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Sounds like a good idea. You've had a good run for your money (sorry, time) here, Here's their website:http://www.wspus.org/There is also this:https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/WSM_Forum/info

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His summary of so-called "post-Marxism" (which boils down to forget the big picture only local struggles count) is quite good. It's the practice and implicit view of most activist groups even if they don't call themselves "post-Marxists):

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(1) Socialism was a failure and all "general theories" of societies are condemned torepeat this process. Ideologies are false (except post-Marxism!) because they reflect aworld of thought dominated by a single gender/raceculture system.(2) The Marxist emphasis on social class is "reductionist" because classes aredissolving; the principle political points of departure are cultural and rooted in diversidentities (race, gender, ethnicity, sexual preference) .(3) The state is the enemy of democracy and freedomand a corrupt and inefficientdeliverer of social welfare. In its place, "civil society" is the protagonist of democracy andsocial improvement.(4) Central planning leads to and is a product of bureaucracy which hinders theexchange of goods between producers. Markets and market exchanges, perhaps withlimited regulations, allow for greater consumptionand more efficient distribution.(5) The traditional left's struggle for state poweris corrupting and leads toauthoritarian regimes which then subordinate civilsociety to its control. Local strugglesover local issues by local organizations are the only democratic means of change, alongwith petition/pressure on national andinternational authorities.(6) Revolutions always end badly or are impossible:social transformations threatento provoke authoritarian reactions. The alternativeis to struggle for and consolidatedemocratic transitions to safeguard electoral processes.(7) Class solidarity is part of past ideologies, reflecting earlier politics and realities.Classes no longer exist. There are fragmented "locales" where specific groups (identities)and localities engage in self-help and reciprocal relation for "survival" based oncooperation with external supporters. Solidarity isa cross-class phenomena, a humanitariangesture.( Class struggle and confrontation does not produce tangible results; it provokesdefeats and fails, to solve immediate problems. Government and international cooperationaround specific projects does result in increases in production and development.(9) Anti-imperialism is another expression of the past that has outlived its time. Intoday's globalized economy, there is no possibilityof confronting the economic centers.The world is increasingly interdependent and in this world there is a need for greaterinternational cooperation in transferring capital,technology and know-how from the "rich"to the "poor" countries.(10) Leaders of popular organizations should not beexclusively oriented towardorganizing the poor and sharing their conditions. Internal mobilization should be based onexternal funding. Professionals should design programs and secure external financing toorganize local groups. Without outside aid, local groups and professional careers wouldcollapse.

His refutation, while making some valid points, is not so good. He seems to be coming from a Leninist position, certainly from someone who thinks there was something socialist about Russia and such countries.

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Anybody can laugh at and raise a chuckle at Trump's expense but Brand (speaking as an individual like you and me not as a comedian) was trying to do more than this. In fact he was trying to be funny at all but to offer an explanation why people who wanted a change from the existing status quo were so desperate as to try even an option like Trump, despite them knowing how offensive and absurd he is, and that this says something too about conventional politics and politicians.I'm not sure how valid this analysis is but at least it's a serious contribution to the debate.

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Here's Russel Brand on Trump's election:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3Ou5uFFn8Q&feature=push-u&attr_tag=X_DnzuPjAQw-6Perhaps surprisingly, not all that bad.

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

The Socialist Party has made a spirited defence in not making reform demands, which if i guessed my dates correct was followed by De Leon's SLP who also dropped the minimum programme.

Actually it was the other way round. The SLP of America dropped all reform demands in 1900. So we followed them, probably consciously, when we were founded in 1904. Oddly, the SLP of GB, when it was set up in 1903, did have a reform programme.

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Aren't they the nearest equivalent in the US to the Labour Party here?http://www.dsausa.org/about_dsa

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As we are unlikely to see an immediate end to capitalism tomorrow, DSA fights for reforms today that will weaken the power of corporations and increase the power of working people.

So a 1000 extra active reformists. Compare with our position that

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As we are unlikely to see an immediate end to capitalism tomorrow, we campaign directly for socialism and so help the emergence of the majority socialist understanding without which capitalism cannot be ended and socialism established.

And don't they normally support the Democratic Party?

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Apparently they confirm it themselves, though it could be a tactical manoeuvre. But let's hope they get back in and dissolve their fake "Socialist Party". I've been waiting for this to bring their attempt bo steal our name to an end.http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/txt/451.pdf

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Phil Sharpe’s ‘market socialism’ is obvious nonsense (Letters, October 27). He uses an impoverished Russia and adoption of the New Economic Policy as proof. But the Soviet Republic’s strategic retreat back to the market has as much relevance for us today as does the Bolsheviks’ forcible requisitions of surplus grain from peasants under war communism or the suppression of free speech and banning of opposing parties.However, that does not mean that his Socialist Party of Great Britain critics are right (Letters, November 3). Together all of them unscientifically conflate socialism and full communism. As if, once the working class comes to power, we can instantly do away with every feature, every limitation inherited from capitalism. In fact, the struggle for the communist mode of production begins after the political victory of the proletariat and the establishment of a regime committed to socialism.Our starting point is therefore wage-labour, money and the market … under the rule of the working class. However, we seek to establish the communist principle of need.Contra the SPGB, the generally accepted Marxist term for this replacement of capitalism by communism, this period of transition from one mode of production to another, is ‘socialism’. Eg, in his Critique of the Gotha programme (1875), Marx distinguishes between a first, lower, phase of communist society and a higher phase (K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 24, London 1989, pp81-90).In the lower phase of communism the ruling principle is: “To each according to their contribution”. Individuals receive back from society – after necessary deductions – exactly what they have given in terms of labour contributed. There is, therefore, inequality because there is unequal labour time. Only in the higher phase does the principle, “From each according to their ability, to each according to his needs”, apply.When Lenin came to write his State and revolution (1917), it was “usual” to call the first phase of communism ‘socialism’ (VI Lenin CW Vol 25, Moscow 1977, p472). It was an orthodox Second International formulation. In other words, it was not the “opportunism” of Lenin and the Bolsheviks which introduced the distinction between socialism (communism – lower phase) and communism (communism – higher phase).As Marx recognised, life demands such a distinction. One can give the two phases of communism whatever name one likes – first and second, lower and higher, socialism and communism. What matters is the distinction.Jack Conrad

In this reply to us, Jack Conrad (of the Weekly Worke itselfr) confuses two "transitions". The one from capitalism to the first phase of communism/socialism and the one from the first to the higher phase of communism/socialism.  Marx, Engels, Kautsky and the others did envisage money, wages, coops, even capitalists, existing in the first transition but these would have disappeared by the time even the first phase of communism was established.But, given the quite different situation in terms of productive capacity and organisation today to the 1870s, it's pretty pointless basing what to do now on what Marx and Engels's assessment of the position then (150 years ago — it's as if they had based theirs on what things were like in 1720). Once a majority want socialism/communism the first transition can be got through very quickly (capitalism is only maintained by the laws of the state; as soon as these are abrogated so is capitalism and the first phase over).He is wrong, too, about the distinction between "socialism" and "communism". It wasn't "an orthodox Second International formulation" and he'd be hard put to demonstrate that it was. Not even Lenin himself made it before 1917.I suppose I'll have to send another letter making these points….

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mcolome1 wrote:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/electoral-college-slavery-constitution/

Interesting article on the origin of the Electoral College system.Even this system might have reflected more the popular vote if the members of the college reflected the vote for each candidate in each state, as can happen in two states and did happen this time in one (Maine):http://www.pressherald.com/2016/11/08/mainers-take-matters-into-their-own-hands-after-bitter-presidential-campaign/The US election system is so full of anomalies like this, and especially as regards who gets on the voter register (and who doesn't) differing from state to state, that the US is not really in a position to give lessons on democracy to other countries. As you say, if UN election observers were allowed in, their report would be very revealing.

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Young Master Smeet wrote:

As with Brexit, the disturbing thing is thre is no discernable working class movement, except in asserting nationalist rights: repatriate the jobs that the Otehr has taken away.  It really does call into question whether the working class is the agent of sociealism.  Should we then, as Paul mason suggests today, tail end liberalism as a lesser evil?

Depemds on what is meant by "working class".  Reading the papers and watching TV on the result of the election the term seems to be used to mean "non-college-educated white males" but for us, of course, the term has a much wider meaning than that — all forced by economic necessity, by virtue of being excluded from ownership of means of production, to seek to sell their mental and physical energies for a wage or a salary. That'll be over 90% of the population in the developed capitalist parts of the world. In the elections a majority of these voted against Trump who, in percentage terms, got less votes than those who in Britain voted to remain in the EU. Still, a disturbingly large number did.

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You're right, Marcos, that "Populism" does refer to one strand of anti-Tsarist revolutionaries, the Narodniks, but it's not the only use of the term. In fact, in the USA at the same time as the Narodniks in Russia, there was a political party that was known as the "populists". I know you don't like wikipedia but this link has other references:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Party_(United_States)

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Established in 1891, as a result of the Populist movement, the People's Party reached its zenith in the 1892 presidential election, when its ticket, composed of James B. Weaver and James G. Field, won 8.5% of the popular vote and carried five states (Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Nevada and North Dakota), and the 1894 House of Representatives elections, when it took over 10% of the vote. Built on a coalition of poor, white cotton farmers in the South (especially North Carolina, Alabama and Texas) and hard-pressed wheat farmers in the Plains states (especially Kansas and Nebraska), the Populists represented a radical crusading form of agrarianism and hostility to elites, cities, banks, railroads, and gold.

This too was an agrarian movement, so not really the same as Trumpism. Since then "populism" has also come to mean what Robbo says: demagogues railing against a corrupt political elite cheating the people. Trump certainly fits into that category (as does Farage and UKIP in Britain).

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Here's what we said about LETS schemes in their heyday (before most folded):http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1994/no-1084-december-1994/lets-abolish-money

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mcolome1 wrote:

Only in the USA a patan like Donald Trump can become a president

Didn't they elect one in the Philippines earlier this year? .But, then, the Philippines did used to be a US colony.  

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Another anomaly in the US way of electing the president — due to the first-past-the-post system being used to elect the members of the Electoral College:http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-election-day/third-party-candidates-having-outsize-impact-election-n680921

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Actually, Clinton will have got more votes overall than Trump. It's just that he got more delegates to the Electoral College that formally elects the president in the US:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-us-election-results-latest-popular-vote-electoral-college-a7407826.html

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