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By coincidence there's a perhaps relevant headline into today's Times:
Quote:Headhunters target Labour MPs for lucrative public service rolesThe news item begins:
Quote:Labour backbenchers are being headhunted for senior jobs in the public sector, according to MPs. Details of efforts to lure opposition politicians into roles in health, education and other industries emerged after Jamie Reed, Labour MP for Copeland announced his resignation from the Commons on Wednesday [to take a top job in the nuclear power industry].Is there perhaps also a nomeklatura in Britain of which top executives in the public sector and MPs are part? In any event, I don't think we can say these people are members of the working class. Like State employees generally they are paid out of the surplus value extracted in the productive sector of the economy (as a necessary expense of the capitalist system) but, unlike the vast majority of State employees, are paid bloated salaries a part of which represents a share in surplus value on a par with dividends and interest, i.e. a privileged exploitative income not just a necessary expense.
No, not all, just the top managers of state industries and the top civil servants, with their bloated salaries like those at the top of the nomenklatura in the old USSR. They must be getting paid more than they're worth (the value of their labour-power) white most state employees won't be.
More (click on title to read):22 December, 2016: Added to the Edgar Hardcastle Internet Archive:The Douglas Scheme: I. Bursting the bubble, May 1933 II. How Major Douglas discovered capitalism, June 1933 III. Prosperity in America, July 1933 'Marxism and Democracy': A useful addition to Socialist Literature, February 1941 War overtakes Russia, July 1941 The Withering Away of the State — From Marx to Stalin, March 1946 Russian imperialism, April 1948 Old Myths Refurbished: review of 'Incomes Policy, Legislation and Shop Stewards', August 1966 Marx on colonialism, September 1970 The International Socialists and Parliamentary Action, December 1975 Marx and the Abolition of the Wages System, March 1977 Old Fallacies: A Look at the International Communist Current, October 1977 Book Review: 'Marx on Money', November 1977 Marxism and Democracy, September 1978 The Economics of Capitalism, April 1980 The economic crisis — the Marxian explanation. April 1984
Actually, when they get to Cabinet level it could be said that they are members of the capitalist class in that they do share in the surplus value extracted from the working class just as the top echelons of the nomenklatura did in the old USSR without having an individual legal right to a property and a property income. Personally I think it absurd to describe May as a member of the working class just as much as it was to say Khrushchev was, even if that's where they will both have come from at some point.
Yes, she was a careerist like the rest of them. One of those who wanted to dump Corbyn as he was harming her ascent of the greasy pole.
Osama Jafar wrote:people to achieve thier freedom from control need apuse & ignorance, and make better & complete living – they should gather thier forces in a glopal league ( world revolutionary gang) to force ending governments & establish organizations thier sole purpose is to end the need for those organizations by working on ending the need for work ignorance & so on.But getting people to do this would be as difficult as getting them to establish (world) socialism. So why not concentrate instead on getting people to organise for socialism rather than this half-way house where you go on to say there will still be buying and selling and private ownership of means of production? In fact, why would people who had reached this stage of anti-capitalist and world consciousness want to stop half-way?
Osama Jafar wrote:while in the bigening will stil be a need for money as there still jobs & privates- and that dimensh whith the dimenshing need for the organization whitch will give up its business alog with all jobs to the automated computer run world producer net. that simple!While computers can obviously help, we don't need to wait for the development of one to run everything (which might never happen) before we can re-organise the world on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of its resources, with production for use and not for sale on a market (and so without the need for money).
From yesterday's Times:
Quote:Businesses need to enjoy "barrier-free" access to the European Union once Brexit negotiations have been completed, the CBI has warned. Britain's biggest business lobby group said in a report that the country should be free of tariffs with "minimal" non-tariff barriers across every sector. Non-tariff barriers cover restrictions that result froom prohibitions, conditions, or specific market requirements that make importing or export difficult but do not have direct costs. Tackling them is considered by economists to be more important than external tariffs in order to make Brexit a success.Of course trade between British capitalism and EU capitalism will continue after Brexit, but the question is on what conditions? The dominant section of the British capitalism wants, basically, to stay in the single market as now as a second best to staying in the EU. We'll see how much of their way they get. Governments generally dance to their tune — that's what they're for. But not always. Sometimes they make things worse.
Some are obviously capitalists (more in America than in Britain), eg ex-PM Cameron and ex-MP Zac Goldsmith, rich men with nothing else to do. Most will be workers on the make as one way to get out of the working class (in the broad sense of all those excluded from ownership of means of production and so forced by economic necessity to sell their mental and physical energies for a wage or a salary) and become capitalists themselves. Some will be sincere reformists.When in government, their role is to manage the affairs of the capitalist class as a whole, inevitably in the interest of the capitalist class by giving priority to profits and conditions for profit-making. Politicians in office have been described as the middle managers of international capitalism. The capitalist class like elections as it ensures that the same group of politicians are not permanently in office and so develop sticky fingers at their expense. This will be one reason why they are concerned about the fate of the Labour Party — they need a viable alternative team to take over the reins of office from time to time.
Matt wrote:The website is being remodelled anyway, as we speak. Sometime in the New Year. You'll see that on the front page we have live feeds into blogs which update all the timeWhich "blogs" are you referring too. If it's going to look like the front page of the WSM site here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/I don't think this would be the best use of our front page. What's wrong with thee present one highlighting articles from the Standard? Also, the SOYMB isn't as careful over the copyright of images as the Standard — and the editorial committee often sends article we don't consider appropriate for the Standard to the blog which doesn't require such strict editing.
Imposs1904 is the MIA volunteer for the SPGB member archives. I believe he has plans to open one for Adolph Kohn but has not got round to it except to select some articles.
The two lead letters in this week's Weekly Worker are from Party members. It's the editor who identifies the writers as such even though the letters are not from the Party. I don't know why but I suppose we shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth:http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1135/letters/
Talking about hypocrisy, I couldn't believe this when I first read it:
Quote:US and British-led coalition has killed more than 50,000 ISIS fighters in the last two yearshttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4015520/US-British-led-coalition-killed-50-000-ISIS-fighters-Iraq-Syria-two-years.htmlMore than 50,000 killed ! Since there won't be that many fanatised muslims who moved from other parts of the world to join ISIS in Iraq and Syria, most of these will be local tribesmen there. I don't suppose Saudi Arabia has killed that many in Yemen, at least not yet.
I always thought we said we weren't really "leftwing" as we regarded both left and right as wings of the same capitalist vulture It's just that our language is similar.
More on the IWGB and its intervention in the Article 50 case before the Supreme Court here:http://www.tribunemagazine.org/2016/11/ex-wobblies-join-gina-in-the-supreme-court-showdown/
