ALB
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Yes, ever since it came into being capitalism has had a problem of what to do about “the poor” as those who, for one reason or another such as illness, disability or old age, are not able to maintain themselves. Hence the “poor law” and its various successors in Britain (National Assistance, Social Security, Income Support, etc), payable mainly to the “unemployable”, i.e those no employer is going to employ because the quality of their labour power is so low. Even capitalism can’t let such people — and they amount to some 10 percent of the population — die and so has to provide them with the minimum necessary to keep them alive. UBI in its basic form, and in any form that is likely to be adopted, is merely a reform of existing “poor law” provisions, as are the various cash handouts that are also being discuss.
“The traditional view has millions of workers becoming conscious Marxist materialists.”
What traditional view would that be? Certainly not Bukharin (since, as a Bolshevik, he would have thought that under capitalism workers are only capable of reaching a trade union consciousness). Certainly not Marx (as he wouldn’t be so arrogant or such a megalomaniac). Not us either, since we have always talked about a “class conscious” working class majority; which only requires an understanding that capitalism cannot be reformed to work in the interest of the working class, an understanding of what socialism is and a desire to establish it involving political action. That does not require having read Marx’s philosophical writings or Engels’s Anti-Duhring or indeed any of their writings.
As to “materialism”, most people today in the developed capitalist areas of the world are materialists in practice since, whatever they may profess to believe in when asked, in practice they live their lives without expecting some “non-material” entity to intervene in it.
Added to the Edgar Hardcastle Internet Archive:
‘Revolutionary Christianity’, August 1921
“Higher prices mean fewer jobs”, October 1921
The Great Discoveries and their economic effects, February 1926
Rationalisation and unemployment, June 1929
Potash and Palestine. Dead-sea Fruit, October 1929
Wicked Bankers and Kind Captains of Industry, November 1929
Armaments and Unemployment, July 1961Just been reminded by a comrade in the south of Ireland that;
”Of course the Greens were in government before (with Fianna Fail) until they were all turfed out of parliament by an angry electorate after the financial collapse debacle of 2008.”
Forgot about that.
You mean like the Hindus? At least they make no bones about the fact that they worship idols and not some airy-fairy nebulous concept.
The Church of England really are a pathetic lot. Now they want to paint the face of the idol they worship black. This won’t please the feminists among them who will want him portrayed as a woman. There is a possible solution. They could make their idol a mixed race hermaphrodite. An earlier group of Christians had a more radical solution— destroy them all, as the soldiers in Cromwell’s army started to do— but then they weren’t C of E.
To be fair, the statement that Long-Bailey didn’t object to was anti-Semitic even if maybe not intentional. Why bring the Israeli secret service into it unless you’ve got an agenda? It was also incorrect. See:
Long-Bailey was being either naive or more probably arrogant in refusing to remove her endorsement of the article as she thought she was irremovable. We don’t need to shed any tears over her fate as she slides down the greasy pole a bit.
They’ve gone and done it.
We can use this thread to document the anti-worker measures they going to be responsible for as part of a government of capitalism. Could be some useful stuff that we can use to expose the capitalist reformism of the Green Party here too.
“Beyond Politics” is one of XR’s three demands. See here where it is explained in more detail. It probably won’t be much different except that they might now be demanding citizens’ assemblies for more things that climate change.
They are not yet registered as a political party with the Electoral Commission but will have to if they want to be able to contest under that name.
Their strategy doesn’t seem to be very coherent. XR initially envisaged their demands being met by minority civil disobedience. Now they want to contest elections to local councils while at the same time transferring some of councils’ decision-making powers to Citizens assemblies.
And then they say: “The current political system is incapable of making the structural changes necessary” but then they want take part in it to the extent of standing in elections.
True, it can’t be used to successfully reform capitalism to work in the interest of the majority (not could citizens assemblies either), but why can’t a parliament elected by universal suffrage be used to abolish capitalism and usher in socialism when a majority want it and are organised outside Parliament to participate in this revolutionary change?
Or maybe the whole thing is just a stunt. Not a bad one actually, if only the purpose had been to publicise free access.
“Extinction Rebellion’s co-founder Roger Hallam is a driving force behind the party.”
Oh no, not that raving lunatic ! He doesn’t stand for free access but, besides predicting 7 billion deaths before the end of the century, is on record as advocating the rationing of basic foodstuffs as a way to try and avoid this.
It will be interesting to see if this new party will be amongst our opponents on the ballot paper when we contest the Barnet and Camden constituency in next May’s elections for the Greater London Assembly.
It may already be happening in Portugal;
Significantly it started in the poorer areas of Lisbon where people live closer together and have a higher than average percentage of people with poor health. According to today’s Times:
“Outbreaks in the poorest neighbourhoods and industrial suburbs of Lisbon as well as parties on the coast have alarmed authorities”.
If the authorities here are alarmed by the same thing happening here they are doing their best not to show it.
But let’s hope all this doesn’t spark off a second wave. It might not. As Brian sang on the cross, look on the bright side of life.
Meanwhile down the road from our Head Office:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-london-53176472
People seem to be fed up with being prevented from congregating outside in the hot weather. It looks as if one reason the government has relaxed conditions might have been because it knew it could no longer hold the line.
There are 43 articles from the Socialist Standard dealing with Aneurin Bevan, a leading leftwing reformist in his day, here.
It may be best to start with his obituary in the May 1960 Socialist Standard which sums up our criticism of his reformist politics.
Assuming by “Holland” you mean Stuart Holland, I am afraid there is only one reference to him, reflecting his relative obscurity, in this article, though I imagine he might be better known in academic circles.
No one is saying ( at least I don’t think so) that a religious person can’t want socialism. It is possible to be right for the wrong reasons. But that is not the question at issue. It is whether or not people with religious views should be admitted to the party.
The case for saying that they should not be is hinted at in the introduction to the ABC of Marxism elsewhere on this site when it says:
”Now, when socialists are so very few, a higher degree of understanding of the workings of capitalism and the course of history are required of socialists (at least of organised socialists). This need not be the case when the socialist movement takes off and begins to become a mass movement.”
People who hold religious views do not reach the degree of understanding required at this stage of the development of the socialist movement.
Or, put another way, we are a Marxist party as well as a socialist party and a Marxist and a religious view of the world are incompatible. If we admitted religious people we would risk regressing to become some sort of wishy- washy ethical group rather than a scientific socialist party.
