alanjjohnstone
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To bore you all once again, this i think sums up our case.
Quote:that other and future function of economic organisation, which is to take over and administer things when the workers have obtained political supremacy and destroyed the power of the State, that function cannot begin to be active until the workers have fought out the struggle upon the political field.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1911/no-87-november-1911/socialist-and-trade-unionism That is why i am a member of a political party such as the Socialist Party and not in SolFed, or other "revolutionary" syndicalist unions.
I thought this part of an early Socialist Standard article was of interest in what it said on trade unionism, but i think it could just as easily be said of reforms.
Quote:The non-revolutionary is not anti-revolutionary. To fight for present life does not delay the overthrow of the present social system. When the worker acquires revolutionary consciousness he is still compelled to make the non-revolutionary struggle.Moreover, after his conversion his methods on the economic field differ little from those he previously was compelled to follow. His greater knowledge will save him from many blunders in the field, will show him how little he has to hope for from the struggle he is compelled to make. …..All fit material, revolutionary or non-revolutionary, for the struggle on the economic field, the resistance to capitalist encroachment, can and must prosecute the fight together. http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1911/no-87-november-1911/socialist-and-trade-unionismDoes anybody ever read what i say?I fully acknowledged your observation, YMS.
Quote:We need to disarm all the weaponry of the capitalist state to permit the full development of the revolution in action. We need to capture the coercive class control part of the State to defend the adminstrative departments which we already or are on the verge of turning into a socialist adminstration of things.And also read back my posts i have also previously recognised that the SLP switched about political and economic action – what was the sword and shield – and i simply held my own opinion to suggest that in future their roles will always be flexible and their roles reversed depending on situations, not making any dogmatic claim of superiority for either on their own. Just where have i ever posited a premature seizure of the work-places, although i have a certain sympathy for the the tactic of occupation when it is feasible and applicable and has limited achievable aims. I think again if you read the 1937 article which is all about the 1930s sit-in strikes – so does the party. "The workers gained notable concessions, such as are described as "the biggest victory United States labour has ever had."But yes, i also have no quibble with the article's conclusion that
Quote:The Socialist Party urges all workers to consider the position. They have to strike and face lock-outs because they are slaves to the capitalist class. They cannot enter into ownership of the means of life whilst the capitalist is in possession of political power. That power is given them by the workers themselves, who have been trained for centuries to think along capitalist lines, and then through the medium of the ballot box have, in consequence, elected the capitalists to, power. The wealth of the world is produced by the workers and it is, therefore, just sound common sense to say that what the workers can produce for the capitalist they can produce for themselves. But Socialist understanding and determination is essential to that task. Until the workers are prepared to give their consideration to this aspect of their problems, all the stay-in sit-down strikes in the world will not rid them of their troubles.Nobody is recommending suicidal martydom as a political tactic. But, for instance, again in Argentina an opportunities arise to defend ourselves when owners absconded from their ownership responsibilities, and that the workers for the sake of survival ignored the law and took control. Over a decade later, the legal issues of the occupations are still being fought in the courts.I know from personal experience when postal workers were on strike and the strike was undermined by the use of scab management, we seriously considered denying them entry to the sorting office by an occupation. We, of course, then had to consider the consequences of large stocks of cash, money etc we would be in control of which would may well lead to a forceful police intervention.When the Tories new laws on the use of scab labour are evoked i think many strikers will be deciding if it is better being in the inside keeping the scabs out , than being on the outside trying to stop the scabs getting in. The mere accidental risk to valuable machinery would be a consideration for the management in a forceful eviction. There has been a series of work-ins throughout my lifetime to stop or at least to reduce redundancies. There has been the creation of workers co-operatives for the same purpose. Of course, they are defensive and doomed ultimately to failure…they are just simple tactics that can prevail in certain particular specific situations …not general strategy to be endorsed for all time for all cases. There will also be a time that the courts will decree a srike illegal for not following the regulations on ballots. Workers will have the decision to make whether to challenge the State by staying out on strike , being sacked , picketing in illegal numbers, to stop scabs doing their work and to get their jobs back. Again, the history of the labour movement throughout the world demonstrated that the workers will engage against the powers of the State…and sometimes they actually prevail…It is called class war…and sometimes we the workers win a battle or two even though as yet not the war, itself. Anyways, i'll end with another blast from the past, this time a 1911 article, which might provoke some thought.
Quote:The workers’ course will then be very clear. They will set their faces toward the capture of all this coercive force, by organised struggle on the political field. When they have succeeded in capturing political power they have, by the very fact of so doing, proclaimed at once their strength and their capacity. Their strength to wield the armed forces to the revolutionary purpose, since they will have captured the instruments by which it is wielded. Their capacity to organise themselves as a productive community, since they will have organised themselves for the infinitely more difficult task of their own emancipation.The first fact in itself would undermine the military strength of the capitalist class, for the working-class soldiery armed in the capitalist interest, realising the political strength of their own class, and inevitably sharing in the advanced proletarian class-consciousness, would be encouraged to follow their class interest – just as the French regulars, under the much less favourable circumstances of the Paris Commune, sided with the workers when they thought them strong, and against them when they thought them week.Let the workers, therefore, regard the Law and its machinery from their own standpoint – as an instrument of their oppression, and organise themselves into a political party in order to capture it, and use it in the final act of all law, the glorious crowning fruition of the last and bitterest of all class struggles – their own emancipation from slavery. A. E. JACOMBLBird, if i didn't know better, i think perhaps you replied without going to the link to place the title which was a quote into context. I may well be wrong but your two replies, are way above my head if they are in response to what the book review seems to be suggesting to me.
Quote:Ecuador companeros and companeras repeat words heard in many other places. “They evicted us and we returned and built again.” And: We need to educate not with words but with “concrete things.”Those "concrete things" are the things that constitute the class struggle for those people in those countries at this time …i would have thought "concrete things" could well be in different conditions and situations the actual creation of those workers councils you often express sympathy for.It is about advancing the concept of “workers’ control” not “controlled workers.” as the review author expresses it. …Building grass-roots organisations and implementing alternative means of resistance…that is praxis of the class struggle. We educate ourselves when we assume responsibility for ourselves on a social and political and economic level and come into conflict with our rulers. Again to quote the review
Quote:Brazil is the site of the movement of landless workers (MST). In the MST, decisions are made by consensus. But this is not because of some petty-bourgeois deviation. On the contrary, participants believe that “This is a class struggle.” The ultimate goal is socialism.Did you have a knee-jerk reaction to the words rather than read the meaning and intent that lay behind their use? If not, as i said, i can't see the relevance of either of your comments to the article and they seem not at all in line with some of your previous observations.
What happened to the case of being the opposition while capitalism persists, the case made by the Left Mensheviks and Martov rather than the putsch ad aquisition of politcal power that Lenin accomplished.
Access to the Daily Mail is blocked in Thailand. I believe it was for some uncomplimentary reporting of the country's royal family.
You are doing a grand job, Whenever there is a Scottish connection, the article is re-posted on our Socialist Courier blog.
Very interesting website …Do you know anything of their history. As you know, i have adopted this overview that because we come to the same conclusions by different journeys, we acquire different baggage and we cannot be exclusive in our attitudes. Their's seem to be very much anti-IMF/World Bank positions gained no doubt from those organisations meddling in Bangladesh politics and economics, as well as an overly scientism that can be explained by being in such a religious dominated culture. Do you think the WSP (India) has been touch?I certainly think the Socialist Party should make contact and donate a wide selection of our literature and send them each month a few complementary copies of the Socialist Standard. (Won't break the bank, would it?)I wonder what LBird will make of their opening description of themselves"Science, Science and Science for Freedom is the main slogan. Science will win because it works"
Independence for Londonhttp://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/30/london-should-be-treated-as-city-state-says-labour-mayoral-hopeful"London should be treated as a city state and given tax-raising powers to match its equal standing with the four nations of the UK"
Quote:socialists cannot prepare 'economically' prior to winning the the class struggle.Vin, your position is that socialists should sit on their hands and do nothing until (in the UK) we achieve politcal supremacy at the polling booth. (apologies for stripping your argument down to the bare bones)Once again i refer you to our official position.
Quote:With the spread of socialist ideas all organisations will change and take on a participatory democratic and socialist character, so that the majority’s organisation for socialism will not be just political and economic, but will also embrace schools and universities, television, film-making, plays and the like as well as inter-personal relationships. We’re talking about a radical social revolution involving all aspects of social life. http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/whats-wrong-using-parliamentI have repeatedly said the capture of the State and as our D of P emphasises particularly " the armed forces of the nation" is required to protect the unfolding socialist revolution, likewise , the organisation of workers economically outside of Parliament is required to defend the socialist majority if it is threatened by the non-obedience of the military during the appropriation of the capitalist class . This what sword and shield means. It still is about the capture of the State. Again this debate has often been about what the machinery of State actually is…Everything that is under the direction of government as many say? Or as SP suggests , it is only the identifiable coercive bits of the State that is at issue. The Office of National Statistics being only an important data-collecting part of government for the smooth running of society, that is neither crucial to the existence of the State (although very desirable) nor serving either directly or indirectly the core purpose of the State which is to maintain and defend the interests of the ruling class.
DJP and Vin, if, as you say, like the State, money "withers away" because it loses its function, do we have a period where it still exists in an altered form in socialism? (i'm not talking about labour time vouchers)Surely if we talk of those two elements of class society, the State and the exchange economy, still having an existence albeit modified …which the phrase "withering away" infers, we are now arguing for a hybrid transitional society…not a transitional political position of that infamous slogan dictatorship of the proletariat or a lower stage/phase of socialism. I would say once there is no private property, money immediately ceases to have any role and once workers have ejected the ruling class from political power, the State immediately loses its function and ceases to exist. Both these depend upon society – people – already building and creating socialism by taking possession whereever and whenever we can of our social system in a process of social revolution…and to hark back to the Situationist phraseology …revolution of everyday life. That means claiming the ground politically in Parliament but also as Robbo suggests, in building non-profit, non-exploitative, non-exchange organisations in the community,while at the same time in industry orming the means of exercising control over the workplaces by the producers themselves as directed by the wider community.Let us not forget that even Marx was calling for "producers associations" so he too can be considered lapse in language.Those who have said that our original and justifiable criticisms of syndicalism and councilism remains valid today have overlooked my own comment that those groups and organisations have themselves evolved and accept that weakness of them that we put forward and have now adjusted their ideas to end the sectional ownership problem they had even if it is an unacknowledged acceptance the SPGB's common ownership. SolFed today is far different from their syndicalist roots of trade-union "government" and the IWW have widened the scope of its industrial unions to non-workers.ALB, i don't think the debate can be so easily defined as you say….SP's position is very much to have the administrative parts of society such as the Department of Agriculture continue, but he has stated that they have stand-alone autonomy and are not the same as the coercive features of the State that requires to be politically captured and disarmed …(SP, forgive the oversimplification and paraphrasing and if i am wrong , please correct me). Hud has explained that there is no case for re-constructing in parallel those parts of the state but that the intent is to democratise and re-organise the administration of them to make them more responsive and responsible to society. I suggest that this process begins in the revolutionary process and not something that is for post-revolution and i think you confirmed that position with your 1937 quote. It is a mis-attibution to say that people are calling for the complete "destruction" of postal service etc.Surely when you talk about the local councils where we will more than likely be in our hands before the parliamentary elections , its housing department and the town planning architects will be cooperating with NGOs like Shelter, the housing associations, and the local building companies that have now got strong unions and in many cases already been transformed in to co-ops since owners have as they have done in the past, faced with a revolution, abandoned their enterprises and done a runner, leaving the work-force to take charge themselves, all those agents for change don't require the State to be captured except in one big detail…protection. I'm back to my sword and shield SLP analogy ( i really should re-read Coleman's views on this).We need to disarm all the weaponry of the capitalist state to permit the full development of the revolution in action. We need to capture the coercive class control part of the State to defend the adminstrative departments which we already or are on the verge of turning into a socialist adminstration of things.
Seems like Hatton can leave the past behind but the Labour Party Mandarins can't http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32909887
i think Hud expresses it accurately enough…we aren't re-creating the health service, for example, but placing in under another administration and control…which capitalism is constantly been doing and which for all we know maybe even mean socialists reverting back to "elected" but wasn't it more "delegated" health boards and adapting those to involve communties and all health workers. Vin, we have always had a policy of parallel "economic organisation" so termed because it was meant to encompass an analyses and criticisms of the SLP SIUs, IWW's IUs, Guild Socialism, Syndicalism and Workers Councilism
Quote:This is not to say that the socialist majority only needs to organise itself politically. It does need to organise politically so as to be able to win control of political power. But it also needs to organise economically to take over and keep production going immediately after the winning of political control. We can’t anticipate how such socialist workplace organisations will emerge, whether from the reform of the existing trade unions, from breakaways from them or from the formation of completely new organisations. All we can say now is that such workplace organisations will arise and that they too, like the socialist political party, will have to organise themselves on a democratic basis, with mandated delegates instead of leaders. http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/whats-wrong-using-parliamentCorrectly, our policy is not one of determinism, advocating specific structures without regard to the conditions and situations. Even the theories of workers councils and of the syndicalists and of the IWW has changed quite fundamentally since their original appearance, discarding their "workerism" of the" work-place" and involving the wider the community in decision-making which was our primary observation of their weaknesses…as cited in our quote…"coal to the miners, trains to the railwaymen and dust to the dustmen"…or something like that…but we recognised very early not to demand sectional control but place society as a whole in charge.
It is problematic as you suggest and i think it is easier to oppose governement reforms than propose our own.There are numerous bills in the Queens Speech that i believe to be openly anti-working class (even though great numbers of our fellow workers will support them and such opinions did split the labour movement in the USA and Canada. If i recollect party history, the SPGB had to distance itself from anti-Chinese racism that exexpressed by some in the SPC who echo the Left nationalists who say migrants brings down wages and working conditions and seek to stiffen controls and reduce numbers )Part of exposing this anti-worker ideas are to link peoples prejudices or misinformation to the legislation being imposed so it means sometimes going further than we intended. I recall one reply to a letter several years ago , i believe it was from the BNP Information Officer where the editors appeared to agree with the BNP that open borders would lead to chaos and we were not advocating no-borders within capitalism. Surely we should combat the misconceptions that immigration is a problem and that the "country" cannot cope with an influx of peoples as we face now from our fellow workers suffering great straits.
