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Another article (short and not difficult to follow) by Kliman aguing against those who see "neoliberalism" rather than capitalism as the problem:http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2014/10/09/falling-profits-rather-than-increasing-financial-investment-led-to-decreasing-rates-of-capital-accumulation-by-american-companies/Actually, the title is a little misleading as the two of them are not arguing that continuously falling, not even slowly, profits are responsible but only low profits. It might have been better called "Fallen profits rather than …"

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

Care to c and p the full Times article as it is behind a pay-wall

OK.

Quote:

Johnny Rotten still seeks revolution— but now he takes a more conventional approach, writes Jack MalvernAs Johnny Rotten he cultivated a reputation as an agitator for an anarchist revolution, declaiming that he was the Antichrist who wished to "destroy passers by".As John Lydon, speaking 38 years later to a crowd at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, he urged people dissatisfied with politics to take their grievances to their town hall.The lead singer of the Sex Pistols said that people such as the comedian Russell Brand who refuse to vote as a form of protest were "bumholes" who misunderstood the nature of power. He declined to say which political party he supported. "I'm very wary of tagging my name on to supporting any of those phoney b***ds, but don't be like like Russell Brand," he said at the festival, which is sponsored by The Times and The Sunday Times."If you don't vote, you don't count. It's only a century ago that none of us had the right to vote and we don't want to go back to that route."Brand argued last year that refusing to vote was his way of renouncing the political system. He cited Lydon's experience at state school, which he said "seemed to primarily be the installation of a belief system that placed his generation and class at the bottom of an immovable hierarchical structure". Lydon said that people who wanted change should engage with politics, not reject it. "Go to town hall meetings and give them f***ing hell," he said. "I'm not being flippant. If you don't start locally you're not going to change the world."He asked people to shout the name of the party they support, prompting several cries of support for Ukip. "What is the UK [Independence Party] about? I've been away a bit and all of a sudden it's a bunch of aw-haw-haws. They look like a real bunch of rejects from the other [Conservative] party."

He's right about UKIP. 

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Steve, since we had no website in 1988 that resolution and party poll was not concerned with it. But there was in 2008 so it's that new resolution which governs it. So even if the Constitutional Court overturns the 2008 resolution that part will stand. It's the fascia and the front cover of the Socialist Standard that are problematic and open to possible challenge as attempting to over-rule a Party Poll result. The trouble is nobody challenged it at the time, probably because the voters would be the same and so presumably the result.There is, however, an anomaly since we changed the voting procedure at Conference. Under the old system the vote was announced at Conference. Which meant that delegates could decide there and then to call a Party Poll if the issue was highly contentious and the result close. Now the result of the vote on Conference Resolutions is only announced 6 or weeks later, when Conference is no longer in session.So what has happened is that Party Polls are now only called on very special occasions. The last two in fact have been called to rescind previous decisions, one by the EC, the other by Conference. Both rescindments were carried. So democracy in the Party still works.

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SocialistPunk wrote:

A good enough point regarding the possibility of needing the armed forces to put down a minority capitalist uprising. However I think on another thread you said that it would be highly unlikely a defeated capitalist minority would to go head to head with a socialist majority of the people

But the State is not just the armed forces. It's the whole "public power of coercion", i.e laws, law courts, police, prisons, etc. The socialist revolution will be the socialist majority enforcing their will on the capitalist minority. Winning control of the State will give the workers (the socialist majority) the upper hand as it will mean that the public power of coercion will no longer be used to uphold and enforce capitalist property rights. Instead it will be there to enforce the will of the socialist majority.Most anarchists (the exceptions being the anarcho-capitalists and the anarcho-pacifists) accept that the capitalist class will have to be forced to give up their ownership. Only they envisage using workers militias or whatever to do this. A bit suicidal if you leave, as they propose, the State in the hands of the pro-capitalists.There is also the point that the State is the centre of social control as well as the public power of coercion and so could be usefully used to co-ordinate the socialist revolution. In fact, once the socialist revolution is over this is all that will remain of its present functions. The centre of social control will be an unarmed, democratically controlled administrative body. Not having coercive powers it won't be a State.

SocialistPunk wrote:

I would say that deposing the existing hierarchy of the military would be a wise move to avoid any potential co-ordinated international military coup. That in effect would leave a leaderless military.

Well, yes, the first thing the working class will need to do when it wins control of the State is to lop off its undemocratic features (the monarchy and the House of Lords as well)

SocialistPunk wrote:

Regarding my earlier question. If The State were not immediately dismantled, but kept in place just in case, how and who would manage The State during the period leading up to its eventual abolition?

The people through re-inforced democratic control. But we're not talking about a lengthy period. It's actually (if I dare say so) the period Marx (somewhat misleadingly) called "the dictatorship of the proletariat",or, better, the period of the revolutionary transformation by political means of capitalist society into socialist/communist society.

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Here's Johnny Rotten's contribution to this thread:http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/books/cheltenham-festival/article4234792.ece

Quote:

The lead singer of the Sex Pistols said that people such as the comedian Russell Brand who refuse to vote as a form of protest were “bumholes” who misunderstood the nature of power.

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jondwhite wrote:

Was a conference resolution even necessary on this?

It was considered necessary at the time (1984) because one member had committed the Party to "the gradual decline of the State" which would have put us in the same camp as all Leninist and Trotskyist groups and their view that the State could persist for decades after they had won control of it. This mistake needed to be repudiated.Unfortunately, the resolution to repudiate it was badly drafted and committed the Party to the opposite mistake of "the immediate abolition of the State". It should have spoken rather of something like "the rapid abolition of the State".Those were the days when Party conferences discussed politics and political theory rather than as today internal procedures and rule changes.

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One reason for not abolishing the State immediately is the possibility, however remote, of an uprising by a pro-capitalist recalcitrant minority. It would be foolish of the working class to disband the armed forces until they were certain that this was not going to happen. In fact the coercive powers of the State other than the armed forces will need to be used to impose the will of the majority to dispossess the capitalist class and make the means of wealth production the common property of society. even if there's no armed resistance to it by a pro-capitalist recalcitrant minority. I can think of other reasons too for not abolishing the state immediately, to do with the working class not winning control of all the states in the world on exactly the same day.It will of course depend on the circumstances at the time which we can't predict now, but I can't see under what circumstances "immediate abolition" would be a realistic or likely option.

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I remember voting against that resolution in 1984 (too anarchistic) and was pleased to vote for its repeal 20 years later and replacement by something more realistic:

Quote:

That the 1984 Conference Resolution, 'This Conference affirms that socialism will entail the immediate abolition and not the gradual decline of the State', be rescinded and replaced with: 'That as the State is an expression of and enforcer of class society, the capture of political power by the working class and the subsequent conversion of the means of living into common property will necessarily lead to the abolition of the state, as its function as the custodian of class rule will have ended. Those intrinsically useful functions of the state machine in capitalism will be retained by socialist society but re-organised and democratised to meet the needs of a society based on production for use'. (2004).

 

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I don't like to talk of the SPGB coming to power because what our declaration of principles envisages is the working class winning political power and organising themselves to do this, i.e. into a socialist party. In other words, the future mass socialist party will be the working class organised politically for socialism, its instrument to win control of political power to use to end capitalism.

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Sorry, cobber. I hadn't realised. It was meant to be read as Ess Punk as in 'Ell Bird.

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 More embarrassing would be if someone asked what "The World for the Workers" means on the Edwardian party badge that JDW likes (I do too and wear it on special occasions).

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And I thought this was a thread to discuss SPunk not LBird.

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This seems an interesting meeting to go to for those going to the Anarcho-Fair rather than the TUC march:https://critisticuffs.org/events/london-anarchist-bookfair-2014/elections/

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Vin Maratty wrote:

I know I keep repeating myself but:

We all here are. It's a bit like a pub conversation.

Vin Maratty wrote:

The Socialist Party (WSM) in a unique and distinctive style.  I can't understand why members would wish to continue the confusion by using different names: Like the top of this site

But, to continue the pub conversation, the internet being international (think worldwide web) that still doesn't identify which part of the world our site comes from. A more logical version of your proposal would be to make this site a page on the site of the …. World Socialist Movement:http://www.worldsocialism.org/Actually, I think it can be:http://www.worldsocialism.org/english/companion-parties-socialismJust remembered too that between 1988 and 2008 the masthead of the Socialist Standard stated "The journal of The Socialist Party — Companion Party of the World Socialist Movement". We can got back to that when that 2008 resolution is rescinded next year whether by Party Poll or Conference Resolution

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DJP wrote:

Article by Andrew Kliman on Piketty. Have yet to properly give it a read though…http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/were_top_corporate_executives_really_hogging_workers_wages_20140917

Just got round to reading this. It's a criticism of one of the explanations suggested by Piketty for the rise in income inequality in recent years whereas, as socialists, we are more interested in the inequality of the ownership of  wealth, or more precisely of income yielding assets,Kliman's article does raise some interesting points about what part of the income of "supermanagers" is really payment for work and what is a share of surplus value either disguised as a part from of their "salary" or as dividends and capital gains from their own personal ownership of stocks and shares. Either way, it shows that inequality of income is due to so much of the income of the top 1 or so percent being a non-work income.

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