General Election
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The winner is capitalism and the loser is the working class. Electing anybody of both sides would be the same
Labour Transformed, a new Labour Party group, talking the talk…but will they walk the walk
https://labourtransformed.org/
https://www.facebook.com/labourtransformed/
We are anti-capitalists. We share an opposition to capitalism, a system based on exploitation, competitive accumulation, and an absence of real democracy. In order to be meaningful, this opposition must take the form of class struggle, the struggle of the working class, using its own instruments and initiative, against exploitation and its enforcers. In this we recognise the importance of Marxist, feminist and anti-colonial critiques of capitalism that have informed and shaped the history of socialism.
We are socialists. We are committed to systems of collective, democratic ownership and control of the economy, and we recognise the need to move beyond the limitations of social democracy. For us, socialism is the self-management of life and work by and for the working class itself.We are internationalist. The working class is divided by national borders and identities, further fractured by capitalist social relationships which limit its collective capacity to transform the world in line with socialist principles. We stand in solidarity with workers in the global south who are currently at the coal face of capitalist exploitation, and we recognise the importance of building alliances and solidarity across borders.
We support meaningful direct action. By this we mean whatever activity increases the confidence, the autonomy, the initiative, the participation, the solidarity, the egalitarian tendencies and the self-activity of the working class and whatever furthers its political consciousness. Socialism cannot, nor could it ever be delivered by parliamentary means alone. As such we will pay attention to, and engage with, extra-parliamentary campaigns, supporting these struggles without subordinating them to the Labour Party.
I think it indicates that rather than seek out the Socialist Party as some of us are hoping, those who might share some of our ideas will persist within the Labour Party and carry on banging their heads against the brick wall. That last bit, BTW, makes me think someone has been reading old Solidarity stuff
I think it indicates that rather than seek out the Socialist Party as some of us are hoping, those who might share some of our ideas will persist within the Labour Party and carry on banging their heads against the brick wall.
Perhaps they ought to be contacted and asked to explain how some of their ideas are compatible with them remaining in a capitalist political party albeit one with good intentions
I think we may have been down this road before with Left Unity and to a lesser degree with Occupy St Pauls. Some, but not all, of Labour Transformed will be fixated with their own analyses and unreceptive to those that challenge them. They will be at the proselytising stage of a new organisation, full of optimism and eager enthusiasm to grow in size
Of course, I’m in favour of contact and creating a dialogue if they will offer us a hearing and are willing to listen.
How will it be done?
Another open letter? Naw.
I propose it is we who give them the hearing and that we are the ones who first listen.
Can I suggest the Party officially invite them to send a spokesperson and/or delegation to HO to address us. Not in the style of a formal debate but giving them a platform to convince us of their merits in a Q and A forum.
Just a first sign that they are not interested in us, but will be setting up another bunch of reformist parties.
When people say they are anti-capitalist, don’t assume they know what capitalism is!
And I agree with Marcos.
If we truly are to have confidence in the working class, why do we assume the Left are the ones more likely to kick things off: with their long training in leftist contempt for us?
They are the ones responsible for our isolation, and their language repels the majority of workers.
Again, it won’t be Marxist language that helps anything forward, but rather the need for planetary survival.I think, for what it matters, labour’s defeat wasn’t a case of a rejection of his ‘leftist’ position.
I personally know two Corbynists who held their noses and voted conservative because of their strong pro brexit opinions.
Personally I just can’t connect with any of that idea.
I suppose there is some kind of irony that probably the rightwing of labour, still entrenched in the bureaucracy and members of parliament, lost labour the election by dragging it towards more of a remain position?
And now, along with the talking heads of the BBC and Guardian, they are blaming the ‘exaggerated failure’ on Corbyn’s ‘leftist policy’.
I think all that is well ‘understood’ at the grassroots level and even though that might be a mystery to many in the matrix of the mainstream media which has a totally different message.
On Brexit I think it will be back to square one; with the EU continuing with the Teresa May deal or no Deal.
The EU are going to continue with punitive alternatives to remaining; to dissuade others from following the example.
On another issue we may find ourselves a bit flat footed.
We have traditionally argued for a system change and an ‘economy that is not based on profit and endless growth’ because it involves the exploitation of the individuals who are members of the working class etc?
And been ignored.
There now is a mass spontaneous movement that has the potential to transition to the same place?; motivated by something else?
“…Our aims: We aim to identify the roots of our current climate crisis and uproot them, denounce pseudo-solutions (like emission trading or the belief in technological miracles) and advocate real alternatives to the status quo. We want to pioneer the transition to a socio-environmental society. This includes a transformation to an economy that is not based on profit and endless growth, but one that respects ecological limits and enables a “good life” for everyone…..”
https://systemchange-not-climatechange.at/en/who-we-are/
I suppose it is interesting as that general thing can be seen as having quality of deferred, in the future, selfless aesthetics to it?
Or; it will be a bit shit to see or think about things turning out like that; but what the hell I will be dead by then?
But, as one of those conservative voting Corbynista’s said to me on election night, climate change is rattling along faster than they ever thought it would and it will now be no place in 30 years for ‘old men’ like us; or women for that matter.
Which as regards Greta Thunberg etc cuts across the trans generational divide if nothing else.
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/12/17/letter-from-britain-why-labour-lost/
The workers who voted for Donald Trump are the same workers who voted for Barack Obama and George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan, peoples oscillate from one political side to another political side but they continue supporting capitalism, they are not anti-capitalist yet, they are discontent with certain capitalist measures only
The workers who voted for Fernandez Fernandez in Argentina are the same ones who voted for the right-winger known as Macri, and they were the same one who removed Fernandez from power and voted for her again and she became the vice-president of Argentina
In Bolivia, many natives do not support Evo Morales any more and they are supporting the military coup.
In Venezuela, there are workers who supported Hugo Chavez, but they do not support Maduro including members of the so-called Communist Party of Venezuela
The workers who voted for Ignacio Lula in Brasil are the same workers who voted for Bolsonaro and the fanatics religious leaders
The problem is not right or left, the main problem is that at the present time most workers do not have the proper political and class consciousness and they are following leaders.
The message of the Socialist Party must be the same message that has been carried for more than 100 years, for the workers who supported right-wingers and the workers who support left-wingers.
The discontent leftist can build 100 of new political institutions but they do not have the same principles as the Socialist Party of Great Britain including the elimination of the wage system, all of them support wage slavery, and the oppressive measure of the state, they just want a regulated capitalist system.
The message of the SPGB is unique in England, Europe, Asia, USA, Australia, Africa, and on another planet, but it must expand itself outside of the national frontiers
If we truly are to have confidence in the working class, why do we assume the Left are the ones more likely to kick things off: with their long training in leftist contempt for us?
They are the ones responsible for our isolation, and their language repels the majority of workers.And yet it remains the case that the Left are more receptive to socialist ideas than the Right. I am willing to bet good money that far more members of the WSM came from a Left or labour background than came from a Right or Tory background. This has implications for how we target our propaganda
This landed in my in-tray
Might be worth contributing to the comments section
“This has implications for how we target our propaganda”
Words are important. Communism even though we insist is the same as socialism is rarely used by the Party due to the common misunderstanding and misinterpretation. In practice we have already opted to employ certain words and not others.
I have mentioned it before.
Our main video does not mention the word “socialism” once.
The World of Free Access dropped the word “socialism”
Zeitgeist chose the expression “resource-based economy.”
Parecon made popular the term “participatory economics” to complement “participatory” democracy.
Many anarcho-ecologists taking a cue from Murray Bookchin talk of a “post-scarcity society” promoting potential abundance as an alternative to current de-growth green narratives.
Then there is “Full Automated Luxury Communism”
In the past the IWW would use the words “industrial democracy” or “economic democracy” as alternative terminology to define the society it aspired towards.
The 19th C and early 20th C socialists sometimes preferred “cooperative commonwealth” as a description of our goal. Not to forget “social democracy”
Marx, himself, used the words “associations of producers”, “associations of free and equal producers”
I suggest that we should tailor or arguments to our audience and update and adapt our language when required. Why reinforce the misconstrued misconceptions, held by many people which is often justified because of the purposeful confusion of what socialism actually means by both the Right and the Left, the media, the education system and by dictionaries.
Are we too fixated upon class struggle when the “Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.” has now been replaced by the mutually assured destruction of the planet because of the inability of the profit system to cure the climate crisis, not as implied the old fashioned class conflict?
Some eco-socialists such as John Bellamy Foster and Richard Smith may have done more to relate Marx to the environment emergency than we have.
How often do our writers and speakers need to qualify “socialism” by adding real socialism, genuine socialism authentic socialism or traditional socialism. Using alternative language means explaining and elaborating on what it means. Well, that is something we do right now. But rather than being negative…what socialism is NOT and tediously offering obscure dusty history lessons.
Instead, we can present a positive image of the future…our post-capitalist society is THIS and THESE are the reasons it will succeed to bring prosperity and plenty on a planet where the fear of many is shortages and depletions of resources, a dystopia and not a utopia.
All this cannot be accomplished over-night and nor can it be realised without a planned-out strategy. Call it a re-branding, a change of image, but the Party has to better reflect today’s world. I simply don’t think we do despite the great opportunities some of the events going on around the world offer us.
I agree with Alan here. We need to address this.
How about “Economic Democracy” – calling for the seizure of the means of production by the whole of society?
This could then be attractive to those like Greta Thunberg and others being constantly smacked in the face by the capitalists and their governments.
We know, of course, that this seizure, or rather, liberation, of the means of production would automatically abolish the wages system. We could stress the linkage with the climate crisis, famine and war without using any Marxist words.
Otherwise, we are turning people off at the very outset, by the words “socialism”, “Marx”, etc.
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