alanjjohnstone
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Customs and traditions vary across the globe, but at their core i hope there are some shared values and a universal human ethic which can be incorporated into some sort of code of acceptable behaviour and when these rules are breached, the sanctions are not necessarily designed to be punitive and revenge-based. What i am concerned about is that i fear "mob justice" and "lynch law" being made legitimate expressions of community-feeling and exercised.I have, and this forum has as well, encountered what are self-styled "national anarchists" who describe themselves a racialists, not racists, who seek the establishment of local communities that exclude "alien" cultures and "outsiders" and they advocate their ideas as a form of "localism"
And who can blame you, Left, for believing that the Socialist Party must be full of saints and angels for thinking we can have a world where cooperation and compassion predominate?This is a dog-eat-dog society, after all, where only the stongest and the most self-centred and self-interested prosper…until you begin to really look around and see that people do share and help one another…and as you highlight, it begins in the home with ones family….then spreads out to one's neighbours…one's work colleagues…and then to people we don't know or even have met. Think of all those involved in charitable work and others who would do so, if they had the time and who instead give to a charity. And what happens when there is a natural disaster? An earthquake…who is there scrambling through the ruins and fallen walls with bare hands helping to rescue the buried. Governments aren't ordering them to do so…they aren't being conscripted to be of service. We are born human and therefore possess the unique ability to adapt culturally in accordance with the environmental conditions which surround us. We are capable of adopting a great variety of behaviour patterns. There is scarcely a single socialist who has not heard repeatedly the statement that human nature is against socialism.This objection needs to be met. When an opponent of socialism says “What about human nature?”. Needless to say that when they talk of human-nature they mean human behaviour . When someone says “you can't change human nature”, the reply should be: “who wants to? Human nature is alright as it is!” Human nature as it is makes it possible to exist in all kinds of manifestations, not just support for capitalism but also the potentiality of the change from the behaviour of capitalism to that of socialism.Socialism does not require us all to become altruists, putting the interests of others above our own. In fact socialism doesn't require people to be any more altruistic than they are today. We will still be concerned primarily with ourselves, with satisfying our needs, our need to be well considered by others as well as our material and sexual needs. No doubt too, we will want to “possess” personal belongings for our personal use, and to feel secure in our physical occupation of the house or flat we live in, but this will be just that – our home and not a financial asset. Such “selfish” behaviour will still exist in socialism but the acquisitiveness encouraged by capitalism will no longer exist. The coming of socialism will not require great changes in the way we behave, essentially only the accentuation of some of the behaviours which people exhibit today (friendliness, helpfulness, co-operation) at the expense of others which capitalism encourages and instils within us by indoctrination.Here's something i wrote for another website called "Keeping it in the human family" which might offer an answer to your doubts.http://www.countercurrents.org/johnstone020215.htmYour thoughts that we can reform capitalism for our benefit i think has been answered by the others but it is a long debate and there are many other aspects to our case against the idea that a policy of palliatives would improve the world for the betterment of all, rather than simply create a series of new social problems to solve.
Indicate which sections or statements you have concerns about and why you have reservations about them and then we can then begin the hopefully not too acrimonious discussion of them explaining our reasoning for our positions.As you know we have had well over a hundred years to formulate and defend our principles and we like to think that history and experience has borne us out on many of the disagreements we had with other parties policies (hopefully that is not seen as an arrogant conclusion since many early ideas and organisations that were once popular and were competing with our own have fallen to the wayside.)
Co-op Bank up for sale…another bank that couldn't make money materialise fro thin air with the touch of computer keyboard and save itself http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/coop-bank-up-for-sale-amid-concerns-over-meeting-new-rules-a3465411.html
Hmmm…?…maybe because many of the actions required to mitigate or to reverse climate change requires global action and coordination and cooperation, not simply local…Nor do we want to create a politics of nimbyism…"Think Globally… Act Planetary" might be a better slogan
Quote:You may find our views rather different to ones you have encountered beforeHow different you will see if you read this sectionhttps://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/how-spgb-different
Our blog has touched on FALChttps://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2016/08/fully-automated-luxury-communism.htmlhttps://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2016/09/luxury-for-all.htmlBut there exists equally the other risk of appearing to "utopian" as Zeitgeist is often accused of being…that everything will be solved by the application computers and technology.What Marxism has going for it that no matter how generalised it may be, we possess a theory of social change and as a party we have developed a political road-map of how to achieve it. However, rather than our goal being rejected, it seems to be our means and methods of accomplishing our aims which people cast doubt upon and lack confidence in.
Quote:we need to be focussing on the more positive developments taking place around us and encourage workers to engage in a process of imaginative extrapolation to reflect on what is technically possible rather than depress them with thoughts of imminent apocalyptic collapse.This brings me to my favourite prescription that i usually quote
Quote:7. Meaningful action, for revolutionaries, is whatever increases the confidence, the autonomy, the initiative, the participation, the solidarity, the equalitarian tendencies and the self -activity of the masses and whatever assists in their demystification. Sterile and harmful action is whatever reinforces the passivity of the masses, their apathy, their cynicism, their differentiation through hierarchy, their alienation, their reliance on others to do things for them and the degree to which they can therefore be manipulated by others – even by those allegedly acting on their behalf.How we exercise Solidarity's principle in practice, is quite another question which has to be addressed and be subject to constant shaping and molding as events unfold.
Only if you pay my fares, which will be about a grand. But i am sure if you wish to go, you can discuss your disagreements of their aims and principles https://afed.org.uk/about/aims-principles/But since you previously described anarchists as all policemen, the talk's topic will obviously be an insiders view
“A period of revolution begins not because life has become physically impossible but because growing numbers of workers have their eyes suddenly opened to the fact that problems hitherto accepted as part of man’s unavoidable heritage has become capable of solution…No crisis of capitalism , however desperate it may be, can ever by itself give us socialism.” Will Capitalism Collapse? Socialist Standard April 1927 Perhaps this quote is appropriate.
There was a long discussion over labour-time vouchers or free access which has been summarised here which may be of interest.http://www.deleonism.org/v2.htm
I agree with you that that is their motive, Marcos.But in their arguments and justifications used if you read your articles, they declare such an action will be a springboard for a revolution…even if they don't define what that is, and when they do, it is merely a list of supposedly radical cosmetic changes to capitalism. I think the Jacobin article is accurate in its analysis…such people making an appeal for a general strike are fantasists …and are being extremely dangerous to the working class movement.It seems to me that there now exists a vacuum of ideas and as we know nature abhors such a state and will fill it up with anything at hand it can suck in, no matter how nonsensical or ridiculous.
This article came across my horizon and although I strongly disagree with much of it the scenario of the future it presents does provoke thought
http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/02/11/scenario-homo-sapiens/
The Trotskyist call for a general strike, but now described as a shutdown with optional participation and concedes
Quote:A nationwide general strike, while the most powerful, is not immediately in the cardshttp://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/10/a-socialist-strategy-to-defeat-tr…They link to a very readable Jacobin article that has a similar conclusion which goes even further and describes those general strike calls a "flight from reality"https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/02/general-strike-donald-trump-womens-ma…
Quote:…even moderately effective general strikes don’t emerge, willy-nilly, like miraculous interventions into national life. They are intensifications and radicalizations of already existing patterns of resistance by the working class. This demand for a general strike looks less like that intensification and more like an attempt to leapfrog all the hard, long-term political work that goes before.At least some of those arguing for the general strike seem to sense that there is an element of bad faith here. For instance, Francine Prose added the qualification, which I have seen repeated in a number of places, that only those “who can do so without being fired” should go on strike. This must be the first time someone called for a general strike but exempted most of the working class.Believe me, I’d love to see a real general strike, a serious attempt at restructuring society, not just lopping the head off the Republican hydra. But there is no royal road to revolution, or even to a true mass movement for social changeRodman, I agree with you completely about the Trotskyist manipulation of anger and resistance. However, i don't want to throw out the baby with the bath-water. Protests, marches and demonstrations i feel are legitimate expressions of political activity, just as work-to-rules, strikes and picket lines are for industrial action. I'd like to see far more of this reaction. A compliant, passive, docile, acquiescent working class are "not worth its salt" in the establishment of socialism as i think an article in the Socialist Standard from the 30s (?) once said.It is a matter, as always, of picking your battles, some for the reason that you can win them, maybe to keep open a local library or fire station, and others siimply to show solidarity and support for fellow workers, as perhaps in the case of the airport occupations when Trump introduced his travel bans. This can be done in conjunction with conveying the socialist message…that society should be built to fulfil peoples needs and that we are one people, one world (to relate to my two examples)In practical terms of our limited resources, we do require to choose from the array of possible targets we have before us and we have to select our best tools. But what we possess more than any other Party is integrity and a belief that our fellow workers, given the correct circumstances, can lead themselves without a cadre elite in charge as those Trotskyists insist must happen. Our only effective weapon is ideas and how we spread those means finding the most suitable soil to sow them so i do agree with you in this sense that we can't simply use a scatter-gun approach, our messages must be aimed. It is a class war and how we conduct our struggles need tactics and strategies.My only reservation, is that with our dwindling membership, we simply will not have the adequate forces required to apply and exert our influence. Numbers do indeed count to be effective and that is one thing we must bear in mind when determining our plans…how we can punch above our weight and make our voice heard above the racket of all the competing chanting and sloganeering from the Left and Right. A simple decision we have made is that it is better that we "attend" protest rallies, rather than "participate" in them. I am not so sure people recognise the difference when our lit stalls and leaflet distributers are indistiniquishable from other parties present . And i am not so sure that this decision of distancing ourselves often from poitical sentiments we are sympathetic to should be carved in stone and not be changed.I was disappointed by the recent decision not to actually join in with certain rallies such as May Day, which celebrate our class as a whole. The Trotskyists commandeer those marches because they are permitted to. The SWP placard-providing service is an example of this hi-jacking that is allowed to happen, so wouldn't it be nice to challenge it with a supply of our own protest-signs and red flags to distribute along with our leaflets. Our one resource might not be "foot-soldiers", but we do have cash to "buy" a presence.
What sort of Socialist Party member can there be who cannot weather criticism of his or her ideas, Robbo? Soon as you join, we learn how to develop a thick skin.I indeed have been influenced by anarchist ideas and have been involved within their organisations and i still insist that Joseph Dietzgen was correct in his viewpoint on the relationship between socalists and anarchists."The terms anarchist, socialist, communist should be so "mixed" together, that no muddlehead could tell which is which. Language serves not only the purpose of distinguishing things but also of uniting them – for it is dialectic." "For my part, I lay little stress on the distinction, whether a man is an anarchist or a socialist, because it seems to me that too much weight is attributed to this difference…While the anarchists may have mad and brainless individuals in their ranks, the socialists have an abundance of cowards. For this reason I care as much for one as the other….The majority in both camps are still in great need of education, and this will bring about a reconciliation in time."I do occasionally, in the right quarters, describe myself as an Anarcho-Marxist…even as a JohnLennonist
