ALB
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
More on Shake It Up in this report of a meeting round the corner from our Head Office in Clapham High Street on Wednesday:
Coalition of Independents aim to end Labour’s vice-like grip on Lambeth Council
It remains to be seen if the Green Party will do a deal with them. They wouldn’t seem to have a political interest in this.
Your Party (now controlled by the Corbyn faction) has issued a statement on the Greens’s by-election victory. Here is the most significant part (which some on the Sultana wing — the Trotskyist entryists whose support she had cultivated — don’t agree with as they say the Greens are “pro-capitalist”):
“Moving forward, Your Party will work together with the Greens as friends and allies, not opponents.”
We will see what this means for the local elections in May.
There was an article in the Standard last year on a breakaway from the RCG. Maybe they are even nuttier.
There is something wrong with that chatbox response. Given that the RCP, like all Leninist groups, is committed to communism (what we call socialism) as a long term goal, it is understandable why the chatbot should come up with that description it has.
It’s the concluding section that this means they reject a so-called workers state based on a state-capitalist economy as a necessary stage towards this that is wrong. They don’t reject this but are ultra-orthodox Trots, descended from the old Militant Tendency, the wing that stayed in the Labour Party when the others left to form SPEW until they too were expelled.
I’ve been to a couple of their meetings. At one the audience was told that the RCP was in the Marxist tradition of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and Ted Grant. Grant will be turning in his grave at the suggestion that he was not an orthodox Marxist-Leninist but some sort of council communist.
Here is their website: https://communist.red/
Which all goes to show that you can’t trust a chatbox.
It looks as if, in promising free buses, Mamdani was promising something that the Mayor of New York doesn’t have the political power to deliver. And is admitting it here:
“However, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a state-controlled agency, sets bus policy and fare structures. Mamdani lacks direct authority to implement the change unilaterally, requiring state legislative action and potential state funding to replace fare revenue. The MTA typically collects approximately $1 billion annually from bus fares. State Senator Jabari Brisport, a Democratic Socialist ally of the mayor, has discussed the possibility of securing state funding for free bus rides, but such action remains unlikely without significant shifts in state politics or budget priorities.”
I don’t know if he mentioned that proviso in his election campaign.
Free Buses and Housing Reform: Mamdani Outlines Ambitious Agenda Despite Budget Constraints
Just listened to that. She is very good at demolishing all the arguments in favour of capitalism. I think I’ll get a copy of her book. But I think the recent discussion in the thread on the Labour theory of value is relevant here as her alternative would seem to accept the view that exploitation would be ended if the workers had full democratic control over how the value they produce over and above their wages should be used.
An attempt by the CWO to convince anarchists that, as advocates of minority action, they too believe in a vanguard and should take the next step and become Leninists. They might also have the same trouble convincing the anarchists of the CWO’s position, alluded to in the last paragraph, that a third world war is inevitable because without one capital accumulation cannot continue.
The last chapter of the book, on anarchists in Britain in the Second World Slaughter, looks interesting as it discusses the SPGB position and members’ actions in a fair way. The SPGB was of course opposed to the war but took the position that, as it wasn’t a mere anti-war party, there was no point in taking on a state at war, with the support of most workers, by calling on troops to mutiny or to turn “the war into civil war” (not that the anarchists really did anyway) or “revolutionary defeatism” (ie hope that the other side wins), and getting smashed by it.
Members were out yesterday, outside the tube station and putting leaflets through letter boxes. Also there was Roger Hallam, ex-Just Stop Oil, himself, leafletting for “Shake it up” who are standing “independent” candidates. They may be standing in the two wards we are contesting (Brixton North and Clapham Common).
More on them here: http://www.shakeitup.org.uk
Looks like you could review the original:
“In November 2023, Mattei released her first book written in Italian, L’economia è politica: Tutto quello che non vediamo dell’economia e che nessuno racconta, published by Fuori Scena. The book was released in English under the title Escape from Capitalism in 2026.”
SPEW and Your Party
TUSC will not stand against Your Party
2.1 That includes working with Your Party, launched by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana in 2025.
The TUSC all-Britain steering committee is clear: it will not authorise TUSC candidates to stand against candidates who appear on the ballot paper under the Your Party name and we have included a new question in this year’s Application Form To Use A TUSC Description to ensure that
there will not be any such clashes.
2.2 The founding documents of Your Party, discussed at its conference in November 2025 and agreed in an online ballot, recognise that the 2026 local elections will be unique for the party given
the “time constraints” of the official nomination process for the elections (see page six) and “the absence of agreed branch structures” as the party foundation process unfolds. The party’s first
Central Executive Committee (CEC), for example, will not take office until the end of February, and the establishment of official branches – at inaugural meetings attended by at least 20% of the
members in a given constituency under the agreed constitution – will not begin until the CEC is in place.
2.3 This is not to say that there will definitely be no candidates standing under the Your Party name in May. Your Party has been registered with the Electoral Commission and the description is
available to be used on the ballot paper. But, as is also the case for all candidates using any description other than ‘Independent’ on the ballot paper, it is a matter of election law that a
prospective candidate has to be issued with a formal Certificate of Authorisation from the party’s ‘Registered Nominating Officer’ before a registered description can be used.
2.4 The properly-issued Certificate of Authorisation has to be handed in to the council’s Returning Officer along with the official nomination papers before the close of nominations (see pages 8-10).
For May’s English council elections this is 19 working days before polling day – 9th April – a very tight timetable. There will almost certainly be Your Party supporters who want to stand as a clear
anti-austerity, anti-war socialist candidate but will not be able to be agreed as an official Your Party
candidate in time. They will be more than welcome to use one of the TUSC descriptions to distinguish themselves from right-wing or non-political ‘Independents’ on this occasion if they wish”.https://www.tusc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-Guide-for-Candidates-Agents.pdf
The ward we are standing in Islington — Junction Ward — is the same one we contested in a council by-election in November 2024. At that time the Corbynite candidate was Jackson Caines who came second. He has since defected to the Greens.
In the meantime the Corbynites have registered with the Electoral Commission as a political party as the Islington Community Independents. Presumably they will do a deal with the Greens. But it remains to be seen if Jackson Caines will be among opponents again.
https://islingtonindependents.org/f/ici-registered-as-a-political-party
This name contrasts with their equivalents in Lambeth who are registering as the Lambeth Independent Socialists.
Perhaps “suggests” was a bit too strong; “doesn’t rule out” might have been better.
Cohen’s theory doesn’t rule out socialism either but, by abandoning the concept of “value” (which only exists when there is buying and selling), it leaves open — and provides a justification for — that what could be envisaged is workers control in a market economy; what might be called “workers control of value”. The contradiction in terms that is “market socialism”.That 2022 article sets out GA Cohen’s argument that you don’t need the concept of “value” to explain how workers are exploited. At one level this is true. In a society where those who don’t work live in luxury while those who do just get by, it is obvious that the latter are exploited by the former. You don’t need any theory to tell you that. But you do need one to explain how and how to end it.
Cohen’s theory is basically that the workers are exploited because what they produce is not controlled by them but undemocratically by some minority. This suggests that the way to end this is for workers to have democratic control over what they produce. It provides a theoretical justification for “workers control” — but of what? Of what is produced for sale. The way out is workers’ cooperatives producing for a market not socialism.
The Labour Theory of Value introduces the concept of “value” as the form wealth takes in a society producing goods and services for sale. Value expresses itself as exchange value (price) and so is tied the fact that articles of wealth are produced to be bought and sold. Exploitation results from the fact that the wealth workers produce as value belongs to the employer as part of the class of those who own the means of production. Part of this value is given back to the workers as their wages; the other part is kept by their employer as “surplus value” which economic forces subsequently divide into profit, interest and ground rent.
You can’t properly explain how capitalism works without a concept of “value”, as the form wealth takes when it is produced for sale. And it leads to the conclusion that value will exist as long as goods are produced for sale.
So, in Cohen’s scheme, workers would still be producing value and still be forced by the operation of the law of value to allocate part of it to accumulate as more capital. They would be democratically exploiting themselves.
The Marxian version of the Labour Theory of Value leads to a different conclusion — to socialism as the common ownership of the means of production and their (democratically controlled) use to produce to directly meet people’s needs. Production directly for use replaces production for sale with a view to profit. Wealth ceases to take the form of value and “value”, and so “surplus value”, disappears.
Here is our candidates comment on the Brixton Buzz report of that meeting:
“As the Socialist Party candidate for Brixton North, I was at this meeting. It’s ironic that while the night was billed as “breaking free” from party political shackles, our members were banned from leafleting those going in. Apparently, “freedom” only extends to those willing to play the tactical voting game.
While Brixton Buzz readers might see the photo of Ruby from Shake It Up with Andrew Feinstein as a sign of radical change, we see it as more of the same. Groups like Shake It Up and Roger Hallam aren’t offering a way out—they are just another attempt to manage capitalism instead of getting rid of it.
On Palestine: We reject nationalist solutions. Our position on Israel-Palestine is based on class solidarity, not supporting one state over another. We want a world without borders, not new ones.
The Alternative: We aren’t interested in “shaking up” a failing system or “tactical” deals with reformists. We advocate for common ownership and a world without the wages system, money, or states.
If you’re tired of “poxy party political games” and want a genuine socialist alternative that doesn’t silence dissenting voices at its own front door, come and find the Socialist Party (GB)
YFS Ana Krycek for Brixton North”.In the meantime pre-election leafletting has begin in the other ward we will be contesting in Lambeth, Clapham Common & Abbeville.
There is a short piece in this month’s Socialist Standard on the Labour Theory of Value:
