Not like the rest at all ?

[ahinton]

ah, " a whole new mentality would have to arise"....

It would take more than that alone, I suspect...

[Serial_Apologist]

[QUOTE=ahinton;398382]

A post-capitalist society wouldn't automatically ditch the best of what capitalism has achieved, any more than its politics would ditch best and most ethical practices.
I'm not suggesting that it would - or even could; my concern is that a "post-capitalist society" would have to depend upon something other than capital in order to justify its new name and I do not see how that could happen in practice. It's good that you recognise that, amongst all the corruption, incompetence and immorality that has managed to thrive within a capitalist system, capitalism has achieved something good!

Well, it has achieve us, for a start! without it we would be without the scientific world view and all that has flowed from it in terms of philosophical, psychological, aesthetic, technological and health gains, and finally the ability to adduce holistically (akin to mystics of old) rather than in the hubristic terms part-dictated by the human place in religion, partly by an interdisciplinary fragmentation now gradually being overcome. An individual, a tribe, a society, and by extension humanity, can and does change - for better as well as for worse - which is why I am skeptical of vints' skepticism.

But can any money be immunised effectively and wholly at all times against the risk of being turned into "funny money"?

The fact that so much of it is already funny money provides opportunities aplenty, not to mention the tacit acceptance of so much going "by the board" and corruption acting as an example for emulation. Someone was talking on telly the other day of the many gangland leaders wasted in urban estates, exhibiting psychopathic tendencies highly prized in terms of ideal qualities for entrepreneurship!

Capitalist society does not necessarily (still less inevitably) in and of itself "undervalue people and their creativity"; it's those who seize upon certain opportunitites offered by capitalism and determinedly corrput them for their own advantage who risk doing that.

No what it does is devalue co-operation by setting up winners and losers as its standardbearers. Even the small operator such as a restauranteur is in danger of being bought out unless s/he intends expanding into eg a chain of eating establishments, or diversifying; meanwhile the nomenclature, "jobs provider", "wealth creator", places him or her at the top of a human value system that at best undervalues the employee who actually creates value, and all the pre-existing generations comprising genuine wealth-creators who have a history not worthy of recognition and study in a world where progress can confine them to the scrap heap of private profit - as Gove might argue in his return to history as lists of personalities events and dates.

[ahinton]

what it does is devalue co-operation by setting up winners and losers as its standardbearers. Even the small operator such as a restauranteur is in danger of being bought out unless s/he intends expanding into eg a chain of eating establishments, or diversifying; meanwhile the nomenclature, "jobs provider", "wealth creator", places him or her at the top of a human value system that at best undervalues the employee who actually creates value, and all the pre-existing generations comprising genuine wealth-creators who have a history not worthy of recognition and study in a world where progress can confine them to the scrap heap of private profit - as Gove might argue in his return to history as lists of personalities events and dates.

This is indeed a downside of the way in which capitalism is marketed and practised, but it needn't be either and does neither capitalism itself nor its victims (or indeed the very fact of its corrupt and misrepresentative practitioners) any favours whatsoever; I do not believe in the possibility of anything good coming from the attempted overthrow of capitalism (to be replaced by what and agreed universally how?) any more than I see anything useful and constructive emerging from the oft-expressed view of capitalism as some kind of untreatably diseased yet not terminally ill being.

[amateur51]

There was an excellent exegesis of this problem of money outbidding value under the conditions of late capitalism during today's discussion on the, in this context, significantly-titled "The Future is Not What It Used to Be", on Radio 4 at 9 am, for which I will try and find an iPlayer link shortly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b042jfvz

I listened to this with half an ear last evening and I was sufficiently perplexed and intrigued to give it another more attentive listening to in a while.

[Serial_Apologist]

I listened to this with half an ear last evening and I was sufficiently perplexed and intrigued to give it another more attentive listening to in a while.

Thanks, ams. Every day something new comes up that demonstrates capitalism no longer capable of offering solutions to the problems systemic to its modus operandi without immiserating an ever-growing proportions of the world's populations apart from the tiny minority at the top of the income tables. Younger people at the sharp ends who envisage no common future for humanity because there is no unifying prescription transcendent of class and gender, turn more and more to irrational solutions and belief systems. Yet ahinton persists in his Panglossian view of this best of all possible worlds, and would appear to have put his foot down with a firm hand in the final sentance of his last post, though never being the kind of person who likes to give up he probably hasn't had his last word on this topic.

[ahinton]

Thanks, ams. Every day something new comes up that demonstrates capitalism no longer capable of offering solutions to the problems systemic to its modus operandi without immiserating an ever-growing proportions of the world's populations apart from the tiny minority at the top of the income tables. Younger people at the sharp ends who envisage no common future for humanity because there is no unifying prescription transcendent of class and gender, turn more and more to irrational solutions and belief systems. Yet ahinton persists in his Panglossian view of this best of all possible worlds, and would appear to have put his foot down with a firm hand in the final sentance of his last post, though never being the kind of person who likes to give up he probably hasn't had his last word on this topic.

No, he hasn't. "Panglossian"? I hardly think tht pointing out some of the ways in which capitalism has been widely misrepresented, misappropriated, corrupted and the rest suggests a kind of view based upon the kind of blind optimism that such a term denotes! Furthermore, I have never sought to portray capitalism as either a perfect phenomenon or as any kind of universal economic panacea; indeed, if anything, the use of the term "late capitalism" so beloved of certain kinds of armchair-bound academics seems more suggestive of such unfounded optimism in its implication that capitalism as we know it is already in its death throes!

You write that every day "something new comes up that demonstrates capitalism no longer capable of offering solutions"; it's the "no longer" that interests me here, to the extent that its implication that capitalism "ain't what it used to be" begs the questions as to why it isn't, where its misusers have gone wrong and what's to be done about restoring a more widely beneficial status quo.

What do you have against the acceptance that, whilst capitalism in practice can be flawed, can unfairly advantage some at the expense of others and can be subject to misrepresentation, misappropriation, corruption and the rest, it is not necessarily a disease with no known cure? As someone who accepts that capitalism has achieved good things at times, why would you choose - as you appear to do - to assume that it has come to be beyond redemption, especially as anything that might be put forward to replace it (assuming even that it ever could or would be) is not - and is unlikely ever to be - agreed upon, let alone recognised as a viable tried and tested alternative to it? Given that, to date, economic systems run by communist/socilaist states that have purported to function quite differently to the capitalism system have nevertheless been as dependent upon capital, investment, competition, import and export and the rest as is the capitalist system itself, anything that would ever claim to be able to replace capitalism would have to differ from those systems as much as from conventional capitalist ones to hpe to gain any credence; furthermore, those so-called "non-capitalist" systems have invariably tended to keep the poor in the majority and advantage only a handful of wealthy people, just as is reckoned to be the case under capitalism by those who oppose it.

What would you put in the place of capitalism and how would you seek to ensure global acceptance of that alternative system in order that it could be given an opportunity to function?

[Serial_Apologist]

You write that every day "something new comes up that demonstrates capitalism no longer capable of offering solutions"; it's the "no longer" that interests me here, to the extent that its implication that capitalism "ain't what it used to be" begs the questions as to why it isn't, where its misusers have gone wrong and what's to be done about restoring a more widely beneficial status quo.

I don't read much of the left's press these days, but my own theory on that is that, so far, capitalism has succeeded in preserving itself by achieving a balance, when economic circumstances allowed, albeit by no means always a stable one, between class interests. Marx and others have predicted that conditions would not always be so propotious for this to be possible, and they predicted postponements of any big showdown between capital and labour by divide-and-rule tactics tailored according to the demands of any situation arising. Attacking the working class direct, other than by the "rational" means of job insecurity (acording to the system's wastefulness) would just not be subtle enough, so in my lifetime scapegoats have included hippies, feminists, blacks, gays, travelling people, environmental campaigners and today Muslims, because having somebody other than the rich and powerful for ordinary people to vent their artificially-stimulated prejudices against conveniently diverts attention and gives rise to successive (but for obvious reasons unco-ordinated) secondary fightbacks, underpinned by evolving defensive group mythologies, identity politics. Each can then be either picked off or bought off in turn. But - by ruling out all these groups combining and pushing them from their pedestal to create a genuiinely democratic, bottom-up planned egalitarian way of running society - what the ruling class has now achieved has been a reversion by new sectors to arcane means of struggle - religion and nationalism - which historically were part and parcel of what gave rise to capitalism in the first place. I don't personally know of anybody on the left back in the 1970s when I was active who could have predicted this; what now presents is the problem of cohering all those at the receiving end of capitalism's current contradictions in their most vicious unforgiving form into a common strategy. That will, I predict, vary from how the problem was dealt with previously, i.e. unsuccessfully, since we have now been under the heel of undiluted neoliberal capitalism for 30 + years and the different groups involved, e.g. social workers, citizens advice lawyers, university fee indebtees, using different technologies now to hand, will sire and generalise different and hopefully more effective means of defense and opposition. Capitalism is laying waste to the ecosphere, its detritus affecting the oceans, marine wildlife and thence climate - more people are or will be faced with sheer survival. Unless capital is prevented from being shifted to where it is maximalising ecosystem and community destruction, the relatively unaffected areas will find themselves overwhelmed with refugees.

What do you have against the acceptance that, whilst capitalism in practice can be flawed, can unfairly advantage some at the expense of others and can be subject to misrepresentation, misappropriation, corruption and the rest, it is not necessarily a disease with no known cure? As someone who accepts that capitalism has achieved good things at times, why would you choose - as you appear to do - to assume that it has come to be beyond redemption, especially as anything that might be put forward to replace it (assuming even that it ever could or would be) is not - and is unlikely ever to be - agreed upon, let alone recognised as a viable tried and tested alternative to it?

If I could think up an alternative strategy by which the ruling class could continue to substantiate its self-privileged control over everyone else, I would do so; nothing is worse than being proved right under these circumstances - oh for an easier life! - obviously I am not the visionary person you should be asking.

Given that, to date, economic systems run by communist/socilaist states that have purported to function quite differently to the capitalism system have nevertheless been as dependent upon capital, investment, competition, import and export and the rest as is the capitalist system itself, anything that would ever claim to be able to replace capitalism would have to differ from those systems as much as from conventional capitalist ones to hpe to gain any credence; furthermore, those so-called "non-capitalist" systems have invariably tended to keep the poor in the majority and advantage only a handful of wealthy people, just as is reckoned to be the case under capitalism by those who oppose it.

Well as Richard Barrett explained some while back, one should not confuse capital with capitalism Value will once more be related to the socially necessary number of hours to produce what society really needs, first of all, rather than is coerced into buying, and the money supply will be controlled in accordance. In other words a much simplified system compared with today's. There will be plenty for accountants and auditors to do! As to people bagging privileges for themselves, peer group pressure has been common to all societies and a precondition for belonging; the difference being that in the 17th century no one had mobile phones or Adidas trainers! But seriously the genesis of an alternative determines its policing, and I think we have to rule out the putsch/civil war model. Trotsky put the dilemma succinetly but well - war (apart from anything else!) displaces vital resources and inevitably leads to scarcity; scarcity to queues; queues to the need for policing.

What would you put in the place of capitalism and how would you seek to ensure global acceptance of that alternative system in order that it could be given an opportunity to function?

I think I've laid some basics - recent figures show the richest sector of the world's population shrinking to an ever-smaller proportion of the whole; it would be nice of them to prove their worth in ways other than material accumulation and exclusion to what will sooner or later otherwise become gated, armed ghettoes.

[ahinton]

I don't read much of the left's press these days, but my own theory on that is that, so far, capitalism has succeeded in preserving itself by achieving a balance, when economic circumstances allowed, albeit by no means always a stable one, between class interests.

This is one way in which its practice has struck me as being somewhat less than perfect; the fundamental "class" issue seems to me to embrace the acceptance and furtherance of the concept of "classifying" people, one inevitable and unwelcome implicaton of which is the notion that some people are supposedly "better" than others and therefore deserving of more (including more wealth) than others.

Marx and others have predicted that conditions would not always be so propotious for this to be possible, and they predicted postponements of any big showdown between capital and labour by divide-and-rule tactics tailored according to the demands of any situation arising.

Indeed, but today the entire business of "labour" is simply not what it was in Marx's time, not least to the extent that automated production processes have reduced and continue to reduce the demand for "workers" and affect the kinds of work that workers do; the growth of the service sector both public and private and the change of balance between it and manufacturing represents another fundamental change from the world of work in Marx's time.

Attacking the working class direct, other than by the "rational" means of job insecurity (acording to the system's wastefulness) would just not be subtle enough, so in my lifetime scapegoats have included hippies, feminists, blacks, gays, travelling people, environmental campaigners and today Muslims, because having somebody other than the rich and powerful for ordinary people to vent their artificially-stimulated prejudices against conveniently diverts attention and gives rise to successive (but for obvious reasons unco-ordinated) secondary fightbacks, underpinned by evolving defensive group mythologies, identity politics. Each can then be either picked off or bought off in turn.

But of precisely what are these and other groups "scapegoats"? Something other than mere economic and fiscal practice, surely? There are wealthy feminists, Muslims and even environmental campaigners, for example. I'm not sure that I understand fully what you mean here, but then perhaps I'm just being dense!

But - by ruling out all these groups combining and pushing them from their pedestal to create a genuiinely democratic, bottom-up planned egalitarian way of running society - what the ruling class has now achieved has been a reversion by new sectors to arcane means of struggle - religion and nationalism - which historically were part and parcel of what gave rise to capitalism in the first place.

You have a point (you have many, indeed, all of them well thought out and interesting) but, just as you later cite Richard Barrett correctly pointing out that capital should not be confused with capitalism, I think that it's important not to confuse "wealth" with "ruling" and I believe that most occasions on which the term "ruling class" is used it is intended to mean "wealthy class" which is not necessarily the same thing - and, in any case, are all extremely wealthy people really members of the same "class" solely by virtue of their accumulated wealth and nothing else?

I don't personally know of anybody on the left back in the 1970s when I was active who could have predicted this; what now presents is the problem of cohering all those at the receiving end of capitalism's current contradictions in their most vicious unforgiving form into a common strategy. That will, I predict, vary from how the problem was dealt with previously, i.e. unsuccessfully, since we have now been under the heel of undiluted neoliberal capitalism for 30 + years and the different groups involved, e.g. social workers, citizens advice lawyers, university fee indebtees, using different technologies now to hand, will sire and generalise different and hopefully more effective means of defense and opposition.

Again, a good point - and there can be no doubt that things have gone off the rails and do need to be done - and done properly. "Capitalism's current contradictions" have for the most part manifested themselves as a direct consequence of its wilful misuse by the greedy; how that "common strategy" could be formulated, broadly agreed upon and sustainably implemented, whilst not yet clear (as you suggest), would surely depend at least in part upon a thorough rethink of the good that capitalism has historically achieved and a determined and concerted attempt to maximise the development of those aspects of its practice once again and, in so doing, to root out its negative aspects; capitalist practice, like so much else, must be allowed to criticise itself and to be seen to be open to constructive criticism and amenable to reform.

Capitalism is laying waste to the ecosphere, its detritus affecting the oceans, marine wildlife and thence climate - more people are or will be faced with sheer survival. Unless capital is prevented from being shifted to where it is maximalising ecosystem and community destruction, the relatively unaffected areas will find themselves overwhelmed with refugees.

That's correct, except that, once again, it's misuse of capitalism that's doing this or allowing it to be done, not the mere factg of capitalism itself. It would indeed be beneficial were capitalist practice to turn a substantial proportion of its concerned attention to the fact that, whilst different people in different parts of the world have different needs and aspirations, there remain fundamental needs common to humans everywhere, such as potable water supplies, sanitation, food, healthcare and medicine, energy, education et al and the basic provision of these to the world's entire population would inevitably presuppose immense wealth creation in order to fund it. How this could be achieved once such wealth had been created is less clear, of course, since those with the created wealth must either be taxed to bits by governments (insofar as that might be possible) or successfully persuaded of the global benefit to society (including themselves) of the practical use of such wealth; the problem with the former is that it is based upon the notion that only governments (democratically elected or otherwise), not wealthy people and corporations, can be trusted with such social responsibility and such a notion is flawed to the extent that governments are made up of people.

I'm no fan of Trotsky (as I imagine you already realise!) but his remarks about the socially and economically destructive outcomes of wars are absolutely on the button, of course. One has only to remember just how large a percentage of the current world population figure is the number of lives lost in the past century alone as a direct consequence of wars to recognise their disastrous waste of human resources; the sheer amounts of money that have been "invested" in them instead of in the societally beneficial interests of all those who do and don't fight them tell us the other side of the same tragic story.

I think I've laid some basics - recent figures show the richest sector of the world's population shrinking to an ever-smaller proportion of the whole; it would be nice of them to prove their worth in ways other than material accumulation and exclusion to what will sooner or later otherwise become gated, armed ghettoes.

You've done rather more than that, for which many thanks. It would indeed be nice if the richest sector did indeed commit to doing as you say and one can only hope that its members can somehow be persuaded that the very "gated, armed ghettoes" that are one inevitable consequence of the unfettered "material accumulation and exclusion" (especially the latter) to which you draw attention here constitute a far less pleasant prospect for anyone, including those extremely rich people who find themslves confined to them, than would be the "proving of their worth" in the ways that you suggest.

[Serial_Apologist]

Indeed, but today the entire business of "labour" is simply not what it was in Marx's time, not least to the extent that automated production processes have reduced and continue to reduce the demand for "workers" and affect the kinds of work that workers do; the growth of the service sector both public and private and the change of balance between it and manufacturing represents another fundamental change from the world of work in Marx's time.

Yes, but a value-creating working class still would exist were enterprises to reduce teams of workers directly employed on production down to one. One man or woman creating all the value and surplus value of a firm by operating the entire machinery would represent a final possible stage in a rationalisation process brought about by mechanisation. This a.f.a.i.k. has not yet happened anywhere, and would be unlikely to - conditions under which firms operate making sure that such a firm would already either have been out-competed to the point of bankruptcy, or that its owners had moved its operations to countries offering opportunities provided by a cheaper workforce prior to downsizing. The fact that all production and ancillary back-up (clerical admin etc) is paid for out of profit demonstrates two things - on one hand the massive burgeoning relative weight occupied by mechanisation since the Industrial Revolution in meeting costs, and on the other the way in which the capacity to pay drives money supply. At bottom, the capacity for inflation within the system could still be said to be the measure of the degree to which more money is sloshing around than could be accounted for in terms of added value. This - the unequal capacity to accumulate capital and determine exchange values at the point of purchase or bargaining - is what lies at the base of Marx's theory of value, upon which innumerable layers of variability and mofdification are undoubtedly added: variations in international currency rates, stock market gambling, liquidation of debts etc etc. - plus what determines class as the individual's socio-economic relationship to the means of production and distribution, and, secondarily, the capacities and structures by which s/he is able to subsist - however etiolated that definition pans out as production methods increasingly mechanise.

In terms of what it "means" as far as alternative economic and political strategies go, you are right to say that the proletariat as seen by Marx, (or by Pilger today somewhere in Indonesia), no longer represents the weight in numbers once envisaged as constituting the ideological and physical force necessary for change. Using the above hypothetical example, theoretically one man or woman could shut down or take over and plan production to meet social needs rather than those of competitive profitability, and refuse to hand over the keys; from banking we see the Leesons of this world determining the fortunes of millions by virtue of an inadequacy of safeguards inevitable in systems become too complex for anyone to get control over to legitimate ends. All the boss need do is learn how to operate the switches, but maybe by then it's too late; and he still needs at least ONE person to control the income of, so as to make that surplus!

But of precisely what are these and other groups "scapegoats"? Something other than mere economic and fiscal practice, surely? There are wealthy feminists, Muslims and even environmental campaigners, for example. I'm not sure that I understand fully what you mean here, but then perhaps I'm just being dense!

If one understands the value system of any society as that of its dominant class, one understands the value system built up over several hundred years by the bourgeoisie to justify and maintain its position and control. Values can change to suit f.ex. business cycles, and even affect aesthetics. Who in 1920 apart from one or two hidebound reactionaries would have envisaged the re-enthronement of Wagner and his music in Germany 15 years hence? Only lurking reactionaries forseeing themselves as useful to the German ruling class in its coming time of need. Who in 1930s Britain would have envisaged the British ruling class - or a significant subsection of it - urging working class people to borrow, borrow, borrow, and spend, spend, spend like there's no tomorrow? Certainly no Marxist or socialist, for he or she could never envisage the bosses in the banking and investment sectors being so gung-ho after 20 + years of disciplined compliant workforces? Anybody challenging ruling class values of do as I say, not as I do, risks being scapegoated for challenging handed on narratives in ways that question the received wisdoms therein, such as that a woman's place is in the home. The only reason for the acceptance of gay marriage, imv, was when gays started saying that they were no less likely than straight people to form long-term relationships, thus trouncing the religious people asserting this to be sinful and anti-family.

You have a point (you have many, indeed, all of them well thought out and interesting) but, just as you later cite Richard Barrett correctly pointing out that capital should not be confused with capitalism, I think that it's important not to confuse "wealth" with "ruling" and I believe that most occasions on which the term "ruling class" is used it is intended to mean "wealthy class" which is not necessarily the same thing - and, in any case, are all extremely wealthy people really members of the same "class" solely by virtue of their accumulated wealth and nothing else?

Yes I would say so - I don't see your problem with this.

Again, a good point - and there can be no doubt that things have gone off the rails and do need to be done - and done properly. "Capitalism's current contradictions" have for the most part manifested themselves as a direct consequence of its wilful misuse by the greedy; how that "common strategy" could be formulated, broadly agreed upon and sustainably implemented, whilst not yet clear (as you suggest), would surely depend at least in part upon a thorough rethink of the good that capitalism has historically achieved and a determined and concerted attempt to maximise the development of those aspects of its practice once again and, in so doing, to root out its negative aspects; capitalist practice, like so much else, must be allowed to criticise itself and to be seen to be open to constructive criticism and amenable to reform.

In agreeing I part company with my erstwhile comrades of the far left who in their minds see policy initiatives and the institutions promulgating them as sustainable or implementable under capitalism, or not. Here the criticism or accusation that the state to be overthrown in Marx or Lenin's times is no longer the state undifferentiated in terms of which side of the class divide it stands for, but one modified by reforms gained through united effort such as universal franchise and welfare, stands. Even Trotsky argued that an offensive on behalf of change was best served by being dressed up as in defense of existing gains, because that way it would win its greatest support.

[...] again, it's misuse of capitalism that's doing this or allowing it to be done, not the mere fact of capitalism itself. It would indeed be beneficial were capitalist practice to turn a substantial proportion of its concerned attention to the fact that, whilst different people in different parts of the world have different needs and aspirations, there remain fundamental needs common to humans everywhere, such as potable water supplies, sanitation, food, healthcare and medicine, energy, education et al and the basic provision of these to the world's entire population would inevitably presuppose immense wealth creation in order to fund it. How this could be achieved once such wealth had been created is less clear, of course, since those with the created wealth must either be taxed to bits by governments (insofar as that might be possible) or successfully persuaded of the global benefit to society (including themselves) of the practical use of such wealth; the problem with the former is that it is based upon the notion that only governments (democratically elected or otherwise), not wealthy people and corporations, can be trusted with such social responsibility and such a notion is flawed to the extent that governments are made up of people.

For me, "including themselves" is the giveaway there, because, notwithstanding their rhetoric, and use or advocacy of terms such as "the national interest" and "we're all in this together", I don't think the ruling class see, or even want to see themselves, as part of "society" - which is a tenuous, fluid concept anyway. The nearest Britain ever had to being one society was probably during World War Two.

[ahinton]

Again, S_A - lots of interesting thoughts here.

Rather than quote in extenso or take each of them separately, I'd prefer at this point just to single out a couple of things.

I remain dubious about the value of the continued use of the terms "working class" as distinct from "workers" and "ruling class" as distinct from "wealthy class" - the former not least on the grounds that workers might work for a public or private sector employer or for themselves and the latter in that not everyone who is extremely wealthy either "rules" or desires to do so and they're sufficiently diverse (just as are workers) not to be easily amenable to pigeon-holing into a single "class".

"The state" - of any kind; for whom does it stand? That, I think, is a fundamental issue that raises questions of the extent or otherwise of its competence, its trustworthiness, its efficiency in bringing about positive social change and the rest.

The complexities of global trading of services and goods, the speed and manner of financial transactions, the self-manipulation (as distinct from the wilful manipulation) of comparative currency values, the sheer diversity of aspirations and the rest are such as once again to make the situations under which Marx and his immediate followers functioned almost unrecognisably different; that's not to undermine Marx et al but simply to recognise that so much is now so very different for us all that it seems wise not to ignore the fact that Marx's theories need to be considered in their historical context rather than as immutabilities, just as religious teaching and practice has to take account of present-day society and not just that of the times and places of the origins of those religions. Even at the end of WWII, it would have been impossible, for example, for anyone to accumulate wealth on the scale and at the speed that is possible for a few canny people to do today; I imagine that Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and the rest would have been astonished at what's become possible.

I will quote your final paragraph, however, where you note

For me, "including themselves" is the giveaway there, because, notwithstanding their rhetoric, and use or advocacy of terms such as "the national interest" and "we're all in this together", I don't think the ruling class see, or even want to see themselves, as part of "society" - which is a tenuous, fluid concept anyway. The nearest Britain ever had to being one society was probably during World War Two.
In the paragraph to which this was your response, my reference to "including themselves" was relating to extremely wealthy people whereas your references in the same context to those kinds of terminology clearly relate to people in positions of political power. I set no more store in any case by the notion that "rulers" all belong to one "class" than I do that "workers" do; I could no more consider envisaging the lumping together, for example, of such diverse people as Cameron, Hollande, Merkel, Putin, Obama, HM the Queen et al in one "ruling class" than I could that of plumbers, software engineers, teachers, stockbrokers, nurses, composers et al in one "working class"; I cannot help but find such terminology inherently divisive. You are, of course, right that "society" is a "tenuous, fluid concept", yet all of its members share certain fundamental needs (as I mentioned earlier) just as they also display diametric differences.

[Serial_Apologist]

For whom the state stands is not a question that bears a lot of thinking about with regards to control. The most one can say is that it modulates the different class interests contained (?) within it, and uses its armed wing as guarantor of internal or external threat: the former from challenge to its power structures, the latter from others' power structures. Which, if any class, one belongs to is all very well at a theoretical level, until one comes up against the realities. And those are much blunter than you may wish, I think - more akin to the person who tells her mugger, "now, look here, you're being very divisive, robbing me, when we are both in the same class. In fact I am probably worse off than you, even though I may speak with a received pronunciation accent". Sometimes the process of ruling is ineluctable: like Prince Charles, one is dropped into it, whether one wants to be or not. Then one is regarded as a fool if throwing it all away: how will that change anything apart from exonerating one guilty conscience? If one takes advantage of an inheritance one is already lording it over the family who, due to the changing circumstances of capitalism, however greedy or incompetent or not those in charge, finds itself indebted for studying for qualifications indispensable for the kinds of occupation once taken for granted because everyone thought capitalism had overcome its contradictions and become auto-sustainable. One quick, albeit crude way of finding out of there is still today a class society, is to ask oneself, who always gets away with it? Some criminals do, sure - but that's a matter of success or otherwise in the clear-up rates; someone has to protect acquisitions including of people's lives. One thing for sure is that employees then, shall we call them, don't often get away with protecting their jobs when under threat these days, let alone their wages and incomes under inflation. Even under conditions more propitious to improving living standards, when some if not all employers were prepared to recognise trade unions, income rises and job security were put across as threatening a firm's competitiveness. People "priced themselves out of jobs". My firm may make a virtually identical product to yours, but I want you to put up your employees' wages so they can buy my product, while I keep mine down to maximise my profits and competitive situation vis-a-vis your company. That fact of me making a surplus and being able to bank it for a rainy day whereas the wage I pay them is from my point of view paid to reproduce their capacity to make my product, not to buy yours, is not the only thing that makes me part of a ruling class, and, as Brecht put it, the one thing we have in common lest "the mob" take over; added to that is the symbiotic relationship that I have with a Tory Party that does its tactical best to make sure my workforce is just about well enough kept with the help of the NHS etc to make stuff and newspapers run by multi millionaires that keep their readership in semi-ignorance, and again, part-defined in a secondary sense by virtue of such, of what makes the world go around, and their place in it. To claim that including the two groups you cite is divisive seems to me the complete obverse of the case; you and I have far more in common with each other, and most other posters on this forum, however misguided, I would imagine, than we have with the politicians you list and Her Majesty. To survive, we can do without them, (I don't mean them physical extermination, of course, but them in their roles), whereas they, unless they become workers of one sort or another, i.e. employees of a person or persons of either their former ilk, the state or a co-operative, cannot do without us.

[aeolium]

"The state" - of any kind; for whom does it stand? That, I think, is a fundamental issue that raises questions of the extent or otherwise of its competence, its trustworthiness, its efficiency in bringing about positive social change and the rest.

One way of answering that question is to look at recent historical trends and see which sections of society have most benefited from the actions (or inactions) of the state, and which have suffered most. Statistics don't always lie and the statistics indicated here on income inequality in the US and UK over recent decades illustrate pretty starkly which groups have most benefited:

US statistics - look especially at the tables comparing the changes in income growth from 1947-79 with those from 1979-2009:

http://inequality.org/income-inequality/

Summary of US and UK statistics:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16545898

It's pretty clear that top income sectors have benefited hugely from government policy changes in recent decades - especially in matters like significant reductions in taxation levels for high earners - whereas the lowest income sectors have not and have actually suffered from cutbacks in welfare programmes, increased unemployment, high housing costs etc. Why have these changes happened in democratic countries, where a tiny minority is disproportionately favoured over the majority? Is it because government policy has effectively been "captured" by the powerful interests of the wealthy and big business, that those in government tend to be from the wealthier classes (US Presidents, the "millionaires' cabinet" of Cameron & co, the aspirations to great wealth of Blair)? Is it surprising that there is such disenchantment with governments here, in the US and in Europe, when there is such clear evidence of governments serving privileged interests?

[ahinton]

One way of answering that question is to look at recent historical trends and see which sections of society have most benefited from the actions (or inactions) of the state, and which have suffered most. Statistics don't always lie and the statistics indicated here on income inequality in the US and UK over recent decades illustrate pretty starkly which groups have most benefited:

US statistics - look especially at the tables comparing the changes in income growth from 1947-79 with those from 1979-2009:

http://inequality.org/income-inequality/

Summary of US and UK statistics:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16545898

It's pretty clear that top income sectors have benefited hugely from government policy changes in recent decades - especially in matters like significant reductions in taxation levels for high earners - whereas the lowest income sectors have not and have actually suffered from cutbacks in welfare programmes, increased unemployment, high housing costs etc. Why have these changes happened in democratic countries, where a tiny minority is disproportionately favoured over the majority? Is it because government policy has effectively been "captured" by the powerful interests of the wealthy and big business, that those in government tend to be from the wealthier classes (US Presidents, the "millionaires' cabinet" of Cameron & co, the aspirations to great wealth of Blair)? Is it surprising that there is such disenchantment with governments here, in the US and in Europe, when there is such clear evidence of governments serving privileged interests?

All understood. At least some of those with loadsamoney will of course lobby governments of whatever hue and wheresoever they might be situate in order to further their owhn interests; who's going to stop that happening? It wouldn't matter whether those governments were full of wealthy people or not; those people and corporations will tell the governments what to do and, if they don't comply, they'll start buying...

[ahinton]

For whom the state stands is not a question that bears a lot of thinking about with regards to control. The most one can say is that it modulates the different class interests contained (?) within it, and uses its armed wing as guarantor of internal or external threat: the former from challenge to its power structures, the latter from others' power structures. Which, if any class, one belongs to is all very well at a theoretical level, until one comes up against the realities. And those are much blunter than you may wish, I think - more akin to the person who tells her mugger, "now, look here, you're being very divisive, robbing me, when we are both in the same class. In fact I am probably worse off than you, even though I may speak with a received pronunciation accent". Sometimes the process of ruling is ineluctable: like Prince Charles, one is dropped into it, whether one wants to be or not. Then one is regarded as a fool if throwing it all away: how will that change anything apart from exonerating one guilty conscience? If one takes advantage of an inheritance one is already lording it over the family who, due to the changing circumstances of capitalism, however greedy or incompetent or not those in charge, finds itself indebted for studying for qualifications indispensable for the kinds of occupation once taken for granted because everyone thought capitalism had overcome its contradictions and become auto-sustainable. One quick, albeit crude way of finding out of there is still today a class society, is to ask oneself, who always gets away with it? Some criminals do, sure - but that's a matter of success or otherwise in the clear-up rates; someone has to protect acquisitions including of people's lives. One thing for sure is that employees then, shall we call them, don't often get away with protecting their jobs when under threat these days, let alone their wages and incomes under inflation. Even under conditions more propitious to improving living standards, when some if not all employers were prepared to recognise trade unions, income rises and job security were put across as threatening a firm's competitiveness. People "priced themselves out of jobs". My firm may make a virtually identical product to yours, but I want you to put up your employees' wages so they can buy my product, while I keep mine down to maximise my profits and competitive situation vis-a-vis your company. That fact of me making a surplus and being able to bank it for a rainy day whereas the wage I pay them is from my point of view paid to reproduce their capacity to make my product, not to buy yours, is not the only thing that makes me part of a ruling class, and, as Brecht put it, the one thing we have in common lest "the mob" take over; added to that is the symbiotic relationship that I have with a Tory Party that does its tactical best to make sure my workforce is just about well enough kept with the help of the NHS etc to make stuff and newspapers run by multi millionaires that keep their readership in semi-ignorance, and again, part-defined in a secondary sense by virtue of such, of what makes the world go around, and their place in it. To claim that including the two groups you cite is divisive seems to me the complete obverse of the case; you and I have far more in common with each other, and most other posters on this forum, however misguided, I would imagine, than we have with the politicians you list and Her Majesty. To survive, we can do without them, (I don't mean them physical extermination, of course, but them in their roles), whereas they, unless they become workers of one sort or another, i.e. employees of a person or persons of either their former ilk, the state or a co-operative, cannot do without us.

I somehow wish that I were capable of sharing at least some of your optimism; sadly, as it is, however, any "Panglossian" aspirations that I might have (or more properly that might be ascribed to me) fall way short of reality...

[Serial_Apologist]

I somehow wish that I were capable of sharing at least some of your optimism; sadly, as it is, however, any "Panglossian" aspirations that I might have (or more properly that might be ascribed to me) fall way short of reality...

Oh, me: I'm not particularly optimistic.

I think a lot was frittered away by the time I got involved in radical politics in the early 1970s. Several years ago Radio 3 hosted a commemorative day on the year 1968 - I have the cassettes still. Various people were interviewed including the composers John Tilbury, Pierre Boulez and Alexander Goehr, talking about the impact of the events in the States and in France that year, with one commentator, it may have been David Caute, pointing out that the students demonstrating and occupying the Sorbonne, and linking up with the factory workers, had scaled the heights, taken control of administration buildings, and then, having pushed the de Gaulle government and state apparatus to the brink of disintegration and surrender, found themselves bereft or running out of ideas as to what to do with their power. Goehr expressed respect for the Black Panthers in Chicago and other American states for knowing at what point to call a halt, secure in demands met, but pointed out the farcical comparisons of what was going on in Britain, pointing out that the whole episode was collapsing in giggles; Caute highlighted the fact that, in contradistinction to the situation in America where black riots were the outcome of decades of oppression and discrimination, there was something paradoxical about a revolution based on consumerism, which just about summed up the character of events in Britain, excluding the efforts of the Maxwell Davies, Birtwistle and Goehr to build performance situations for new music and the countercultural activities around Cardew and the Scratch Orchestra.

What to us at the time seemed good was a kissing goodbye to last remaining vestiges of a puritanical Victorian mindset, particularly as represented by the coming of the Women's Movement, but much of what "Swinging London" represented was the co-option of artistic rebellion by commercial interests, and any radical potential in for example the squatting movement tended to split subjective from political transformation, with the latter too quick to pick up blunted cudgels from the dying embers of an unexamined or insufficiently examined Marxist tradition favouring its vulgarised variants. The final blow from within, as it were, was the rise of "identity politics" and the effect of it in downgrading any centrality for class in the weighing up of factors at work in then present-day capitalism - which personally, just having watched the programme presented on BBC2 by Kirsty Wark on the re-rise of mysogyny, I blame for allowing bourgeois feminism to assume prevailing authority over the more left-wing manifestations.

I'm pretty sure no one at GCHQ will be tracking my postings on this board, though I was pretty certain that I was on at least one blacklist as a consequence of being so "out" about my politics where I worked until 1993 and was active in the trade union; but whenever I think about the fraternal relations that were being built up between dissidents across the East-West divide, including scientists and jazz musicians, I still feel something of a sense of responsibility and culpability for the drift that took place and for bottling out on the excuse of family circumstances when it seemed impossible to get a mental handle on what was going wrong.

There was a wealth of overlooked theory rich in possibilities in the so-called New Left of the late 1950s and 1960s - I'm thinking of the insights of Marxian aesthetics as understood and enriched by people such as John Berger; the socialist feminism of Sheila Rowbotham and the lady still running Red Pepper* whose name currently escapes me; E.P. Thompson's examination of the utopian socialist tradition in English history and his role in the re-awakened CND of the early 1980s, to name just a few awaiting re-examination, which was partly what the Occupy movement was about, 2 years ago. And there are still a few articulate advocates for a liiving Marxism, deep analysts like David Harvey.

*Hilary Wainwright, of course.