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Theme Changer

 Poll

  • Question: Who will you vote for?
  • Labour - 1 (2.8%)
  • Conservative - 4 (11.1%)
  • Liberal Democrat - 12 (33.3%)
  • UKIP - 0 (0%)
  • SNP - 0 (0%)
  • Green - 0 (0%)
  • Democratic Unionist - 0 (0%)
  • BNP - 1 (2.8%)
  • Plaid Cymru - 0 (0%)
  • Sinn Fein - 0 (0%)
  • Ulster Unionist - 0 (0%)
  • SDLP - 0 (0%)
  • Other - 0 (0%)
  • I'm undecided. - 0 (0%)
  • I can't vote. - 13 (36.1%)
  • I won't vote. - 5 (13.9%)
  • Total Voters: 36

 Topic: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?

 (Read 65892 times)
  • Previous page 1 ... 9 10 1112 13 ... 22 Next page « Previous thread | Next thread »
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #300 - May 04, 2010, 12:24 AM

    Quote
    Well, The FT and The Economist back Conservatives.

    No surprise there.
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #301 - May 04, 2010, 12:45 AM

    No surprise there.


    The modest tax on employers via NI being advanced by new labour has got to be just one reason for capitalist press to back the whigs.

    "...every imperfection in man is a bond with heaven..." - Karl Marx
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #302 - May 04, 2010, 03:39 AM

    He could share those techniques with others.

    Why do you assume he would want to?


    Socialism, like capitalism, is an entire system of production. Except it's based on collective ownership and democratic control of the means of living and the natural resources. But also like capitalism (and any other mode of production), it will produce a surplus. This surplus, too, is collectively owned either becoming social or personal property.

    The system of production will accumulate surplus which is shared collectively. If there's a bit (or a lot) more left over all good. Bear in mind that no-one has truly derived power from having too many apples; they had to disposes others.

    I know all that. You don't need to give me the definition of socialism.
    I am asking about what if an individual produced twice the average of other individual and from you answer I understand is that it won't be his/hers but will be owned collectively. Is that right?


    If there's a state whose role that is it will constitute a ruling class who actually own the wealth. In other words state-ownership - capitalism, again (or worse).

    That's why such an institution is incompatible with socialism.

    Socialism like anarchism involves the absence of money, classes, and state-governments.

    I know that panoptic. I'm not asking, I'm arguing against the concept that socialism and anarchy are compatible.
    I believe that socialism (i.e the collective ownership and management of means of production) must be enforced and secured. I'm not necessarily saying there must be a strong state. A minimal state restricted to law enforcement and judiciary is essential for abolishing private property and implementing collective ownership.


    Food, shelter, water, medicine, transportation, communications etc..

    Just because a relative minority of the world have in recent times been told constantly through propaganda they want those things all the time, and often seek them, doesn't mean that's what they need, that people always have, and always will want them. Anyway, I think there are already enough cars, computers and telephones around for everyone to have access to them. As long as there's farming of any kind there will be alcohol. Vintage wine is over-rated, anyway.

    I mean, really! I don't think there are many people around the world who would prefer a new television to free food, water, shelter, medicine etc.. all at the point of need.

    While I agree with the nobility of your aim, I think you underrate the associated compromise.
    People (at least some of them) will not be able to produce what the want, to do the kinda of work they like, or consume what they want.
    I asked you this in another thread. If instead of private property we had collective ownership, how can anyone establish a business if all those who work in it own it collectively? and why would they? what is the incentive for anyone to establish a football club? a hotel? a radio talk show? a tattoo parlor? a strip club? a tanning saloon? a restaurant? a record label company? a car dealership? a pedicure spa? a cinema? or even make a movie?
    Who would run them? who would own them? and most importantly, who decides they are necessary/essential?
    Also, who decides which job goes to whom?   


    Of course. Money and exchange values of any kind are incompatible with real socialism. No private ownership = no money.

    IOW, nobody would be remunerated, right?
    Everyone will go to work and at the end of the week they will not get a wage. Instead they are guaranteed food, shelter, health care, transportation, communications and other things that the majority of the people deem necessary/required. Is that what you're saying?




    Both aim towards a stateless, classless society.

    Sure but that doesn't mean they are compatible. See my reply to panoptic above.


    You're missing the point and looking at it from the point view of an economy that revolves around scarcity. In a post-scarcity world, there would be absolutely no reason for the farmer not to share his produce and technology with everyone else, because no matter how much he shares, the amount available to him would not be reduced.

    Is our world atm a post-scarcity world? (I'm not talking about just food and essentials.)


    Currency, exchange and wealth accumulation would be useless, because there'd be an abundance of everything to the point where anyone can take anything and everything would still be available for everyone else. People would produce things because they'd want to, and they'd want to share their products with everyone else. Think of a music band, it releases an album and puts it online. Because everything the band needs and wants exists in so much abundance that it's free, the band would have absolutely no reason to charge for the album. It gives it away for free. And it'd want as many people to have it as possible, because it takes pride in its product and wants everyone to listen to it.

    Let's take the example of the music band. Where would they get their instruments? will there be and abundance of instruments? or will somebody decide who gets to get them?

    Simply put, the conflict of interest between individuals and society would cease to exist. There would be absolutely no force necessary for people to share their work.

    But how can you be sure we achieve abundance of everything?
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #303 - May 04, 2010, 08:33 AM

    As one Labour MP admitted, the vote is for how fast your throat gets cut.

     Smiley

    My Book     news002       
    My Blog  pccoffee
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #304 - May 04, 2010, 10:35 AM

    @ Iraqi Atheist

    The idea is that people will actually be more productive because they will be able to pursue their careers with sublimer goals. They won't do everything just for money anymore. Of course, there is a chance that people will just say, "I cba anymore. No money to motivate me so I'm going to become a bum." Well if we have those kinds of people in society (a lot of evidence suggesting that we do) then whatever system we have, we're gonna end up in the shit. Just look around.

    I'd imagine that if somebody wanted to set up a new business which doesn't involve any other workers apart from himself, then that person will be able to keep all the wealth he generates. In a socialist society that is. Not sure about communist society. My understanding is a socialist society is "From each according to their ability, to each according to their contribution" and a communist society is "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need." It sounds like a communism would destroy variety (panoptic called it commodity fetishism). But socialism would increase variety. Not that I know what I'm talking about. I'm just trying to imagine what a socialist/communist society would look like. It's quite hard :/

    The unlived life is not worth examining.
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #305 - May 04, 2010, 10:47 AM

    Brooker made me PMSL with this little nugget:
    Quote
    Clegg's persona is roughly 50% daytime soap, 40% human, and 10% statesman. Cameron is 100% something. He isn't even a man; more a texture-mapped character model. There's a different kind of software at work here, some advanced alien technology projecting a passable simulation of affability; a straight-to-DVD retread of the Blair ascendancy re-enacted by androids. Like an ostensibly realistic human character in a state-of-the-art CGI cartoon, he's almost convincing – assuming you can ignore the shrieking, cavernous lack of anything approaching a soul. Which you can't.

    (source)

    Each of us a failed state in stark relief against the backdrop of the perfect worlds we seek.
    Propagandhi - Failed States
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #306 - May 04, 2010, 12:27 PM

    smart observation  Afro

    My Book     news002       
    My Blog  pccoffee
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #307 - May 04, 2010, 12:33 PM

    he continues..

    Quote
    I see the sheen, the electronic calm, those tiny, expressionless eyes . . . I glimpse the outlines of the cloaking device and I instinctively recoil, like a baby tasting mould. Don't get me wrong. I don't see a power-crazed despot either. I almost wish I did.

    Instead, I see a simulated man with a simulated face. A humanoid. A replicant. An Auton. A construct.

    I see an avatar.

     

    My Book     news002       
    My Blog  pccoffee
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #308 - May 04, 2010, 01:29 PM

    Iraqi Atheist: All I'm saying is that communism means classes and thus the state cease to exist. If that's not possible, then communism simply isn't possible. I'm not opposed to a minimal state (I'm not an anarchist), but that wouldn't be communism; it'd be socialism -- the "transition phase". So basically if the state was never abolished, society would be stuck indefinitely in the transition phase. So, again, communism equals anarchy. If it's not possible to abolish the state, then neither is possible.
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #309 - May 04, 2010, 02:19 PM

    I disagree. I believe the collective ownership and management of the means of production cannot be secured without at least a minimal state. I know that the word 'communism' in most dictionaries means anarchy+classless society+collective ownership but I'm not arguing about semantics. I am saying that such combination is unattainable.
     
    I am aware this is against Marx's and Engels' estimation and against all textbook definitions but I genuinely believe so. And TBQH, neither you nor panoptic refuted me or convinced me otherwise. Instead you just reiterated the definition. 
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #310 - May 04, 2010, 02:20 PM

    Quote
    I believe the collective ownership and management of the means of production cannot be secured without at least a minimal state

    That's socialism, not communism. Marxists wouldn't disagree that it requires a state. And that's where they differ from anarchists.
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #311 - May 04, 2010, 02:50 PM

    Do socialists/communists believe in tax? If so, who decides what to set it at and what happens if you refuse to pay it? If not, how do socialists/communists pay for public services?

    The unlived life is not worth examining.
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #312 - May 04, 2010, 02:56 PM

    I don't think you should look at a pre-revolutionary society like you would a post-revolutionary society. We don't have a blueprint for how society is going to look like post-revolution, so we can't tell you how things will turn out and what socialists will advocate. It's all up to the workers. Socialism, after all, is worker empowerment.
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #313 - May 04, 2010, 03:09 PM

    My understanding is a socialist society is "From each according to their ability, to each according to their contribution" and a communist society is "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need."


    I use them interchangeably to mean the latter.

    It was basically Lenin who created this distinction, theorizing that there is a 'transitional society'; that that's what the dictatorship of the proletariat means; that that is 'socialism'. All because it wasn't possible for them to achieve socialism in backwards Russia.

    There's the idea that, for a time, remuneration would still be linked in some way to work performed. But that's quite outdated, there's probably no need for any such thing at all.

    Quote
    It sounds like a communism would destroy variety (panoptic called it commodity fetishism). But socialism would increase variety.


    Commodity fetishism is an important economic idea. But, today, critiques of 'consumerism' are extended from it ('No Logo', Baudrillard's 'System of Objects' etc.). There's a McDonald's in just about each country, if not every single one. If that isn't standardization, I don't know what is.

    Quote
    Not that I know what I'm talking about. I'm just trying to imagine what a socialist/communist society would look like. It's quite hard :/


    Hah.

    The best literary attempt to do that is William Morris' News From Nowhere. It's a bit Victorian and rural (unsurprisingly...), but he is very vivid, and full of ideas about what people will do (yes, he was very utopian).

    Socialists-communists tend not to try and describe what the future will look like. We don't have a crystal ball for such speculations. It's also important to focus on struggles within capitalism, because they'll become the basis of the system's transcendence.

    Q-man, 'criticizing' socialism, actually put it rather brilliantly - to paraphrase - that socialism is abstracted from from what exists and has existed. Abstraction is a method of trying to understand where things are, from where they have been, and where they're going, the past and future being internally related, one containing the other etc.. Thus the dialectical method of abstraction.

    Within capitalism one can see the potential for a new synthesis. That's why I say 'communism is immanent in capitalism', because capitalism is already pregnant with the kind of world it will give way to.

    "...every imperfection in man is a bond with heaven..." - Karl Marx
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #314 - May 04, 2010, 03:16 PM

    Marxists wouldn't disagree that it requires a state.


    Wrong! Absolute nonsense.

    I disagree. I believe the collective ownership and management of the means of production cannot be secured without at least a minimal state. I know that the word 'communism' in most dictionaries means anarchy+classless society+collective ownership but I'm not arguing about semantics. I am saying that such combination is unattainable.
     
    I am aware this is against Marx's and Engels' estimation and against all textbook definitions but I genuinely believe so. And TBQH, neither you nor panoptic refuted me or convinced me otherwise. Instead you just reiterated the definition. 


    It's as if you weren't aware of the definition, though. I did explain that state ownership is incompatible with collective ownership.

    So you should probably want to define your position is that you don't consider socialism possible, as others do.

    "...every imperfection in man is a bond with heaven..." - Karl Marx
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #315 - May 04, 2010, 03:17 PM

    The notion that there's variety today is false. In fact, a lot of brand clothes companies actually make their products in the same sweatshops and just stick different brand logos on them. This was documented in Naomi Klein's No Logo.

    Plus, who cares about variety? People today want variety because their lives are so uniform and have lost meaning that the only thing possible for some sense of individuality is buying something different, as if you are what you buy. People who are truly and spiritually individuals wouldn't need things that reassure them that they're unique.

    Quote
    Wrong! Absolute nonsense.

    Unless you're an anarchist communist, how is it nonsense?
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #316 - May 04, 2010, 03:20 PM

    Unless you're an anarchist communist, how is it nonsense?


    ALL communists are anarchists.

    "...every imperfection in man is a bond with heaven..." - Karl Marx
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #317 - May 04, 2010, 03:22 PM

    Umm, no. While they share the same end goal, they most certainly are not.

    The difference between Marxists and anarchists is that anarchists believe we can jump straight from capitalism to communism, while Marxists believe there needs to be a transition phase, "the dictatorship of the proletariat". The whole idea is that the bourgeois class will not simply disappear; the proletarians need to use force to liquidate it.
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #318 - May 04, 2010, 03:35 PM

    Anarchists in the literal sense.

    Transitional society - outdated, if not totally invented by Lenin.

    I consider the DOTP a political formation, that doesn't need to last any longer than a revolution.

    [gotta hurry, or I'd address it in more detail. later...]

    "...every imperfection in man is a bond with heaven..." - Karl Marx
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #319 - May 04, 2010, 03:40 PM

    The "dictatorship of the proletariat" was actually Marx's idea, although he never expanded on it -- presumably because he thought it's up to the proletariat to shape their society as they see fit according to the material conditions.

    "Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."

    http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #320 - May 04, 2010, 04:53 PM

    @ Iraqi Atheist

    The idea is that people will actually be more productive because they will be able to pursue their careers with sublimer goals.

    I have to disagree with that.


    I'd imagine that if somebody wanted to set up a new business which doesn't involve any other workers apart from himself, then that person will be able to keep all the wealth he generates. In a socialist society that is.

    I'm not sure that's socialism. At least there would be some sort of ceiling on wealth aggregation.


    There's the idea that, for a time, remuneration would still be linked in some way to work performed. But that's quite outdated, there's probably no need for any such thing at all.

    What would remuneration be linked to?


    It's as if you weren't aware of the definition, though. I did explain that state ownership is incompatible with collective ownership.

    So you should probably want to define your position is that you don't consider socialism possible, as others do.

    No I believe socialism is technically possible as long as there is at least a minimal state.
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #321 - May 04, 2010, 06:29 PM

    The "dictatorship of the proletariat" was actually Marx's idea, although he never expanded on it -- presumably because he thought it's up to the proletariat to shape their society as they see fit according to the material conditions.


    And Lenin butchered it.

    The reason there ever needed to be any transitional society is that socialism wasn't materially possible at that time. So the best that revolutionaries could do was set out in the CM. It wouldn't implement socialism, but try and run capitalism in preparation for it.

    Basically, the DOTP isn't socialism but, in and of itself, a political formation that dispossess the bourgeoisie.

    Quote
    "Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."

    http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm


    Now we have the oft repeated quote from Critique of the Gotha Programme - but I'm not sure what your point is.

    I think a distinction needs to be made between anarchism per se, and just movements that have called themselves anarchist. I assumed that distinction was operational in this thread.

    Marx, theoretician of anarchist communism

    "...every imperfection in man is a bond with heaven..." - Karl Marx
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #322 - May 04, 2010, 07:19 PM

    Mods: could you split the discussion on socialism/communism into another thread please?
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #323 - May 04, 2010, 08:07 PM

    Fucking ideologues hijacking a perfectly good thread! Be gone so that we can continue discussing who Cheryl Cole will be voting for.  Wink

    Each of us a failed state in stark relief against the backdrop of the perfect worlds we seek.
    Propagandhi - Failed States
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #324 - May 04, 2010, 08:15 PM

    I can't vote in the british election, I'm an american. Though if we wanted to take over britain we could do so.  Cheesy

    Though of course we wouldn't do that, we need some mouthpieces in Europe.  Wink

    It is not the way you live your life that is important, it is how well you enjoy it that matters.
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #325 - May 04, 2010, 11:29 PM

    Mods: could you split the discussion on socialism/communism into another thread please?


    The posts are kind of all mixed up here, can't do a clean split... One of the members discussing socialism/communism/anarchism etc. please start a new thread and put a link to this one if you'd like, or copy/paste the points to discuss from here please. Kthanks Smiley

    "Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused."
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #326 - May 06, 2010, 08:36 AM

    Non-voters: if you're registered, you still have until 10pm to reconsider. Grasp the opportunity and vote for proportional representation. I hope the four of you can change your minds.
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #327 - May 06, 2010, 09:20 AM

    VOTE PEOPLE!!!!!
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #328 - May 06, 2010, 09:21 AM

    Yep... I'm off to vote soon.

    As Churchill said: "Democracy is the worst form of government... apart from all the rest!"
  • Re: The 2010 UK election - who will you vote for?
     Reply #329 - May 06, 2010, 09:25 AM

    I voted already, lazy buggers, get your move on.   dance

    Inhale the good shit, exhale the bullshit.
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