ALB
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Impossibilist1904 has just put up the article that appeared in the Socialist Standard of the time on the Blackbird Leys riots of 1991, entitled "Dreaming spires and screaming tyres":http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.co.uk/It will eventually appear in the Socialist Standard archives section too.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Well, I think the party position (as such) would be that vegetarianism/veganism is not a question of individual morality, but will have to be a decision of the democratic production within socialism.The way you've put could be misunderstood. I'm sure individuals will still be able to decide what to eat in socialism and be vegetarians or vegans if they want. What will be the subject of a democratic decision will be what foods to produce and what farming practices to adopt. Which could/will be different in different parts of the world. I agree will Alan that the supply of tropical fruits (and tobacco) to the Northern parts of Europe might well be drastically reduced as the people living where they are currently produced decide to use the land to grow food for themselves.
That's not the case for vegetarianism, only for eating less meat, even only for eating less beef. I'd have thought that sheep and goats are ok as they can graze land that is not suitable for agriculture and is a more rational way of using land, while pigs and chickens are ok because they recycle human food waste in an efficient way.So generalised vegetarianism no, eating less meat yes. Of course individuals can, like Dan Read, adopt vegetarianism or veganism as a lifestyle choice even if they think they are pursuing some deep Marxist policy. I just wish they'd stop boring the rest of us by telling us that we should too..
I remember him. He wrote this good article on the Respect Party in 2004:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2004/no-1196-april-2004/respect-%E2%80%9Cunity%E2%80%9D-coalitionWhich was why we were surprised to learn that he was later a member of a Trotskyist group (the IMT). Still, if he's now with the Marxist-Humanists he seems to have done something of a full circle (well nearly). Isn't that the group Andrew Kliman is in?I don't think much of vegetarianism myself, even less of veganism, but may be he was influenced by this article from the August 2003 Socialist Standard which he will have read while a member:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2003/no-1188-august-2003/animals-profit
I've found the original article by Lenin. It's here:http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/apr/21.htmIt's only short. In fact quite good. Could even have appeared in the Socialist Standard (of the time):
Quote:The world-famous British chemist, William Ramsay, has discovered a method of obtaining gas directly from a coal seam. Ramsay is already negotiating with a colliery owner on the practical application of this method.A great modern technical problem is thus approaching solution. The revolution that will be effected by this solution will be a tremendous one.At the present time, to utilise the energy contained in it, coal is transported all over the country and burned in numerous factories and homes.Ramsay’s discovery means a gigantic technical revolution in this, perhaps the most important, branch of production in capitalist countries.Ramsay has discovered a method of transforming coal into gas right where the coal lies, without hauling it to the surface. A similar but much simpler method is sometimes used in the mining of salt: it is not brought to the surface directly, but is dissolved in water, the solution being pumped to the top.Ramsay’s method is to transform, as it were, the coal mines into enormous distilling apparatuses for the production of gas. Gas is used to drive gas engines which can ex tract twice as much energy from coal as steam-engines can. Gas engines, in their turn, transform the energy into electricity, which modern technology can already transmit over enormous distances.Such a technical revolution would reduce the cost of electricity to one-fifth or even one-tenth of its present price. An enormous amount of human labour now spent in extracting and distributing coal would be saved. It would be possible to use even the poorest seams, now not being worked. The cost of lighting and heating houses would be greatly reduced.This discovery will bring about an enormous revolution in industry.But the consequences this revolution will have for social life as a whole under the present capitalist system will be quite different from those the discovery would yield under socialism.Under capitalism the “release” of the labour of millions of miners engaged in extracting coal will inevitably cause mass unemployment, an enormous increase in poverty, and a worsening of the workers’ conditions. And the profits of this great invention will be pocketed by the Morgans, Rockefellers, Ryabushinskys, Morozovs, and their suites of lawyers, directors, professors, and other flunkeys of capital.Under socialism the application of Ramsay’s method, which will “release” the labour of millions of miners, etc., will make it possible immediately to shorten the working day for all from 8 hours to, say, 7 hours and even less. The “electrification” of all factories and railways will make working conditions more hygienic, will free millions of workers from smoke, dust and dirt, and accelerate the transformation of dirty, repulsive workshops into clean, bright laboratories worthy of human beings. The electric lighting and heating of every home will relieve millions of “domestic slaves” of the need to spend three-fourths of their lives in smelly kitchens.Capitalist technology is increasingly, day by day, out growing the social conditions which condemn the working people to wage-slavery..
What's wrong in principle with underground coal gasification? The idea has been around for ages.
remember we used to speculate that in socialism this would be a way of avoiding people having to work underground in inherently dangerous conditions to dig coal. I think that it was experimented with in state-capitalist Russia.In fact Lenin was writing about it even before the his Bolshevik Party seized power, when in fact he was still a leftwing Social Democrat:Quote:Meanwhile, Vladimir Lenin, a Russian revolutionary in exile in Zurich, misread newspaper reports on Ramsey's UCG plans, and mistakenly concluded that a successful UCG trial had already been completed. In May 1913, he published an article in Pravda calling UCG "one of the great triumphs of technology", and praising its social significance because of the elimination of hard mining labor. [http://www.ergoexergy.com/eUCG_his.htm]Also, from the Financial Times of 13 September has year:
Quote:In 1913, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin praised a new industrial process that he said would usher in a “gigantic technological revolution”.In an article in Pravda, he cited an exotic new technique called “underground coal gasification”, which involved combusting coal deep underground to produce a kind of natural gas that could drive turbines and generate electricity.In a future socialist state, the process could be used to “liberate the labour of millions of miners” and cut the working day from eight to seven hours, Lenin wrote. Finally, the world’s vast coal reserves could be exploited without having to send men deep underground to dig them up.I'm a bit surprised that there should be a campaign against it in the North East where the perils of underground coal mining will be well-known.
I too found it hard to believe that UKIP, as a Tory breakway with a laissez-faire capitalist ideology, would appeal to Old Labour voters even though, as you point out, some of the blue-collar workers concerned may well have been Working Class Tories. But what I saw in Rochester and the Oxford local by-election results and the article in that book have convinced me otherwise. The article by the way was by Matthew Goodwin who is the co-author of a book called Revolt on the Right: Explaining Public Support for the Radical Right in Britain. He writes about here:http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/05/left-behind-voters-only-ukip-understandsI agree with you that UKIP is more a danger to the Tories than Labour as it will be attracting ordinary Tory workers. Maybe the Oxford results suggest something: where UKIP stood they got about 13.5% of the vote, where they didn't but TUSC did TUSC got 6%. This back-of-the-envelope calculation could suggest that in a Labour-dominated "working class area" about half the UKIP vote would come from Old Labour and about half from disaffected Tories. It won't make any difference to the result though as Labour will still romp home.You're right that, for obvious reasons, UKIP doesn't stand a chance in London. It doesn't really in Oxford either. In fact, it's a little known fact that, apart from Gibraltar, Oxford was the only counting area in the recent Euroelections where the LibDems got more votes than UKIP (and one of the areas where we beat the BNP). Sounds like a very civilised place to live in.
I see they just rejected this by a huge 78-22 majority:http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonhartley/2014/11/30/swiss-voters-reject-increasing-gold-reserves-in-referendum/I suppose this means that if people accept capitalism they can be persuaded to vote for what's in its best interest or at least what the dominant section of the capitalist class consider this to be.They also rejected by 74-26 a proposal to drastically cut immigration:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30267042This proposal was presented as being needed to protect the environment rather than simply to keep foreigners out. The xenophobes in Britain haven't yet thought of this, but I expect they'll get round to it. As the saying goes, hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.
Actually, it so happens that Oxford was the scene of one of the most successful experiments in "workerism" with the "Independent Working Class Association" winning up to 4 seats on the City Council in the period 2002-2012 when its last councillor gave up. It still survives there as a cultural and sports club. Their history can be found here:As can be seen from this recent speech, as summarised on their facebook page, their tactic was (emphasis added):
Quote:The failure by the left to abide by democratic principles and to work with the working class in pursuit of what the working class perceives as its own immediate interests is what lies behind the left’s failure, and is also the key to its revival.That covers a lot of things but not socialism. The IWCA's success in Oxford was due to them doing on council estates what the LibDems prided themselves on doing elsewhere: community politics. It might have brought some welcome improvements in daily living but it didn't (couldn't and wasn't even intended to) bring socialism any nearer.It did proclaim "Working class rule in working class areas" but that appeared to mean simply "working class" councillors and in any event was based on a mistaken, narrow definition of who the working class are. Most workers don't live on council estates; in fact, most areas are "working class areas" in that they are areas where people who depend for a living on selling their mental and physical energies for a wage or salary live.Here's their speaker's analysis of the UKIP:
Quote:it would be prudent to note that roughly 80% of the BNP vote folded effortlessly into that of UKIP in 2014. Now while UKIP is not fascist in the traditional sense it does not appear to have too many scruples either. Unsurprisingly following his time in the City Farage is adept at ferreting out ‘markets and opportunities’ as he puts it. The BNP showed how the right could prosper in traditionally blue collar Labour areas and in a very specific way UKIP is picking up from where the BNP left off. More than anything it is this market Farage has targeted.But while currently riding two horses, sooner rather than later they will be faced with a choice.Simply in order to maintain momentum they will likely be forced to become more and more socially radical (note how the Thatcherite plans such as the proposed charge for visiting your GP has been quietly jettisoned) to the point where they morph into an authentic far-right party after the European model.UKIP certainly will have to find a way of reconciling the ideology of "free market capitalism" espoused by its founders and leaders (including its 2 MPs) and its blue-collar voter base. Not so sure, though, that it will evolve into far-right type party, but we'll see. .
This article from the Socialist Standard in 1933 should amuse you:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1930s/1933/no-342-february-1933/how-make-socialists-lenin%E2%80%99s-viewAnother recruit to your "idealism-materialism"
ALB wrote:it confirms one theory I have been reluctant to accept — that UKIP is attracting voters from the traditional working class.I think we have to accept this. Just read this, in a book just out Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box. 50 Things You Need to Know about British Elections. It's from a chapter 'Not What You Think: UKIP Voters' by Matthew Goodwin:
Quote:Yes, the party's base is very socially distinctive but it is blue-collar, poorly educated, old, white and male. Far from a rebellion of the golf club, UKIP is Britain's most working class party. Indeed, to find a party support base that is disproportionately working-class you need to go back to the Labour Party in the early '80s, and the days of Michael Foot. Since 2010, the voters who have flocked to Farage look more like Old Labour than True Blue Tories; they are older white men, working-class, struggling financially and poorly educated (…) UKIP have succeeded in winning over Britain's 'left behind' voters: groups in society who have long struggled to adapt to the global economy, who hold a very different set of values from the new, middle-class and professional majority, and who were hit the hardest by the post-2008 financial crisis.If this true, as the evidence seems to be suggesting, this would explain why TUSC with its Old Labour appoach picks up votes which would have gone tor UKIP if it had been standing.It also has various implications. First, that the trotskyists might try entering UKIP. But, more seriously, it refutes the view that the experience of an economic crisis will spontaneously generate a socialist or even a anti-capitalist consciousness. It emphasises the need for people to hear the case for socialism, for this to become part of their experience, for a socialist consciousness to have a chance of emerging.
It remains to be seen if the number of votes their dozen candidates get next May merits the term "electoral response" ! The same criticism applies of course to TUSC as well, even more so given their dream of launching a Labour Party Mark 2 and so of repeating in the 21st century the mistake of the 20th century of thinking that a trade-union based workers party could bring "socialism" or even sustain reforms to capitalism.
alanjjohnstone wrote:With 2000 signed up LU members registered, 500 attended their conference as delegates, 1 in 4. That is not bad a turn-out.I await the reports of their conference.I don't know where the figure of 500 came from. According to this report, there were only 250 there and that only on the first day. That's 1 in 8. If we count both delegates and non-delegates we can manage about 1 in 10 at our conferences. But in the other respect we're the same:
Quote:Present: There were around 250 people present, fewer on Day two – predominantly male, white, not generally young.I think they are only saying that research should continue. There can't be any harm in that. After all, if global warming does get worse than anticipated it will be as well to have a Plan C (Plan B being to use nuclear power despite its risks instead of burning fossil fuels). "Just in case", as they say.
