ALB
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alanjjohnstone wrote:For the time being i think this is the best place to discuss the London elections until the party makes a decision on its position to staanding.
No, it's not ! There's already a long-running thread on Left Unity and Howard Pilott's paper has nothing to do with the London elections. If anything, there should be a separate thread here. Interesting link, very interesting in fact so I'll comment on it on the LU thread.
I wouldn't have thought so. It's already part of a document published in the files section of spintcom. An electronic copy already exists of course. But I think it would be more appropriate on the "World Socialist Movement" section than this one.
JordanB wrote:Why do you think it is that these vanguard parties go on to establish state capitalism rather than socialism ?Basically, because the economic, social and political situation in the countries where they got power meant that the development of capitalism ((as a society and economy based on minority ownership, wage labour and production for sale) in one form or another was the only way forward.It is true that, even in 1917, it would have been possible to have established socialism on a world scale. In fact, given that capitalism is already a worldwide system, so socialism can only be too. So socialism cannot be established in just one country alone as the Bolsheviks, the Vietcong, etc were trying to do (or at least saying they were trying to do).Groups like these having won power in one economically backward country had no alternative but to develop capitalism in one form or another. Because of their statist approach in their case this was likely to be state capitalism where the state would fulfil the role that had been fulfilled by private capitalists in other countries.Actually, it was Lenin himself who first said that state capitalism was the only way forward for Russia. Which is what happened for 70 years, but now they have reverted to the mixed state/private capitalism that exists in most other countries. Vietnam too, with Cuba under immense pressure to take the same road.
In an article today the Times Economics Editor, Philip Aldrick, quotes a Michael Saunders, Citi's UK economist, as saying:
Quote:"We now subsidise people to be in low-paid work rather than to be out of work," Mr Saunders says. The tax-free personal allowance, at £11,000 in 2017, has taken 3.7 million people out of income tax. Combined with tax credits for working households, which total £30 billion, every family on less than £18,000 — about two-thirds the average wage — gets a top-up from the state, he says.i.e. every employer paying workers less than £18,000 a year gets a subsidy from the state (just as every landlord with tenants getting housing benefit and every bus company transporting old age pensioners). So it's not just a redistribution of poverty amongst workers but a redistribution of profits amongst employers too.
JordanB wrote:Hungry stomachs are the backbone of every proletariat uprising & revolution, not bloated stomachs.I don't think that's right, from either a historical or theoretical point of view. Revolution and mere revolt are not the same. The socialist revolution has to be an action in which the wage and salary working class, as the vast majority in society, are democratically self-organised and moved by an understanding of what socialism involves, not by mere hunger (though some might well also be hungry).
Quote:I mean we can hardly be compared to the Russian peasantry back in 1917 or the Vitnamese peasantry etc.Quite. In these overwhelmingly peasant countries (ie without much of a working class) a peasant revolt was led by vanguard party which went on to establish state capitalism not socialism, the only possible outcome in the circumstances. There is nothing positive to learn from either for a revolution in advanced capitalist countries.
I suppose it depends on how you define "the poor". He seems to mean those who don't have an income enough to take them above some arbitrary "poverty line". In any event, his solution of "tax credits" is the same subsidy to low-paying employers that Gordon Brown introduced here. Whether other capitalists, those who will have to pay more taxes to subsidise their low-wage competitors, would welcome this is another matter.On a different level, it is not the rich who are to blame for inequality. It's capitalism and the rich are just its beneficiaries. You'd have thought, though, that they wouldn't think it wise to draw attention to this.
Meanwhile the US media are interested in his brother:http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/241425-bernie-sanders-brother-falls-in-british-electionsActually, some of the things he said at hustings in the election, eg about education today being essentially aimed at increasing a person's earning power, were quite good, but we had to point out that this could only be ended in socialism. Which can be said about a lot of the things the Greens advocate,. He used to be in the Labour Party, by the way.
Interesting and revealing article by John Milios who has been mentioned before on this thread. He has studied Marx's theories of crises and rejects underconsumptionism (that crises are caused by workers not having enoughor coming to have less purchasing power) and says so in the opening paragraphs and in footnote 2. But then he says something odd:
Quote:Austerity does lead, of course, to recession.Logically, in view of what he writes immediately before and after (about recession conditions eventually restoring profitability), he ought to have said the opposite and which is in fact the case : that a recession leads to austerity. I imagine that he puts it the other way round in order to be able to argue (along with the underconsumptionists!) that ending austerity is a way of ending the recession.Later on he criticises Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek Finance Minister (and someone else who has studied Marx but not so deeply), for accepting 70% of austerity and for telling a meeting on Greek bankers on 22 April:
Quote:The era in which a government of the Left was by definition contrary to the milieu of entrepreneurship has passed. if we get to a point when there is growth, we can start talking again about conflicting labour and capital interests. Today we are together.So, while Milios advocates clobbering the capitalist class, Yaroufakis is in effect saying that the way out of the recession is through capitalists investing for profit and if the price of getting them to do this is a reduction in working class living standards through 70% austerity, then so be it (and anyway they've got us over a barrel).Actually, given capitalism, Yaroufakis's policy is the more realistic. Milios's would just provoke an even bigger recession. What a cruel dilemma for the Syriza government: either cave in by accepting at least 70% austerity or go down fighting and make things worse for the working class that way instead. A dilemma that reinforces our view that socialism is literally the only way out that won't involve the working class suffering.
Blast from the past about the Party Name issue:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1aTziZrTTUWe get a mention at 4.34 minutes in and maybe at 1.13 ….
Try this:http://capitalismisover.com/We've been called "Marxist-Lennonists" ourselves of course.
On the subject of dogs (and cats), there's this classic from Steve Coleman:http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/dogs-cats-wage-slaves.html
Something we missed at the time but our candidater in Vauxhall Danny Lambert's answers to questions put by the Brixton blog:http://www.brixtonblog.com/vauxhall-danny-lambert-the-socialist-party-of-great-britain/30011
An unexpected ally? Rand Paul:http://www.dailydot.com/politics/rand-paul-senate-usa-freedom-act-fails-again-section-215/
Ok, here's the full results (which would take up at least half a page0:BRIGHTON KEMPTOWNElection CandidatePartyVotes% Simon KirbyConservative Party 1842840.67%ElectedNancy PlattsLabour Party1773839.15%Not electedIan Verdun BuchananUKIP44469.81%Not electedDavy JonesGreen Party31877.03%Not electedPaul ChandlerLiberal Democrats13653.01%Not electedJacqueline ShodekeSocialist Party of Great Britain730.16%Not electedMatt TaylorIndependent690.15%Not electedBRIGHTON PAVILIONElection CandidatePartyVotes% Caroline LucasGreen Party2287141.83%ElectedPurna SenLabour Party1490427.26%Not electedClarence Eden MitchellConservative Party 1244822.77%Not electedNigel David CarterUKIP27244.98%Not electedChris BowersLiberal Democrats15252.79%Not electedNick YeomansIndependent1160.21%Not electedHoward PilottSocialist Party of Great Britain880.16%Not electedCANTERBURYElection CandidatePartyVotes% Julian BrazierConservative Party2291842.87%ElectedHugh LanningLabour Party1312024.54%Not electedJames GascoyneUKIP728913.63%Not electedJames FlanaganLiberal Democrats622711.65%Not electedStuart JeffreyGreen Party37467.01%Not electedRobert CoxSocialist Party of Great Britain1650.31`%Not electedFOLKESTONE & HYTHEElection CandidatePartyVotes% Damien CollinsConservative Party2632347.85%ElectedHarriet YeoUKIP1252622.77%Not electedClaire JeffreyLabour Party793914.43%Not electedLynne BaumontLiberal Democrats48828.87%Not electedMartin WybrowGreen Party29565.37%Not electedSeth CruseTUSC2440.44%Not electedRohen KapurYoung People's Party720.13%Not electedAndy ThomasSocialist Party of Great Britain680.12%Not electedVAUXHALLElection CandidatePartyVotes% Kate HoeyLabour Party2577853.77%ElectedJames BellisConservative Party1307027.26%Not electedGulnar HasnainGreen Party36587.63%Not electedA. Hyyrylainen-TrettLiberal Democrats33126.91%Not electedAce NnoromUKIP13852.89%Not electedMark ChapmanPirate Party2010.42%Not electedSimon HardyLeft Unity1880.39%Not electedLouis JensenCannabis1640.34%Not electedWaleed GhaniWhig Party1030.21%Not electedDaniel LambertSocialist Party of Great Britain820.17%Not elected OXFORD WEST & ABINGDONElection CandidatePartyVotes% Nicola BlackwoodConservative Party2615345.68%ElectedLayla MoranLiberal Democrats1657128.95%Not electedSally CopleyLabour Party727412.71%Not electedAlan HarrisUKIP39636.92%Not electedLarry SandersGreen Party24974.36%Not electedHelen SalisburyNational Health Action Party7231.26%Not electedMike FosterSocialist Party of Great Britain660.12%Not electedSWANSEA WESTElection CandidatePartyVotes% Geraint. DaviesLabour Party1496742.57%ElectedEmma LaneConservative Party793122.56%Not electedMartyn FordUKIP474413.49%Not electedChris HolleyLiberal Democrats31789.04%Not electedHarri RobertsPlaid Cymru22266.45%Not electedAshley WakelingGreen Party17845.07%Not electedRonnie. JobTUSC1590.45%Not electedMaxwell RosserIndependent780.22%Not electedBrian JohnsonSocialist Party of Great Britain490.14%Not electedEASINGTONElection CandidatePartyVotes% Grahame MorrisLabour Party 2113261.03%ElectedJonathan ArnottUKIP 649118.75%Not electedChristopher HampsheirConservative Party447812.93%Not electedLuke ArmstrongLiberal Democrats8342.41%Not electedSusan McDonnellNorth East Party8102.34%Not electedMartin WarinGreen Party7332.12%Not electedSteven ColbornSocialist Party of Great Britain1460.42%Not electedISLINGTON NORTHElection CandidatePartyVotes% Jeremy CorbynLabour Party2965960.24%ElectedAlex BurghartConservative Party846517.19%Not electedCaroline RussellGreen Party504310.24%Not electedJulian GregoryLiberal Democrats39848.09%Not electedGreg CloughUKIP37464.00%Not electedBill MartinSocialist Party of Great Britain1120.23`%Not electedOXFORD EASTElection CandidatePartyVotes% Andrew SmithLabour Party2535650.02%ElectedMelanie MageeConservative Party1007619.88%Not electedAnn DuncanGreen Party589011.62%Not electedAlasdair MurrayLiberal Democrats545310.76%Not electedIan MacdonaldUKIP34516.81%Not electedChaka ArtwellIndependent1600.32%Not electedMad HatterMonster Raving Loony Party1450.29%Not electedJames MorbinTUSC1080.21%Not electedKevin ParkinSocialist Party of Great Britain500.10%Not elected
You are right. Hedges's views aren't always bad. Witness the other threads on this forum. But, on Blanqui and the last one on Marx, are no good. If that's what he thinks Marx said then he's bluffing that he's read Marx.Anyway, back to Blanqui. Here's a rough translation of what he thought of cooperatives. It's from something he wrote in 1867 but which is not yet on either the English or the French language MIA but can be found in his Textes Choises in French. This was in the context of a discussion on them in the First International. As can be seen, Blanqui took a harder line than Marx:
Quote:As far as production societies are concerned, I take them to be the most deadly trap that the proletariat could fall into. It is clear that only a very small number of workers possess the necessary capacity for such enterprises. It is thus the intellectual elite that will take this road. Well, on this road, both failure and success would be equally bad. Failure is ruin and discouragement. Success is worse, it's the division of workers into two classes: on the one side, the great mass, ignorant, abandoned, without support, without hope, in the underworld of wage-working; on the other side, a small intelligent minority, concerned from then on only with its private interets and separated for ever from their unfortunate brothers.This of course reflects his view that the "ignorant masses", because of their ignorance cultivated by the ruling class, can't free themselves but that the "intelligent minority" ought to concentrate on seizing power so as to be in a position to free and educate their unfortunate brothers.For the record, Blanqui was not against strikes, writing in another article the same year:
Quote:The strike is the only genuinely people's arm in the struggle against Capital. Supported provisionally by the strike as a means of defence against the oppression of Capital, the popular masses should concentrate all their efforts towards the political changes, recognised as alone capable of bringing about a social transformation and a distribution of products according to justice.I don't think we need to be as hard on coops as Blanqui nor damn them with faint praise like Marx. Just say that they are one way of trying to survive under capitalism but have nothing to do with socialism or with promoting it.
