ALB
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Actually, that has long been the choice facing the British capitalist class, as this letter in the Times on 14 August pointed out (anticipating Macron) :
“Sir, When I voted to join the Common Market in 1975 it seemed to me that the future of our country lay either with Europe or the US. Your leading article “Strategic Pivot” (Aug 13) makes it clear that nothing has changed. If we leave the EU we shall, inevitably, become a client state of the US, expected to follow the policy of the US government in which we have no voice. We may not always agree with the policy decisions taken by the EU, but we do at least have the opportunity to influence them. In a world controlled by competing power blocks, the idea of pursuing an independent path is a mirage.
Professor Richard Carter, Carnforth, Lancs.”I was at the talk which was the basis for that article by Ian Wright on Labour’s economic policies. He was searching for something in them that encourages worker coops and dug up this definition of socialism (in an obscure policy discussion document on “Alternative Models of Ownership”) :
“What we have presented, as an alternative, amounts to the first steps in challenging that dominant model of ownership and control. We have shown, in simple, practical terms, how a government committed to addressing those profound, structural problems could implement key policies that would rectify them. Its goal would be nothing other than the creation of an economy which is fairer, more democratic, and more sustainable; that would overturn the hierarchies of power in our economy, placing those who create the real wealth in charge; that would end decades of under-investment and wasted potential by tearing down the vested interests that hold this country back. The historic name for that society is socialism, and this is Labour’s goal.”
It didn’t, and probability won’t, find its way into Labour’s election manifesto. So it’s just a curiosity, an obscure attempt by some Labourites to define socialism.
I can confirm from discussions with him that he sees nothing wrong in principle with interest (which will survive into his petty commodity production by workers coops economy). It’s only profit that he objects to as a something-for-nothing income.
From today’s papers President Macron’s assessment of what a no-deal Brexit would mean for capitalist Britain:
“Can [the cost of a hard Brexit] be offset by the United States of America? No. And even if it were a strategic choice, it would be at the cost of a historic vassalisation of Britain. I don’t think this is what Boris Johnson wants. I don’t think it is what the British people want.
“The British are attached to being a great power, a member of the Security Council. The point can’t be to exit Europe and say ‘we’ll be stronger’ before, in the end, becoming the junior partner of the United States, which is acting more and more hegemonically.”But maybe it was the point of those who financed the Leave campaign?
Ian Wright knows the Party and is sort of sympathetic to us. He follows us on Twitter and may even have voted for us. However he doesn’t agree with our non-market conception of socialism.
This doesn’t come out in this article (as it didn’t need to) but he is a market socialist of sorts envisaging an economy of workers cooperatives still producing for the market but not for profit, selling their products at their labour-time value rather than at their “price of production” (cost price + average rate of profit). A sort of simple commodity economy where the producers are workers coops rather self-employed artisans.
It must be a moot point whether or not this really represents the abolition of the wages system.
“One reason that the police is handling the demonstrators with kid-gloves is that they do have the sympathy of much of the public despite the disruption caused. “
Yes, I think that was largely true of the actions in central London a few months ago, but it’s not clear if this is going to last if the disruptions continue on a regular basis as planned.
Anyway, the news item you mentioned was about Australia, a climate sceptic country where commentators argue that the Labor Party lost the recent elections there because many voters regarded it as too “pro-greenie”. Which suggests that your point works both ways. If the protestors do not enjoy public sympathy the police can be more heavy-handed. It will be interesting to see what happens if XR try anything in New York next month. And whether discretion will (sensibly) get the better part of valour as in Katowice last year
I know, Alan, that you set great store by this but face the facts. “Thousands” taking part in a “global” “strike”. That would be pathetic. Just a drop in the ocean. One of those quoted in the link and on a video there is more ambitious:
“We’re talking about trying to get two to three percent of the population, which doesn’t sound like a lot but that’s a lot of people,” a student organizer named Sana, who is attending a climate strike in New Jersey,
She’s right. It is a lot of people. The population of the US is 323 million. Two per cent of that is 6.46 million. The population of the UK is 65 million. Two per cent of that is 1,3 million. If they can get over 6 million in the US and a million in Britain to take part that would be something. But I doubt whether they will mobilise even one million in either country. I hope she’s not going to be too disappointed and become disillusioned.
The stated aim is to get capitalist governments to do a lot more to limit carbon emissions in the context of capitalism and its competitive struggle for profits. Good luck to them.
It is true that XR does have a more lofty aim:
Shortly after the Week of Action ends on September 28, Extinction Rebellion will begin its own “Worldwide Rebellion” involving the peaceful occupation of parts of London and calling on people all over the globe “to rise up and rebel for our deep love of life and the need to protect it.”
Oh dear ! This is just self-indulgent Christian-like bearing witness which eventually is going to piss off the rest of the population. Completely counter-productive.
We are preparing to produce a few thousand copies of the Indian leaflet to hand-out at various street stalls and events in September and there’ll be the editorial and a couple of articles in the September Socialist Standard. I doubt, though, that any member of the Socialist Party will be taking part in this rather naive so-called “global strike” which has no more credibility than the Trots incessant calls for “a general strike now”. The schoolkids’ strike is ok, though I don’t think we have any schoolkid members. We do have parents. They’ll probably be encouraging their kids join in and not go to school on 20 September.
What do they expect? That even 3.5% of the population can take on the state and win? As the song says (sort of), they fight the state and the state wins.
Marquito has drawn attention to this article on Brexit from the Marxist Humanist Initiative in the US
https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/uk-news/boris-johnson-brexit-and-the-law-of-value.html
I’m not sure it succeeds. Are there really any capitalist firms that favour Brexit because the fall in the value of the pound will make their exports more competitive? After all, a fall in the value of the pound will also make imports more expensive, while exports to Europe will have a tariff imposed on them in the event of a no-deal Brexit. And has immigration from East Europe really undermined wages in Britain? The minority capitalists interest in Brexit would still seem to be financiers who favoured getting out of EU regulation of their deals in favour, as is now being revealed, of switching to the less onerous US regulation. In any event, the present US regime wants Brexit so as to weaken the EU as a competitor on world markets, with pro-American UK politicians now openly pushing the US interest.
More interesting was the link they gave to the discussion within MHI before the referendum on what line thy should take. They say that as an organisation they have no position (fair enough, why should they?) but are publishing two points of view. I had expected there’d be one for Remain and one for Leave. In fact there was one for Remain, with the other for Abstain, Which I suppose was the only real choice facing those with the interests of the working class at heart, reflecting that there was no conceivable working class case for Leave. The one for Abstain by Ravi Bali makes some good points against Lexit.
It’s ok. I know. You don’t need to convince me. I’m just saying that the End of the World is Not Nigh.
Sounds as if you are challenging Alan for the role of Private Fraser ! There’s an article in this month’s Socialist Standard that Anton Pannekoek wrote in 1909 which says that elephants were in disappear of disappearing. 110 years later they are still there. Cheer up, things are not that bad !
Yes it does happen. It’s what you’d expect according to the materialist conception of history.
Objectively, at this stage of human history, a world society based on common ownership (no ownership by any group) so that production can be brought under social control and oriented directly toward meeting people’s needs without buying and selling is the only framework within which the problems currently facing humanity can be rationally and lastingly tackled.
So you would expect some others to come to this conclusion independently of us, and they do. A recent example would be the Zeitgeist movement and its offshoots. But there have been others before them that emerged from the Situationists.
But what degree of agreement with our conclusions are you expecting? While there will be and has been 100% agreement on the aim/solution, to expect this degree of agreement with the whole of our approach would be going too far. We are the product of specific political conditions in one relatively small part of the world and have our own history and tradition. The likelihood of this being repeated independently of us anywhere else is completely unlikely.
So there will not be agreement with the “path toward socialism” we advocate nor on our other policies such “educate for socialism”. And has not been. Zeitgeist, for instance, does not accept that the way is through the class struggle and for a while favoured technocracy rather than democracy. Other groups that have emerged don’t agree with using the ballot box or with not supporting reforms as well or not getting involved as an organisation in day-to-day struggles.
Personally, I don’t see this as a problem in the long term as, after all, we have never claimed that the emergence of a world socialist consciousness will, could or should be purely the result of our own meagre efforts. Otherwise we’d simply be latter-day Utopian Socialists.
Just been looking at their site again (it’s much more professional since the last time I looked). I see XR are proposing that the government should take its mandate on climate change from the verdict of “Citizen’s Assembly”:
“Government must create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice.”
The members of such an Assembly are not going to be elected:
“Similar to jury service, members are randomly selected from the population by a process called sortition. Quotas are used to ensure that the assembly is representative in terms of key characteristics such as gender, age, ethnicity, education level and geography.”
Then:
“Assembly members learn about critical thinking before they hear balanced information from experts and stakeholders. The members spend time deliberating in small, facilitated groups and then they draft and vote on recommendations.”
Sounds as if it might be a useful way of taking some decisions in socialism, but we’re not there. We’re living under capitalism, where it is not the decision-making process that is the problem but the fact that the workings of the capitalist economy frustrate many decisions to improve things however democratically taken.
Since there are so few socialists at the moment there’s not much chance of one of us being selected. This means that the “balanced information” from “experts” will assume that capitalism and its competitive struggle for profits continues.
What is odd, though, is that XR has already pre-empted the decision, as they also demand:
“Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.”
Assuming that the Citizens Assembly endorses this demand. Under the XR plan the government then has to carry this out. The trouble is that, if it did, by increasing energy costs this would undermine the competitivity of British exports, leading to an economic downturn and so a political backlash.
XR anticipate this when they say that a Citizens Assembly
“will help politicians to commit to a transformative programme of action justified by the mandate they receive from the citizens’ assembly, reducing the potential public backlash at the ballot-box. “
This is assuming that people will accept that the government should give priority to a mandate from a Citizens Assembly over one from the ballot box, a rather bold assumption I would have thought.
In any event, there is a possibility that a Citizens Assembly will come to a different decision to XR and, for instance, add a rider saying the government should only adopt measures to reduce emissions to net zero by 2025 if other states agree to do the same (a highly likely decision, I suggest). In which, case we’ll be back where we are now, with capitalist states, because of their particular economic interests, being either unable or unwilling to do this.
XR, evidently, have thought their plan through. Despite this, they believe they have the right to disrupt ordinary people’s life and holidays.
There is another amusing possibility. Suppose that, by chance, a socialist is chosen by lot to serve on the Assembly and suppose they convince it that socialism is the way-out. This couldn’t be a mandate for socialism since socialism can only come into being when a majority want it, the obvious way to demonstrate this being through the ballot-box. Which once again brings us back to where we are now where a majority don’t want it despite it being the only framework within which the problem of climate change can be rationally tackled.
Yes, it will be an interesting to see what those politicians defending the interests of the dominant section of the UK capitalist class will do to bring down Boris Johnson’s government of crazies and “collaborators” with US capitalism and prevent British capitalists being cut off by tariff walls from the markets they have built up in Europe over the last 40 or so years. There’s going to be some fascinating viewing or radio-listening in September and October. A veritable reality show.
Actually, Bijou, if you’ve already booked and are definitely coming down that weekend we can arrange for you to do a (indoor) meeting either on Saturday 1 February or Sunday 2 February (or both). Let us know at HO email address and we can fix the details (title, venue, time, etc).
Actually, that is more or less what we have been doing in the area around Head Office in Clapham, which is situated in the borough of Lambeth, on the border with Wandsworth. We have contested elections there since 1970 and in the 2000’s contested every election going (Parliament, Europe, London, local council, even council by-elections).
As it happens, there are elections to the Greater London Authority next May and no doubt we will be contesting them, possibly by standing a candidate again in the electoral area of Lambeth & Southwark as we did 4 years ago or maybe even standing an all-London list.
The best time to come down to help would be in April as that’s when the campaign will be on as election day will be the first Thursday in May, which is the 7th.
