ALB
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Just got round to reading this. There is practically nothing in the first 6 pages, describing the ideology of the groups studied, that we would disagree with. For instance:
“Vanguardism is the core ideology of the sectarian far left. Most influentially expressed by Vladimir Lenin in What is to be done? (1988 [1902]), it is a belief system structured around the ambition to replace the current social, economic, and political system with ‘communism’. This is conceived as an ideal mode of existence in which there are no class differences, no state, and no market economy. Vanguardism is distinguished from related forms of radical left wing ideology by the idea that, while history inevitably moves towards communism, it will be able to reach that destination only after the workers have been led into a mass uprising by an elite cadre of professional revolutionaries, initiating a transitional phase known as ‘socialism’ or ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’. Vanguardists do not take up arms against the state, because their long-term strategy is the weaponisation of the working class itself. They implicitly conceive contemporary society as a conspiracy against the workers (in contradiction of Marx; see Popper 1969, p. 125), and for that reason attempt conspiracies of their own: ultimately, to bring down the state and seize control of industry, but, in the shorter term, to take control of non-radical organisations in order to radicalise their members. There would appear to be a contradiction at the heart of vanguardism. Revolution is understood both as the predestined self-liberation of the working class and as achievable only through the intervention of an elite leadership. “
They go on to discuss the vanguardists rather special definitions of “imperialism” and “fascism” and so of “anti-imperialism” (basically anti-Americanism) and “anti-fascism”. Then follows the technical part of their research (analysis of replies to questionnaires, etc). The conclusion is that, although these groups are committed on paper to the violent overthrow of the capitalist state, this is just talk, and anyway is not shared by those more moderate leftwingers they seek to recruit. The danger (from the government’s point of view) is the ideological support given to anti-American and anti-Israel groups that do use terrorism as a tactic.
They also find that vanguardist ideology and practice is more attractive to young males than to older people and to women generally.
There is something worrying about the tactics the leaders of XR (Roger Hallam, etc) are getting well-meaning but naïve people concerned about climate change to engage in, i.e. disrupting the everyday life of other workers. This will inevitably provoke a backlash and so make people not to care about the problem. So, instead of consciousness-raising, it would be consciousness-lowering.
There is also the unrealistic nature of the demands, as expressed by the health care worker from Birmingham. First, the extinction of the human race is not a reasonable worst case scenario (it is only the most worst case scenario imaginable, unless you want to add Earth becoming a fiery inferno like Venus). Second, the government is not going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025; due to competitive pressures it couldn’t even if it wanted to, quite apart from the drastic cut in the standard of living being politically unacceptable. In fact, I would even go as far as to say that, were socialism to be established tomorrow, we wouldn’t be able to achieve that target. With capitalism gone, we’d be able to make quicker progress towards it, but reach it in only five years? Especially when the most immediate problem is going to be to end world poverty and its effects.
Disappointing in that it could have been written anytime in the last 80 or so years. It adds nothing new to what has been written on this before. But he does identify that capitalism’s problem is not markets (or lack of them) but the incentive to accumulate capital and that if you think it’s markets then you will end up like David Harvey as in effect a leftwing Keynesian.
Seeing that it comes from the Marxist-Humanists, who realise that exchange and so exchange-value and value can’t exist in socialism, I thought it might develop the idea that if capital, invested in technology and machinery, kept on reducing the rate of profit the stage might theoretically be reached when individual commodities might contain so little labour as to have no price, a stage that of course would never be reached. After all, he did say he was going to write about how the fall in the rate of profit created the material basis for socialism.
He seems to have been influenced by Peter Joseph and the Zeitgeist movement. Type Lee Camp and Peter Joseph into a search engine and see what comes up.
There is an amusing story in the christian part of the bible. Jesus is brought before the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, and tells him “I am the truth”. Pilate replies “What is the truth?” and asks the crowd outside to vote on it. They decide that the truth is that Jesus is not the truth. Which actually happened to be true, though not because they voted that it was.
“to treat Lenin’s Materialism and Empirio-Criticism as a serious contribution to the philosophy of science, as Richey does, is ridiculous. As anyone who has tried to read it knows, it is just a rant against some of Lenin’s opponents within the Bolshevik Party in 1908 who he accuses, quite unjustly (but quite typically), of harbouring or condoning religious views just because they rejected his crude and untenable view that the mind merely reflects and photographs (as opposed to mentally reconstructs) the external world. ”
— extract from a review of Anton Pannekoek’s Lenin As Philosophy, in the July 2003 Socialist Standard.
Just had a phone call from the comrades in India. They are going to produce a leaflet. We have asked them to send us a copy so we can use it here too.
Having said that, what’s supposed to happening then all seems a bit confusing, even the date is not clear. I’m not sure there are going to be mass meetings at which we could hand out leaflets. And they might not appreciate this as in their view it would be a waste of trees. I think they just want people to stop work as a means of bringing pressure to bear on politicians to do something more about climate change.
That is out of order, both on the part of Marx and of the translators. “Börsenjuden” should have been translated as “stock exchange Jews”. And it would have been better if Marx had put it in inverted commas.
The first Thesis on Feuerbach contains the adjective “schmutzig-jüdischen” which is generally translated as “dirty-Jewish”. This was a reference and follow-up to something Feuerbach had written on Judaism as a religion and its philosophical significance (dirty as in getting your hands dirty as opposed to airy theorising). Which is why some translations have “dirty-judaical”. I think that conveys Marx’s meaning better; “dirty, judaical” would be even better. “dirty-Jewish” certainly gives quite the wrong impression.
It is of course possible to criticise Judaism as a religion without being antisemitic. Whether Judaism (only strict orthodox Judaism existed at the time) was as materialistic as German philosophy generally at the time regarded it, is another matter; they based this view on the Judaism’s god being a mere tribal one serving the interest of one group of people while the god of Christianity was a universal one for all people. Rightly or wrongly, Marx shared this assumption in his 1843/4 articles on The Jewish Question which were a criticism of Judaism as a religion not of Jews as people.
I wonder if Marx knew that in that article he was writing about his 3rd cousin. It doesn’t sound as if he was in the pocket of cousin Lionel as Bakunin and others have claimed.
I think we discussed this “quote” once before here and that it wouldn’t have come from Marx because it didn’t express his views published elsewhere. It would also be the only place where he would have expressed publicly something antisemitic. Which of course is why opponents of Marx want to keep alive doubt over whether or not he wrote it. Aveling and Eleanor Marx simply made a mistake in attributing to Marx that particular article in the New York Daily Tribune.
Having said that, I wouldn’t mind abandoning the Eastern Question as it is full of Marx’s conspiracy theory that the Russian Tsars had been plotting for centuries to conquer the world. I think he even claims that the British Prime Minister Palmerston was a Russian agent. So, yes, Marx wasn’t perfect and we are not committed to or have to defend everything he wrote but I don’t believe he wrote that “quote” about the Rothschilds.
It’s not just new agers. The same view has infected universities as “post modernism” (and its offshoots). Some go so far as to say that there no facts, only opinions. Fortunately it seems to have passed its peak.
The front of Head Office was bricked up in the 1970s when, with the rise of the National Front (as a result of the anti working class measures such as wage restraints and cuts in benefits that the Labour governments of the time had been forced by capitalist conditions to impose), the SWP and the National Front were at war.
We risked being collateral damage as the NFers couldn’t tell the difference between us and the SWP. Some of their leaders could as we debated against the NF a couple of times before the SWP put a stop to that, preventing us demolishing the NF’s anti immigrant and racist views in front an audience of interested workers.
“having participated in XR meeting, I can say that it’s not even 23% you mentioned, but an astonishing 3.5% (!) of population mobilization they quote as sufficient to prompt change in the society, and yes I agree that this is just plain wrong”
Yes, I do seem to have over-stated the number but I knew there was a 3 in it somewhere.
Found this here:
“Less than 1 percent of Americans actively took part in the Civil Rights Movement and indeed most successful movements for social change involve between 1 and 5 percent of people. The theory of change suggests how ideas spread through cultures, beginning with innovators (2.5%) and then early adopters (13.5%). Whilst civil disobedience may seem extreme to some and the narrative in this website alien, the path to change is tread by innovators and early adopters. When ideas become mainstream, huge power is unleashed, however even before then change is possible with just a few % willing to make a stance.”
Actually, this “theory of change” may well be how ideas spread and could apply to the socialist movement too, but it success depends on the change sought as some changes under capitalism are not possible however many people might be in favour of it. Certainly, socialism cannot be achieved by minority action, whether violent or non-violent, but requires widespread majority support and participation.
