alanjjohnstone
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Robbo, i think it isn't helpful to counter name-calling with name-calling.LBird isn't a Leninist and i don't think he is a centralisation control-freak either.When he explained his ideas on materialism and ideal-materialism they were valid for all i know but when he was asked how ideas were to be democratically controlled and asked just how that control of scientific ideas be accomplished then he dug himself into a hole and instead of stopping digging, he dug deeper.By accusing the Party of Leninism then it is incumbered upon LBird to show me its signs which i keep insisting must have appeared by now after a 100 years of gestationFor me personally as i said, this philosophical exchange is beyond my ken, and in science there is much else that is and i named quantum physics. I don't want a vote on its "truth"..i want to democratically abstain and leave it to someone else who cares about it…to each to their own, as i said, in another post. This applies to many things in life and by extension what i believe will happen in socialism in rgards to its running and administration…People wont demand to micro-manage anything and everything and especially not from a remotely from a distance. The fewer votes the better for all society. Your ECA gives clues to how we will automatically self-regulate and self-correct by just what we do and go about in society. I'm not saying we will not have a participatory democracy but its application can't be so easily described in pre-socialist capitalist conditions.Even the decision-making in one factory will evolve itself into something unlike today's cooperatives. Community assembly meetings might have all the hallmarks of Murray Bookchins New England town hall meetings but we also be building on the Indian panchayat systems and Latin American indigenous systems of village councils that the Zapatistas in Chiapas flowered from…This "Leninist" doesn't want to shoe-horn every diverse community around the world into the one model of democratic practice. Every industry has its variety too. Road, rail, sea and air have all created rules and laws over the courses of generations that have been integrated into worldwide accepted custom and usage…i see no reason why it shouldn't continue, the existing framework requires little change for democratic control of transport…or are there people who insist that non-qualified should exercise control of air traffic control…but, on the otherhand i think they might well have a say on which side of the road we should all drive on…No, LBIrd isn't a Leninist but he fails to understand totally why the SPGB relegates so much of the actual mechanisms of how socialism works to the future and to the people living in socialism….a sign that we are innocent of his charge of being an elite…Even if we were a democratically elected elite we abdicate our responsibilities of rule.I want to know how this can be if we do not support workers democratic control of production and i'll keep on asking…but i had the passing thought in an earlier post….i expect too much from a person who despite his long presence on the discussion thread has only a passing acquaintance with the SPGB as a non-member….now if he actually joined…what a difference it would nmake to the debates…
We via Colin Skelly get a mention on this websitehttp://buzz.bournemouth.ac.uk/what-is-the-corbyn-affect-doing-to-british-left-parties/
Quote:The Greens and Left Unity are not the only ones who may suffer from the ‘Corbyn affect’, The Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB) could also be over-shadowed at future elections.Colin Skelly of the SPGB South West is quick to distinguish Corbyn’s Labour from SPGB and itsfundamental values: “The SPGB does not view the Labour Party as a socialist party but as another party of capitalism. Corbyn’s election restores an element of radicalism to the Labour Party after a period of right-wing leadership but this is only returning to the situation historically adopted by the Labour Party before the late 1970s, but with MPs considerably to the right of the leadership. Jeremy Corbyn’s flagship policies include quantitative easing; while radical to some, it is a different breed to the SPGB’s view of socialism. Colin believes its possible to see Corbyn as simply “at the fringe of the mainstream rather than outside it”.The article helpfully providing links to ourselves
Quote:when I'm warning workers about the SPGB's secret intent to deny workers' democratic control of production.I referred to the fact that historians could verify and document how the elite dominated the SPD and the Bolsheviks. They could refer to Party rules, Party resolutions, and describe the relationships these parties had with workers organisations such as trade unions and workers councils and, later, historians could detail the actions both took in their respective civil wars to impose their will by the force of the State. Can you demonstrate any conference decision or party rule that gives an elite control over the SPGB?Can you show any actual policy or action of the SPGB which undermines the independence of the workers in their organisations?The SPGB unlike either the SLP, IWW, anarcho-syndicalists or the Communist Party made no attempt theoretically or in practice to steer workers choice of democracy within the union movement. (The SPGB also declines to get involved in workers movements for reforms as a party and only on an individual basis.) Where in these policies is the intent to deny workers democratic control? On the contrary, it is emphasising the independence of workers to determine their own democracy, the SPGB adopting, at the time, an unpopular position of hands off and keeping ones distance and not interfering. I think this secret conspiracy of the SPGB to thwart workers' democratic control of production cannot be shown to exist from the historic record to its behaviour now. And i keep asking for you to offer actual examples as evidence and you fail to do so. Perhaps it is too much to ask of a non-member who is unaware of the Party's past. But as i said, members and ex-members who have offered critiques, do not cite the anti-democratic nature of the SPGB as one of its failures but repeatedly describe this feature of committment to democracy as a strength …sometimes to its own disadvantage in relation to influence and membership numbers. The whole point of the Party's recruitment is not to create a cadre system but have every member with the same standing. But yes…we are not…and neither are you…the average workers …you and we do possess class consciousness and aspire to overthrowing capitalism…we wait for our fellow workers to catch up in their own way…Not once has anyone ever said the importance of ideas people hold is not the prime one. Ideas are very much part of the material conditions that will help build socialism…
I recall a long time ago when the nurses were restricted from taking industrial ation due to their ethical committment to care for patients and the most they could do was march in the streets when off-duty, other trade unions came to their assistance and support and actually struck themselves in solidarity.The NUM asked their members to voluntarily strike in support of the nurses and i know my own union branch in the postal workers union did as well. But in our show of empathy for fellow workers who couldn't strike, were we not also disrupting the general public too, JamesH? So were we wrong to offer help to those who couldn't do it for themselves at the price of delaying someone elses mail for a day or so.
It is OUR intro video, not Neil's or whatshername's. Both try to steer us to say what they want us to say about ourselves. If both interviewers are edited out…you can phrase the questions more appropriately for the answers that we wish to present to represent our view of ourselves. And you can intersperse other speakers on the same subject to reinforce the answers. Was Adam's points diminished because she was deleted. (i know the reason was the inaudibility but you get my point)…I think you should be consistent all the way through the video in using text questions or text observations to introduce the speakers comments. I could make it more complicated that we do voice-overs ourselves but is that necessary?As you say, i'm a person free with my opinions …but hopefully not too opinionated
Quote:“As I've said, alan, you will not acknowledge your materialism, and so you can't 'see' what's in front of your eyes…. Well, I can see it, alan, even if you can't”Then let me view it through your eyes is what I keep saying to you.
Quote:“I keep answering your question, alan, but you apparently don't recognise an answer.”But you don’t, that is my problem.You don’t show the results of this materialism you say that dominates the Party in its actual practice and activity. Elite Engelsian materialist intellectuals took control of the SPD and the Bolsheviks. They exercised their ideological control to impose a dictatorship over, first, the Party and then the workers as a whole. Historians can easily provide the evidence for those claims of mine that an intelligensia sought to and did rule both parties. Has the SPGB over a hundred years shown any movement towards such outcomes? …Within the Party, has a manipulating minority assumed charge? Has the SPGB entered or advocated workers organisations to direct them? According to your view it must have and i keep asking for you to provide examples of this.
Quote:Your Party has the 'secret clause', the 'hidden principle'…A simple way to reveal the adherents to the Secret SPGB Principle would be to take a vote about workers' power, about democratic control of the production of scientific knowledge, and the Secret would be revealed!… their secret, anti-worker, bias.This is like saying there is an SPGB Illuminati What I’m saying: “Trust us because regardless of whatever ambitions any technological elite may wish to assert and which that some say could arise, the conditions of free access and to each according to needs, DENIES any such group any social power to thwart democratic control of society. No commissar or intellectual can allot ones share of the collective wealth, this is self-determined.”
I must be stupid because it is not words i am seeking…What interpretation is made to those statements is neither here nor there as means of clearing my mind…"we know only a single science, the science of history" -German Ideology It isn't what they say but what they do. I tried to explain the contradiction i see in what you say…SPGB ideas are the building bricks of a dictatorship of the elite…But these ideas have not produced a Party dictatorship either existing in the present or aspiring for the future. Nor does our interaction and engagement with fellow workers betray such a tendency to a hierachy of intellectuals, hoarding social knowledge to exert and apply control for whatever personal advantage you think they could have for such behaviour.I keep showing how our principles do not support such claims and are doing the opposite – building the foundations of an autonomous not authoritarian society. What actual particular pieces of political organisation reflects Leninism in the Party structure?What Party actions concerning the working class reflects a policy, intended or not, to form an elite above/over the working class that is aimed to deprive them of their own democracy?I knowi must be off on a limb because nobody but me seems to think this is of any importance to get an answer from you
I would prefer if the interviewers were edited out of the Todays Politics two clips and you do what you did with Adam's …substitute text, instead for the whole video…You seem to drop that approach as the video develops but even if it means changing the questions and re-phrasing them so the text fits with Danny's and Howards statements.Bill rousing words is a good finale but the clip begins just that few seconds or so too early for me …i rather not see the venue Still have to choose from Mike Fosters short vid, very clear diction, Howard's Moss (shame he is seen reading a script),I prefer Danny's Big Smoke interview to his BBC appearance perhaps it can be added to Danny's appearance..he is more relaxed and less flustered sounding in bits..So my feed back is continue with the onscreen text questions rather than actual interviewers for the whole video…intersperse Danny's BBC with his Big Smoke replies…Add Mike Foster piece about leader to Danny's mention of it , and other clips from him can go alongside Clifford Slapper…End with the stirring Internationale …
Another follow up to this article http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/jan/11/uk-increasing-abuse-foreign-maids-tied-visas
Quote:The British government is exposing thousands of women brought to the UK by wealthy Gulf families to conditions of slavery, trafficking and abuse, according to a review of domestic worker visas. An independent review of the visa, commissioned by the Home Office and authored by barrister James Ewins, strongly endorses this assessment. The review found “no evidence that a tie to a single employer does anything other than increase the risk of abuse and therefore increases actual abuse”.Sorry for this but I still have this nagging thought in my head that I don’t seem able to budge. Probably it is a naïve superficial question because LBird hasn’t answered it directly even though I have posed it a few time now and the other contributors have not deemed it relevant enough to follow up themselves so they too seem to think it irrelevant but I’m not so embarrassed by my lack of knowledge that I will let the question drop.According LBird’s position in regards to the SPGB and its members, it possesses a philosophy that can be traced back to Engels’ interpretation of materialism which is anti-democratic and if adopted will lead to an elitist control over the development of knowledge and subsequently the workers loses control over production as happened when Leninist sharing this Engelsian materialism took power. I hope that very brief summary gets to the bottom of what LBird has been saying over an extremely lengthy exchange. Ideas held by the SPGB are anti-democratic at its core.This is what puzzles me…We have held these philosophical views for over a century and if this materialist philosophy is all LBird says it is, then surely there must be some manifestation that can be pointed to in the Party’s organization and its principles. The prevalence of intellectuals and their influence can certainly be demonstrated in the Bolshevik Party before and after the revolution, it can be shown to have existed in the German SPD opinions and most definitely in the Social Democratic Federation that the SPGB broke away from. It is also very visible in existing Laft wing groups such as the SWP which LBird recognized and resigned from. So why do we not witness a similar indication in the actual politics of the SPGB or in within the organization. The seeds of this, surely must have grown after a hundred years of gestation but in a previous post I listed the SPGB attitudes regards its relationship with fellow workers and their self-organization and the structure of its own party organization that as far as I can detect is the antithesis of an elitist party in the making of.My mind keeps returning to this absence of evidence. It would be proof of LBird’s argument if it could be demonstrated. If we are beholden to a false consciousness in regards to our general philosophical outlook as LBird maintains, the result of which the Party acts against “workers' democracy, in questions of production, including knowledge” and as he says “You, robbo, and the rest, wish to interpret 'The World' for workers, without their participation, and so you don't need the active democratic participation of the proletariat as /they create /their 'world-for-themselves' then why, oh why, when we currently possess an academic “elite” with lots of letters after names (and before, when higher education was harder to enter, some very erudite autodidacts) they do not dominate the Party and they do not endeavor to steer and control fellow workers but actually made such possibility nearly impossible by imposing a political position that is very much pro-democracy and one that fosters the principle of self-emancipation and self-liberation, relegating the Party itself to a mere tool or instrument rather than a vanguardist Party whose purpose is to imbue consciousness into the working class from above via an intellectual elite. Why has the SPGB disavowed itself from the practices of an elitist political party. Surely it is not part of a sophisticated elaborate game-plan of the elite that LBird says we are.That is my quandary. If you are correct, LBird, then why is this anti worker democracy not visible. Are you saying we are ideologically blind to it, and if you are saying that, then it should be apparent to you, yourself so please present the actual appearance of the anti-workerism in what the Party says and does. If possess a diseased philosophy, then what are the symptoms of it that we are showing? Once you have done that then we can settle down to the treatment and the cure. It seems at times that you are simply repeating that our materialism is “bad karma” and are incapable of showing its actual concrete effect upon the SPGB…And if you are not able to offer examples of the negative influences on our political action …then how important is this dispute?…Angels dancing on a pin comes to mind.But as I said at the start…I might be missing something vital simply because I don’t share your or the others considerable reading on this subject (perhaps the elite has taken over and you are part of it, LBird !!). Maybe the answer is that you must hold social power over the workers first before it becomes a problem but I can see this dualism of before and after in the ideas of the Socialist Party. We spend all our time saying no blueprints…people who make socialism will determine how it works, not us in advance. I’m just trying to figure out just how it effects the Party and its positions…And I’m struggling to see how its materialism is as bad a threat as you say because there are no signs of it, that I can see. So help me a bit on my problem. Where is this Leninist anti-democracy elitism exhibiting itself in the SPGB? Saying something doesn’t make it so, does it? We have several critiques of the SPGB from members and ex-members and innumerable ones from non-members but yours is indeed unique. You condemn us but make no effort to support your theory other than say so and therefore in the words of Capt. Jean Luc Picard…make it so… Or as folk from the state of Missouri say ”Show Me”
Quote:An evidence- based scientist will say…More ideology, alan.'Evidence' is a product of 'theory and practice' (Marx, again, I'm afraid), so a scientist employing one ideology will come up with 'evidence' which differs from the 'evidence' produced by a scientist employing a different ideology.i would have thought evidence was theory confirmed by practice…or is that proof?However my concern is that you have now given a case for homeopathy and any number of other quasi-medical theories by merely asserting they are ideological and no more valid than non-evidence based "medicines."
Quote:the SPGB espouses 'materialism' (even if 'unofficially', in members like you), I don't know. The politics that fit with materialism are Leninist, and given what some members of the party have argued on this thread, the practice of the SPGB in power would be, not what you think, but the theory of an elite put into practice by uncomprehending workers.One manifestation of Leninism is its organisational principle as a Party so we need not wait for the SPGB to acquire power to see elements of it in its present-day decision-making. We can see with Leninism, democratic-centralism, with the executive committee deploying power…This form of materialist "democracy" was also passed on to the Petersburg Soviet where the actions of "storming" the Winters Palace were taken not by the soviet as a whole but by its Military Revolutionary Committee. Again i fail to see how if your claim is correct that we suffer the disadvantage of "materialism" why this has not showed in our Party…a clique forming to control it. Or are we so blind that we cannot perceive it…perhaps even the elite itself being oblivious to their rule.Therefore, i can't really get my head around the conclusion you reach by insisting the "materialism" philosophy that the SPGB possesses will also lead to it dominating the working class and that the working class would not possess the power of decision making in the production of goods or in the production of ideas….where is the control mechanism to impose your will upon others?…The State is gone…the power to with-hold the necessity of life is gone with implementation from according to need…the only way an elite can impose its authority and will is by force of argument and the power of persuasion…and there has been many exchanges on the means of this …science will be subject to the same procedure as determining how much glass is produced and where it should be sent…by delegatory committees at local, regional and global level…and to again to be truthful, there won't be too much difference from today…a new surgical procedure will be assessed by hospitals and peer reviewed and patients feedback determined by outcome of such operations on their well-being. Surgeons and hospitals will make such new surgery routine…The decision is not one for society as a whole to make by poll…But if sudenly questions are raised by statistics on recovery or mortality rates, then local communities with the administrative power over the hospital can take actions as they see fit…as happens now withing the health system…No need to fix something that is not broken. Again the anarchist in me refers you to Bakunin and the authority of the shoe-maker and to Engels and his ships captainhttps://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/various/authrty.htmhttps://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htmI do defer to authority voluntarily …just as the airline pilot defers to air traffic control…
Quote:"just what has been the manifestation of this within the Party over its 100 year of existence? The 'materialism' that is clearly rife within both the Party and its close supporters."What is it you say…stones don't think or act…Nor do i think do words. Once again i'll try to ask…how does the materialism you say dominates the SPGB actually show itself in actions and deeds of the Party if as i persist in claiming, the Party's organisation and its attitudes are positive expressions of democracy. Where has been the negative effects of it in the way the SPGB operates under the influence of its philosohical materialist beliefs as defined by yourself? Is it the lack of members from the difficulty in conveying simple political positions to fellow workers?
Quote:No-one simply 'sees the world around', but understands it through ideas, and I think your term 'conscious' here, can be read as 'materialist'.My rudimentary understanding is that ideas do not spring forth from no-where. My use of conscious should read "aware" resulting from experience and observation of ones social, political and economic interactions with environment and surroundings…Nothing in our knowledge test, which was the context, requires the necessity or pre-condition of input from outside agencies such as a political party or leader to instill this consciousness. All can be known by self-discovery, help from the SPGB only helps to speed up the process. My favourite quotation (well, one of them) is " If a worker wants to take part in the self-emancipation of his class, the basic requirement is that he should cease allowing others to teach him and should set about teaching himself." – Joseph Dietzgen. I think you may be mistaking some members suggesting a continued division of labour is the same as advocating rule by technocrats and intellectual elites. Once again, i claim the actual evidence that is not so is before your own very eyes – the existence of a political party that has successfully shed the need for political leadership. If the SPGB adherence to materialism and elitism produces this failing where does it show in the practice of the SPGB. Surely the influence should be a tangible one.In the production of ideas the democracy i speak of it is people voting with their feet.An evidence- based scientist will say…alternative medicine simply become medicine when it is shown to work…It is adopted nd practised and prescribed. I agree with your very earliest statement…if people believe that the sun goes around the earth…then it is true…until we stop believing it to be true…Creation was in 7 days by God holds true for the believers in it. Those of us who do not subscribe to such a belief, go our own way, and our "secular revelations" on geology, archeology biology etc …will be our own truth that we actually get benefit from and don't end up in sterile 'scientific woo-woo' of intelligent design or whatever. That is the measurement of democracy…how much is gained for the advancement of humanity from scientific truth… …and to be 100% honest …quantum physics with shrodingers cats – something exists and at the same time doesn't exist…is beyond me ..and i have no interest in it …i go all glassy-eyed…said the same whenever some Marxist uses algebra to explain things …the philistine in me, i know….abstract science is …abstract but once again …who wishes to go there, i don't lock the gates.
The requirements of being a socialist in the view of the SPGB are quite straight forward and are not that complex. The basic knowledge can be determined from our knowledge test. We don't demand intellectualism of Marxist theory but simple acceptance of the world any conscious worker can see around him or her for themselves. Text books are not required. Philosophers are not needed to explain it. http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/membership-applicationI have invited you to consider the SPGB's democracy. If, as you say, the Party and members exhibit Engelsian-cum-Leninist ideas, just what has been the manifestation of this within the Party over its 100 year of existence? I have claimed and you so far have not disputed it , no elite has ever managed to gain control of the party over its members. Nor has the SPGB advocated substituting itself for the working class as a whole and directing fellow workers actions. We have refrained from creating Party-led industrial unions, and we have refused to infiltrate trade unions to capture control of them. We support the activities of various groups within society to try and improve their lot but we ourselves do not get involved. We participate in elections from the premise of , if you don't agree with us, don't vote for us. In those positions i have cited, how are we the vanguard on the model of Leninism. Of course, i endorse what you say " full heads' can only be provided by workers' self-activity, their own 'theory and practice'." That is not a point of departure between you and i and the Party. I don't understand why you think it is. I often say to people…forget marx…forget engels…act if they hadn't been born. There would still be a socialist movement aspiring to socialist society…And by extension of that argument, there would still be workers who have learned for themselves to build a better world for ourselves. Nothing in what you have written it seems to me avoids the fact that other ideologies can take root and divert workers from the goal of self-emancipation…nationalism…reformism…It was not Lenin's 'Materialism and Empirio-Criticism' that provided the blueprint to the Bolshevik dictatorship. But 'What is to be Done', and the inspiration for that was Kautsky and the German SPD…It was more a practical manual than philosophical treatise…Even our enemies ideas are not so complex…And many have seen through them in the past without the assistance of others …The issue of democratic control of production springs up not from the lecterns of a lecture hall or the podium of a political meeting but from the shop-floor of the factory or the needs of the community served … And while capitalism remains no solution can be achieved…hence my repeated comments to people adopting ideas from Richard Wolff and Gar Alperovitz that workers co-ops will reach a brick-wall and can go no further.Of course i am at fault sometimes by over-simplifying my case…ideas are important for change, vital, in fact…and we should be refuting rival theories on the battlefield of ideas…We have to challenge and defeat other ideologies…one currently of importance being the yoke of religions in the Middle East…But i simply sought to say that the priority of people is first to fill their bellies to permit them to think…which is again a truism..
I can't imagine doing that actually. My priority as their fellow worker is not advocating socialism but to contribute to the defence of my class against the power of the employer and in that task there is no need to explain value so i simply wouldn't do that other than to declare it is us who create all value/wealth as workers and without us value/wealth is not created. The priority is to create a fighting organisation that is effective – an industrial union, democratically controlled by its members. i share that aim with my colleagues and we don't won't find it in Capital or by some person trying to extrapolate from it. I know other members of the SPGB would disagree with me, but that has always been my focus…class struggle and class war…People with empty bellies don't hunger for a head full of ideals. As i posted earlier, there are nothing complicated about seeking socialism…just a few basic political principles to follow and these are mostly of practical political applications …Those who wish to enagage with the academic intellectual defenders of capitalism i certainly will not discourage ….as i said before … each to their own…i see no need for every worker to be a polymath…we can have a division of labour…it is not undemocratic for individuals to play to their strengths and leave others to play to theirs…as a successful football team do…we don't shoehorn folk into roles that they are not fit for. In the SPGB we have an organisation that despite clever members, articulate members, moving orators, skilled writers, many scholarly and learned in Marxian economics and other aspects of Marxist thought …no one member nor clique of members have ever come to dominate the party in a way that deprives others of their authority and control…This is democratic control in action and in practice by the membership collectively …Perhaps you should ponder how this can be…I sometimes get surprised by how successful it is and still cannot be sure of the actual mechanism that made it possible…I sometimes think it is beyond rules and constitutions and structure …and to do with the "spirit" of the members – "spirit" in the sense Pannekoek and Dietzgen used the term…the "spirit" that many call – political – class – socialist – consciousness which will be a requirement to establish socialism. If idealist materialism means this then by all means the SPGB are idealist materialists.
Quote:socio-historical creation of 'organic nature' (nature-for-us) from 'inorganic nature' (nature that is 'nothing for us')…Perhaps if other comrades become involved, as I've asked for them to..Naww….i got lost already…even if it was about 'orgasmic nature-for-us'…And i said, for some this is an interesting exchange between comrades at a level others aren't a, having not studied it, nor do i think wish to study it.Our "democratic control of production" doesn't require such philosophic discourses since it is for me and i suspect for others a practical problem that we will increasingly solved as we gather strength before the transformation of society and it will also no doubt be an on-going process after the revolution as it is finely tuned. i am receptive to wide interpretations of Marxist theory as long as they still accord with its core tenets and aims….YMS, LBird, Robbo…all still comrades in arms…despite this theoretical disagreement on things that i think would drive my fellow workers to despair and drink if they had to suffer the debate…Our prime problem is getting people to turn up to exercise democracy…and that is even within the party itself.
