[alanjjohnstone]

Russel Brand endorses Labour and Miliband, the SNP and Lucashttp://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/04/russell-brand-changes-mind-about-voting-and-urges-support-for-labour

[alanjjohnstone]

Another article by me on the Countercurrents websitehttp://www.countercurrents.org/johnstone040515.htmAnother article by Richard Layton on the Dissident Voice websitehttp://dissidentvoice.org/2015/05/this-is-not-marx-whatsoever/There are websites out there that will publish articles by ourselves which means we are reaching an audience that may well not have heard of us or our particular socialist case.We only got ourselves to blame if we are not using all the avenues open to us to explain socialism. 

[alanjjohnstone]

He does the lay-out of the Standard with NeilW, both Lancaster Br, but he wrote and narrates Kids Stuff so you should have known  who he was.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/video/capitalism-and-other-kids-stuffHis interventions on the forums are seldom but always interesting if usually painful to be on the receiving end…as i have reason to know.Lbird might be interested to know that our main video does not use the S word in it….So there are other ways to go about convincing others of our ideas.  

[alanjjohnstone]

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What about you, alan?

An empty belly only thinks about foodi don't dismiss the widget production and the democratic control to produce them if it is to satisfy my tummy's needs foremost. I think the SPGB has advanced the case for participatory democracy tremendously with our own party practice…we have whats commonly called the knowledge test … when past, that places  everybody on a level even standing…not even the most articulated or talented speaker or writer can assume a position of authority based on any hierarchy. The newest member and the oldest member must convince eachother by the worthiness of their arguments, not prestige or standing. I've witnessed this and i think most members have experience of observing this democracy in action. Paddy Shannon  on this aspect influenced me (Lbird, Paddy rarely visits this forum)http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1998/no-1130-october-1998/politics-joiningOur EC (and committees) cannot place motions to conference, only branch resolutions and they are moved and seconded by individual members debated in the branch, and then submitted to conference for debate, if passed the proposals still have to meet approval by a party poll of every member. Can the basics of this bpplied to society/science…i think so. Perhaps the division of labour as Robbo has indicated may have a fuller role but any specialised committees/organisations making recommendations can be judged and challenged by communities who possess overall control of the committees. I don't take upon myself the actual decision making of the widget factory production process and management…society  decide if they make widgets in the first place…how many and for whom…and we make the call on the environmental impact of the methods of production….And of course we will face dilemmas such as NIMBYism and we need a democratic procedure to engage with that…democracy also means reaching compromise and adapting to losing situations. I guess i'm a utilitarian, at heart….what works the best is proof of correctness …And if the debates are merely ethereal, who cares who is right or wrong if they don't have a material effect on people or society actions. 

[alanjjohnstone]

Obviously this new thread sprung up as i busied my response on the existing thread so i refer you to this as there appears to be some similarity of themehttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/russell-brand?page=6#comment-22705

[alanjjohnstone]

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The SPGB, quite rightly in my opinion, follows Marx's lead, and insists that the actual functioning of socialism must be a future decision for the class conscious workers, and refuses to give a 'blueprint' for socialism.

This is usually the answer offered but i'm increasingly finding it questionable. As i said on another thread, it is another excuse for deferring the revolution to an indeterminate future, of declining to debate and discuss vital aspects of socialismI want socialism NOW. I consider myself a class conscious worker NOW. Am i being denied the democratic right of beginning that revolution now? Sure it is a collective projected of all of society but as we always say it does start with a minority. We begin as individuals rejecting socialism so i take on board your accusation of individualism and plead guilty but we soon discover others sharing similar ideas and go beyond the individual and we develop into a political party, one that begins to reflect our class and our society as it grows in number and merges with all the other campaigning social movements produced by workers. For sure, we have not reached that snowball/avalanche level of mass organisation yet but we put into practice the "blueprint" of socialism as the structure and the decision making of our party. We create our rules and principles as a mirror of socialist democracy. And it is amended and it is made malleable so that it incorporates the experience and the knowledge gained …or at least it has the capacity for that.If we want socialism NOW, and not at an undetermined future date, we must show how it works and how we would begin to implement it including the democracy in its decision-making that we are professing. We can lay down the skeleton features for other workers to put flesh on to as we swell in numbers and acquire more and more input from wider and wider sections of our class. In some situations it may well be speculation but isn't that those scientists do, present hypotheses and theories that are either disproved or on the other hand if declared valid are elaborated upon and added to, the gaps filled up, the bar raised higher. Marx has been quoted so lets remember he was himself not beyond presenting his blueprint of  labour time vouchers and phases with the Gotha Programme albeit it was for private circulation…an anethema for a democrat and in contradiction to his Communist Manifesto …that communists distain from concealing their views and aims. I'm happy to say that certain parts of the State will remain…the statistical branch, the welfare/scientific departments of agriculture and health and what-not. I am happy to include international bodies into the framework, UN's WHO, UNESCO and make use of integrate the many NGOs, Oxfam and the like that exist plus all the professional/trade bodies that at the moment administer aspects of capitalism – the FAA on air transport, for instance (i use that as an example for the simple reason when i was a humble air traffic control assistant i saw the world-wide co-ordination and co-operation required to get from A to B through the air. I then later worked for British Rail and again witnessed the collaboration and liaison to get from A to B safely, despite the differences in technology) I think we need to identify and quantify how we will transform capitalism into socialism, since we argue that we are not intending to build on the ruins of the old system but socialise their foundations. We have to say how. We have to present a picture and we all know the saying …a picture is worth a thousand words…so i am for these symbolic wheels of the IWW or the SLP SIUs, i'm sympathetic to those who describe a model …Parecon and Inclusive Democracy…even if the content of their specific models is not what we would recommend or outline. But they embark upon that process…putting meat on to the bone and giving something more physical and concrete for people to envisage as a possibility. Perhaps what i am trying to say is that The Zeitgeist Movement offered us a more detailed vision of what is possible and it is our task to make it a political movement of change which it is not. Let's admit facts… or realities if you prefer that term…TZM have out-membered us and had a bigger impact than ourselves world-wide. Perhaps it is because of their looser, more elastic definition of member but i think most adhere to their core idea of a new type of world…very much alike to our own aspiration.What;s Brand's success? I'd say it is relating ideas of a future revolution to the present. Okay, we can all dispute that much of his "revolution" isn't exactly system-change but nevertheless he does say what we think is impossible, is possible…things need not be what they are…we are capable of making and shaping in our own interests and  for our own benefit. He inspired. Now let us be truthful and look at ourselves…Are we inspiring others right now? Dietzgen and Pannekoek talked of consciousness in semi-mystical terms such as spirit…so he shared some aspects of Brand..others such as Reich and Fromm evoked the psychological influences ….They all sought that we make the revolution personal…that we personally take possession of the responsibilities and the aspirations of socialism and organise to share those with other socialists and educate the non-socialists but always agitating for socialism — education , organisation agitation..the three legs of socialist movement. We must foster confidence in ourselves as the agent of change…ourselves meaning us as individuals , party members, union members, and members of our class.I'm happy to incorporate what we know anthropologically sociologically with what we know of the socialised management of capitalism…their supply logistics chain, from farm to shelf, from production unit to retail outlet and make those political objectives and if people seek examples to hold up a proper socialist free at point of delivery NHS service or education system as something to show a socialist system is feasible and achievable.I'm not for a monolithic political movement based upon commandments cast in stone ..a monument…but an organic party with a small p in the way Marx described the socialist party…argung and debating amongst themselves as scientists do…undermining sacred cows to advance knowledge. (And i have always defended LBird for his role in doing that on various threads…kick-starting us into re-considering our positions – doesn't mean he is right on everything, though, …nor i… or you…or her …and certainly not Brand)Hope the above elucidation goes a way to show where i stand on how i consider the revolutionary process should be like….giving you a blueprint of my political stance …my ideology, Lbird   2nd warning: 1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.

[alanjjohnstone]

I want a  vote on if Lbird is bullshitter…its the only democratic way to determine the truth…Who votes and how they vote?Wasn't that Robbo who said LBird was bullshitting because he doesn't explain the way we vote on such questions as correctness of ideas….So its up to me to undemocratically define democracy but  i have only an ideological position on it …i don't think bullshit exists …just contrary opinions of reality….waffle waffle twaddle blah blah..name-calling …fiddlysticks …give me that tab of acid…i want more of what's real …BREAK-THROUGH…BREAK-DOWN…BREAK-UP…Slam the brakes on…chibber chibber, warble warble…Am i off-topic, moderator1…Keep me on the straight and narrow…faaa…lll…ing…….1st warning: 1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.

[alanjjohnstone]

I thought our Declaration of Principles were already engraved in stone 

[alanjjohnstone]

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Sort that out, solve the riddle of the Sphinx, the Gordian Knot, the Rosetta Stone and we've cracked it!!!

I always refer to the question of how socialist consciousness arises as the Holy Grail of socialism.

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Consciousness tends to expand exponentially rather than arithmetically

When you stand alone, you really do stand alone. Our herd instinct?

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Part of the reason why many are currently reluctant to become socialists or work for socialism  is that they think it is just not credible in the sense that it is not going to happen in their lifetime. So why bother.  This of course then becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

It is why our advocacy for socialism we must include an immediancy within it. That emphasis is placed on the possibility NOWI am often accused of seeking a model, a blueprint and i am guilty of that because people want to see practical proposals and need these concrete points to argue and elaborate upon to fix their minds upon something more firmly. When we build a house we discuss with the architect and the builders…when we buy off-plan we have the designs on paper and pictures to study …we don't commit to abstract…it'll have two bedrooms and a living room generalisation. When we say it isn't possible to outline daily life in socialism, we de facto confirm what all the other people say…it is something for the far off future…for my grandkids if they are lucky.

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Some people may be inherently more conformist or unwilling to break the mould and may therefore require the presence of many more socialists around them before they feel secure enough to begin to make a move in the direction of socialism

Erich Fromm's Fear of Freedom ?…Who wants the burdens and responsibility of the whole world upon their shoulders…we need trust that others will share the load….the loss of trade union militancy and unity may in a way reflect this collective will-power we require to displace capitalism and take on the running of a whole new society. …The capitalist case that there has to be politicians  leaders…or scientists and technocrats…,is indeed a get out clause for the serious business of assuming your own self-liberation and emancipation…much better being a spectator than a participant and easier to shout criticism from the stands and blame the players or the manager's strategy (to use a football analogy) for failure to score our goal. I think we need to make socialism realisable in the minds of people now that it is viable technologically.If we can detect the cause of the malady we can begin to think of the cure and the treatment needed. …At the moment to return to my earlier medical remark…our current and future activity must "not do harm".On the other hand…We can't sit on our hands and do nothing and just believe in the socialist faith and repeat the prayers of the traditional socialist creed like some Gregorian chant…  

[alanjjohnstone]

Much is made of the "youth" policies of clubs as the means of developing talent but actually it is merely bringing players on to be sold on. Many clubs never make their money from the match attendances, sponsorship or media fees but from the transfer market…they are the flesh peddlars of young people's skills. Club transfer policy is to find players with a sell-on value, put them in the metaphorical shop window, as you say, sell them on at a profit and then repeat the process with the proceeds.http://sport.stv.tv/football/scottish-premier/celtic/295669-what-has-your-team-spent-on-transfers-in-the-last-five-years/Personal anecdote…Hibs will sign on many youngsters to their books but once they get to 18 and entitled to an adult wage…"off you go, laddie, find another club" … my work colleague's boy was lucky…American colleges are active in the UK scouting and offering sports scholarships to such discarded players and he ended up in some no-name Wyoming college but with his education and accommodation paid and a part-time job provided coaching young kids for  spending money.  Returning to the injury issue Dr. Tobias Moskowitz, professor of economics at the University of Chicago and author of Scorecasting, warned about the economic imperatives that are pushing players to their limits. “The economic incentive is there for more games and the hefty schedule that is in place. The fans want to go to and see as many games as possible, generating more revenues from ticket sales. You also have higher TV revenues from more advertisements. All of that adds up, and the players don’t get paid per game,” Dr. Moskowitz said. For the owners of the teams and the league bosses who control the game, it really does not matter if the players play too many games.“It may be that the league and players have to be willing to accept fewer financial rewards in order to obtain a more humane calendar,” Dr. Moskowitz said.Our socialist courier blog has touched on thishttp://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2013/08/health-and-safety-in-sport.htmlhttp://socialist-courier.blogspot.com/2013/07/blood-sports.html

[alanjjohnstone]

It does get a bit blurred, doesn't it?…a CEO is "employed" by the share-holders, yet his "wages" is often in the shape of privileged share options. Takes us back to all that discussion on the state-capitalist apparachiks and nomenclatura and Rizzi's and Burnham's managerial elites as a ruling class (not to mention Paul Cardan), and not the owning class….but i don't think we should go off topic too muchManagement in football is not the manager or coach but the board and , oh we know only too often, the battles football managers have had with their board of directors and the resignations and the sackings that have ensued. Always as you say…the ultimate winner is the person at the top with the most shares in the club – the owner. 

[alanjjohnstone]

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there are reasons beyond the capacity of workers that make it difficult to spread the case for socialism.

And i want to be fully frank – i don't think we as socialists ourselves fully understand the reasons, apart from abstract generalisations.But we do what we do as we see fit right now.Some may take issue with this claim i now make – "first do no harm" – the Hippocratic Oath – i think our political approach indeed reflects this precautionary principle. Brand too could be seen early on following a similar guideline…but the deeper he got into actual politics, the more he muddied the waters and began to get out of his depth. 

[alanjjohnstone]

Can we do it all again later this year?…(won't be the first time there has been two elections in one year – 1974)http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/labour-gets-ready-for-second-2015-general-election-1-3761692

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 SENIOR Labour figures are privately discussing a strategy for a second general election later this year. Scotland on Sunday has learned that party officials are looking at a second vote, which one MP described as a “very likely scenario”, in the wake of Ed Miliband’s confirmation last week that he would not form a Labour government if it required a deal with SNP MPs.

[alanjjohnstone]

Any chance that any of the AV committee's  IT Crowd can isolate Mike's contribution so it can be embedded in our website and blogs? …Sums up our case quite succinctly, he does. 

[alanjjohnstone]

Robbo and LBird…i think we have to be sure of our words…Victor is wrong …people aren't ignorant…they are unaroused politically. We know our friends and co-workers only too well…they can analyse a football game with precision…they can judge a racehorse's capability to a photo fuinish…and they leave me mathematically dumbfounded when it comes to calculating all those complex bets at the bookies…it is certainly not from lack of intellectual prowness that workers do not understand socialism…it is the missing will that they lack.

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From Hegel from his Philosophy of the Mind:“If, therefore man does not want to perish he must recognize the world as a self-dependent world which in its essential nature is already complete, must accept the conditions set for him by the world and wrest from it what he wants for himself. As a rule ,the man believes that this submission is only forced on him by necessity. But, in truth, this unity with the world must be recognized, not as a relation imposed by necessity, but as the rational …therefore the man behaves quite rationally in abandoning his plan for completely transforming the world and in striving to realize his personal aims, passions and interests only within the framework of the world in which he is a part.” 

Socialist Parry members are not superior to society. We understand how the class society basically works. That is the difference to the majority of the working class, which do not understand and therefore do not see the need to abolish capitalism. I would like to quote Bookchin and Mattick

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From his Anarchism , Marxism and the Future of the Left :-"…human beings cannot be free – except under very rare conditions , such as during revolutions and for limited periods of time ; even then , they must still leave the barricades and return to work to satisfy their needs and those of their families . They have to eat , if you please….."Bookchin continued with an example:-" …In May 1937 in Barcelona , the workers had to conquer the Stalinist counterrevolution then and there . But they delayed , and after four days they had to leave the streets to obtain food…"

 

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“There is no evidence that the last hundred years of labour strife have led to the revolutionizing of the working class in the sense of a growing willingness to do away with the capitalist system…In times of depression no less in than these of prosperity , the continuing confrontations of labor and capital have led not to an political radicalization of the working class , but to an intensified insistence upon better accommodations within the capitalist system…No matter how much he [ the worker ] may emancipate himself ideologically ,for all practical purposes he must proceed as if he were still under the sway of bourgeois ideology .He may realize that his individual needs can only be assured by collective class actions , but he will still be forced to attend to his immediate needs as an individual .It is this situation , rather than some conditioned inability to transcend capitalism. He may realize that his individual needs can only be assured by collective class actions , but he will still be forced to attend to his immediate needs as an individual .It is this situation , rather than some conditioned inability to transcend capitalist ideology, that makes the workers reluctant to express and to act upon their anti- capitalist attitudes ” – Marxism, Last Refuge of the Bourgeoisie

From our literature, these two supplementary quotes are of interest“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 ?And here we also stated :-“If we hoped to achieve Socialism ONLY by our propaganda, the outlook would indeed be bad. But it is Capitalism itself unable to solve crises , unemployment, and poverty, engaging in horrifying wars, which is digging its own grave. Workers are learning by bitter experience and bloody sacrifice for interests not their own. They are learning slowly. Our job is to shorten the time, to speed up the process.” – Socialism or Chaos Socialist consciousness involves understanding socialism which means talking about it, sharing ideas about it – in short educating ourselves and our fellow workers about it.But some detractors, have the mistaken idea that the Socialist Party of Great Britain thinks selling a copy of the Socialist Standard and holding meetings is the key to revolution. If that really was the case, the world would be in for a very long wait. People become socialists from their experiences; meeting socialists is part of that experience. Some in our party have the view the problem with the SPGB's theory is NOT because it emphasises education but because it inadequately theorises the relationship between education and struggle/practice. For example, it has little or nothing positive to say about what workers are to do in the meantime. The working class is simply the working class, a bundle of contradictions. It is both the most conservative class because they have the most to lose AND, at the same time, the most revolutionary because they have the most to gain. I think early members understood aspects of socialism better that some of us today.

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"he has to ask what are the essentials of Socialism. The first essential he discovers is—a human race. Without humanity there can be no Socialism. Directly he admits this he discovers that, even as the frigidly pure, passionless, scientific exponent and advocate of Socialism the every day affairs of men do matter, for assuredly if any calamity threatened to blot Man out of the scheme of things, to obliterate one of the essentials of his scientific obsession, it would concern him….  ….To say that the Socialist can view all things from the standpoint that nothing matters but Socialism is an easy matter, but it wants a deal of upholding when the worker has got to view the labour market from the standpoint of the seller of labour-power. Is he, if he understands Socialist economics, and therefore all the better understands the necessity of the struggle against capitalist encroachment, to give up personal participation in the struggle? Is he, directly he becomes armed and equipped for the battle of the future, to be rendered powerless and paralytic in the equally necessary struggle of the present?If, when a worker attains to class-consciousness, he ceases to require food, clothing and shelter, ceases to be a vendor of labour-power, ceases to be under the necessity which all commodity owners are under—of fighting for the realisation of the value of his commodity, in this case labour-power; if, in short, he ceases to be anything but a pure abstraction in whom even the charitable raven could find no want to minister to, no lodgement for a beakful of material sustenance, then it might be logical to say that no Socialist can belong to a trade union.But if the class-conscious worker still must live by the sweat of his brow, or rather by the sale of his potential energy, then he must resort to the instrument which make the conditions of a sale, as distinct from the conditions which environ the chattel slave’s dole.Among these instruments, for a certain number, are, under present conditions, trade unions on a non-revolutionary base. And as far as the Socialist thinks them necessary to his personal economic welfare, as far, that is, as economic pressure forces him to, he is right and justified in using them."http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1911/no-87-november-1911/socialist-and-trade-unionism

 Sorry for the extensive extracts…

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