alanjjohnstone
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Again i don't think you are factually correct, ALB. What the demand was and what they agreed with ACAS and others was that there would be an agreed procedure when a pit was proposed by NCB to be closed down to decide if it was indeed justfied. After all i think every miner knew certain pits were just had too many faults to remain open or was exhausted. But which ones? It was the issue of "other reasons" and the issue over the breakdown of talks in a nearly accepted agreement over the word "beneficial" but again Scargill did not break off the talks but McGregor. Here is your point about his failure as a negotiater is relevant. He should have recognised that there are way of wording settlements which permit both sides to claim victory. So perhaps Scargills intrangience was a factor that can be accepted as contributory to the defeat but the attitue that Scargill would not compromise on pit closures i think was part of the govrnment disinformation campaign. I often imagine if the red scare of Gormley had not changed the election rules and McGahey had become leader how different it may have all been but that was not to be and is simply speculation But even after that round of talks the NUM were still prepared to agree to pit closures under amended conditions of Plan For Coal so it is not a policy of blanket refusal to have no pit closing Scargill had actually previously lost strike ballots on pit closures in 1981 and 1982 (highlighting the issue of whether someone has the right to vote away another persons job)This list of Durham pits closed will bring back memory of names for some on this list. http://www.durhamintime.org.uk/durham_miner/our_dwindling.pdf
"There could have been some sort of settlement after the NACODS vote but it didn't happen" Your unspoken inference is that it was Scargill who thwarted it. This timeline describes a number of occasions the NUM sought a deal but baulked at total capitulation. But i am still curious to know what documentary evidence there is that Scargill and Co sought a political strike rather than react to a political assault on their jobs with perhaps some unwise playing to the crowd rhetoric…a crime most trade unionists would be guilty of at the best of times. ============================================== 23 MAY 1984 – NCR walks out of talks with NUM and demand pledge of union co-operation in the closing of 'uneconomic pits'. 8-13 JUNE 1984 – Talks with NCR, which again result in demands on NUM to agree to management strategy. 1 JULY 1984 – Leon Brittan endorses use of Criminal Law rather than Civil Law against the miners. 19 JULY 19841 NUM/NCB talks last 3 days. Despite NUM willingness to negotiate, the NCB are ordered to stand firm. 11 OCTOBER 1984 – ACAS talks begin, although Ian MacGregor declares of ACAS 'This place stinks' and continues to demand NUM concessions. 15 OCTOBER 1984 – Despite NUM willing to accept two formulas put forward by ACAS, the negotiations are terminated when NCB walk out. 25 OCTOBER 1984 ACAS prepare formula which both NACODS and NUM accept and which includes provision for an independent review procedure. The NCB continue their demands on NUM. 17 NOVEMBER 1984 – NCB refuses to negotiate unless NUM gives agreement to close pits. 5 DECEMBER 1984 – MacGregor announces plans to privatise pits. 23 JANUARY 1985 Peter Walker, Secretary of State for Energy, refuses to hold an independent inquiry into the future of the coal industry. NUM General Secretary, Peter Heathfield, meets with NCB Director for informal discussions but MacGregor intervenes to prevent negotiations. 29 JANUARY 1985 – NCB insists upon the precondition that NUM sign agreement not to oppose pit closures. 3 MARCH 1985 – NUM ends strike. A Special Delegate Conference votes by 98-91 to return to work on 5th March 1985 without an agreement.===================== ===================== ======================================================================= And i do not recall any demands that the return to work decision should be put to a full national ballot! It will always be a matter of opinion on whether Scargill mismanaged but i am very reluctant to go beyond that criticism and accuse him of mis-leading the miners by imposing his own politics upon them. If he is guilty then a helluva lot of other trade unuionists and TUC officials are also standing in the dock for exhibiting lack of some back-bone, not to mention the shameful actions of the Labour Party and spineless Kinnock. After Nacods did Scargill realise that continuing the strike would be suicidal ????…that is for him to answer, i don't know but i don't question his sincerity and loyalty to his members.
"I would even say that if Scargill and some of the other NUM leaders had not have had the political aim of bringing down the Thatcher government they might have been able to have reached a deal to keep more pits open for longer as well as to obtain better redundancy terms. " Is there any references you have that the 84/85 Strike was a political strike by the NUM leadership to overthrow Thatcher? According to this 2009 story the NUM had made various deals with the Tories. It was MacGregor who decided to walk away from any settlement. If there was a political dimension, i rather think it was from Thatcher. The supposed list of 20 pits was secretly 70. The breaking of the law to defeat the strikers, etc etc. As you say the State has the power, and despite the secret preparations, it did not require to use its full force of drafting in troops, just the brain-dead Met Police on overtime and subsistence payments – a mercenary para-military force , if there was one. I got friendly with a Yorkshire superindent and he actually now fully sympathises with the miners and regrets his previous attitudes(from the luxury of retirement , of course) and what happened to them. He saw his own policemen brandishing handful of cash to taunt the strikes and ordered it to stop. Other police commanders wanted the provocation to increase. Some try to debate whether the miners could have won the strike …Dave Douglass i think argues that it could have but i think you are correct in your assessment and it is a fantasy to think otherwise. I think a lot of observers now consider the decision of NACODS to go against their own ballot the real nail in the coffin of the strike. So those who question the democracy of the NUM not holding a national ballot rarely turn their sights on that brazen breach of it by Nacods. Even though they could and did express their wishes in the innumerable pithead votes and they decided not wait for a national ballot as did their special conference. Its a moot point whether Notts would have scabbed (as they did in the 1920s) or not but again opinion polls showed the vote if a national ballot was held would be a yes. Scargill isn't my favourite person but he shouldn't be made a scapegoat for the defeat of the miners and the politicalisation of the strike. Lets remember who were the victims were and what they suffered because of a particular Tory policy and the despicable role of the media in parroting her lies.
An interview with an American author about Ukraine which i think is well worth watching as it gives the broad picture and not soundbites. A penetrating analysis. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37701.htm
I thought an aspect of the theme of the thread was about uneven development and that some parts of the globe will still not be socialist, just as some hunter/gather communities remain outside the capitalist economy and, although it can be challenged, as i maintain , large parts of the peasant economy . So yes i do write that there is a revolutionary process still going on after the crucial core of the world has moved on into a socialist society but that it is taking places on the fringes of world society and can be safely ignored by many of us. Not in th sense of I'm alright , jack, but not as a threat tht can undermine our socialist social relations. i think you highlighted that i do not talk of countries but of regions. My example of the Outer Hebrides sounds trivial in importance as you said in comparison with the Britsh economy. In regards to the world socialism so will be these areas who have not kept pace and lagged behind social progress. Just as in the early days of socialism, we can carry the burden of those whose psychological evolution has not adapted and may be slothful, lazy, greedy hangers-on and won't be forcing them into re-educational camps, and instead will simply apply common sense everyday approaches of peer pressure and example and if need be if their anti-social behaviour is too extreme, ostracisation. As i keep saying this relates to law and authority, simply widened from the individual to include groups. In liberating the still oppressed non-socialist parts of the world i think we will devise non-invasive treatments to remedy it as i suggest will happen when we seek non-coercive means to be an inclusive society. I deliberately placed 'title deeds' in apostrophes because there exists a question if they should be treated as common treasury, as you insist a small-holding will be, or a personal possession such as a home with an extra big garden ! Shall we declare every peasant a kulak and expropriate his land? Or coax him or her with enticements to expand an already co-operative community culture they actually live live within.
I simply wanted to highlight that around the world the development of capitalism has not been even and still does not completely dominate. I chose religion because the examples of Muslim theocracies often arises. i could have chosen the rural peasant class – despite their increasing wage labour proletarisation they are contintually undergoing – i do recognise the cultural differences of them and a city factory dweller which effects their ideas. Shall we intervene with forced collectivisation of the billions who still live a peasant-proprietary way of life…or shall we simply let them get on with it but offer the carrots of co-operative shared free access of tractors and machinery and fertilisers and seeds and what not, in "exchange" for the surplus product, and let them retain their "title deeds" to their little plots of land and consider it more a personal possession than private property and let things evolve at its own pace, if it has no bearing on the majority of us well-being or condition. The old cliche about not waiting for every Hottentot to become socialist. Islands of capitalism or pre-capitalism are as much a threat to the world system of socialism as a coffee shop co-op is now to capitalism. No life style crisis i meant that we need not deprive ourselves of mobile phones and high-tech gadgets because a warlord controls the vital resources. Humanitarian intervention by force as we have seen has serious knock on effects and unintended consequences. I simply advise caution of making it a principle rather than a tactic dependent on circumstances. Let a fever run its course rather than impose a painful cure may somtimes be the best remedy. But to repeat, i am reluctant to lay down some political rule about this that is applicable to every and all situations. Congo is one example i gave but more interesting to discuss is the drug cartel-vigilante war in Mexico, another totally different ball game. FGM is just one example of customs that are harmful…shall we permit male circumcision…shall we permit bodyism and sexism…..alcohol…drugs…self-destructive behaviour…anti-social behaviour …This takes us into the realm of what i touched upon in an earlier post – the role of authority and law…which is a topic deserving its own thread and not for this one on the DOTP.
"…but I would strongly caution against making use of the concept of the DOTP in any way shape or form…" I agree since i cannot recollect ever using the term in recent years and as you pointed i redefined it in my own terms and i thought i had dismissed it as a worthy concept to consider. We treat it with the same contempt as we do the "workers state" term is what we do, even if it was used by Marx. "…What does that mean for those parts of the world that attain a significant socialist majority first?…" At one time long ago i had this romantic idea that we form a International Brigade to liberate socialist minorities in 'medieval' backward countries. Having since visited some places i re-evaluated and just as medieval Calvinism existed in the Outer Hebrides (and Chapel in parts of Wales, i guess) long after it disappeared elsewhere and died its own death in its own time we will let that happen and meantime any who wish to exit such a region will receive a welcome and not be treated as a unwanted as a political refugee or asylum seeker currently is. But i suppose the Left envisage the unevenism to be more like those backward bible bashing creationist Americans who unlike examples i offered may be crucial to the material needs to socialism (which i don't particularly believe). I have in a previous contribution mentioned that the hinterland of China to-day is not China…see # 4…and the Bible belt of of the USA is not America. They become simply regions of the Big Wide World. And they readily adopt what they need to survive and put other beliefs on back-burner. i guess if a warlord (or a recalcitrant region) has in his clutches (as in Congo) highly sought after natural resource we will engage in barter. No lifestyle crisis for the rest of us in the rest of the world. "….the relatively unneven spatial growth of the socialist movement. It is thus an issue that cannot be avoided or sidelined and requires therefore some kind of theoretical position be developed in relation to this matter if the case for socialism is to come across as more plausible…" The DOTP is not the theory we need to answer or address this issue. We don't side-line it but the DOTP side-tracks it into a cul de sac.
i hope you are right about that there can be a successful peaceful resolution by re-dividing Ukraine, YMS. But as we saw in the division of Yugoslavia, it can be a bloody business.
The most frustrating thing being a socialist is the anger that swells up when we witness hypocrisy. We see the USA/UK condemn Venezuela but turn a blind eye to Hondurus, we see the UK/USA threaten sanctions against Ukraine but not a peep out of them about Bahrain. Yes i am increasingly thinking the scenario is being set for a a coup and regime change in Ukraine which won't go without a response the pro-Russia factions and Putin.http://rt.com/news/obama-condemns-ukraine-violence-799/Syria and Libya, Mali and CAR , Somalia and South Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan …list goes on of misjudgements of the consequence.I hope i am proved wrong but i see a vicious civil war brewing and the prospect of a new cold war between the West and Moscow. These ICBMs in their silos will be getting a polish and the cob-webs dusted off. How i recall the end of the Berlin Wall and the peace dividend, end of the Arms Race…as much a fantasy as new technology ushering the freedom from work leisure society …Can i be blamed for sharing Private Frazer's pessimism about the world?
I think what i was describing the process where the State is transformed into the administration of things , as you say, rather than dwell upon the DOTP which we all seem to agree is a flawed concept so yes i did not use the classic definition in political left circles except the general understanding to mean the democratic will of the people, and since the majority of people are members of the working class, it is class democracy until indeed capitalist relations are made history.The transformation of the State into organs of social democracy i think is a more worthwhile debate since it is the more appropriate discussion on how to make socialsm practicable and viable than debating the DOTP, a throwaway aside from a 19th century writer who picked it up from another earlier writer but like another vague and seldom used phrase "permanent revolution" it is seized upon for polemic purposes and distracts. Even with the abolition of wages and money, i would argue that we will be slaves until we have assumed the full responsibility of the decision making of organising production and distribution and the running of their daily communal/collective lives. This begins in the pre-revolution period but continues in the post-revolution. Capitalism expects a member of the working class to have a passive role and as along as he or she accepts this non-active, non-participatory social role then he or she is still has a class mentality.Even the administration of things for a period will retain coercive elements, prisons and state hospitals for the criminally insane being the most obvious and i am sure for a while the motorway "police" will be still cruising the highways with the "authority" to confiscate car – keys and public health officials with the "power" to padlock restaurants. But that is a different topic on law in socialismTo relate this thread to another, the political is the destructive part of the revolution, workers councils (originally industrial unionism) is the constructive element. While the destruction of capitalism is being accomplished, we can call it the DOTP, if we so wish and when it is completed the constructive side carries on and on changing the state into simply the machinery of administration
"…The socialist community would send delegates to parliament only to prevent it from being used against the organisation of production for use and free access… " My understanding is that it may not be simply a preventative measure as you suggest but in some cases will be used against a recalcitrant minority which may well endeavour to use violence against the will of the people. Our control of the State and with it the command of the armed forces may be wielded proactively rather than the passive role reflected in the section i quoted. We cannot also overlook the situation that some warlord will not yield and he and his supporters will have to be subdued forcibly. So the blue helmets may not be immediately redundant. (as an aside – i do not actually foresee the military being disbanded but they also being adapted to a new role…all that testosterone can be channeled into a new type of a Peace Corps. If they can wage war on the opposite side of the world they can be deployed in the wildernesses and jungles to develop the infrastructure) We will see a process within the State machine taking place. Those who are going to strip away its anti-social elements and enhance its social importance, i'm meaning all the ministries such as health an environment and departments of statistics., etc etc. Not an overnight process but importantly not one that will await the day after the revolution either. I remember how the unions during the 70 developed the Lucas Aerospace project where they reappraised what they did and how it could switch from the arms business to constructive industry. The DOTP may well be the process of dotting the i and crossing the t to this transformation of the economy as the resources are made available.
More on the topic herehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/02/18/some-predict-computers-will-produce-a-jobless-future-heres-why-theyre-wrong/ “there’s never been a worse time to be a worker with only ‘ordinary’ skills and abilities to offer, because computers, robots, and other digital technologies are acquiring these skills and abilities at an extraordinary rate.” In the past, new technologies tended to automate blue-collar jobs. Now information technology has begun automating white-collar jobs, and the new technologies will increasingly automate even professional jobs. Already computers can diagnose breast cancer from x-rays and predict survival rates at least as well as radiologists. "As long as there are unmet needs and wants in the world, unemployment is a loud warning that we simply aren’t thinking hard enough about what needs doing. We aren’t being creative enough about solving the problems we have using the freed-up time and energy of the people whose old jobs were automated away. We can do more to invent technologies and business models that augment and amplify the unique capabilities of humans to create new sources of value, instead of automating the ones that already exist…As long as technology continues to address major unmet needs, machines do not determine our fate."
Buy them off with free pizza – that's the answer !! http://rt.com/usa/chevron-fracking-fire-pizza-coupons-622/
