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A loose grouping of parties with more or less the same object and declaration of principles already exists called “the Companion Parties of Socialism” or the “World Socialist Movement”. All attempts to make this more formal have come to nothing.
I don’t think that a single World Socialist Party would be practicable or even desirable. One reason would be language. Our Indian companion party holds its meetings in Bengali and if we had a party rather than a group in Italy they would hold their meetings and communications in Italian.
Then there are different political and legal conditions in different states. Much of the time of the EC of the SPGB is taken up with matters to do with UK law (the EC is a purely admin body, it doesn’t decide policy). Similarly, why should decisions about whether to contest an election in one country be subject to a decision by a vote of members all over the world (SPGB Conference decisions go to a vote of the whole membership)? We had a vote once on whether smoking should be allowed at our Head Office (the decision was no) but why would members in America or Australia have needed to have a say in that? And why should members in Britain decide the attitude towards trade unions in India where workers’ union are more like political parties (which is why our Indian party is more opposed to them than we are to those here)?
Personally I would be strongly opposed to transforming ourself into an organisation that only existed in cyberspace. The Revolution might not to be televised but it won’t take place on the internet. It will be real people organising on the ground, in the places where they live and where they work.
No. That’s just the personal view of one isolated member not living in this country and who has earned himself the nickname of Private Fraser !
It’s still there Wez. Post #224341 above. Of course if the trots are true to form (and still exist) they will try to infiltrate and take over the mass movement for world socialism too.
Still thinking about Monbiot and his call to “build the greatest mass movement in history” to deal with climate change, it’s going to take as much time and energy to do that as to build up a mass movement to make the Earth’s productive resources common property. So why not concentrate on that?
However, I suspect that he is seeking to provide a justification for climate activists (his audience) to carry on what they doing, only more.
This won’t make any difference as actions for something as vague as “climate justice” or to get “world leaders” to do more than they can are ultimately futile. As long as capitalism lasts there will always be an opportunity for this sort of thing, allowing participants to think they are doing “something now” while in reality wasting time that could be better employed.
Meanwhile the problem continues.
It wasn’t your bad but please start any new thread under the World Socialist Movement section as the appropriate place.
I see that the outcome of COP26 has sent Monbiot completely off the rails. Instead of moving on to becoming a socialist he has regressed to supporting XR tactics.
Here he is in yesterday’s Guardian:
“Our survival depends on raising the scale of civil disobedience until we build the greatest mass movement in history, mobilising the 25% who can flip the system.”
Granted, he doesn’t agree with XR that 3.5% is enough to flip the system but it’s the same idea of a movement to bring pressure on governments to do more to combat global overwarming, especially as he is not saying what he thinks the system should be “flipped” into.
It will of course take the “greatest mass movement in history” to create the framework within which the problem of global warming (and many other problems) can be effectively and lastingly tackled — the common ownership and democratic control of the Earth’s productive resources.
But that needs to be a conscious movement for that, not a movement to bring pressure to bear on “world leaders” to try to get them to do something that the capitalist economic system won’t allow them to do.
Or maybe he is thinking like a Trotskyist — that you mobilise people to demand something that is impossible under capitalism, banking on them turning against capitalism when the demand is not granted?
Anyway, he is all over the place.
In Britain they are called ”Chelsea tractors” after an upmarket area of London where there is no need to have a four wheel drive vehicle costing tens of thousands of £s. In fact there is no need to have them in any part of London.
No capitalist state is going to allow unrestricted immigration. What a world we are living in where the action of some capitalist states effects or tries to effect regime change by direct intervention or sanctions and then has to deal with wave of economic migrants their actions have caused.
Despite the rain (Glasgow is definitely not the place to go for a vacation) they did manage to distribute half of the 3000 leaflets they had.
It wouldn’t have to go that far. You have already drawn attention to attacks on what the Americans call SUVs. I imagine attacks on butchers’ shops, car sales rooms, fossil fuelled power stations, airports. All of which have been tried.
Actually, given capitalism and the division of the world into competing capitalist states with different economic interests, it’s surprising that there was any agreement.
If the rulers of Indian capitalism didn’t want to commit, for vital economic reasons, to “phasing out” their coal industry there’s nothing the rest of the world can do about it. After all, India is a nuclear power.
I don’t think our position should be that nothing was achieved in Glasgow but that it was the most than can be achieved under capitalism, and that the only framework within which the problem of global overwarming and climate change can be rationally dealt with is on the basis of world socialism. As then there will be no economic incentives and vested interests holding up what needs to be done.
It’s time climate activists faced up to the fact that this is the best capitalism can do and stopped trying to pressurise “world leaders” into doing what is required which is something they just cannot do. If the activists continue this strategy they will be diverting time and energy from working to establish the only framework in which the problem can be solved and so postponing its solution.
I suspect, however, that if they do change their strategy it will be to pressurise individuals to change their lifestyle. Equally futile and counter-productive.
I have just got round to reading this and there is something wrong with Ian Wright’s argument as he ends up by saying that, at some point in future, machines that produce surplus value could exist.
I think that’s what wrong is that he thinks that “value” is a thing that exists in any society, not just capitalism. He is a sort of “market socialist” in that he envisages a post-capitalist economy made up of workers cooperatives producing for sale. He knows us and our position but doesn’t think that it would work. But he always has something stimulating to say.
As to the answer to his analysis, I think it will be along the lines of that capitalists pay for the machines but that the work they do is a natural force (like that of animals) that costs them nothing and so doesn’t produce value or surplus value.
If the government does go in for more nuclear power you can bet that the greenies will be demonstrating against it. They probably still have their anti- nuclear banners stored somewhere in their attic. They also demonstrate against big projects like tidal barrages and dams for hydro-electricity.
It’s as if they don’t realise to what extent modern production and living are dependent on a regular and dependable supply of electricity.
Apart from the title — “Permission to Say ‘capitalism’” — that article is rather pretentious. It reads like one of those that academics have to write to fill their quota of so many ‘research’ papers a year. I doubt if it made any useful contribution to research to develop Greenhouse Gas Removal (GGR) technologies.
