IdleRich

IdleRich
"I feel bad not having read it, but I just cannot be arsed."
I'm surprised at that. Also feel slightly less guilty as it accurately sums up my position. Means I can't really contribute anything too meaningful to the debate but I'll be watching from the sidelines.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
welcome to the exciting world of Situationism bro

i'm rubbish with names of movements, but that's Society of the Spectacle etc, I see from a quick google.

pretty much true though as i understand it, given how loath people are to do even a small amount to protect even their own standard of living, while bullshit regularly rallies millions of people around it.

anyone got any good, reasonably simple reading material to recommend on the current Eurozone/Greek crisis, way in which states are forced to bail out other states lest interest rates on their own government bonds rise etc?
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
so at the moment we are going to take various positions on the way we have organised society at present. some of us will say, i think its pretty good, look at the alternatives, others will say, nah i dont like it, lots of people suffer and we're all going to hell in a handbasket.

i propose a starting point to any debate should be that the primary function of any civilised society should be that as few people are rendered destitute/ homeless/starving by it as possible.

Surely anything else is secondary?
 

zhao

there are no accidents
for those who have not read it, yet feel its towering importance as more and more people increasingly realize its relevance, after hearing so much about the alleged "analytical tools for understanding the world today and the crisis it is in", such as myself, this famous professor/author guy gives these video and audio lectures on the book, and have been highly recommended to me:

http://www.davidharvey.org/

in addition to the series on the actual text there are lots of other goodies on the site. such as this fun little RSAnimation

or this heftier END OF CAPITALISM video
 
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computer_rock

Well-known member
david harvey's book on post modernism is also very good and i expect a lot of people on here would be interested in it. it primarily outlines his theory of 'time/space compression' but his effortless switching between economic/political/philosophical/geographic/cultural analysis along the way is really quite breathtaking.
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
By the way, has anyone read the main essay in this month's Standpoint? I did today.

About Gove?

I managed to get to the top of page 2 of the web version before a red mist descended.

Education policy is a complete mess at the moment, with schools and colleges unable to make meaningful plans beyond the next 12 months, funding's fcuked, Toby Young, Jobs getting cut, social mobility getting hit (again), schools having to make decisions to chase money, which the gvt can then use for political gain, private schools being bailed out by the state, Toby Young, consultations headed by lunatics, Toby Young.


I thought: if Jenks reads this, he'll have an aneurysm. Or he'll have to cycle up a hill like Lance Armstrong to get it out of his system.

LOL
 

vimothy

yurp
im not sure it helps to use loads of latin when there are standard english equivelents. i mean it does help in the sense that it has an intimidatory effect, but i dont think it helps us to communicate. im not even sure we need a definition of capitalism as in this particular pub debate capitalism is taken to mean 'the way we live now' it may be, if we can develop our arguments more as time goes on, we will need a more precise definition. at present, at this embryonic, half-arsed stage, we dont.

Luka,

Fair comments."Ceteris paribus" (basically, "other things equal") is just a phrase that gets used a lot in economics, and probably in other applied social science settings more generally. It has kind of entered my everyday language, and I think that "cet par effect", as well as being less of a mouthful, has a nicer ring than "other things equal effect". It's not intended to intimidate anyone.

And I agree that you don't necessarily need a precise definition of capitalism to talk about capitalism. On the other hand, if you want to say that capitalism is worse than X at Y, it would help (me at least) to know what you mean by capitalism and what you mean by X.
 
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craner

Beast of Burden
I managed to get to the top of page 2 of the web version before a red mist descended.

That's right, the one that asks: "are we looking at a future prime minister?"

I don't know, but I wonder what Jenks thinks.
 

luka

Well-known member
On the other hand, if you want to say that capitalism is worse than X at Y, it would help (me at least) to know what you mean by capitalism and what you mean by X.

i think that whatever the question when you are talking to zhao the answer is bound to be 'hunter-gatherers'
 

luka

Well-known member
im not even completely sure what we are going to fight about.
i propose a starting point to any debate should be that the primary function of any civilised society should be that as few people are rendered destitute/ homeless/starving by it as possible.
but baboons put something out there.
otherwise, zhaos friend is not here so theres not much point picking holes in his claims is there. hes not here to defend them.
 

luka

Well-known member
its worth having a crack at this though. im sure we can do better than socrates and his mob so in the republic. craner will be pleased to hear i am reading blooms translation whenever i take a shit. its my having a shit book at the moment. i'll be Socrates. craner can be Thrasymachus.
 

luka

Well-known member
so to continue, we have the dramatis personae, although actually i think there are a couple of roles we need to fill. if zhaos friend consented to join in i think it would help as we need a voice from the left. we used to have a lot. maybe droid could fill this role?
ive given myself the role of socrates becasue i am pure of heart and very wise. my role is not knowing. both not knowing and directing the conversation.
padraig
vimothy
zhao
baboons
craner the lonley waif as the only man who has read marx.
 

luka

Well-known member
baboons is the hardest character to write as he doesnt have a fixed identity.
 

luka

Well-known member
padraig certainly does as the priest who loses his faith. the burnt out idealist. embittered and cynical.
vimothy for symmetrys sake we can cast as someone who undergoes a similar conversion but instead of identifying it as a losing of faith finds a new faith and a new energy and conviction.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"i think that whatever the question when you are talking to zhao the answer is bound to be 'hunter-gatherers'"
Isn't this because a large number of anti-capitalists believe that as soon as you have possession of land and other things then it's inevitable that you will end up with the capitalism that we have now? Thus, to suggest any other system, it's imperative that it's possible (and in fact advantageous in almost every way) to live without owning land and planting crops.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
padraig certainly does as the priest who loses his faith. the burnt out idealist. embittered and cynical.

100% accurate. I use the priest losing faith comparison myself (I say preacher. more american). tho not nearly as bitter as I was a couple years ago. cynical hell yes.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
@rich - kind of, except that it's an anti-civilization rather than anti-capitalist argument (tho the latter is implicit in the former). basically: the switch from nomadic h+g to sedentary cultivation creates individual property and division of labor, thus hierarchy, initiating the long chain of progress leading to now. obviously that is very simplified. the people who espouse that view come mostly from the green anarchist scene (some call themselves primitivists, some don't) tho there considerably more people who sympathize with it to some degree. however, there is a whole other wing of anarchism that espouses anarcho-communism or syndicalism, which is mostly hostile to the anti-civ view (which is quite young, basically post-60s). there is internecine squabbling. also, marxists of all stripes generally don't take it seriously (except perhaps as a general nod to the ecological ravaging of the planet), but they mostly don't take anarchism seriously in the first place (c.f. lenin's "infantile leftism"), anarchists think they're irrelevant + irritating + etc; that shit goes all the way back to marx + bakunin. also, "anti-capitalism" has post-2k become a very generic term that can describe most anything. which is perhaps more of an explanation than you were looking for.
 
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