alanjjohnstone
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Conspiracist will indeed accuse it of being a cover-up white-wash since it ignores fractional reserve banking and how banks create credit by treating every loan debt as an asset. However, it is the same bank model, i believe, the Greens wish to follow. Nice bank managers and not those nasty corporate speculators, to go with the local corner shop, and not the multinational supermarket chain, and the small farm down the road and not any of those agricultural conglomates, all offering genuine customer and consumer satisfaction as they take money from our fair wage earned by an honest days work at the local worker-owned co-operative.TSB – The Sincere Bankers !!! But i agree it is a good PR effort.
Maybe you credit him too much. When the social revolution swept Russia and the factories and landed estates were appropriated in the February Revolution, Lenin was in Switzerland and by the time he returned, he was too busy trying to catch up with the events and the only things the Bolsheviks appropriated were other parties slogans.
Another variant i often come across is "state monopoly capitalism", more used by those who see the mixed economy/nationalisation as a distinct recognisable social system but when looked at under the surface even the most "free-enterperise" national economy has elements of the state dominating it. But i suppose there can be a case made for who is the true puppeteers, the monoplies such as the armament industries, or the State's military. As Eisenhower eluded to in is phrase the "military-industrial complex"…can they be separated or instead treated as one entity? http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html
Perhaps this could be made available as a hard-copy, using one of those on demand publishers and advertised on Amazon. ( France/Quebec)Who is the comrade with experience at doing this, i wonder….(rhetorical question)
In regards to reformism/reforms i hope this is an accurate reflection and summary of our position. http://www.countercurrents.org/johnstone210414.htm
A contrasting less than glowing review here.http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2012/12/22/bidding-adieu-to-seiu-lessons-for-its-next-generation-of-organizers/and her reply to thathttp://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2012/12/23/response-to-steve-earlys-review-of-raising-expectations/A turf-war between union factions. I misunderstood the community/union relationship…she wants the style of community social activism introduced to union organising. In many ways such as with walmart and fast-food, this style of non-union labor organising is taken place. I think this is what she has in mind or at least at the back of her mind.
I downloaded and read the re-groupment bulletin. First thing that struck me is that the re-groupment are fundamentally not in agreement, highlighted by the different attitude to Grangemouth and INEOS. I think it was the SR contribution that confirmed what i have been saying on the thread that they seek a SSP-equivalent party yet have not discussed why that did not succeed. (no, it was not all Sheridan's fault, the SSP was already on the wane)i was pleasantly surprised by their Ukraine analysis despite the language Workers Power seem to use…(and they apply the same old lefty leniniist terminology in all their contributions , no matter the topic. I thought the SLL/WRP had been resurrected at one point.)LU may be up and running but i still don't think its components are actually ready to take up the baton from one another.One item of news i did not know is the TUC protest in October and its theme – "Britiain Needs Payrise."Plenty of advance notice then for what i keep suggesting a newsletter or a series of leaflets covering several areas we want to criticise. With a title like they have proposed , its a sitting duck for us on various angles. Too often we just settle for one leaflet and expect a sentence or paragraph to be convincing enough to arouse interest. I keep saying that we need to treat those who participate on marches and protests as capable of absorbing much greater detail. 4 -page special edition of the Standard, more cheaper quality of paper though and lot more headlines and bigger fonts is what i always have in mind. More like a tabloid newspaper, lay-out. This along with a few different leaflets Giving someone two or three leaflets, laid out very differently to show they are not the same is just as easy as handing out one.
I'm confused by what you are saying, Stuart. What is it you are saying?"Those who argue that strong government intervention and subsidy of alternatives are enough to sufficiently protect the environment would seem to have history on their side. "How so? It appears they have failure on their side if the prognosis for the future is accurate. Thing have got worse, not better fo all the supposed intervention by government legislation and subsidies to alternative fuels. Bio-fuel quotas have contributed a side-effect in exacerbating poverty and food shortages . And need i go into carbon trading agreements?Do you expect climate change to be effectively solved by governments? That the best means is to mobilise a campaign for reforms? Which ones?Certainly, researchers have found that to refute conspiracists, disputing the facts simply reinforces their beliefs in conspiracy theory. Research into anti-vax even found it increased those who were anti vax . http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/vaccine-denial-psychology-backfire-effectSo it is true that mere reason does not always have an effect.But does morality and fair play? Charities/christianity have been playing our heart strings for centuries with limited success. Does emotional blackmail work any better?I have no idea how best to present our case, except by maintaining a consistent honesty about it. Even some of our most bitter critics rarely attack our integrity.On another thread which you probably not looked at we talked about how the WSPA in 1948 was acknowledging the question of effectiveness and lack of success. On Libcom i just brought up how we are often ridiculed for going sice 1904 without results but the IWW which started just a year later escapes that criticism.But i keep asking myself, if we have failed, have others succeeeded? And i keep coming up with the same answer. No. I fully recognise a lot of changes in social attitudes have taken place in my lifetime. But has it been because of legislation. Maybe so. Smoking is perhaps an example. Anti-racism and anti-descrimination laws, too, perhaps? Or do they just legitimise changes taking place rather than promoting it. Or do PC politics simply drive these attitudes underground? But then just being exposed day to day to immigration leads to tolerance.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10674167/Racists-absorb-tolerance-in-ethnically-mixed-communities.htmlThis research backs up the earlier evidence that it is in areas of low immigrant percentage that more of the fear of it exists.I'm offering no answers and still seek them to why people change and we already readily admit that they have. Sometimes very rapidly.But then we also witness many who do not change and simply shift their ground. I am a proponent of the LHO did it school in the JFK shooting and to get to the kernal i will often say…"ok give me the one piece of decisive evidence that convinces you that he didn't " When i then explain away that…lo and behold …something else is then primary…then another …then another…no matter how often reasonable explanations are offered , they keep shifting the goal posts. (James Randi often has the same problem when he tries to debunk the woo-woo as he calls them.)When it comes to conspiracies it doesn't matter if the person is left wing or right wing. I simply got fed up responding on Media Lens to the "radicals" who didn't realise how "conservative"" with small c they were even if they convinced themselves they were "anti". The name 9/11 truthers says it all.Anyways, too much quoting of the MCH simply turns us into determinists…history does fuck all…people do…but what sets them moving? ….ahhhh….You say despair doesn't but many such as Mattick rely on things getting worse …so it isn't despair but hope and optimism…the belief that we will win…the confidence in what we are doing…the view that set-backs are only temporary…subjective factors and …dare i say it moral positions…or as Pannekoek and Dietzgen called them…spiritual in the non religious sense.
As long as they more or accept what socialism is and more or less agree how to achieve it i don't think i really care how they became convinced. Their inspiration for all i care can be the Sermon on the Mount (or in Edinburgh's case, Sermon at the Mound !!.)We all reached our similar agreed conclusions by our separate individual and often very different paths. As we are not yet a class movement or a mass party i don't think we can seriously place the reason down to the MCH but accept that for the moment we are an idiosyncratic expression of it. What is that saying…nothing can stop an idea whose time has come…perhaps we got just a little bit while longer to wait for that to happen!!!I suppose the question does have a bearing on how we should direct our campaigns of persuasion but the thread doesn't seem to be addressing it.If we discuss abstract philosophical (or economical) questions then we should be relating it to practical politics. I have just been reading a bit on crisis theory and ignored all the theoretical arguments, much of which i couldn't even follow, and concentrated on just what it meant in real terms to accept or reject one theory against another.Already in a few threads on this discussion list , i simply got lost in how the topic affected my actual daily life or even my outlook on life. Not saying these things should not be discussed here, it is the purpose of the discussion list, but just don't expect it to be the most popular.
A bit more on his reformist approach here to support you, Stuarthttp://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1912/hope-in-future.htmPancakes is, however, less enamoured by a reform programme here http://libcom.org/library/communism-vs-reforms-sylvia-pankhurst-2Nor would he have been too keen on the creation of LU (or ourselves, for that matter)http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1936/party-working-class.htmPaul Mattick i think tried to express an attitude to reformism which i think some radicals adhere to.."While it may still be necessary to fight for immediate demands, such struggles no longer radically question the entire order. In the fight for socialism more stress must be laid upon the qualitative rather than the quantitative needs of the workers: it is just the qualitative needs which capitalism cannot satisfy. What is required is the progressive conquest of power by the workers through “non-reformist reforms.”In which case, “non-reformist reforms” is only another expression for the proletarian revolution. A struggle for a meaningful “workers control of production” is clearly equivalent to the overthrow of the capitalist system. it leaves open the problem of how to bring this about when there are no pressing needs to do so. Capitalism exists because the workers do not have the control over the means of production and if they acquire such control capitalism will cease to exist. This objective cannot be realized within the capitalist system and its persistence is a sign that the illusion still exists that capitalism actually finds itself in a state of transition to socialism – a transition that must be accelerated by proletarian actions based on this general impulse.The problem still remains of what organizational means to use to attain this objective…."http://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1976/new-capitalism.htm
The Weekly Worker analysis while agreeing with our own that it is defensive tactic of the working class but appears to argue that competition was a late development and it was a reluctant capitalist organisation. http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/1006/circling-the-drain
Weekly Workers take on it , broadly similar to our own disapproval of so-called censorship. http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/1006/nus-autonomist-bankruptcy
I have spent the past year in groups doing their best to oppose the privatisation of the NHS and to build a new party of the left. The implication seems to be that I'd be far better employed politically if I gave all that up and instead… what? Handed out SPGB leaflets? I could be convinced, I would." Are you spending the time reinforcing their delusions, accepting their self-imposed constraints or are you asking them to go beyond and conceive of something more radical. When some oppose and protest the strengthening and tightening of the immigration laws, offering a worthy defence and improvement of our immediate conditions, they present a vision of a world without borders as an alternative. When your new comrades defend the NHS do they follow on with a vision of free access to all services…or stop short and jump off the bus before the destination, and begin the process of prevaricating….ahhh, the free NHS is different from saying everything should be free…that's for the future…the far-off never-never land future. I fully accept the basis of your involvment, trying to make socialism a relevance once again (correct me if i am wrong) but are you making the connection that the struggle begins in the here and now …Again, if a hospital is saved, a proposed fee stopped, do your comrades sit back and say, a job well done, and let the health rationing of the NHS carry on as before?In the immigration debate, there is no solution in demanding more relaxed quotas, a friendlier immigration official checking your passport and work visa. No reason to advocate new guest worker legislation to appeal to some employers rather than others. When we defend migrant workers, it is on the principle of workers of the world have no country. And our solution is fully in accord with socialism, the abolition of nations and states. Whats the reforms that are stepping stones to that…"He can come in but she still can't !!!"(i have to praise LU for their decision not to support national chauvinism on this issue and see the international implication)Our approach should be the one of being the conscience of the working class…and to sound moralistic in tone, like an Old Testament prophet reminding people of the socialist covenant …and saying we told you so when they stray and become lost…particularly when they get off the bus and realise they still have a long way to go and decide on a short-cut that is a dead-end road. Cue now to break into a chorus of "Its a long way to Tipperary"
i think the point i was trying to make was the stepping stone strategy is the one that tries to make it sound ever so simple…we'll get there in stages because its easier…and i tried to say that the political struggle even for those reforms requires the same class mobilisation , the same commitment and determination , the same organisation through both protest and parliament as it would to achieve socialism…anything less and those stepping stones would be subsumed by the capitalist class and made impotent, or even turned to their own interest and gain …so if it it takes the same degree of struggle for reaching those stepping stones, the same persuasion and propaganda to convince people to struggle for them…then it,s same as getting off the bus half-way to your destination.i'm actually accusing you (as representative of reformism on this thread) of thinking things are simple. I fully recognise the difficulties we have in achieving socialism. Your position adds to those complications and another hurdle to overcome. And without distracting from the thread Anarres was a more or less barren moon, without the material resources to go the full way…we posit the opposite, don't we, that Earth has gone beyond scarcity and is an abundant world . But it has been a while since i read it. Hogan's Voyage of Yesteryear depicts a post scarcity society. But been year since i read that too.
I thought these two Libcom contributions effectively counter the stepping stone argument. http://libcom.org/library/workers-co-operatives-crashing-same-car http://libcom.org/library/self-management-misery-or-miseries-self-management-terra-cremada Specific to your link. "The transition from feudalism to capitalism did not generally happen because peasants protested in the streets, nor because they found a government with the "political will" to overthrow feudalism. It happened because a sequence of smallish individual actions – often without consciousness of their full effects – meant that, eventually, people found better things to do than obey feudal lords. Perhaps the transition from capitalism will occur in a similar way. " My reading of history has been that political revolutions did take place to displace feudalism. The socialisation of production under capitalism has been accomplished, and the democratisation of it will be necessary but the political required for that is the same required to achieve socialism…so why not go for the whole way, why stop short when socialism has become within your grasp. If credit unions and co-ops are the ultimate aim, capitalists will offer them when push comes to shove, just to stop themselves from being tossed over the edge. The ruling class will bide their tme and adjust, laughing up their sleeve when we had the ability to displace them, we shrank from that task.
