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At the Carshalton Environment Fair today our stall was next to the Tories'. They were handing out a card  headed "Choose London. Your vote can help choose the next Mayor of London" which explained:

Quote:

The Conservative Party will be holding an online primary to select its candidate for the 2016 London Mayoral Election. Anyone in London who is on the electoral roll will be able to register to help the party choose who will stand for the Conservatives in the election next year (…) Four candidates have been shortlisted to stand in the open primary the Conservative Party is holding to select its candidate for the 2016 London Mayoral Election. Andrew Boff, Zac Goldsmith, Stephen Greenhaigh and Syed Kamall.

Those on the stall confirmed that you needn't sign any declaration saying you supported "the aims and values" of the Conservative Party but simply be on the electoral roll and pay £1, i.e it's an "open primary".I can see a risk of manipulation here. The strongest Tory on their shortlist is probably Zac Goldsmith, the billionaire. So, if you are a Labour supporter, you wouldn't want him to be selected. So you pay your £1 and vote for Andrew Boff on the grounds that nobody called Boff will have a chance of winning or if the vote 1, 2. 3, 4 place Goldsmith as No 4.

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gnome wrote:

No evidence whatever of this 'dissuasion' at the Kent Miners' Festival today.  Four copies of the September Standard sold (besides other literature) and several amicable conversations held on the Corbyn 'phenomenon'.

Our experience (and sales) in Carshalton was similar. People did want to talk about the Corbyn phenomenon, even the Tories on the stall next to ours. Met one former Labour member who signed up and paid his £3 to vote for him (even though he'd voted Green at the general election, but we're not telling). Others seemed to expect us to support him. Green Party members were rather sceptical.

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I don't care who else is saying that Corbyn wants to go back to the 70s or why  because it's true.  The sort of leftwing analysis he shares sees "neo-liberalism" as a policy decision taken by governments, especially in Britain and the US, since the 1980s. It is this they blame for working class problems not capitalism as such which has never really recovered from the end of the post-war boom in the 1970s. They want to reverse this policy decision (as they see it) and go back to the Keynesian policies that were in vogue up until then (that's what "People's QE" amounts too), i.e. go back to the 1970s (and beyond). If the other 3 candidates see this as a criticism it's from a completely different angle. It's because they accept capitalism more or less as it is without even wanting to attempt to try to make it work in some other way.We shouldn't  be ashamed or apologise for saying this as it's a correct, and a Marxian, analysis of Leftwing anti-"neo-liberalism".  Other analyses of Corbyn's economic policy  are possible. Let's hear from those who don't think it represents a throwback to Keynesian government spending to try to get out of a slump. If not, what does it represent?

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SocialistPunk wrote:

There's nothing wrong with attacking capitalism and its supporters, I'm not suggesting the SPGB stop that. I'm just advocating a more thought out approach, considering short sharp attack/smear tactics are doomed to fail.

"Smear tactics". That's a serious charge. Here's how it's defined (from: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=smear+campaign)

Quote:

A dirty political campaign run against your opponent, using exaggerations, lies, and/or quotes taken out of context, in an attempt to scare or disgust the public against that candidate.

We have never employed such tactics.I think you should withdraw..

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imposs1904 wrote:

Have I walked into something? I'm just here to get my coat.

That's what I call begging the question, i.e assuming what has to be proved. But this begs the question whether banter is allowed on this forum.

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As DJP explained in his talk at Summer School, that is not begging the question:http://begthequestion.info/I agree, though, that like everything else language changes and that this is an example of a change happening.

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steve colborn wrote:

Been looking at the front pages of the Standard. Whilst not agreeing with the overall stance of Corbyn, what we cannot say, is that he has failed to energize people about politics, he has.

The good news is that is precisely not what we say on the inside:

Quote:

While we welcome that more people are becoming politically involved and are looking for alternatives, it would be a mistake to follow Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, otherwise we may well end up going back to the 1970s, rather than moving forwards to abolish capitalism and establish real socialism.

OK, it doesn't say JezWeCan

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The March 1934 edition of the Socialist Standard has the following correction on p, 103:

Quote:

Owing to a misapprehension it was incorrectly stated in the January SOCIALIST STANDARD that the writer of the article "Bolshevism, Past and Present" is a member of the Workers Socialist Party, U.S.A.

He is mentioned on page 144 of Gary Roth's biography of Paul Mattick. He also translated Martov's The State and the Socialist Revolution into English under the pen name of "Integer" (reviewed here and sold by the Party). But of course you knew that.

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Green Party propose elecion pact with a Corbyn-led Labour Party:http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/my-message-to-jeremy-corbyn-i-can-help-you-build-a-progressive-majority-10469934.htmlWell, yes, the Green Party stole Old Labour's clothes and now Corbyn looks like taking them back.

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Question: is it better to be interested in reformist politics than not interested in politics at all? Or, put the other way round, is it better not to be interested in politics?

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jondwhite wrote:

And one quote from Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto Chapter 2

Quote:

In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties.They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.

There is and has been since the start some ambiguity about our claim to be "the party of the working class". The declaration of principles is based on the assumption that there already exists a mass socialist party, but clearly this is not the case at the moment. So where does that leaves us? We are not a mass party and so cannot really claim to be party of the working class. We are socialist propagandist group and all we can claim at the moment is that at some future point such a mass socialist party has to arise of which we are or might be the embryo. As such we cannot hold primaries to decide our candidates or our policies as the working class are not socialist. We'd be swamped by non-socialists.But what about the time when there will be a mass socialist party? Then, something like primaries might be possible, especially as we are on record as saying that, to establish socialism, a majority of the working class does not have to be members of the socialist political party. But, if they are going to participate in the establishment of socialism, there will have to be some way for them to participate in political decision-making, such as mandating and controlling socialist MPs and councillors. Primaries could be the way. An alternative would be to say that a majority of workers will have to be in the mass socialist party. Or maybe just in the mass socialist movement which would be organised like the Labour Party used to be only socialist, i.e a political movement made up of a party individuals can join and affiliated trade unions (and cooperatives?). But whichever there will have to be democratic mechanisms to allow all workers who want to to participate.I don't think the 1848 quote from Marx and Engels is relevant. Or, if it is, it is putting forward a different scenario, which turned out not to happen, of the workers first forming a mass, non-socialist party which, in the course of events, would evolve into a socialist party. If anything this would be a justification for socialists to "enter" the mass party of the working class" (whatever it is) in anticipation of this. Which of course is how it has been interpreted by Trotskyists.Or could they have been thinking that there could be more than one "working class party" in one country (another possible scenario)? I don't think they meant that as can be seen in part 4 where they list the parties in different countries that "communists" don't oppose but work with (in?). For England it was the Chartists.  

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I agree that the distinction I'm trying to make is not really between manufacturing and services, nor between productive and unproductive labour (I'm not entering that minefield except to say that a distinction needs to be made between work that produces a use-value and work that produces an exchange-value, not the same). It's more between work transforming materials(which would include agriculture) and work providing a personal service for individuals (including that provided by government agencies, national and local)..Mason argues that even work to produce material things for individuals to consume is tending towards these having so low a labour content as be virtually free. It is true that the tendency is for most such goods to become cheaper and cheaper, which does suggeest that at some point they would become so cheap as to be given away or made available to take free. I wouldn't have thought that we are anywhere near that point now or even will be in 50 years as he suggests. Anyway, this point will never be reached under capitalism as it would make capitalist production for profit impossible. This doesn't mean that modern industry, using ever-improving technology, could not turn out enough today to satisfy people's needs. This could be done and would be done in socialism but the goods will still have a "labour content".Your non-market sector includes work done within families, voluntary work and the sort of work LETS schemes aimed to work (though not for free but still through exchange of equivalents) such as repairs and personal services. This sector may or may not be expanding. It probably could but I'm not sure that it is.The other services that could be free to individuals are those provided by national and local government agencies. Some of these have been or still are free, eg. education, health care, libraries, use of roads, but the tendency here is in the opposite direction: to charge for them. I know this is a policy decision and so could be reversed but, at the moment, there is no tendency for non-market relations to spread here.All this is why I say that the economic importance of the non-market sector has been exaggerated. The "ideological" significance of the mere existence of such a sector within capitalism is another matter.

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jondwhite wrote:

Unfortunately I don't think covers like septembers will encourage any new interest or any of the Corbyn surge to pick up and read.

We can put this to the test. This year's Labour Conference is being held in Brighton from Sunday 27 to Wednesday 30 September. I'm sure that members of our Brighton Group as well as some from London will be there to cover it, especially if it turns out to be Corbyn's first Conference speech as Leader. There might be some competition as in that event everybody else will be there as well.

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In an article in yesterday Times, this is how he describes his campaign:

Quote:

My campaign, guided by ideas of social justice and prosperity for all rather than a select few, is one of pragmatism: for a strategic approach in which business, the state and the population work co-operatively to create wealth; and for that wealth to reach all sections of society and all regions and nations of our country.

That's so vague that even the Tories could subscribe to it, let alone the defunct SDP.Ir's true that he also says that, under his Leadership, the parliamentary Labour Party will fight all the Tories' austerity measures tooth and nail. That would be a change, but won't stop them. And it still leaves open what he proposes a future Labour government should do to try to end it. In this article it's "a well-structured public investment bank" to provide "stable, long-term committed capital" to "support our most innovative sectors".  This is almost word for word what the Labour Party was promising even in the 1950s. From our knowledge of how capitalism works, and can only work, we know this won't work and can't see why we shouldn't say so.

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imposs1904 wrote:

. . . And I seem to remember reading – pre-internet, so I cannot verify it – that Jon Trickett was once upon a time a member of Independent Labour Publications, the left group that the Independent Labour Party became when it was re-admitted to the Labour Party in the mid-seventies.

bit surprised you couldn't find confirmation of this on the internet. This is what the wikipedia entry for him says:

Quote:

During the 1970s was a member of the ILP (the successor body of the Independent Labour Party) and contributed to their newspaper—the Labour Leader—and was elected for a number of years to the ruling body, the National Administrative Council.

The ILP, that really would be a return not just to Old Labour but to Prehistoric Labour !

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