ALB
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Makes you wonder what would happen if one of the nuclear armed states made a similar mistake at a time of high tension. Eg India v Pakistan or Israel or North Korea.
Oh dear. Does that mean we have to pull Rod’s Open Letter to him due for publication in next month’s Socialist Standard? Can we look kindly on a follower of Parson Malthus who blames overpopulation for environmental problems generally and who therefore, by implication, thinks that if the world’s population were to be reduced then these would be solved despite capitalism continuing?
But they are “extremists” — environmentalist ones like Earth First! was (are they still going or are these their descendants?) — and can’t, and no doubt don’t, expect the state to give them a free run.
Of course the state’s department dealing with illegal challenges to its authority is going to classify all “extremists” together. That’s par for the course but they won’t be that stupid as to regard this lot as the same sort of threat as Islamic terrorists (even if some of their less intelligent operatives might).
Indignation at being classified along with terrorists of one sort of another doesn’t alter the fact that their tactics are misplaced. And when these don’t work the temptation will be for some of them to escalate to violence.
That’s a perfectly logical position for anarchists who believe in agitation for immediate day-to-day issues to take up.
After all, if you sincerely believe in scrapping universal credit, saving the nhs, banning fracking, land justice, etc, etc (and are not campaigning for something as a Machiavellian “transitional demand”), then you have more chance of achieving your goal if, as well as pressuring policy deciders and implementers from outside by direct action, you also try to get people favourable to your aim into positions where they can make decisions.
Through elections. For that you’ve got a choice between the Labour Party and the Green Party but, if a national decision is required, then the Greens are no good.
It’s not them that are being incoherent but their fellow “agitationalist” anarchists.
I’ve taken your advice and read it once before reading it again. It does seem something we should reply to in detail in a future issue if the Socialist Standard.
I already noted a few points.
1. He is basically criticising that oxymoron that he sometimes calls “Marxism-Leninism” and its practice in what he calls and presumably regards as having been “socialist” countries. Since Leninism is an ideology of capitalist development in countries with a weak private capitalist class then, yes, it is “productivist” as accumulating more and more capital is what capitalism is all about.
2. Like many critics of Marxian economics (and some supporters) he completely misunderstands Marx’s conception of “value”, taking it to be something physical that exists in all societies and not just capitalism and so which will have to continue to exist in socialism too. Or, insofar as he does understand that this is not Marx’s view, he dismisses it as “metaphysical”, as does conventional academic economics. But this is to confuse wealth production with value production. All wealth is produced by the application of human labour to materials that originally came from nature, but wealth only has “value” when it is produced for sale in a market economy. This is why it won’t exist in socialism where wealth will be produced and distributed directly to meet people’s needs.
3. He accuses Marx of being in favour of “perpetual” growth whereas the most that can be said is that he was in favour of further growth even under capitalism, up to the point where a full socialist society became possible; which he recognised wasn’t yet the case in his day. But it is now. Marx’s 1875 idea of a relatively lengthy “first” stage of communist society set out in his notes on the German Social Democrats’ Gotha Programme has been overtaken by developments and is no longer relevant.
4. There is a gross distortion when he interprets a passage in the Communist Manifesto which talks of the “subjugation” of “natural forces” to mean that Marx and Engels were in favour of subjugating “nature”. But what are renewable energies but the result of subjugating, harnessing, directing, whatever, the natural forces that are the Sun’s rays, winds, waterfalls, tides, etc? Doesn’t he want to do this too?
And they thought it was easy to bring down the state as if the state wouldn’t defend itself against a direct and proclaimed challenge to its authority. Minority direct action is not going to work and looks as if, as with minority violence, it’s going to give the state a pretext to strengthen its powers. As the protest song puts it, when will they ever learn?
As both Colin Millen and the reply bring out, it depends on what you mean by “self”. He means (I think) the whole biosphere. William Morris seems to mean the individual person (through taking responsibility for their actions.) I suppose it could mean the whole community.
The word also appears in “self-management” which the old Solidarity group introduced from the French autogestion (which I see has also become an English word itself.) Both refer to a way of managing a workplace (and so are attractive to the syndicalist-minded) generally within the context of a market economy (and so are not attractive to socialists — we have called it “self exploitation”).
I don’t see what’s wrong with “democracy”, or if you want to refine it more, “participatory democracy”, which can apply to all aspects of society and not just the workplace. That avoids having to define what is meant by “self”.
Actually our Object puts it well when it refers to “democratic control … by and in the interest of the whole community.”
The other thing to bear in mind of course is that we have no control over the future evolution of language and it may be that in the future the words “state” and “government” will come to mean the unarmed central administration(s) that will exist in a socialist world. Who knows? But it will be the content not the name that will be important. Come to think of, that’s the case today too.
“Public” doesn’t necessarily mean publication on the internet. It means that, if they ask, a member of the public can have access to EC and branch minutes as well of course as being free to attend EC and branch meetings.
The late Jack Bradley used to say that getting into the Socialist Party would be good training for police spies because they’d have to convince us that they really were socialists, which is not easy if you don’t really understand our case. Not like joining other groups where you only have to show enthusiasm and mouth a few slogans to pass as one. One mention of “our” country or of Cuba being socialist and your cover is blown. In other words, infiltrating us could only be for training purposes, not to get information as that’s readily available since all our meetings and the minutes of them are public.
Don’t know that it’s ever happened, though. Wouldn’t matter if it had since that would mean one more campaigner for socialism for a period.
That’s interesting but apparently it’s been going for some months now:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_convention_for_ecological_transition
It has already made some reports which can be seen on their official website (in French of course). Something to follow as its mandate is to find ways of cutting carbon emissions from France by 40% by 2030 implicitly within the context of capitalism. Their final report is due in April. Be interesting, and maybe revealing, as this is XR’s key demand here in Britain.
The police have now backed down and said this was a mistake:
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-51071959
Seems it was some over-zealous plod.
Doesn’t mean they won’t be keeping an eye on them or infiltrating them as they always do with groups that set out to break the law, even if it’s some other section of the force.
But you are missing the point that Matt made that any alternative structure that the anarchists might set up would also have rules that its delegates might break and so be faced with the same problem of how to stop or deal with this — and would have to rely in the end on the same as we say, ie the consciousness of those who do the delegating.
Also, the constitutional rules are different in different countries. On paper some are more difficult for a socialist majority than in Britain. Others are less difficult. In some States of the USA the right of recall not only exists on paper but is routinely invoked as is the right to call a referendum; and legislative assemblies like the House of Representatives are elected every two years making deselection quicker.
Anyway we are not talking about the end — the participatory democracy that will apply in socialism — but only about a means to achieve the power to implement this. These means don’t need to be perfect democratically, and certainly aren’t, but only sufficiently democratic to be useable to win political control. There is a certain irony in anarchists becoming constitutional lawyers to criticise us.
Finally, there’s the point you yourself frequently make that when there’s a socialist majority nobody will be able to stop the workers using the ballot box, even if “the rules” are not perfectly democratic. That will be one of the things they will do.
While we are campaigning for a worldwide society of common ownership, democratic control, production directly for use, and free access according to need, this is what KAZ’s organisation is up to:
“The discussion document “Potential Activities Of A New Organisation” was discussed and adopted. Initial emphasis would be on agitational literature and activity around Land Justice, housing and the NHS. In addition, there was a commitment to street agitation-stickers and posters. It was decided that the ACG should focus on the campaign against Universal Credit using the Disabled People Against Cuts slogan “Stop It and Scrap It”. Leicester ACG agreed to make and circulate leaflets and stickers in regards to Universal Credit, capable of being locally adapted.”
They are nice blokes (as most of them are, as might be guessed from KAZ’s “jokes”) but are into quite different things from us.
Land Justice, what the fuck’s that? Scrap Universal Credit? But replace it with what? Universal Basic Income perhaps? Or is this just a trotskyoid “transitional demand” to “teach workers by experience”?
A couple of us who were around at the time (he is selling the July 1968 Socialist Standard) remember him as Dave but can’t recall his second name. He was employed by Remploy, which used to employ disabled people under shitty conditions its own factories (now it directs them to similar jobs with ordinary employers).
