers conditions have not improved. Its the same kind of mental acrobatics the Stalinists had to perform to try to argue that same idea 50 years ago. It was ridiculous then, its even more ridiculous now.

“The worker as consumer may have a great night out but the worker as worker may have increased stress and health problems.”

That would likely be the case anyway in your view of the world. At least in mine he has the advantage of knowing that he’s got the next night off, and will be able to enjoy it as a consumer. In yours he has no such prospect, because his condition is no better than it was at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution!!!! You cannot separate the worker as worker and worker as consumer because they are the same thing. A worker who is able to consume 3,000 calories a day is able to work better and to wear themselves out less than a worker who is only able to consume 1,000 calories a day. So even IF the worker worked harder to achieve that they would still be better off. A worker who does not consume who does not eat does not exist because without that consumption the worker is not produced. Consumption as Marx points out is also production, just as production is consumption. The workers consumption PRODUCES the worker, the worker in turn produces his CONSUMPTION, and his production CONSUMES his Labour-power. The two things are inseparable. The worker cannot be a productive worker without adequate food, and without adequate healthcare. He cannot be a skilled worker without consuming education and training and so on.

“This explains the reality of the capitalist system,”

But, its not is it????? Look, when I was a kid my old man used to have to work until 9 o’clock at night from 8 in the morning, and usually Saturday mornings as well to make a decent living. Even though, that was during the rising period of living standards of the 1950’s and early 60’s, he had very little to show for it, when he done it. After a while we got a small black and white TV that was rented. By the late 60’s he no longer needed to work overtime which he had a principled objection to anyway, and we had a bigger TV, we had a number of other consumer durables and so on that we did not have say ten years earlier. By the time he was made redundant in 1979 his life had become much better still, both in terms of how hard he had to work, the conditions in which he worked, and the things he was able to buy that simply were not available or were way too expensive previously.

Now, he’s not here, but if he were what do you think his response would be to your claim that things have got no better, what do you think his response would be to your ridiculous world in which workers lives only appear to get better as consumers at the expense of getting worse as workers???? I can tell you, and he didn’t often swear in public!

“it’s not a morality tale damning the consumer or owner but it goes back to my critique of your analysis. You ignore the worker as worker and how this interacts with the worker as consumer. It may be that in a worker owned co-operative society this antagonism remains the same as before but surely an analysis is still important.”

The point is I have done that analysis, but you don’t like it, because it refutes your silly argument that things haven’t got better, an argument you are forced to make because you can only argue for socialism by ridiculously claiming that everything under capitalism is impossibly bad!!!! The fact is that the introduction of technology has been almost entirely positive for workers in almost every way you can imagine. It has got rid of dangerous and dirty jobs, it has got rid of many heavy jobs, even many of the mind numbing machine minding jobs have simply been taken over by robots, enabling other forms of work process to be introduced such as group working, as well as expanding vastly the number of jobs where workers have to use their minds rather than bodies. It has produced a huge rise in productivity which has cheapened products and made a whole series of new products available or made available products that once were the preserve of the rich. It has enabled working time to be reduced and so on. Now, of course, there are some downsides such as the fact that industrial injuries to the body have been replaced with industrial injuries to the mind, but that is largely what it is a replacement. If you look at other things such as the number of people who work using a lap-top etc. or you look at the extension of the working age what does that actually tell us. The person working with the lap-top otherwise would have been working longer hours in the office. The working age is being raised because people are living longer and a shrinking workforce is unable to produce sufficient surplus value to cover the extra pension and welfare payments. But, what is that a sign of – it’s a sign that workers living standards and conditions have improved significantly so that they now live much longer whereas a few decades ago they would have been lucky to live to retirement!

“It is clear to anyone that the vast increase in workers living standards over the last 150 years has not been accomplished by the kind of continued worsening of conditions of the worker as worker that you have portrayed, and would were it true have long since seen the physical destruction of the working class under the pressure of that increasing exploitation whether of body or mind.”

“This revisionism allows for no analysis of the worker as worker, so thanks for confirming my point.”

What revisionism?????? I am the one arguing Marx’s position, and the position of every Marxist since!!!! You are the one trotting out the crap criticised by Marx that was advocated by Lassalle and by Proudhon, and more lately in the same kind of ridiculous fashion you do now by the Stalinists!!!!!!

“It says that the past has seen technology raise workers living standards to great levels and to even analyse the worker as worker is to threaten this standard of living.”

Total bollocks. Not only do you deny that workers living standards have risen massively, which is obvious for all to see, but you deny that workers work process has become less burdensome than it was too!!!! But, in that case tell us why Marx in Capital analysed the standard working day of workers as being around 18, told us of children working 30 hour shifts in dangerous conditions, and yet we see none of that today. Do you not have some explaining to do to maintain your analysis of the worker as worker giving those facts???????

“In which case all you argue about is what to do with all those lovely profits!”

Where this statement comes from God only knows!!!!

“Your socialism comes down to pure materialism.”

Pretty much, yes, because I’m a Marxist, and Marxism is based on materialism, and a recognition that socialism is only possible if the material condition of the working class is raised, so that human beings can increasingly free themselves of those material concerns and develop as individuals!!!

“You obviously see poverty in absolute and not relative terms and you see it in purely terms of wealth.”

Not at all. Like Marx I recognise the existence and significance of both absolute and relative poverty, and the difference between affluence and wealth. The fact is you do not seem to recognise the reality of any of these things, because you are blinded by your political method, so that you have to come out with the most ridiculous lies to deny reality when it conflicts with your bigotry. But then as I said earlier lying seems to be a central tenet of your political method.

“This is why you laud capitalism, because you ignore the fact that relative poverty is key.”

No it isn’t and you confuse the two things again here. Marx speaks of workers experiencing increasing affluence through rising wages. He is not concerned about the relative difference between this standard of living of workers and that of Capitalists particularly. Where Marx speaks of poverty he does not mean in this sense of standard of living, but makes clear that what he means is poverty in terms of absence of wealth! That is the lack of ownership of the means of production, and the increasing gap between the Value of Capital, and the Value of Labour Power!!!

“Tribesmen in the jungle only see that they are poor if they come into contact with rich westerners.”

Which is presumably why you want to keep them in that condition by preventing Capital from being able to raise them up!!!!!

“People only think they are wealthy now because of poor people in other parts of the world.”

Total bullshit. If I had never seen a TV programme in my life that described the condition of people living in the jungle I would still be aware that my standard of living is considerably higher now than it was 20 years ago, was higher then than it was 40 years ago, and was higher then than it had been for my parents 20 years before that, and that there’s had been higher than their parents and so on!!!!! I would also know that my Father worked much less hard when he was about to retire than he did when he started work, which in turn was much less hard than his Father had had to work before him and so on.

“But even within wealthy countries great inequality does matter. Other things come into play such as freedom and power, the richer you are the more powerful and more free! Dare I say that something as unmaterialistic as dignity also plays a part.”

Who denies that such inequality exists. Yet, despite that inequality and even growing inequality workers condition as both consumers and as workers HAS improved considerably. More than that on the back of that improvement workers are more able to understand and participate in political activity. As for dignity, its pretty difficult to have any if you are sleeping in the gutter. I’d say dignity was pretty much I feature of material condition.

“Please, of course I recognise that the consumers of these services are workers. I am not arguing that the worker as consumer should be ignored; I am arguing that you ignore the worker as worker as you have clearly demonstrated with your last recent replies. I think this omission from your analysis is a serious error.”

Except this omission is entirely in your head!!!! There is no such omission either in my recent comments or any others. Its why I wrote about the Alienation of Labour, its why I’ve written so much about Co-operatives almost entirely from the standpoint of the work process, its why I’ve argued against Marxists raising the demand for nationalisation by the bourgeois state, precisely because it means exchanging exploitation of the worker by private Capitalist with exploitation by an even more oppressive Capitalist State!!

“The State Capitalists who run these organisations would very much like to get rid of those performance indicators if they could, and in the absence of that, get round them by whatever means they can just as their equivalents did in the State enterprises of the USSR and Eastern Europe.”

“Really!! These people have been educated for that entire purpose. Shows how remote you are from the actual struggle in the workplace!!!!!!!!”

I was a UNISON Branch Secretary so that is hardly remote from the struggle in the workplace! And it is a fact, that the State Capitalist bureaucrats WOULD like to get rid of the targets so that they could get on with running these businesses how they see fit. You see them opposing the imposition of targets all the time. And, I’ve seen in practice the way figures have been made up in order to tick the necessary boxes to show that these targets are being met, and so on. Once again you end up supporting the bosses not the workers.

“I fail still to see why you want to avoid criticism of such behaviour, of such inefficiency that works against the interests of workers as a whole, and thereby to side with those very same bureaucrats.”

“I don’t but I feel your analysis, being one-sided, will lead to wrong conclusions. The drive for “efficiency” in hospital cleaning actually ended up killing people!”

If anywhere I’d argued that efficiency was to be achieved by privatising services or reducing quality then your argument might have some relevance. As I have NEVER EVER made such an argument, and instead have argued that this efficiency can only be achieved by replacing both private Capitalist ownership and State Capitalist ownership with Workers Ownership and control, your argument is totally meaningless!!!

“If all you want to say is that workers are exploited under Capitalism including in the Public Sector, if that is what you want to criticise then the question of technology is irrelevant”

“But the question of how it is applied is not irrelevant is it. I mean your Atomic bomb idea makes the same point for Christ’s sake.”

Yes, and no. We are not indifferent as to how such technology is introduced, we fight for it to be used in ways that benefit workers. But, even if we can’t achieve that in some particular case our argument is not that such technology should not be introduced. We don’t argue to go and break the machines!!!! The introduction of machine looms put out of work thousands of hand loom weavers. We would have argued for those hand-loom weavers to be given jobs and to have benefited from shorter hours operating the machine looms. As it turned out the working class at the time was not strong enough to achieve such a solution, but that didn’t mean we supported the Luddites in breaking those machines!!! On the contrary, despite their effects on the hand-loom weavers, Marxists recognised that development as highly progressive, and the foundation of the Industrial Revolution – read Hobsbawm’s “Industry and Empire” for instance.

“The question is does the introduction of technology fulfil a progressive role, and for a Marxist the answer to that question is a resounding YES.”

“Again confirming my point that no questioning is allowed under your logic. No looking at the worker as worker, no looking at the negative impact of capitalism, just generalising about great historic sweeps.”

But, its precisely by examining the effect on the worker that the statement that the introduction of technology is progressive can be made!!!!! What does recognising the role of technology as progressive have to do with examining the role of Capitalism’s negative impacts. The two things are separate! It is not as a machine that the means of production confront the worker, but as capital! It is not the machine that the worker has to oppose, but Capital.

”What does this mean? It sounds like gibberish! As the working class constitutes the overwhelming majority of the population figures for trends for the whole pretty much are trends for the working class, but even the differentiated figures by socio-economic group show significant improvements in all classes.”

“But that tells half the story doesn’t it? How has the living standards of people producing products changed in the last 30 years?”

In the last 30 years taken as an average they have risen. From the mid 80’s through to the late 90’s they were fairly stagnant due to the effects of the Long Wave downturn, and were camouflaged by the resort to debt. But, with the resumption of the Boom from the late 90’s they began to rise again, but still camouflaged to a degree by the continuing resort to debt financing. The same is not true for Europe which did not experience the same kind of debt explosion, but where living standards rose steadily. In China, India and other Asian and developing economies however, they have risen not just steadily but substantially, witnessed by the growing demand for food, and by the fact that more cars are now sold in China than in the US!

“How do you make this comparison in the light of the de-industrialisation that has occurred?”

De-industrialisation certainly led to a decline in male manual earnings during the 1980’s. That is partly why earnings remained stagnant during the above period, whereas it is less marked in Europe where less of a process of de-industrialisation took place. But, although there has been a clear rise in MCJobs with an attendant lowering in earnings and conditions, we shouldn’t overstate that. There has also been in the last decade a huge rise in Public Sector jobs, and these have been fairly well-paid jobs compared to those old heavy industry positions.

“For example, should we compare average workers living standards in car plants as limited to this country or take an average across the world? How should these stats be presented? Please give me your definition of standard of living etc etc. Tell me how you see this trend developing.”

It depends what the purpose is. If you want to say have living standards for car workers in Britain risen there is no point comparing that with wages in Germany! If as we should we want to argue for common Trade Union rates of pay across Europe then such a comparison IS relevant. The definition of standard of living is basically the quantity and range of use values that workers can buy or receive as part of the social wage in return for the sale of a given quantity of labour-power. I have set this out in several articles on future economic trends. The world economy is clearly in the middle of a 20-30 year Long Wave Boom. It began in 1999 or thereabouts. Unlike previous booms this one has all the potential of being the greatest in human history given the huge quantity of base technology developed in the previous Innovation Cycle. That technology is revolutionising production and products. As with previous such booms new dynamic economies emerge – China, India etc - to lead the advance, whilst older economies – US, UK – decline relatively. The current boom is also marked by being for the first time one in which a global labour market can be said to exist, and consequently where the old National protections for labour are at least diminished as capital can locate more freely anywhere in the world. The consequence will be a more marked relative decline of workers living standards in those declining economies compared to workers in the advancing economies, but that decline remains relative not absolute. We see that process now in the US in relation to the closure of auto plants, which will result in a subsequent and necessary reallocation of labour and Capital to more profitable avenues of production.

“Of course, I have a critique of consumerism as many of my blogs here attest too, but that is completely different from your ridiculous claims on the one hand that workers conditions have not improved, and claims that even if they have it is wholly negative in its consequences on the other”

“I have not made any such claim; I am critiquing your lack of analysis of the negative side of capitalism. If you set up a blog for the world to read then please expect that when people make criticism’s they are not actually giving you their entire position. I would set up my own blog if I wanted to do that. Time allows only for me to react to your articles.”

I think anyone reading your posts above can see that you repeatedly DO claim that no such improvements have been made. You have stated that Capitalism is a total disaster for example that could broach no consideration of the fact that it might actually have done some things that were progressive! If you want to criticise my posts I have no objection. I do object to you distorting and lying about what I have said, and if you don’t want people to criticise your own positions the answer is simple!

“Moreover, the more Capitalist development, and the introduction of technology reduces prices of commodities the less need there is for such commodities to be bought by credit”

“What was this financial crises caused by? Was it not an increase in credit?”

In part yes, in part by gambling on derivative products created on the back of the provision of credit. That does not change the truth of the above statement.

“You were not questioning everything you were just trying to use the stale unsocialist argument about workers only fighting for socialism if they are poor and have nothing. A thoroughly reactionary argument.”

“Marx made a similar argument with religion.”

You’d have to explain that reference to me, for me to answer. The only context I can imagine in relation to Marx is where he argues the exact opposite. That is that Marx argues that it is because people are poor and oppressed and see no way out using their own resources they seek relief for their pain in the opium of religion. In other words Marx is saying its not poverty and that kind of grinding oppression that leads workers to raise their heads and fight for socialism, but leads them in precisely the opposite direction of quack remedies! Its only when their condition improves that they can begin to develop class consciousness etc. and thereby strive for socialism.

“We can’t point out that socialist ideas have never been remotely popular in advanced capitalist societies but have gained ground in developing nations, we ignore all this, we don’t ask why in case we look bad to Marxist fundamentalists.”

Except, that your statement is completely false!!!! The German SPD was an avowedly Marxist Party – though in fact as Draper points out it owed as much at least to Lassalle and Fabianism as to Marx – yet, had millions of members and a majority of seats in the German Parliament. Indeed, it was that fact which led Eduard Bernstein to the conclusion that Socialism could simply evolve out of this process! The Marxist Party in France also had millions of members and the other Marxist parties in Europe had mass memberships. So your claim is completely wrong! Indeed, after the First World War, in Germany the German Communist Party had tens of thousands of members as well as millions of voters alongside the German Socialists. The French Socialists who also had the support of millions of workers became the French Communist Party.

And, you are wrong about the other part too. Communists have not gained ground in developing nations. What has gained ground in those countries is what Lenin referred to and warned against, the rise of bourgeois nationalists who operate under the cloak of Communism. That is there are many forces who claim to be Communist in order to take advantage of that label, but who are nothing more than Nationalists, and often reactionary nationalists at that.

“Maybe progressive fascists would be a better label.”

I have no idea what you are talking about here.

“The question of Free Trade or Protection moves entirely within the bounds of the present system of capitalist production, and has, therefore, no direct interest for us socialists who want to do away with that system.”

If you are going to give quotes from anyone please as I have asked you before reference them, and where possible give a hyperlink to them. Given your propensity to lie and distort about positions I’m afraid I have no reason to believe the validity of any unsourced quote you give.

As for the above quote from Engels it does not contradict anything in the full Speech by Marx, nor any position I have put forward.

“Note that Engels sees socialism to be very different from capitalism,”

Where in this quote exactly does Engels say that????

“a system he wishes to do away with!”

So do I, how does that affect the question of support here and now under existing conditions for support of protectionism or Free Trade???? Marx’s argument still holds.

He also gets to the crux of the equation for socialists; it is not to laud or support the system

He makes no such comment as the above clearly demonstrates. Once again you are simply making things up as you go along. There is nothing in this quote to attribute any views to Engels about lauding Capitalism or not lauding Capitalism, certainly not about recognising any positive contribution that Capitalism had made, of which there are abundant examples in Engels’ Writing.

“Indirectly, however, it interests us inasmuch as we must desire as the present system of production to develop and expand as freely and as quickly as possible: because along with it will develop also those economic phenomena which are its necessary consequences, and which must destroy the whole system: misery of the great mass of the people, in consequence of overproduction. This overproduction engendering either periodical gluts and revulsions, accompanied by panic, or else a chronic stagnation of trade; division of society into a small class of large capitalist, and a large one of practically hereditary wage-slaves, proletarians, who, while their numbers increase constantly, are at the same time constantly being superseded by new labor-saving machinery; in short, society brought to a deadlock, out of which there is no escaping but by a complete remodeling of the economic structure which forms it basis.”

“This shows that Engels believed change was possible because of what he calls the “misery of the great mass of the people”. It seems he has the same reactionary instincts as I do!”

Are you having us on or what?????? Engels here says the EXACT OPPOSITE of what you attribute to him. Look at what he says. He says we have an interest in the question of FREE TRADE. Why because this FREE TRADE will “develop also those economic phenomena which are its necessary consequences”. He says, openly in complete contradiction to your argument,

“it interests us inasmuch as we must desire as the PRESENT SYSTEM OF PRODUCTION to develop and expand as freely and as quickly as possible”

How you have the nerve to quote this and pretend that Engels is supporting your position God only knows!!!! And why also does he want that production of the PRESENT SYSTEM OF PRODUCTION to develop and expand freely, because not only in doing so will it help to raise up the workers from that misery, but because also in doing so it will transform them into the social force that will bring about the end of that system of production.

“He also see workers as wage slaves, hardly the highly cultured, educated beings you describe bringing about change.”

But, you totally misunderstand the term wage slave, seeing it as some impoverished wretch. Marx uses the term and Engels understood it in the same light as meaning that the worker is a slave inasmuch as he does not own the means of production, and is forced thereby to hand over part of his labour-time for free, but that is all, it tells us nothing about the actual living standard of the worker as wage slave, which Marx even says openly could be AFFLUENT in the Grundrisse!!!!

Once again your superficiality and willingness to simply read into these quotes your own bigotry leads you astray.

“He also sees that it is stagnation in the economy due to among other things, technology and therefore, not the “cultured” worker but the “impoverished” worker that will bring change.”

But, he most emphatically DOES NOT talk about stagnation in the economy due to technology. He says that the numbers of workers constantly increases, why because as Marx sets out as Capital increases so the demand for Labour rises even whilst relatively it is diminished because of the introduction of machinery! And you cannot have stagnation if you are constantly expanding the number of workers, because by definition that means economic GROWTH and prosperity.

Nor is it STAGNATION to speak as Engels does about,

“This overproduction engendering either periodical gluts and revulsions, accompanied by panic”

precisely because periodic means that in between these periods of crisis there is development, boom followed by bust. All that Engels is describing here is what every Marxist knows, which is that the laws of Capitalist development lead to periodic crises during which the condition of the working class or ta least a portion of it is cast down, and that it is out of these repeated crises that workers will come to recognise the need to replace the system. But, this is a far cry from your argument about a PEREPETUAL crisis and stagnation in which workers living standards do not rise and their working conditions do not improve! Furthermore, in nothing that Engels says here does he make the statement you attribute to him here about it having to be completely impoverished workers that overthrow Capitalism, and for good reason, because neither he nor Marx believed that to be the case, on the contrary they thought the opposite! That is why they both devoted so much time to trying to improve the condition of the workers, and why they welcomed developments such as the factory Acts, the Ten Hours Act and so on, which would have been counter-productive if they held the view you want to attribute to them!!!!

“From this point of view, 40 years ago Marx pronounced, in principle, in favor of Free Trade as the more progressive plan, and therefore the plan which would soonest bring capitalist society to that deadlock. But if Marx declared in favor of Free Trade on that ground, is that not a reason for every supporter of the present order of society to declare against Free Trade? If Free Trade is stated to be revolutionary, must not all good citizens vote for Protection as a conservative plan?”

“Here Marx supports free trade not because of the great civilising mission but because of deadlock, i.e. a breakdown in the system and not some magical evolution into socialism that you imagine! Again what a reactionary!”

Quite the opposite he supports it for the reason Engels states above,

“it interests us inasmuch as we must desire as the PRESENT SYSTEM OF PRODUCTION to develop and expand as freely and as quickly as possible”

and that is completely in agreement with Marx’s argument in relation to the “Civilising Mission” of Capitalism, which by developing and expanding the productive forces, and by expanding and developing the working class in that process does more rapidly bring about the exacerbation of the contradictions of the system and its subsequent downfall!!!!!

And the rest of your long unsourced quote gives no more support for your Nationalist and protectionist arguments either. Engels most certainly in the rest of that quote is not supporting a call for protectionism which is the implication of your rejection of world trade. He is simply pointing out if I recall correctly that even without Free Trade the kind of Protectionist policy being implemented by Bismark would not save the Capitalists either because the Capitalists who developed behind those Protectionist barriers would still create workers, and the workers would ultimately overthrow the Capitalists. There is nothing here whatsoever that supports your argument despite the slab of text you have quoted, and despite it once again being unsourced.

Clearly the main consideration for socialists is not the civilising mission but the revolutionary class of labourers. Engels only states that in a capitalist system free trade is the rational choice and therefore the one the capitalist will make.”

On the contrary that is NOT what he is saying, and it is quite clear that Free Trade is NOT the rational choice for Capitalists!!!!! Britain did not develop by Free Trade, but by Monopolies and Tarriffs. The US developed in the latter half of the 19th century as did Germany behind large Tarriff walls. That is precisely what Engels is referring to here!!!!

“Marx sees free trade as creating antagonism that leads to social revolution, this is not the Ipod playing, couch potatoes you imagine bringing about socialism!”

On the contrary, its precisely the fact that those workers have now the leisure time to devote to such activities to access information on the Internet that have the higher level of intelligence that DOES enable them to develop a class consciousness as Marx himself set out in the Grundrisse. Whether they do so or not is a function of how Marxists interact with them.

“I don’t see what is crude or deterministic about the last sentence. Its not saying that the process has been linear, but the History of mankind has been one of overall progress, and I think that is undeniable”

“I was being ironic. This is exactly what you accused me of when I was making exactly the same point!”

But you have never made the same point!!! On the contrary you describe Capitalism as an unmitigated disaster.

“This difference in the way Israel treats Palestinian demonstrators to its own shows that these are not Bourgeois freedoms at all. The bourgeois have always reacted very repressively when these demos have been lost from THEIR control. Remember Genoa? It’s like the old adage, “if voting changed anything they would abolish it!””

The fact that the bourgeoisie are forced to attack bourgeois freedoms to protect their rule does not change the fact that they are bourgeois freedoms, it only signifies that they have no intention of allowing those freedoms to be used against them! IN conditions where those freedoms do not exist because some other social force is in charge the bourgeoisie WILL fight for those freedoms, precisely because they are fundamental to its rule.

“In the absence of a large organised Labour movement in Iraq, Sadr’s forces represent the Jacobins, the radical social forces based on the small traders, the poor workers, and the unemployed. Its no wonder that such forces – despite their conservative social politics – tend towards radical economic positions, and its no wonder that the forces of the Iraqi bourgeoisie and of its US allies have sought to destroy Sadr’s forces.”

“So are you saying the clerical fascists are acting progressively?

No I am saying that the classes upon which the clerical-fascists of Sadr are based are the most radical under such conditions, and that Sadr is forced to respond to their needs. In so far as those masses represent the most radical section of society under these conditions it is the job of socialists to relate to them, including offering a military or defensive alliance to Sadr – though he won’t accept – against the Occupation and the Iraqi bourgeoisie. But, under no circumstances does that mean giving any credibility or support to Sadr or any other clerical-fascist. ON the contrary the task of socialists even were they to form such an alliance would be to maintain their own strict organisational and political separation from him, and to heighten their criticism of his politics in order the more quickly to draw forces away from him, and destroy him.

“As I have written elsewhere it is necessary for the Iraqi Labour Movement to gain the support of the masses, and to take that support away from both the supporters of Sadr, and the bourgeois clerical-fascist forces. I suggested that one method for doing that might have involved offering a military alliance with Sadr against the Occupation, whilst maintaining a thorough political separation and critique of Sadr and his supporters.”

“So, in other words, you wish to line up with clerical fascists fighting against western imperialism. My position in relation to Palestine.”

No my position in Palestine!!!! You want to acquiesce in the reactionary politics of HAMAS I want to ruthlessly criticise it, and to smash them as an organisation that is the enemy of the working class.

“The bourgeois, who have freedom to protest attached permanently to their banners, killed 12 protesters in Iraq, people protesting the occupation. How the fuck is this garbled? This was a well known story to those interested in the anti-war movement. It comes as no surprise you were unaware of it.”

Its not a matter of being unaware of it, but of you not saying in the first place what the hell you were talking about!!!!! Its not as though this was the only demonstration there has been in Iraq over the last 6 years is it for God’s sake. Moreover, what is garbled is the fact that although one group of bourgeois might well have shot people on the demonstration other bourgeois reported it, condemned it etc. That is precisely the point about bourgeois freedoms, the bourgeoisie that try to limit them, abrogate them only do so by at the same time undermining their own ideology, and often with the opposition of sections even of the bourgeoisie or their representatives themselves.

“If when their interests are threatened they would remove these freedoms how the hell can they be considered inalienable rights for Christ sake?”

You are the one who keeps wittering on about inalienable rights not me!!!!!

“They were a powerful weapon in the hands of Russian workers against the Tsar or French peasants against the royalists. Nothing to do with bourgeois rights.”

For goodness sake this is like teaching political kindergartern. What do you think peasants are if not petit-bourgeois???? What kind of Revolution do you think the French Revolution that those peasants provided the foot soldiers for was. It was a BOURGEOIS Revolution!!!!! And what do you think the revolution was that overthrew the Tsar led by the same forces – it was a bourgeois revolution too!!!!

If you are going to make brash statements like the one you opened with some time ago about “welcome truth seekers”, if you are going to come here trying to pretend you are some font of all knowledge at least get a basic political education first!!!!

“You ignore the recent legislation against these rights both here and especially in the US. Because 150 years ago people were gunned down for demonstrating you think this precludes any criticism of the present! Very much like your analysis of technology and capitalism in general. You look at the graph and follow the line.”

Not at all, which is why I defend those basic bourgeois freedoms consistently whereas you do not. You do not advocate them against your friends the clerical-fascists, and you were quite happy to see the British state remove the right to free speech and free movement too.

You said,

“But, I do agree with Marx and Lenin and others that Capitalism is a bridge to socialism that whole swathes of progress that capitalism provided us with from development of the productive forces, to morals and culture, to technology and science and so on,”

“The bridge must be built first of course. It’s not a given.”

Precisely, but you oppose the bridge being built where it doesn’t exist for example in pre-capitalist societies. IN the developed economies that bridge does exist it is a given it is the whole corpus of culture and civilisation that Capitalism has created over the last few hundred years from the Reformation and the Enlightenment onwards.

“On morals, let’s put that to the test. Do you see the rise of animal rights as a progressive step, what are your views on vivisection?”

Yes, animal rights are a step forward and once again show the extent to which Capitalism continues to civilise human society.

“Is the increased sexualisation of young girls a progressive step that we can thank capitalism for?”

That people are free to discuss sexuality and express sexuality more freely then yes that is a step forward.

“Is lap dancing the next progressive move from Ballet dancing? Do we view any of these movements of society as progressive?”

Possibly it will be, after all Belly Dancing is a fine art form for which the practitioners have to study and train for for a long time. As the saying goes “Nothing that is human is alien to me.”

“It makes you a coward because you lay the failure of the USSR entirely at the feet of Stalin but you fail to confront the problems of trying to achieve a genuine socialist society. You instead retreat to capitalism lite! You have abandoned all radicalism.”

Not at all, and even as a Trotskyist I never attributed the failure of the USSR to Stalin that would be unMarxist. The USSR failed because of the material conditions under which the revolution took place, and because of the flawed basis of the Bolsheviks theory of revolution, and socialism which in turn flowed from those material conditions. Its precisely because I HAVE confronted the problems of trying to create a socialist society that I argue for a different model of building the working class and its Party in order that the problems experienced before can be overcome. That different method means actually MORE not less work for Marxists, and so far from being a retreat.

“I don’t think the poor guy was a demonstrator but somebody in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was an unprovoked attack by some bully boy policeman. If some passer by had not filmed it then it would probably have been reported as petit-bourgeois fantasists getting out of hand, well at least by you.”

I doesn’t matter who he was, the fact is that the media has been full of stories about it, and that is because of the bourgeois right to free speech and a free press. It would not happen in Gaza or in Iran! As for your slur about me describing it as some petit-bourgeois fantasy that kind of comment is typical of your lying methods. I have been on enough protests over the years to know exactly the kind of vicious attacks that take place. I wonder actually how many you have been on!

“Anyway, the capitalists know that a critique of the state is not a critique of capitalism. This is not how the workers see it anyway, for them the state is whoever is in political power. So to criticise the state is to criticise New Labour.”

This is an irrelevance and a typical diversion from the main point, which is that the existence of bourgeois freedoms enabled this to be reported and discussed in contrast to the situation where those basic freedoms are lacking in the kind of regimes you support.

You said in relation to Chavez,

“In fact, if we used your criteria here we could even use it to present Hitler and Mussolini as radical!!!! After all, they got workers back to work and thereby raised workers condition. Hitler’s policy of giving grants to firms that employed labour-intensive production methods benefited workers.”

If you have a problem distinguishing between Hitler and Chavez then fair enough, shows the flaw of your Marxist fundamentalism. Thankfully I think most on the left do have the ability to make the distinction, even the new left you talk about.

But any intelligent person reading this will see yet again the way you lie and misrepresent. Its not me having a problem distinguishing between Chavez and Hitler precisely because I DO use the Marxist method, which is scientific whereas your method is wholly subjectivist. So the first sentence shows precisely what is ludicrous in your argument, because I say,

“In fact, if we used YOUR criteria here we could even use it to present Hitler and Mussolini as radical!!!!

BCFG said...

To all intents and purposes you present a version of Fukuyama’s the End of History, the future is capitalist or something very much like it. This is why you shy away from denouncing neo liberalism and you show why so many former Trotskyists move to the right

You said,

“There you go again lying about what I said. You really can’t help yourself can you. Lying is obviously the mainstay of your politics. You live in this binary world of Good and Evil where everything is either Good and has to be supported, including lying about or denying anything about it which is bad, and on the other hand where everything is irretrievably bad and can only be condemned including lying about or denying anything that is good.
I never said that it is “great” being a worker under Capitalism or that Marx, Engels or Lenin had said any such thing. I only said that it was better than what existed before, and Marx, Engels and Lenin agree”

There you go again; setting me up as a liar to win an argument you have lost. The whole context of this discussion is whether capitalism is good for the worker. You clearly believe it is, in total opposition to Marx, which makes me wonder why you even consider yourself a socialist or a Marxist.
Hence the debate about world trade, technology and worker as worker and consumer, any intelligent observer can see this was the context in which the debate took place.

You accuse me of living in a world of good and evil and then say, subjectively, capitalism is better than what went before. Can we really say capitalism is better than tribesmen living in the jungle?

So I will ask again, provides quotes where Marx said how great it was to be a worker under capitalism, because you have provided many.

You said,

“In other words no you cannot give us an answer to this straightforward question, and from which plus your misrepresentation of Marx’s position we can deduce that your position is actually, no yes you oppose world trade here and now”

What a stupid statement. Do I want to turn England into a self sufficient North Korea, absolutely not. For the record I feel a more integrated Europe would be better than what we have now, for the simple reason that it will break down national barriers. Hardly the classic BNP, nationalist position. But your insane Marxist fundamentalism leads you to the incorrect assumption once again!

You said on world/free tade,

“And I vote clearly and unequivocally, and for the same reasons with Marx. I’ll leave you in the company of the Conservative nationalists and protectionists like the BNP”

And you say I misrepresent Marx, unbelievable!

I shall answer this question of world trade by looking at what Marx had to say in “On the question of free trade”.

Let us first look at how Marx examines the worker as worker, i.e. the worker in the workplace in the present, let us notice how he does not include any lauding of capitalism or bring in any history of the previous 100 years to make the point that things may be bad now but in his dads day they were even worse. This is because Marx is speaking to his audience, the worker and its representatives, the Chartists.

Marx:(”Every manufacturer has for his own private use a regular penal code in which fines are laid down for every voluntary or involuntary offence. For instance, the worker pays so much if he has the misfortune to sit down on a chair; if he whispers, or speaks, or laughs; if he arrives a few moments too late; if any part of the machine breaks, or he does not turn out work of the quality desired, etc., etc. The fines are always greater than the damage really done by the worker. And to give the worker every opportunity for incurring fines, the factory clock is set forward, and he is given bad raw material to make into good pieces of stuff. An overseer not sufficiently skillful in multiplying cases of infractions or rules is discharged”)

The next quote highlights the fact that Marx recognises the selfish motives of the bourgeois and celebrates the cynicism of the workers. (Something you mockingly call reactionary!)

Marx:(“ They build great palaces at immense expense, in which the League takes up, in some respects, its official residence; they send an army of missionaries to all corners of England to preach the gospel of free trade; they have printed and distributed gratis thousands of pamphlets to enlighten the worker upon his own interests, they spend enormous sums to make the press favorable to their cause; they organize a vast administrative system for the conduct of the free trade movement, and they display all their wealth of eloquence at public meetings. It was at one of these meetings that a worker cried out: “If the landlords were to sell our bones, you manufacturers would be the first to buy them in order to put them through a steam-mill and make flour of them." The English workers have very well understood the significance of the struggle between the landlords and the industrial capitalists. They know very well that the price of bread was to be reduced in order to reduce wages, and that industrial profit would rise by as much as rent fell.”)

The following again illustrates the meaning of support for free trade, totally the opposite of your argument and highlights the radicalism of Marx compared to your anaemic arguments.

Marx:(“ And do not believe, gentlemen, that is a matter of indifference to the worker whether he receives only four francs on account of corn being cheaper, when he had been receiving five francs before. Have not his wages always fallen in comparison with profit, and is it not clear that his social position has grown worse as compared with that of the capitalist? Besides which he loses more as a matter of fact. So long as the price of corn was higher and wages were also higher, a small saving in the consumption of bread sufficed to procure him other enjoyments. But as soon as bread is very cheap, and wages are therefore very cheap, he can save almost nothing on bread for the purchase of other articles. The English workers have made the English free-traders realize that they are not the dupes of their illusions or of their lies; and if, in spite of this, the workers made common cause with them against the landlords, it was for the purpose of destroying the last remnants of feudalism and in order to have only one enemy left to deal with.”)

The following part mocks the free traders for their apparent concern for the workers. If the reader imagines substituting Dr Bowring for Boffy, I think the point is made.

Marx:(“ When Dr. Bowring, at the Congress of Economists drew from his pocket a long list to show how many head of cattle, how much ham, bacon, poultry, etc., was imported into England, to be consumed, as he asserted, by the workers, he unfortunately forgot to tell you that all the time the workers of Manchester and other factory towns were finding themselves thrown into the streets by the crisis which was beginning.”)

The next part shows Marx taking a critical look at free trade (something you take me to task over and demand that a give you a yes or no answer to the world trade question: a patently ridiculous argument from someone on the left) and firmly coming to the conclusion free trade will send the worker to the wall. He also highlights that technology takes the skill and creativity out of the work process.

Marx:(“ The most favorable condition for the worker is the growth of capital. This must be admitted. If capital remains stationary, industry will not merely remain stationary but will decline, and in this case the worker will be the first victim. He goes to the wall before the capitalist. And in the case where capital keeps growing, in the circumstance which we have said are the best for the worker, what will be his lot? He will go to the wall just the same. The growth of productive capital implies the accumulation and the concentration of capital. The centralization of capital involves a greater division of labor and a greater use of machinery. The greater division of labor destroys the especial skill of the laborer; and by putting in the place of this skilled work labor which anybody can perform, it increase competition among the workers. Thus, as productive capital grows, competition among the workers grows in a far greater proportion. The reward of labor diminishes for all, and the burden of labor increases for some.”)

In the following passage Marx again takes the free trade apologist Dr Bowring to task, again if we substitute Dr Bowring for Boffy the point to the reader is made.

Marx:(“ In 1835, Dr. Bowring made a speech in the House of Commons upon the 50,000 hand-loom weavers of London who for a very long time had been starving without being able to find that new kind of employment which the free-traders hold out to them in the distance. We will give the most striking passages of this speech of Dr. Bowring: “This distress of the weavers... is an incredible condition of a species of labor easily learned -- and constantly intruded on and superseded by cheaper means of production. A very short cessation of demand, where the competition for work is so great... produces a crisis. The hand-loom weavers are on the verge of that state beyond which human existence can hardly be sustained, and a very trifling check hurls them into the regions of starvation.... The improvements of machinery, ...by superseding manual labor more and more, infallibly bring with them in the transition much of temporary suffering.... The national good cannot be purchased but at the expense of some individual evil. No advance was ever made in manufactures but at some cost to those who are in the rear; and of all discoveries, the power-loom is that which most directly bears on the condition of the hand-loom weaver. He is already beaten out of the field in many articles; he will infallibly be compelled to surrender many more."
Dr. Bowring's speech is the more remarkable because the facts quoted by him are exact, and the phrases with which he seeks to palliate them are wholly characterized by the hypocrisy common to all free trade sermons. He represents the workers as means of production which must be superseded by less expensive means of production. He pretends to see in the labor of which he speaks a wholly exceptional kind of labor, and in the machine which has crushed out the weavers an equally exceptional machine. He forgets that there is no kind of manual labor which may not any day be subjected to the fate of the hand-loom weavers. All the consolation which Dr. Bowring offers the workers who perish, and, indeed, the whole doctrine of compensation which the free-traders propound, amounts to this: “You thousands of workers who are perishing, do not despair! You can die with an easy conscience. Your class will not perish. It will always be numerous enough for the capitalist class to decimate it without fear of annihilating it. Besides, how could capital be usefully applied if it did not take care always to keep up its exploitable material, i.e., the workers, to exploit them over and over again?”)

In the next paragraph Marx explains how economists treat workers purely in a materialistic way, something you hold your hand up to.

Marx:(“ The progress of industry creates less expensive means of subsistence. Thus spirits have taken the place of beer, cotton that of wool and linen, and potatoes that of bread. Thus, as means are constantly being found for the maintenance of labor on cheaper and more wretched food, the minimum of wages is constantly sinking. If these wages began by making the man work to live, they end by making him live the life of a machine. His existence has not other value than that of a simple productive force, and the capitalist treats him accordingly.”)

In this final part Marx mocks the glories of world trade under capitalism. What a reactionary!

Marx(“We are told that free trade would create an international division of labor, and thereby give to each country the production which is most in harmony with its natural advantage. You believe, perhaps, gentlemen, that the production of coffee and sugar is the natural destiny of the West Indies. Two centuries ago, nature, which does not trouble herself about commerce, had planted neither sugar-cane nor coffee trees there. If the free-traders cannot understand how one nation can grow rich at the expense of another, we need not wonder, since these same gentlemen also refuse to understand how within one country one class can enrich itself at the expense of another.”)

The following article by Engels published in 1847 and titled Protective Tariffs Or Free Trade System highlights my points further. Engels mocks your position and those of the free traders in the first paragraph. He makes it abundantly clear why socialists support free trade and it is clearly not for the reasons you argue. It perfectly highlights your revisionism.

Engles:(” The gentlemen of the bourgeoisie who advocate the protective system never fail to push the well-being of the working class into the foreground. To judge by their words, a truly paradisiacal life will commence for the workers with the protection of industry, Germany will then become a Canaan “flowing with milk and honey” for the proletarians. But listen on the other hand to the free trade men speaking, and only under their system would the propertyless be able to live “like God in France”, that is, in the greatest jollity and merriment.
Among both parties there are still plenty of limited minds who more or less believe in the truth of their own words. The intelligent among them know very well that this is all vain delusion, merely calculated, furthermore, to deceive and win the masses.
The intelligent bourgeois does not need to be told that whether the system in force is that of protective tariffs or free trade or a mixture of both, the worker will receive no bigger wage for his labour than will just suffice for his scantiest maintenance. From the one side as from the other, the worker gets precisely what he needs to keep going as a labour-machine.
It might thus appear to be a matter of indifference to the proletarian, to the propertyless, whether the protectionists or the free traders have the last word…………
Not until only one class — the bourgeoisie — is seen to exploit and oppress, until penury and misery can no longer be blamed now on this estate, now on that, or simply on the absolute monarchy and its bureaucrats— only then will the last decisive battle break out, the battle between the propertied and the propertyless, between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
Only then will the field of battle have been swept clean of all unnecessary barriers, of all that is misleading and accessory; the position of the two hostile armies will be clear and visible at a glance.”)

You said,

“Ask a worker in some undeveloped country would you like to stay at your current condition or would you like to live like a worker in Britain, we know what their answer would be. That is why so many come here to try to find work.”

So what’s the solution here, do we allow these countries to become protectionist to foster their infant industries of do we continue to exploit them to the full and leave them to the vagaries of free trade. What is your solution to this problem?

You said,

“And the majority of workers in Britain do not have the problem or view of Capitalism that you have either! That is why they haven’t overthrown it, its why they vote for Capitalist parties in their millions at elections, its why they give the vision of socialism presented by people like you and Galloway the cold shoulder”

Totally agree with this. Not the defence of capitalism but I recognise that as a leading economy in the world people see themselves as fortunate.
Who needs the industrial reserve army when you have millions of starving Africans! Arguing for any kind of socialism is certainly a challenge. But a socialist I am and argue I must. For this reason I am not unsympathetic to your co-op ideas, in fact I am persuaded that this is preferable to some sort of mass nationalisation offered by many on the left. This isn’t going to stop me criticising the system!

You said,

“I have enough idea both from practical experience and from theoretical knowledge to understand that as usual when you have no arguments to use you simply resort to insults like this. Provide some kind of argument and I’ll respond then we’ll see who understands politics and who doesn’t.”

I can take a position of supporting co-ops but I understand that the political arena is about winning hearts and minds. A critique of capitalism has to be more substantial than its great but socialism will be even better. It why politicians pander to morality all the time, something you think moribund.
This is why Marx said, in 1864, in his inaugural address to the International Workingmen’s Association, “free trade will not do away with the miseries of the industrious masses”.

You said,

“it has also been used to lessen the burden of work by replacing some of the most back-breaking jobs by automation, and likewise has improved working conditions and environment accordingly, and it has been able to do that precisely because that technology so raised labour productivity that Capital was able to make greater profits”

Yes but it has also made work mind numbing for the worker at the machine. My dad worked on machines as an engineer and he’s seen it all and he told me how on the old machines he’d have to do all the maths, apply trigonometry etc, be creative. The new machines changed all of that; he just became an appendage of the machine and work lost all it’s creativity. So yes technology can be progressive but do we ignore the negative side to avoid ludditism?

You said,

“It has not done that out of the goodness of its heart, but because the very laws of Capitalist production lead it to do so i.e. Marx’s Civilising Mission.”

And the struggles of the labour movement, we should not forget that, should we?

You said,

“We have yet to see you make one single criticism of the Iranian Mullahs who daily attack workers, or of Hamas that do the same thing, or of Chavez for attacking Venezuelan workers or Galloway for his reactionary politics. What does that tell us?”

Galloway is a product of workers forming their own political parties and having their own political voice, if you rail against Galloway in the way you do, you are railing against this.

You said,

“which is why we are seeing a follow though of it here too now with the resurgence of religious fundamentalism of all kinds on the back of the spineless response of Liberals and many socialists to the attacks of the clerical-fascists”

You can’t blame socialists for everything! You would fit in at fox news!
Maybe it’s a reaction to capitalist civilising, who knows?

You said,

“For example, if as a result of global warming some major population area was going to be flooded, the least worst option might be to divert rivers”

I thought that might be your solution to global warming. Don’t question the fundamentals of capitalism, let millions die and in the meantime hope technology will save us! You are a clerical religious techno freak fascist.

You said,

“There have been a whole series of things developed for military purposes which have very useful civilian applications!”

Yes but would a socialist society you imagined have developed these weapons and how?

You said,

“He also spent a long time analysing him as consumer!!!! Look at all the details he gives for example about the way food was corrupted, and the effect it has on workers”

I was critiquing your lack of analysis of the worker as worker, not your analysis of worker as consumer. How many times do I have to say that before it sinks in?

You said,

“You oppose the very mechanism by which every country on the plant other than Britain, which industrialised first, has been able to industrialise and develop its economy i.e. the benefits they have from having cheaper labour than their competitors, and the ability to use with it the latest technology!”

The USA developed by having the ability to be protectionist when it suited, free trade when it suited and barbaric when it suited. Chad, for example, will not be allowed to follow the same mechanism that the USA enjoyed!

You said,

“Because, you have boxed yourself into a corner whereby you have to oppose the worker as worker to the worker as consumer in order to persist with your fantasy that workers conditions have not improved. Its the same kind of mental acrobatics the Stalinists had to perform to try to argue that same idea 50 years ago. It was ridiculous then, its even more ridiculous now.”

Again you show that no analysis of worker as worker is allowed. In fact no analysis of the worker is allowed full stop because capitalism and socialism are so alike and so progressive compared to anything in history. All there needs to be is an argument about is how the firm takes shape, is it a family owned business, a tycoon owned business, a public limited company or a co-operative. This is not Marxism but revisionism.

you said,

“It has got rid of dangerous and dirty jobs, it has got rid of many heavy jobs, even many of the mind numbing machine minding jobs have simply been taken over by robots, enabling other forms of work process to be introduced such as group working,”

This is where your lack of looking at the worker leads. These mind numbing machine minding jobs do still exist, I have friends and relatives who do them, and exist due to technological advancement. You have no idea about the workplace because you are not interested in it. It does not form part of your analysis; you are a classic example of a bourgeois economist!

You said,

“Total bollocks. Not only do you deny that workers living standards have risen massively, which is obvious for all to see, but you deny that workers work process has become less burdensome than it was too!!!! But, in that case tell us why Marx in Capital analysed the standard working day of workers as being around 18, told us of children working 30 hour shifts in dangerous conditions, and yet we see none of that today. Do you not have some explaining to do to maintain your analysis of the worker as worker giving those facts???????”

I haven’t denied anything; you are the one making crazed assumptions. Again I am arguing your lack an analysis of the worker as worker, i.e. the workplace itself in the here and now. Instead all you do is look at history and assume that the trend will continue. It doesn’t allow you to look into the workplace, you have all but confirmed this with your answers. The workers to you are just pawns on a chess board.

You said,

“For goodness sake this is like teaching political kindergartern. What do you think peasants are if not petit-bourgeois???? What kind of Revolution do you think the French Revolution that those peasants provided the foot soldiers for was. It was a BOURGEOIS Revolution!!!!! And what do you think the revolution was that overthrew the Tsar led by the same forces – it was a bourgeois revolution too!!!!”

There were demonstrations and protests against roman occupation of Judea for god’s sake. The bourgeois didn’t invent the protest as a tactic! Throughout history oppressors have sought to control protests!

You need a thorough de-fundamentalising!

You said,

“Yes, animal rights are a step forward and once again show the extent to which Capitalism continues to civilise human society.”

I will confess, I wasn’t expecting that answer, the pro animal rights stuff, I was fully expecting the pro capitalist stuff.
Well we are agreed on one thing, the idea that animal rights are a forward step, not the pro capitalist stuff!

You said,

“Possibly it will be, after all Belly Dancing is a fine art form for which the practitioners have to study and train for for a long time. As the saying goes “Nothing that is human is alien to me.””

Paedophiles should have that on their t-shirts! Anyway, ask the average worker whether they would want their daughter to be a Ballet dancer or a lap dancer. Ask the average worker if they want their children sexualised from an early age.
And you blame the Stalinist left for socialisms failure to engage the workers!

Boffy said...

“To all intents and purposes you present a version of Fukuyama’s the End of History, the future is capitalist or something very much like it. This is why you shy away from denouncing neo liberalism and you show why so many former Trotskyists move to the right”

No I don’t. I don’t believe Capitalism is the highest social order Man can achieve. Its you again replacing argument with slur and amalgam.

”There you go again; setting me up as a liar to win an argument you have lost. The whole context of this discussion is whether capitalism is good for the worker. You clearly believe it is, in total opposition to Marx, which makes me wonder why you even consider yourself a socialist or a Marxist.”

No the whole context of the argument is is Capitalism “an umitigated disaster” to use your words.

“Hence the debate about world trade, technology and worker as worker and consumer, any intelligent observer can see this was the context in which the debate took place.”

There’s no hence about it.

”You accuse me of living in a world of good and evil and then say, subjectively, capitalism is better than what went before. Can we really say capitalism is better than tribesmen living in the jungle?”

Capitalism is more progressive than barbarism. That is not a moral judgement it’s a statement of historical fact.

“So I will ask again, provides quotes where Marx said how great it was to be a worker under capitalism, because you have provided many.”

You’re right I have provided many quotes from Marx, Engels and Lenin saying how great it is to be a worker under Capitalism compared to pre-capitalist conditions, so why do you want me to hit you over the head with more.

”What a stupid statement. Do I want to turn England into a self sufficient North Korea, absolutely not. For the record I feel a more integrated Europe would be better than what we have now, for the simple reason that it will break down national barriers. Hardly the classic BNP, nationalist position. But your insane Marxist fundamentalism leads you to the incorrect assumption once again!”

This contradicts your previous statement that you oppose international trade because it means that foreigners are exploited by it!

”You said on world/free trade,”

Hold on which is it World Trade or Free Trade? They ARE two different things, you know!

“And I vote clearly and unequivocally, and for the same reasons with Marx. I’ll leave you in the company of the Conservative nationalists and protectionists like the BNP”

”And you say I misrepresent Marx, unbelievable!”

Not unbelievable at all. All of your positions have been based on bourgeois nationalism rather than socialism. You said you objected to international trade because it meant that foreigners were exploited. Saying your answer to that is Socialism is no answer because the only logical conclusion from that is that you oppose that exploitation and, therefore, that world trade until such time as we have socialism!

"I shall answer this question of world trade by looking at what Marx had to say in “On the question of free trade”."


”Let us first look at how Marx examines the worker as worker, i.e. the worker in the workplace in the present, let us notice how he does not include any lauding of capitalism or bring in any history of the previous 100 years to make the point that things may be bad now but in his dads day they were even worse. This is because Marx is speaking to his audience, the worker and its representatives, the Chartists.”


But he DOES say in lots of places precisely that things were worse under feudalism or the AMP etc!!!!!!!

”Marx:(”Every manufacturer has for his own private use a regular penal code in which fines are laid down for every voluntary or involuntary offence. For instance, the worker pays so much if he has the misfortune to sit down on a chair; if he whispers, or speaks, or laughs; if he arrives a few moments too late; if any part of the machine breaks, or he does not turn out work of the quality desired, etc., etc. The fines are always greater than the damage really done by the worker. And to give the worker every opportunity for incurring fines, the factory clock is set forward, and he is given bad raw material to make into good pieces of stuff. An overseer not sufficiently skillful in multiplying cases of infractions or rules is discharged”)”

And if you were at the meeting and said, “Herr Marx, how does this compare with the condition of the peasant or the serf”, what would have been his answer???

”The next quote highlights the fact that Marx recognises the selfish motives of the bourgeois and celebrates the cynicism of the workers. (Something you mockingly call reactionary!)”

Could you provide the quote where I mockingly called the cyncisim of workers reactionary??? As far as I’m aware I’ve said nothing about workers cycnicism!!!!

”Marx:(“ They build great palaces at immense expense, in which the League takes up, in some respects, its official residence; they send an army of missionaries to all corners of England to preach the gospel of free trade; they have printed and distributed gratis thousands of pamphlets to enlighten the worker upon his own interests, they spend enormous sums to make the press favorable to their cause; they organize a vast administrative system for the conduct of the free trade movement, and they display all their wealth of eloquence at public meetings. It was at one of these meetings that a worker cried out: “If the landlords were to sell our bones, you manufacturers would be the first to buy them in order to put them through a steam-mill and make flour of them." The English workers have very well understood the significance of the struggle between the landlords and the industrial capitalists. They know very well that the price of bread was to be reduced in order to reduce wages, and that industrial profit would rise by as much as rent fell.”)”

And Marx as is well known, for example in his writings analysing the work of Ricrado who acted as the ideologist of that bourgeoisie in these debates with the Landlords, set out the progressive nature of Ricardo as opposed to his opponent Malthus, and in the Communist Manifesto and elsewhere sets out why the workers side with the bourgeois against the landlords!

“The following again illustrates the meaning of support for free trade, totally the opposite of your argument and highlights the radicalism of Marx compared to your anaemic arguments.”

Which argument of mine the one I have actually put, or the one in your head that you want to attribute to me????

”Marx:(“ And do not believe, gentlemen, that is a matter of indifference to the worker whether he receives only four francs on account of corn being cheaper, when he had been receiving five francs before. Have not his wages always fallen in comparison with profit, and is it not clear that his social position has grown worse as compared with that of the capitalist? Besides which he loses more as a matter of fact. So long as the price of corn was higher and wages were also higher, a small saving in the consumption of bread sufficed to procure him other enjoyments. But as soon as bread is very cheap, and wages are therefore very cheap, he can save almost nothing on bread for the purchase of other articles. The English workers have made the English free-traders realize that they are not the dupes of their illusions or of their lies; and if, in spite of this, the workers made common cause with them against the landlords, it was for the purpose of destroying the last remnants of feudalism and in order to have only one enemy left to deal with.”)”

I agree with what Marx says here, please tell us how this challenges my argument!

“The following part mocks the free traders for their apparent concern for the workers. If the reader imagines substituting Dr Bowring for Boffy, I think the point is made.”

Yet another amalgam in place of argument. How does anything I have said equate with Bowring. It doesn’t!!!!

”Marx:(“ When Dr. Bowring, at the Congress of Economists drew from his pocket a long list to show how many head of cattle, how much ham, bacon, poultry, etc., was imported into England, to be consumed, as he asserted, by the workers, he unfortunately forgot to tell you that all the time the workers of Manchester and other factory towns were finding themselves thrown into the streets by the crisis which was beginning.”)”

”The next part shows Marx taking a critical look at free trade (something you take me to task over and demand that a give you a yes or no answer to the world trade question:”

I haven’t asked you any question over Free Trade! I have asked you if you oppose international trade, because the implication of what you have repeatedly said, implies that you do not!

“a patently ridiculous argument from someone on the left) and firmly coming to the conclusion free trade will send the worker to the wall. He also highlights that technology takes the skill and creativity out of the work process.”

Not at all a ridiculous argument coming from someone from the left in challenging the position of a bourgeois nationalist such as you. In this quote, Marx who concludes let us remember by saying that he votes IN FAVOUR of Free Trade, rather than opposing it as you do, also says that it helps to create the most favourable conditions for the worker by encouraging the development of Capital. Which, contrary to your assertion is a position I agree with him in. He also sets out that the consequence is an increase in the number of workers. And, we should remember that this is written long before Marx completed his economic studies and analysis. In Capital, which is written on the basis of that analysis, his comments are much more complex in this regard, setting out the more contradictory nature of Capitalism, he also speaks of the necessary growth of technicians etc.

”Marx:(“ The most favorable condition for the worker is the growth of capital. This must be admitted. If capital remains stationary, industry will not merely remain stationary but will decline, and in this case the worker will be the first victim. He goes to the wall before the capitalist. And in the case where capital keeps growing, in the circumstance which we have said are the best for the worker, what will be his lot? He will go to the wall just the same. The growth of productive capital implies the accumulation and the concentration of capital. The centralization of capital involves a greater division of labor and a greater use of machinery. The greater division of labor destroys the especial skill of the laborer; and by putting in the place of this skilled work labor which anybody can perform, it increase competition among the workers. Thus, as productive capital grows, competition among the workers grows in a far greater proportion. The reward of labor diminishes for all, and the burden of labor increases for some.”)”

“In the following passage Marx again takes the free trade apologist Dr Bowring to task, again if we substitute Dr Bowring for Boffy the point to the reader is made.”

More Stalinist amalgams in place of argument!

Marx:(“ In 1835, Dr. Bowring made a speech in the House of Commons upon the 50,000 hand-loom weavers of London who for a very long time had been starving without being able to find that new kind of employment which the free-traders hold out to them in the distance. We will give the most striking passages of this speech of Dr. Bowring: “This distress of the weavers... is an incredible condition of a species of labor easily learned -- and constantly intruded on and superseded by cheaper means of production. A very short cessation of demand, where the competition for work is so great... produces a crisis. The hand-loom weavers are on the verge of that state beyond which human existence can hardly be sustained, and a very trifling check hurls them into the regions of starvation.... The improvements of machinery, ...by superseding manual labor more and more, infallibly bring with them in the transition much of temporary suffering.... The national good cannot be purchased but at the expense of some individual evil. No advance was ever made in manufactures but at some cost to those who are in the rear; and of all discoveries, the power-loom is that which most directly bears on the condition of the hand-loom weaver. He is already beaten out of the field in many articles; he will infallibly be compelled to surrender many more."

Dr. Bowring's speech is the more remarkable because the facts quoted by him are exact, and the phrases with which he seeks to palliate them are wholly characterized by the hypocrisy common to all free trade sermons. He represents the workers as means of production which must be superseded by less expensive means of production. He pretends to see in the labor of which he speaks a wholly exceptional kind of labor, and in the machine which has crushed out the weavers an equally exceptional machine. He forgets that there is no kind of manual labor which may not any day be subjected to the fate of the hand-loom weavers. All the consolation which Dr. Bowring offers the workers who perish, and, indeed, the whole doctrine of compensation which the free-traders propound, amounts to this: “You thousands of workers who are perishing, do not despair! You can die with an easy conscience. Your class will not perish. It will always be numerous enough for the capitalist class to decimate it without fear of annihilating it. Besides, how could capital be usefully applied if it did not take care always to keep up its exploitable material, i.e., the workers, to exploit them over and over again?”)”


How does anything Marx says here conflict with what I have said as opposed to what you want to pretend I have said??? How does anything that Bowring says, in any shape or form agree with what I have said as opposed to what you want to pretend I have said? Simply copying and pasting huge slabs of text without showing how they relate to my actual arguments is not a basis for rational debate. You can’t do it, because you’d be unable to find any quote from me that actually contradicts Marx or that agrees with Bowring!!!!

But, in any case, after all that what was Marx’s attitude to the introduction of the power loom? It was to support it!!!!

”In the next paragraph Marx explains how economists treat workers purely in a materialistic way, something you hold your hand up to.”

No I don’t! Why do you think I wrote about the alienation of labour???? Why do you think in all the things I’ve written about the Economics of Co-operation I’ve said that labour is not homogenous between Co-ops and Private Industry, precisely because of the different conditions that apply in that regard?????

”Marx:(“ The progress of industry creates less expensive means of subsistence. Thus spirits have taken the place of beer, cotton that of wool and linen, and potatoes that of bread. Thus, as means are constantly being found for the maintenance of labor on cheaper and more wretched food, the minimum of wages is constantly sinking. If these wages began by making the man work to live, they end by making him live the life of a machine. His existence has not other value than that of a simple productive force, and the capitalist treats him accordingly.”)”

Oh dear that terrible Marx talking about the worker here as a consumer!!!! Presumably, following on from your objection to me making such an analysis you think Marx was a consumerist!!!! Perhaps, following on from your support for the State Capitalist bureaucrats in the NHS and opposition to any criticism of its inefficiency, you think Marx should be condemned for making these consumerist comments, because they can only result in the brewery, textile, wood, agriculture and baking industries being even more exploited so as to meet the unreasonable demands of the workers as consumers!!!!!!!!!!!

”In this final part Marx mocks the glories of world trade under capitalism. What a reactionary!”

No he doesn’t! Where does he do that? He mocks the hypocrites within the bourgeoisie who talk about FREE Trade, but you seem not to know the difference!!!

”Marx(“We are told that free trade would create an international division of labor, and thereby give to each country the production which is most in harmony with its natural advantage. You believe, perhaps, gentlemen, that the production of coffee and sugar is the natural destiny of the West Indies. Two centuries ago, nature, which does not trouble herself about commerce, had planted neither sugar-cane nor coffee trees there. If the free-traders cannot understand how one nation can grow rich at the expense of another, we need not wonder, since these same gentlemen also refuse to understand how within one country one class can enrich itself at the expense of another.”)”

”The following article by Engels published in 1847 and titled Protective Tariffs Or Free Trade System highlights my points further. Engels mocks your position and those of the free traders in the first paragraph.”

Which is it he mocks, according to you, my position or the position of the Free Traders???? My position or the position you wish to attribute to me?

“He makes it abundantly clear why socialists support free trade and it is clearly not for the reasons you argue. It perfectly highlights your revisionism.”

Really, we’ll see. As for revisionism coming from someone who doesn’t know the first thing about Marxism that is a bit rich!!!

”Engles:(” The gentlemen of the bourgeoisie who advocate the protective system never fail to push the well-being of the working class into the foreground.”

Well, it seems that your inability to understand the first thing about Marxism or the quotes you cite has bitten you in the arse at the first sentence!!!! It was you after all who held this position not me!!!! It was you who opposed trade, i.e. upheld Protectionism, on the basis that it exploited foreign workers!!!!

“To judge by their words, a truly paradisiacal life will commence for the workers with the protection of industry, Germany will then become a Canaan “flowing with milk and honey” for the proletarians. But listen on the other hand to the free trade men speaking, and only under their system would the propertyless be able to live “like God in France”, that is, in the greatest jollity and merriment.”

Where have I said that such would be the result purely of Free Trade????

”Among both parties there are still plenty of limited minds who more or less believe in the truth of their own words. The intelligent among them know very well that this is all vain delusion, merely calculated, furthermore, to deceive and win the masses.

The intelligent bourgeois does not need to be told that whether the system in force is that of protective tariffs or free trade or a mixture of both, the worker will receive no bigger wage for his labour than will just suffice for his scantiest maintenance. From the one side as from the other, the worker gets precisely what he needs to keep going as a labour-machine.”


But, its your position not mine that equates here with the bourgeois of limited minds who believes that we should oppose trade because it means under Capitalism the exploitation of foreigners!!!!

”It might thus appear to be a matter of indifference to the proletarian, to the propertyless, whether the protectionists or the free traders have the last word…………

Not until only one class — the bourgeoisie — is seen to exploit and oppress, until penury and misery can no longer be blamed now on this estate, now on that, or simply on the absolute monarchy and its bureaucrats— only then will the last decisive battle break out, the battle between the propertied and the propertyless, between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

Only then will the field of battle have been swept clean of all unnecessary barriers, of all that is misleading and accessory; the position of the two hostile armies will be clear and visible at a glance.”)”


Of course, you cut out here Engels reference to support for Free Trade as a means of bringing this situation about, because it would contradict your argument!!! But, also it is you throughout every discussion we have had who has argued the position of bourgeois nationalism criticised by Engels here. Time and again instead of framing things in terms of a class battle as Engels does here, you frame things in Nationalistic terms. Instead, as Marx and Engels have done in the quotes you have given, arguing for a struggle of workers against bosses you advocate a struggle against National groups, against “Imperialism”, or “Neo-Colonilaism”, or Israel and in the process as part of that struggle rather than lining up with the workers against the bosses you line up with the bourgeois nationalists of Hamas, or Iran, or Venezuela AGAINST the workers. Indeed, not only do you side with those bourgeois forces against the workers, but you even call on the workers themselves to line up with those same reactionary bosses against some other group of workers!!!!!!

”So what’s the solution here, do we allow these countries to become protectionist to foster their infant industries of do we continue to exploit them to the full and leave them to the vagaries of free trade. What is your solution to this problem?”

There you go again arguing as a bouregois nationalist. I am a Marxist I have no interest in providing solutions for NATIONS only for WORKERS!!!!! That is especially the case when those Nations are bourgeois nations, and so the solutions are for the Capitalist rulers of those nations!!!!

For the workers I AM prepared to offer solutions. Workers should have the right to find employment where they can obtain the highest wages. That means opposition to all Immigration Controls. In addition workers should establish international trade Union organisations and struggle for common pay and conditions. Workers must recognise as Engels says above that it is the bosses who are the enemy including foreign bosses. We reject your support for those foreign bosses and call for “Workers of the World Unite”. We reject the attempts of people like your friend Chavez to restrict the workers freedom and fighting ability through the incorporation of the Trade Unions into the bourgeois state, and demand the right to Free Trade Unions.

Where the State Nationalises large-scale property we struggle for it to be brought under workers Control, and then into workers ownership. We argue for the workers not to wait for the bourgeois state to act, but for the workers to occupy the large factories, mines and plantations and to run them as Co-operatives. Our only demand to the bourgeois state is to rubber stamp our actions, and to legalise the workers ownership.

“And the majority of workers in Britain do not have the problem or view of Capitalism that you have either! That is why they haven’t overthrown it, its why they vote for Capitalist parties in their millions at elections, its why they give the vision of socialism presented by people like you and Galloway the cold shoulder”

”Totally agree with this. Not the defence of capitalism but I recognise that as a leading economy in the world people see themselves as fortunate.”

Its nothing to do with feeling fortunate, and everything to do with recognising that their conditions have improved, and that the alternative people like you offer them would be a step backwards!

”Who needs the industrial reserve army when you have millions of starving Africans! Arguing for any kind of socialism is certainly a challenge. But a socialist I am and argue I must. For this reason I am not unsympathetic to your co-op ideas, in fact I am persuaded that this is preferable to some sort of mass nationalisation offered by many on the left. This isn’t going to stop me criticising the system!”

This argument about the reserve army and so on, of looting the Third World is bogus. I don’t blame you for holding it, because you are not an economist and a lot of people who should know better also come out with it. I intend to write something on the question of Imperialism that will deal with it so I won’t say more on it for now.

”I can take a position of supporting co-ops but I understand that the political arena is about winning hearts and minds. A critique of capitalism has to be more substantial than its great but socialism will be even better. It why politicians pander to morality all the time, something you think moribund.”

I have never said there is no place for such arguments. I do start from Marx’s position that morality cannot stand in the way of objectivity in analysis, and the conclusions that flow from it.

”This is why Marx said, in 1864, in his inaugural address to the International Workingmen’s Association, “free trade will not do away with the miseries of the industrious masses”.”

I agree with him, and you will not find any quote from me to the contrary!!!

”Yes but it has also made work mind numbing for the worker at the machine. My dad worked on machines as an engineer and he’s seen it all and he told me how on the old machines he’d have to do all the maths, apply trigonometry etc, be creative. The new machines changed all of that; he just became an appendage of the machine and work lost all it’s creativity. So yes technology can be progressive but do we ignore the negative side to avoid ludditism?”

But, your argument is one-sided whereas Marx’s argument and analyis is more complex and recognises the contradictory nature of Capitalism, so that he does not see it as you do as an unmitigated disaster!

So, alongside the deskilling goes skilling! There used to be 2 million miners, now just 100,000. But, at the same time there were few teachers or doctors or nurses. There were no computer programmers or video game designers, few architects or surveyors, or accountants or lawyers and so on and on. Yes, the introduction of the CNC machines meant a skilled job became unskilled, but it also meant that other skilled jobs were created producing the programmes to run the CNC machines. And capitalism too dealt with the problem because it recognised that workers in mind-numbing jobs responded accordingly with low productivity. So it introduced Quality circles, group working, rotation of tasks and other such measures. Again not, of course, for the workers benefit, but in order to make more profit. It does the same thing with the environment.

“It has not done that out of the goodness of its heart, but because the very laws of Capitalist production lead it to do so i.e. Marx’s Civilising Mission.”

”And the struggles of the labour movement, we should not forget that, should we?”

In part, but I don’t emphasise it for a good reason. In “Wages, Price and Profit”, Marx in his response to Weston sets out why workers can never win simply by struggling for higher pay. The bosses will always respond by reducing the demand for Labour either by cutting back production, or more frequently by introducing new types of labour-saving equipment. So if workers wages and conditions rise in the longer term it cannot be due to this struggle for higher pay, it must be because, Capital is expanded by it. The means by which that is manifest may be through the fact that the higher pay won by the workers is not clawed back, but the Capitalist only refrain from clawing it back, because they can afford to do so, and because Capital has expanded as a consequence. That is the process that Marx sets out in describing the “Civilising Mission”, each Capitalist wants the workers of every other Capitalist to spend as much as possible so that a wider and deeper number of commodities are bought and sold, and so Capital expands.

”Galloway is a product of workers forming their own political parties and having their own political voice, if you rail against Galloway in the way you do, you are railing against this.”

You still haven’t given us any criticism of those reactionaries who attack workers! Galloway is NOT the product of workers forming their own parties. It’s the other way around. RESPECT was the bastard prodigy of the Stalinist politics of Galloway, and the sectarian and communalist politics of the SWP. It NEVER was the product of the working class, and it NEVER managed to mobilise the working class behind it even in the most miniscule fashion through elections let alone anything else. Where it had electoral success it was not on the basis of attracting workers but on the basis of the most reactionary kind of communalism. Its why in the end the rank and file of the SWP rebelled and pulled the plug on it.

But, even were you correct, suppose RESPECT had been the result of the working class creating its own Party in the way it has created the Labour Party what would be the consequence for socialists from that? It would mean on my part joining that Party as a genuine Workers Party, but it most certainly would not mean failing to criticise the reactionary politics of its leaders or its Programme any less than I criticised the politics of Wilson, or Callaghan, or Foot, or Kinnock, or Smith, or Blair or Brown!!!!

Its like the refinery strikes. I supported the strikers but opposed the reactionary demands of British Jobs4 British Workers. But, RESPECT was not a movement of ordinary workers like those strikes or like the Labour party, it was a reactionary, sectarian lash-up and came to the end it deserved.

“which is why we are seeing a follow though of it here too now with the resurgence of religious fundamentalism of all kinds on the back of the spineless response of Liberals and many socialists to the attacks of the clerical-fascists”

”You can’t blame socialists for everything! You would fit in at fox news!
Maybe it’s a reaction to capitalist civilising, who knows?”


I don’t blame socialists for everything, and there were socialists who stood up for free speech against the attempts by the clerical fascists and religious fundamentalists to restrict it. There are lots of socialists in a number of groups and outside any groups who I agree with on many issues. I think that some of the attempts to question orthodoxy by many on the left now from Comrades in The Commune, in the CPGB, and others such as Charlie posting here amongst many others is very positive, and reflects the kind of questioning and developing of new leadership I’d expect at this point in the conjuncture. Three are comrades in other groups such as the Socialist Party and Permanent Revolution who I would agree with on many issues too even though I disagree fundamentally with their statism.

“For example, if as a result of global warming some major population area was going to be flooded, the least worst option might be to divert rivers”

"I thought that might be your solution to global warming. Don’t question the fundamentals of capitalism, let millions die and in the meantime hope technology will save us! You are a clerical religious techno freak fascist."

What does questioning the fundamentals of Capitalism have to do with it???? We are talking here about a Socialist Society facing the problems of Global Warming!!!!! The whole point of diverting rivers would be to PREVENT millions from dying as a result of an unavoidable catastrophe!!!! So your hysterics about clerical, religious, techno, freak fascist are not only absurd, but totally irrelevant!!!!

“There have been a whole series of things developed for military purposes which have very useful civilian applications!”

”Yes but would a socialist society you imagined have developed these weapons and how?”

Of course. A socialist society would need to defend itself against its class enemies! It would need to defend its trade routes against barbarians and pirates! It would in places need to defend itself against wild animals. Moreover, I was not talking specifically about developing weapons as weapons. That indeed was the point. I was saying that a piece of technology that CAN be used as a weapon can ALSO be used for other purposes.

“He also spent a long time analysing him as consumer!!!! Look at all the details he gives for example about the way food was corrupted, and the effect it has on workers”

”I was critiquing your lack of analysis of the worker as worker, not your analysis of worker as consumer. How many times do I have to say that before it sinks in?”

And I was pointing out to you that this psuedo-philosophical babble about the worker as worker has no meaning for a Marxist because we recognise that the truth is concrete, that the dialectic is based upon the concept of unity of opposites. There is no contradiction between the worker as worker and worker as consumer because they are the same thing – the worker. It is not a dialectical unity precisely because there is no fundamental contradiction of interest between them that could drive to a synthesis. Attempting as you do to establish some contradiction simply drives away from the real contradiction within Capitalism which is that of worker versus Capitalist. That is why in the example you gave you ended up setting the consumer-worker against the worker-worker, and failing to theorise the real contradiction of both versus the Capitalist!!!!

And besides the fact that I have repeatedly referenced for you the fact that I HAVE analysed and dealt with the work process, indeed that it is fundamental to almost everything I have written, I was also demonstrating to you that contrary to your argument Marx himself as he is bound to do examines the impact of Capitalism on the worker as a consumer, as indeed the quote form him above that you gave demonstrates. Nowhere in that quote does Marx make the argument implicit in your argument that the workers should not complain about their bread being adulterated because it would only lead to the bakery workers being even more exploited by the employer!!!!!!

“You oppose the very mechanism by which every country on the plant other than Britain, which industrialised first, has been able to industrialise and develop its economy i.e. the benefits they have from having cheaper labour than their competitors, and the ability to use with it the latest technology!”

”The USA developed by having the ability to be protectionist when it suited, free trade when it suited and barbaric when it suited. Chad, for example, will not be allowed to follow the same mechanism that the USA enjoyed!”

On what basis do you make this statement? Chad is a politically independent state and capable of following whatever such economic policies it chooses. Chad has been pursuing its own internal policies in relation to Darfur, which are largely economically motivated, and despite the understandable and widespread hostility to the brutality it has employed. If it can do that what makes you think it can’t use protective tariffs. Many if not most developing countries over the last 100 years have used such means of one kind or another to assist the development of their native industries. Where they haven’t its because they have taken rational decisions not to do so based on calculations of attracting foreign investment, which they have then taxed to finance internal development, and which through its operation has also stimulated domestic economic development. That is why so many less developed economies have been able to develop rapidly over that period, and why their share in world output has been rising whilst the share of the richer countries has been declining!

”Again you show that no analysis of worker as worker is allowed. In fact no analysis of the worker is allowed full stop because capitalism and socialism are so alike and so progressive compared to anything in history. All there needs to be is an argument about is how the firm takes shape, is it a family owned business, a tycoon owned business, a public limited company or a co-operative. This is not Marxism but revisionism.”

This is just getting tedious and ridiculous. Of course analysis of the work process is allowed – though in actual fact you fail to give any yourself – and I have given more than enough such analysis to make your claim thoroughly absurd. But, what is more absurd is that in trying to attack me for a position that all Marxists until fairly recently held of the common foundations on which both Capitalism and Socialism stand, you fail to recognise or understand that it was precisely Marx’s analysis of the work process that makes that point. Marx’s whole argument for Socialism and how it develops OUT OF Capitalism, is based on the idea that Capitalism SOCIALISES production, that CAPITALISM brings about CO-OPERATION in production through the division of labour both within the workplace and within the world economy, and that it is these two things SOCIALISED PRODUCTION and CO-OPERATION, which Capitalism creates which are the fundamental basis of Socialism. Marx does not at all propose getting rid of those Capitalist features of the work process, therefore, on the contrary he proposes extending them to even greater heights. His argument for socialism is not changing those aspects, but of changing OWNERSHIP, and thereby bringing the relations of DISTRIBUTION (i.e Consumption), which remain private under Capitalism and therefore in conflict with the Collectivised, Co-operative and Socialised production relations already created by Capitalism into harmony!!!!

So, yes, Marx’s argument is precisely that the struggle for socialism is about replacing the private ownership of the firm with collectivised workers ownership of the means of production. Its not me that is revising Marx, here, but you that is trying to make him say something he never said. Which again is not unusual for you.

“It has got rid of dangerous and dirty jobs, it has got rid of many heavy jobs, even many of the mind numbing machine minding jobs have simply been taken over by robots, enabling other forms of work process to be introduced such as group working,”

”This is where your lack of looking at the worker leads. These mind numbing machine minding jobs do still exist, I have friends and relatives who do them, and exist due to technological advancement. You have no idea about the workplace because you are not interested in it. It does not form part of your analysis; you are a classic example of a bourgeois economist!”

But, even a simple glance at the quote you’ve given above shows that I never said that they had ALL been replaced. This again is your binary view of the world, “Good” and “Evil”, “Imperialist” and “Anti- Imperialist”, “Capitalist” and “Anti-Capitalist”, and here “All” or “Nothing”!!!! Every time you fail to account for the Marxist method and the centrality of process. I say speaking of a PROCESS as did Marx in analysing the changing nature of work, that at the same time that Capitalism de-skills work, so it also creates other skilled jobs, and you take from this that I am saying that ALL unskilled jobs have been replaced, ALL dirty or heavy jobs have been replaced. I don’t know if it’s the crudeness of your thinking or if its just that you have got so used to misrepresenting other peoples arguments that you can’t help yourself, but it just makes you look stupid to any intelligent person who compares what you claim I am saying with what I actually have said!

“Total bollocks. Not only do you deny that workers living standards have risen massively, which is obvious for all to see, but you deny that workers work process has become less burdensome than it was too!!!! But, in that case tell us why Marx in Capital analysed the standard working day of workers as being around 18, told us of children working 30 hour shifts in dangerous conditions, and yet we see none of that today. Do you not have some explaining to do to maintain your analysis of the worker as worker giving those facts???????”

”I haven’t denied anything; you are the one making crazed assumptions. Again I am arguing your lack an analysis of the worker as worker, i.e. the workplace itself in the here and now. Instead all you do is look at history and assume that the trend will continue. It doesn’t allow you to look into the workplace, you have all but confirmed this with your answers. The workers to you are just pawns on a chess board.”

More bollocks. The only point in your meaningless worker as worker and worker as consumer gibberish is to suggest as indeed you’ve stated that the interests of workers and consumers are opposed, and that, therefore, if workers living standards have risen its only at the expense of greater exploitation in the workplace! That is what is at the root of the great slabs of text you pasted in from Marx earlier, but which, of course, fails to take account of the greater subtlety and complexity of Marx’s overall analysis. Its why you object to criticising the State Capitalist NHS, and the bureaucrats who run it, because for you the only solution to that is greater exploitation of the NHS workers. And what is ridiculous from that in your absurd suggestions that I do not consider the work process is the fact that just as I gave a solution to your worker in the restaurant example, a solution that did not leave me providing excuses for the boss as you did!, so I have provided the solution to the NHS problem too, based on the work process i.e. first fight for workers and patients control of the NHS, and as it becomes apparent the State will not concede that occupy the hospitals and other workplaces, and establish Workers Co-operatives to provide decent healthcare for workers!!!!!!

“For goodness sake this is like teaching political kindergartern. What do you think peasants are if not petit-bourgeois???? What kind of Revolution do you think the French Revolution that those peasants provided the foot soldiers for was. It was a BOURGEOIS Revolution!!!!! And what do you think the revolution was that overthrew the Tsar led by the same forces – it was a bourgeois revolution too!!!!”

”There were demonstrations and protests against roman occupation of Judea for god’s sake. The bourgeois didn’t invent the protest as a tactic! Throughout history oppressors have sought to control protests!”

The point is there was no right to do so!!! There was no freedom of the press to highlight the fact that those who demonstrated were legally massacred, locked up or deported. Three was no right to legally meet and organise the protests in the first place. There was no right to belong to a Trade Union or other organisation to take action in response to any repression. There was no right to have a Political Party to present those views and to challenge them in bourgeois parliaments etc.

Its only with the bourgeois revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries that those rights and freedom are fought for and won!!!!

”You need a thorough de-fundamentalising!”

“Yes, animal rights are a step forward and once again show the extent to which Capitalism continues to civilise human society.”

”I will confess, I wasn’t expecting that answer, the pro animal rights stuff, I was fully expecting the pro capitalist stuff.”

Its not pro-capitalist to point to the fact that even under present day Capitalism the ideas of freedom and morality under which the bourgeois revolutions were fought continue to expand into human society, and that the question of animal rights are as much an extension of that as was the question of human rights, which the bourgeois revolution established!!!!! Its simply called telling the truth! Indeed, the truth is that not only can Capitalism do that, because these rights in now way compromise Capitalist rule, but is that many of those that advocate such rights are themselves bourgeois Liberals!!!!

”Well we are agreed on one thing, the idea that animal rights are a forward step, not the pro capitalist stuff!”

Well I’m not surprised about that, because you seem to have this odd idea that fighting for socialism is all about telling lies!!!! If I was a worker I would conclude from that that if you have to tell lies in that way, you can’t be very convinced that what you have to offer is very attractive. And given the evidence of your ideas of socialism, and the people you support they would be right.

“Possibly it will be, after all Belly Dancing is a fine art form for which the practitioners have to study and train for for a long time. As the saying goes “Nothing that is human is alien to me.””

”Paedophiles should have that on their t-shirts!”

What the hell does Belly-Dancing have to do with paedophilia??????

“Anyway, ask the average worker whether they would want their daughter to be a Ballet dancer or a lap dancer.”

Well it may be okay in the kind of clerical-fascist hell-holes you would want workers to live in for Men to control the lives of their daughters, but the whole principal of Socialism is that of individual liberty, the full and free development of each, and if women want to be Ballet dancers or lap dancers that is for them to decide and not for male chauvinists and religious zealots like you to determine for them.

“Ask the average worker if they want their children sexualised from an early age.”

What is your problem with sexuality. Its no wonder you have such an affinity with the clerical-fascists because your politics are the same kind of reactionary male chauvinism that they churn out. I thought you said your Mother was a nurse not Mary Whitehouse!!!!! There is a huge difference between sexuality and the freedom to express it and exploitation. The fact that you are unable to make that distinction tells us bucket loads about your politics and bigotry.

”And you blame the Stalinist left for socialisms failure to engage the workers!”

Its certainly true that Stalinism, which is in no way "Left", shares with the kinds of clerical-fascists you support this kind of male chauvinist attitude towards women, and individual liberty. One more basic freedom you would remove, which again tells us that you are no socialist, but the worst kind of reactionary in he full sense of the word!

Boffy said...

I should obviously have referred to Sudan's action in Darfur not Chad's. The political and economic point, however, remains the same.

BCFG said...

Boffy,

You said in response to my claim that this argument is about workers under capitalism,

“No the whole context of the argument is is Capitalism “an unmitigated disaster” to use your words.”

I didn’t say this; it was a quote from the Marxist.com website. I included it to show that, contrary to your claims, it is not me out of step with most of left but you!
However, I do think the failure thus far of socialism to make the kind of inroads that Marx expected has been a tragedy for humanity.

You said,

“Capitalism is more progressive than barbarism. That is not a moral judgement it’s a statement of historical fact.”

You claimed better.
If a modern heavily armed state comes into contact with a spear throwing tribe then, yes, there would be no contest, but better?

You said,

“You’re right I have provided many quotes from Marx, Engels and Lenin saying how great it is to be a worker under Capitalism compared to pre-capitalist conditions, so why do you want me to hit you over the head with more.”

No you haven’t but you have provided many quotes from yourself telling us this. Your attempt to deflect this question with a joke says it all really.
You are a revisionist.

You said,

“This contradicts your previous statement that you oppose international trade because it means that foreigners are exploited by it!”

No I am pointing out the problems of trade under capitalism!
You asked to be allowed to criticise Chavez without us inferring your support for the previous regime but won’t give me the same courtesy.

You said,

“Hold on which is it World Trade or Free Trade? They ARE two different things, you know!”

Capitalist trade! Clearly Marx was talking about capitals ability to move freely around the world. His whole argument is around nations trading freely in the world.
How can the 2 arguments be separated.

You said,

“And if you were at the meeting and said, “Herr Marx, how does this compare with the condition of the peasant or the serf”, what would have been his answer???”

The point is he criticised free/world trade in his time without having to worry about some fundamentalist calling him a reactionary!!!

You said,

“Could you provide the quote where I mockingly called the cyncisim of workers reactionary??? As far as I’m aware I’ve said nothing about workers cycnicism!!!!”

It’s been your entire argument against me!

You said,

“And Marx as is well known, for example in his writings analysing the work of Ricrado who acted as the ideologist of that bourgeoisie in these debates with the Landlords, set out the progressive nature of Ricardo as opposed to his opponent Malthus, and in the Communist Manifesto and elsewhere sets out why the workers side with the bourgeois against the landlords!”

This diversion won’t wash. I criticised free/world trade in the here and now and you called me reactionary! Your revisionism is too obvious for that tactic to work.

You said,

“Which argument of mine the one I have actually put, or the one in your head that you want to attribute to me????”

You claim the reason we support free/world/capitalist trade is due to it’s great lifting of the workers materially and culturally, not that it speeds up capitalisms demise. Your revisionism of Marx is clear for anyone with eyes to see.

You said,

“I agree with what Marx says here, please tell us how this challenges my argument!”

You can’t be serious! Your argument says workers become so liberated, so enriched by free/world/capitalist trade that they move to socialism in a blissful state of happiness. Marx talks of enemies to deal with –the difference is like your revision, blatant.
You even try to change the meaning of wage slave and misery to fit in with your views!

You said,

“Yet another amalgam in place of argument. How does anything I have said equate with Bowring. It doesn’t!!!!”

Bowring was the champion of free trade, telling the workers how it enriched and was in the workers best interests. Your line exactly. Please, these diversions will not wash.

You said,

“In this quote, Marx who concludes let us remember by saying that he votes IN FAVOUR of Free Trade, rather than opposing it as you do, also says that it helps to create the most favourable conditions for the worker by encouraging the development of Capital.”

More diversion and more revisionism! He still criticised it in the most explicit terms and was in favour for entirely different reasons to you.

You said,

“In Capital, which is written on the basis of that analysis, his comments are much more complex in this regard, setting out the more contradictory nature of Capitalism, he also speaks of the necessary growth of technicians etc.”

Well at least you finally admit your revisionism. Stop quoting this free trade speech in future if you think it out-dated!
Now I accept that Marx faced with the reality of modern day society would have to revise his argument but not to the extent of fawning over capitalism in the drooling, pathetic way you do. Marx took a far more critical view of capitalism than your positivist approach. Any intelligent person reading this debate can see it.

You said,

“More Stalinist amalgams in place of argument!”

More diversion from your blatant revisionism.

You said,

“Oh dear that terrible Marx talking about the worker here as a consumer!!!!”

I have no problem with this; he did the same thing with the agitation to the Sunday trading bill. My argument is that you largely ignore the worker as worker and the workplace itself, like many bourgeois economists. Marx fully analyses BOTH!!!!

You said,

“Well, it seems that your inability to understand the first thing about Marxism or the quotes you cite has bitten you in the arse at the first sentence!!!! It was you after all who held this position not me!!!! It was you who opposed trade, i.e. upheld Protectionism, on the basis that it exploited foreign workers!!!!”

No, you thought because I criticised world trade under capitalism meant I was a protectionist, I AM NOT. This also shows that you, like me, equate world trade with free trade!!!
This just highlights your inability to accept any critique of capitalist world trade without inferring reactionary motives.

You said in my asking should developing nations have protectionism,

“There you go again arguing as a bouregois nationalist. I am a Marxist I have no interest in providing solutions for NATIONS only for WORKERS!!!!!”

Marx makes numerous examinations of the reasons nations choose free trade and protectionism. He does this because he must analyse the system and offer an informed critique. He even mentions that free trade can enrich some nations at the expense of others.

You said,

“This argument about the reserve army and so on, of looting the Third World is bogus. I don’t blame you for holding it, because you are not an economist”

I wasn’t making an economic argument here but looking at reasons for a lack of class consciousness. Still I look forward to your article.

You said in response to my comment about the labour struggles,

“In part, but I don’t emphasise it for a good reason. In “Wages, Price and Profit”, Marx in his response to Weston sets out why workers can never win simply by struggling for higher pay.”

I accept this point but I was not talking about wages but about other gains, such as universal suffrage, the NHS. Some progressive steps have been as a result of working class political representation.

You said in response to my saying Galloway was a product of working class political represenation,

“It would mean on my part joining that Party as a genuine Workers Party, but it most certainly would not mean failing to criticise the reactionary politics of its leaders or its Programme any less than I criticised the politics of Wilson, or Callaghan, or Foot, or Kinnock, or Smith, or Blair or Brown!!!!"

Which is why I said the way YOU criticise him! By calling him a demagogue and publicity seeker –totally subjective, prejudice arguments. I have no problem with you critiquing his politics!

You said,

“What does questioning the fundamentals of Capitalism have to do with it???? We are talking here about a Socialist Society facing the problems of Global Warming!!!!! The whole point of diverting rivers would be to PREVENT millions from dying as a result of an unavoidable catastrophe!!!!

Wouldn’t the very nature of this socialist society have enabled it to better confront the environmental problem without the need for atomic bombs, which seems like the sticking plaster (albeit big one) solution you would expect a capitalist economy to attempt. Or do you see socialism as unplanned as capitalism?”

You continued,

“So your hysterics about clerical, religious, techno, freak fascist are not only absurd, but totally irrelevant!!!!”

No commas –it should read Clerical-religious-techno-freak-fascist. Your faith in technology is such that I think it a fair description, at least for someone so fond of such labels.

You said,

“There is no contradiction between the worker as worker and worker as consumer because they are the same thing – the worker.”

Your fundamentalism will not allow you to see the point I was making. Marx analysed the worker as worker extensively, not in isolation but as part of his overall analysis and critique of capitalism. I see this lacking in your work.

You said,

“More bollocks. The only point in your meaningless worker as worker and worker as consumer gibberish is to suggest as indeed you’ve stated that the interests of workers and consumers are opposed”

No. It was to highlight your lack of a spotlight upon the workplace itself. You seem more interested in the economics outside the workplace.

You said,

“That is what is at the root of the great slabs of text you pasted in from Marx earlier, but which, of course, fails to take account of the greater subtlety and complexity of Marx’s overall analysis.”

No. It was to highlight your revisionism and your lack of complexity in regard to world trade!

You said,

“Its why you object to criticising the State Capitalist NHS, and the bureaucrats who run it, because for you the only solution to that is greater exploitation of the NHS workers.”

What?? You put the state and bureaucrats in opposition to each other.
You also said the following about how workers were becoming better off,


“There has also been in the last decade a huge rise in Public Sector jobs, and these have been fairly well-paid jobs compared to those old heavy industry positions”

This seems like an endorsement of state capitalism to me!

You said,

“The point is there was no right to do so!!! There was no freedom of the press to highlight the fact that those who demonstrated were legally massacred, locked up or deported. Three was no right to legally meet and organise the protests in the first place. There was no right to belong to a Trade Union or other organisation to take action in response to any repression. There was no right to have a Political Party to present those views and to challenge them in bourgeois parliaments etc”

These so called rights are not fixed or permanent. The bourgeois restrict them for some, allow them for others and they would ditch them in a second if they had to. This kind of control of society has manifested itself in similar ways in any society where there have been classes, not every protest against Rome ended with a massacre.

You said,

“Its not pro-capitalist to point to the fact that even under present day Capitalism the ideas of freedom and morality under which the bourgeois revolutions were fought continue to expand into human society, and that the question of animal rights are as much an extension of that as was the question of human rights, which the bourgeois revolution established!!!!! Its simply called telling the truth!”

I am not denying that capitalism has brought about advances in human development. That does not preclude me from criticising it and arguing that socialism would be better. I also contend that these ideas are not fixed in one direction and that the expansion can contract.

You said,

“Well it may be okay in the kind of clerical-fascist hell-holes you would want workers to live in for Men to control the lives of their daughters, but the whole principal of Socialism is that of individual liberty, the full and free development of each, and if women want to be Ballet dancers or lap dancers that is for them to decide and not for male chauvinists and religious zealots like you to determine for them.”

What a depressingly familiar response.

It’s not just about men; their mothers also may have an issue. The critique was more about lap dancing and sexual relations under capitalism. Something you are unable to bring yourself to do in fear of looking reactionary. So you establish here that lap dancing is not some modern bourgeois form of community of women but a great advance in human culture that we have to thank capitalism for! Why, because capitalism is the great culture giver, the great human advancer whose social relations bring about socialism without any need for socialism!
I think this failure to ask critical questions does not aid the advancement of theory. We should speculate whether this concern for the well being of children by parents will still be present under socialism and if so, how it will manifest itself. We should be able to do this without the ridiculous slandering you indulge in.

You said,

“What is your problem with sexuality. Its no wonder you have such an affinity with the clerical-fascists because your politics are the same kind of reactionary male chauvinism that they churn out. I thought you said your Mother was a nurse not Mary Whitehouse!!!!! There is a huge difference between sexuality and the freedom to express it and exploitation. The fact that you are unable to make that distinction tells us bucket loads about your politics and bigotry.”

Here we go again. Any sort of questioning is immediately seen as a slide into vile reactionary politics. And you call me a fascist!
Anyway, call me a reactionary romantic but I think sexuality and love should always be connected, not sexuality and money. I’m sure you will tell me love is as moribund as morality. Oh will we ever be free of economics and economists!

P.S. Your comment about my mother shows you have been watching too many carry on films! (Though she definitely is not Mary Whitehouse!)

You said,

“Its certainly true that Stalinism, which is in no way "Left", shares with the kinds of clerical-fascists you support this kind of male chauvinist attitude towards women, and individual liberty. One more basic freedom you would remove, which again tells us that you are no socialist, but the worst kind of reactionary in he full sense of the word!”

Thanks.
I suppose if Marx’s daughter had come home and said “Daddy, I am going to become a prostitute for the cause of individual liberty” he would have said, “That’s my girl!”

I tend to think this comment tells us more about you than it does about me.

Boffy said...

Me: “No the whole context of the argument is is Capitalism “an unmitigated disaster” to use your words.”You: “I didn’t say this; it was a quote from the Marxist.com website. I included it to show that, contrary to your claims, it is not me out of step with most of left but you!

However, I do think the failure thus far of socialism to make the kind of inroads that Marx expected has been a tragedy for humanity.”
If you didn’t agree with the quote why use it? One quote from one site is NOT the whole of the Left, but it is typical of you to distort things in that way.

Me: “Capitalism is more progressive than barbarism. That is not a moral judgement it’s a statement of historical fact.”You: “You claimed better.
If a modern heavily armed state comes into contact with a spear throwing tribe then, yes, there would be no contest, but better?”
Obviously it’s a subjective choice. As I agree with the subjective assessment of Marx and most Marxists that civilisation is better than barbarism then yes, for me its better too. Clearly you prefer barbarism.

Me: “You’re right I have provided many quotes from Marx, Engels and Lenin saying how great it is to be a worker under Capitalism compared to pre-capitalist conditions, so why do you want me to hit you over the head with more.”You: “No you haven’t but you have provided many quotes from yourself telling us this. Your attempt to deflect this question with a joke says it all really.
You are a revisionist.”
Yes, I did you are lying again. I won’t waste space repeating them because anyone interested can see how you lie by looking at what I wrote above. I will simply refer to Marx’s comments in the Manifesto, his comments on the British Role in India, Engels statements on Colonialism in Algeria, Mexico and Central Asia, and Lenin’s comments in “The development of Capitalism in Russia” all of which set out the improved conditions for workers under Capitalism compared to previous modes of production.

Me: “This contradicts your previous statement that you oppose international trade because it means that foreigners are exploited by it!”You: “No I am pointing out the problems of trade under capitalism!”Another lie you opposed trade in the form of British financial services because you said it exploited foreigners!

”You asked to be allowed to criticise Chavez without us inferring your support for the previous regime but won’t give me the same courtesy.”Not at all criticise Capitalism all you like, but if you oppose trade because it exploits foreigners expect the conclusion to be drawn from that that what you are criticising is trade not Capitalism.

Me: “Hold on which is it World Trade or Free Trade? They ARE two different things, you know!”You:“Capitalist trade! Clearly Marx was talking about capitals ability to move freely around the world. His whole argument is around nations trading freely in the world.

How can the 2 arguments be separated.”
Now you are confusing the first two with a third!!!! And you keep confusing Free Trade with World Trade. World Trade including the trade Marx was describing is not the same as Free Trade. It can, and was for much of the time Marx was talking about fairly UNFREE trade based on various forms of Protection. Now you want to confuse matters further by talking of CAPITALIST Trade, but Capitalist Trade could be free or unfree. And what about Socialist Trade with Capitalist countries? Once again you show you do not have a clue what you are talking about!

Me: “And if you were at the meeting and said, “Herr Marx, how does this compare with the condition of the peasant or the serf”, what would have been his answer???”You: “The point is he criticised free/world trade in his time without having to worry about some fundamentalist calling him a reactionary!!!”You don’t even understand the difference between world trade and free trade!!! Marx voted FOR Free Trade whereas you vote against it. Good job you weren’t there to call him a reactionary!!!! I don’t know who the equivalent of Melanie Phillips was back then, but you’d no doubt have tossed him into an amalgam with them to avoid you having the need to actually present an argument against his ideas too.

Me: “Could you provide the quote where I mockingly called the cyncisim of workers reactionary??? As far as I’m aware I’ve said nothing about workers cycnicism!!!!””You: “It’s been your entire argument against me!”Really? In that case there should be no shortage of such quotes for you to cite should there. Funny though, you haven’t managed to produce even one. You are an unreconstructed Stalinist liar and charlatan.

Me: “And Marx as is well known, for example in his writings analysing the work of Ricrado who acted as the ideologist of that bourgeoisie in these debates with the Landlords, set out the progressive nature of Ricardo as opposed to his opponent Malthus, and in the Communist Manifesto and elsewhere sets out why the workers side with the bourgeois against the landlords!”You: “This diversion won’t wash. I criticised free/world trade in the here and now and you called me reactionary! Your revisionism is too obvious for that tactic to work.”You were the one who produced the quote from Marx, once again showing you didn’t understand what you were quoting. How can it be a diversion for me to explain that quote to you, and show it disproved the point you were trying to make. Yes, you do criticise trade here and now because you are a reactionary nationalist not a socialist! By opposing trade and lining up behind the bosses demands for protection you once again show which side of the class lines you are on. And its never on the side of the workers.

Me: “Which argument of mine the one I have actually put, or the one in your head that you want to attribute to me????”You: “You claim the reason we support free/world/capitalist trade is due to it’s great lifting of the workers materially and culturally, not that it speeds up capitalisms demise. Your revisionism of Marx is clear for anyone with eyes to see.”Its precisely by expanding, and thereby raising up the workers condition that it does exacerbate the contradictions within it and speeds its demise. You say I revise Marx, but you have yet to provide one quote to that effect! IN the very quote you gave – which in any case was far from Marx’s LAST word on the subject, his later writings override it – Marx says,

“The most favorable condition for the worker is the growth of capital. This must be admitted. If capital remains stationary, industry will not merely remain stationary but will decline, and in this case the worker will be the first victim”Remember that this was written during the hungry 40’s. At this point the young Marx had only just begun his economic studies. His views 20 or so years later were far more complex on this issue. So for example, contrary to your revisionist Lassallean immiseration theory Marx says, referring to the demand of the bourgeois that the worker save,

“Quite apart from the sheer brutalization to which this would lead -- and such a brutalization itself would make it impossible even to strive for wealth in general form, as money, stockpiled money -- (and the worker's participation in the higher, even cultural satisfactions, the agitation for his own interests, newspaper subscriptions, attending lectures, educating his children, developing his taste etc., his only share of civilization which distinguishes him from the slave, is economically only possible by widening the sphere of his pleasures at the times when business is good, where saving is to a certain degree possible), [apart from this,] he would, if he saved his money in a properly ascetic manner and thus heaped up premiums for the lumpenproletariat, pickpockets etc., who would increase in proportion with the demand, he could conserve savings -- if they surpass the piggy-bank amounts of the official savings banks, which pay him a minimum of interest, so that the capitalists can strike high interest rates out of his savings, or the state eats them up, thereby merely increasing the power of his enemies and his own dependence -- conserve his savings and make them fruitful only by putting them into banks etc., so that, afterwards, in times of crisis he loses his deposits, after having in times of prosperity foregone all life's pleasures in order to increase the power of capital; thus has saved in every way for capital, not for himself.”So we see here Marx setting out precisely what he means by that expansion of Capital that is “The most favorable condition for the worker”. It is precisely what I say, and what you criticise me for it is that improvement in his standard of living you claim is impossible, it is precisely his gain of a little bit of civilisation, “and the worker's participation in the higher, even cultural satisfactions, the agitation for his own interests, newspaper subscriptions, attending lectures, educating his children, developing his taste etc”. It was precisely on these things Marx says that class consciousness is founded!!!

How does any of this fit your picture of a Marx glorying in the workers wallowing in squalor, because it might make them revolutionary???

Me: “I agree with what Marx says here, please tell us how this challenges my argument!”You: “You can’t be serious! Your argument says workers become so liberated, so enriched by free/world/capitalist trade that they move to socialism in a blissful state of happiness. Marx talks of enemies to deal with –the difference is like your revision, blatant.”Of course I am. Where is your quote showing that I say that “workers become so liberated, so enriched by free/world/capitalist trade that they move to socialism in a blissful state of happiness.” Once again inveterate Stalinist liar that you are you provide not one single shred of evidence for this outrageous allegation. If what you say were true, why throughout all of these posts, including the posts on Co-operatives, is it that I argue that they can only be a component part of the class struggle, why is it I argue for the need for a revolutionary Workers Party, why is it that I stress that one of the reasons for that is that the bosses will use everything in their power to prevent that development, including force, why do I along with Marx say that it will be necessary to carry through a political revolution to put down their resistance, why do I argue for workers defence squads as an alternative to policing, why do I argue for workers militia tied to local Workers Councils and so on?

”You even try to change the meaning of wage slave and misery to fit in with your views!”No I don’t!!!! I use the term wage slave to mean exactly what Marx used it to mean. That is someone who because they do not own the means of production has to sell their labour power, and thereby to hand over surplus value! I’d suggest you read some Marx before you make yourself look even more stupid!!! Better still try not just to read but to understand! Why do you think Marx talks about the Historical Component in the Value of Labour Power for God’s sake!

Read the Grundrisse to see what Marx actually says he means by "Poverty" not poverty as you understand it, but poverty in the sense of absence of ownership of means of productoin, a situation he says is still compatible with "affluence". Yet, on your crude udnerstanding this would be anathema!

Me: “Yet another amalgam in place of argument. How does anything I have said equate with Bowring. It doesn’t!!!!”You: “Bowring was the champion of free trade, telling the workers how it enriched and was in the workers best interests. Your line exactly. Please, these diversions will not wash.”Once again you respond with more lies. You really are a miserable excuse. In all of the thousands of words you spew forth you present not one single piece of evidence whereby you give a quote from me, and say look this is the same argument as presented by whoever you wish to try to slur with me by placing me in an amalgam with them. No, what you say above is NOT my line exactly, because Bowring was advocating CAPITALISM, and I am advocating the OVERTHROW of Capitalism you lying toerag! Nowhere have I ever even suggested that if three were Free Trade everything would be sweetness and light, and it is obvious to anyone other than someone like you who is only interested in trying to lie and to distort everything I say, that that is the case!!!!

What I have done is to point out that your reactionary opposition to trade, your support of Nationalism is most certainly NOT in the workers interests, and all of the quotes I have given, and the quotes you have given from Marx and Engels show that to be the case. The trouble is that either you are such a liar that you simply think you can repeat these things without it being noticed, or else you are just so stupid that you really don’t understand what you are quoting!

Me: “In this quote, Marx who concludes let us remember by saying that he votes IN FAVOUR of Free Trade, rather than opposing it as you do, also says that it helps to create the most favourable conditions for the worker by encouraging the development of Capital.”You: “More diversion and more revisionism! He still criticised it in the most explicit terms and was in favour for entirely different reasons to you.”You are an inveterate liar. Show me the quote where I said that everything would be fine if there was Free Trade, where I said it would be unnecessary to struggle for socialism!!!! Go on I’ll give you one last chance to put up or shut up.

Me: “In Capital, which is written on the basis of that analysis, his comments are much more complex in this regard, setting out the more contradictory nature of Capitalism, he also speaks of the necessary growth of technicians etc.”You: “Well at least you finally admit your revisionism. Stop quoting this free trade speech in future if you think it out-dated!”You really are an idiot. Marx’s speech on Free trade is not outdated. I am revising nothing you utter moron. I am merely pointing out that in his theoretical writing, as opposed to a propagandistic speech, given at a time when thousands of workers were starving because they had been thrown out of work, when it looked as though Revolution might spread through Europe, what Marx says, about wages, and workers living standards rising under Capitalism, about the necessary improvements, the historical component of the Value of labour power and so on are far more complex than what he says here, which necessarily highlight the contradictions of Capitalism leading to workers questioning the system!

”Now I accept that Marx faced with the reality of modern day society would have to revise his argument but not to the extent of fawning over capitalism in the drooling, pathetic way you do. Marx took a far more critical view of capitalism than your positivist approach. Any intelligent person reading this debate can see it.”An intelligent person would observe both from you antics here, and in previous discussions, for example, over Palestine, that your political method is that of the BIG Lie. Over, and over again you fail to produce any rational argument in favour of your position. Over and over again, you replace argument with slander and slur and amalgam. On each occasion you accuse me of holding some position or other, but NEVER, not even once have you EVER produced a single quote from me to back up your slanderous accusations either on this or on Palestine!!!!! What does that tell us about you? What does it tell us about your motivation for your postings here. Is it really as you brashly proclaimed on one occasion to do with assisting “truth searchers”? If so then how could that be on the basis of your political method which consists of just one lie after another???

It is not fawning over Capitalism to point out that the kind of reactionary clerical-fascist hell-holes you support, the kind of reactionary nationalist politics you support is not an advance but a massive retreat for workers it is the basic Marxist duty of telling the truth. Like your Stalinist mentors you don’t like that, because the truth is your greatest enemy. For you the whole of your politics is based on telling lies to the workers because you know that what you offer them no one in their right mind would want to take up!!!


Me:“More Stalinist amalgams in place of argument!”You: “More diversion from your blatant revisionism.”Then once again I challenge you to produce the evidence of this revisionism. Show us the actual quotes of what I have said, and how they differ from Marx. You can’t because they don’t exist.

Me: “Oh dear that terrible Marx talking about the worker here as a consumer!!!!”You: “I have no problem with this; he did the same thing with the agitation to the Sunday trading bill. My argument is that you largely ignore the worker as worker and the workplace itself, like many bourgeois economists. Marx fully analyses BOTH!!!!”So do I, and like Marx I analyse both as being the same worker. Unlike you I don’t set the worker against himself by trying to come up with some pseudo-philosophical meaningless babble about the worker as worker and worker as consumer that once again sees you supporting the bosses against the workers.


Me: “Well, it seems that your inability to understand the first thing about Marxism or the quotes you cite has bitten you in the arse at the first sentence!!!! It was you after all who held this position not me!!!! It was you who opposed trade, i.e. upheld Protectionism, on the basis that it exploited foreign workers!!!!”You: “No, you thought because I criticised world trade under capitalism meant I was a protectionist, I AM NOT. This also shows that you, like me, equate world trade with free trade!!!

This just highlights your inability to accept any critique of capitalist world trade without inferring reactionary motives.”
Total bullshit. Engels was criticising people who opposed Free Trade under Capitalism too! How could he do any other we live under Capitalism!!!! If you oppose trade under Capitalism then here and now it means you oppose trade full stop!!! No one is concerned about whether you might support it in some socialist future, because what is important is the attitude here and now. You went out of your way to say you opposed it because it means exploiting foreigners, though as I pointed out at the time, you seemed to be unconcerned about British workers being exploited by British bosses, or foreign workers being exploited by foreign bosses. So your objection most clearly WAS NOT an objection against Capitalism, because if it was you would have concentrated on THAT exploitation and NOT on the aspect of trade. But because you are a bourgeois Nationalist you think that there is something different about Company A employing workers in France rather than in Yorkshire, that there is something different about selling products to someone in Ethiopia than to someone in Lancashire. You are thoroughly reactionary on almost every level.

”You said in my asking should developing nations have protectionism,”“There you go again arguing as a bouregois nationalist. I am a Marxist I have no interest in providing solutions for NATIONS only for WORKERS!!!!!””Marx makes numerous examinations of the reasons nations choose free trade and protectionism. He does this because he must analyse the system and offer an informed critique. He even mentions that free trade can enrich some nations at the expense of others.”So do I, but unlike you neither I nor Marx seeks to advise the bosses what they should do!!!! Unlike you who wants to have the worker side with the restaurant boss against the worker who is a consumer, in the same way you want the NHS workers to side with their bosses against the patients, in the same way you want the Palestinians to side with the bourgeois of Hamas against Israeli workers, in the same way you want Iranian workers to side with the Iranian bosses and their clerical-fascist agents against the outside world and so on, so you want to line up with the bosses of some Third World country, and provide them with solutions, which would invariably be used against the interests of their workers. I’ll leave you on that side of the class divide,a nd continue to stick with the working class.

Me: “This argument about the reserve army and so on, of looting the Third World is bogus. I don’t blame you for holding it, because you are not an economist”You: “I wasn’t making an economic argument here but looking at reasons for a lack of class consciousness. Still I look forward to your article.”But, the argument about lack of class consciousness is based on a bogus economic argument.

Me: “In part, but I don’t emphasise it for a good reason. In “Wages, Price and Profit”, Marx in his response to Weston sets out why workers can never win simply by struggling for higher pay.”You: “I accept this point but I was not talking about wages but about other gains, such as universal suffrage, the NHS. Some progressive steps have been as a result of working class political representation.”Working class representation is only Collective bargaining raised to a political plane. Things like the NHS etc. form part of the Social Wage, and are bought at the cost of lower actual wages. As Eric Hobsbawm points out nearly all of these things from the NHS, to Social Security represent not transfers from the bosses to the workers, but transfers from one part of the working class to another part of the working class. As these transfers are undertaken by the Capitalist State they involve huge waste and inefficiency such that a large part of the payments made by workers in taxes and NI to pay for them, actually go instead to maintain highly paid State bureaucrats in jobs, rather than to pay for the actual services they are supposed to cover. In the process they weaken the working class, and strengthen the Capitalist State as a force standing over and in antagonism to it. Both State education and the NHS were brought in not because the working class own these as gains against the bourgeoisie in contradiction to its basic interests, but because Capitalism was able to grant these concessions WITHOUT it fundamentally challenging its interests. Even then it made sure that these things were heavily circumscribed to prevent them presenting any such challenge to its interests. It is fundamentally in the interests of the Capitalists to have socialised healthcare because it needs a healthy, long lived workforce. US Capital is pressing for socialised healthcare now because, the costs of healthcare paid for by individual companies have become too burdensome and make US companies uncompetitive compared with companies incountries that DO have socialised healthcare.

Me: “It would mean on my part joining that Party as a genuine Workers Party, but it most certainly would not mean failing to criticise the reactionary politics of its leaders or its Programme any less than I criticised the politics of Wilson, or Callaghan, or Foot, or Kinnock, or Smith, or Blair or Brown!!!!"”Which is why I said the way YOU criticise him! By calling him a demagogue and publicity seeker –totally subjective, prejudice arguments. I have no problem with you critiquing his politics!”Not at all. He is a demagogue, he is a publicity seeker and those things are a facet of his politics not something separate from them! More importantly, RESPECT was not a Party created by workers.

Me: “What does questioning the fundamentals of Capitalism have to do with it???? We are talking here about a Socialist Society facing the problems of Global Warming!!!!! The whole point of diverting rivers would be to PREVENT millions from dying as a result of an unavoidable catastrophe!!!! You: “Wouldn’t the very nature of this socialist society have enabled it to better confront the environmental problem without the need for atomic bombs, which seems like the sticking plaster (albeit big one) solution you would expect a capitalist economy to attempt. Or do you see socialism as unplanned as capitalism?””No, and the longer it takes the less that will be the case. One of the reasons I have such a problem with the environmentalist movement is that in addition to having a rather fast and loose approach to the facts they also fail to consider what a reasonable strategy is for dealing with the consequences of those facts. For example, even if all of the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol were met, it would mean putting of the rise in global see levels by just 6 years. No environmental scientist disagrees with that fact. IN which case, the question arises, if having spent billions and billions of dollars to prevent a rise in sea levels, Bangladesh just gets swamped six years later than it otherwise would have done, is there not a better use of that money that provides a better solution for Bangladeshis as opposed to one that merely buys them six extra years!!!!

That is the conclusion drawn by a former Greenpeace activist, who also being a statistician began to get worried at the assumptions that were being taken for granted, and which he found on inspecting the data for himself found to be wrong. His conclusion was that a look at places like Britain where there has been prosperity due to economic growth shows that the prosperity itself allows choices to be made that diminish the environmental damage. So Britain introduced the Clean Air Act and so on, cleaned up its rivers, uses more energy efficient systems and so on. His argument is that if Global Warming is going to happen anyway – and it is – then better to use the billions of dollars to help places like Bangladesh develop so that they can make those more environmentally friendly choices too, they can develop other industries other than coastal agriculture and so on.

See: Lomborg Global Warming will be a fact. Moreover, the basis of socialism has always been the idea that production needs to be ramped up significantly to provide everyone with a high standard of living. We used to talk about everyone having the same kind of lifestyle as people in Southern California. Only that kind of abundance makes Communism possible. Even raising the living standards of millions in Africa will require producing far more than is produced today, and we may have to achieve it quickly. It is impossible to do that without a huge increase in energy consumption and a consequent effect on emissions.

”Your fundamentalism will not allow you to see the point I was making. Marx analysed the worker as worker extensively, not in isolation but as part of his overall analysis and critique of capitalism. I see this lacking in your work.”More gibberish. I’ve just completed a long series of articles about Co-opertives that deal precisely with the work process!!!!

”No. It was to highlight your lack of a spotlight upon the workplace itself. You seem more interested in the economics outside the workplace.”Which is presumably why I just spent several thousand words describing that work process in looking at Co-operatives, or why I spent several thousand more looking at Alienation, or several thousand more discussing why Wage workers create Exchange Value and Slaves don’t, or several thousand more arguing the toss with Paul Cockshott and others and on and on.

Me: “That is what is at the root of the great slabs of text you pasted in from Marx earlier, but which, of course, fails to take account of the greater subtlety and complexity of Marx’s overall analysis.”You “No. It was to highlight your revisionism and your lack of complexity in regard to world trade!”It highlighted nothing other than your complete lack of understanding of what you were quoting, and your dishonest method of simply accusing me of saying something and comparing what you accuse me of saying with some statement by some reactionary or other, but never actually producing one single quote from me that actually says what you accuse me of saying!!!!

Me: “Its why you object to criticising the State Capitalist NHS, and the bureaucrats who run it, because for you the only solution to that is greater exploitation of the NHS workers.”You: “What?? You put the state and bureaucrats in opposition to each other.
You also said the following about how workers were becoming better off,”
Er, where in this quote do I put the State and bureaucrats in opposition to each other?????

Me: “There has also been in the last decade a huge rise in Public Sector jobs, and these have been fairly well-paid jobs compared to those old heavy industry positions”You: “This seems like an endorsement of state capitalism to me!”That’s because you are apparently incapable of any subtlety of thought!!!!! Your method, the reason you seem to think you have to lie about everything is because you have this philistine belief that if you actually allow any hint of a suggestion that something is anything less than totally evil, it means giving support to it. So you are led whenever the facts contradict that to simply deny the facts, to lie, and to condemn anyone who doesn’t join you in the lie.

If I say, Manchester United beat Liverpool at the weekend me simply stating that fact doesn’t in any way constitute an endorsement of Manchester United!!! On your basis if I think Manchester United are a terrible football team I should whatever the result always say , no they lost. If they score 10 goals to the other teams 1 on your basis I should say, no it was a mirage, it was a fix, the referee was bribed, the other team had been threatened, anything other than accept the truth of the result!!!

That is your lying philistine approach to politics! How on Earth does me simply stating a fact, that over the last few years there has been an increase in Public Sector jobs, and that those jobs are often better paid than unskilled manual jobs in any shape or form constitute me ENDORSING State Capitalism. Its sheer lunacy for you to say that. But it is the fundamental nature of your method so I shouldn’t be surprised.

me: “The point is there was no right to do so!!! There was no freedom of the press to highlight the fact that those who demonstrated were legally massacred, locked up or deported. Three was no right to legally meet and organise the protests in the first place. There was no right to belong to a Trade Union or other organisation to take action in response to any repression. There was no right to have a Political Party to present those views and to challenge them in bourgeois parliaments etc””These so called rights are not fixed or permanent. The bourgeois restrict them for some, allow them for others and they would ditch them in a second if they had to. This kind of control of society has manifested itself in similar ways in any society where there have been classes, not every protest against Rome ended with a massacre.”Once again you miss the point. No one claims they are fixed, that is why workers have to fight to defend them. That is why every Marxist from Marx onwards has insisted on their importance, and the need to defend them. But, the point is that these rights are fundamental to the very ideology of Capitalism an ideology that is based on the idea of equality and liberty. Without those ideas the whole edifice upon which Capitalism has been erected of the equality between the worker and Capitalist, and their freedom in coming together as equal sellers of commodities to buy and sell Labour Power collapses. So every time the bourgeoisie are pushed to have to drop or diminish any of those rights they undermine their own ideology. That is why Marxists fight to defend those rights, on the back of which rests much of the workers ability to resist and to fight the Capitalists. That you fail to recognise the importance of those rights, that you fail to defend them simply puts you once again in the camp of the reactionaries.

Me: “Its not pro-capitalist to point to the fact that even under present day Capitalism the ideas of freedom and morality under which the bourgeois revolutions were fought continue to expand into human society, and that the question of animal rights are as much an extension of that as was the question of human rights, which the bourgeois revolution established!!!!! Its simply called telling the truth!”You: “I am not denying that capitalism has brought about advances in human development. That does not preclude me from criticising it and arguing that socialism would be better. I also contend that these ideas are not fixed in one direction and that the expansion can contract."Yes, you do continually deny that. Not only that, but when I point out that the opposite is the case you call it fawning over capitalism!!!!

Me: “Well it may be okay in the kind of clerical-fascist hell-holes you would want workers to live in for Men to control the lives of their daughters, but the whole principal of Socialism is that of individual liberty, the full and free development of each, and if women want to be Ballet dancers or lap dancers that is for them to decide and not for male chauvinists and religious zealots like you to determine for them.”You: “What a depressingly familiar response.

It’s not just about men; their mothers also may have an issue.”
I don’t care if Mothers have an issue either. Again unlike in your clerical-fascist paradise for a Marxist the basic principle is that children are not the property of their parents!!!! And women have the right to choose what to do irrespective of what their parents may want!

“The critique was more about lap dancing and sexual relations under capitalism. Something you are unable to bring yourself to do in fear of looking reactionary. So you establish here that lap dancing is not some modern bourgeois form of community of women but a great advance in human culture that we have to thank capitalism for!”Once again you demonstrate your reactionary views lining up with those who warned that Marx and the Communists would also introduce the “community of women” because they refused to accept the kind of reactionary, prudish ideas you put forward here.

“Why, because capitalism is the great culture giver, the great human advancer whose social relations bring about socialism without any need for socialism!”Well, you got the first part right that its Capitalism that brings with it culture. As Marx says, the ideas on which Socialism are built are not the ideas of the working class, but the ideas of the bourgeoisie, of people like him and Engels, who are able because of the fact that they are bourgeois, that they have access to that culture, and education to develop the idea of Marxism and thereby to transfer them into the working class. And yes, the fundamental teaching of Marxism is that it is the productive and social relations established by Capitalism that create the basis of Socialism, but what “bring about socialism without any need for socialism means”, God only knows, perhaps you could ask him.

”I think this failure to ask critical questions does not aid the advancement of theory. We should speculate whether this concern for the well being of children by parents will still be present under socialism and if so, how it will manifest itself. We should be able to do this without the ridiculous slandering you indulge in.”You are the only one guilty of endless lies and slanders!!!! You are the one who effectively accused me of being a paedophile for having the audacity to challenge your reactionary Victorian morality!!!!

Me: “What is your problem with sexuality. Its no wonder you have such an affinity with the clerical-fascists because your politics are the same kind of reactionary male chauvinism that they churn out. I thought you said your Mother was a nurse not Mary Whitehouse!!!!! There is a huge difference between sexuality and the freedom to express it and exploitation. The fact that you are unable to make that distinction tells us bucket loads about your politics and bigotry.””Here we go again. Any sort of questioning is immediately seen as a slide into vile reactionary politics. And you call me a fascist!”Question all you like, but then don’t be so surprised when I question back, and point out the reactionary nature of your positions.

”Anyway, call me a reactionary romantic but I think sexuality and love should always be connected, not sexuality and money. I’m sure you will tell me love is as moribund as morality. Oh will we ever be free of economics and economists!”For years men had sex with women without any feeling of love for them. If now women choose to exercise the same freedom and enjoyment that is for them to choose, and not for reactionaries like you to moralise about. If women now choose to exercise their sexuality by enjoying pornography or any other kind of sexual activity including lap-dancing that is for them to choose for themselves, not for reactionaries like you to criticise them for!

Me: “Its certainly true that Stalinism, which is in no way "Left", shares with the kinds of clerical-fascists you support this kind of male chauvinist attitude towards women, and individual liberty. One more basic freedom you would remove, which again tells us that you are no socialist, but the worst kind of reactionary in he full sense of the word!””Thanks.

I suppose if Marx’s daughter had come home and said “Daddy, I am going to become a prostitute for the cause of individual liberty” he would have said, “That’s my girl!””
Given Marx’s Libertarianism probably so! He certainly would not have seen it as his place to tell her what she could or should do in that regard!!! I think your attitude on these social issues belies your reactionary politics, and shows that you are not even familiar with the attitudes of socialist women on the issues of prostitution or pornography and so on. But then what is new. Everything you write shows just how ignorant of Marxist politics you are.

I’d suggest you look at some of the Left press and the Left women’s press such as Women’s Fightback and their work with the Collective of English prostitutes and so on in order to get an education. But, then you’ll no doubt write them all of as revisionists, or supporters of Capitalism!!

Llin Davies said...

Boffy,

I don't know why you bother replying to this reactionary moron. I've kept up with the discussions, and thought of responding a few times, but to be honest I wouldn't waste my time with him.

But, as a woman I've found his latest comments thoroughly offensive. I think you are wrong in characterising him as a Stalinist. A Stalinist who was simply trying to misrepresent you would know more about Marxism than this bloke. I think that he's some kind of religious fundamentalist from his latest crap, and from his writing about Israel probably a political Islamist. He won't admit that ebcause he knows then the game would be up on a socialist site. So instead he comes up with chunks of quotes that have all the appearance of somebody who doesn't have any real grasp of socialist politics other than some vague notions they've picked up along the way, and which have all the appearance of someone whose just Googled for something to pick out that might possibly bear some resemblance to the topic.

That's why he continually quotes stuff that contradicts him. If I were you I'd ignore him, and get on and do something more constructive.

Boffy said...

Llin,

Yes, it can be very frustrating to have people like this who obviously don't know what they are talking about, and clearly have no grounding in the Movmeent come along and spout off as though they were some font of all knowledge. But, most of the people who come here are intelligfent people like yourself who DO understand Marxism.

And, unfortunately, there are a lot of people like him that exist in this kind of reactionary limbo world that has emerged as a result of sections of the left over the last 50 years, but more particularly the last 20 or 30 years, accommodating to bouregois and petit-bourgeois nationalism, the Communalism of the SWP was just the logical conclusion of that.

For that reason I take the attitude that if you give people enough rope... The more this guy pumps out this stuff the more he exposes himself, and the more it enables a refutation of these kind of reactionary ideas. But, I assure you that my attention to dealing with the real issues takes precedence.

BCFG said...

Llin,

Thanks for you constructive comments.
As for not having any idea about socialism, I think the majority of socialists share my support for the Palestinians against their brutal oppressors. I have no ties to Islam, I am an atheist and I was born into an industrial working class family, a far better grounding in socialism than a million textbooks and a thousand million google hits!
I am sure you would be delighted to see your daughter end up in prostitution..not, typical bourgeois attitude, you are happy to see other peoples daughters in such situations from your lofty position looking down upon the workers.

Your fascist attempt at curtailing debate will not work however.

Just what is it, as a woman, you found offensive, because my intention is not to offend anyone?

Llin Davies said...

BCFG,

I have no intention of being drawn into a pointless discussion with you in the way Boffy has allowed himself to be, because as far as I'm concerned you are a reactionary time waster.

Despite the fact that you again try to claim you are not a political Islamist its interesting that in response to the statement that you have no idea about socialism your response is to refer to what? Palestine!!! Of every issue affecting workers in class struggle throughout the world why is it that you fail to come up with anything that is based on a CLASS struggle, but instead come up with a NATIONAL issue, and your defence of reactionary Islamists?

You accuse Boffy of not dealing with the "Worker as Worker" - a definition, which is as Boffy rightly says, meaningless, pseudo-philosophising - but in all of the posts I have read of yours on this site, not one single post deals with workers in class struggle, not one deals with the "worker as worker". All you seem to be interested in is National struggles and coming to the defence of one reactionary after another!

Then you continually turn argumnets around in the most stupid way as with your argument here. Its quite true that the majority of socialists support the Palestinians - so does Boffy as is clear from his many comments here - but the majority of socialists DO NOT support as you do in all your statements here the reactionaries of Hamas, who daily attack Palestinian workers!!!!

If, as you say you are interested in the worker as worker first and foremost I would suggest that you look at the interests of Palestinian workers as workers foremost, and their class struggle against the reactionaries of Hamas. And your cocnern for the worker as worker might then lead you to look on the same basis at the worker as worker in Iran, and all those other places where you always seeem to side with the bosses rather than the workers!

Your comments about your background do not impress me coming as I do from a working class background in South Wales. But, your comments do once again prove my point about you not understanding even the basics of socialism. It was after all Marx and Engels followed by Kautsky and Lenin who made the argument that the working class cannot develop a socialist conscioussness itself, that that can only arise within sections of the bouregoisie and then be transfered by them into the working class. Your obvious hostility to any such ideas, and what appears to be a general hostility towards culture and so on, and your repeated idolising of workers misery, along with your prudishness and ascetism is what makes me continue to beleive that your claims of secularism are just a cover for your real Islamist beleifs.

The fact, that you assume to know something about me and to write me off as some kind of middle class feminist are again symptomatic of that kind of chauvinistic attitude.

You comment that you do not want to offend anyone, and yet in one short post, despite knowing nothing about me you call me a fascist, you make comments about me being some kind of middle-class feminist "looking down" on workers and so on. The whole of your posts are offensive, because they are from start to finish made up of these kinds of essentially personal attacks on whoever you are debating with. What is worse, as with your personal attacks against me here, against someone you do not know, those attacks amount to nothing more than you making wholly unsubstantiated allegations. As Boffy says, he has asked you to back your lies many times, but you never produce a single quote or piece of evidence to do so you just move on to another lie.

How do you know for example that I am NOT a prostitute, and would your comments then not be exceedingly offesnsive to me? IN reality your statements simply cover what is obviously a much deeper chauvinistic streak that runs through you, and is apparent in all of your writing.

And anyone who has contributed to various discussoins let alone been around in the movement as long as I have can tell when the people they are debating with have any knowledge or not. You clearly do not. You obviously try to make up for it, by your offesnsive remarks, and by trying to grab whatever quote is at hand to back you up. Its obvious that that is what you do by the size of the quotes you drag in from your Googling of topics that you don't understand what is relevant from them, so just paste the whole lot.

Its also apparent from the contradictions you land yourself in by trying on the one hand to set yourself up as a defender of Marxist or Leninist orthodoxy and at the same time continually making quotes that contradict the very positions they held. I noticed you did that with Lenin in particular. Finally your lack of knowledge was shown by your hilarious comments you made allying yourself with the Alliance for Workers Liberty - the very people who if anyone can be said to be supporters of Israel and Zionism its them!!!

If you really are trying to become a socialist and shed your political islamism that is good, but you will not do that on your current approach. For me, I have better things to do than engage in a dialogue with people like you, so don't expect any response. Personally, I think Boffy would be wise to follow the same course.

BCFG said...

Llin,

I will try to be as inoffensive as yourself and Boffy in this next post.

The struggle to win hearts and minds is in good hands with you isn’t it.
If this is Boffy’s vision for doggedly and patiently engaging the workers to genuine Marxism then good luck is all I can say


You said,

“I have no intention of being drawn into a pointless discussion with you in the way Boffy has allowed himself to be, because as far as I'm concerned you are a reactionary time waster.”

Then why didn’t you keep you mouth shut and let me and Boffy get on with it. He can think for himself.

You said,

“Despite the fact that you again try to claim you are not a political Islamist its interesting that in response to the statement that you have no idea about socialism your response is to refer to what? Palestine!!!”

You brought Palestine into the conversation. My position of support for the Palestinians is not uncommon on the left, so don’t try portraying it as some Islamist agenda.

You said,

“Of every issue affecting workers in class struggle throughout the world why is it that you fail to come up with anything that is based on a CLASS struggle, but instead come up with a NATIONAL issue, and your defence of reactionary Islamists?”

I say the Palestinians have a right to fight against their oppressors, Israel. You obviously see their oppressors as other Palestinians, we will have to agree to disagree on that one I’m afraid.

I won’t get into a debate that I am having with Boffy but it is satisfying that he’s had to bring in re enforcements to defend his position. Even if it is someone who seems to have gone to the same indoctrination school but why doesn’t that surprise me.

You said,

“But, your comments do once again prove my point about you not understanding even the basics of socialism. It was after all Marx and Engels followed by Kautsky and Lenin who made the argument that the working class cannot develop a socialist conscioussness itself, that that can only arise within sections of the bouregoisie and then be transfered by them into the working class”

And Boffy slag’s off the statist left for being top down! Anyway, when will this bourgeois transfer have been completed, in one hundred years, two hundred years?

You said,

“Your obvious hostility to any such ideas, and what appears to be a general hostility towards culture and so on, and your repeated idolising of workers misery, along with your prudishness and ascetism is what makes me continue to beleive that your claims of secularism are just a cover for your real Islamist beliefs”

Allah can go fuck himself, is that enough to meet you concerns or do you want a cartoon?

So having the gall to question lap dancing is showing a general hostility to culture, ye right. So in your opinion lap dancing is some manifestation of free will is it? Not some indication of a society with questionable values. At the end of the day why do you want socialism, is it because you want to see a different society with different human relations. If not, why invest so much time to it?

You said,

“The fact, that you assume to know something about me and to write me off as some kind of middle class feminist are again symptomatic of that kind of chauvinistic attitude.”

Pot and kettle spring to mind here. What kind of chauvinistic attitude is it that you could be holding?

You said,

“You comment that you do not want to offend anyone, and yet in one short post, despite knowing nothing about me you call me a fascist, you make comments about me being some kind of middle-class feminist "looking down" on workers and so on. The whole of your posts are offensive, because they are from start to finish made up of these kinds of essentially personal attacks on whoever you are debating with.”

I think anyone looking over the history of my posts with Boffy would easily see where most of the offensive posts come from. But you have no criticism for Boffy, because you are from the same sect. So don’t pretend you have any problem with being offensive.

you said,

“What is worse, as with your personal attacks against me here, against someone you do not know, those attacks amount to nothing more than you making wholly unsubstantiated allegations. As Boffy says, he has asked you to back your lies many times, but you never produce a single quote or piece of evidence to do so you just move on to another lie.”

Let me just remind you of your first constructive contribution to this debate,

“I don't know why you bother replying to this reactionary moron.”

Now get off your fucking high horse.

You said,

“How do you know for example that I am NOT a prostitute, and would your comments then not be exceedingly offesnsive to me?”

It seems a very bourgeois attitude to look at prostitution as some harmless career choice, the product of free will. Just because I don’t see it this way in no way makes me anti women, just like your wish to see socialism in no way is an insult to the workers existing under capitalism.
Now if you have no problem with your daughter becoming a prostitute, I would have to see that as strange. Sorry if that sounds reactionary but so be it.

You said,

“Its obvious that that is what you do by the size of the quotes you drag in from your Googling of topics that you don't understand what is relevant from them, so just paste the whole lot.”

I have numerous books by Marx, Hegel etc etc and I studied History and politics at uni. Now I do utilise the internet to look up information/references but what is wrong with that? Its hardly some amazing sixth sense you have is it, I mean everyone does it, Boffy quotes Marx’s free trade speech endlessly, I, having read it myself, knew he was revising Marx’s meaning and he now seems to think it out dated. So he can quote it to back up his arguments but when someone questions his use of it, it suddenly becomes an irrelevant source. And you, being his disciple can’t look objectively at this debate but just blast off a flurry of insults.

You said,

“Its also apparent from the contradictions you land yourself in by trying on the one hand to set yourself up as a defender of Marxist or Leninist orthodoxy and at the same time continually making quotes that contradict the very positions they held.”

I don’t uphold myself as a defender of Marxist orthodoxy that would be an oxymoron for one thing. I don’t think Marx saw capitalism in the same light as you do, I think you/Boffy exaggerate the positive things he did have to say. I don’t think Marx would have seen lap dancing as some form of woman’s emancipation.

You said,

“Finally your lack of knowledge was shown by your hilarious comments you made allying yourself with the Alliance for Workers Liberty - the very people who if anyone can be said to be supporters of Israel and Zionism its them!!!”

What hilarious comments? If on some subjects I come into agreement with them so what?

BCFG said...

Boffy,

I think we’ve argued this to death so I will make this the final post, undeterred by your fascist lapdog. (No offence Llin).


You said,

“If you didn’t agree with the quote why use it? One quote from one site is NOT the whole of the Left, but it is typical of you to distort things in that way.”

Distort things, this is some wind up. I never said they represented the whole of the left. But most people on the left, not the most sects, share my critical view of capitalism to your drooling appreciation of it. For most on the left socialism does not represent some marginal improvement on capitalism but a fundamental change from it.

You said,

“Obviously it’s a subjective choice. As I agree with the subjective assessment of Marx and most Marxists that civilisation is better than barbarism then yes, for me its better too. Clearly you prefer barbarism”

This whole line of debate began by you slagging me off for being subjective. Talk about do as I say. And you finish off with another distortion; by saying I clearly prefer barbarism. Only your fundamentalist friends can fail to see your hypocrisy.


You said,

“Not at all criticise Capitalism all you like, but if you oppose trade because it exploits foreigners expect the conclusion to be drawn from that that what you are criticising is trade not Capitalism.”

I never said I oppose trade because it exploits foreigners. But to suggest that Marx never made any critique of how trade operated in his time is quite staggering.


You said,

“And you keep confusing Free Trade with World Trade. World Trade including the trade Marx was describing is not the same as Free Trade. It can, and was for much of the time Marx was talking about fairly UNFREE trade based on various forms of Protection.”

This is just pathetic. I am not confusing anything; I used the free trade speech, which you now tell us is out dated (so some of my comments must have been hitting home) to highlight that Marx took a critical view of how trade operates under capitalism and used it to contrast with your drooling appreciation of trade under capitalism. It is not the normal tactic that socialists employ, despite what you and your attack dogs say.

You said,

“Marx voted FOR Free Trade whereas you vote against it. Good job you weren’t there to call him a reactionary!!!!”

But for very different reasons to you! Marx imagined free trade bringing misery to workers, totally in opposition to your analysis.

You said,

“By opposing trade and lining up behind the bosses demands for protection you once again show which side of the class lines you are on. And its never on the side of the workers.”

You are truly staggering in your conclusions. I am criticising trade under capitalism, whether it is free or unfree. How do you see trade being different under socialism compared to capitalism, will there be a difference? If not, what is the fucking point of socialism!

You said,

“No I don’t!!!! I use the term wage slave to mean exactly what Marx used it to mean. That is someone who because they do not own the means of production has to sell their labour power, and thereby to hand over surplus value! I’d suggest you read some Marx before you make yourself look even more stupid”

I mentioned slave and misery, can you please tell us what Marx meant by misery?

You said,

“What I have done is to point out that your reactionary opposition to trade, your support of Nationalism is most certainly NOT in the workers interests,”

I don’t support nationalism, this is some illogical conclusion you have drawn from my critical look at trade under capitalism, whether it be free, unfree, domestic or international.

You said,

“why I spent several thousand more looking at Alienation, or several thousand more discussing why Wage workers create Exchange Value and Slaves don’t, or several thousand more arguing the toss with Paul Cockshott and others and on and on.”

Is that the same Paul Cockshott and others that you call bourgeois academics for refusing to engage in debate with you. –Are you taking note Llin!


You said,

“Er, where in this quote do I put the State and bureaucrats in opposition to each other?????”

here:” And it is a fact, that the State Capitalist bureaucrats WOULD like to get rid of the targets so that they could get on with running these businesses how they see fit. You see them opposing the imposition of targets all the time”

I think Llin will agree that it is you who are the liar. Unless she is some sort of sectarian fundamentalist of course.


You said in response to me saying “This seems like an endorsement of state capitalism to me!”,

“That’s because you are apparently incapable of any subtlety of thought!!!!! Your method, the reason you seem to think you have to lie about everything is because you have this philistine belief that if you actually allow any hint of a suggestion that something is anything less than totally evil, it means giving support to it.”

You must be going senile or something because I obviously taking the piss out of your attempts to misrepresent my position!

You said,

“That you fail to recognise the importance of those rights, that you fail to defend them simply puts you once again in the camp of the reactionaries”

Quite the contrary, I felt your attitude was a little complacent. By arguing that these rights are not fundamental to the bourgeois I see the need to constantly fight for them.

You said,

“Yes, you do continually deny that. Not only that, but when I point out that the opposite is the case you call it fawning over capitalism!!!!”

No I don’t. You take me critiquing trade under capitalism as a wish to go back to some golden age; this is bollocks and shows that any criticism is unacceptable in your view.

You said,

“Once again you demonstrate your reactionary views lining up with those who warned that Marx and the Communists would also introduce the “community of women” because they refused to accept the kind of reactionary, prudish ideas you put forward here.”

No I was lining up with Marx who claimed prostitution was the bourgeois form of “community of women” in response to the bourgeois complaints you quoted. This goes to the heart of this debate, I argue that lap dancing is not some great cultural leap in human development, some expression of free will but a modern form of the “community of women”, I use the same argument Marx used against the capitalist apologists. Because of your refusal to see any capitalist development as negative you take the side of the capitalist apologist, as you have done in this entire debate.
And now you and your reserve army are trying to tell me this is some clerical attack on women.

You said,

“You are the one who effectively accused me of being a paedophile for having the audacity to challenge your reactionary Victorian morality”

Again your senility is showing. You equating me as a paedophile in a previous debate, you repeating Marx’s “Nothing human is alien to me” was a perfect chance at a riposte.


You said,

“If now women choose to exercise the same freedom and enjoyment that is for them to choose, and not for reactionaries like you to moralise about. If women now choose to exercise their sexuality by enjoying pornography or any other kind of sexual activity including lap-dancing that is for them to choose for themselves, not for reactionaries like you to criticise them for!”

I haven’t been in any lap dancing clubs (sorry if that makes me a clerical reactionary) but I don’t think many women are clients; they tend to be ones doing the lap dancing.
But I will cease my criticism of the sex industry; I wouldn’t want to offend any socialist women who may be reading this!

In a previous post re a quote by an Irish Co-operative member, you claimed socialism would bring about the end of yobbish drinking and negative cultural aspects under capitalism. I repeat the argument as follows,

BCFG:(“No the point of socialism is to get rid of classes and the problems associated with that, there is no guarantee that socialism will eradicate all cultural practices, like drug taking or getting pissed and indulging in loveless sex on a weekend.”)

Boffy said :( “But, that is precisely what liberating mankind means!”)

Your inconsistency is staggering –anything to say about this Llin?

You said,

“I think your attitude on these social issues belies your reactionary politics, and shows that you are not even familiar with the attitudes of socialist women on the issues of prostitution or pornography and so on.”

I don’t give a flying fuck about “socialist” women, working class women’s attitudes to these issues are what interest me and how socialism may differ from capitalism.

Boffy said...

“I think we’ve argued this to death so I will make this the final post, undeterred by your fascist lapdog. (No offence Llin).”Your willingness to resort to abuse like this has been what has characterised your comments from the beginning. It demonstrates your political method, and lack of serious arguments, and general bad faith in discussion.

”Distort things, this is some wind up. I never said they represented the whole of the left. But most people on the left, not the most sects, share my critical view of capitalism to your drooling appreciation of it. For most on the left socialism does not represent some marginal improvement on capitalism but a fundamental change from it.”Your lack of understanding of the dialectic is astounding. Once again we see your method is that of the religious zealot. Only agreement with your hair shirt mentality will do, or else everyone is a heretic. Anyone who reads my blogs can see my critical attitude to Capitalism – read We Was Robbed for just one very obvious such Critique of the way Capitalism has oppressed workers! But, that criticism does not at all force me to accept and participate in the telling of lies about reality that you seem to think is necessary to win workers to socialism. It does not lead me to make the same kind of fool out of myself that you do in trying to pretend that workers lives are currently defined by abject poverty, by immiseration and so on, and certainly not to pretend that Capitalism has not improved their conditions over previous forms of society.

“Obviously it’s a subjective choice. As I agree with the subjective assessment of Marx and most Marxists that civilisation is better than barbarism then yes, for me its better too. Clearly you prefer barbarism””This whole line of debate began by you slagging me off for being subjective. Talk about do as I say. And you finish off with another distortion; by saying I clearly prefer barbarism. Only your fundamentalist friends can fail to see your hypocrisy.”There is a difference between being subjectivist in your analysis and subjectivist in arriving at moral judgements. I have no difficulty in saying that from a moral standpoint “primitive communism” was “better” than slavery. But, as a Marxist I conclude along with Marx that slavery was “progressive” compared with “primitive communism”, just as feudalism was progressive compared to both, and Capitalism is progressive compared to feudalism or the Asiatic Mode of production!!!! I base my political action as Marx did on that objective assessment not as you do on subjective moral judgements!

“Not at all criticise Capitalism all you like, but if you oppose trade because it exploits foreigners expect the conclusion to be drawn from that that what you are criticising is trade not Capitalism.””I never said I oppose trade because it exploits foreigners.”Yes you did, right at the beginning you commented,

“How was this wealth created, seems like a nationalist statement to me. What happened to workers of the world unite??”Which was said in relation to my statement that calling for the closing down of such businesses would put workers in those businesses out of work.

“But to suggest that Marx never made any critique of how trade operated in his time is quite staggering.”Once again, your method involves accusing me of a statement I’ve never made. Where have I ever said that Marx never made such a criticism? In fact, where have I ever not made such a criticism? The only thing I have done is to oppose your nationalism and protectionism, just as Marx and Engels did with bourgeois a nationalists in their day. Opposing your ant-trade, protectionist positions does not thereby make me a supporter of Capitalism or Capitalist Free Trade, and more than it made Marx or Engels supporters of Capitalist Free Trade, other than on the basis we have outlined – that is it drives forward the contradictions of the system.

“And you keep confusing Free Trade with World Trade. World Trade including the trade Marx was describing is not the same as Free Trade. It can, and was for much of the time Marx was talking about fairly UNFREE trade based on various forms of Protection.””This is just pathetic. I am not confusing anything;”No its not, and a simple look shows you even linking them together e.g. “Free/World Trade”!!!!!

“I used the free trade speech, which you now tell us is out dated (so some of my comments must have been hitting home)”I did not say it was out of date, I said it had to be put into context. I also said that it was his views on wages, and workers conditions which were more complex in his later writings, not his attitude to Free Trade!

“to highlight that Marx took a critical view of how trade operates under capitalism and used it to contrast with your drooling appreciation of trade under capitalism. It is not the normal tactic that socialists employ, despite what you and your attack dogs say.”You have still yet to provide one of these drooling statements of mine to back up your ridiculous argument. Or any other statement by me that demonstrates any of the other things you charge me with.

“Marx voted FOR Free Trade whereas you vote against it. Good job you weren’t there to call him a reactionary!!!!””But for very different reasons to you! Marx imagined free trade bringing misery to workers, totally in opposition to your analysis.”His arguments in favour were exactly the same as mine!!!! Moreover, even the argument about misery you misrepresent. In fact, as I showed his comment was that it led to an expansion of Capital, which Marx then says is, “The most favorable condition for the worker”! And what does he mean by most favourable? Exactly what he says in the Grundrisse, where he talks about the way during such periods the worker is able to raise his standard of living, “and the worker's participation in the higher, even cultural satisfactions, the agitation for his own interests, newspaper subscriptions, attending lectures, educating his children, developing his taste etc”. Which can hardly be compared with your attempt to make Marx say the exact opposite.!!!! You fail to understand what Marx was saying about misery, which was yes, ultimately the result even in these best conditions would be that workers would be thrown out of work – at the time thousands were starving to death for that reason so he would have been unlikely to say otherwise! But, the point here is ULTIMATELY. He was describing the process of Capitalist overproduction and crisis, which is NOT a permanent condition!!!! He was also arguing that by cheapening the price of food workers would benefit, but the bosses would then try to cut wages, and thereby it brings about a class conflict!

“By opposing trade and lining up behind the bosses demands for protection you once again show which side of the class lines you are on. And its never on the side of the workers.””You are truly staggering in your conclusions. I am criticising trade under capitalism, whether it is free or unfree. How do you see trade being different under socialism compared to capitalism, will there be a difference? If not, what is the fucking point of socialism!”This is a ridiculous argument. You began as I said above criticising me for pointing out that closing down the Financial Services industry would put workers out of a job etc. The basis of your criticism was that it earned money by exploiting foreigners. If that is not an argument against trade here and now free or unfree, I do not know what is! Search as you might you will NEVER find an argument like that coming from Marx or Engels or any other Marxist! Why? Because, unlike you Marx recognised that Capitalism by developing the productive forces creates the basis on which socialism is constructed, and the fundamental basis of that is trade, and in particular world trade, which creates an international division of labour!

And in the first stage of Socialism as Marx sets it out in the Critique of the Gotha Programme where he criticises the kind of utopian sentiments you express here, where the market will continue to operate on a large scale then, of course, trade will by and large remain as it is now!!! The reason, the POINT of socialism, is that the means of production will be in the hands of workers not bosses, and that means that the kinds of distortions that arise under Capitalism – because it means that the buying power of Capitalists is decisive – will disappear. Distribution will be geared, thereby to meet the needs of workers not bosses, but so long as workers are unable to replace the market as the basis for determining what to produce and how to allocate it then the basic mechanism of trade will remain unchanged! Certainly, that would be the case in the trade relations of a “socialist” state with the rest of the “Capitalist” world economy!!!! It is only at the higher stage of Socialism or Communism, when society has learned to be able to plan production, when there is such an abundance that the basic choices imposed by the Law of Value no longer have to be made that those kinds of trade relations disappear! How do you think they would be different simply as a result of socialism????

“No I don’t!!!! I use the term wage slave to mean exactly what Marx used it to mean. That is someone who because they do not own the means of production has to sell their labour power, and thereby to hand over surplus value! I’d suggest you read some Marx before you make yourself look even more stupid””I mentioned slave and misery, can you please tell us what Marx meant by misery?”Firstly, Marx goes out of his way to distinguish between slaves and wage slaves precisely because of people like you who are unable to make the clear distinction. Secondly, yes I can describe precisely what Marx meant by misery, he meant that periodically Capital undergoes a crisis of overproduction which throws workers on to the streets. He also meant that a growing number – though still only a small minority – form a semi-permanent reserve army of unemployed labour. He most certainly DID NOT mean what you mean by it, which is some notion of immiseration of workers. That is why he talks about the Value of labour Power including an Historical and Cultural Component i.e. that over time living standards rise and become incorporated into the necessary cost of producing Labour Power. It is why in the Grundrisse on p 206, he explains what he means by “poverty”, he says “poverty not as shortage, but as total exclusion of objective wealth.”

In other words the worker could be extremely AFFLUENT, that is they could have high wages and a good standard of living, and yet be poor, because they do not OWN wealth, do not own the means of production! In fact, in one section Marx says that in becoming more affluent the worker actually becomes more tide, because in order to maintain that affluence they have to continue to work.

“What I have done is to point out that your reactionary opposition to trade, your support of Nationalism is most certainly NOT in the workers interests,””I don’t support nationalism, this is some illogical conclusion you have drawn from my critical look at trade under capitalism, whether it be free, unfree, domestic or international.”The whole of your politics is based on Nationalism!

“why I spent several thousand more looking at Alienation, or several thousand more discussing why Wage workers create Exchange Value and Slaves don’t, or several thousand more arguing the toss with Paul Cockshott and others and on and on.””Is that the same Paul Cockshott and others that you call bourgeois academics for refusing to engage in debate with you. –Are you taking note Llin!”Once again we see your very lax attitude towards telling the truth. A simple check will show that Paul Cockshott DID engage in debate. See: HERE . Secondly, my description of Jerry Levy was to do with the contents of the discussion at OPEL not any refusal to debate. Finally, your attempt to divert attention from the evidence which again disproves your ridiculous and still unsubstantiated comments about me not dealing with the work process, simply once again demonstrates how scurrilous your repeated lies are.

“Er, where in this quote do I put the State and bureaucrats in opposition to each other?????”here:” And it is a fact, that the State Capitalist bureaucrats WOULD like to get rid of the targets so that they could get on with running these businesses how they see fit. You see them opposing the imposition of targets all the time”Firstly this is NOT the quote you were referring to, which actually stated,

““Its why you object to criticising the State Capitalist NHS, and the bureaucrats who run it, because for you the only solution to that is greater exploitation of the NHS workers.”So once again we see your dishonest method exposed! But to deal with the quote you have tried to substitute you will notice that here I put the State and its bureaucrats in OPPOSITION to the Government!!!! Unless, you are some kind of bourgeois democrat or reformist who believes that the Government and the State are the same thing, that control of the government means control of the State, of course!!!!!

You said in response to me saying “This seems like an endorsement of state capitalism to me!”,“That’s because you are apparently incapable of any subtlety of thought!!!!! Your method, the reason you seem to think you have to lie about everything is because you have this philistine belief that if you actually allow any hint of a suggestion that something is anything less than totally evil, it means giving support to it.””You must be going senile or something because I obviously taking the piss out of your attempts to misrepresent my position!”You write such unadulterated rubbish that it would be impossible to know when you are making a serious point, and when you have just come out with more unthought out garbage.

“That you fail to recognise the importance of those rights, that you fail to defend them simply puts you once again in the camp of the reactionaries””Quite the contrary, I felt your attitude was a little complacent. By arguing that these rights are not fundamental to the bourgeois I see the need to constantly fight for them.”Except you don’t as can clearly be seen by what you have written in this thread, what your attitude is in supporting those like Ahmedinejad and Hamas that deprive workers of those rights, what your attitude was in not opposing the withdrawal of those freedoms by the British state to a Dutch right-wing politician, and so on.

“Yes, you do continually deny that. Not only that, but when I point out that the opposite is the case you call it fawning over capitalism!!!!””No I don’t. You take me critiquing trade under capitalism as a wish to go back to some golden age; this is bollocks and shows that any criticism is unacceptable in your view.”Then you should tell us what your position is clearly. You should tell us why you made such a fuss about arguing against trade by financial services companies – though it could be any company – because it meant exploiting foreigners, yet you said nothing about it exploiting British workers, and you made no such comments about foreign workers being exploited by foreign bosses!

“Once again you demonstrate your reactionary views lining up with those who warned that Marx and the Communists would also introduce the “community of women” because they refused to accept the kind of reactionary, prudish ideas you put forward here.””No I was lining up with Marx who claimed prostitution was the bourgeois form of “community of women” in response to the bourgeois complaints you quoted. This goes to the heart of this debate, I argue that lap dancing is not some great cultural leap in human development, some expression of free will but a modern form of the “community of women”, I use the same argument Marx used against the capitalist apologists. Because of your refusal to see any capitalist development as negative you take the side of the capitalist apologist, as you have done in this entire debate.

And now you and your reserve army are trying to tell me this is some clerical attack on women.”
Except one of the reasons the bourgeois were making those statements was because Marx and the Communists wanted to ensure that women were freed from the kind of Puritanism that you put forward here that can have no other consequence other than to demonise women involved in prostitution or the sex industry!!!! It was to enable women the freedom of choice that you apparently wish to deny them to be prostitutes, or lap dancers, or belly dancers, or brain surgeons if that was what THEY chose to do, and not what some chauvinistic male such as you thought was appropriate behaviour for a woman!!!!

This quote demonstrates what is reactionary in your position,

“Sex work is selling sex (or sexual acts) for money. There is nothing inherently exploitative or degrading about consensual sexual behaviour regardless of its motivation. Yet many campaigners and lawmakers ignore the voices of sex workers and refuse to recognise that the vast majority work in the industry by choice. The stigma associated with selling sex structures the meaning and context of commercial sexual practices in fundamental ways.”I’d recommend you read this article as a beginning of your enlightenment.

Socialist Feminist Analysis of Sex Work “You are the one who effectively accused me of being a paedophile for having the audacity to challenge your reactionary Victorian morality””Again your senility is showing. You equating me as a paedophile in a previous debate, you repeating Marx’s “Nothing human is alien to me” was a perfect chance at a riposte.”Your willingness to resort to abuse in place of argument is showing.

“If now women choose to exercise the same freedom and enjoyment that is for them to choose, and not for reactionaries like you to moralise about. If women now choose to exercise their sexuality by enjoying pornography or any other kind of sexual activity including lap-dancing that is for them to choose for themselves, not for reactionaries like you to criticise them for!””I haven’t been in any lap dancing clubs (sorry if that makes me a clerical reactionary) but I don’t think many women are clients; they tend to be ones doing the lap dancing.”Yes, they do tend to be the ones doing the dancing and why shouldn’t they if they enjoy it, or can earn a decent living from it. Why should your puritanical morality prevent them from doing so? Moreover, your Victorian morality shows if you think that women do not consume pornography or other products of the sex industry. Just look at the figures for the sale of vibrators for one thing. Or look at the women’s Co-ops for pornography such as Cambridge Women’s Porn Co-op “But I will cease my criticism of the sex industry; I wouldn’t want to offend any socialist women who may be reading this!”Offending people with your personal abuse and reactionary ideas hasn’t stopped you before now.

In a previous post re a quote by an Irish Co-operative member, you claimed socialism would bring about the end of yobbish drinking and negative cultural aspects under capitalism. I repeat the argument as follows,

”BCFG:(“No the point of socialism is to get rid of classes and the problems associated with that, there is no guarantee that socialism will eradicate all cultural practices, like drug taking or getting pissed and indulging in loveless sex on a weekend.”)

Boffy said :( “But, that is precisely what liberating mankind means!”)

Your inconsistency is staggering –anything to say about this Llin?”
What is inconsistent here? Liberating mankind is precisely about the principles of Libertarianism that people should be free to do whatever they choose provided that they do not hurt someone else in the process. But, the whole point about socialism is that it creates the kind of conditions under which that freedom can be enjoyed, and which DOES raise people up to higher levels of culture. The point is that it enables people to achieve that on the basis of their own free choice, not because some religious zealot like you decides to impose it upon them like some medieval mullah!!!

“I think your attitude on these social issues belies your reactionary politics, and shows that you are not even familiar with the attitudes of socialist women on the issues of prostitution or pornography and so on.””I don’t give a flying fuck about “socialist” women, working class women’s attitudes to these issues are what interest me and how socialism may differ from capitalism.”The whole point is that working class women no more nor less than working class men are constrained by bourgeois ideology – as Marx put it the ruling ideas of every age are the ideas of the ruling class. So if you base yourself on working class women rather than on socialist principles you are bound to end up arguing bourgeois ideas! If as you claim, but which I doubt, you are interested in knowing how life for women would be different under socialism then I would suggest to you that you very much should “Give a flying fuck about what socialist women” think, because it is their ideas which will shape that socialism!!!!

I am not surprised that you do not, because it shines through in your politics along with all the other reactionary crap of bygone ages.

As for your response to Llin, I think you demonstrate yourself once again not just to be a thorough reactionary despite your claims to be a socialist, but quite honestly a thorough disgrace. No wonder you don’t use your proper name. Workers would steer a mile away from you. I’m not surprised Llin can’t be bothered to reply to your medievalist crap.

Llin Davies said...

"Then why didn’t you keep you mouth shut and let me and Boffy get on with it. He can think for himself."

Seems to just about sum up BCFG's attitude to women, and his reactionary chauvinistic politics in general!