Which way would you vote in an EU referendum?

[laptop]

Simply, "out" will cause capital more self-harm than "in". It will exacerbate Pre-existing tensions in the British and European ruling class. That's all. No more, no less.

Doesn't this smell of immiserationism?

 

[butchersapron]

So you're back at that game of imputing arguments to me and then arguing with them?

After you saying my - and by extension those who agree with me - are arguing out of contrarianism. That they don't have any principled political objections to the EU and how it seeks to work for various capitals. What's wrong with you? Put the price of a pint up in the strangers bar?

 

[butchersapron]

Doesn't this smell of immiserationism?

Only if you confuse capital for labour.

 

[chilango]

Doesn't this smell of immiserationism?

I can see why you might think that.

I don't agree though.

 

[articul8]

Both options are being framed by anti w/c forces

I agree with this

Simply, "out" will cause capital more self-harm than "in". It will exacerbate Pre-existing tensions in the British and European ruling class. That's all. No more, no less.

What would be the basis for this "harm" that capital does to itself(?) as the result of an "out" vote?

 

[chilango]

What would be the basis for this "harm" that capital does to itself(?) as the result of an "out" vote?

Competing factions, instability (for capital), encouragement for the less rational amongst the r/c.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Was it laughing at the edl who did the class and other prejudice based stuff or not?

Don't see why i have to, but my record is fantastic. Don't get the hump because i think your edl site (and now your UKIP one - not the ones we're talking about here either) are pretty poor examples of satire.

I do not speak for SLATEDL, though I do know some of the key figures (more in a cyber than a real sense).

Certainly none of the main figures indulged in anything class based and any thing that smacked of class based stuff, from many hundreds of people who posted, was generally flamed.

My own thing was not connected, though they were kind enough to put it up as an admin item.
It was not class based. We've had this argument before, but it satirised the poor English skills of people who prioritised their Englishness. The irony is obvious. It also satirised the doublethink logic and various political misjudgements and bigotries.

I haven't done that blog for some time, I have another one with a different style and target.
I happen to have been affected by our debates (and similar) in a way that would please you.

I don't have the hump because you didn't like it. You would have a high opinion of yourself to think that I would. Satire and humour are very personal things. Plenty of people criticised "Who Is...". More people expressed a liking for it.

I'm glad your record is fantastic. I have asked you often for a link to anything beyond these boards. This isn't a sarcastic challenge, I'd be genuinely interested to see it. If you don't want to publicise it, maybe PM me.

Thanks.

ETA: I don't know if the team behind SLAUKIP is the exact same as SLATEDL. I know many key folk behind the latter are still very busy with that and related stuff. I suspect there is strong crossover more than identical people doing identical roles.

 

[sihhi]

Competing factions, instability (for capital), encouragement for the less rational amongst the r/c.

Factions are already competing, leaving or staying in the EU means one side winning relative to the other.

Sharpened factional competition doesn't necessarily mean 'instability'. Factional fighting will be done with media organs and words.

 

[laptop]

Simply, "out" will cause capital more self-harm than "in". It will exacerbate Pre-existing tensions in the British and European ruling class. That's all. No more, no less.​

Doesn't this smell of immiserationism?

Expansion for those not immersed in the debate for decades: "immiserationism" would here be this position: "workers can lose their rights to paid time off and so on, but (a) the internal contradictions of capitalism will be exposed and (b) only when they are miserable enough will they rise up and throw off the shackles of capital".

Hence the label "immiserationism".

 

[articul8]

After you saying my - and by extension those who agree with me - are arguing out of contrarianism. That they don't have any principled political objections to the EU and how it seeks to work for various capitals. What's wrong with you? Put the price of a pint up in the strangers bar?

I don't think any referendum here would be fought on austerity, it would be fought on immigration, xenophobia, and ripping up limited social entitlements to paid holiday etc.

 

[butchersapron]

Factions are already competing, leaving or staying in the EU means one side winning relative to the other.

Sharpened factional competition doesn't necessarily mean 'instability'. Factional fighting will be done with media organs and words.

Tearing down the structures they have established to contain competition and force it outwards is going to create massive instability for them - and throw their political legitimacy into serious doubt. The Eu wide plans they had will be gone and will have to be won anew in each country. It opens up many many battlegrounds.

 

[butchersapron]

I don't think any referendum here would be fought on austerity, it would be fought on immigration, xenophobia, and ripping up limited social entitlements to paid holiday etc.

Who cares what it would be fought on? I don't. You've missed the entire point.

 

[articul8]

there was a point?

 

[butchersapron]

No, mere contrarianism, no politics. And politics too obliquely expressed for anyone to grasp. No one has politics but you and your bubble.

 

[articul8]

Who cares what it would be fought on? I don't. You've missed the entire point.

But the way in which questions like this are mediated (in the fullest sense) has real political effects

 

[butchersapron]

But the way in which questions like this are mediated (in the fullest sense) has real political effects

Well done articul8, you've - at one stroke - made the issue about how the state frames the issue. Not about how people view the issue from their own life experiences. Well done. The issue is now yours and you can 'call on' Ed Miliband to offer a competing question.

 

[chilango]

Factions are already competing, leaving or staying in the EU means one side winning relative to the other.

Sharpened factional competition doesn't necessarily mean 'instability'. Factional fighting will be done with media organs and words.

Aye.

I'm not expecting much. But, we'll take what we can get in this one .

 

[articul8]

Well done articul8, you've - at one stroke - made the issue about how the state frames the issue.

How the issue is framed (not just by the state and political parties, but by the media, unions, employers orgs, etc. etc.) matters not a jot?

 

[butchersapron]

How the issue is framed (not just by the state and political parties, but by the media, unions, employers orgs, etc. etc.) matters not a jot?

You've made the issue one of how they (state and politicians) frame it. Not of how we experience of it. Politicians. Thanks.

 

[articul8]

How they frame it (not just politicians, but the media, policy makers, organisations etc) is a big part (though not, of course, the whole) of how we experience it.

 

[butchersapron]

How they frame it is a big part (though not, of course, the whole) of how we experience it.

Of course, people are just empty slates waiting for the state and capital to say that they should oppose the eu on xenophobic grounds, not on any political grounds of their own choosing. This is what's driving UKIP btw this condescension from people like you - from, opposition to the eu is just contrarianism, they can't really mean it, to how can we make these pigdogs think properly?

 

[Delroy Booth]

Just gonna put this here. Boss of the Left.

 

[sihhi]

Tearing down the structures they have established to contain competition and force it outwards is going to create massive instability for them - and throw their political legitimacy into serious doubt. The Eu wide plans they had will be gone and will have to be won anew in each country. It opens up many many battlegrounds.

'EU wide plans' large general canvas for individual governments to adapt as they saw fit depending on their particular configuration of local (national) business interests.

The growth and stability pact and enforced austerity by EU for excessive deficits was and remains simply one way of austerity. I suspect that a direct IMF austerity on Greece would have made more sense from their (capital) point of view than the present EU-controlled one.
Tsipras was discussing such things directly with the IMF not long ago, effectively saying I can do what's needed better.

All of this is just too much Mystic Meg.

Alternative view: the way to tarnish their political legitimacy (in voting situations) is not to vote in their (empty) 'elections' and 'referenda'.
Their political legitimacy has always been increasingly, steadily eroded by non-voting in their EU elections ever since 1979, which had to be imposed largely as a result of pressure from trade union confederations, needing the elections as a fig-leaf.

 

[articul8]

More anti-w/c condescension?:

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch

 

[butchersapron]

'EU wide plans' large general canvas for individual governments to adapt as they saw fit depending on their particular configuration of local (national) business interests.

The growth and stability pact and enforced austerity by EU for excessive deficits was and remains simply one way of austerity. I suspect that a direct IMF austerity on Greece would have made more sense from their (capital) point of view than the present EU-controlled one.
Tsipras was discussing such things directly with the IMF not long ago, effectively saying I can do what's needed better.

All of this is just too much Mystic Meg.

Alternative view: the way to tarnish their political legitimacy (in voting situations) is not to vote in their (empty) 'elections' and 'referenda'.
Their political legitimacy has always been increasingly, steadily eroded by non-voting in their EU elections ever since 1979, which had to be imposed largely as a result of pressure from trade union confederations, needing the elections as a fig-leaf.

But has no practical effect. They want people not to vote in this one. Because it could have some effect.

 

[butchersapron]

More anti-w/c condescension?:

A position that i've never agreed with and have argued against on here many times precisely because it was based on and opened the door to later anti-w/c condescension in organised form (and he argued against this daftness many many times). That you agree with it only supports what i was saying. Well chosen.

 

[articul8]

A position that i've never agreed with and have argued against on here many times precisely because it was based on and opened the door to later anti-w/c condescension in organised form (and he argued against this daftness many many times). That you agree with it only supports what i was saying. Well chosen.

It's a basic recognition that ideas are mediated by the totality of social relations - a basic ABC point for any historical materialist. That you object is telling in itself.

 

[Fez909]

Just gonna put this here. Boss of the Left.

Did you think that was an anti-EU speech? Or one in favour of an in/out referendum? Because it was neither.

 

[butchersapron]

It's a basic recognition that ideas are mediated by the totality of social relations - a basic ABC point for any historical materialist. That you object is telling in itself.

It's a very silly way of saying that you have no political connection with the w/c - and that the reason for this is the daily mail. And people being contrarians.

 

[butchersapron]

Some decent people on that pro-eu list. Wonder if any of them well say why they voted that way.