Left Unity.org / People’s Assembly
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Perhaps Left Unity will now soon involve the Catholic Church's left-winghttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-2407922750,000 have signed up supporters of Sister Teresa's policies which are:• A government takeover of all banks and measures to curb financial speculation• An end to job cuts, fairer wages and pensions, shorter working hours and payments to parents who stay at home• Genuine "participatory democracy" and steps to curb political corruption• Decent housing for all, and an end to all foreclosures• A reversal of public spending cuts, and renationalisation of all public services• An individual's right to control their own body, including a woman's right to decide over abortion• "Green" economic policies and the nationalisation of energy companies• An end to xenophobia and repeal of immigration laws• Placing public media under democratic control, including the internet• International "solidarity", leaving Nato, and the abolition of armed forces in a future free Catalonia
According to this article some members of Left Unity are critical of talking politicshttp://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/980/left-culture-politics-for-dummies
How are Trotskyists different from you? On a little bit of research which is all I had time for, all I got out of it was they want global socialism, no states or nations, as do you (and I). Mind filling me in a little as to the difference? I do know some of the history, but it's current approaches i'd like to know about.Thanks!
It is up here: http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/how-spgb-different
Below is an extract,Clearly this is a “broad brush” approach. If this results in minor errors in our assignment of ideas to these groups, we apologize and are willing to make corrections. Overall, however, the comments will give a good perspective of how they differ from the World Socialist Movement (WSM):We believe that socialism will be a wageless, moneyless, free-access society.None agree with this.Most support a market system. Some suggest that a non-capitalist market is possible. These suggestions show a lack of understanding of market economics. While non-capitalist market systems have existed, they are impractical in a modern world. If a “non-capitalist” market system was established it would eventually become a capitalist market system.We believe that leaders are inherently undemocratic; socialists oppose leadership.All support leadership.We believe that socialists shouldn’t work for reforms to capitalism, because only a movement for socialism itself can establish socialism.Those which work for reforms hold either that reforms to capitalism will eventually result in socialism, or that supporting reforms is an appropriate way to convince workers to support socialism.Some put forward a reasonable analysis of capitalism, but then work to give capitalism a “human face”. Some claim that they want to end capitalism. Their bottom line is, however, just capitalism with reforms. Democratic Socialists of America is a good example of this.We believe that socialism will be a cooperative, world wide system, and it has clearly not yet been established.Most, perhaps all, of them support nationalism, which is closely akin to racism (which they explicitly claim to oppose), and in any case hinders worldwide working class solidarity. Nationalism is a concept only useful to separate people, and is therefore anti-working class.We believe that a scientific approach and understanding by the working class are necessary to establish socialism.Generally support emotionalistic campaigns, in which logic and rational analysis are ignored.Any group which wants people to follow their leadership is unlikely to promote real understanding. What needs to be understood if one is just following the leader and doing what one is told?We believe that democratically capturing the state through parliamentary elections is the safest, surest method for the working class to enable itself to establish socialism.Most seem to support this, parliamentary, approach at some level. But their commitment varies so that some support both parliamentarism and anti-parliamentarism at the same time.This list is by no means complete. It is only intended to put some real names to parties claiming to be “socialist”. If you have a specific interest in one not on the list, send us some of their literature, or preferably a few issues of their journal, and we’ll consider adding them—and our critique.Seems to me that one of the problems with Left Unity is that it's a beaureacratic response to a perceived lack of unity within the working class in the fight against the current austerity attacks rather than a development from within the working class itself. As such it will inevitably fall into either small splinter groups arguing amongst themselves and poisening the atmosphere for those new to left politics or it will become the fiefdom of a small unrepresentative clique.The solution to such disunity seems to me to partially arise out of the fact that the capitalist class has suceeded in marginalising any idea that there can be an alternative way of organising society than of capitalism. While I agree that the previous descriptions of socialism was state capitalism for the majority of the working class the reality was that either the Labour Party or the old CPGB were regarded as being socialist. It seems to me that what is needed is to start again in some ways and present to workers the idea that socialism is essentially democratic and that the wealth that is collectively produced should also be used to solve social problems rather than going into capitalist speculation. This seems to me to be a potentially better solution rather than looking to some sort of organisational fix.One last thing I am new here and have enjoyed reading the recent pack that has been sent. Look forward to reading more about the SPGB.
Dave wrote:It seems to me that what is needed is to start again in some ways and present to workers the idea that socialism is essentially democratic and that the wealth that is collectively produced should also be used to solve social problems rather than going into capitalist speculation.Exactly, and that's what we tried to do during the whole period last century of Labour/Communist Party domination of radical working class thought, campaigning for socialism (defined as the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production) while they concentrated on try to get reforms to capitalism and/or state capitalism. What is still needed today is to campaign for socialism and a socialist party to do this in an organised way. Which is what we do.
ALB when you talk about campaigning for socialism I wondered what you means by this. Is it the same as the reformists or even the so called revolutionary left when they become involved in say campaigns to defend the NHS without mentioning that a true NHS which will deliver quality health care to all is impossible under capitalism and that it's only with a global socialist society that such a service can be provided. In fact when poverty, poor housing, wages etc are abolished then health issues will also be significantly reduced. In the case of LU and PA one flaw out of many is that they do not even mention that socialism is the abolishment of capitalist conditions.I've been reading the package I received regarding the SPGB and agree with a lot I have read and do see the need for a socialist organisation that focuses on the self emancipation of the working class as the only road to a global socialist society. After all both previously tried paths in the UK and even globally, be it through the LP or through vanguardism has failed miserably. the former have completely capitulated to capitalism while the latter have never had any significant support withing the working class of any country. Maybe the time has come for the growth of the SPGB.
When SPGB members say campaigning for socialism, the SPGB don't mean campaigning in the sense of the word as lobbying the ruling class for a settlement.
Dave wrote:I've been reading the package I received regarding the SPGB and agree with a lot I have read and do see the need for a socialist organisation that focuses on the self emancipation of the working class as the only road to a global socialist society. After all both previously tried paths in the UK and even globally, be it through the LP or through vanguardism has failed miserably. the former have completely capitulated to capitalism while the latter have never had any significant support withing the working class of any country. Maybe the time has come for the growth of the SPGB.There have never been any attempts to establish socialism either by Labour Party or vanguardist means. What has been called 'socialism' have either been measures to provide palliatives to capitalism or to introduce a variant of it such as state capitalism in Russia, China, Cuba and elsewhere.Reforms are legislative and other enactments deemed necessary for governments in running the various forms of capitalism. The Socialist Party is opposed to reformism – the policy of advocating reforms, either as a way of 'improving' capitalism or as a means to socialism – but we are not necessarily opposed to individual reforms which may be of benefit to the working class. However we do not advocate any reform, because we hold that to do so would lead to a socialist party changing into a reformist party, attracting the support of non-socialists.
Dave wrote:ALB when you talk about campaigning for socialism I wondered what you means by this. Is it the same as the reformists or even the so called revolutionary left when they become involved in say campaigns to defend the NHS without mentioning that a true NHS which will deliver quality health care to all is impossible under capitalism and that it's only with ! global socialist society that such a service can be provided.No, not at all ! I meant literally campaigning directly for socialism (as a classless, stateless, wageless society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, with distribution on the principle of "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs"), not for reforms to capitalism however desirable these might seem but, as you say, probably won't or can't be.Here's an example of the sort of leaflet we put out for, eg, "Save the NHS" campaigns:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/world-socialist-movement/whittington-hospital
Ex-member and critic, Andrew Northall, has a letter in WW concerning the SPGB unity position, more or less accusing ourselves of insincerity. The latest EC minutes appear to refute such a claim. http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/982/letters
Tony Benn http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/27/tony-benn-labour-ralph-miliband He was never tempted to leave Labour to set up an out-and-out socialist party. "I don't believe in the idea that you can build a new socialist party," he says. "There have been lots of attempts to do it, and they've all failed. There is a radical element, and that element ought to be able to live within the Labour party. Rival organisations under individuals don't survive. Arthur Scargill's party didn't survive." Labour, he says, is at its best when it is a coalition. "That coalition allows in people who in other parts of the world would be expelled from the party. The development of the Stop the War movement [of which he is president] and the campaign against austerity has influenced the thinking of the Labour party, and when that happens it begins to influence the thinking of the public. Those in the party who are now working to build cooperative relationships with single-issue groups are the people to watch. "What happened in 2007-8 is now used by the government as an example of the failure of the Labour party. But the changes that were brought about led to a need to think about something more radical, and more radical ideas – on, for instance, public ownership and education – would win popular support if they were presented to the public." I was not sure whether to laugh or cry as i read this until he concluded "In some ways," he says, "the test of politics is whether your mind is fixed on the future or the past, and I always try to keep my mind fixed on the future." This is our task…and one shared by many others who no longer care about 1917 or 1936 or 1968. Important lessons from our history for sure…but we got to offer confidence and hope…George Sorel's revolutionary myth, if necessary.
Whats sorely missing from popular debate today is the perspective of a clear socialist alternative where workers move from being the objects of pity which Benn and others on the left see to our own self liberating collective subjects. To do this we need to somehow reclaim and renew the visionary project that was so common to the struggles of the past before state capitalist solutions to poverty, poor housing, unemployment etc took pver. There are no more William Morris's and Owen Jones is a poor substitute.What I know for certain is that the alternatives being proposed to the Labour Party such as Left Unity, Peoples Assembly, TUSC on offer at the moment are no solution and if anything will end up demoralising those workers especially the younger ones who may have had no contact with socialist ideas. Also the two trends from the past, the reformist and the "Leninist" trend have also up to now have had very little success in either negating the trend of capitalism to systemic crisis or to have failed to build a democratic mass working class movement that will negate capitalism and replace it with a democratic socialist system.Maybe there is space for the SPGB to start to build a socialist political party made up of class conscious workers who have irrevocably broken from capitalism. I don't know I suppose only time will tell.
Dave wrote:Maybe there is space for the SPGB to start to build a socialist political party made up of class conscious workers who have irrevocably broken from capitalism. I don't know I suppose only time will tell.The SPGB has been around for over a hundred years and it's now more important than ever that we build that party. To do that we need class conscious workers like you.
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