ALB
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What difference would that make to ordinary people? Undermining the dollar is neither a good thing nor a bad thing, just an irrelevant thing.
I am sure you are right that, when the socialist movement takes off, the sort of people attracted by XR will join in, but I don’t see this as a reason for not criticising the strategy of XR’s leaders and theorists.
Both capitalism and socialism (properly understood) have to be brought into the picture. Capitalism, because of its built-in competitive pursuit of short-term profits, is both the cause of global overwarming and an impediment to its solution. And socialism, with its common ownership of the world’s resources and production directly to satisfy human needs, provides the only framework within which the problem can be rationally tackled.
However, socialism can only be established when a majority want it and understand what it involves and take political action to bring it about on a world-wide basis. XR’s current strategy is based on civil disobedience by a minority to put pressure on existing, capitalist government’s to do something more about climate change. They don’t think that, to achieve this, a majority is required — they have calculated that a minority of (I think) 23 percent would be sufficient. Civil disobedience on that scale might well be enough to bring down a government and bring about a new one with a different policy but, since that new government would be governing in the context of capitalism, it would not be capable of tackling the problem of climate change rationally. It might intend to do this, but it wouldn’t work.
Once again it comes back to the fact that what is needed is socialism and that this is what we should be urgently working for. I know that the XR leaders will reply (as their spokesperson told the Guardian) that capitalism or socialism won’t be an issue unless climate change is tackled first. But this begs the question by assuming that the problem could be rationally solved without the common ownership of the Earth’s natural and industrial resources, i.e under capitalism.
Alan has posted on the Climate Change thread this news item about the Governor of the Bank of England saying capitalism is part of the solution. That’s part for the course. What the XR spokesperson says is not, i.e.:
“In response to Carney’s interview, Extinction Rebellion said societies must adopt more sustainable economic systems. “We are destroying our planet, and business as usual is not going to save us. We must question any system that has led us to this path of mass extinction, and look to more sustainable economic models that are not based on resource depletion and increasing emissions,” a spokesperson told the Guardian. “This is no longer about left versus right, we need to come together to face this. Political persuasion is going to be a distant memory when we are faced with failing crops and empty supermarket shelves.”” (my emphasis).
I interpret this as meaning that arguments about capitalism or socialism are irrelevant and that all people of good will should get together to pressurise (capitalist) governments into doing something drastic about climate change. Talk about being naive. In any event, there is no understanding that capitalism, as an economic system driven by the imperative need to pursue, make and accumulate profits, is both the cause and what is holding back the solution. In fact I detect a fear on their part about using the word “capitalism” in case they are labelled “leftwing”.
What is noticeable about this is not so much Carney’s view that capitalism is part of the socialism or his remark that “there will be great fortunes made along this path aligned with what society wants” (true, there will be profits to be made from measures to deal with climate change) but what the Extinction Rebellion’s spokesperson says. Comment on this is more appropriate in the thread on them (which I forgot was still extant when I posted the Reclaim the Power thing here).
Interesting we have different recollections of RTS. You remember the march they had with the Liverpool dockers. I remember their anti-motorway actions. We’re both right, according to their Wikipedia entry.
In the meantime Simon Wigley has gone reformist.
The papers are reporting today on anti-climate demonstrators with a banner (and presumably sloganizing) “No Borders, No Nations. No Gas Power Stations”. Clearly this can’t be Extinction Rebellion as they merely want national governments remove to adopt more drastic anti-emission measures.
It seems to be a new group Reclaim the Power which sounds like the old Reclaim the Streets rebranded. They do at least bring capitalism in to it:
“We Need to Talk about Capitalism. Climate change and environmental collapse are the products of an economic system based on infinite growth on a planet of finite resources, on colonial plundering and on the many inequalities of a class based system. The fight for climate justice cannot be removed from this social and economic context.”
True, except that in practice they do. And they overlook the fact that direct action by Reclaim the Streets didn’t succeed in stopping a single motorway or by-pass. I wonder what happened to Swampy.
Here is the Conference Report on the rescindment in 1994 of that 1974 resolution. Notice who moved it.
Islington and Lancaster branches moved:
“That the 1974 Conference resolution ‘that membership of Women’s Liberation organisations is incompatible with membership of the Party’ be rescinded.”
R. Headicar (Islington): The issue was not about whether women members should or should not join “women’s liberation” (whatever that was) but why should one section of the membership (women) be the subject of a specific proscription over and above the Rulebook? This was discriminatory and should go.
N. Snell (Lancaster): Socialists had always said that marriage was a property relationship in which the woman was subordinated to the man. In the words of the 50 Years Ago column in the January Socialist Standard we wanted to end this “economic bondage”. This was part of what we aimed at, so we wanted women’s liberation. If anybody wasn’t for this then they weren’t a socialist.
R. Cook (Birmingham): Socialists had indeed always used the phrase, in relation to married women, that they were “slaves of a slave”.
S. Coleman (EC member): Members don’t – and shouldn’t – have to ask permission to join neighbourhood associations, tenants’ associations – or women’s groups. We shouldn’t have a list of proscribed organizations, but should trust members to behave as Socialists.
G. Woods (Central): Women’s Lib divided the workers, while Socialists wanted to unite them. Equal pay didn’t end exploitation and sometimes resulted in male workers being sacked.
V. Vanni (Glasgow): Some Glasgow members were against the blanket nature of the 1974 resolution but had worries about rescinding it without putting something in its place, specifying which types of women’s organizations were permissible and which weren’t.
C. McEwan (Glasgow): Clause 1 of our Declaration of Principles says there’s only one property relationship in society, so if women were the property of men then we would need to amend this Clause. He was against feminist propaganda that claimed that all women were good and all men were bad.
B. Montague (EC member): Clearly class exploitation and oppression were primary, but this didn’t mean that there weren’t other secondary ones too. Why were some members afraid of discussing the relationship between the sexes?
A. Atkinson (Central): The Lancaster circular was wrong to describe the man-woman relationship in marriage as one of employer-to-employee and so liken women’s organizations to trades unions. They couldn’t be equated with unions but were reformist.
T. Lawlor (SW London): The Party was becoming polarized into those who stood by Marx’s economic analysis and those who were interested in these other issues. The latter were becoming a faction that seemed to have to be accommodated at all costs. Why weren’t women members interested in economics instead of feminism?
K. Mohideen (Islington): If she had known about this resolution at the time she would probably never have joined. There was nothing wrong with Marxian economics but to concentrate only on this was to fail to take into account the women’s movement and its contribution to social change.
P. Lawrence (SW London): One reason for rescinding this resolution was that it was unenforceable – who in the Party would vote for the expulsion of a women member who associated with a women’s refuge group? Nobody. That’s why the resolution had long been a dead letter.
H. Vallar (Chair) said that there was no time to read a letter from M. Judd (SE London) opposing rescindment
N. Snell (Lancaster), winding up, agreed that it was a bit misleading to have referred in the Branch’s circular to the man-woman relationship in marriage as an employer-employee one, but this didn’t alter the substance of the argument: that the Party recognized that women were oppressed in ways that men weren’t and that we were for ending this, i.e. for women’s liberation.
The Resolution (Vote 7) was carried 80-43.
I don’t think “Socialism or Extinction” is a good slogan, because the human race is not really threatened with actual extinction. I’m not too sure about “Socialism or Barbarism” either. It’s more like “Socialism or Hopelessness for Ever” as that’s all capitalism has to offer and can deliver. Besides, you can’t scare people into wanting social change. That is more likely to get them to favour a strong government to deal with the perceived threat. What about the old “Socialism is the Hope of Humanity”? It used to be before Russia with its state capitalism spoiled things by making the word “socialism” toxic for many people.
People might get the impression that you are saying socialists endorse it when at the time nobody else who called themselves a socialist did. He put “a” case against feminism but not “the” case. It reflected his personal prejudice and had more in common with the “anti-feminism” of Jordan Peterson and the “new Right” than with the socialist position.
Yes, I remember comrade Gordillo in Spain saying that under Franco their Capital study group had to be disguised as a Protestant bible study class (itself a bit dodgy in Catholic Spain).
If it’s the first three chapters where Marx explains the labour theory of value that you find tedious (and parts are difficult), read this guide on this site to his 1865 talk to English trade unionists later published as the pamphlet Value, Price and Profit where he explains this is more simple terms. Then return to chapter fIV rom when on Capital is more descriptive and historical as well as theoretical.
Good shortened versions are:
The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx by Karl Kautsky (which sticks closely to the arrangement of Capital.
Economics for Beginners by John Keracher.
Marx’s Capital by Ben Fine, a more modern one, reviewed here.
The first five paragraphs of this article by of all people Tony Cliff set out rather well the different approaches to women’s liberation of Marxism and of Feminism:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1984/women/00-intro.htm
There’s some interesting stuff in the rest, e.g. about there not being a common category in history of “women” (women have always been divided into classes, and still are) but of course, as a Trotskyist, he goes off the rails about the supposed need for a vanguard party, the Russian revolution and the so-called middle class. But, as I said, the first five paragraphs are good.
Just realised that when I wrote that the rate of inflation could be maintained “even if unemployment rose above the NAIRU” I meant to write “even if it falls below the NAIRU”, i.e even if unemployment fell. Actually, it could still be maintained if it rose above it as well, as the basic point I was trying to make was that the there was no necessary link between the rate of inflation and the rate of unemployment.
Forgot to add that next month’s (i.e. August) Socialist Standard also has an article on “People Power in Hong Kong”.
I couldn’t access that New York Times article as you have to sign up. So I looked up what the Guardian reported.
There does seem to be a parallel with events in Hong Kong in that, as with China and Hong Kong, Puerto Rico is a US territory (tempted to say colony) with its own administration also struck by “people’s power” demonstrations. But there has not been much coverage in the British media (not been mentioned on TV or the radio) compared with that for Hong Kong. Partly no doubt because Hong Kong used to be a British colony but the fact that China is seen as a rival while the US is an ally will also be a factor.
I think we can agree with Marquito that there could be some parts of the world where the ruling class might attempt to resist the majority will to abolish capitalist rule even if ultimately this will be futile. But, as we have always said echoing the slogan on the Chartists in the UK, “peaceably if we may, forcibly if we must”, though mass demonstrations like in Hong Kong and Puerto Rico, combined with strikes, might do the trick better than an armed uprising.
In this context I see that in Puerto Rico (though not in Hong Kong) even some of the police supported the anti-government demonstrations. There’s is an article on police revolts in this month’s Socialist Standard, the paper edition of which is already out but won’t be online till next Thursday.
