ALB
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Maybe because there will be no "workers" in socialism as all classes, including the working class, will have been abolished.
LBird wrote:For you ALB, who determines the 'not on everything'?Socialist society obviously, as part of its founding "constitution" (as it were). In other words, the majority who democratically establish socialism democratically decide that an essential part of the society they want to live in is that the minority has its say, i.e that minority opinions are protected from being suppressed by a majority decision. I've offered you this way out of your dilemma, which doesn't involve invoking abstract indivual rights, but you've rejected it.
LBird wrote:Blathering on about 'free association' for individuals doesn't cut the political mustard, I'm afraid.Tell that to Marx who used to blather on about post-capitalist society being an association. For instance, "an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism" (Poverty of Philosophy), "an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all" (Communist Manifest) and "an association of free men, working with the means of production held in common" (from the section on the "Fetishism of Commodities" in Capital).
I think the issue between LBird and the rest of us is now clear: he calls himself a "Democratic Communist" but does not accept the normal definition of democracy which, basically, is that "the minority has its say and the majority has its way". He only accepts the last part and holds that the majority can have its way even to the extent of not allowing the minority, or minorities, to have their say. ( He goes further than this in fact and says that the majority can and should also decide what is scientifically true or not, but that's another argument which I think we've exhausted on other threads though of course, as a minority, he still has a right to his say.)I'm not sure what to call this truncated theory of democracy. The word "totalitarian" comes to mind but "totalitarian democracy" seems a contradiction in terms. All I can think of for what he's advocating is "the dictatorship of the majority". The trouble is, though, that democracy does involve the majority having its way ("dictating", if you like) but not on everything, not in particular on what people can think and say.Can anybody think of a better term?
Our candidates in Oxford have already received a further two invitations to speak at meetings, one on 16 March, the other in April, as well as an invitation to contribute 200-250 words to a rural magazine.Who says contesting elections is a waste of time and money?
LBird wrote:Well, under capitalism, slavery, eugenics, beating wives, breeding low IQ humans for hunting, torturing animals, etc., etc.I can agree that doing these things should be banned but not why advocating them should be. There is not much danger in that as they are not likely to get any degree of support for putting them into practice and can easily be refuted. You don't think that there are likely to be people who would be "corrupted" by hearing such outlandish views and so need to be protected from this, do you? If not, what is the case for banning their expression?
LBird wrote:Under socialism/communism, private property, wage labour, propagating nationalism…Once again, these are all undesirable but I don't see any need to prevent people from advocating them if they want. Nobody's going to listen to them anyway. In fact I doubt if anyone is going to want to advocate them. I think you've been reduced to scraping the bottom of the barrell Seriously, why should we seek to prevent people advocating a return to capitalism? Why can't they still have their say while the socialist majority has its way?
LBird wrote:Simply, all societies find something to be 'beyond the pale', and I'm sure that we can find things now that we'd prevent being published, and I think Communism will be no different.I can't think of any view on how society should be organised or on what policies to adopt that should be banned under capitalism let alone in socialist/communist society. Maybe you can. If so, I'd be interested.
That really is a turn up for the books. Actually standing for the Greens, not just saying vote for them.TUSC contested Redcar in the 2010 general election and got 127 votes (0.3%). I wonder if they'll contest this time and denounce the RMT President for standing for a party that has carried out austerity in Brighton. And if they don't stand, who will recommend voting for?
LBird wrote:The context was me saying that censorship was inescapable.Apologies, but I don't think I've grasped your argument that censorship is inescapable. Can you go over it again?
Just realised that 13 years ago we gave a relatively favourable review of a book of which John Milios was one of the authors:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2002/no-1174-june-2002/book-reviewsNow he's taken on the job of advising a government how best to run capitalism when, from his study of Marx, he must know it can't be run to benefit wage and salary workers.
Nearly 30 people at the meeting in Oxford last night. Mike began by explaining why he wouldn't make a good MP:
Quote:Thank you all for taking the time to come along this evening to hear why I wouldn’t make a very good MP. Definitely don’t put a cross in the box for the Socialist Party of Great Britain if you somehow come to the conclusion that I would play the Westminster game for the benefit of everyone. Because I couldn’t, even if I tried. No-one can. The state, and the very way that our society is put together, can’t be made to work in the interests of the vast majority of people. MPs who start out with good intentions about reforms and representing their constituents soon get stifled by the cumbersome bureaucracy and made to follow vested interests or the dictates of the elite. MPs who don’t start out with good intentions probably have an easier job.If you vote for the Socialist Party, you wouldn’t be voting to put me in that position, thankfully. Instead, you’d be making the point that the whole system which we live under has to be replaced.He then put the case against the class-based, profit-driven system that is capitalism and for a socialist society where the means of production would be owned by everyone and no one but subject to democratic control and where work would be unpaid and people have free access to what they needed without money. This elicited the usual questions (about human nature, the incentive to work, has it been tried anywhere).The NHA party candidate was there but didn't say anything. As was the Green Party candidate in the constituency at 2010 general election (but has since left them). In fact he organised the meeting. Last week it was the NHA party. Next week it will be the Green Party and the week after that UKIP.
Not at all. I thought you were proposing that socialist society self-deny censoring any opinion, i.e that while it might reserve the right to do so it never would. Isn't that what you meant? Seriously.
The TUSC candidate for Tottenham is Jenny Sutton of the SWP, one of the 15 SWPers who will standing under the TUSC banner (most are SPEWers). There's a poster of her here posing as "the socialist candidate" and the list of their reform(ist) demands:https://www.swp.org.uk/resource/811Was this the one you corrected?
Party ballots would originally have been open because voting took place at branches. Secret ballots only became possible when postal voting was adopted. The Party seems more or less evenly divided on this issue. In 2007 the following resolution was carried by by 58 votes to 36:
Quote:This Conference decides that henceforth all central Party membership votes shall be conducted as secret ballots.In 2011 it was reversed by this resolution carried by 53 votes to 39:
Quote:That the practice of holding secret ballots be discontinued.The 2007 vote would have been an open one while the 2011 vote would have been secret. Don't know if this explains the difference. It could just be that it proved too much of a hassle to organise secret ballots.Now it's back for another vote. This time open again.
