ALB
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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.
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.
