alanjjohnstone
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How regular do you think you can produce “World News” in the future.
That seems to me a very promising initiative.
I also assume your branch will carry on doing street stalls and use them as outlets to distribute future issues.
Our Welsh comrades fully intend to continue with their regular street stalls. It would be good if they also had a locally published newsletter to hand out as well.
Campaign activity doesn’t end with the closing of the polling stations, as we all know.
The political commentator Jonathan Cook’s insightful take on the result
“…We lost our last illusions. The system is rigged – as it always has been – to benefit those in power. It will never willingly allow a real socialist, or any politician deeply committed to the health of our societies and to the planet, to take that power away from the corporate class. That, after all, is the very definition of power. That is what the corporate media is there to achieve…”
“My suspicion is that Left wing supporters of Labour are now likely to be one or two notches higher in their receptivity to socialist ideas.”
But the problem has always been what do they mean by “socialist ideas”
They have always had this view that it was state ownership and control. Lately, they adapted this state-socialism to include the co-operative-model ownership.
With Sanders and the progressive wing of the Democrats, socialism means the welfare state and wealth re-distribution through some taxation reforms government regulation.
The concept of socialism as understood by even the gradualists of the 19th C /early 20thC and continued by ourselves no longer exists as a movement.
Our task is to re-build it by once more giving it again a concrete form, to make it something tangible to experience now and give it an immediacy and not some far-off distant ultimate goal.
Do we do this by returning to Marx and “real” socialism?
Or do we re-start all over again and begin afresh?
Can we pix and mix the best of both?
It occurred to me that Marx and Engels were not so fixated with labels. After all the rejected the word socialism on the grounds that there were just too many variants of it being expressed so they opted for the term “communist” manifesto and got the League of the Just to change its name to the “Communist” League to single themselves out as different.
If we already must spend a great amount of time to define our terms to make clear our politics, disassociating our case from all others claiming to be socialist, will it be any more harder or complicated if we chose an entirely new name that we have to explain.
Some already in the Party think we are on a losing battle to retain even our own name “Socialist Party” from SPEW’s theft of it.
Shall we perhaps extend this surrender to the much wider aspect of socialism/communism?
Or do we become accused of dogmatism and sectarianism by engaging in theoretical polemics to regain possession of socialist ideas.
Much of what I am saying is based on the belief that we have not made any progress since 1904, that we are even further away from socialism than ever before and if it does arrive, it will be as that old saying …it’ll sneak up on us in the middle of the night without us knowing. We won’t be responsible for establishing it.
Just some random thoughts for what must be a lengthy debate by ourselves. People are fickle. Views and attitudes swing wildly especially when it comes to voting. Shouldn’t we be endeavouring to seek out what principles are held constant by our fellow-workers and build upon those.
My self-enforced exile has ended with the end of the dreams, hopes and aspirations of the Left Labourites.
It is time to assess our response to the politics of today and to make it relevant to what may now be a more receptive section of audience. I’m open to all suggestions and proposals.
I am convinced that things have changed…but not so much because of the defeat of Labour. Nor am I convinced that it has changed for the better.
Perhaps our prospective constituency has shrunk… and so it might be easier to identify.
That is terrific news, Robbo.
Can you say how the two new members and the prospective learned of the WSPUS and how the estranged ex-members got connected again with the WSPUS. Was he contacted directly?
Can you give their locations (i’m hoping they live close enough to develop face-to-face interaction)
I now always try to link to the WSPUS on various US progressive websites when it is relevant and does not appearing as spamming. Hopefully it is adding to the visitor traffic to the WSPUS website.
So now Robbo thinks out future strategy is to target the disillusioned Labour Party supporter who trusted in reformist promises as the way forward.
It still leaves the question of how.
What should be our tactics in attracting those Labour Party supporters who thought Corbyn and McDonnell and Momentum could deliver a friendly welfare state?
UK is still polarised between Brexit nationalists and Remain Euro-nationalists.
The SNP intend to step up their Scottish nationalism.
What should be our core message, our key to opening up some sort of dialogue about our socialism?
Do we claim to be the possessors of “true” socialism against all these heretics and non-believers? Are we intending to become evangelical socialists, proselytising our “true” socialism to convert the beliefs of left reformists?
We need to know what style of campaigning we will embark upon if you now think you have settled my earlier question – which section of the people we aim to recruit.
Disillusioned Labourites. Or as others suggest, Deluded Ecologists.
Both need to be imbued with new hope and the realisation that the impossible is possible, to echo one of our slogans.
How are we going to do it? Surely not by persisting with our previous approach. So what have we to actually change to fit the conditions and circumstances we face?
As I am forever saying, this needs the collective group-think of the Party to resolve. A special conference of all the WSM companion parties. That in itself would be a major move forward for us.
88 votes for Brian
https://www.bbc.com/news/politics/constituencies/W07000050
0.2% compared to Andy’s 0.1% but still bottom like Andy
As John Oswald expressed it “Capitalist elections and politics are about personalities.”
There was no doubt that the continual smear campaign from all the media against Corbyn since he became Labour Party leader worked successfully.
Added to that, Brexit dithering and the overturning the 2016 referendum and calling for a second referendum to pander to the majority of the UK capitalist class, showed that he was not a politician of principle.
Bijou is right. We must return to socialist fundamentals but they need to be expressed in a different language. Our terminology has been tainted over generations and we have to address this directly. We have to distinguish ourselves from both the Old Labour of Corbyn and the Democratic Socialism of Sanders.
I know we and others have tried without much progress to try new ways to promote socialism. We had the Movement for Free Access dropping the word socialism and we had our video Kids Stuff making no reference to the word socialism. The Zeitgeist Movement also tried and after some initial promising impetus they seem to have stalled, too. Such efforts resulted in not very much of a response but were they mistaken in their basis that people might be more receptive to socialist ideas if we used other words to describe our ideas?
We have to debate and discuss this.
We have to ask ourselves that because our language is misconstrued and misinterpreted, should we jettison it?
Also we must question whether in the end it really matters because we will always be accused of being socialists and communists and Marxists. We would be accused of deceit and subterfuge rather than political honesty
As the Manifesto says – “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.”
But can we defeat the overwhelming power and dominance of capitalist ideology spread by its institutions. Again we are reminded of another observation of Marx, “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.” Our class enemies have all the advantages of the tools of propaganda, manipulation, advertising, from the press to the movies.
We surely cannot believe we can counter the media, the university professors and intellectuals, the politicians and all those on the Left and Right who have distorted and corrupted the original tenets of socialism.
No worker can be blamed for not understanding what is meant by socialism and associating our “real” socialism with all those “false” socialisms.
But do we throw out the baby with the bathwater?
If we retain the way we present our Marxist thought, can we do it in a way that resonates with people?
Bijou seems to imply that our target audience should be the Labourite and Leftist.
Others recently suggest it should be the climate activists.
Our lack of replies ALB reminds us in a comment on the forum
“Some replies from the election leaflets delivered by the post office but hardly any by comparison. Which was our experience in the euroelections too. There may be a lesson to be learnt here. Something to do with getting a better response from targeted distribution as opposed to distributing to everyone.”
Who do we aim our message at?
Get that question right and then we are on our way to a revival of the Party.
Seems like some people persist in their denial and believe we still possess a noticeable political presence with our token gesture of 2 or 3 candidates in elections every few years, from a HO that we are unable to even keep clean and tidy without seeking professional commercial assistance.
I’d like to think we retain a relevance, too…but alas…
So to let this forum get back to its customary vibrant and active state, where it is engaging with the changing political situation and attracting an audience from the younger generation, I am logging out and will maintain logged out so not to distract others from fighting the good fight with my glass-half-empty pessimistic negativism (or as I would put it, telling a few unwelcomed home truths and suggesting we address our weaknesses and failures rather than burying our heads in the sand until the next rich member passes away and leaves an inheritance)
A thought exercise for you, Bijou.
Imagine a SPGB that has not been left substantial amounts of money in legacies.
Could it pay the bills for the upkeep of HO? Could it afford the expenses of election campaigns? Could it spend money on the Summer School and other similar activities? Could it maintain the Socialist Standard at the same high quality as you rightly describe it to be. Could the current membership dues and donations compensate for our present Party funds if they weren’t there. Could we substitute actual physical propaganda activity for lack of finances? Could we go on as a Party?
That is how we define the health of our organization.
Ignore the LibDems example, oranges and apples, but look instead at those parties that reflect the nature of ourselves better – the SLP and the ILP.
We are a dead men’s party surviving on its late members bequests.
Such is the truth of the matter.
Being on life-support is not living, Bijou, but it’s appreciated that you are trying to re-fill my half-empty glass.
Sorry to disillusion you, Robbo, but the last Party poll showed a return of ballots of only a hundred and I would be delighted if that reflected those members who are involving themselves more. Branches are inactive and dormant. Our public meetings are member-only affairs. Branch meetings barely achieve quota requirements. An illness or death can be terminal for a branch. Conference and ADM are not fully represented by branch delegates. Some branches are merging, some have two-monthly branch meetings to be fully operational
We are struggling to maintain what demographics call the replacement level.
I think you are responding like those zoos who celebrate every birth of giant panda baby.
The benefit of Bijou’s strategy is that it is also aimed at agitation among the community, but Paddy’s is far more focused upon existing members and maintaining their commitment. Much like Manchester’s regular nature walks. The residential Summer School is positive event which nurtures sympathisers. Once a year and only in Birmingham is not suffice. It should be expanded elsewhere.
I have already put forward my views on the need for internet campaigns and even more fundamental adaptation of the Party such as transforming the Socialist Standard into an interactive E-Zine, the SPGB into a functioning Skype-based type World Party (already EC meetings are using this remote attendance and no reason why Canadian, American Indian and New Zealand companion Party , as well as far-flung members like yourself and myself and RobertS in Norway and Janet and Alan in Turkey can not become more involved in the running of a World Socialist Party we already do at the committee level)
The downside is that just as TZM you cannot remain an internet organization, you need to be seen on the street, and it was their participation on a protest march with the home-made banner “Abolish Money” that first caught the attention of our members. BrianJ spent time engaging them on the web and Paddy was interviewed on their internet radio channel. They can offer much more insight on their strengths where we can learn from and their weakness we ourselves can build upon than I can.
Can re-structuring and re-focusing the Party fix our problems. Some but not all. I really think it is our distance from various diverse social movements, our prospective potential audience and future members, which is our core weakness. We don’t need to embrace reformism to engage with reformists. This means addressing our basic principles such as our hostility clause. Something I find members are very reluctant to do, judging by the reaction and skepticism to Lancaster’s discussion items.
We say that establishing socialism is not reliant on the existence and activities of the SPGB but we certainly act as if it does…it reduces our willingness to experiment and be adventurous…Those discovering socialism independently of us are not going to replicate our early 1900 political traditions.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/sep/25/global-recession-a-serious-danger-in-2020-says-un
The UN’s trade and development body, Unctad, said 2019 will endure the weakest expansion in a decade and there was a risk of the slowdown turning into outright contraction next year. The UN said warning lights were flashing around trade wars, currency gyrations, the possibility of a no-deal Brexit and movements in long-term interest rates but there was little sign that policymakers were prepared for the coming storm.
Several big emerging countries were already in recession and some advanced economies, including Germany and the UK, were dangerously close to one.
Central banks , including the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, have recently announced interest cuts in an attempt to stimulate activity but the UN report was pessimistic about the chances of success.
“The slowdown in growth in all the major developed economies, including the US, confirms that relying on easy monetary policy and asset price rises to stimulate demand produces, at best, ephemeral growth, while tax cuts for corporations and wealthy individuals fail to trigger productive investment.”
Unconventional monetary measures – such as negative interest rates and creating money through quantitative easing – remained the go-to policies for addressing weaknesses in the global economy even though they have had a weak record since the financial crisis.Kristalina Georgieva has said the global economy needs to be ready to cope with a fresh economic downturn after being chosen to head the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The economist said she was taking charge of the Washington-based organisation at a time when growth was slowing, trade tensions growing and with debt at record levels.
