That's not fair, robots are brilliant.
I would have found a better excerpt but I was in a hurry to GTFO and reclaim some of my unpaid overtime.
Why are other countries militant?
- Thread starter Fruitloop
- Start date
That's not fair, robots are brilliant.
I would have found a better excerpt but I was in a hurry to GTFO and reclaim some of my unpaid overtime.
I honestly don’t. But why even mention it? Given what I think is irrelevant, the above can only be a cheap shot.dennisr said:
I’m not sure that socialist ideology is grounded in morality per se, though I think it would difficult to argue that the Attlee and Bevan, say, didn’t see the socialist appeal as an essentially moral appeal. Sure, half the problem is the moral conations, the reverence for victim hood and the plight of the weak and innocent bound into the conventional left wing take on “struggle”, the idea of “capitalism” as something other than a euphemism for prevailing institutions, the value laden ideas of unequal power, exploitative social relations, “justice” and “rights”. But outside of that mire, in the realm of the utilitarian socialism you seem to be alluding to, there’s a different reason to account for the lack of forward traction. Now, to get technical, collective political action is itself a kind of public good in so far as its benefits are non-excludable though it’s protagonists not totally socially inclusive. It transpires there is a very real mathematical problem of free riding, and hence stagnation in production or action, entailed by non-authoritarian socialist institutions. Indeed, the only way around this problem is to instil the very values of social solidarity and fair play you’re attempting to jettison. From a slightly different perspective again, it’s by no means the case that an equalitarian or collectivist solution represents a stable, “productive” or desirable state. Let me ask you this, without a moral or emotional aversion to inequality, what’s the actual problem with servitude to “Capital’s agents”?fruitloop said:
I have occasion to glance at the Saturday edition as part of my general duties as a cad. As for lazy stereotyping, unoriginal thought etc, well it’s of no matter. I’m not interested in convincing anybody of this-or-that, only in exploring the unknown.littlebabyjesus said:
In my opinion the single most important part of a Marxist account of history is that it places the working class at the centre, not as victims but as the revolutionary Subject – as the principal means by which capitalist society reproduces itself. ‘Only labour valorizes Capital’ etc. The freeloaders in this account are the Capitalists, who are unproductive in that they live not by labour but merely by ownership – ownership of the means of production and of the products of the labour of all the people who have no choice but to do so. The non-ownership of the products of their own labour is what produces in the working-class the phenomenon of alienation, i.e. the products of their own labour – the whole of human society – confronts them as something extrinsic and alien, as something monstrous. So what is required is not an ethical commitment to a socialist utopia, but an enlightened, participatory self-interest. I think this is a fundamental insight, and the point historically where socialism, communism and anarchism distinguish themselves from Enlightenment liberalism in general.
I’m inclined to agree as far as it goes. I think my point of departure lies in how Olson, Arrow, Morgenstern, von Neumann et al call the general applicability of the “self interest of the working class” into question. I’m also mindful of Castoriadis’ ever present question of what, then, is the actual meaning and content of socialism?
This alienation of which you speak, what does it mean if not misery? If we discount for a moment the idea that some threshold of general misery will necessarily generate socialist action, where does that leave the Marxist account of history? Moreover, who’s to say we all react to this alienation consistently? We’re inclined to overestimate the extent to which our take on stuff is shared. We imagine, thanks to our character armour, that we hold the criteria of self interest in common with 80% of the population, when actually it’s more like 20%. Marx himself projected his own personality when he developed the notion of the species being, which despite your assertion of cold logic, I consider quite fundamental to his ideological aversion to private property.
Finally, so what if the elite are freeloading? I don’t see the workers calling for Posh and Becks' blood any time soon. Given the pleasure we seem to take consuming their spectacle, aren’t our interests best served by maintaining the system which creates them?
This alienation of which you speak, what does it mean if not misery? If we discount for a moment the idea that some threshold of general misery will necessarily generate socialist action, where does that leave the Marxist account of history? Moreover, who’s to say we all react to this alienation consistently? We’re inclined to overestimate the extent to which our take on stuff is shared. We imagine, thanks to our character armour, that we hold the criteria of self interest in common with 80% of the population, when actually it’s more like 20%. Marx himself projected his own personality when he developed the notion of the species being, which despite your assertion of cold logic, I consider quite fundamental to his ideological aversion to private property.
Finally, so what if the elite are freeloading? I don’t see the workers calling for Posh and Becks' blood any time soon. Given the pleasure we seem to take consuming their spectacle, aren’t our interests best served by maintaining the system which creates them?
Marx's species-being at its core is simply the assertion that our (re)production of the means by which we live is consciously undertaken and social in nature (the one implies the other). Alienation from the act in which I, as a subject in my own right produce something for you, also considered by me as a human subject, thereby imprinting it for both of us with the traces of our own conscious existence is one aspect of what he means by alienation. Further to this is the alienation of workers from each other, from their own particular products and their reproduction of society in general as I said before, and from the work-process, which is turned into something mindless and repetitive in the service of Capital.
Moving beyond Marx himself, (or from early to later Marx, according to taste) I think you're right to reject a deterministic account of history and also the idea that a sufficient immiseration of the proletariat with inevitably lead to a revolutionary situation - these ideas in addition to their theoretical problems don't work out that way in practice either.
With regard to game-theory (and I really need to do some work myself, so I'll be brief), there is plenty of value in it, but what lies outside its scope is the fact that humans themselves are social products - one of the key things the proletariat produces is the proletariat itself. To allow capitalism to continue its attrition of the subject to the point where people are no longer capable of recognising their own alienation would be to reach an extreme of degeneracy, not a desirable equilibrium. Probably one of the most eloquent statements of the relationship between an individual and their society (or at least the best one I’ve read recently) is Pericles’ funeral oration from the second book of Thucydides history of the Peloponnesian War.
Moving beyond Marx himself, (or from early to later Marx, according to taste) I think you're right to reject a deterministic account of history and also the idea that a sufficient immiseration of the proletariat with inevitably lead to a revolutionary situation - these ideas in addition to their theoretical problems don't work out that way in practice either.
With regard to game-theory (and I really need to do some work myself, so I'll be brief), there is plenty of value in it, but what lies outside its scope is the fact that humans themselves are social products - one of the key things the proletariat produces is the proletariat itself. To allow capitalism to continue its attrition of the subject to the point where people are no longer capable of recognising their own alienation would be to reach an extreme of degeneracy, not a desirable equilibrium. Probably one of the most eloquent statements of the relationship between an individual and their society (or at least the best one I’ve read recently) is Pericles’ funeral oration from the second book of Thucydides history of the Peloponnesian War.
OK. I really struggle, pardon the pun, with the species being. When punters ponder the species being, in the same eloquent terms you've set out here, I'm left with the feeling there are more individuals who actively enjoy a little bit of alienation than Marxists are prepared to accept. But I'm wary that it's hard to tell what people really feel from what we like to imagine they feel.
Game theoretics is good at strategies and equilibriums, but Olson and Arrow are all about the mathematics of public choice and collective action. The emergent effects of crowds even. Marxists shouldn't be too disheartened, it casts a scathing critique of "invisible hand" style liberalism as much as anything. Don’t get me started on what Everett's work with Lagrange Multipliers does for Benthamite "greatest good for the greatest number" liberal economics.
When you speak of the "militancy of other countries", on what grounds do you feel inspired? What's actually happening that you'd want to see emulated and, as importantly, why? I presume it's more than mere sentiment for their plucky spirit.
Game theoretics is good at strategies and equilibriums, but Olson and Arrow are all about the mathematics of public choice and collective action. The emergent effects of crowds even. Marxists shouldn't be too disheartened, it casts a scathing critique of "invisible hand" style liberalism as much as anything. Don’t get me started on what Everett's work with Lagrange Multipliers does for Benthamite "greatest good for the greatest number" liberal economics.
When you speak of the "militancy of other countries", on what grounds do you feel inspired? What's actually happening that you'd want to see emulated and, as importantly, why? I presume it's more than mere sentiment for their plucky spirit.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
What I assert, I assert for myself only, and if that's based around honour and altruism, then you needn't worry that I expect it of anyone but myself. My politics aren't about asserting my set of values over yours.
All politics and political actions are consequences of the ideology that informs them, that's a commonplace, and not unique to "left wing militancy".
As to the extent of "left wing militancy", surely one needs to take into account the historical structural constraints on it when assessing it, rather than positing that it may have achieved (or failed to achieve) goal A as a consequence of what you view to be "sanctimonious ideology"?
Or perhaps people have been successfully educated away from such ideas and into engagement with a more self-centred consumption-based set of ideas?
Now I'm sure you'll make some sort of comment about weak-minded people getting what they deserve, but I'm not a great fan of "Devil take the hindmost". If he did, we'd be left with a barren culture on a barren island in a barren world.
You can't have been to too many protests, or perhaps you've only ever seen ones organised by the SWP, but that doesn't ring true of the majority of demos and protests I've attended since 1975. In fact up until the whole "Stop the War" thing, the only solidly "Guardian-reader"/middle-class demos I saw were CND marches. Most of the anti-fascist and what I'd call "class solidarity" demos/protests ("support the miners", Wapping and similar) I participated in were events where the "Guardian-reader" was conspicuous only by their absence, and mostly with solidly "working-class" attendance.
It wouldn't be problematic even they were. Are you simply extolling the virtue of humility?
Needs for what purpose? It’s not as if the tradition is owed a duty of fairness, understanding or marks for effort. The fundamental outcomes expected and valued by the left milieu are not held to the extent (in terms of strategic coherence, numbers and strength of feeling) required for effective action. No one has to apologise for that, or indeed analyse it. There are no relevant casualties.
Well, what of it? It wouldn’t make the values of self-centred consumption less valid or viable. What do you make of the idea that attitudes or values have a significant genetically inherited component?
Arbitrary aesthetics. It’s folly to speculate that such barrenness is necessarily “worse” from the perspective of the group.
I steer clear. It’s not so much the class composition of the Guardian readers, but the actual ideological premise. The expected outcomes and the value of those outcomes. Campaigns to “keep the NHS public” or “defend council housing” are populated by a distinct marginalised milieu with a very particular take on right and wrong, which is actually at odds with the logic of collective action and the provision of public goods. Similarly, the continental militants are just shouting at themselves. As Monsieur Dupont, I think, points out, the big question facing revolutionaries at this juncture is what really matters. Contrary to the official “anti-capitalist” niche, the answer isn’t the plight of life’s underdogs, the woe of the innocent, the pain of mother earth, justice, rights, the sin of taking a profit from others misfortune or whatever. You can sort of tell they don’t really matter by the action and outcomes such campaigns generate. Indeed, having read the likes of Chris Rose, “successful” campaigning is all about recycling victims and relying on an especially emotionally anxious minority, drenched in quasi-religious values, to fund lobbies. There’s no reason to assume the foreign militants are any different, so it’s difficult to see what’s to get so inspired about. They’ll only reinstall some Gaullist or something despite the song and dance.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
And this is the reason you think protests are full of 'guardian readers'. I've been on a few protests over the years, and I'd put it rather differently. There is a marked absence of Guardian readers such as you. Something you have missed, I think, about many of the people who read the Guardian (I used to but have long since given up on it) is that it is read because it is the least bad option. Many of those who read the Guardian are in fact quite a long way to the left of that paper's position, but it is the only daily paper whose position they can stomach in any way. You think you read it ironically, and that this marks you apart from the other poor dupes who read it. This arrogant sense of self-importance is wrong and leads you into error.
This is the problem with your lazy stereotyping. It is a very poor fit with the much more nuanced, often contradictory reality, and if you use it as a basis for your analysis, you will go astray.
What do you think "my analysis" is? I'm at liberty to do lazy stereotyping, I've no duty of fairness to Guardian readers. The fact remains that the kind of personality who reads and defends the Guardian, appears in their little reader’s biog column, has a particular risk averse kind of left wing morality full of values that defy the logic of collective action and the provision of the very public goods they so sentimentally defend. As Wittgenstein pointed out, any contradictions on the route to that observation are metaphysical distractions, language games.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Your analysis is contained in your posts. I'm not going to quote you back at yourself – I presume you know what you wrote.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I wouldn't enlist Wittgenstein in your defence if I were you. I suspect he would be screaming WHAT DO YOU MEAN at almost every sentence you write.
And I think you misrepresent the nature of Wittgenstein's language games. Contradictions on the route to the conclusion (it is a conclusion rather than an observation) need ironing out before the conclusion can be validated. Wittgenstein considered it important to resolve these language games, remember.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Yes, you are. And I'm at liberty to pull you up for it and point out that it makes your ideas worthless.
So where does this aversion to other’s worthlessness and lazyness spring from?
Why would you imagine that would cause me distress? As Reich noted, the personality structure of people with strong political convictions is quite different from those they seek to inspire.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Instead of addressing the point, you address a wholly invented idea – that I think it would cause you distress – and follow it with a point that is totally tangential.
No doubt you will come back at this post with another such affected shrug.
Hi Carousel,
Work is killing me at the moment but I'll try to return to the last question over the weekend, as it requires more of an answer than I have time for at present.
I find Olson and Arrow interesting, but theirs is a necessarily incomplete picture of class society as we know it at present. The implications of this kind of work on the construction of any proposed alternative to capitalism are pretty self-evident though.
Lagrange multipliers I am only familiar with in connection with digital signal processing, but then (as you probably noticed) I'm not an economist by training or profession....
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
this is all getting a bit Pipe.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
So, why are other countries militant?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Pipe?
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
maybe I should have said Beard.
Dunno. The personality structure of “revolutionaries”, as opposed to those whose liberation they seek, is highly relevant to the matter of generating collective action. Which, forgive me if I’m wrong, is pretty much the topic under discussion.littlebabyjesus said:
Legacy of Eurocommunism. Aren’t these protests just another part of the fabric of bourgeois society? This “militancy” is a precursor to another Sarko or Merkel.butchersapron said:
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
In that case, I would suggest a new paragraph. You placed that sentence in the same paragraph as the sentence that preceded it, implying a logical connection between the two.
Or are you putting yourself in the role of the great unwashed again and me in the role of revolutionary? If so, I'm afraid I find your position laughable.
dennisr
the acceptable face
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Agreed, I feel beard would have hit the mark better
"Tweed jacket" would have been better.
dennisr
the acceptable face
"Tweed jacket" would have been better.
Fair point, for future use DC "tweed jacket" it is
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