'Middle Class' it's basically just a construct isn't it...

[Random]

I see this said often on here, but it seems that having a 'fundamentally incorrect understanding' is no real barrier to success or achievement. In fact... I'd be very interested to know in what way a 'correct understanding' materially benefits an individual.

It's true that being an idiot - talking bollocks and denying scientific facts for example - are no barrier to success. Just look at the ranks of billionaires and politicians. But when you're discussing politics on a politics forum it helps to know what others mean when they say 'class'. If having a meaningful discussion counts as a 'material benefit.'

 

[Random]

Quite. A JL partner has a better relationship to capital, but not to power.

Surely a JL employee has just the same - slightly better - relationship with power? Not sure we should keep on using the term 'capital', really. A JL worker (any worker at a big coop) probably has slightly better pay and slightly better conditions and some very limited say in company decision making.

No fundamentally changed relationship at all, just a slightly better situation.

 

[Kizmet]

It's true that being an idiot - talking bollocks and denying scientific facts for example - are no barrier to success. Just look at the ranks of billionaires and politicians. But when you're discussing politics on a politics forum it helps to know what others mean when they say 'class'. If having a meaningful discussion counts as a 'material benefit.'

I guess it can count. But can it count too much?
If an 'incorrect' understanding makes little difference to a person's status then, unless a 'correct' understanding makes a difference, you have to conclude that perhaps there isn't a correct or incorrect understanding... just varying definitions. But, aside from 'meaningful discussions' I'm failing to see how the 'correct' understanding helps...

 

[Random]

If an 'incorrect' understanding makes little difference to a person's status then, unless a 'correct' understanding makes a difference, you have to conclude that perhaps there isn't a correct or incorrect understanding... just varying definitions. But, aside from 'meaningful discussions' I'm failing to see how the 'correct' understanding helps...

You're here on a discussion board and you've got no idea why a meaningful discussion is better than a meaningless one? Well wibble wibble chocolate baked badgers to you too.

 

[Gmart]

Surely a JL employee has just the same - slightly better - relationship with power? Not sure we should keep on using the term 'capital', really. A JL worker (any worker at a big coop) probably has slightly better pay and slightly better conditions and some very limited say in company decision making.

No fundamentally changed relationship at all, just a slightly better situation.

The cooperative model does indeed change the nature of the relationship because the workers have a stake and work more cooperatively towards the mutual benefit of all in the company. The cooperative model is a positive model which we could follow, to fail to even support it is to imply that the actual act of producing clothes (for example) is unjust - whereas the vast majority of people do not believe that.

I do not see how anyone could expect realistically to change ownership and capital assets in the world we have. Markets are not always a zero sum game where if someone wins, someone elsewhere must lose. Everyday there are millions of transactions between parties who are mutually benefitting, from the milk on my cornflakes to the coffee on a french street cafe table. Everyday people voluntarily enter into a contract of employment because they want to, and because they are wanted.

 

[Random]

The cooperative model is a positive model which we could follow, to fail to even support it is to imply that the actual act of producing clothes (for example) is unjust - whereas the vast majority of people do not believe that.

No what I said doesn't imply that. Are you just listening to the voices in your own head? You're making assumptions and begging the question. Chocolate badgers to you too.

 

[Kizmet]

You're here on a discussion board and you've got no idea why a meaningful discussion is better than a meaningless one? Well wibble wibble chocolate baked badgers to you too.

Is that what I said? I thought I said 'aside' from meaningful discussion...

 

[love detective]

Everyday people voluntarily enter into a contract of employment because they want to, and because they are wanted.

not so much that they want to, but they need to, have no choice but to

marx again:-

...the free labourer, free in the double sense, that as a free man he can dispose of his labour-power as his own commodity, and that on the other hand he has no other commodity for sale, is short of everything necessary for the realisation of his labour-power.

The question why this free labourer confronts him in the market, has no interest for the owner of money, who regards the labour-market as a branch of the general market for commodities.... One thing, however, is clear — Nature does not produce on the one side owners of money or commodities, and on the other men possessing nothing but their own labour-power. This relation has no natural basis, neither is its social basis one that is common to all historical periods. It is clearly the result of a past historical development, the product of many economic revolutions, of the extinction of a whole series of older forms of social production

 

[Gmart]

No what I said doesn't imply that. Are you just listening to the voices in your own head? You're making assumptions and begging the question. Chocolate badgers to you too.

Thanks for the snack - delicious!
So are you happy with the idea of JL existing in its current form - or is it up against the wall come the revolution?

Personally I don't see the harm, and I would go further and suggest that maybe we should turn RBS into a cooperative for us all - providing a basic 'no-frills' service to the population with the workers having a stake - why not?

 

[Gmart]

not so much that they want to, but they need to, have no choice but to

marx again:-

Couldn't care less about Marx - replacing one authoritarian nightmare with another.

Being productive is better than not - some people enskill themselves and have more freedom in the labour market, some ignore it all and fall into the unskilled section where they are two a penny, and are treated as such.

 

[Santino]

Next person who uses the word 'enskill' gets a punch in the gob.

 

[love detective]

Couldn't care less about Marx - replacing one authoritarian nightmare with another.

Being productive is better than not - some people enskill themselves and have more freedom in the labour market, some ignore it all and fall into the unskilled section where they are two a penny, and are treated as such.

you miss the point - and i suspect no amount of time spent trying to enskill you in it will make you see it

 

[Gmart]

Next person who uses the word 'enskill' gets a punch in the gob.

Now we see the violence inherent in the system

That's why you need to be careful not to just replace their violent oppression with your own.

What you could have said is that anyone is allowed to say what they want so long as they don't abuse/be violent. That's got to be a basic in a free society - if not then we would be sleepwalking towards another form of tyranny.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Couldn't care less about Marx - replacing one authoritarian nightmare with another.

You don't have to care about Marx - in terms of minding his solutions. But you cannot ignore his analysis. If you think he's wrong, you have to say why. ld was merely quoting Marx because, no doubt, he didn't think he could put it better himself and there's no point in reinventing the wheel.

 

[Gmart]

you miss the point - and i suspect no amount of time spent trying to enskill you in it will make you see it

No explanation about how Marx would allow people who did not believe in his view of Utopia? It is easy to tolerate views one agrees with, but views which you don't?
Marx meant well but he missed the point about freedom and how much it means to everyone, not just those in the 'Us'.

 

[Kizmet]

Evolution and Marxism... explaining everything but telling you nothing...

 

[love detective]

No explanation about how Marx would allow people who did not believe in his view of Utopia? It is easy to tolerate views one agrees with, but views which you don't?
Marx meant well but he missed the point about freedom and how much it means to everyone, not just those in the 'Us'.

you've clearly no idea what Marx believed in or meant, nor his views on freedom

or maybe you have - what have you read of him that leads you to say the above?

 

[Crispy]

No explanation about how Marx would allow people who did not believe in his view of Utopia? It is easy to tolerate views one agrees with, but views which you don't?

It is possible to disagree with his solutions while agreeing with his analysis, you know.

 

[love detective]

of the circa 2,500 pages of capital (vols 1-3) i'd say roughly 2,495 was analysis of capitalism and/or analysis of other people's analysis of capitalism (the clue's in the title) and around 5 of some fairly vague idealism as to what things might be like if capitalism was replaced by something more progressive - either way there was no solutions or prescriptions - so not sure where Gmart gets this idea from

 

[Gmart]

You don't have to care about Marx - in terms of minding his solutions. But you cannot ignore his analysis. If you think he's wrong, you have to say why. ld was merely quoting Marx because, no doubt, he didn't think he could put it better himself and there's no point in reinventing the wheel.

Sure, but even in the quote he gave it is talking about the attitude of the 'owner of money', as if it could be so generalised. Implying that seeing the labour market as a market is somehow not reasonable. Sure it is unfair that some have assets and some don't - but it isn't going to change, and they all should pay their fair tax.
Marx is just so general - ignoring the countless exchanges which occur where there is no victim in the market.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Being productive is better than not - some people enskill themselves and have more freedom in the labour market, some ignore it all and fall into the unskilled section where they are two a penny, and are treated as such.

There's another aspect to this, of course, which is that this 'unskilled section' contains jobs that need to be done. What you're talking about isn't entirely zero-sum, in that a more skilled workforce is able to find a certain amount of more skilled work to do. But it's not entirely elastic either.

The element by which worker is pitched against worker in the 'marketplace' shouldn't be underestimated. It's the root of a lot of evil.

 

[Gmart]

of the circa 2,500 pages of capital (vols 1-3) i'd say roughly 2,495 was analysis of capitalism and/or analysis of other people's analysis of capitalism (the clue's in the title) and around 5 of some fairly vague idealism as to what things might be like if capitalism was replaced by something more progressive - either way there was no solutions or prescriptions - so not sure where Gmart gets this idea from

That's what I mean - vague and general so that no one can disagree, but short on the accuracy needed especially for the modern, globalised world we have developed.

 

[Kizmet]

Competition?

 

[Gmart]

There's another aspect to this, of course, which is that this 'unskilled section' contains jobs that need to be done. What you're talking about isn't entirely zero-sum, in that a more skilled workforce is able to find a certain amount of more skilled work to do. But it's not entirely elastic either.

The element by which worker is pitched against worker in the 'marketplace' shouldn't be underestimated. It's the root of a lot of evil.

So get a number of workers together and form a cooperative?

 

[Gmart]

Competition?

Tennis?

 

[purves grundy]

That's what I mean - vague and general so that no one can disagree, but short on the accuracy needed especially for the modern, globalised world we have developed.

Absolutely not at fucking all... seriously, how much Marx have you actually read?

 

[Kizmet]

do they count as worker vs worker?

 

[Santino]

So get a number of workers together and form a cooperative?

Some sort of union of tradespeople?

 

[love detective]

That's what I mean - vague and general so that no one can disagree, but short on the accuracy needed especially for the modern, globalised world we have developed.

two posts ago you were moaning about what Marx would do to people who didn't agree with his views

Now you say that no one could disagree with them

you've not really thought this through properly have you

 

[littlebabyjesus]

ure it is unfair that some have assets and some don't - but it isn't going to change, and they all should pay their fair tax.

That's an interesting use of the word 'fair'. How do you have fair tax where the distribution of ownership is unfair?