Friday 15 September 19.30 (GMT + 1)
Did you see the News?
Discussion on recent subjects in the news
Host: Doug McLellan
The meeting is on zoom
Blah, blah, blah!
Mainstream media coverage of protests held against the summit was conspicious by its absense. Six years ago in Hamburg rather than New Delhi, an imaginative protest by hundreds of zombies called for us to ‘wake up!’ ‘The mud-crusted zombie figures were meant to be a symbol for “a society that has lost faith in solidarity and in which the individual struggles only for his own advance,” according to 1000 Gestalten’s official website. The act of shedding these costumes during the performance signified the idea that change can start with just one person. “We cannot wait for change to emerge from the world’s most powerful people, but we must now show all of us politically and socially responsible,” a speaker of the collective declared in an official statement’ (Popsugar. 6 July, 2017). Correct. The revolutionary change that socialists strive for cannot come from above, from leaders, but only as a result of the majority understanding the need for and acting to bring about a world of free access and production for use.
One revolutionary who shared this perspective was Rosa Luxemburg. The irony that an artwork with this name, one by ‘…Jean Paul Riopelle (1923–2002) showcased at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec..’ represented ‘.. Canada in an exhibition.. alongside the G20 Summit,’
went uneported,
Red Rosa wrote three years before the start of the war to end all wars:
‘Militarism in both its forms — as war and as armed peace — is a legitimate child, a logical result of capitalism, which can only be overcome with the destruction of capitalism, and that hence whoever honestly desires world peace and liberation from the tremendous burden of armaments must also desire Socialism’ (Peace Utopias, 1911). This quotation from another work, The Russian Revoltion (1918),
was valid then and today, not just in Russia and the Ukraine: ‘Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of “justice” but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when “freedom” becomes a special privilege.’
ROSA LUXEMBURG ON SOCIALISM
2023 Norwegian local elections
Local elections take place in Norway today and the result is already known – they won and we lost!
The country’s largest sixth form, SVGS, had a mock election last week. Looking at the spectrum from Left to Right, Rødt (Red) beat the Kristelig Folkeparti (Christian Democratic Party), Liberalistene (The Liberals), Industri- og Næringspartiet (Industry and Business Party), Partiet Sentrum (Centre Party), Folkets Parti (People’s Party) , Konservativt (Conservative), Norgesdemokratene (Norway Democrats), and Folkestyretlisten (People’s Government) with a mighty 2% of the votes cast! Only four out of sixteen parties standing reached 9% or more: Sosialistisk Venstreparti (Socialist Left Party, 9.4%), Arbeiderpartiet (Labour, 20,4%), Høyre (Conservative Party, 29.5%) and Fremskrittspartiet (Progress Party, 19.7%). [In addition to 1469 votes which were declared valid, some 117 were blank and 10 others found invalid. 76% of those eligible to vote did so].
Rødt are descended from The Red Electoral Alliance, which was formed in 1973 as an electoral front organisation for the Workers’ Communist Party. Much can be said about the WCP, but the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten’s headline from 28 August 2005 probably cannot be bettered: ‘They worshipped Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot’. And currently Zelenskyy!
The Socialist Left, formed in 1975, has its origins in a group which left the Labour Party over NATO membership. Interestingly, they were predictably against the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq but the Party leadership favoured NATO air strikes against Serbia over that country’s role in Kosovo (killing thousands and causing as many as 1.5 million people to flee as refugees). And they support Ukraine in the ongoing slaughter (over 8 million refugees and approaching 500,000 casualties).
Once upon a time, Labour was considered ‘radical’: in 1919 it joined the Third International which had its headquarters in Moscow. From 2005-2013 a Red-Green coalition ruled Norway with Labour Party leader Jens Stoltenburg as Prime Minister. He has since become NATO’s General Secretary. The party’s current leader is the capitalist Jonas Gahr Støre. Support for Ukraine? Do you need to ask?
The coalition was followed by eight years of Conervative rule, which for a period included the populist Progress Party (FRP). The mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik was once a FRP member.
No meaningful change can come from any of these parties. Eugene Debs’ WW1 remark remains apposite: ‘Yes, a change is certainly needed, not merely a change of party but a change of system, a change from slavery to freedom and from despotism to democracy, wide as the world’.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
The Universe is utterly indifferent to everything. Looking at Earth’s history, however, you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. During the Permian–Triassic extinction, just one of the ‘big five’, around 96% of species were lost. The five mass extinction events took place long before we arrived – at 23:58:43 if Earth’s history is pictured as a 24-hour clock.
Predator and prey existed then as now. Certain prehistoric parasitic wasps had a life cycle which remains unchanged today and begins with a female wasp laying an egg in a fly pupae. After hatching, the wasp larva feed on the still living fly pupa, ultimately causing its death. Nature then as now was red in tooth and claw.
Over 200 years ago Shelley’s blasphemous freethinking got him expelled from Oxford University. And still today such thoughts can result in the death penalty in thirteen countries. For PBS, ‘Design must be proved before a designer can be inferred’ (The Necessity of Atheism, 1811). He would have been fascinated by our current understanding of human biology. We are an evolutionary hodgepodge made largely of bacteria, viruses, fungi and archaea. Our eyes see less than 1 percent of the light spectrum, and retinas detach easily – even the humble shrimp has better vision. We are also fitted with sub-optimal plumbing (breathing, eating, excretory and reproductive) and, yes, programmed to die – unlike Turritopsis dohrnii, the immortal jellyfish! But perhaps this should not come as a surprise: we are part of a world where at least 40 percent of animal species are parasites, and over 99 percent of all species that ever lived are extinct. A total of 105 billion people have lived so far; just over 8 billion of us are currently alive.
PATHFINDERS: ALFRED THE GREAT
DARWIN AND THE INTELLIGENT DESIGN BRIGADE
Why some parts of the human body don’t make sense
“Evolutionary flaws disprove the theory of intelligent design”
Why I Am Not a Christian, Bertrand Russell
Aliens don’t exist and we are totally alone in a bleak lifeless universe, scientist says
“We want people to abolish capitalism, but in the meantime, we’ve got to live in it”.
‘A recent electoral commission report revealed a tiny left wing [sic] group has amassed £2.6m in wealth. So how did the Socialist Party of Great Britain end up with an investment fund?’
See the short Times Radio report here.
Ferengi-free future
‘The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force of our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.’ These are the words of another Captain, Jean-Luc Picard, and such statements have attracted the attention of socialists regardless of whether they are fans of the series or not.
Everyone in a socialist world will have the possibility to live long and prosper – without money. Let’s make it so.
Zoom meeting on *Some misconceptions about the Labour Theory of Value*
Friday 8 September 19.30
The labour theory of value explains how wealth is produced and distributed under capitalism, and how the working class is exploited. Human labour power applied to nature-given materials is the source of most wealth. The wealth produced, however, belongs not to the workers but to those who own and control the means of wealth production and distribution (land, factories, offices, etc.). Wealth production under capitalism generally takes the form of commodities produced for sale at a profit.
The value of a commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labour time required under average conditions for its production and reproduction. Subject to any monopolies or government subsidies, it is around a point regulated by value that the price of a commodity fluctuates according to supply and demand.
For Marx, the mode of production determines the mode of distribution:
‘ If the material conditions of production are the co-operative property of the workers themselves, then there likewise results a distribution of the means of consumption different from the present one. Vulgar socialism (and from it in turn a section of the democrats) has taken over from the bourgeois economists the consideration and treatment of distribution as independent of the mode of production and hence the presentation of socialism as turning principally on distribution. After the real relation has long been made clear, why retrogress again?’ (Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875).
Reading:
A. Filho & B. Fine, Marx’s ‘Capital’, 2016
Miss Marx
This film is likely by now to be available on some streaming services. Before or after viewing, you may wish to hear a recent Socialist Party talk on Eleanor Marx.
‘Work with us. Do not believe those who tell you any political party, or any “reformers” or any special legislation, can do away with crimes that are only the result of our whole system of society to-day. If you would do away with these crimes, you must do away with their cause. Help us. Help us to save not only yourselves, men and women; not only your little children. Help us also to save the very criminals, who now “drain your sweat and drink your blood.” Come to us. Join hands with us; and hand in hand, heart to heart with us, labour in this great cause. Never forget that when once the people will there is no gainsaying them. Once you rise “in unvanquishable number,” you are many, they — your enemies — “are few” ‘ (Eleanor Marx-Aveling, The Pall Mall Gazette, August 1885).
Miss Marx
This film is likely by now to be available on some streaming services. Before or after viewing, you may wish to hear a recent Socialist Party talk on Eleanor Marx.
‘Work with us. Do not believe those who tell you any political party, or any “reformers” or any special legislation, can do away with crimes that are only the result of our whole system of society to-day. If you would do away with these crimes, you must do away with their cause. Help us. Help us to save not only yourselves, men and women; not only your little children. Help us also to save the very criminals, who now “drain your sweat and drink your blood.” Come to us. Join hands with us; and hand in hand, heart to heart with us, labour in this great cause. Never forget that when once the people will there is no gainsaying them. Once you rise “in unvanquishable number,” you are many, they — your enemies — “are few” ‘ (Eleanor Marx-Aveling, The Pall Mall Gazette, August 1885).
Miss Marx
This film is likely by now to be available on some streaming services. Before or after viewing, you may wish to hear a recent Socialist Party talk on Eleanor Marx.
‘Work with us. Do not believe those who tell you any political party, or any “reformers” or any special legislation, can do away with crimes that are only the result of our whole system of society to-day. If you would do away with these crimes, you must do away with their cause. Help us. Help us to save not only yourselves, men and women; not only your little children. Help us also to save the very criminals, who now “drain your sweat and drink your blood.” Come to us. Join hands with us; and hand in hand, heart to heart with us, labour in this great cause. Never forget that when once the people will there is no gainsaying them. Once you rise “in unvanquishable number,” you are many, they — your enemies — “are few” ‘ (Eleanor Marx-Aveling, The Pall Mall Gazette, August 1885).