ALB
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I don't think it's that straightforward. The person I met doesn't share the Labour Party's aims and values (he shares ours) and would concede that he was being dishonest when he signed that he did. So I don't think either he or anyone else in this position, including the Tory member of the House of Lords, have a leg to stand on if they asked for their money back.Someone who genuinely did share Labour's aims and values and had supported some other party at the last election because they felt that Labour Party itself had departed from them would be a stronger position, but any court case would have to be a civil action. For just £3. Hardly worth it.But what is happening has blown out of the water JohnD's proposal for open primaries, even by us. What has happened was predictable and will happen again. It's built-in to the scheme. And we are even stricter that people should share our aims and values. Like the Labour Party we would expel (and have expelled) people who publicly vote for another party. Would we let them vote in a primary to decide our candidate?
Isn't this more of a Trotskyoid publication than a Green one? Anyway, they've taken their time. The Green Party here has been advocating this for nearly 30 years now:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1980s/1988/no-1009-september-1988/green-partys-basic-income-scheme-could-it-workIt is noteworthy though that an organisation like this should be incorporating this reform as one of their "transitional demands".
Of course they can. It's just better to draw attention to our party in the country concerned than to our party here in Britain.
jondwhite wrote:Not New Statesman but The Statesman!I'm all in favour of writing to the press, but, Vin, did you send it to the New Statesman or to the Statesman which is an Indian paper?Might be better to get our Indian comrades to follow this up. I'll email them.
Vin wrote:She claims Marx had no solution. Socialism/Communism was the solution.She doesn't claim that Marx had no solution. She writes about no "readymade" solutions to "capitalism's problems". Which can either mean that he offered no solutions within capitalism to capitalism's problems or that he offered no "readymade" solution to capitalism, i.e. offered no blueprint or recipes for the cookshops of the future. Both of which are true.And she does spell out what Marx meant by socialism (see my reply to Robbo) as "the society for which Marx had once struggled."
Vin wrote:To the Editor New Statesman The New Statesman and MarxVin, hopes it's not too late not to send this off. After all, she herself wrote:
Quote:Marx grasped the nature of capitalism and realised that although capitalism has over time changed its forms, its essence remains the same. It is still a system of exploitation and wage labour for those who operate the means of production.robbo203 wrote:No wonder Gupta thinks "Marx offers no readymade solutions to the problems of capitalism"having just said"Marx’s writings still evoke interest across the world despite speculation that his readership would dwindle after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the eclipse of Communism in East Europe" The implication of course being that "Marx's solution" has been tried and found wanting in these places. I tire of pundits who come up with this old hackneyed bogus line of argument. That suggests to me that Gupta's understanding of Marxism is of the glossy, coffee table magazine type. Pretty superficial and cliched.I think we are all getting the wrong end of the stick here. I don't think this is what Gupta implies. Actually, it's not a bad article. She is right that "Marx offers no readymade solutions to the problems of capitalism". Isn't that what we say, i.e that Marx was no advocating any policies to be implemented within capitalism? At least that's how I interpreted what she's saying.And she gives quite a good outline of what Marx meant by capitalism:
Quote:Marx believed that human development requires a cooperative society based on common ownership of the means of production. Real human development requires production in which people can develop their own activity i.e. socialist production organised by workers. But this implies common ownership of the means of production or what is referred to as social ownership. This is not ownership by groups of workers; rather it implies ownership by society. This involves the total production system which must cater to the needs of society. The community, as a social institution, must identity the needs that must be fulfilled. As we live in a community, we need to produce for others out of a spirit of solidarity. This is the society for which Marx had once struggled.Why do we have this kneejerk reaction of looking a gift horse in the mouth whenever somebody says something that's not all that different from what we do?It reminds me of the reaction of one member to this article by G. A. Cohen which originally appeared in The Listener on 4 September 1986. He wrote complaining that workers sell their labour-power not their labour ! Having said that, the article was reprinted in the journal at the time of our campanion party in the US, the World Socialist Review.
jondwhite wrote:Jeremy Hardy reports he has been barredhttp://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/21/jeremy-hardy-labour-rig-leadership-election-corbynHis crime seems to have been to have called for a vote for Caroline Lucas in Brighton at the general election. As he points out, quite a few Labour supporters will have voted for her. What this shows is the "Labour's aims and values" are simply to elect Labour MPs and councillors, i.e that the Labour Party is just a vote-catching machine (as are of course the other main parties).He's right that this is an attempt to rig the election by barring Corbyn votes. No doubt others will be planning to "vote early and vote often" (as they say in Northern Ireland) for the other candidates.They're keeping in reserve the Stop Corbyn ploy of getting the result declared void in the event of him winning:http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/21/andy-burnham-campaign-hint-challenge-labour-leadership-voteThey are getting really worried and it's instructive (as well as amusing) to watch and see the methods professional politicians are prepared to employ to protect their careers. Actually, it's a lose-lose situation for the professional politicians in the Labour Party. Either Corbyn wins and their careers are in danger or, if he doesn't, the Labour Party will stand exposed as undemocratic and corrupt and that will endanger their careers too. Serve them right.
Actually, while no government or state can control the way the capitalist economy works they can control how the armed forces are deployed. So, a leftwing Labour government under Corbyn would be able to decide not to use them to support the US government's adventures just as the French and German governments did over the invasion of Iraq. Even a Corbyn win as Labour leader could stop the British state bombing Islamic State areas in Syria, so avoiding "collateral damage" to the civilians the ISIS barbarians are oppressing.
I met someone last night who had been barred from voting (and lost his £3) on the grounds that he didn't share the aims and values of the Labour Party. He freely admitted this but said he wanted to support Corbyn because of his anti-war stance. Corbyn is, after all, the chair of the Stop the War Coalition and has even suggested that Tony Blair could be put on trial as a war criminal for plotting to invade Iraq.As to the likely effect of a Corbyn victory, I think the main effect will be on "The Left" (those who go on protest demonstrations). Those who stayed in the Labour Party will benefit at the expense of those who left. Left Unity will have no reason to continue in existence. Corbyn will have done what Ken Loach originally wanted — become the leftwing populist equivalent of UKIp and Nigel Farage. TUSC must surely wither away even quicker with their plan to create a Labour Party Mark 2. This won't be necessary and the support they've managed to get from some genuine trade unionists and Old Labourites will transfer back to the Labour Party. Some Labourites who've deserted to the Greens might come back.It's not so clear whether or not Corbyn would be able to change the Labour Party. After all, there aren't 30 Labour MPs who agree with him. He only got nominated because some Labour grandees did so because they wanted to humiliate him and show that the Labour Left only had 5 or 6 percent support amongst Labour activists. A decision they are living to regret.As to Corbyn leading the Labour Party into victory at the 2020 general election. Frankly, I don't see it. He'll be 71 and the Tory press haven't really started on him yet, let alone the CIA who won't like his anti-war and anti-NATO stand and will be plotting to bring about his downfall at this very moment. And of course most people are not Leftwing.But even a Labour victory under him won't change capitalism. Alex Tsirpas could tell him a thing or two about that.
Interesting article in yesterday's Daily Torygraph by Mary Riddell under the heading "Corbyn is no monster and might even help to regenerate Labour" warning Tories that the influx of young, new supporters into the Labour Party might help it regain vigour and support, especially if the Tories go too far in their poor-bashing and union-bashing as they risk doing:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/Jeremy_Corbyn/11810687/Jeremy-Corbyn-is-no-monster.-He-might-even-be-the-saviour-of-the-Labour-party.htmlMeanwhile Russell Brand sort of endorses him:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/russell-brand-praises-jeremy-corbyn-for-being-the-voice-of-ordinary-people-and-describes-tony-blair-as-really-eerie-10462299.html
One factor will be the number of people for whom it has appeared to "work" and who have attributed this to the remedy rather than to the real cause (placebo, getting better anyway, temporary remission, etc). They don't think it hasn't "worked". The same goes for all the other quack remedies, but of course the reasons advanced by those who believe in them can't all be true (in fact, some are contradictory).
I think he and Engels simply meant "ordinary" or "pure and simple" or "common or garden" democrats, i.e people who wanted a democratic republic and nothing else, as opposed to people like them who wanted a democratic republic and socialism. Their equivalent in England would have been the Radical wing of the 19th century Liberal Party. I don't think "vulgar" was meant in any particularly derogatory sense (which it has more in English than in German or French — the German word he would have used is "Vulgärdemokratie".). Even "vulgar Marxists" (not that Marx used the term) only means "unsophisticated Marxists" not Marxists who tell dirty jokes.
Nearly all quack remedies "work" in some cases in that there's an improvement however temporary. Snake oil probably does too. The point is they don't work for the reasons their supporters advance. In the case of homeopathy the reasons given (water distilled until there are hardly any active molecules left and shaken in a particular way) is just laughable. Have you heard the one about the homeopath who forgot to take his medicine and died of an overdose?To prove the uselessness of homeopathic remedies, in 2004 a hundred Belgian Skeptics attempted to commit mass suicide by taking an overdose of homeopathically diluted snake poison, belladonna and arsenic. They survived. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10:23_CampaignMore details (and explanation) here: http://www.csicop.org/si/show/belgium_skeptics_commit_mass_suicide/This thread is not really necessary unless we need some practice in shooting ducks on a pond ….
Well, at least homeopathy as such can't do anybody any harm. Drinking distilled water is harmless. Which makes it the least harmful of all the quack remedies. It could result in indirect harm, though, if someone with something seriously wrong with them (eg diabetes, cancer) forwent (is that the right word?) getting proper treatment in the mistaken belief that drinking distilled water could cure them.
