Thanks for answering me back there Knock. I still don't really see what can be done right enough. I'm reasonably happy with my job, I'm not going to go on strike any time soon, if I did I would get sacked. I'm not going to refuse to pay tax n shit, I get paid PAYE so I can't. If I refuse to pay council tax I'll get done. I have no way of convincing enough people to join me to have safety in numbers.
Well, I'm not exactly surprised, I was reasonably happy with my job for 15 years before I become unhappy with it and went in search of an explanation for why it was so shit, and what could be done about it. And then I went a bit mental.
Whether you are safe to go on strike is definitely specific to your workplace. But that's one extreme, there are loads of less dangerous forms of direct action at work. Some of them can be found in that article I linked, others
here, and yet others only you could imagine because you know your workplace.
If you feel you can't "convince people", well, you're probably right.
Action speaks louder than words when building solidarity, though.
And many actions are successful.
I also don't see how that can in any way change our political system, so shouldn't you also vote while attempting to do other things? I really don't agree that people shouldn't vote. I realise that you're always voting for the lesser of two evils, but isn't it better to have that lesser evil?
There's been a very low level of militancy in this country since Thatcher, and in that case it was the miners being beaten. So, unfortunately, finding examples of how action can change the system in large-scale ways is largely an exercise in reading historical documents. And "overthrowing the system" takes some organisation, which is where syndicalism comes in.
Actually happened in Spain. Unfortunately the Stalinists fucked that up. Mistakes get made and have to be learned from. You don't need to want to overthrow the system to fight for smaller things, but if you do then I'm not sure I have the room in one post, or the energy right now, to describe how it could happen, there is plenty of reading material on this website I keep linking you to :D
I used to vote but I see voting as a distraction. It makes you focus all your hopes on electing the right people once every four years. So far, the right people have never got in
Or if they have, they soon became the wrong people.
I'll definitely be voting in the independence referendum, I'd like to think you would as well, but possibly not?
No I won't be, I can't say I'm completely uninterested but I think the best thing that could come of independence is that it might demonstrate to the Scots that even a Scottish state is still a state, even Scottish capitalists are still capitalists, because the same overall system will continue. There may be temporary sweeteners, but then again maybe not, you might just find the government ushering in worsened working conditions to make the place "attractive to investors". You never hear about making the place attractive for residents. Well, maybe in manifestos, but not on the News
I'm not really following this either. If your man sells his wine, does he sell it for exactly what it cost to produce? If not, is he then exploiting the buyer? If he does sell it at cost, why does he do that? Why even produce the wine?
In order to have something left over (to buy other things, eg food) after recovering his costs doesn't he have to make a profit, therefore becoming a capitalist?
I fully accept that I don't understand this, so I'm not trying to pick apart what your saying, I'm just trying to understand.
The example given by babylonboy involved no sale, it was a barter. There was no compulsion, so no exploitation. Cost didn't appear in the example. Why even produce wine? I don't know, ask the man in the example :D
In capitalism, a wine producer will typically own and run a vineyard. Any noteable vineyard will employ people to sow, tend and harvest the grapes; to mash them; to add yeast and other items; to control the fermentation process; and to bottle the wine when it's finished. The owner is the capitalist. He co-ordinates the workers and pays them for their time. Marx (and Adam Smith, and other economists) says that the owner will tend to pay the workers the minimum he can get away with, which is something like whatever it costs for a worker to live. He has other costs, but the costs he has most control over are the wages he pays his workers, so he drives them down to the minimum. The value in the wine is created by the workers. He charges his customers the value of the wine, or a figure which tends to approach it, and whatever difference there is between his expenses (wages) and his income is profit. That profit, "surplus value", was created by the workers, but they don't get to see it, it is kept by the owner, and this is the exploitation. Workers are
compelled to work because they have been forced off the land by the state (during the Highland Clearances, in the case of Scottish wine) and, thus dispossessed of any means of subsistence, have to pay a landlord rent and buy their food at the (super)market.
). Everyone working to their fully ability, and everyone receiving exactly what they need is the goal, init? I've bastardised that quote something awful, maybe someone could post the real one, I think a few of you will know what I'm referring to.