alanjjohnstone
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Libcom review of the meeting.
Quote:"I attended here yesterday, spent the afternoon and evening with Auld Bod, Battlescarred and some other very friendly and interesting comrades which was terrific.The film was amazing, truly inspirational. To see the sort of organisation of society in the way I already envisage it and the beautiful humanity of the people involved was real lump in the throat stuff. The music ain't too shabby either."Hopefully, EARB will be able to choose other insightful movies for future occasions and garner around them more potential members and sympathisers. And for those who wish to watch Living Utopia on You Tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPl_Y3Qdb7Y&feature=youtu.be
Perhaps someone who attended could offer a brief summary of the ensuing discussion which i am sure would have been as stimulating and provocative as the film.
As Gnome says, a good initiative, but it is not only the party logo that is missing but also a bulk order from HO for it to stock the CDs and sell. For a party replete in funds, we are reluctant (and some may say negligent) when it comes to investing in educational and promotional material.
Quote:If I knew my employees were getting a $10,000 annual subsidy from the U.S. government and I hit a rough patch in my business, I’d likely ask everyone to share in the pain and take their salary down to pre-subsidy levels… And then wages would stay there, because wages have been stagnant since 1973—they’ve only grown 9 percent despite a more than doubling in productivity. Or, maybe, companies would simply stop contributing to 401(k)s, because the government is providing income already, and it’s a slightly less apparent way to cut wages. Or something else. Companies aren’t going to be benevolent when the government is subsidizing their workers—they’re going to recapture as much of that subsidy as possible, because they’re going to have to in order to stay competitive, because one other company in their industry will do it almost immediately to gain a pricing advantage. This is a long way of saying that it wouldn’t make a shred of difference to small business in any reasonable time frame.Also in the Kinnock speech was this
Quote:In 1918, in the shadow of the Russian revolution, they made a deliberate, conscious, ideological choice, that they would not pursue the syndicalist road, that they would not pursue the revolutionary road – it was a real choice in those days. They would pursue the parliamentary road to socialism.The Lucas Plan was something that i think Robbo and others would cite as evidence that there is a process of revolution that commences before the actual establishment of socialism, where workers re-design the content and purpose of their industries. http://libcom.org/history/articles/lucas-aerospace-fightWell worth a read.
I recall Cde. Watkins, (he can correct me if i am wrong) discussing majority and minority support for socialism on SPOPEN and his point was it was not an arithmetic issue of numbers, but a functional majority political power. I tend to agree and much of the party case also concursA 1955 EC Statement talks of "The overwhelming mass of the people will participate, or fall in line with, the process of reorganisation "[my emphasis]. "we use terms such as “majority” and “majoritarian” this is not because we are obsessed with counting the number of individual socialists, but to show that we reject minority action to try to establish socialism – majority as the opposite of minority….a majority (yes, but in the democratic rather than mere mathematical sense)…." http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/aug04/icc.htmlIt is about an effective majority, not simplistic formalism of number counting but a class struggle position It should be remembered that when the SPGB was formed, women did not yet possess the vote and many men did not qualify for the franchise. The Scottish independence referendum included 16 and 17 year olds while the EU excluded that section. It may be acknowledging that there is an already established world majority of socialists who have, to some extent, voted with their feet and re-organised their jobs, freely distributed food and goods, refused to go to war, or whatever. We won't just sit on our arses for someone to declare the success of the revolution from a referendum. Did the fall of the Communist Party governments of the Eastern Bloc no-one waited around for a massive vote of millions of people since the malaise of state capitalism was plainly evident , allowing individual revolts in each of the countries or individual Soviet republic. It is speculative but many revolutions of the past that have succeeded have, it is required no more than 25%-30% active support – which would be enough for an election of any capitalist party. If 20-30% of the population actively supporting the revolution outweighs active opposition sufficiently to achieve its goals, with the rest of our class either passively support us or just only keeping their heads down below the parapets to see what comes out of whatever crisis and comes to pass. That constitutes a sufficient majority of socialists.This book discussed the tipping point for changehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tipping_PointRensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York published a paper with findings that that when 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, the majority of the society will eventually adopt it.i have seen figures as low as 3% as necessary
I thought one of their points was legal sovereignty. The power to pass laws in Westminister. Whether the majority of Brexit or Remain support proposed trade treaties is neither here or there. If they don't act soon the supposed sovereignty of the national Parliament will be hypothetical for 20 years into the future. Plenty of professors rely upon their PhD students to do the research groundwork…no need for your academic snobbery, ALB.
Brexit – No changehttp://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2016/07/04/eu-accused-trying-push-through-toxic-trade-deal-ahead-brexitGlobal Justice Now have released an expert opinion on CETA and Brexit which argues that if the UK doesn’t formally leave the EU before CETA is ratified, then it would be tied into the trade deal for a period of twenty years after announcing any intention to leave the deal.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-labour-leadership-chilcot-report-latest-news-alex-salmond-a7116926.html Alex Salmond – "I’m wondering whether this is a pre-emptive strike about the Chilcot report because obviously Jeremy Corbyn has indicated he supports Tony Blair being held to account, as he should be. So I think there’s a bit more to this than meets the eye." I posted a similar message a few days ago on the thread about my suspicions too
Automation and the UBI – another article proclaiming its virtueshttp://www.alternet.org/economy/universal-basic-income-solves-robots-taking-jobs
TYPO I'm surprised the Balkans (last century) and currently Ukraine ARE NOT CITED as examples of the EU's expansionism.
Meel, we have always argued that the State is the executive committee of the capitalist class, so should we be surprised if the supra-national state (as i see the EU sometimes described) exercises its political and economic power in the interests of its capitalists.I'm surprised the Balkans (last century) and currently Ukraine as examples of the EU's expansionism. Just how different would a NATO and an EU army be? Would it simply be the recognition that the US and EU interests are not always the same? There are already various structures of a proto-EU armyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_the_European_Union
