Thanks Passy. I think you might enjoy 'The Monocled Mutineer', which is a very well-researched study - almost a biography too - of leftist rebellions under the British Army in 1917 France (and including Australian & NZ troops). There has been a spectacular level of censorship attending this subject, though it did bring a TV mini-series in the 80s.

I support your repudiation of Malthus' misanthropy; high time that we knocked that nasty and simplistic stuff on its muddled head, especially now that echoes of Malthusian depopulation-savagery attend both the financial system's disintegration and calls for austerity around 'climate change'.

However, I believe that the productivity you describe is not some fixed achievement at all now, but a situation depending on several quite different conditions, some of which are inextricably linked to capitalist production. I think of the vast importation from China these past two decades as a prominent case.

This relevant issue of grassroots warfare has much to do with law and order. If a society develops any form of redistribution, or implodes due to systemic breakdown as we witness now in slow motion, there needs to be some way to counter the threats of feudalist and fascist ambition.

So I expect to be there with some of your SA colleagues when the pick-handles are handed out for night patrol.

Passy said: "I think the argument is that we now have the capacity (thanks to the incredible productivity unleashed by workers under capitalism) to provide a soceity of abundance for all. I go back to food. There is enough to adequately feed the world. Capitalism stands in the way of doing that, not production."

To me, this sounds like "now it's time to kill the goose that laid the golden egg." I mean, sure we can produce enough food to feed the world, but not every one needing food can afford it. It makes no sense to destroy our capitalist systems in the belief that our workers, under socialism, will continue to work (for "free") at their former, capitalist rates of production, to feed people who cannot buy it. How would it set with workers (formerly under capitalism) if their government told them they had to work without pay on Wednesdays and Thursdays to produce food to be given away to hungry people around the globe? Let's face the reality: people work harder for their own self interests than we do for the interests of others.

We have before us an irony, don't we? Capitalism can produce food needed to feed the world, but must sell it at unaffordable prices. If we tear down capitalism and replace it with socialism, we lose the capacity to feed the world.

The solution isn't destroying capitalism. The solution is making capitalists of the people who need food. Is it better to feed the world's poor, or is it better to show them how to feed themslves?

mil-observer and others

Thanks for the book recommendation.

I was also looking for something anthropological about war and societies, perhaps from a marxist point of view. I'll look up the writer you suggested too on primitve communism and war.

Did Vere Gordon Childe write about this specifically? It's been so long...

And presumably Engel's stuff on the orgins of the family etc or parts of it are out of date and from memory based in part on inadequate science.

The debate between Rudd and Keating over Gallipoli finds echoes on this debate about Remembrance day, although Keating is expressing I think a radical nationalist approach (which at least accepts the role of labour in forging our so called national identity, or at least our present social structures.)

daisym, I don't understand how you can say socialism won't produce enough food. It builds on the productivity of captialism but takes it to a higher level, and in any event re-prioritises production to satisfy human need, not to make a profit (which as the present food crisis shows, satisfying human need is not under capitalism a driver for production.

Hi Passy - I'm a bit pressed for time right now, but off the top of my head:

On stratification: Dumont, 'Homo Hierarchicus'
On warfare in an egalitarian society: Evans-Pritchard, 'The Nuer'; Gluckman, 'Custom and Conflict in Africa'
A more recent account of non-economic tribal warfare in PNG: Harrison, 'The Mask of War'.

Also, I'm sure Roger Keesing wrote something from a Marxian perspective about war and conflict in general, but I can't recall the title...

Anyway, I'm offline for the weekend. Enjoy!

Passy,

I believe that the more the government confiscates a man's ownership of the fruits of his labor, the more the man is inclined to let the government bestow someone else's fruit upon him. In other words, there's no need to work as hard because someone else will provide for you. That equates to reduced productivity

Under capitalism, tax consequences are integral components of investment decisions. Under capitalism, productivity flourishes (or not) in proportion to the taxes levied by government. Under capitalism, government must find a tax which will maximize government revenues. Government knows that, with taxes set too high, productivity falls off and results in less revenue than if taxes had been lower. To me, socialism equals higher taxes.

Daisym - productivity is a measure of output per worker.

When New Zealand removed farm subsidies and lowered social security payments in the 1990s productivity went down. People fled to Australia and many of those left behind found their standard of living falling. By contrast Australia didn't have rogernomics we had Hawke and Keating who set the country up for higher productivity and improving standard of living that carried us through the Howard years.

Australia introduced income tax to raise money to pay for the munitions our troops were lobbing over the trenches. Prior to 1914 Australians didn't pay income tax. Even in 1950 only a third of Australians earned enough money to pay income tax. We are now in the ridiculous situation where people on unemployment benefits pay income tax and the most heavily taxed segment of society are those transitioning from social security benefits to work whose income less than $25,000 and have marginal tax rates approaching 50%.

People who are as rich as Rupert Murdoch or Jamie Packer don't pay Australian income tax, even people on million dollar incomes shift their savings offshore. Remember that Kerry Packer was annoyed that he got slugged one year with a $40,000 tax bill which barely covers the roads he used, sewerage removed, education of the minions he employed through out his empire, built the hospital or trained the staff who performed his organ transplantation etc