ALB
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ALB wrote:The Lib Dem and the Green were a mutual admiration society (they are a joint group on Surrey County Council),
I thought I detected something going on between them and now this:http://www.guildford-dragon.com/2017/04/26/guildford-lib-dems-greens-considering-election-pact/Irrelevant conventional politics, I know, but of interest to political trainspotters.
Here's what today's Times is saying:
Quote:Marine Le Pen has set out to win over left-wing voters by casting herself as protector of the working class and softening her hostility to Europe before the presidential vote on May 7. In a television appearance she sought to build momentum against Emmanuel Macron, the centrist favourite, by making a direct pitch to the supporters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the revolutionary leftist who took 19 per cent of the vote in Sunday's first round.Mr Melenchon refused yesterday to join the mainstream parties in urging voters to gang up against the far right and reject Ms Le Pen.The National Front leader depicted herself as being close to Mr Melenchon on the need to protect workers from hostile foreign competition and European deregulation that could rob them of employment rights. She claimed that Mr Macron, 39, was an agent of the "oligarchy" who wanted to sell France out to global finance.The article went on to say that she had already won over 12 percent of Mélechon's voters. This should not be a surprise as the French "Communist" Party paved the way, with its long-standing slogan of "Produisons français" (Let's Produce French), for the Front National to take over its voters.It was of course British leftists with similar views to Mélenchon who swung the vote in favour of Brexit, in effect allying themselves with UKIP.
Not in the introduction, but there's a whole section in Chapter 3 entitled "Class War", defined in the Glossary at the end as:
Quote:In Marxist terms, class war is considered an economic and political power struggle between capitalist owners and workers. More broadly, as argued in this book, class war is a structural inevitability of the market system's incentive psychology and competitive procedural dynamics, creating a constant state of imposed economic and political deficiency upon the lower classes while the upper classes are naturally supported by the structure, in contrast. This outcome occurs without personal intent to oppress or elevate.And, while I'm at it, here's his definition of "Capitalist Ownership":
Quote:Also termed the "ownership class," this highlights the traditional labor role separation between workers and owners in capitalism. Underscoring this relationship is socioeconomic inequality. While often classified as a Marxist concept, the phrase is merely the observation of power imbalance and how there are hierarchy-enhancing aspects of market economics, along with incentivized state policy in favor of power and wealth consolidation for the upper class overall.Well actually, there is this that Dave B came across:
Quote:Humanity, if it wants to be civilised through and through, must make the Principle of healthy and meaningful living its LIFE PRINCIPLE and get rid of all institutions and culture that fail to harmonise with the Principle of Healthy and Meaningful Living. https://hubpages.com/politics/the-RIGHT-VIEW-of-CIVILISATIONt seems to be putting the cart before the horse, i.e taking the idealist position of setting out a set of principles and then saying that society should conform to them.It is also unclear whether these principles are to be applied under capitalism as well as being the supposed basis of future socialist/communist (the same thing) society. Most of things it regards as a sin (eg.bribery, gambling, trafficking, etc) won't arise in socialism as money and the money economy will have disappeared and, also, with the end of the coercive state and the economic dependence of women on men, so will "matrimony" as the state-endorsed living together of a man and a woman. All that will be left are smoking and drinking. So, what's all the fuss about — just a cigarette and a glass of beer. What's wrong with that?
More on what was said at the Guildford hustings here:https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/we-want-capexit.html
The May Socialist Standard is being delivered and despatched that day so if delegates arrive early enough they can help stuff it into envelopes. It's actually expected before 13.00hrs GMT + 1, so HO will be open even before then.
moderator1 wrote:Seeing there's no rule on deliberately bumping of posts I've locked the thread where this was occurring.Good. Thanks. Now let's bump it down to the bottom by bumping up other threads
moderator1 wrote:Introduction here: http://www.thenewhumanrightsmovement.com/why-this-book/Just realised that this, already on the internet, contains this passage which reflects, consciously or not, the Marxist approach to social systems;
Quote:A social system is defined as the means by which a society organizes itself to facilitate survival, prosperity, and, ideally, peaceful coexistence. (…) However, any challenge to the integrity of the system is really a challenge to the integrity of its core foundation, and that core foundation is economic. How a society organizes its resources, labor, production, and distribution is by far the most defining and influential feature of culture. This is why when people discuss social systems in general they usually refer to them by their economic modes.Another note-worthy development is that, unlike all the other candidates, the far-left candidate Mélenchon has refused to endorse Macron in the second round, so leaving the way for his supporters (he got over 19% of the votes, i.e nearly a fifth) to vote for Le Pen if they want, attracted by the same narrow nationalist policies both her and him advocated.
Unlike in the 2015 general election, in this one TUSC will not be fielding any candidates but will be reverting to saying "Vote Labour":http://www.tusc.org.uk/17358/22-04-2017/tusc-chair-dave-nellist-welcomes-general-election-chance-to-drive-out-the-toriesIt's not so much Lenin's supporting Labour as a rope supports a hanged man, but more a parasite supporting the existence of a new potential host.
About 40 people at the anti-Brexit hustings last night in Guildford to which parties contesting the elections in the five Guildford town divisions were invited, i.e. Tories, LibDems, Labour, Greens, Peace Party and us. No UKIP representatives as they seem to have given up on Guildford, not having any candidates there.In the absence of UKIP the pro-EU audience tried to make the Tory representative, Bob Hughes, the whipping boy but, unfortunately for them, this former MP and junior minister was very prominent in the Remain campaign. The Lib Dem and the Green were a mutual admiration society (they are a joint group on Surrey County Council), the Labour (and Cooperative) representative was an EU "immigrant". The Peace Party candidate was an old-fashioned pacifist who preached "be nice to everybody". He did, however, venture into economics by claiming that "Modern Monetary Theory" meant that austerity was unnecessary as the money could be made available if the government decided. A perfect opening to point out that austerity was not a free government decision but one forced on them by the requirement of capitalism, when in a slump, for pressure on profits to be relieved by cutting government spending and the taxes to pay for it. As most local council money comes from the central government, these cuts trickled down to local level, leaving councillors too no choice but to implement them at their level.There were questions on the environment. Another opportunity to explain that under capitalism making profits has to take priority over everything else, including the environment, and to point out that a global problem like climate change required a global solution which capitalist states, with different energy sources affecting their competitiveness, were unable to agree on doing anything effective.
Except that it happened yesterday on 4 or 5 General Discussion threads all within 5 minutes of each other at around 6pm yesterday, which Ponzi is not or cannot have been on (one has the last contribution in 2015).
moderator1 wrote:I have a strong suspicion his way of getting "there" will be similar to the Civil Rights Movement in the US.Sort of. He sees the movement for a non-market, non-money, post-scarcity society (let us call it "socialism") as having to be based on the activism of "the raw masses", the "average majority" and that, to triumph, it will have to eventually have majority consent. In this event, he suggests various transitional measures, such as universal basic income (to begin to break the link between work and consumption) and making "free (without direct purchase) goods from as many industries as possible". These would correspond to the list of (now completely outdated of course) immediate measures in the Communist Manifesto, i.e measures to be implemented once the battle of democracy had been won.It's where the movement has not yet got majority support that ambiguity comes in. He suggests that the movement should still demand and exercise pressure for them "upon the existing power structure, coercing change from the bottom up". This, even though he knows that these run counter to the logic of the capitalist market system:
Quote:Political influence, whether through grassroots protest or institutional lobbying via NGOs, will naturally be important. This is the arena of democracy that most people think of, though often they misunderstand its limitations. Public appeals to directly reduce socioeconomic inequality and stop environmental degradation are always going to go against the grain within a market system, which will resist every step. Regardless, we should constantly demand things such as Universal Basic Income; maximum wage and wealth caps per person, government subsidies to incentivize cooperative businesses rather than hierarchical ones, universal standardization of goods components by industry sector to reduce waste, and other socializing and income/wealth equalizing means. Basic public-health services, as common to Nordic countries, should also be pushed to ease social stress while larger strides are made. These are not solutions in and of themselves, but they will help.These would correspond to the "minimum programme" of the pre-WW1 Social Democratic parties.Gradualism is ruled out.:
Quote:. ..even if only partial transitions were made toward the ideal goals expressed, it would still improve things. However, the more one examines the implications ol these changes, the more it will become clear how they work against the current economic system's incentives and structure. This means the ideal of a step-by-step transition (and improvement) is improbable. Rather, it will likely take large and dramatic leaps to move from one state to another, revealing the need for serious activism to get things done.So, "large and dramatic leaps" (revolution) rather than gradual reform.He seems to have reached the same position, and to face the same strategic and tactical dilemmas, as the pre-WW1 Social Democratic movement from which we emerged with our view that the socialist movement should not have a programme of immediate demands to be implemented within capitalism. We know, from what happened to the Social Democratic parties, that the measures he sees as "helpful" will tend to attract people who just want them and not the complete change to a non-market, non-money society and so derail the movement for this.Still, there is no other modern book that discusses these choices in relation to the movement for the sort of society we want to see established.
