SPGB Day-school - 'Economics, War and Religion'

[Baritz]

(From SPGB website) "Day School - 'What we say about Economics, War and Religion' (South London - 11.00am to 5.00pm)

Date: Saturday, 27 September 2014 - 11:00am - 5:00pm
Venue: The Socialist Party's premises, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN

(Directions: About four minutes walk from Clapham North tube on the Northern line and three minutes walk from Clapham High Street station on the circular overground line)

Three talks -



'Capitalism:"a counting-house on the top of a cinder-heap"'

'Why Wars Happen'

'The illusory happiness of the people: Socialism and Religion'

Free admission and refreshments"

[whichfinder]

11.15 am

'Capitalism:"a counting-house on the top of a cinder-heap"'

It is an illusion that all citizens of a country have a common interest; as also the idea that class is an outmoded concept or a matter of self identification.

The reality is still that a minority (capitalist) class owns the means to life and does not need to work while the rest - the majority (working) class has to sell mental and physical energies in order to live - or depend on state 'benefits'.

Far reaching changes have taken place in technology, communications and so on, but the engine driving the system is still the quest for profit. Some see profit as "a return on risk or a reward for efficiency" while others criticise from a moral standpoint - "putting profits before people".

From Marx we have the explanation of the source of profit as the unpaid labour of the working class. Recognition of the common class identity of the real wealth producers points the way to a transformed future where the means to life are owned in common and democratically controlled by the whole community.

Lunch - 1.00 pm

2.00 pm

'Why Wars Happen'

Is war a fundamental part of human behaviour? Is it caused by arguments between governments? Is it caused by nationalism? Is it caused by religion? Or are there more profound reasons behind a phenomenon which seems to have been perpetually present in human societies and continues to be an ongoing feature of the modern world?

3.30 pm

'The illusory happiness of the people: Socialism and Religion'

Marx: 'The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusions about their condition is a demand to give up a condition that requires illusion. The criticism of religion is therefore the germ of the criticism of the valley of tears whose halo is religion’.

This talk will look at the influence of Feuerbach on Marx's ideas about religion, Marx's writings on religion, the Socialist Party and religion, capitalism and religion, Christian 'socialism', Thomas Müntzer, Gerrard Winstanley, Liberation Theology and Christian Anarchism.

'The religious reflex of the real world can, in any case, only then finally vanish, when the practical relations of everyday life offer to man none but perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations with regard to his fellow men and to nature'.

Free admission and refreshments

Audience participation invited

Close - 5.00 pm

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/day-school-partys-case-economics-war-and-religion-london-1100am-500pm (http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/day-school-partys-case-economics-war-and-religion-london-1100am-500pm)

[The Idler]

This is this weekend. I won't be able to go.