Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Entanglement: A Milestone for Quantum Mechanics | JSTOR Daily
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 11/16/2015 11:24 PM, Jeff via Marxism wrote: >> The long-distance influence of >> one particle on another was dubbed “spooky interaction at a distance” >> by none other than Einstein himself. Einstein did not believe in long >> distance interaction, but the new research suggests that this is one >> area where the world’s best-known physicist was wrong. > No, he wasn't wrong about that at all. Einstein did make a few mistakes > during his life but mostly corrected them. The problem here is that > quantum mechanics is not clearly understandable in a philosophical sense > by any person, so there are (and long have been) different > "interpretations" of its meaning, which reflects that difficulty. > However the actual results of most experiments addressed by quantum > mechanics are not in dispute, only philosophical ideas about what the > correct predictions of the theory "mean." In other words a problem in > human contemplation, not the equations which correctly describe every > experiment. Hi, I'm no physicist so please take this accordingly, but my understanding was that what the Dutch tests confirmed was that the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) view on local hidden variables as the explanation of what otherwise would be "spooky action" couldn't hold (the Bell inequalities etc.); that even though the result was anticipated, the Dutch tests were special in that they had all the "Bell test loopholes" closed..? My source is mostly Will Sweatman's articles on "quantum topics" on Hackaday.com, such as: "Many have tested the EPR paradox – the first experiment being run in 1981. There have always been loopholes, however, that has kept [Einstein’s] local hidden variables on life support. You see, every single experiment has shown that spooky action is real. There is really some type of connection between entangled particles that is independent of space and time. But the experiments were not perfect. Experiments using entangled photons suffer from the inability to account for all of them. This allows for hidden variables to draw a gasping breath via what is known as the detection loophole. This can be countered by using particles or even atoms, which are easier to keep track of. But it’s difficult to separate entangled particles over long distances, which is needed to ensure communication between the two would have to be faster than light speed, giving rise to the communication loophole. "On August 24, 2015, just a few days ago, a team of researchers released the results of a test that does away with all loopholes. No more can local hidden variables claim to exist. It has taken its last breath and we can conclude what we’ve all known all along – [Einstein] was wrong. The nature of reality is indeed statistical. If you want to find any local hidden variables, you can find them on the same aisle with the aether, cold fusion, and the static universe." http://hackaday.com/2015/09/01/the-eulogy-of-local-hidden-variables/ -- jjonas @ nic.fi _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Query
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 08/09/2015 08:50 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: I can't seem to remember who said it, Lenin or Trotsky probably, but it was a statement about how the tempo of the class struggle can change rapidly. Something to the effect that what formerly took place in years now takes place in minutes. Any ideas? Karl Kautsky, 'The Road to Power', 1907: But the rate of progress increases with a leap when the revolutionary spirit is abroad. It is almost inconceivable with what rapidity the mass of the people reach a clear consciousness of their class interests at such a time. Not alone their courage and their belligerency but their political interest as well, is spurred on in the highest degree through the consciousness that the hour has at last come for them to burst out of the darkness of night into the glory of the full glare of the sun. Even the laziest becomes industrious, even the most cowardly becomes brave, and even the most narrow gains a wider view. In such times a single year will accomplish an education of the masses that would otherwise have required a generation. https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1909/power/ch06.htm -- jjonas @ nic.fi _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Query
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 08/09/2015 09:02 PM, Joonas Laine via Marxism wrote: POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 08/09/2015 08:50 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: I can't seem to remember who said it, Lenin or Trotsky probably, but it was a statement about how the tempo of the class struggle can change rapidly. Something to the effect that what formerly took place in years now takes place in minutes. Any ideas? Karl Kautsky, 'The Road to Power', 1907: Sorry, that should be 1909. -- jjonas @ nic.fi _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Query
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 08/09/2015 09:02 PM, Joonas Laine wrote: On 08/09/2015 08:50 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: I can't seem to remember who said it, Lenin or Trotsky probably, but it was a statement about how the tempo of the class struggle can change rapidly. Something to the effect that what formerly took place in years now takes place in minutes. Any ideas? Karl Kautsky, 'The Road to Power', 1907: Sorry, that should be 1909. -- jjonas @ nic.fi _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: The Swedish model (part 1) | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
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On 05/25/2015 01:36 PM, Daniel Lindvall via Marxism wrote:
As a Swede I can only agree. It’s also worth noting that for about
two decades now Sweden has lead the first world in terms of rapidly
growing economic inequality (and neoliberal extremism in other areas
It's also worth noting that when you start low (in terms of e.g. gini
coefficient after tax and transfers), you can have rapid growth
(dozens or even hundreds of percentage points) without absolute numbers
changing that much. Late 2000s Sweden (or Finland) still had more equal
distribution of income than countries like France, Holland, Canada, UK
etc. ever had.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality#Gini_coefficient.2C_after_taxes_and_transfers
such as school privatizations). Sweden is as good an example as any
of how social democracy saved capitalism from itself and disciplined
the working class, making it almost completely defenseless when the
boom ended and neoliberalism was launched as the only alternative.
'Welfare state as a capitalist trick' sounds too instrumentalist to be
credible as a materialist explanation for the rise and dismantling of
the welfare state. Politically I don't see it as too useful either, as I
don't welcome the dismantling of the Finnish welfare state, whether it
originally was a capitalist trick or not.
Well was it a trick or not? Concerning Finland, the breakthrough of the
welfare state came in late 50s and early 60s, when most of the basic
legislations and institutions for social insurance was laid down. At the
time it certainly wasn't seen as a convenient way to domesticate the
workers' movement by the Finnish capitalist class. They fought it tooth
and nail, and gave in to some options rather than others because they
thought that if they don't accept this, then worse (for them) decisions
will be made without their input.
My source, Päivi Uljas's dissertation ('Hyvinvointivaltion läpimurto',
2012) is available only in Finnish. (The English summary is available
here: https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/28892)
One might argue, well the *objective outcome* of the process, regardless
of any conscious goal of domesticating the workers etc. is that of
making the working class almost completely defenseless in the end.
That's all very well, but I don't see the point in that kind of I told
you so kind of revolutionary metaphysics. After all, you can throw that
on the table every time some gain turns out to have fallen short of
accomplishing socialist revolution.
--
jjonas @ nic.fi
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: The Swedish model (part 1) | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 05/25/2015 04:29 PM, Daniel Lindvall wrote: 'Welfare state as a capitalist trick' sounds too instrumentalist to be credible as a materialist explanation for the rise and dismantling of the welfare state. Politically I don't see it as too [...] One might argue, well the *objective outcome* of the process, regardless of any conscious goal of domesticating the workers etc. is that of making the working class almost completely defenseless in the end. That's all very well, but I don't see the point in that kind of I told you so kind of revolutionary metaphysics. After all, you can throw that on the table every time some gain turns out to have fallen short of accomplishing socialist revolution. Firstly, surely objective outcome is an important point in this Sure, though I tend to think that that outcome is somewhat contingent, and what the sdems wanted is just a factor; even if something that the sdem's wanted happened, did it happen because they wanted it and tried to achieve it, or because of something else. Afterwards it seems much more inevitable than it probably was. When e.g. after a revolutionary situation the agitated mood of the masses ebbs, and institutions of some kind tend to replace the power of the streets, anarchists always find the ones that betrayed the movement, because they think the revolutionary situation can and should go on indefinetely. So if it doesn't, it's because of someone's betrayal. But the will and actions of those who rise to the top in the post-revolutionary institutions (which I believe will always happen in one form or another) are just a factor. IMO the same contingency was there with the Finnish struggles in the 50s–60s. Just before the major outbreak of the social movements in 1957 the prevailing feeling on the ground (as can be seen in the minutes from trade union meetings, CP meetings etc.) was that nobody is interested in doing anything, interest in taking part in meetings and demonstrations is dwindling etc. The social-democratic party had just split after the general strike in 1956, and with it the trade union federation SAK was split and other miserable stuff that doesn't really raise fighting spirits etc. When the movement broke out, the press claimed it was a CP conspiracy, but as Uljas documents, the CP was just as surprised as anyone else, though they later ended up as a major factor for the movement on the institutional level. Likewise I believe it took mostly other things than the sdem's (or anyone else's) will to strike a deal with the capitalists (or anyone). But afterwards it's easy to say, of course, the writing was on the wall. discussion? Secondly, though there have been genuine reform socialists in the social democratic movement up until the 1980s or so, the idea of the handshake between capital and workers and the de-mobilization of the rank and file in favour of building a human-faced capitalist society, jointly administered by social democratic bureaucrats and representatives of capital, has been the ideology of the majority of the leading social democrats. It wasn’t a ”trick” or a conspiracy, they have been very open about it. There is Looking at your mail again, I think I read too much into it. Sorry. I think what you write above is true. However, I also think that you mail had a lot of what I thought was the same what happens whenever two leftists from two different countries meet: there is an immediate comradely one-upmanship of whose bourgeois government is the most hideous oppressor of the workers. While fun, IMO it tends to distort the perspective. Furthermore, this doesn’t mean I am for the dismantling of the welfare state or oppose genuinely progressive reforms. The very opposite. But we most be aware that reformism always comes up against the limits of capitalism sooner or later and the choice then has to be made whether we want to save and build on these reforms or save profits. In this situation social democrats as good as always choose Revolutionary politics may just as well come up against the limits of capitalism, as can be seen in Greece. If and when they do, it's easy to say that the ones originally thought to be revolutionary weren't really so revolutionary after all. Also to answer Joseph Catron's reply here, probably you're right that if generalised, it's too simplified to just say welfare state, 100% for or 100% against? without further nuances. E.g. I think it'd be right to campaign against unnecessarily controlling aspects of the social welfare benefit system, like is a person's benefit dependent of the spouse's income or not. In the context (or what I, perhaps incorrectly, took
Re: [Marxism] Marta Harnecker: Decentralised participatory planning based on experiences of Brazil, Venezuela and the state of Kerala, India
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 12/19/2014 04:12 PM, Andrew Pollack via Marxism wrote: POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * No no no no no. This is so politically dishonest, or at best naive. At the end she says localities should go ahead and plan even if the national government doesn't share resources with them. In plain English (paraphrasing): Never mind that in the examples I give - Brazil, Venezuela and Kerala -- the bourgeoisie still controls the commanding heights, we can still have loads of fun in our neighborhoods! And no mention of workplace councils. And the usual tiresome avoidance of the early Soviet history and theory on this question. By *Marta Harnecker* Full article http://links.org.au/node/4208 Granted it's only a synthesis of ideas that are more fully developed in a book I am currently working on, but as it is it's far too vague on the practical application (needs more concrete examples) to be interesting. Too much in the most autonomous manner possible, as much as possible kind of talk, which just begs the more concrete question of what she thinks *is* possible. One could respond that that depends on the circumstances, which of course can vary tremendously. But in that case as much as possible is just a nice principle. How much stuff is it possible to take care of in localities of a few hundred people? Surely 'a lot', but how does this compare to the amount of stuff that cannot feasibly be organised except in a centralised way – say, on the level of a state, or even a federation of states? (Like industrial production processes.) Either in terms of money price, or in labour hours, doesn't matter, as long as it gives some idea of proportion. I don't really know what the proportions would be, so it would have been nice if the article would have had some estimates on that in it. I don't think people have to sit in a meeting deciding on something in that very meeting, so that it can be said they have participated. I wouldn't be interested in that. As it is, I sit in trade union branch meetings 2-3 hours every three weeks, it's boring as hell, i.e. it's like most organisation board work I've taken part in over the years. If someone suggests to make a revolution so that there can be even more of it, I don't think I'll be joining. Anything that hints of parecon style constant meeting hell participation really puts me off. I'd be ok with workplace meetings to organise local work to implement the national/federational plan (decided on in a national/etc. vote), taking part in a main budget headings style vote over mobile telephone etc., instead of sitting out a bunch of cranks in real meetings, participating. As to a system of territorial units of administration that have autonomy to administer themselves, I don't think this is self-evidently a better aim than limiting local autonomy to ensure all citizens' equality. In Finland for example you can see this situation being twisted now one, now the other way, whatever suits the needs of the moment. The state collects money from the municipalities, and distributes it from the richer municipalities to the poorer. But municipalities have autonomy, so the state cannot earmark the money it gives to them, this is for schools, this is for health care etc.; the municipal councils spend the money as they wish, so some municipalities might put more money into schools than others. This is the municipal democracy! municipal democracy! side of the argument, which you can always choose if it suits you. But this will lead to children in different municipalities being in an unequal position. The state could demand that all children across all municipalities should have certain level schools and insist that municipalities must spend a certain amount of money per child in schools (or some other such principle). This is clearly against the idea of municipal autonomy, but at the same time it's the equality of all the citizens! equality of all the citizens! side of the argument, which you can also always choose, if it suits you. It seems like a problem that genuinely has no solution, except on the level of as autonomously as possible style generalities. Let's hope the book will flesh out some concrete details. -- jjonas @ nic.fi _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at:
Re: [Marxism] The origin of Rosa Luxemburg’s slogan ‘socialism or barbarism’
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 10/22/2014 03:42 PM, Ian Angus via Marxism wrote: The origin of Rosa Luxemburg’s slogan ‘socialism or barbarism’ Historians have offered various explanations, none of which really work. Tracing an important socialist slogan to its unexpected source. I think I have solved a small puzzle in socialist history. http://climateandcapitalism.com/2014/10/22/origin-rosa-luxemburgs-slogan- socialism-barbarism/ The similarity of the Kautsky quote with Luxemburg's Engels quote was pointed out on the list already in September. http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism/2014-September/255221.html -- jjonas @ nic.fi _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
