ALB
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I see Johnson is saying that he wants the government’s post-Brexit economy policy to be a combination of “state activism” with “free market capitalism”. Poor Labour Party ! He has stolen what was their programme, even under Corbyn and McDonnell.
But of course you can’t believe a word he says. It wouldn’t work as intended anyway. And if it involves too much “state activism” in the form state aids it will come up against the terms of the trade treaty that he has just signed with the EU. Because it restricted state aids (too much state capitalism) was one of the reasons Corbyn,like his mentor Wedgwood Benn, always used to be anti-EU.
Head Office also gets that stuff fom the “International Communist Party”. Not only is it turgid but it shows just how far off beam are some of the “Communit Left”. This lot are dyed-in-the-wool Bordigists, i.e super-Leninists who contemptuously reject democacy as a mere “counting of noses” and so make Lenin stand for “organic” rather than “democratic” centralism.
Their only saving grace is that they know what the future society beyond capitalism is (a classless, stateless, moneyless, wageless world society of no-ownership) but this is far outweighed by how they envisage it being established — by a small compact and highly diciplined vanguard party leading “the insurgent masses”.
By coincidence someone just send me this on the birth of council communism:
https://www.academia.edu/39010222/The_Birth_of_Council_Communism_chapter_?email_work_card=title
Actually, despite the different and perhaps pretentious language of the introduction, if you listen to this podcast (I have just done this) he is making the same point as we do —- that activism within the system (what he calls “in-system activism” and we might call “something-now reformism”) cannot succeed as its comes up against the basic structure of the present economic system (of “group dominance” and production for the market and profit where people have to get money one way or the other to survive). It is this system which causes the problems they are active against and rules out these being solved within it. He says that activism should aim rather at the complete “demarketization” of the economy and society generally if these problems are to become solvable.
I also listened to podcast #10 and that was quite good too.
I would say that he is still stands for the same system of society as we do, even if he doesn’t and won’t call it socialism. What is not so clear is how he envisages this coming about. Even so he is calling for “Revolution Now!”
Anyone, have a listen to it and see what you think:
To tell the truth, I have always had my doubts about this thread as abortion is in an ethical issue on which the Party does not have a position other than that it should not be illegal.
Some members feel strongly about this such as one who has sent in this complaint:
“I should be grateful if clarification could be provided on the contents of two articles in recent editions of the “Socialist Standard”.(…) The second article was called “Population Growth: Women Choose” and was in the September edition of the “Socialist Standard”. The article stated, “All women should have full access to contraception and safe abortion as part of overall health services.” Is this support for abortion the official position of the “Socialist Party” or merely the view of the author of the article ?”
and
“Your reply to the second query was, “Some reforms do benefit workers and making abortion legal (ending it being a criminal offence) and providing for any to be carried out safely is one if them.” As a worker, I cannot see the benefit to me of giving anyone the legal right to decide whether I live or die at any phase of my life which began with the coalescence of my mother’s egg and my father’s sperm. It is immaterial whether this right is categorised as abortion, euthanasia or eugenics. I should be obliged, therefore, if you were to explain how abortion benefits me as a worker.”
I didn’t think the UK government, in its anti rest of Europe mode, would actually agree to a part of the UK joining the Schengen free movement area (which the UK itself never did) and to being subject to EU regulations but I see they have. I wonder if the workers of Gibraltar are going to have to suffer the “tyranny” of the European Court of Justice?
It’s a sign of the weakness of the newly “independent”, “sovereign” UK’s bargaining position. In any event “sovereignty” is a paper right. What counts is economic reality.
As Michael McParland, a QC specialising in international civil and commercial law, put it in a letter writer to the Times yesterday:
“a fundamental point of all free trade agreements: concepts of national sovereignty ultimately count for nothing in such negotiations. The sole determinants are economic interests and muscle and the UK will always be smaller than the EU. We’ll be dancing to its tune for the foreseeable future.”
“We” is of course the UK state representing its capitalist class. Workers have no interest in the “sovereignty” of a capitalist state and the Union Jack is just a rag on the end of a pole. As is the EU flag of course.
I thought she might have been talking of Trevor Phillips who, unlike her, is actually mostly quite good on this issue:
Wonderful example here of the absurdity of these “racial”/“ethnic” questionnaires we are always being asked to fill in. I always either answer Other/Human or refuse to answer. In fact it is official Party policy to members to answer that question on the Census as “member of the human species”.
Anyway, here’s the news item from a couple of days ago:
I see. Actually, whisper it, but some Party members did vote against Brexit, ie vote Remain, in that 2016 referendum. But it is a valid question, given our criticism here of MPs today, how would a minority of Socialist MP, if there were some, vote on Wednesday on the Brexit trade deal?
I would say abstain. We couldn’t go into the voting lobby alongside the motley collection of Scottish, Welsh and Irish nationalists and the pathetic LibDems who will be voting
against, could we?“But if you can actually put in more black and minority leaders pushing hard on white nationalism, [it’s] much harder to challenge … It’s really important that we understand why these leaders are appointed. It is not to promote inclusiveness, it is actually to promote divisions.”
It was this passage that struck me. Who are the black leaders she thinks have been appointed to promote divisions? Or has she just got a big chip on her shoulder or got out of bed the wrong side that day?
Runnymede? Isn’t that where the Magna Carta was signed. I wonder whether they chose that title because they saw themselves as the same as demanding equal exploitation for white and black serfs instead of for the abolition of serfdom.
Although this is presented in terms of the lesser evil argument (an evil deal is better than the greater evil of no deal) it is really just rank opportunism — it’s a vote-catching ploy to try to win back the votes of those traditional Labour voters who voted Tory in last year’s general election.
You call them as “a sorry useless bunch”. I can think of other ways of expressing contempt for this bunch of self-serving professional politicians. The Labour Party, shouldn’t touch them with a barge pole.
There is an intriguing mention in today’s Times in an article about a famous building there that collapsed the other day:
“Majid’s younger brother Bargash succeeded him in Zanzibar and built the Palace of Wonders for himself in 1883, ten years after he issued the decree that finally ended the African slave trade”
So the slave trade in East Africa did not end till 1873. I thought I’d check and found this:
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.dw.com/en/east-africas-forgotten-slave-trade/a-50126759
The wokies don’t say much about this, perhaps because they are afraid of being accused of “islamophobia”.
By coincidence the 50 years ago column in the January Socialist Standard (being despatched tomorrow) is about the split in the IRA that led to the formation of the “Provisional” IRA which later became the main one. The split was over the same issue. The traditionalists thought that the “Official” IRA had gone too leftwing, even “Communist”. Twenty years later, it seems, that some of them thought the same about their own Sinn Fein merely going social-democratic reformist. The Officials party was renamed the Workers Party and still exists and contests elections:
“ i’m not so sure you can say that Scottish separatism would have been detrimental to Scottish workers. Some could justifiably argue that they would be marginally better off than the English and the Welsh workers.”
I can’t think of a single benefit, not even a marginal one, that workers in Scotland would gain from Scotland becoming a separate capitalist state. Many workers from Scotland might believe that it would but not “justifiably”.
I can only think of disadvantages such as the disruption to their daily life caused by the change-over (new currency, new border control, etc). Then there would be the more virulent nationalism. You hint that a separate Scottish government might be able to pursue a Keynesian policy (of engineering smooth growth out of which social reforms can be financed) but why should this work in Scotland when it has failed everywhere else? Especially when the British capitalist state’s subsidy to the Scottish administration is ended.
At best the creation of a separate “independent” capitalist state would be pointless from a working class point of view.
By the way, you have already started a border dispute by annexing the territory currently in England between the Scottish border and Hadrian’s Wall.
