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Your (Robbo, that is) long well-argued postings are a good example of the rationalist approach of trying to convince people by argument Keep it up.

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Impossible1904 has very timelely just reproduced on his Socialist Standard Past and Present site an article from the August 1981 Socialist Standard on the last time people calling themselves Marxists took responsibility for trying to get capitalism out of an economic crisis: the PS/PCF coalition government that entered officein France in June 1981:http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/communists-in-government.htmlNo doubt the follow-up article, two years later in the June 1983 "France: from failure to fiasco", explaining what happened next. is being scanned as we speak.The main difference is that the Syriza government in Greece has taken power under much severe economic conditions so will have even less chance of succeeding in making capitalism bend to its political will. Sad perhaps, but that's the cruel truth.

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Here's George Monbiot's case for voting Green:http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/28/convictions-politics-fear-syriza-podemos-snp-greenHe does make one valid point though, echoing Debs' "I rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don't want and get":

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Here is the first rule of politics: if you never vote for what you want, you never get it

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This is what happens if you put a foot wrong when mentioning the H word::http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-2929834/Trident-base-compared-Auschwitz.htmlBut what was actually wrong in itself with what he said?

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Speaking the day after the world marked 70 years since the end of the Holocaust, the peer made clear that Plaid would be "tremendously opposed" to shifting the base from Faslane naval base to Pembrokeshire.Asked whether the move would have some positive benefits, such as bringing jobs to the area, Lord Wigley – a former leader of the party – replied: "Look, this week we have been remembering what happened in Germany before the war, no doubt there were many jobs provided in Auschwitz and places like that but that didn't justify their existence and neither does nuclear weapons justify having them in Pembrokeshire." Challenged as to why he was comparing a Trident base to the notorious death camp, he replied: "The number of people that will be killed by Trident will be infinitely more."

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So the AWL are the last Trotskyist group standing saying, like they all used to, "Vote Labour till Doomsday". Sorry, just remembered, the "Socialist Appeal" lot do as well.

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This is what our pamphlet  Are We Prisoners of Our Genes? has to say about altruism:

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Nor does socialism require us all to suddenly become altruists, putting the interests of others above our own. In fact socialism doesn’t require people to be any more altruistic than they are today (a behaviour which is greater than biological determinists like to admit and which presents them with the insoluble theoretical problem of how a gene for such behaviour, which they have obliged themselves to believe in, could have evolved). We will still be concerned primarily with ourselves, with satisfying our needs, our need to be well considered by others as well as our material and sexual needs. No doubt too, we will want to “possess” our toothbrush, our clothes and other things of personal use, and to feel secure in our physical occupation of the house or flat we live in, but this will be just that—our home and not a financial asset.Such “selfish” behaviour will still exist in socialism but the acquisitiveness encouraged by capitalism will no longer exist. Under capitalism we have to seek to accumulate money since the more money you have the better you can satisfy your material needs, and as an insurance against something going wrong (like losing your job) or as something to hand on to your children or grandchildren. People are therefore obliged by their material circumstances to seek to acquire money, by fair means or foul and if need be, when push comes to shove, at the expense of others. This is why capitalism has earned the name of “the acquisitive society”.Socialism won’t be an "acquisitive society" and won’t need to be, as everybody will be able to satisfy their material requirements as of right and without needing to pay money. In fact, because productive resources and the social product will be owned in common there won’t be any need for money; just products—useful goods and services—ready to be distributed for people to take and use. And, because people could always be sure that the stores will always be stocked with the things they need, there would be no incentive to grab and hoard; that would be an irrational and pointless behaviour in the new social conditions.

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stuartw2112 wrote:

 That it will achieve *nothing* to alleviate the suffering of the Greek people  ("reformism doesn't work"), however, is almost certain to be proved entirely wrong. If "history" won't convince you of the folly of this argument, perhaps contemporary affairs will.

Actually our position is a bit more nuanced than'nothing'. This is what we said on our blog item 'The return of leftwing reformism' about it:

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The Syriza government might, by taking some of the measures outlined above by Milios, be able to mitigate a little the ‘humanitarian disaster’ in Greece where there’s been a massive increase in destitution leading to, among other things,  an increase in mental ill-health, suicides and the infant mortality rate. But it won’t be able to boost the accumulation of capital.

So, yes, the new Syriza governnment maybe able to reorganise austerity a bit to ease the fate of the hardest hit a little, but it won't be able to spent its way out of the crisis. We'll see who contemporary affairs makes a fool of

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Headline in today's Times: "Greece sends in Marxist to haggle with eurozone". Later on the article says more accurately:

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Mr Varoufakis, described as a Keynesian with a touch of Marx

Actually, that's a good description of many academics and leftists who call themselves Marxists. They are really leftwing Keynesians.

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And of course Russia, Moscow, the Bolsheviks, etc weren't "socialist" but state capitalist. But by the sounds of it you'd be against even the mildest milk-and-water social reformism and no doubt in favour of selling your grandmother for medical research.

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Our candidate in Oxford West & Abingdon has received the following invitation:

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Dear SPGB. Over the weekend 7/8 March, people living in Cumnor are organising a clean up on the roads in our area. This is an annual event and this year we propose to invite all the candidates standing in the General Election in May 2015 to participate. I have been asked to get in touch with all the candidates and I wondered if you could give me the email address for Mr Mike Foster who I understand will be the Socialist Party candidate for Oxford West and Abingdon.

As we say that it's the "case not the face" that counts, maybe he can plead this and some other member go along.

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SocialistPunk wrote:

Hi Adam,Was wondering what you mean by the religious connotations of the word holocaust? 

Some orthox Jewish theologians regard it as a term that only applies to Jews, that The Holocaust (which a capital T) was some sort of punishment their god gave them for some reason. It was originally a Greek translation of a Hebrew word in the old testament for "burnt offering". Since we reject Judaism along with all other religions as a load of superstitious nonsense best to avoid using one of their concepts.

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jondwhite wrote:

Is Costas Lapavitsas a Marxist?

I think he would say he was. He has certainly written a lot about Marx. As has the man just appointed Greek Minister of Finance, Yanis Varoufakis. Here he is on Marx:

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Marx was right: capitalism cannot be civilised by means of some benevolent government that applies the right dosage of fiscal and monetary policy at the right time.

But there follows a big But:

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Having said that, I genuinely believe that a Crisis is not the time to construct alternatives to capitalism. As we used to put it in an earlier, more confident, ‘era’, times of Crisis are not revolutionary times. As the 1930s amply showed (and the last few years have confirmed), the only political forces that exploit a Crisis are the xenophobes, the anti-semites, the misanthropes etc. Retrieving Keynes’ insight is, in this sense, an essential ingredient for (a) overcoming a Crisis which is incapable of generating something better than capitalism, and (b) giving humanity a chance to develop further Marx’s point about the need for a less wasteful, more rational way of producing and distributing surpluses.

We'll see if Keynes will be of any use. In the meantime we can quote and quote again the new Greek Minister as being on record as saying:

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Marx was right: capitalism cannot be civilised by means of some benevolent government that applies the right dosage of fiscal and monetary policy at the right time.

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Comment published on a recent letter in the Oxford Mail:http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/yoursay/letters/11712139.General_Election__Why_my_party_is_a_contender/

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Danny Dorling may be interested that another "minor party" candidate will be standing in Oxford West & Abingdon, Mike Foster for the Socialist Party, and with a much more radical programme than the National Health Action Party: not just a free health service but a free access society.

We are also preparing a leaflet to be entitled "Why Danny Dorling should support socialism".See articles and reviews of his books in the Socialist Standard:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2006/no-1219-march-2006/here%E2%80%99s-successhttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2006/no-1220-april-2006/letters (scroll down to his letter)http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2011/no-1282-june-2011/book-reviews-venezuela-revolution-spectacle-injustic (scroll down to review of this book).

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I like this anecdote recounted in the leader column of today's Times:

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As Britain lost the confidence of international creditors in the mid-1970s, one Labour MP presented to Denis Healey, then chancellor of the exchequer, the left's economic alternative. It comprised big increases in spending, nationalisation and import controls. History records that Lord Healey fell about laughing.

When will leftwing reformists learn that capitalism can't be reformed to work in the way they want, at least not without provoking an economic slowdown — and that the only realistic and workable way-out is socialism, the common ownership and democratic control of productive resources so they can be used to cater for people's needs and not for sale on a market with a view to profit?

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Another silly idea.

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