Anti-Duhring, Part I, Philosophy, V. Natural Philosophy, Time and Space - Part 4 of 6

Infinity is a concept full of contradictions, such as that it is, itself, composed of purely finite terms. But, these finite terms are, themselves, mathematical constructs, which, in reality, are only approximations, required for purposes of categorisation and delineation, in order to calculate. In the real world, there is no such clear delineation, but rather fuzziness at the boundaries, where quantity turns into quality, and where uncertainty and probability reign supreme.  One test of whether we live in a computer simulation, it has been suggested, is that, any such simulation, based upon mathematics, would require, at the most minute scale, to be comprised of discrete segments, rather than being continuous.  At the boundary of these discrete segments, there would be detectable breaks, and jumps.

“The limited nature of the material world leads no less to contradictions than its unlimited nature, and every attempt to eliminate these contradictions leads, as we have seen, to new and worse contradictions. It is just because infinity is a contradiction that it is an infinite process, unrolling endlessly in time and in space. The removal of the contradiction would be the end of infinity. Hegel already understood this quite correctly, and for that reason treated the gentlemen who chop logic over this contradiction with well-merited contempt.” (p 63-4)

In Duhring's argument, time has a beginning, the equivalent to 1 in a numerical sequence, and as noted, our current space-time, likewise, has a beginning, the Big Bang. However,

“The subject at issue is not the concept of time, but real time, which Herr Dühring will by no means rid himself of so cheaply. In the second place, however much the concept of time may be converted into the more general idea of being, this takes us not one step further. For the basic forms of all being are space and time, and being out of time is just as gross an absurdity as being out of space.” (p 64)

The only modification that the concepts of space-time, which is itself incorporated in Engels' statement, here, long before it was theorised by Einstein, necessitates, is this distinction between our current space-time, i.e. post Big Bang, as against what preceded it, and what follows it. Engels is wrong when he says of our present space-time,

“time, does not in itself consist of real parts” (p 64)

After Einstein, we know that time, as space-time, can be stretched like a fabric, along with space. But, this does not undermine the substance and significance of Engels argument.

“According to Herr Dühring time exists only through change; and change does not exist in and through time. Just because time is different from change, is independent it is possible to measure it by change, for measuring always requires something different what is to be measured. And time in which no recognisable changes occur is very far removed from not being time at all; rather it is pure time, untouched by any foreign admixtures, that is, real time, time as such. In fact, if we want to grasp the idea of time in all its purity, divorced from all foreign and improper admixtures, we are compelled to put aside, as not being relevant here, all the various events which occur simultaneously or successively in time, and in this way to imagine a time in which nothing happens. In this way, we have not let the concept of time be submerged in the general idea of being, but have thereby for the first time arrived at the pure concept of time.” (p 65)

In other words, it is time as an abstraction from any specific manifestation, such as our current space-time, just as Marx, in arriving at the concept of labour, as the essence of value, sets out that it is labour in the abstract, not any specific manifestation of labour, such as wage-labour, slave-labour, or corvee-labour, and so on.

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Far Right Supporter of AfD, Trump, Farage et al Slaughters Five in Magdeburg

When a car ploughed into a crowd at a German Xmas Market, in Magdeburg, killing five people, including a young child, and injuring more than 200, the media immediately assumed the perpetrator was an Islamic terrorist, though they never openly claimed that to be the case.  The various right-wing populists, were even more overt in their presumptions on social media, and that was amplified when the new came out that the driver was a Saudi doctor.  But, they were all wrong, as Owen Jones has set out in this video.

Yet, even more than a day after the slaughter undertaken by this far-right fanatic, the mainstream media have failed to elaborate these details, despite extensive coverage.  On the day of the attack, Sky News, maintained almost blanket coverage, even though nothing was happening, but, now, when its clear that the attacker was a far right, anti-Muslim extremist, who supports the likes of the AfD, Trump, Musk, Farage and co., they have suddenly reduced their coverage.

Yet, the coverage they and the BBC have provided, has not only failed to set out the political nature of the attacker, as a supporter of the far-right, but has positively hidden and obfuscated those facts, which flatly contradict the line it was pursuing initially.  Now they talk about the aims and beliefs of this right-wing terrorist being "unclear", whilst they attach this to repeated statements about him being a Saudi, and being "unhappy with the treatment of Saudi migrants to Germany", again for the casual listener, suggesting some kind of Islamist pro-migrant basis for his actions, whereas the opposite is the case, as his repeated social media statements attest.  To the extent they have noted that he is an ex-Muslim, they have also worded his views in terms of him being "Islamophobic", which in the welter of other comments and obfuscation, can be misheard, or misunderstood by the general viewer.

If this had actually been an attack by some Islamist terrorist, as they first assumed, then, we would have been treated to an endless stream of his previous social media comments in the most graphic detail.  But, this is now symptomatic of the outright distortions and even lying of the mainstream media, in the West, when it comes to reporting on what is happening in the Middle-East, to an even greater extent than in relation to his biased reporting when it comes to the war in Ukraine and elsewhere, as western imperialism gears up for WWIII.

The extent of that in relation to the biased reporting of the BBC in relation to the Middle East, has again, been set out by Owen Jones.  The existence of a "free press", in western societies, is still a benefit for workers and socialists compared to the lack of such rights in various authoritarian states in Eastern Europe, and in The Middle East.  It means, for now, that we can write about these activities without the threat of a midnight knock from the secret police.  But, a "free press" does not at all mean a truthful press, nor an accountable press, let alone any kind of equality.  The mass media is owned by billionaires as a plaything, but they also own and control the platforms upon which social media exists.  They can control the algorithms to direct readers to or away from certain ideas, or remove and ban content altogether.

In the analogue age socialists used to insist on using the freedom of the press to create our own workers press; we needed to have updated that with the demand for a workers broadcast media in the age of the TV, but, now, in the digital age, we have the opportunity to step over that and demand that we create our own workers digital platforms, our own search engines and so on, with algorithms designed to direct readers to socialist ideas that expose the reality of the exploitation of workers across the globe, of our common interests as a global working-class, and particularly, now, our interest in resisting the steady march to war that imperialism is, once more, engaged upon.

Review of Predictions For 2024 - Prediction 5 – Labour Wins The Election and Attacks Workers

Prediction 5 – Labour Wins The Election and Attacks Workers

The prediction that the Tories would not go until the end of 2024, or into 2025, before calling the election was confirmed. The reasons set out as to why they would not do that were also confirmed, and have been further confirmed, since the election. As the UK debt crisis grows, inflation is ticking up, and growth, is flat to negative, all of which are inseparable from the effects of Brexit, which become starker by the day, and for which the Tories bear responsibility, but one that Blue Labour has now lifted from their shoulders, to bear itself.

In the prediction, I noted,

“The purpose of announcing a March Budget is to front-run a series of proposed tax give-aways, but without actually having to introduce them. They hold out the promise to voters, if they vote Tory, whilst putting Labour on the spot to say whether they would reverse them etc. Labour is already in a bind of its own making when it comes to tax and spending, as its sums don't add up, and the vague “aspirations” and “values” do not fill the gap in hard cash.”

That seemed pretty obvious to everyone, other than Blue Labour, and its Treasury team led by Reeves, who seemed blind to the existence of the £20 billion gap in the Tories budget that I, the IFS and many others wrote about on many occasions. Only after the election, did Blue Labour “discover” this “black hole”. But, as the prediction noted, having boxed themselves in, even to be able to fund their own meagre spending plans, having to, then, cover this additional £20 billion would, inevitably mean attacking workers, which they have done.

Even before they won the election, the nature of Blue Labour, as a reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalist party, antagonistic to the interests of both workers and large-scale capital was clear. They represented a continuation of the worst aspects of the Tories, just in a different coloured set of clothes, most obviously symbolised by their continued adherence to the idea of Brexit. 

The Tories have, of course, attacked Blue Labour for having “given” inflation-busting pay rises to “the unions”, nearly every word of which is untrue. First of all, the pay rises the government agreed to were those recommended by independent pay review bodies, which the Tories were failing to implement in order to cover their deficits at workers' expense. The actual cost of that, in the longer-term, was greater than paying up, because of the losses due to strikes and so on. Secondly, with a labour shortage, and workers simply leaving those jobs for higher paid jobs, elsewhere, Blue Labour was left with little alternative, as the pay rises simply amounted to rubber-stamping what was happening in reality. Thirdly, the idea that the pay rises were “inflation-busting” was also untrue, because they are multi-year agreements, which do not even, as an average, cover the inflation over the period involved, let alone make up for the fall in real wages of those workers over many previous years. Fourthly, the pay rises were not given to “unions”, but to workers doing those jobs.

So, the idea that this was Blue Labour, in some way, operating on behalf of workers, rather than attacking them, is false, and simply opportunism from the Tories, in line with the traps they had set for them. That Blue Labour allowed those traps to be set, by refusing to acknowledge, prior to the election, the existence of huge deficits, is just its own opportunism, in trying to avoid the question of the need to raise taxes, for fear of losing votes. Of course, the other option to that, was to address the question of Brexit, and the £40 billion cost to the Exchequer from it, but that would have gone to the heart of the petty-bourgeois nationalist nature of Blue Labour itself.

So, instead, we have had the removal of pensioners Winter Fuel Payments, which hits the poorest pensioners hardest, and we have the disgraceful betrayal of WASPI women that Blue Labour lyingly stood side by side with before the election, much as the Liberals did with Student Fees, prior to the 2010 election. We have also had the continuation of the two-child benefit cap. In addition, we have a continued freeze on income tax thresholds, which have fallen in real terms, significantly, as a result of the high levels of inflation over recent years. That means that income tax on workers wages rises as a result of fiscal drag. Yet, its clear that, even now, the sums do not add up, and Blue Labour will have to come back for further tax rises, and/or cuts in spending, which will result in further attacks on workers.

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Michael Roberts' Fundamental Errors, V - The Tendency For The Rate of Profit To Fall Is Not The Cause of Crises - Part 7 of 8

In my book on Marx and Engels' Theories of Crisis, I pointed to the same phenomena in relation to containerisation, for example.

According to this World Bank Report, using data from the McKinsey Report, the productivity in 1965 of dock labour (prior to containerisation) was 1.7 tons per hour. Post containerisation, in 1970, that had risen to 30 tons per hour. The average ship size went from 8.4 GRT to 19.4 GRT, insurance costs fell from £0.24 to £0.04, and capital tied up in transit halved from £2 per ton to £1 per ton. Today, 90% of goods are transported by container, in an integrated road, rail and sea system. As the report suggests, the reduction in cost, and increase in speed, has also had a significant effect in stimulating the circulation of commodity-capital in the process.

This is perhaps one of the most notable increases in transport productivity, but it should not be missed that, alongside it, many more such improvements continually occur, for example, in increasing the size of carriers, improvements in speeds of carriers, development of additional road and other transport networks and so on. Moreover, alongside these physical improvements in transport speed, through technological development come others. For example, the development of common markets, like the EU, across the globe, has speeded up the movement of goods and services by the removal of various legal barriers - an advantage which Britain will lose as a result of Brexit. The introduction of the Schengen Agreement in Europe, means that time spent at border crossings has been slashed. Even, things such as the introduction of satellite navigation systems, has acted to speed up deliveries.

But, changes in production have also acted to speed up circulation. The introduction of flexible specialisation systems, alongside the introduction of Just In Time, means that the suppliers of the large companies operating such systems, have themselves to introduce similar systems, in order to be able to provide the guarantees to customers that they will be able to provide the inputs of the right type, quality, and in the necessary quantity, at short notice, to be delivered precisely when required. This means that the quantity of commodity-capital at any one time lying fallow is reduced.

The development of the Internet, and of electronic payments systems, has further revolutionised the rate of turnover of capital, with a consequent effect on the average annual rate of profit. But, let us ignore all of these factors set out by Marx and Engels, and clearly visible, today, that not only counter any long-run tendency for the rate of profit to fall, but to actually produce the opposite result. Let us assume that, from the point that capitalist production starts to become dominant, as the Industrial Revolution takes off, from around 1760, that this steady grind downwards of the average annual rate of profit was actually taking place, as Roberts claims. Its, then, still not clear why this continual and gradual decline leads to any crisis of overproduction at all, certainly not one of an overproduction of commodities, which Marx and Engels ascribe to quite different factors, as production outstrips the growth of the market, but, also, not of an overproduction of capital either. Certainly, there is no reason apparent as to why this slow gradual, and continuous decline, would, then, lead to crises being periodic, rather than being a permanent state of affairs.

If we take the overproduction of commodities, there is, in fact, no such generalised crisis until 1825, as Marx and Engels describe. It is, then, that the massive rise in production, resulting from the introduction of steam engines, on a large scale, is unable to find sufficient demand, as the market failed to grow in proportion. So, although, by 1825, we would have had more than 60 years, at the very least, considering that capitalist production itself began 400 years earlier, in which the tendential law should have been operating, and leading to the crisis Roberts attributes to it, but no such previous crisis occurred. It was that which led Mill, Say, and Ricardo to deny the possibility of such a generalised crisis of overproduction of commodities. Earlier crises did occur, but as Marx notes, these earlier crises were not crises of overproduction, but financial crises resulting from banks issuing excess bank notes and so on, or as with the South Sea Bubble.

But, given the claims for the operation of the tendential law, and its significance in relation to crises of overproduction of capital, why, then, after 1825, did we not see a continual period of crisis, rather than periodic crises? Marx certainly rejected the catastrophist notions about it reflecting some “historic decline of capitalism” claimed for it by Roberts. If that were the case, then, the decline should have started from the moment that capitalism came into existence, and with it the “tendency”. We would then have a problem certainly explaining the repeated periods of rapid capitalist expansion and accumulation, in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, not to mention the huge technological advances that capitalism has continued to bring with it, up to today.

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Northern Soul Classics - You've Got The Love I Need - The Undisputed Truth

 

Friday Night Disco - The Hawg - Eddie Kirk

 

Anti-Duhring, Part I, Philosophy, V. Natural Philosophy, Time and Space - Part 3 of 6

As described earlier, the concept of space-time, and its beginning with the Big Bang, seems to disprove this, but only if you conclude that there was nothing prior to it, or after the heat death of the universe. Some theories propose that the Big Bang was only one such Big Bang, itself one of an infinite number of such events, perhaps arising like a series of bubbles with each one being spawned from another.

“The infinite series, transferred to the sphere of space, is the line drawn from a definite point in a definite direction to infinity. Is the infinity of space expressed in this even in the remotest way? On the contrary, it requires at least six lines drawn from this one point in three opposite directions, to conceive the dimensions of space; and consequently we would have six of these dimensions. Kant saw this so clearly that he transferred his numerical series only indirectly, in a roundabout way, to the spaciality of the world. Herr Dühring, on the other hand, compels us to accept six dimensions in space, and immediately afterwards can find no words to express his indignation at the mathematical mysticism of Gauss, who would not rest content with the usual three dimensions of space.” (p 61-2)

The same argument applies to time, necessarily, when we incorporate the concept of space-time. A series in relation to time, requires starting from one, but then, implies that time itself had a beginning. Its true that our current space-time may have a beginning and end, but that does not mean that time itself, as an abstraction from it has a beginning or end.

“We can only get past this contradiction if we assume that the one from which we begin to count the series, the point from which we proceed to measure the line is any one in the series, is any one of the points in the line, and that it is a matter of indifference to the line or to the series where we place them.” (p 62)

Engels, then turns to Duhring's treatment of the “counted infinite numerical sequence”. Engels notes that Duhring's argument rests upon the notion that its possible to count back from any positive number to zero. Engels says,

“When he has completed the task of counting from - ∞ (minus infinity) to 0 let him come again. It is certainly obvious that, wherever he begins to count, he will leave behind him an infinite series and, with it, the task which he is to fulfil. Just let him invert his own infinite series 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 ... and try to count from the infinite end back to 1; it would obviously only be attempted by a man who has not the faintest understanding of what the problem is. Still more. When Herr Dühring asserts that the infinite series of lapsed time has been counted, he is thereby asserting that time has a beginning; for otherwise he would not have been able to start “counting” at all. Once again, therefore, he smuggles into the argument, as a premise, the thing that he has to prove.” (p 62-3)

Duhring's concept of a Law of Determinate Number, therefore, contains, within itself, a contradiction in terms, a contradiction that is, itself, absurd.

“The whole deception would be impossible but for the mathematical usage of working with infinite series. Because in mathematics it is necessary to start from determinate, finite terms in order to reach the indeterminate, the infinite, all mathematical series, positive or negative, must start with 1, or they cannot be used for calculation. But the logical need of the mathematician is far from being a compulsory law for the real world.” (p 63)

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