PaGaian with International Socialist Characteristics.

Posted on February 24, 2021 by malpagaia

This story describes how International Socialism and a program of World Socialist Revolution as defined and advocated by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), is not only compatible with my spiritual practice, but actually compliments it. I hope that my story can be of some value to other especially younger, political students who might be struggling to relate the cultivation of their political consciousness with a spiritual consciousness.

Subsequent to becoming relatively privileged Australian pensioners enjoying what my partner and I now regard to be a modest yet comfortable standard of living, I am pleased to say that I have at last been able to concentrate more on cultivating my political consciousness. Consequently, I am now well and truly convinced that Socialism should be our next logical global socio-economic form of governance and productivity. Moreover, that there is indeed only one viable form of Socialism, that which is informed by the scientific analysis of Karl Marx and the political leadership of Leon Trotsky. Socialism, according to the teachings of Marx and Trotsky takes the form of a revolutionary International Socialism, a united global socio economic form of governance and productivity that has yet to be put to the test by us humans. The reason for this having become my preferred political perspective, is that it fully met my most essential search criteria, namely that of having to be compatible with my world view, a very down to earth spiritual practice and last but not least, my personal values.

While I was much inspired by my partner and some of her highly recommended hard copy reading, eventually it was my online search that enabled me to find an acceptable political program and party advocating and preparing for a World Socialist Revolution, namely the International Committee of the Fourth International, the ICFI and its associated international branches of the Socialist Equality Party, the SEP. This political program and party informs and prepares what it refers to as the international working class, for world socialist revolution. This it does very effectively via the pages of its own daily online publication – the World Socialist Website WSWS.org.

When defining the political and intellectual foundations and motivations of the World Socialist Website in 1998, point three places an emphasis on

quote. the revival of a genuine socialist political culture within the working class as an essential intellectual and, one might add, “spiritual” premise of a new international revolutionary movement.

It is this spiritual premise that was and still is of particular interest to me. My world view, spiritual practice and personal values inform and convince me that for a world socialist revolution to succeed, it must have both political and spiritual components. I believe it is safe to assume that our human ancestors became spiritual creatures long before we became political creatures and it might well be argued that had we not become spiritual, it is most unlikely that we would have moved on to become political. Be that as it may, another reason for my conviction in this regard is that during the launching of the ICFI in 1938, my principal political mentor and leader Leon Trotsky made it clear that

quote. We are not a party like other parties, our aim is the full material and spiritual liberation of the toilers and exploited through the socialist revolution. Nobody will prepare it and nobody will guide it but ourselves.

Moreover, as my principal spiritual mentor Thomas Berry put it in his 1996 essay entitled An Ecologically Sensitive Spirituality

quote. In reality, every being has the right to be, the right to habitat, and the right to fulfil its role in the great community of existence.

It was in fact my own personal spiritual journey and liberation that eventually inspired me to search for and find a compatible and acceptable political story. Subsequently, my partner Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. and I are both registered, paid up members of the Sydney NSW Australia branch of the SEP. Glenys also happens to be the author of PaGaian Cosmology, a book she published in 2005 based on her doctoral thesis, that expresses an earth based spiritual practice that celebrates earth’s seasonal moments and our human relatedness to them, using female metaphor. Glenys begins the Preface of her book with an explanation of the term PaGaian

quote. It expresses a reclaiming of the term Pagan as meaning a person who dwells in country, yet with Gaian spliced in, it expresses a renewed and contemporary understanding of that country. Gaia is a name for humanity’s habitat, an ancient yet new name which I understand to include whole Earth and Cosmos, there is no seam separating Earth from her context. And Pagan religious tradition offers a spiritual practice of celebrating Earth Sun creativity manifest in this habitat. The cosmology described in this book makes a start on bringing all of this together.

Why Socialism, or to be more precise, why International Socialism? International Socialism has emerged out of a bigger and more advanced sense and understanding of our world in general and our human potential in particular, hence it can and hereby is argued that International Socialism has a spiritual core. This might also explain why the above 1938 quote from Leon Trotsky includes the full spiritual liberation of the toilers and the exploited.

Clearly the year 2020 with its Covid-19 pandemic has further exposed Capitalism as being a fundamentally flawed socio-economic system. Capitalism is a profit driven socio-economic system that has long since increased its emphasis on the accumulation of privately owned property and wealth, to the detriment of it being able to provide even the most basic social and cultural needs of a vast majority of the human population. Moreover, the science of physics informs us that every single atom throughout the entire universe is moving in the direction of maximising manifestation Vladimir Vernadsky’s work entitled, The Biosphere 1921. In other words, every atom including all those that we humans are made of, constantly move in the direction of making progress, toward an improved more advanced condition. Just as our progress from pre human to the earliest nomadic forms of human existence such as hunter gatherer, through to the socio-economic forms of feudalism and capitalism, so too at the species level we humans must now move beyond a dysfunctional capitalism toward a more sophisticated, science based socio-economic form of governance and productivity. My sincere hope is that as part of our ongoing human development, International Socialism will eventually be made manifest throughout the entire planet in the form of regional Federations of united socialist states.

Why PaGaian? Because it is a daily practice and a seasonal celebration of our relatedness to self, to other and to all that is. PaGaian Cosmology celebrates the interaction between us humans and our planetary or Gaian, environment, it is a personal, cosmic and seamless relationship cum celebration, poetically expressed during each of Earth Gaia’s seasonal moments, the annual cycle of eight solstice, equinox and quarter point moments, moments in space time that can be trusted, even worshipped. Hence the splicing of the words Pagan and Gaian to form PaGaian, it connects and celebrates the dialectical wisdom of our ancestors, the stories of old, with a contemporary scientific understanding of our place in space time, stories that are new and still unfolding.

Until now, I have deliberately avoided using the word religion because many people find it difficult to distinguish between religion and spirituality. As I suggested above, spiritual consciousness not only preceded and likely paved the way for the development of political consciousness, I believe it also preceded and paved the way for religion and religious practice. An easy way to distinguish between religion and spirituality is to relate religion to belonging and answers, while spirituality is more to do with our being and questioning. I hope that this story demonstrates that not only can we cultivate our political and spiritual consciousness simultaneously, but more importantly, it is most unwise to be cultivating one without the other.

Taffy,

Beltane 2020

Southern Hemisphere.

CAPITALISM – a Great Reset or a Great Replacement.

Posted on June 14, 2020 by malpagaia

A Great Reset of capitalism from the top down.

Capitalism, our present socio-economic form of governance and productivity has long since become global, imperialist and dangerous, it now places too much emphasis on the accumulation of privately owned wealth, with far too little emphasis on meeting the social and cultural needs of humanity.

In our preparation for world socialist revolution and thereby the replacement of capitalism with socialism, the international working class will need to carefully consider some of the counter revolutionary forces working against us. For example, the World Economic Forum (WEF) should be seen as a very formidable counter revolutionary force that will need to be reckoned with. The WEF has a great deal of money, power and influence available for achieving its capitalist objectives. Take for example part of an introduction to a recent (2020) WEF project named ‘The Great Reset’ –

‘To achieve a better outcome, the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a “Great Reset” of capitalism..’ (weforum.org)

It can and probably should be assumed that in order ‘To achieve a better outcome’ within a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism, the working class would inevitably continue to be exploited. Given the extent to which capitalism depends on the exploitation of the working class to generate profit and thereby the privately owned wealth that underpins the WEF and its members, we can safely assume that any proposed ‘revamp’ of ‘societies and economies’ would not be done on behalf of the international working class.

While capitalism in its current form – from an international socialist perspective, might well be regarded as being in an advanced state of decay, it is clear from the above WEF statement that the ruling class is determined to keep capitalism alive and well in one form or another. It now appears most likely that capitalism is to be either ‘reset’ from the top down with more or worse of the same damage it now inflicts on our planetary Biosphere in general and the international working class in particular, or it is to be replaced with an international socialism via a political program and party of world socialist revolution, from the bottom up. The WEF is clearly a counter revolutionary capitalist forum that has little or nothing in common with the ICFI/SEP/IYSSE program and party of world socialist revolution. In promoting their ‘Great Reset of capitalism’ project the WEF goes on to say –

‘Clearly, the will to build a better society does exist. We must use it to secure the Great Reset that we so badly need. That will require stronger and more effective governments, though this does not imply an ideological push for bigger ones. And it will demand private-sector engagement every step of the way..’ (weforum.org)

Knowing in advance that the ‘Great Reset.. will demand private-sector engagement every step of the way’, should be more than enough to alert the international working class that this WEF project cannot be trusted to bring about any meaningful improvement to their working conditions and livelihood. On the contrary, it would appear that the WEF’s ‘Great Reset’ project is designed to ensure that smaller ‘stronger and more effective governments’ will be subordinate to the ‘private sector’.

Be this as it may, from an international socialist perspective the WEF is indeed a capitalist force to be reckoned with and strongly opposed. The only force capable of doing so is the same productive force that produces the profit and thereby the privately owned wealth of the capitalist members of the WEF, namely the international working class. To overcome such a formidable opponent and thereby replace international capitalism with international socialism will require a critical mass of the international working class to join the ICFI/SEP/IYSSE program and party of world socialist revolution. Only then can one prepare for and participate in the program of world socialist revolution.

A Great Replacement of capitalism from the bottom up.

From the perspective of the international working class, capitalism is a powerful global force that must be reckoned with and replaced by an even stronger global force. Replacing international capitalism with international socialism can only happen from the bottom up via the productive force of the international working class. Capitalism depends entirely on the productive force of the international working class to design, produce, operate, maintain and defend all of its territory, property, goods and services. By virtue of its productive role, it is the much exploited human productive force that can and must unite to overthrow its capitalist owners and state power.

The capitalist ruling class has no respect for planet Earth other than it being a so called ‘god given’ resource for the accumulation of their privately owned material wealth. Capitalist ruling classes have long since colonised planet Earth into seperate, competitive, antagonistic nation states, the most powerful of which now jealously threaten each other with more than enough nuclear weapons to transform planet Earth into a lifeless desert. Climate change, wars, poverty, pandemics and tens of millions of displaced refugees having to flee from all of the above negative impacts are a direct result of a fundamentally flawed and mostly corrupt capitalism.

The replacement of capitalist socio-economic forms of governance and productivity that place so much emphasis on the accumulation of privately owned wealth with socialist socio-economic forms that place an emphasis on meeting the social and cultural needs of society, is long overdue. The political program and party of world socialist revolution namely the ICFI/SEP/IYSSE is well advanced and prepared to provide the international working class with the necessary revolutionary political leadership. Rank and file committees of workers, students and others are being well informed and encouraged to develop throughout the entire planet on a daily basis via the pages of WSWS.org .

Meeting the social and cultural needs of society first and foremost would be a great step in the right direction for the human race in particular and our Biosphere in general. The establishment and development of federations of united socialist states throughout the entire planet would enable far more of our natural resources – including and especially that of human labour, to be put to better use. It would do away with the need for nation states to aggressively compete with each other, material wealth could be far more equitably distributed throughout the entire planet, wars, poverty, refugees and environmental degradation could become things of the past.

From a working class perspective, international socialism must be our next logical socio-economic form of governance and productivity, it would be one great step for humankind – from the bottom up.

Taffy,

Southern Winter 2020.

The Productive Force

Posted on June 16, 2019 by malpagaia

– for better or for worse?

The ‘productive force’- according to Karl Marx, consisting of all waged and salaried labour – also known as ‘the international working class’ designs, produces, operates and maintains every built thing, including all artificial intelligence (AI) together with its rapidly increasing number of algorithms, all of which can now be incorporated into the machinery for peace or the machinery for war ie; for better or for worse.

With this in mind it should not be difficult to understand why the owners of the productive force – also known as ‘the ruling class’ are thereby totally dependant on their waged and salaried producers for everything they own, especially the accumulation of their privately owned wealth. Most if not all modern socio-economic forms of governance and productivity have been globalized and designed to maintain this relationship between the owners of the productive force and the actual producers, including the waged and salaried ‘universal soldier’. The socio-economic relationship between the ruling class and the working class is such that it increases the wealth, power and influence of the ruling class, gained through an increasing exploitation and impoverishment of the working class. Ultimately the above mentioned machinery for war only exists to protect the privately owned property and wealth of the ruling class. Moreover, for the universal soldier, most of whom are better paid and cared for than their fellow working class producers, there is a requirement or command of strict obedience and preparedness to sacrifice their lives during war(s), as part of their exploitation.

It can now be writ large on anyone’s digital tablet that we need to replace the dominant capitalist socio-economic forms of governance and productivity that place such emphasis on the accumulation of privately owned property and wealth for the ruling class; with socio-economic forms of governance and productivity that place the emphasis on meeting the social needs of the productive force – the working class. Doing away with the ruling class constructed artificial barriers between nation states and meeting the basic social needs of the productive force should eventually eliminate the need for standing armies and the obscenely expensive military industrial complex required to support them. A more sophisticated socio-economic form of governance and productivity could achieve a more sustainable level of social equality, more cooperative international trade and far greater freedom for cultural diversity throughout the entire planet. As indicated above, only the productive force itself is capable of achieving this, it alone has the incentive, the labour, the intellect and thereby the capacity for replacing the existing profit driven capitalist system with a more sophisticated and sustainable system throughout and on behalf of the entire planet and all of its life supporting systems.

For the global productive force to make such a revolutionary change in time to avoid what is now a three pronged capitalist threat of nuclear war(s), catastrophic climate change and the militarization of AI, it must first recognise itself as being the international working class engaged in a class war against the international ruling class. Then the productive force must unite and prepare itself to participate in a political program of ‘world socialist revolution’, such as the program of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and its branches of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP). [i] Anything less than the unification of the productive force under the banner of a political program and party of world socialist revolution – as defined by Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky, is doomed to continue being threatened, exploited and impoverished by the capitalist ruling class. The productive force must now make a choice to be a force for better or for worse.

[i] Information about which is made available on a daily basis via the pages of the World Socialist Website WSWS.org

Spiritical Revolution.

Posted on September 12, 2014 by malpagaia

Spiritical is my new PaGaian word for expressing a revolution that is simultaneously spiritual, political, personal, planetary and permanent. Following is why and how I conjured the word up.

And so, we can make no separation between “spirituality” and “politics.” We are this world, we cannot leave it. We can only work to transform it as we transform ourselves, in acts of evolution and revolution.

(Barbara Mor 1987)

… wherein we humans no longer primarily engage in more talk and analysis, but we dare to attend sincerely and primarily to the complexity of actual relationship with, and comprehension of, our embodied engagement with our Earth-Universe-Gaian context.

(Glenys Livingstone 2005)

The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.

(Karl Marx 1844)

Pondering on these quotes I am much inspired by the authors insight and poetic expression of spiritual and political revolution. From my PaGaian perspective there is only one revolution that I regard as literally permanent, namely that of planet Earth around its Sun. If for no other reason than that I can literally observe and feel the effect of this phenomenal relationship as the Sun appears to rise and set each day and as my place on planet Earth – whenever and wherever that may be, responds seasonally to their movement to and from our PaGaian Winter and Summer solstice celebrations – our Planetary holy moments. For me the Earth Sun relationship is a religious phenomenon that is fundamental to our very existence – as in a binding, connecting, definition and sense of the word religion. This fundamental Earth, Sun relationship enables me to experience a connectedness and belonging to what I occasionally refer to as my Self Place, a place where I can be anywhere and at anytime. As a PaGaian who regularly participates in ritual seasonal celebration, I include the apparent coming and going or waxing and waning, of the Moon – not just for good monthly measure.

With this fundamental Earth, Sun and Moon relationship in mind, how might I interpret Karl Marx saying that “Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself”? Again from my PaGaian perspective this quote provides me with a very convincing source of inspiration for spiritual and political revolutionary change. Karl Marx was evidently very objective and scientific about his understanding of the socio- economic circumstances of his epoch and he clearly wanted society to be under no illusion as to the true nature of these circumstances and the negative impact it was having on the livelihood of working families.

In the context of Marx’s symbolic expression it is worth remembering the illusion that the Sun rotated around the Earth was the result of long-held religious dogma not seriously questioned until Copernicus produced his heliocentric model of the universe late in the 15^thcentury. Consequently, thanks to such radical science we humans are no longer captivated by the illusion that the Sun rotates around the Earth, now knowing that it is in fact the Earth that rotates around the Sun. The same can be said about Marx’s “…illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.” It too is the consequence of a religious illusion resulting from long-term fear inducing dogma, principles, laws and teachings used by the ruling classes to maintain their power, wealth and control over the rest of us.

Unfortunately most of us continue to be deluded by an all-pervasive ruling class that uses its religious, political, economic and military dominance to induce fear, divide, conquer and thereby control almost everything we learn about and do. To resist and overcome this perverse control over our lives requires the kind of spiritual and political revolution that first and foremost is capable of Self empowering one’s own mind so that eventually we might come to help radically change our collective consciousness and the socio economic circumstances of most if not all humankind. This level of change requires nothing less than a simultaneously permanent, personal, planetary, spiritual and political revolution.

Such an ongoing revolutionary struggle is a necessary pre-requisite to doing as Mor, Livingstone and Marx suggest, that is learning how to transform ourselves in acts of evolution and revolution, attend to our relationship with other and thereby revolving around our own true Sun – our own true Self. How might we do this? Especially during adverse socio-economic circumstances…

Humans are not objects to be manipulated or enslaved by some external force or influence. We are all unique, individual subjects with a mind of our own. We need to pay careful attention to the stories going on between our ears because it is our primary story has the greatest influence on our personal values and behaviour. We need to think of our mind as the foundation of our most precious attributes, our imagination, our world-view, our faith and our passion. We should be very particular about who and or what we exercise our precious faith in and maybe even become passionate about.

Given the all-pervasive divide and conquer strategies used by the ruling classes of imperialist warfare states, a growing number of us now – more than ever, need to avail ourselves of information that will enable us to protect ourselves from these ruling class induced illusions and fear. More of us may then unite within a growing community of like-minded individuals already participating in and preparing for a broader planetary, spiritual, political and non-violent, revolution, a revolution that could eventually change our planetary habitat and its human community for the better.

Be it religious, political, economic or ecological information, the guiding principle for determining whether or not information is useful to us and our spiritual and political revolution is whether or not it advocates or at least recognizes that we are in relationship with Self, Other – including the other than human, and all-that-is? This is not difficult to determine, most information will speak for itself in this regard.

Thankfully as it happens, we are in the midst of a technological information sharing revolution, swimming in what could be described as an environment of information overload. Consequently it is very useful to know that some sources of information are considerably better than others and that we must be very careful about what information we take in, retain and allow to influence our Self place. There is one primary story and source of information that we are all entitled to learn from, rely on and be influenced by, namely the evolutionary story of the Universe. Particularly as it has been given to us by the late Thomas Berry, a truly Spiritical, revolutionary Passionist priest.

The newly energizing Earth community needs a mystique that will provide the high exaltation appropriate to the existence of such a stupendous universe and such a glorious planet as that on which we live. This can be found in celebrating not simply the seasonal sequence but also the irreversible transformational sequence, as this has taken place in the evolutionary story of the universe.

(Thomas Berry 2006)

As with our spiritual vision, so too with our ecological and social visions, they are planetary by nature and PaGaian by name.

(Livingstone & Seaborne 2014)

Southern Spring 2014.

	imaduwa on Why a new normal must be a bet…
	Jasondet on Deeper Down Under
	Howardnaimi on Deeper Down Under
	Charles on The Productive Force – f…
	Mora1979 on Lest We Forget, to question th…

	imaduwa on Why a new normal must be a bet…
	Jasondet on Deeper Down Under
	Howardnaimi on Deeper Down Under
	Charles on The Productive Force – f…
	Mora1979 on Lest We Forget, to question th…

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Tag Archives: Political

CAPITALISM – a Great Reset or a Great Replacement.

The Productive Force

– for better or for worse?