One of the good things about
One of the good things about the Occupy movement is that it doesn’t come with a load of baggage. They are free to discuss and debate issues and think about problems from any possible angle.
The Socialist Party of Great Britain seems to have an enormous amount of superfluous baggage. We have all kinds of conference resolutions of a pious (not practical, organisational or activity led) nature. ‘Is socialism ethical or scientific? – discuss’ And, of course, you can only vote for or against. You can’t vote ‘there is no need for us to have an official policy on this’, so whatever happens you end up with more baggage. Our position on parliament is forever in danger of becoming the realisation of the anarchist’s parody which says that we think that socialism can be voted in or brought in through legislation. Why? Because we feel compelled to bang on about parliament because that is what makes us different. And in the process we neglect to emphasise the real revolutionary movement which will be the working class organising and planning democratically in workplaces and communities to take hold of the means of production and run them for the benefit of society.
Perhaps we need to think about what the socialist party would look like and what it would be doing if we were starting it up right now. Brand new. No baggage. What would it be like? Would it better reflect the thoughts and conversations that members have which each other or would it be like it is now with its reputation for hostility?