ALB
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Some very disabled people obviously are less productive but that doesn't mean that they can't contribute anything. That wouldn't be a problem in socialist society since the principle of "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" would apply. But it is a problem in capitalist society where everybody (apart from the owning class) is expected to fend for themself or rely on charity.
DJP wrote:ALB wrote:He died shortly after attending an SPGB meeting at which a Party member tried to convince him that you can derive an "ought" from an "is".How do you do that then? The suspence is killing me.
By coincidence the comrade concerned just rang. He remembers the incident and says that he called Walford an 'empirical reductionist' who couldn't see beyond what existed.
Yes,I will read through what you've written on Piketty. I'll email you as I'm doing a talk on him this Sunday.
steve colborn wrote:As Socialists, we know that Freud and Bowman are merely saying the way it is.Exactly my thoughts on hearing this news item. As far as capitalism is concerning some people are incapable of reproducing the value of the minumum wage let alone of producing a surplus value over and above this for their employer and so are effectively unemployable and useless from a capitalist point of view. Objectionable as he is (with a ten bedroom mansion in central London he seeks to justify the bedroom tax) on this occasion he is right and is being hounded for telling the truth. His critics are hypocrites.
Just remembered. Isn't the Richard Brenner who moved the resolution on voting Labour a member/leader of the Workers Power/Fifth International group? Or was? Seems the Trots of various hues have well entried LU.
Quote of the Day, from President Erdogan of Turkey:
Quote:Mr Erdogan questioned the motives of the anti-Isis allies and accused them of meddling in the region's affairs for the past century. "Do you think they come for peace, with their planes and their missiles?" he asked an audience at Marmara University, Istambul. "No," he said. "They do it to get the petrol wells under their control." (Times, 14 October)Left Unity have now published the motions for their Conference in November. Those on elections are interesting. 3 call for an alliance with TUSC, one with the National Health Action Party, another says LU should call for a Labour vote where no credible left candidate is standing. Another implies that they should not stand at all. And there's a mad feminist one.http://leftunity.org/motions-for-left-unity-conferenceHere's the one on the NHA party:
Quote:Left Unity shall approach the NHA party (National Health Action Party) to seek an arrangement where members who are both Left Unity and NHA party members can run on a joint election platform as Left Unity – NHA candidates or NHA – Left Unity candidates. Left Unity and the NHA both have strong views to protect the Universal Health system throughout the whole of the UK and should seek to work together and run joint candidates based on these mutual agreements where a person is a member of both parties. This arrangement should not be binding in the same way as Labour – Co-op party relations are, i.e. the Co-op party does not run its own candidates nor operate as an independent party.So, they allow dual membership with the NHA party?And the opening of the one on the Labour Party:
Quote:In the 2015 UK General Election, in every constituency where we do not stand Left Unity candidates, or where there are no explicitly working class and socialist candidates with real roots in local struggles which LU has decided to support, Left Unity will call for a vote for Labour.This is because of the party’s continued connections to the six million-strong trade unions and the organised labour movement in Britain, and the feeling that millions of working class people still hope that by supporting the party they will get a better life and protection from the Tories.We will not call for a vote for capitalist parties like the SNP, or for the middle class Greens, who do not have these structural connections to organised workers.I still think most LU members will vote Green rather than Labour (and logically should since their policies are more or less the same). I don't suppose that their members will be disciplined enough to vote as decided unless, that is, the vote is to give members a free hand to vote for whoever they want.Be interesting to see what they decide.
I thought some here might be interesting in the debate that took place in Militant in 1996 when they decided to try to usurp our name:http://www.marxist.net/namechange/mainframe.htmIt's heavy going, even heavier than this thread.
Vin Maratty wrote:How are branch minutes 'freely available' if they are not published online?By writing to the branch secretary asking to see a copy or come to the next branch meeting. There's a Conference resolution stating that all our records are open to public inspection except the membership lists. Some members do not want their names published all over the internet for debt collectors, the tax authorities, their employer or ex-wife seeking alimony to see and follow up. No point in making it easy for them.
Once there's a socialist majority the game is up for capitalism and the capitalist class. A "slaveholders rebellion" (such as Marx expected after the workers won control of political power via the ballot paper) would only delay things a while, but in the end the majority would get its way.For a start, the armed forces would be split without some, perhaps a majority, refusing to join the rebellion so its effectiveness would be considerably weakened. There would mutinies while at the same time workers would be refusing to supply the rebel units with food, electricity and other resources.Even under capitalism an isolated minority can't hold on to power for long in the face of majority opposition or non-support. Otherwise why has any dictatorship come to an end?You're being too pessimistic !
This is another example of resolution creep ! That resolution does not require branches to publish their minutes online, only to make them freely available, as those of branches that don't do this are and always have been.
SocialistPunk wrote:Adam, I was hoping you or someone else would be able to explain how a socialist majority in parliament goes from there to taking control of The State?The coercive elements of the State can only be dismantled if actually under control of the socialist majority in the first place, it is why I mentioned the need to remove the military hierarchy in the first place.Much as a capitalist parliamentary majority does now. A socialist majority in parliament (reflecting of course a democratically self-organised majority outside parliament) will control the executive and the executive will continue to control the coercive powers of the state, including the armed forces. I can't predict the future any more than anyone else can but I can't see a socialist majority, on winning control of political power, not completely democratising it (by lopping off its bureaucratic and military excrescences) before using it. Many members of the armed forces and civil service will of course be socialists themselves and so prepared to go along with and implement this. Or are you asking if the executive (today and tomorrow) does not or would not control the armed forces?.
Quote:JW:I'll put my two penny worth in. If it's not broke why fix it! The SPGB carries a lot of historical and ideological meaning. There are examples of other organisations carrying out a form of symbolic suicide by engaging in name change, for the process entails more than a change of name, as can be witnessed by the demise of the old Communist Party of Great Britain. The change to the Democratic Left .was in effect an act of political hari kari. The Italian Communist Party committed the same error and suffered the same fate: political irrelevancy. I counsel caution. Don't deface 'The Monument'(with apologies to Robert Barltrop)Exactly my view !
