Investing SPGB funds
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An argument could be made that the SPGB crossed the Rubicon in 1967 when funds were deposited in an interest bearing bank account.
Couldn't funds be spent? Reduce the 'profit' by increasing 'expenditure' without reducing the turnover?
Ed wrote:Rather than the thread being about the evils of charity, I am more interested in the fact that in order to secure the greatest return on their investment they had to compromise their principles and contradict their aims.It is only capitalist companies and charitable trusts that are forced to seek the greatest return on their investment, either by the economic force of competition or by law or both.Charities and other trusts are in fact under greater pressure to maximise the money entrusted to them than companies as they are legally obliged to seek this. If they don't the trustees can be done. This does not apply to individuals or unincorporated associations (which the party is) which can use their money as they please. In any event, I'm not as pessimistic as Ed that Party members should have voted 3 to 2 in favour of the principle of placing funds not for immediate use in some investment fund. My guess is that the members who voted for this did so as a way of trying to protect such funds from being whittled away by inflation rather than because they want the party to see "the greatest return", i.e the majority voted not to make a profit but to not make a loss. I can't see this as compromising our principles (even though I didn't vote for it, because I don't think it practicable for us).If the question had been "Are you in favour of the party placing funds not needed for immediate use where they can secure the greatest return?" there would surely have been a quite different result.
Perhaps the SPGB should have nothing to do with capitalist wages and money!What about all the food produced by those in severe poverty. Should we boycot that? What about Walmart and the way it treats its workers? Sould we boycot Walmart? The tea and coffee in head office! Is that in anyway linked to Walmart or slave labour? What about the SPGB's association with the capitalist Engels? And indeed did Marx not consume some of the surplus value of the workers while producing the revolutionary Capital? Sorry comrade Engels I must not touch that bread it is so immoral!What would those reformist organisations think of the SPGB if they found out that you shopped in Walmart? Who cares?I would gamble that the vote relates directly to the 'morality' vote within the SPGB As I say morality is like a religion and leads to compromise, procrastination and reformism.
Vin Maratty wrote:I would gamble that the vote relates directly to the 'morality' vote within the SPGB.Don't you mean , the 'anti-morality' vote?. I'm not sure they are connected. After all, does saying that socialism is not an ethical issue imply that anything goes, even from a socialist party? I don't think so.
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