The Spark of Life

 

 
With what small, flickering sliver did Life begin?

It was certainly not yet a cell, or even something well below that form, but endowed with RNA or even DNA. To place such things as these as the necessary starting point reveals from where we are currently standing, and looking, imbued with that position, to identify the first traces of Life. And from such a standpoint, we will not be addressing the actual Spark of Creation, but really yet another stage in the following Evolution.

We realise what Evolution is, and merely extrapolate backwards until that process “seamlessly transforms” into a very similar process in the preceding non-living substances.

We impose an incrementalist conception upon an Event that could never be such.

The Origin of Life on Earth was the most significant transforming Event in the history of the Universe (as far as we know), and such an approach laced through with the usual banker assumptions of more commonplace changes will never reveal what actually happened.

Not only was that event far earlier than such “life indicators” that we insist must be present, but even the significant steps in the following Evolution were always majorly redirected by very similar Events, which we term Emergences.

So, in concertinaing and truncating the earliest wonderful living miracle, we effectively emasculate the real, creative processes involved, and disable our chances of revealing what would be the most important understanding possible for Mankind.

Why is it that all those involved in the quest to reveal Life’s actual Origin, insist upon their mechanisms and processes, though admittedly writ very long and very large?

It is because that trajectory from non-living chemical processes to the very First Life actually involved the most unpredictable series of 'miracles', which changed the whole game, and the whole context too. For in finding any means of making sense out of Reality in general, we first had to make it intelligible. And to, therefore, start with such miracles was not a good idea at all. No one addressed the miracles! The dominant method, which has been developed to date, is the “pluralist analytic, scientific method", wherein various Wholes are identified, and “held still” in order to discern their hidden components (Parts). And if ever that proved inadequate, a complete locality would be isolated, and nailed down with many less-significant factors totally removed, while others would be increasingly held constant, until our hoped for and maybe only previously glimpsed “key relation” was revealed clearly and continually. Only then could it be measured and the results formulated into some sort of Formal Relation or Equation.

Such a methodology did, and still does, put into our hands the wherewithall to replicate those vital conditions, and USE the relations to some required end. But, it is crucially flawed, because it cannot deal with unfettered Reality, but only with a maximally modified and indeed “farmed” version of it, which we can set up and exploit!

It cannot deal with Life!

And that certainly not only includes its Origin, but in each and every significant, qualitative change in its subsequent development. For that particular standard process of investigation would kill it – stone dead!

Its applicability to the “Forms” evident from Living Things, and the chemistry and the physics occurring within Living Things is indeed possible, but never to Life itself.

For Plurality – the conceptual basis for that method divides things into their contributing Parts, as if they are entirely separable and caused by purely bottom-up factors in a strictly physical or chemical way.

Life was never that, so it became impossible to investigate the Origin of Life by such means.

Instead, we do small within-a-level causal sequences such as Oparin’s studies of Sols and Gels, and hope that sufficient other areas can be cracked to “come together” like a jigsaw puzzle - to reveal Life.

That is a forlorn hope, for Life is not such a collection of investigatable “Parts”: it is an integrated Whole, and the means to deliver the trajectory of its First Appearance is certainly not yet in our scientists’ hands. Nor, will it ever be while they restrict themselves to pluralist means. First Life was not created by cumulative, incremental processes at a pre-Life level, which at some point “passed” a vital threshold and – “Lo, behold Life!”

The transition to Life was a revolutionary trajectory, with diverse and contrasting Phases, which we term an Emergence. Those who, like Oparin, deliver necessary precursors such as appropriate chemical forms, or organic syntheses, say absolutely nothing about the transforming Event itself. The truth is the very opposite of their assumed cumulative aggregations, for the evidence is that such Emergences are always triggered off by a cataclysmic dismantling of the preceding stability, as the ONLY way that the totally new could possibly emerge, and thereafter an unavoidable battle between alternatives, and a integrating of defensive and constraining sub processes, which would finally establish a wholly new Level of Stability could be achieved, which we term Life!

Indeed, a crucially universal law is negated within such an Event.

It is the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which perpetually pertains within Stability, but is replaced by its opposite during the creative heart of these transforming Events. And this can only be achieved when in the dismantling of a current stability, all its “policemen processes” are dissociated, so that a uniquely totally unfettered situation allows previously prohibited constructional processes to proceed and grow.

Notice also, that these Events do not all succeed. There is no inevitability about them. Many will not make it to a new Level of Stability and will fall back to something akin to the prior state. But even these failures will contribute to a following ascent. Every failure will leave behind scraps or detritus, which could be participants in the next revolution when it occurs. And, these Emergences have been happening throughout the whole history of the Universe, and every single stable success, has, in the end, come to its demise. No Stability is eternal!

How could our current pluralist, pedestrian and incrementalist conceptions ever crack this unique kind of problem? They have never been able to do it, and their methodology prohibits them ever doing it now or in the future.

SHAPE is 3 years old!

 

June 2012 marked the third anniversary of our online journal. It is a significant achievement, for from the outset it was intended to put out new Issues every three weeks containing around 3,000 words of original contributions, and in so doing building an accessible library of contributions on the subjects:

Science, Holism, Abstraction, Philosophy & Emergence

(hence S.H.A.P.E.)

So by this point in time some 150,000 words should have been delivered, and this goal has been exceeded and enlarged further by this blog and a small series of animations and films on the Shape Journal Youtube Channel These 'spin off's' have recorded 40,000 hits on their own, quite apart from the innumerable accesses to the main journal. 

Surprisingly this hefty output has not kept pace with my new writing, so that there is a great deal more to publish now than there was at the start of the enterprise. 

We sincerely hope that our readers have got something from this demanding and committed endeavour, and would dearly like our journal to be the chosen outlet for the creations of other philosophers in similar areas.

To mark this anniversary Michael Coldwell will be making another new video for us, to encapsulate the whole project so far, and hopefully to attract new minds to the Shape aegis.

Why Socialism IX: The Essential Development of Marxist Theory II

 

  Removing The Myths Of Progress

(Calamity is the Only Opportunity for Qualitative Change!)

 

 

When considering real developments in the World around us, we finally settle upon Emergences (Revolutionary transformations) as the crucial episodes. 

 

But it would be wrong to see such interludes as merely a sudden quickening of the pace of an already-operating, pedestrian process of qualitative change.
 

Indeed, in research undertaken into such Events, it has become clear that the first phase is always a major system-terminating crisis, and the crucial phase in the midst of such a self-generated Emergence, (as well as that following any externally-triggered general collapse - as in a meteorite impact) needs to be understood for it is when things are crucially transformed. And, that is only possible in terms of Stability and Development as alternative modes, rather than our usually assumed trajectory of incessant changes, but at variable rates. For we invariably (and incorrectly) see Stability as both desirable and constructive. And we contrast it favourably with the alternative of a totally destructive Chaos. For, with such a view, it appears inevitable that any real progress must be confined to only, and wholly, within Stability, and conversely that Chaos, if successful, will lead only downwards towards an ultimate and general dissolution.
 

But, this is a significantly mistaken assumption. Indeed, it is the opposite of what actually occurs. And, if this is the case, the question that must be answered is, “How does such a misconception become so widespread?”
 

Clearly, the error stems from those who define Stability, and what they not only see as progressive, but also have the wherewithall to impose it upon the majority of the population. And throughout history those have always been the people who are “in-charge” (or those closely and beneficially associated with them).
 

But, if our suggested, very different, alternative conceptions are true, and stability is totally opposed to progress, then we have to explain why this is so. And it is best revealed by contrasting Stability not with Chaos, but with its real opposite - Revolution. 

 

From this point of view, stability is essentially a balanced and conservative state, in which the status quo has to be actively maintained, and even strengthened whenever and wherever it is possible to do so. Any threats to the current Order are opposed immediately, either automatically in naturally achieved stabilities - via built-in inhibitors of system change, or within Societies via consciously set-up organisations such as the police, the armed forces and the Justice System.

NOTE: When politicians emphasize the Rule-of-Law as the essential ingredient in “democracy”, this is exactly what they have in mind.
 

Now this suggested alternative may be dismissed as merely a forlorn hope of those not in charge, and hence having no objectivity. But, if that were true, and the usual established view of stability was the case, then the motive forces for significant change would have to be ever and clearly evident within all such stable situations. So, the question that must be answered is, “Are these forces both active and clearly evident within Stability, and if so, what are they?”
 

And, to those who subscribe to the consensus view, the answer to such a question would inevitably be “Technology!” They would be clearly in difficulties to provide any other examples at all. And even this banker response does not, and indeed cannot, deliver significant qualitative change.
 

The definitions of both Science and Technology are clearly important in showing exactly what these activities do in fact achieve:

Science is the attempt to understand Reality and all new discoveries, while, Technology is merely the drive to use such things – profitably. And, this latter is then impossible to make into a system-transforming activity, for its context must be part of the process too. Indeed, an extremely good case can be made for establishing the exact opposite. 

 

For though we are told that it transforms Society that is certainly not by radically altering its stability. It actually presents an absolutely zero threat! Indeed, without the constant and accelerating March of Technology our current Social Order would be in dire trouble.

It enables a debt-based acceleration to disguise a real congenital decline, but to do so requires ever more resources and earnings to allow the most enormous borrowings to finance the essential research to deliver what is needed to keep the majorly holed boat afloat. Technology provides the pumps that keep it from sinking – hardly a progressively transforming contribution!
 

Now, I must admit that I am not attempting to win any arguments with the group who benefit most from the current system. That would be a total waste of time. But, I do address the majority, and those who should be their vanguard, the scientists, though the latter are currently in the most debilitating trough for extending our understanding of the World, and have been there for a very long time.

Sub Atomic Physics and Cosmology are deep in the mire of the wholly idealist Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, and have completely abandoned Understanding and Explanation for pragmatism via Equations alone.
 

And, in spite of what leading scientists on innumerable TV Spectaculars and in magazine articles say about the promise of the latest experimental kit, the truth is that Science, as a means of understanding has completely lost its way. For they, in spite of the illustrious history of Science, also subscribe to the consensus view of Stability.

They dream of being able to pursue their studies without any essential regard to pay, facilities and funding.

They imagine that Stability will provide them with such a Paradise, and in it they will surge ahead to ever-greater understanding.

It is, of course, a well-loved, but wholly untrue Myth!

So, let us review this proffered alternative concept of Stability.

It has to be a state achieved in the end by restrictive and conservative processes, which deter all opposing systems, and keeps things as they are, conserved in a sort of perpetual balance. There are still both deleterious and alternative processes (non dominant) occurring, but they are generally kept well in check. Yet the ubiquitous Second Law of Thermodynamics is also no myth!

Incessantly, the combined processes of dismantling and decay, which together constitute this Law, persist, and every single Stability will at some point be totally undermined by these hidden forces, and will inevitably collapse, and seem to be heading for total and final Chaos.
 

But, surprisingly, something wholly unexpected occurs and NOT by chance. The overall direction changes dramatically through 180 degrees, and Dissolution becomes Creation. The Phoenix does indeed arise from the Flames of Destruction! Multiple, wholly-new proto-systems as sets of mutually conducive processes, begin to form and grow, and the crucial question must be “Why?”
 

There is a clear answer!

The so-called “policemen processes” of the prior stability have been swept away in the wholesale collapse, and all sorts of processes, prohibited or greatly restricted within that prior stability, now go ahead unhindered, and begin to form multiple conducive relationships with other processes, and the only opposition is via other equally new and competing alternative systems.
 

Out of what seemed to be a headlong dive into oblivion, we get instead developments on all sides, and in every single micro-stage one particular proto-system will rise to dominate, but will unavoidably and by its own success generate the renewed reappearance of the Second Law. The drive forwards will therefore be halted, and a return towards chaos will ensue. But, of course, that will only resuscitate the rise of yet new and different proto-systems and another upward surge will occur.
 

Ultimately, after a turmoil of such developments, and alliance of conducive, mutually supporting elements plus the required defensive 'policemen processes' will win out and a new and persisting stability will be established. 

 

 

The Trajectory of an Emergence

And when this has occurred, it will be, surprisingly to some, intensely conservative.

Its final success, though in process it will have introduced wholly new and better elements, will be due to its effective prohibitions via its defensive processes.
 

Stability is born out of such seemingly chaotic interludes, and these are so general across all developments at all possible Levels of Reality, that we have termed them Emergences (or in Social situations – Revolutions). And the resulting stability is never thereafter conducive to any alternative progressive change: it becomes entirely conservative of what has just been achieved, and has the prestige of that recent overturn to justify its now repressive nature.

NOTE: This phase was noticed by Marx, and the Stalinist reaction in Revolutionary Russia was termed a Thermidorian Reaction by Trotsky in reference to a similar phase in the French Revolution.
 

So, returning to the Emergence Event itself, we see that the only opportunity for real progress occurs as a result of what seems to be initially a final destructive collapse into Chaos. And, from an achieved Nadir of Dissolution, a crucial creative/destructive phase produces real progress – situations in which entirely novel developments occur and become stabilised. And though the very achievement of a New Order precipitates a resurgence of the Second Law dissociations, that does not take hold and dominate, but is again swept aside by each new, and different, pulse of new order.

This interlude of alternation between new developments and dissociation does not set into a permanent oscillation, nor does the Second Law win, and again take us to complete dissolution. Instead the individual oscillations get smaller, and the upward swings always outweigh the intervening declines, due to the increasing integration of defensive 'policemen processes' as part of each developing system, until a final threshold is surpassed, and the last system succeeds in becoming “finally” stabilised.
 

It is remarkable, yet true, that only in the turmoil of an Emergence does real progress appear and become established, while also this phase finally reaches a New and long persisting Level, but at the cost of an almost total inhibition of new qualitative changes. The revolution may seem to destroy the old repressive regime, but will, of necessity, become repressive itself, in order to survive.
 

NOTE: The ideas mentioned in this paper, and the included diagram, are from The Theory of Emergences by this author which appeared a couple of years ago as a Special Issue of the SHAPE Journal.
 

Now, It must be emphasized that this is no longer only a Theory about Social Revolution. Indeed, it has become increasingly clear that it pertains to all development at whatever Level.

It means that reductionist hopes at explaining all Wholes in terms of their contributory Parts will, of necessity fail at all crucial turning points. They work only within a given Level!

To address real qualitative developments of all kinds, we have to look for crisis and embrace it. Only when we do that can we really begin to grasp Emergence in process. And the most evident of such instances occur within our heads – in all imaginative and creative Thought. 

 

Hegel chose correctly!

Issue 26 of SHAPE

 

Form & Emergence

Once again, this issue is somewhat different to either the usual arbitrary collection of papers in what is best described as a Standard Issue, or the set of closely related contributions that demands their own dedicated Special Issue. There has also a development of our Standard form into what might be called a Magazine Issue, and yet here we are again with yet another different offering. For the papers included here are of a special type: they are corrections or amplifying updates of previously published papers, and rather than just referring to their antecedents , it is clear that such modifications will always be necessary. So the emphasis in this Issue is put upon this absolutely essential aspect of the real development of ideas, and departs from the usual incrementalist way of most such papers in the usual Professional Journals.

You may wonder what the differences involved may be, but it is in the Philosophy of such “improving” contributions, for they are not so much mere corrections as conceptual developments and hence are unified in the clear emergent aspect involved. In a sense we are hoping that the basic standpoint behind all the contributions to SHAPE, and their developments are emphasized as the necessary way forwards in today’s Science. We, as always, focus upon the actual transitional trjectories, which are involved in such developments. We do not believe in the cumulative, incrementalist repository of individual additive contributions, but the ever deeper revelation of the creative processes that are essential in real understanding. In a sense we do not emphasize the delivery of Forms, as do the deliverers of equations, but the study of the Forms of Form and their Emergences. Enjoy!

Read the new issue here

New Special Issue - The Jigsaw

Special Issue 11 - The Jigsaw: A Conspectus of Pete Mason's Quantum Mechanics and Dialectical Materialism.

This issue constitutes a conspectus/review of a paper by Pete Mason on the Socialist World website entitled: Quantum Mechanics and Dialectical Materialism (Marxism Materialism and Particle Physics), published on Boxing Day 2010.

It is advised that the reader should take time to study the original paper before reading this issue for a more complete understanding of what is being discussed.

Two approaches are taken to the task. The first paper entitled The Marxist Apologists for Copenhagen is a direct response to Mason’s paper from a contending Marxist position; namely that Marxism and the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory are diametrically opposed, philosophically.

The second paper, Notes on Marxism, Materialism and Particle Physics, goes in to more detail and is a point-by-point critique of Mason’s paper, undertaken to reveal the inherent weaknesses in the original argument. These are vitally important to elucidate as Marxism should, in fact, be the study of Qualitative Change, something modern physicists have long abandoned. To adopt their pragmatic and statistical approaches to understanding and to embrace the “discoveries” of quantum physics as gospel, is to abandon Dialectical Materialism entirely for Idealism.

Austerity: The Rape of the Poor

 The Dissolution of Fictitious Value

Are you wondering what is going on among the leaders of the Euro Zone of the European Union? Do you, along with British Prime Minister Cameron and his Tory colleagues, put the whole thing down to their stubborn refusal to act! Or do you decide that all such efforts to rationalise our World (including the lauded United Nations) are doomed to failure from the outset. Yet what is really happening is certainly none of these things! It is the final Dissolution of the Fictitious Value on which Capitalism rests. It is the regularly occurring and inevitable Crisis of Capitalism!

This isn’t just about Greece, or even the sorely threatened Euro Zone. It is about the failure of the capitalists final throw – to generate yet another fictitious bubble, this time out of the “Own Your Own Home Myth” for the very poorest layers in capitalist society. It not only didn’t work, it was the final straw that broke the camel’s back. Its failure put ALL value in question. And the answer that came back was that such “growing” value rested ONLY on an agreed and regularly inflated figure, so that in the end all apparent gains were shown to be an illusion. Value poured away in one avalanche after another and in the last few days it has become clear that the mightiest banks were fiddling the interest rates to give the appearance of their getting out of their own self-made mire.

Now, this is not, as some might think, just what we have been waiting for, so, that finally we will be rid of this cancerous growth upon society. For, the perpetrators do have alternatives. They have done it before, and they will do it again. They contract back into their own national bases and oppose all others. And in such circumstances the ultimate “solution” is always the same. It is war!

And all supra-national organisations, such as the old League of Nations and the present UN, are shown to be toothless and useless in any global responsibilities. They can never act against powers in ultimate crisis. They can’t even cope with tiny Syria! Why, for example, is Russia still the enemy? It has returned to the capitalist fold. Indeed, if you listen to the current crop of Tory backbenchers in the UK parliament, it is clear that all foreigners are a threat. “We must struggle for the best opportunities to win what advantages we can”, is their ever-clearer standpoint.

Now, you may with justice dismiss such a “final decline” analysis, by referring to the regular past crises and their apparent, just as regular, “resolutions”. And all that is accurate, but to reveal the nature of such past recessions and Slumps, and to compare the nature of the current crisis with all of those, you must attend to the Theory of Emergences (slowly developed concerning Stability & Change in all systems of whatever kind), wherein crises ultimately will occur to any Stability, and when they do almost nothing can stem an impending calamity. Indeed, in such circumstances something painfully calamitous is unavoidable.

There is, of course, a crucial period in which ever-developing swings downward are countered by often repressive and restorative built-in reactions opposing them. In a society approaching a Revolution, this always takes the form of ever more violent police and even military actions, which can, and often do, become Civil Wars (as in Syria currently). And these counter actions can win – if only for a time.

The suppression of the 1905 revolution in Russia was just such a “success” for the powers that be. Indeed, repression of nascent change of whatever kind is the natural, built-in reaction of any system in crisis, not as in a revolution, by intention, of course, but as part of its very stability-imposing nature.

For, to achieve stability in the first place against many contending alternatives, any successful protosystem had to include what I call “policemen processes” – destructive processes that could actually become part of such a proto-system to oppose all dissociators of, and competitors to, that system. There can never be any stability without such elements! Stability is not merely a new arrangement that is better than a prior one (a happy medium?), but one which can extensively and effectively suppress opposing processes whether dissolutory or as competing proto-systems. These winning elements exist in ever more strength until the mix of multiple conducive processes and defensive/aggressive policemen processes is unstoppable, and totally dominating. That is how new stabilities are always established.

So, in a crisis, the restorative weapons, for both defence and attack, are always available, and in a dissolutory swoop naturally grow in strength: they join the ever-present independent dissolutory processes (usually collectively termed The Second Law of Thermodynamics) in the melee, and, in so doing, ultimately remove everything that both the Second Law forces and themselves act upon. The situation appears to be careering down to total Chaos!

Now, in natural systems, such crises are unstoppable, but in revolutions that is NOT the case! For such involves thinking human beings, and the defenders will always find many and various policemen processes to stem the cataclysm. The fulfilment of a revolution is many times more difficult than a natural Emergence. Now, this reminder of The Theory of Emergences has been necessary because of the economic crisis of Capitalism made inevitable by the latest defensive measure, another of the kind that has succeeded in the past in hauling the system back from complete collapse. And that is the ever-new ways of “creating” fictitious value in all things! As always, the dominance of some towering component, in this case the United States of America, could maintain the fiction by threat of, and even actual use of, war (and even the threat of the nuclear demise of humanity). But, as always, these methods are not sufficient alone to maintain a system, which has used up literally all its potentials. In spite of the demise of the Stalinist Empire (with its appearance of the “dreaded” Socialism), things have not got better overall, but actually much worse.

So, what was the EU about, and why did it have to move towards monetary union? And, of course, why was it bound to fail? It seemed so obvious as a solution. Develop a counter to American dominance by a unified Europe to challenge its hegemony and compete on equal terms. It had succeeded in America via the union of a continent-wide set of separate states, but it was, like Australia, an expansion into a “relative void” by a more advanced and equipped people, who mercilessly removed the meagre sprinkling of indigenous hunter/gatherers. And all these “states” were very young and with odd and much weaker dominances. The task then was much easier. In Europe, in the 20th century, very old and well-established nation states, with strong internal dominances, and even diminishing global empires, were a much more difficult problem. The unification was first achieved in the fairly narrow area of Iron and Steel production, and only much later as a Common Market, but without political union. Each country maintained its own political set up and governance, and, of course, their dominances established in each due to its own history and institutions. They could NOT be unified! Indeed, nascent attempts like the so-called European Parliament were necessarily toothless and certainly did NOT govern. All nationally dominant parties continued to act as before, and hence in a crisis would do what they had always done only more so!

The current crisis in the Euro Zone is not due to the inadequacies of the European leaders, but to undiminished National Interests and their embodiment in national ruling elites. The Nation State is the natural Modus operandus of an established capitalist dominance. Within the overarching, though decidedly partial system that is the European Union (and within it the Euro Zone) the naturally dominant country is Germany, and the weaker states have tried to milk the wealth of that super state to finance their own growth using the usual capitalist mechanism of long term and fictitious credit. As long as everyone, and especially the rich investors in this enterprise were confident of large returns, the system seemed entirely stable. And without internal-national changes of any significant kind, states like Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus and even Spain borrowed at a vast rate to “build a bigger economy” things would work out. But, where were all the enormous sums to come from to finance these remarkable developments?

The final US trick to fund all of this was in the seemingly never-ending increase in value of houses. They would lend to truly vast numbers of the very poorest in the US, with the plan of getting at least some repayments, and then on the inevitable defaults they would take re-possession at, as usual, an inflated value of the property. Continual cycling of this sort would retain ownership of properties with increasing value, while getting non-returnable repayments on every cycle. The poor could supply the resources needed, if the exercise was done on a sufficiently large scale. And that was attempted! But, the plan failed everywhere, because the repossessions, were NOT of properties of increasing value, but of wrecks, as the dispossessed took their revenge, and values swooped very quickly down. The plan failed in a very big way. Now, it didn’t only stretch to this particular sector, for the bottom fell out of the property market in general, and there was no way back!

In such a scenario, it has always been the same, someone has to pay, and if it is not to be everybody, then the fight begins – not only between rich and poor, but also between countries as the natural states of Capitalism. For the canny perpetrators of this gigantic scam didn’t carry it through. They instead sold-it-on worldwide as Triple A rated investments, and banks all over the world bought into it as a very profitable scheme. Indeed, many of the original perpetrators had “got out” of the scheme early with a profit, and it was the duped buyers of such “value” that were taken to the cleaners.

This was the origin of the now infamous 2008 crash. Does anyone even remember it now? The crisis hit the European Banks, who had bought in for a quick and easy profit, and instead had vast debts, which they couldn’t pay for as these assets were worthless. National political leaderships tried to stop a total collapse by using vast borrowings to cover the bankrupt banks, and in the UK several major banks were either partially or even majorly nationalised to transfer the losses to the nation. Now, you can’t invent value, so no matter what any country did, the crisis never went away, and individual countries made their own arrangements to try to redirect the damage elsewhere, to other countries. And the crisis just rumbled on and got worse. Now four years later it threatens not just the Euro Zone, or even the European Union, but worldwide Capitalism itself.

Now, the question is posed, “How can you get a cooperation of the different national bourgeoisie to aid the ones so weak as to find it impossible to cope?” To answer that question I can only repeat my favourite story of 2008, when Iceland’s financial sector bit the dust. The very same day the British businessman Green was filmed in Reykjavik “looking for businesses to buy for a song”. And even now in 2012 in the midst of the crisis, the rich buy at the bottom of a diurnal swing – convincing the uninitiated that an upswing is in the offing, only to almost immediately sell to take a profit, and thus causing the market to plunge again. Can you expect such sharks (or their advocates - politicians) to bother about those being fleeced to fill their own pockets? Of course not!

Let us be crystal clear. In what is usually a periodic slump, those who can make the rest pay, and actually buy while living off their accrued fat until a turn-around occurs. Do you want proof? Why is the remuneration of the rich accelerating, while the systems crumble (including publicly owned services)? Paying them bonuses for their “failure” is necessary, so that they at least will survive in the manner to which they have become accustomed. So, with their belief in Capitalism, they expect to cruise the South Seas in their yachts, until the turn round gets going again and they can return with pockets full of money, to once again milk their sacred cow. The question is, “Can they do this for ever? Or is their system running out of lies?” For, if this is the case, the disenfranchised will need to tool up for the coming revolution. The Arab Spring is only the precursor! 

The Major Crisis in World Capitalism

When watching the Stock Markets daily over the last extended period, you see a pronounced oscillation between steep dives in values followed by “not-so-quick” recoveries. And the Expert Commentators are always ready and willing to give “real, everyday” reasons for each and every reversal, which range from the Weather to bad, or even “good”, news. But, they only very rarely mention the contributions to this behaviour of the “profit-Takers”, where the money-men buy at the bottom of the market, followed by a hopeful rally by the less well informed, and then immediately sell to achieve yet another unearned and parasitic profit. Like the businessman Green, who on the very day of the economic calamity in Iceland was over there like a shot to buy when the market dived?

And the usual commentator-experts will never mention that in any systemic crisis there are always such dramatic oscillations – like the death-throes of a living organism, as the usual reliable Stability is undermined drastically. Nor do they reveal the purely temporary nature of the changes that are made to deliver apparent and reassuring recoveries.

Certainly, no one looks at the Crisis in Capitalism as caused by its necessary fictional values pumped up to unsustainable levels by speculative moves to wring the maximum profit out of every seemingly advantageous possibility that arises – the usual over inflated bubbles abound and are kept aloft long enough to enable profit-taking before the inevitable puncture and deflation occurs.

The foundations of the System are once again tumbling, as they have many times before, and though the oscillations can, and sometimes do, seem to be on the brink of a cataclysmic avalanche of dissociation, these situations can and usually are overcome. But how will they do it, and will it always be recoverable? Will they always get away with it, leaving either the Working Classes or the Third World countries, or BOTH, to pay the bill?

The crises in the past seem to have been overcome, but are they really, or is it just an increasingly enormous stacking up of an ever bigger precipice for a future and final calamity? The answers, of course, are available – in History! As economies such as that in the USA recovered at the expense of many others after the Major Slump between the World Wars, many countries such as Germany, and other badly affected areas, could see only one way out – WAR! Germany, Japan and Italy put down the strength of the UK to its conquered Empire, and that of the USA to its enormous internal market and its worldwide Neo Colonialism. So, the Answer was to acquire the same domination by force of arms.

We cannot let them try it again! What is being escalated in Syria? And what are the motives of the western Capitalist Powers? Why did they support the Libyan Revolution? They are certainly NOT socialists, are they? They couldn’t give a damn for the people of these countries, but CONTROL of Libyan Oil and influence in new capitalist regimes as a result of the Arab Spring MUST be their short-term objectives. Will the ordinary people of all these countries be helped by the success of these policies of the Capitalist Powers? Of course they won’t! And why am I confident of what I say is happening? It is the evidence from my current series on this blog entitled Why Socialism? Though the initial responses were small, they have recently increased considerably. In about 11 days hits from 50 counties have suddenly appeared, and it is interesting where they are coming from. The biggest response is from the ex-communist countries, with a rapidly increasing number from Latin America. The Big Crisis may happen where it is least expected...

Why Socialism VIII: The Essential Development of Marxist Theory 1

Now, the crucial flaw in “Democracy”, as is it usually argued for, and instituted within Capitalism, is that decisions are said to be made by the People and for the People. But the truth is that such is never the case!

What is available is that the populace can vote for any one of a number of available candidates for their local constituency, who at fairly rare public meetings explains what he or she stands for, and thereafter what will be voting for, but what actually happens in Parliament, if elected, is that the MP will vote as he thinks fit, or more accurately as the member’s Party directs all their MPs to vote. And these small interludes of public choice are extremely infrequent, and literally always made in ignorance of the real issues involved, not to mention the true unrevealed intentions of their candidate.

So, instead of merely constantly toting the Democracy-Demand, but within a future Socialist State, we have a much more difficult job to do. Otherwise, we effectively help to hide the dishonesty implicit in capitalist Democracy, as well as misguiding our supporters as to what we would institute in a Socialist State.

Now these questions are not merely a matter of choosing from a clearly evident and ready-made set of alternatives. All Forms within Socialism will be very different, and the organisations struggling for such a transformation MUST be duty-bound to make absolutely clear what Socialist Democracy would have to involve. It has to be a worked through and fully described alternative: and that makes it a job for our theorists. It is a job for Marxism!

So, let us attempt to delineate the main questions. How do we tackle the enforced ignorance of issues, and how do we bring decision-making closer to the people and much more frequent?

Read the rest of this post here...