alanjjohnstone
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So let us discuss the content.The SS editors, if i am correct, are presently under a mandate to ensure that the articles are aimed at the general ordinary reader and it excludes articles of deeper theory, hence the lack of discussion on the tendency of the declining rate of profit, etc. What guidance should there be instead? Who do we aim at? Preach to the congregation or seek out the politically floating?The regular layout team has resigned therefore there is plenty of opportunities to address this issue. However, do we have the skilled members to undertake the task. Alternatively, are we prepared to pay for its outsourcing either by the printers or sub-contactors?Raising the price. Since on of the reasons offered for the Standards continued print-run was its accessibility does a higher price help the street sales at protests and demonstrations and street stalls? Perhaps you can provide the sales figures through commercial outlets for the higher priced Socialist Review. I don't think i have walked into a newsagent and seen it on the shelves. But if you look back at past conferences, Lancaster Br suggested just that solution. As for the Big Issue, perhaps we could enlist several hundred street-sellers and give them the price margin profit you say we could offer the magazine chains. But would they find a Marxist journal a big seller? We could try our best to eliminate the price entirely and turn it into a free-sheet magazine…Like the Metro…and as i think someone suggested…leave it around buses and trains. But as i often said…theme special issues to coincide with large political events (a reminder to some on the thread that i have never undervalued the worth of print material, i simply argue horses for courses) Once more, these "hundreds of monthly subscribers", just who are they? Members or the public or institutions? When was the last readership survey done? Surely a SAE can be enclosed in a future issue with a consumer survey questionnaire and, as some do, a raffle prize for returning (free book or pamphlet?). Why not ask the readers what they wish to see in the Standard. Or do you think the membership would continue to put their views and wishes to the forefront, regardless of what non-members desire?Apples and oranges. i am afraidMorning Star is heavily supported and subsidised by trade unions, are they not? They employ professional NUJ journalists to ensure newspaper content. Without the online version of the Weekly Worker, it would be insignificant and very much under the radar of many.You have me on the AWL's Solidarity, i know very little of it to comment. But JDW, we are now getting closer to a better debate…how to improve and change the Standard to make it more receptive.
Just a postscript – yes i have to acknowledge we have a new advertising campaign – and i hope it does result in new readers – but something a lot more is required than simply inserts in existing magazines – and with respect to those who will try hard to implement such a campaign, it does smack of the little boy with his finger in the leaking dyke. I believe thousands of pounds has to be put aside to a sustained ad campaign but more importantly we have to return to the question of how the Standard can be re-themed to capture an increased audience. I recall once that we have a party debate column where members exchange opinions and it has been suggested we make use of guest writers. Isn't this what we should be discussing, now that Lancaster's proposal has fallen. Time to move on to raise more ideas on how to raise the Standard's public profile. BTW, Who is doing the vital task of lay-out and front-cover design?
JDW, As materialists, we are not determinists and therefore no-one is excluding the possibility of a growth in the print-run circulation, although i myself view it as an unlikely possibility. Nor has anyone said there should not be a printed version of the Standard but that a print version of the e-zine is produced regularly, the frequency being unagreed but i would go for quarterly. At the moment we have an online duplicate of the print-run. What is being really suggested is that the focus no longer remains concentrated on a printed Socialist Standard but our aim is primarily shifted to the internet version that becomes updated and amended daily and weekly. Jacobin – average a print-run of 36,000 copies. But online it has over 1,200,000 visitors. Staff involved in its production about 40.(It has scores of readers groups just to relate to my previous post point)Having started in end of 2010 and i think Jacobin managed to tap into the general revival of radical thought in the USA and in many ways reflects that audience. If we are to grow – i think we need to take more cognisance of any potential readers out there to reach…and can anybody say that we have a policy of attracting those. Jacobin has a model that appears to work for them = Hence they have begun to produce yet another print journal called Catalyst, a more theoretical/academic magazine. But let us be clear, we would not be having this debate if the print Standard was a growing success. It isn't and i'd be happy to engage in debate and discussion on the ways and means of reversing the declining trend. The onus is upon those who support the continuance of the print run to come up with the measures and future plans to reverse the fall in circulation and lack of readers and i eagerly await the proposals
Quote:Your primary tap root has to be grounded in the physical reality of face to face contacts, not cyberspace. The internet must of course be exploited in any way you can but it should be seen as supplementing not replacing physical organising and activitymy emphasis In a couple of my response on this thread i drew attention to the neglect of discussing the proposal that the Party moves from a branch-based structure organisation to a national-organised Party and no-one seemed particularly concerned to pick up on this point which i think is much more related to your point, Robbo, of physical face-to-face contact. A print-only or e-zine Standard is simply a vehicle for the party's propaganda whereas the importance of local meetings is vital to just not the democracy of the Party, but the social side of membership and ultimately the survival of the Party. Too often, the only sympathetic relationship for socialists possess is with fellow members and much of the value of branches comes in the post-meeting pub meeting or whatever. Related to this was the item on what are the expected obligations of a member. And i would suggest that an e-zine would involve many more members active in its production than being simply in the role of passive paper-sellers. Of course, we could base the party on Socialist Standard Readers Groups as some left-wing organisations prefer to do as a substitute for a Party…(wasn't this how Militant developed) Perhaps someone who attended conference could sum up the debate on this issue of branch or national structure for us less-fortunate. My own opinion is that with a falling membership, we will continue to lose branches such as recently with EARB and other branches will become "ghost" branches with "phantom" inactive members. The web-based NERB i think has encountered snags that make its model problematic. We'll have to come up with answer to this and adapt somehow to the reality of being a "dying" political party and reversing the trend. As for all the examples being offered, i think the closest comparison is the SLP…no amount of internet activity can replace actual members…or rejuvenate them into active members… Once more i draw attention to the demographics of party members which i keep raising and am not at all apologetic about…Our obituaries are becoming too regular a feature of the Standard, print or otherwise. And as a parting question, when will the situation of an overly-expensive and under-used HO going to be resolved. I suggest tackling the latter as a priority but eventually, we will need to deal with the former.
Paul Mason on Varoufakis new bookhttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/03/yanis-varoufakis-greece-greatest-political-memoir
Quote:Elected politicians have little power; Wall Street and a network of hedge funds, billionaires and media owners have the real power, and the art of being in politics is to recognise this as a fact of life and achieve what you can without disrupting the system.Some may find this Steve Keen book of interest on the theme “Bank Originated Money and Debt” – BOMDReviewed herehttp://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/02/the-economics-of-the-future/
I consider myself an economic refugee…receiving a pension that goes further in other parts of the world. One term i am not happy with is ex-pat.These i consider to be short-term overseas workers with corporations and NGOs who always return to their home countries rather than migrant workers.But i suppose there can be an overlap, with economic migrants, after all, seasonal agricultural workers usually divide their tie between abroad and home.Members of the capitalist class can buy very generous visas that provide the luxury of citizenship without taking it up. Also, there is a number of countries that offer to sell their citizenship to those who desire a second passport, again too pricey for the likes of you and me although some may consider $100,000 do-able for Dominica (not the Dominican Republic) passport. Since it is a commonwealth nation, it makes travel easier than some other offers on the passport-for-sale countries.
Being at them, get us noticedhttp://www.thisislancashire.co.uk/news/15257884.Sir_Keir_rallies_the_troops_in_Burnley/
Quote:Elsewhere members of trade unions including Unite, Unison and the GMB were out in force, alongside Burnley Labour Party, the Socialist Party of Great Britain and Socialist Workers Party.Marcos, with all due respect, i think it is you who should show some reality.It is far easier for those people in certain parts of the world to access the Socialist Standard online than to have a print copy available to them. We have extremely limited retail outlets even in the UK much less in other countries. Like yourself, i lived and have lived some years in the developing world and have seen the computer habits of the poor. They do not frequent the library, even if there is any for them to use, but as you say, they go to an internet cafe which are relatively inexpensive – so much so that when i have had occasion to resort to their use, i had to wait for some kid to vacate playing computer games for me to get on a computer, at a cost much less than the price of the Socialist Standard and a lot less than a subscription. (i should also mention that another means of accessing the internet is through their schools and colleges via tablets/smart phones which they can do for free and increasingly wifi is also free in shopping malls and public buildings)As i said in previous posts, i fully expected this suggestion to fail but unpopular ideas have to be discussed and as i also said, the question will return in the future simply because the issue of declining sales of the Standard, won't be going away, Vin. We have in the past discussed the usefulness of owning premises and the existence of the HO will return as well, and a look at the accounts still reveals that is a vast drain on the party finances and resources with debatable benefits for the Party. Many organizations do have both the digital and the hard-copy production of their literature – but the main focus and concentration are on their online editions. The print is secondary. The resolution had an amendment, one that i felt Lancaster Br was happy with, that we have alongside an e-ine, print editions produced regularly but not monthly.We have missed an opportunity to present the socialist answer to the media to be downloaded weekly and even daily. It is a missed opportunity to have the AV committee up their game to providing ever new and fresh animations which can never ever be applied to a paper magazine and as you witness, cannot be readily placed on our website.
Has this book turned up on your reading list, LBIRDhttps://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1560257482/dissivoice-20A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and Low Mechanicks BYClifford D. Conner
Is he echoing Solidarity and Paul Cardan.that part of the issue is ideological control by the ruling class and not just their economic power being a key element of explotation?
Not to distract but this is also a good article by Pannekoek
Quote:Public ownership is the ownership, i.e. the right of disposal, by a public body representing society, by government, state power or some other political body. The persons forming this body, the politicians, officials, leaders, secretaries, managers, are the direct masters of the production apparatus; they direct and regulate the process of production; they command the workers. Common ownership is the right of disposal by the workers themselves; the working class itself — taken in the widest sense of all that partake in really productive work, including employees, farmers, scientists — is direct master of the production apparatus, managing, directing, and regulating the process of production which is, indeed, their common work.Oopps forgot the linkhttps://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1947/public-ownership.htm
If you get forum messages notifications in your email inbox…you can disable it very simply. Hopefully, we may have a forum which permits up-votes and down-votes which will rectify this situation
Who can trust the intelligence sector when their prime purpose is to deceive.The French, hardly a neutral party, but with much the same credibility as RT, claim they have analysed the sarin.http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/country-files/syria/events/article/chemical-attack-in-syria-national-evaluation-presented-by-jean-marc-ayraultBut really i don't think it is really worthwhile to get bogged down on this. I'm guilty as the next of making this a dinner-table topic.We don't know anything about the attack apart from what various sources who are in conflict tell us. And we are guessing about who is to blame.But we do know and this is not in dispute, and it where you and are entirely in agreement – we are being deliberately misinformed about the war by a media that is being directed by government spin. Aleppo v Mosul. The White Helmets etc etc.That was my point of my post…those reknown experts who are taking a line contrary to the government position are being ignored…an exact replay of the past when the media swore they would never ever do again, cross our hopes and hope to die, promise on our mothers lives….but yet…once again, who is holding them to account..Fake news always was there, always will be there, will never go awayBut as the SOYMB blog has been concentrating upon the difference in coverage about Syria/Iraq and Yemen. Not even RT cares much about that war, much less the BBC who places it low down on their priority. An insignificant voice but there nevertheless.
