26 August, 2019

Chomsky & Krauss



On Morality and Power
But NEVER, of course, Social Class


I have been listening to a questioning interview of Noam Chomsky, conducted by Laurence Krauss in the Origins series of Public Lectures at Arizona State University.

It was about the History of Mankind, and its frequently unspeakable bestiality, contrasting markedly with the approach, analysis and explanations, by philosophers such as Chomsky, who have always throughout that long history revealed and condemned such atrocities, and argued for a much more critical approach by the populace.

But, the questions, as defined by Krauss, were to do with the Nature of Mankind, which could be said to have, in the past, allowed such a History, and why they seemed to never listen, allowing such atrocities to have always continued - even getting vastly worse, over time. Krauss seemed to be implicitely questioning Mankind's essential natural Moral Fibre, by their forever ignoring of these clearly evident Truths.

But surely, the actual answers carried out were never instituted by the People, and were really about the very different Social Class Interests, always promoted by the Ruling Classes, who were always the sole deciders, and hence the real perpetrators, and those who had managed to both obtain and keep their Privileges, Class Policies and Power, by consciously and consistemtly ensuring their continued dominance, by their somehow regularly maintained Power, and the seeming multiplicity of possible policies, and purposely confused by added and profusely published lies.

So, that along with their Control, allowed them to enforce them as they pleased, and as a necessary defence against those who lusted after owning and them despoiling our resolutely defended rights!

Though Chomsky fought hard to deny the culpability of Mankind itself, by defending their moral fabric, it still allowed the opposite case of a general culpability to be posed.

And, of course, the mode of questioning, by Krauss, was about Mankind in general, rather than those means, by which clear minority groups and leaders were both originally established, and there-after maintained in power.

The actual modes of life involved, and the Classes that were then enabled to carry them out, and impose their explanations, were NEVER EVER addressed, for if they had been, the culprits would have been easily exposed, and perhaps the appropriate actions to remedy the various producing situations could have been discussed.

They weren't!

And that was because the whole issue was purposely cast into the "Advice of Wise Prophets" and the unwillingness of the People to listen to them - blaming the masses, basically.
And, how else could it have been exposed, when delivered solely by members of the "Wise Prophet clan" - The Intellectuals?

Many of that clan of Intellectuals were mentioned, but blatently absent of course, was Karl Marx, whose main contibutions via the adoption and use of Dialectical Materialism, and his characterisation of the nature of a whole series of different Human Societies - all determined by which Social Classes had achieved the power within each of them and knew how to maintain it.

For Marx was both a professional historian and a philosophic follower of Hegel, due to the latter's brilliant conceptions of the importance and significant occurrences of Qualitative Changes, which Marx immediately-knew had historically opened the door to explaining the natures and trajectories of such societies, as well as their ultimate demises in Social Revolutions!

Indeed, in the very way Krauss conducted the interview, the always unstated but nevertheless evident question was surely:

"Why didn't the people follow the prophets and change their societies?"

For, one after the other, NO such changes were ever suggested! What was the matter with them?

Krauss was evidently well aware of the unvoiced alternative, and he was clearly under pressure to keep the discussion where he needed it to be, so he increasingly guided the ensuing discussion, by posing past utterences by Chomsky, and asking him to defend them, until the overrun in time was sufficient for him to terminate the interview, without ever letting it explore the radical alternative.

It should be emphasized the the whole Origins Project (and indeed the significant building up of ASU) has been extensively financed by both billionaires and a series of major Capitalist Enterprises, and many of his chosen experts in the extensive Origins Project are both evidently and overtly often employees or even Owners or CEOs of major Capitalist Enterprises.

POSTSCRIPT:

Indeed, having perused most of the Lectures in the Origins Project, it soon became clearly evident that to Krauss, a unity of Academia with Big Business Finance and its supported technical endeavours is THE way forward for both Capitalism and Mankind, even though the evidence, as the current Crisis continues to unfold, quite clearly is only the sure way to Armageddon!

24 August, 2019

Dialectics: Fixed and Variable


The Profundity of Qualitative Changes

I have spent a considerable amount of time, over recent years, effectively condemning the Principle of Plurality outright, even though it was one of the most significant achievement of the Greek Intellectual Revolution of the 5th Century BC, and I necessarily did that not only to criticise its inherent weaknesses, but to also in addition simultaneously applaud its major contribution to Human Thought and Reasoning.

Both certainly had to be done! For all developments can never be purely absolute and positive: Reality does not deliver absolute Truth ever, but only aspects or parts of it, which unavoidably alight upon the easiest simplifications, which always have damagingly negative effects too. It is also an admission of the inadequacies of Thinking in Mankind, who were, after all, fairly recent originators of such wholly new processes in relation to addressing Reality.

Yet, the obvious alternative, the Principle of Holism, defined at about the same time, by The Buddha in India, certainly delivered no easy one-for-one superior replacement to Plurality. Indeed, it too has subsequently defeated the Buddha's disciples ever since, in attempting to deliver a coherent, useable and developable alternative, in spite of its undoubted wondrous moments of real Wisdom.




And, that turns out to be both its strength and its weakness: for no holistic system has yet ever been easily extracted from it, as a basis for Explaining the World causally - not least because it so frequently could clearly turn many situations into something quite different, or even their direct opposites.

Most important of all, in putting Qualitative Change at the heasrt of all Develoopment, it made the explanation of the consequent Emerging-New wholly impossible to derive directly from its producing circumstances.

The seeming impossibility of there being a useable System of Reasoning, tended to relegate its profound use to creative artists of various kinds, who, in individual Works-of-Art, could deliver profound moments of revelation only.

Yet, in spite of their Plurality, which considered all entities and processes as fixed, the Greeks' intellectual achievements remarkably included the invention of Mathematics, which as exclusively the study of Pure Forms alone, could indeed legitimately make that assumption, and when they illegitimately also extended that supposition to both Reasoning and Science, though generally undoutedly incorrect, it did indeed reflect the apparent constancy of most things - most of the time - the everywhere evidently temporary, yet long-lasting Stabilities of Reality, not only allowed Plurality to be a reasonable approximation, but it could also be guaranteed artificially by both greatly simplifying situations, and also holding things still.

It enabled Technology, but inhibited explanatory Science and developmental Reasoning. And, therefore, it was wholly incapable of explaing significant Developments both in an Evolving World, and in Creative Thinking.

It took all of 2,300 years before Hegel systematically tackled Dichotomous Pairs of contradictory concepts, with his attempt to include Qualitative Change into Formal Reasoning, which he termed Dialectics, though it was a member of his Young Hegelians, Karl Marx, who first extended it to the study of Reality with a vastly recast Dialectical Materialism, which he successfully applied to the current Capitalist Economic System in his major work Das Kapital.




Now, embedded in that work implicitly were the required definitions and Methodology of the New Stance, but he was actually developing it, as he also attempted to use it, throughout that excellent achievement. But, it was never overtly spelled out formally, nor could it be, until Marx's untimely death prevented his doing precisely that.

David Harvey's Lectures on Marx's Capital

And, it is only now that this necessary contribution has been achieved by Professor David Harvey in his series of lectures and YouTube videos. The whole series is remarkable: but his fourth Lecture upon Volume II of Das Kapital is magnificent!

But be prepared for contention!

Nothing is ever fixed forever - things which will be taken as fixed, will always cease to be so, as a consequence of natural development. But the Holist approach, in full flower, explains far more than any Pluralistic accounts ever could.

In this lecture he analyses what he terms as Fixed and Varying Capital, via Marx's Explanation of Capital as Value-in-Motion, a process totally impossible to address pluralistically, but only with Qualitative Changes throughout, with categories actually changing into their once totally-excluded opposites with such happening repeatedly, and therefore being incapable of either Description or Explanation by the still dominant Pluralist Stance in both Reasoning and Science.

Indeed, many of the changes occurring within Capitalism's trajectory, as it regularly morphs to climb out of its very regular Downturns, Recessions and even Slumps, by converting literally everything into monetary values, as the only measure, then inflating that value by competition on the Stock Exchange, by which they then corral it into their hands as the only ones who can afford it.

In the current period, late capitalism gets ever more desperate, and the cause of the last Recession in 2008 is simply repeated, once again, just as before, but with new ever more rightward directions, that they hope will mitigate the next inevitable crisis.

But, both the World and Capitalism itself, is running out of possibilities. Both Climate Change and ever increasing Pollution, are heading things towards an existential Crisis for Mankind, and Capitalism is running out of alternatives to perpetuate itself, as it is fast becoming a deteriorating situation.

10 August, 2019

The Collapse of Capitalism!




Having attended well to all the Critics of Capitalism, and been a committed activist against it all my life, I can only conclude that it will indeed totally collapse.

But, NOT with a Socialist Revolution!

For the task commenced by Karl Marx to theoretically equip the World Working Class to overthrow the bosses and establish Socialism, has all too often been betrayed by both the movement's leaders, and, most especially, their total abandonment of the essential development of empowering Theory required, along with political organisation, which could, and indeed should, by now, be embodied in the Dialectical Materialism, originated by Karl Marx, and initially developed in his critique of the status quo of Capitalist Economics in his revolutionary book, Das Kapital.

The trajectory of struggles since the publication of the Communist Manefesto (1848), have been betrayed sufficiently to leave the global Working Class totally bereft of either the Theory or the Organisations necessary to turn this terminal crisis of Capitalism into a successful Socialist Revolution.

Indeed, as has happened before, the decline has not produced any perspective or any confidence within the Class to see that as a solution, leaving them prone to populist rhetoric and Fascist-Nationalist "solutions" to their woes.

And, make no mistake, that would also be terminal for the planet!

Recall what fascist rulers like Hitler did, and think what such monsters could do now!

Remember, Nuclear Weapons were used by the USA against Japan - TWICE! Would they be used in this inevitable almighty disaster? What do you think?

At the very best, the World will be catapulted into a terrible Dark Age, even if we are not all terminated by such a cataclysm.

There must be no steady decline to oblivion.

Organise to Change things NOW!

END CAPITALISM!

Don't merely wait for it to end you.



More on these themes in our forthcoming film Natural Revolution


08 August, 2019

Brexit is about Tax Avoidance


Boris Johnson stands in front of Photoshopped Brexit Bus NHS
BREXIT: Funny how the EU's major Anti Tax Avoidance Directive NEVER comes up in the discourse, isn't it?

Can you honestly watch the likes of Farage, Johnson and the super rich eurosceptic Tory toffs of the ERG and believe they do what they do in the interests of ordinary British citizens?

While there is a left-wing case for Brexit (the fabled Lexit - EU is not remotely socialist after all) the Brexit project has never been a remotely left-wing cause. Since its inception it has been driven by the most right-wing actors in UK parliamentary politics. 

The hidden forces behind Brexit (and much of the current global shift towards right-wing populism) go completely unreported and unanalysed by most of the media. This well-researched answer on Quora comes closer to revealing the economic and material forces at work:

1 Tax avoidance
Throughout Europe, corporate tax avoidance is a colossal problem. The EU’s Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive (first proposed in 2016, implemented in 2019) seeks to tackle the thriving culture of corporate tax avoidance. It affects numerous major companies in the UK accused of tax avoidance, including several football clubs, retailers, technology firms and the Daily Mail newspaper.
Continuing membership of the EU, or just the single market, would keep the UK aligned with this anti-tax avoidance policy.
This is the plain and simple reason why the Daily Mail and so many leading Brexiteers who happen to be business tycoons suddenly began proclaiming that Britain had to leave the EU, the sooner the better. As soon as the tax-avoidance proposal was announced, and even more so when it was ratified, they set about portraying the EU as the great enemy of Britain, an “undemocratic elite” deliberately causing misery for ordinary Brits.
Sadly, many ordinary Brits fell for it.
But then things didn’t quite work out as planned.
After she became Prime Minister, Theresa May spent a long time working out a pragmatic Brexit deal with the leaders of the EU. When her Withdrawal Agreementfinally came out, however, some Brexiteers were very unhappy with it. Why? Because at the back of the huge document, there in black-and-white was a commitment by the British Government to retain the EU’s code of conduct for business taxation, including the new anti-tax avoidance laws.
May was suddenly a ‘traitor’.
But if another Prime Minister could be found — preferably an unprincipled opportunist who will say and do anything to get the job — perhaps he could convince the people of Britain that it would be best to just tear up May’s deal, blame the EU for something-or-other, and then simply wait for Britain to crash out of the EU with no deal whatsoever.
Then there will be no corporate tax laws for the tax avoiders to worry about.

Read the rest on Quora.

If anyone has any doubt that this is THE political issue driving things globally, have a look at today's news about Trump, US tech giants and tax.

Donald Trump warns no free trade deal if UK taxes tech giants.

What about sovereignty you say? What about taking back control?

Have a close look at who is taking control of what.


07 August, 2019

New SHAPE bookshop



Fantastic lecture from David Harvey



David Harvey deep reading Marx's Capital volume one.

Substrate Theory - Special print edition of SHAPE Journal



There is a fundamental flaw in Physics. Space is not empty.

Substrate Theory can help tackle all the biggest questions in physics, from the Spacetime Continuum to the Uncertainty Principle, from Casimir Effect, Redshift, Time Crystals, Superfluids and Dark Matter, to Virtual Particles and the work of Frank Wilczek.

This special print edition of SHAPE Journal has been produced to mark 10 years of the publication. Collated here in print are two issues (65 and Special 65), originally published in May and June 2019, which collect together key papers on Jim Schofield’s ground-breaking new theory of physics.