ALB
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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/
https://iwgb.org.uk/2016/12/05/mays-brexit-plans-face-british-supreme-court-test/I think we played a modest role in helping the IWGB get off the ground. When they were set up on 2012 they had a room in the RMT's Maritime House in Clapham Old Town, up the road from us. Their then General Secretary, Chris Ford, called in and asked if we could help with any spare office equipment and supplies we might have. I think we gave him an old-fashioned computer and a roneo machine that were lying unused in our basement. Who says we're anti-union?
It is clear that the government is at sixes and sevens about what to do to implement the result of the referendum, veering between populist 'hard Brexit' and realism (i.e, the interest of the dominant section of the UK capitalist class which doesn't really want the UK to leave the EU). Now some ministers are saying that Britain may be prepared to pay to retain access to the single market and some EU programmes:http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/philip-hammond-says-uk-open-to-making-eu-budget-payments-after-brexit_uk_58468871e4b06a503248f3ea
Quote:Philip Hammond has suggested the United Kingdom could continue to pay into the European Union’s budget after Brexit.Last week, Brexit secretary David Davis confirmed the government was open to paying in order to secure the “best possible access” to the single market for British business.Asked in Brussels today about Davis’ comments, the chancellor said: “We want to keep all options open. That is something we would have to look at, looking at the costs and the benefits based on what is in the best interests of the British taxpayer.”"British taxpayer" of course means British capitalist class
It is interesting that Carney should refer to the present decade "as the first lost decade since the 1860s" by which he means a period during which real wages fell. The table he gives on page 5 vindicates Marx of the charge that he distorted what Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, had told the House of Commons in 1863. Marx, on the basis of newspaper reports, quoted him as saying that only the propertied classes had benefited from the prosperity of the preceding years. Gladstone, it seems, had second thoughts about saying this and had the passage in Hansard changed. But look at that graph. It shows real wages falling in the ten years before Gladstone's speech. So his orginial statement was right and Marx was right to pick up on it. This has now been confirmed by the Governor of the Bank of England himself.
jondwhite wrote:At MIA, we come under 'Western Marxism' https://www.marxists.org/archive/That's wrong. We would have been better classified under "British Social Democracy". At least Fitzgerald would have been as he's the same generation as some of them there.I wonder if this can be changed. We've not got much in common with those classified as "Western Marxists". Most of them seem to be ex-CPers. It is true that Frankfurt School did have some interesting things to say, though not the same as us and vice versa.
I don't know who associates us with "Western Marxism". Hardly appropriate if this only came into being in the 1970s when we'd being going for 70 years by then ! I'd prefer something like "Non-Leninist Marxism" or even "original" or "orthodox" Marxism.But at least you've proved Pavlov right. Just mention the word "Engels" and our feathered friend swoops down.
Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:I think you are tool who was duped by John Gault. The government of the USA Psyops division did a similar trick with the media by promting the term "conspiracy theory" and associating it with crazy people.LOL. We don't half attract 'em.
If you've never come across a money crank before, now you have. They think up an alternative to the present money system and then go on and on and on about it. In this particular case, as YMS is pointing out, the cranky scheme is worse than the present system as it requires every single exchange to be recorded. Negative interest about sums it up.
From the 700 or so leaflets we distributed in the constituency we have had 2 replies asking, on a tear-off addressed freepost card, for an information pack and a 3-month trial subscription. This — 1 per 350 leaflets — is actually quite a good reponse rate these days. In any event, higher than the rate from the 3000 or so distributed during the Witney by-election: 3 useful replies (we actually got 9 replies, but 6 of these were blank ones from opponents, probably Tories who didn't like "socialists", who wanted to make us pay for using freepost — freepost is only free to the sender not the recipient). Of course we've no way of measuring the number who read them.The trick seems to be the tear-off reply card. I wonder if we can't find a way of incorporating one into our election leaflets — or would this provoke more malicious replies?
