Community-Wealth
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To alanjjohnstone,Yes, we all know what happened to the Australian party.It was precisely the movers and shakers, moving and shaking away from “socialism”, who moved and shook the party, and moved and shook themselves out of the party. That’s my warning to you. You’ve got the story the wrong way round. More anon.Unfortunately, I’m afraid I must now invoke Sam Pepys’s immortal line — And so to bed. It’s getting late here.
Well, i see you do consider that the accusation was indeed stupidity
Quote:But that doesn’t prevent Engels—the materialist—from engaging in wordplay that overlays biting contempt atop the Greek, to convey disquiet over the thousand-year imposition of stupidity by the feudal system upon its lord, court and, particularly, its serf and peasants.Of course it is you mind-reading and not knowing for certain that it was meant as word-play. But the materialist would argue that :"it’s not that rural people were inherently stupid, but rather that the comparatively atomistic lives they led, with arduous and extended labor taking place in relative isolation from a large and developed civil society, and under relations of indirect exploitation of the landlords, prevented them from engaging with a broader social world. They objectively could not pursue their intellectual and social development to the same extent (with Marx here operating under the assumption that knowledge and the intellect are socially produced and thus require social cooperation and conflict to develop). ..It’s not really about ‘stupid’ rural people, but of the objective social conditions within which rural labor has to exist."John Bellamy Foster support the above interpretation and also reminds us that in German Ideology he describes both town and country dwellers as "restricted town-animal" and "restricted country animal". But we all know how he described the Irish in his Conditions and how his attitude changed via the Burns sisters. http://books.google.co.th/books?id=cHKiftpEAssC&pg=PA136&lpg=PA136&dq=idiocy+marx&source=bl&ots=RtQImcV1RV&sig=g9WnrKIVKelvlF43AO6_70XsROM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MeCiU6aIGsWiugTAz4DgBg&ved=0CFcQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=idiocy%20marx&f=false
Sorry, I did have a duty to read, and ponder, your concerns. I now feel your anxiety.Rest assured, I have considered thoughts, but first to my economics article, which may (or may not) help to explain my thoughts. Couldn’t get on with the article today. So tomorrow.But now, pepys, pepys, …
Oh Alan, as a materialist, I could never hold that the peasants were inherently stupid, but that their stupidity was a product of their restricted social existence, which Engels rightly despised. I made that obvious from the start. We don’t need a Monthly Review moron like John Bellamy Foster to make such heavy weather of what materialism, as an explanation of human behaviour, has always been about.I thought we all comprehended such basics in our blood. If such things as normal materialism don’t go without saying, the problem with the membership is not one of terminology at all.And frankly, I am certain, from the context, that Engels is overlaying contempt for dumb peasant life because he’s already contemptuous of dumb Proudhon and his own sentimental ideas about the persistence of the rural peasantry, etc. [The Housing Question]. Both the “theorist” and his beloved peasantry are contemptible.You baulk at accepting Engels’s contempt for the peasantry because, in today’s gentrified world, ethnic contempt seems infra dig. Engels held no such false bourgeois scruples.Good night.
The matter of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is even more ridiculous. The phrase was not intended for, and not used in, one of his books or major pamphlets, but was merely a remark used en passant in the course of correspondence. This however has not prevented the phrase being analysed and dissected ad nauseam. Can there be a dictatorship of the great majority? Whom would they dictate over in the classless society of socialism? Did Marx really mean "dictatorship" in the sense in which we understand the term or was he using it in the manner in which it was understood in ancient Rome? One can only assume that in his grave in Highgate, Marx is saddened to think that a careless phrase, one that indeed seems rather less than meaningful to us, should occasion so much bother to generations then unborn.[/quote] (my emphasis) http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1980s/1980/no-909-may-1980/end-dictatorship-proletariat
We call this system "socialism", but it is the content, not the name, that is important. [/quote]http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1980s/1987/no-996-august-1987/one-green-world
we call it socialism, but which people can call what they like[/quote]http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2000/no-1151-july-2000/how-rts-neglects-need-democratic-control
It is our ideas, our practices, and our values, that makes us the Socialist Party, not simply the word socialist , or even our party name. It wouldn't matter what we call ourselves, as our ideas grow a word would be found to express them, in their full meaning. Since we think that, historically, that word already exists, we choose to use it.[/quote] (my emphasis)http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2002/no-1177-september-2002/%E2%80%9C-rose-any-other-name%E2%80%9D
I cannot really see the problem here. Comrades, myself included, have merely suggested that we consider if there is a "better" way to get our message over. Nobody is talking of "ditching" anything, for the time being at least. What I would like to see, is a root and branch appraisal of our methods, language included.We have at least to admit, that up until the present day, we have not been overly successful in growing the "movement" and that, at the end of the day, is what we are about. Not the old military adage of "boots on the ground", more a case of "minds in the crowd". There should be nothing "off limits", in a discussion of this kind. Nothing sacrosanct, no, no-go areas.Nobody should think that anyone is treading on anyones toes, nothing could be farther from the truth. I would take as a truism, that everyone has the movements best interests and success at heart.
twc wrote:I suggest your football team needs far more soul searching than the party.I don't support footy teams, twc. I support my class and the Party I first joined 33 years ago and of course, my family and friends. "I" suggest, that the Party needs to search, not it's soul, but it's "methodology"! If we had been successful in pursuit of our objective, there would be no problem but we haven't been. As AJJ has posited, we need to re-evaluate our way of advocating, "our aim"! We cannot assume that the past and the way we have propogated the case, has been successful, it has not. Ergo, we must look for the "best way" to push our position!twc and others, must put aside there predilection for thinking that the past, is cast in stone. That our "fotefathers" cannot be gainsaid. We have "not" succeeded in forging a "movement" by our methods in the past nor, the present, so as intelligent members of the human race, we must conclude that we need to change the way we put our message across. It is not "heresy" to say that we need to "change"! As Socialists we most assuredly need to open ourselves to the fact, that we need to change our approach.Live in the past, die in the present.
Hi Rod, I appreciate your response and have been thinking about my reply, even before you asked for it! What I can say is, something I have already posted;"We have at least to admit, that up until the present day, we have not been overly successful in growing the "movement" and that, at the end of the day, is what we are about. Not the old military adage of "boots on the ground", more a case of "minds in the crowd". There should be nothing "off limits", in a discussion of this kind. Nothing sacrosanct, no, no-go areas.We should, as a Party, consider "everything", root and branch. As I said in the post quoted above, nothing should be "sacrosanct nor off limits"Obviously within this remit, we do not lessen "our" hostility to Capitalism. We do not lessen "our" opposition to reformism, which plan leaves the cause of the problems intact but merely fiddles with some of the consequences.As a Party of intelligent, informed workers, surely it is not beyond the bounds of reason, that we come together and realise a coherent, workable solution to the problems that Capitalism, by it's very nature, throws up.I am not the "oracle at Delphi", nor do I profess to be but what I do know is, that if hundreds of committed, understanding Socialists, (workers) cannot come up with a workable alternative to Capitalism, I.E. a positive slant on an "alternative" way to organise "our" lives and a constructive and positive way to pass this on to "our" fellows, we are, to coin a phrase, "fucked".So instead of accepting this, let's put our minds together, stop debating who farted and which way the wind is blowing and get on with debating "our" best route out of this hell hole, (Capitalism).Steve Colborn.P.S.Rod, what do you suggest and all our other Socialist brothers and sisters, as an avenue for advancement. As I've postulated before, many heads are better than one, or even two!
IMHO, i think we have to begin to express our case in the best way possible, using the best means possible, at our disposal. We have seen ideologues with no real party organisation, structure or membership such as Positive Money make an impact using the net and then follow up that success with physical meetings. I suggest we make (but probably realistically – commission) a series of 10-minute videos that each concentrates on one particular area of our argument that will resonate with an audience already questioning that topic where we would receive a more welcome reception. We know a successful well-made video can go viral (relatively) on social media. This will entail the creation of draft rough scripts that we outsource to professional film-makers or animators. It also means not being scared to rip off other peoples/groups ideas/themes …Hollywood does it all the time.It will be up to members then to post links as widely as possible and start discussions and threads on other websites, blogs, which is activities that many can participate in, if they are online. During the Euros sparked of a number of letters to local press. There are many local blogs too that are often neglected.This means the prioritising spending the funds that we have sitting in the bank. As i suggested we do several videos and a few can be experimental trials, using non-Marxist language, describing in more detail (an outline of a blueprint) socialism. Some animated cartoons, some interviews/talking heads. The possibilities are boundless.I'm saying nothing i haven't said previously but despite the silence and inaction, i still think it is the beginning. Elections are periodic, every few years. Demonstrations sporadic and we often never turn up at them so we need to have a constant continul presence and considering our few numbers, plus the physical inability of many of us to join in, one of our few options is to use the web more effectively than we do. I recall John Bisset tried to initiate a project Socialist TV…a few of our own videos but a great number of others that mostly presented the party case. YouTube etc proved to be our best source of an audience for the election braodcast. Maybe we could try a stand-alone channel eventually but strating with You Tube.It is not Democracy Now but building towards a very limited version, beginning with a selection of videos.Thats my dream at the moment. Offering people a vision of socialism since right now achieving socialism simply isn't going to happen until they do begin to imagine the vision as a viable reality.
To me, "World In Common" sums us up best. Or "The World for the Workers", which we use already. They also beg a lot of questions of course – but we're good at answering those, when anybody bothers to ask.We may get a certain way by pushing well-chosen epithets or slogans (not that we have so far) but the real answer is education, and unfortunately that's a slog. There are at least now a lot of groups and individuals groping in the right direction. One day it will build up to a "sea-change" in ideas and that's what we need to tap into.Having said that, it's catchphrases and slogans that stick in people's minds, and there's something to be said for simply ramming assertions into people's brains in an attempt to dislodge what's already there. At least now we have a bit of dosh. To suggest a brutalist approach, we could always try splashing out on a capitalist-style ad campaign to get our Big Words out there – in newspapers or on large hoardings or electronic screens like, say, the one in Manchester Piccadilly Gardens – but I suspect we don't have anywhere near enough money for that kind of thing, even if we could get away with it. And I'm sure it's been suggested several times before.I also like the idea of more short, well-produced Youtube videos. But they should pack a punch; we should consider using actors – there must be plenty of out-of-work thespians whose fee demands we could meet. They might even spread the word for us.
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