ALB
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
alanjjohnstone wrote:“The great appear great to us, only because we are on our knees: Let us rise" – James Connolly
Although Connolly used the slogan I don't think he invented it or even claimed to. I think it goes back to the French Revolution which Connolly would have found when reading about it.It seems also to have been appropriated by Irish Nationalists (to whom the Debs quote would be anathema):http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/politics/2009/06/
"Community-Wealth" sounds like a possible alternative name for "socialism" (if we need one), but "World-Community-Wealth" would be better as "community" has become associated with local communities rather than a world community. Anyway, workers coops (or even co-ops) are a dead-end.
We're already on to this. South London branch will be covering it as it's only 3 tube stops from Head Office (i'ts in SW11 not SW1).
Steve, YMS is not talking about the particular case in question but about the general principle of it being legitimate to take into account what any ex-member applying to rejoin said while a previous member exercising their right to criticise the party, a principle which Socialist Punk has challenged as undemocratic. This is a discussion about this general principle. I don't think this general principle can be challenged, even if its application in a particular case could be.Other reasons to reject an application from an ex-member applying to rejoin that might be invoked would be: not being convinced that their behaviour wouldn't be repeated in the future or that the re-application was premature.Personally I don't think this is really the place to discuss individual cases but it is unrealistic to expect unanimity either way in controversial cases and that it is out of order to challenge the motives or integrity of those who vote one way or the other. Challenging the wisdom of a particular fairly-reached decision is another matter.
I've had a look at the site of Nouvelle Donne and I'm afraid it's not very impressive. As a way of getting out of the slump they advocate giving everybody a monthly payment of €150 (about £120), something that's been tried in Taiwan and Japan.I don't think much of their logo either. It's too like the "flash in the pan" logo of the old British Union of Fascists and its successor the Union Movement.
Socialist Punk, I don't know why you are pursuing this matter so zealously. Obviously, the party has a right to question an applicant even an ex-member who criticised the party when they were a member. Imagine the case of a member who, as they are perfectly entitled to as confirmed by that 1973 conference resolution, criticised the party for, for instance, not advocating reforms or for thinking that parliament should be used to get to socialism. There is nothing to prevent them expressing this view. Imagine then that they resign and later apply to rejoin. Clearly, they would have to be questioned on this and in fact if they hadn't changed their view could have their application rejected.So, the general position is clear. That's the general principle but only one EC member has said that it should apply in the particular case you are concerned about to bar an ex- member re-joining. It was not the view of the Membership Application Committee, nor of the 2 EC members who voted against. It wasn't even the view of the other 2 present who voted to reject the application. I doubt it's the view of the other 5 EC members who were not present. We'll see. I'm sure it's not the view of most members on this forum or our facebook page who have followed developments since the unfortunate events of over a year ago now.So you are making a mountain out of a molehill and by bringing up what somebody may or may not have said or done in the heat of the moment just before or just after they resigned and which the person concerned regrets you are opening old wounds. Most members, I think, are prepared to let by-gones be by-gones and get on with positive socialist activity.
The trouble with this turn in the thread is that there is a confusion between a wrong or ill-advised decision and a constitutional or democratic one. It is quite possible for an ill-advised decision to be taken democratically. I'm sure there will have been many others as well as the case in point. In any event no decision is final and irrevocable as procedures are provided for to change or rectify decisions.While I'm posting it occurs to me that the EC's Standing Orders are of relevance to this discussion. Note in particular Clauses 7,13, 14-17, and 30.
Quote:Standing Orders of the 111th Executive CommitteeSocialist Party of Great BritainAgreed at the 4 January 2014 EC MeetingAt the first meeting of a new Executive Committeethese standing orders shall be considered foradoption and/or amendment:1. The regular meeting of the EC shall be atHead Office on the first Saturday of themonth at 13:00; if urgency or workload requires,additional meetings shall be held.2. It shall be the duty of the General Secretary,Assistant Secretary, or failing them,any member of the EC to call the meeting toorder immediately a quorum of five, eitherin person or via teleconferencing, is presentand to place before the Chair a copy of theStanding Orders and Party Rules. The ECmembers shall make every effort to attendin person.3. In the event of no quorum being present at13:15 in the EC room, those present shalldeal with any urgent business and their actionsshall be presented for ratification tothe next properly constituted meeting of theEC.4. Special Meetings: Any five members of theEC or the General Secretary and any fourshall have the power to call a special ECmeeting. All members shall be informed.5. The General Secretary shall be responsiblefor keeping the attendance book.6. The EC meeting may take a break midway,and aim to finish at or before 17:00.7. The presence at Conference and ADM of ECmembers is required.8. EC members may not smoke at the EC table.9. Normal order of business:(a) Election of Chair(b) Minutes of the previous meeting, businessarising therefrom and the GeneralSecretary’s raising of Notices of Motionand Business from previous meetings(c) Forms A and F(d) Treasurer(e) Reports of party officers, party appointees,subcommittees, and departments;discussion of advertising, campaigns,and the Socialist Standard(f) Matters outstanding from previousminutes(g) Correspondencei. Matters of urgencyii. Correspondence from or concerningBranches, the Party in generaland membersiii. Correspondence from CompanionParties and Groupsiv. All other correspondence(h) Any other business(i) Nomination of Chair for the next meeting10. When an item is before the EC, the Chairshould have discretion to allow a generaldiscussion before accepting a motion.11. Urgency: Any member of the EC may at anytime during the meeting raise an item byway of action of urgency. The member raisingthe matter shall be asked by the Chairto state briefly what the matter is, and whyurgency is requested. The member requestingurgency shall then state to what thematter relates and why urgency has beenrequested. The Chair shall then take a voteas to whether urgency should be granted.If a majority vote in favour of urgency, thematter shall be dealt with forthwith.12. The EC will normally consider only correspondenceand papers received on or beforethe Monday preceding the EC meeting butlate papers will be considered if the EC decides.13. All motions dealing with a matter of policyshall be recorded by a division. An ECmember may call for a division (recording ofnames) on the voting of any motion beforethe EC.14. A Notice of Motion must be seconded beforebeing accepted by the Chair and recorded inthe minutes. [Conference Resolution 1980]15. The Chair shall ensure that a written Noticeof Motion placed before him/her shallbe read and recorded before the meeting adjourns.16. A Notice of Motion shall take effect at thenext EC meeting and each member shall beadvised.17. An EC resolution may not be rescinded exceptby a Notice of Motion as in x16 above.In exceptional circumstances the proposalto rescind may be considered immediatelyif at least a quorum of the EC votes for urgency.18. Notices of Motion which embody supportiveor contentious statements shall be ruledout of order by the Chair and shall not berecorded.19. Notices of Business: If a member of the ECgives notice that he/she will raise a “questionfor discussion” it shall be treated in thesame manner as business under x16 above.20. The Chair is not permitted to move any motionbut may second and vote on any motionexcept as indicated in x21 re a Vote of Direction.21. In the event of any ruling from the Chair onprocedural matters being challenged, an ECmember may move or the Chair may call fora Vote of Direction without further discussion.The Chair shall accept the direction ofa simple majority of the EC.22. The Chair is not permitted to move or secondor to vote on a “Vote of Direction” motionbut may call for such a motion as providedfor in x21 above.23. Subsequent amendments to these StandingOrders may be only be made by way of Noticeof Motion (as per x16).24. A EC member shall speak when invited todo so by the Chair noting a raised hand.Any member not conforming to this StandingOrder shall on a majority vote be requiredto leave the EC table for the remainderof the meeting.25. All contributions by EC members shall belimited to three minutes but may be extendedat the discretion of the Chair.26. Any procedural matters or matters relatingto the conduct of EC members not coveredby the Standing Orders are to be taken ascovered by Conference and ADM StandingOrders.27. There shall be a review of Departments’ andSubcommittees’ Terms of Reference everyfive years starting from 2013.28. The January EC shall consider the renewalof our registration as a political partyand shall review and update a register oftrustees and bank signatories.29. Reports of the Treasurer and Auditors notpresented to the EC prior to Conference orADM shall be presented to the EC at itsmeeting following the Conference or ADM.30. Any EC member who has a financial interestin any matters before the EC shall declarethat interest.I'm still waiting for the copy of the book I've ordered to arrive but I see that Mattick makes the same point as Michael Roberts that Piketty is concerned with the distribution of wealth in general (including non-income producing forms such as personal houses and cars) rather than with that of capital (wealth used to produce other wealth with a view to profit). This may well be the case but, surely, the distribution of wealth will be less unequal than the distribution of capital? As explained in chapter 7 of our pamphlet The Market System Must Go.It is true that defining capital as all wealth and attributing a notional income to forms of wealth which don't actually produce any would distort the figures for the "returns to capital" by making them bigger than they would be on a different, more accurate definition of "capital". But what about the rate of increase of these returns? It is not clear whether this would be bigger or smaller on the different definition. Maybe there's something on this in Piketty's book. I'll have to wait and see.To tell the truth, I'm beginning to suspect that people like Mattick and Roberts may be wanting to show that the "returns to capital" are less than Piketty claims in order to sustain their theory of the falling rate of profit (i.e the falling rate of returns to capital properly understood).
LBird wrote:Yeah, SP, democracy is more than voting.I suppose my problem is the way that EC members regard their role, as it appears on this thread.For the record, only two current EC Members have expressed any views on this thread. Most EC Members are not regular followers of discussions on this forum. Some are not even forum members.Anyway, some more extracts from the Rulebook:
Quote:12. The Executive Committee shall consist of ten members, elected annually by vote of the Party. Nominations shall be made by the Branches. Vacancies on the Executive Committee shall be filled only by seeking further nominations. If the number of nominations exceeds the number of vacancies, a ballot shall be held. Vacancies occurring after 1st October shall not be filled.13. The Executive Committee shall meet at least once a month. Five members shall be a quorum. Any member shall lapse from the EC if absent from two out of three consecutive meetings unless granted leave of absence by the EC for Party business, holidays, sickness or other reasons acceptable to the EC.14. The Executive Committee shall send a report of each meeting to the Branches, such reports to contain the names of the EC members and how they vote on matters of policy and principle. They shall report to the Delegate Meetings and Annual Conference, including the activities of all their Officers and sub-Committees.15. The Executive Committee shall submit a Financial Statement to the Branches each half-year. They shall submit to the Branches a report of the year's work and a Balance Sheet, signed by the Auditors, at least one month prior to the Annual Conference. They shall also bank all Party funds not required for immediate use in a current or deposit account, arranging all matters relating thereto with the Secretary, Treasurer and Trustees. In the event of financial urgency the EC shall submit a full financial statement to the Branches and call a Special Conference which shall have all powers to decide any necessary action thereon. The Executive Committee shall make all arrangements for the Delegate Meetings and Conferences, give effect to the resolutions of the Conference and those adopted by Party Poll or referendum.16. The members of the EC shall not be eligible to act as chair to the Delegate Meetings or Conferences, nor shall any member act as chair who has been on the EC whose work is under review. Such members shall have the right to speak thereat.Note in particular Rule 14 which provides for recording how EC Members voted on an issue. Such a recorded "division" can be requested by a single EC Member. Note also that the EC Minutes are published for anyone to see, including non-members. Non-members can even call EC Members to account (while claiming that our rulebook and practice are only 'democratic' in inverted commas !).We can have an interesting discussion on the role of an EC Member, but it is certainly not to be a leader or a policy-maker, essentially only an administrator of routine month-to-month house-keeping matters and to implement decisions made by Conference or branch delegates or a referendum of all the members. Ideally, in my view at least, the EC should be a representative cross-section of the party membership. They could even be chosen by lot.
An analysis of the 100 or so requests for more information received at Head Office (by email, phone or letter) shows that about 37 of these have come from Wales. Since only 25% of the 1.35 million leaflets were distributed in Wales this requires an explanation. All I can think of is that Wales is a more "leftwing" or "anti-Tory" area than the South East so that the word "socialist" gets a better hearing there. It could be to do with the election broadcast but I doubt it as I don't think that that many viewers will have a pen and paper handy to take down the contact details at the end of one. The response to the election video (in terms of hits on our website, now nearly 2800) will have come from Youtube rather than the broadcast itself. On the other hand, the percentage vote in Wales was lower than in the South East.So, something that needs explaining.
L. Bird, I don't think there was anything unconstitutional about the decision in question. The EC is not obliged to accept the recommerndation of one of its sub-committees and 5 members present is a quorum and so can make valid decisions.What was unwise was for those 5 (out of 10, actually 9 as there was a vacancy) not to have postponed a decision on such a contraversial issue to a meeting at which more EC members would be present.If 5 members shouldn't make any decision then all the other decisions made (e.g to follow up the election campaign and to implement the Conference motions voted on by the membership) would be equally invalid.So we are talking about the wisdom and appropriateness of a decision not about whether it was against the rulebook.Decisions can be reversed (a move to try to do this has already been made and recorded in the minutes of the same EC Meeting). More generally, EC Members can be called to account for what they do at the next Conference or Autumn Delegate Meeting or even be made subject to a recall vote.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Weekly Worker has a review of the book by Michael Robertshttp://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1013/unpicking-piketty/He raises a point which has occurred to me: to what extent is the tendency that Marx postulated for the rate of profit to fall in the long run compatible with Picketty's data? As Piketty has concluded that there is a tendency for the rate of return on capital to increase faster than the rate of increase of production, in theory it would still be possible for this to happen with a declining rate of profit but as long as the rate of increase of production ("growth") declined too but more. Is there any evidence that the rate of growth has declined?Roberts seems to want to defend the tendency of the rate of profit to fall at all costs, but I don't see that this is necessary since the evidence seems to suggest that the counter-tendencies Marx identified as working to raise the rate of profit have also operated, to such an extent that it is not possible to predict what will happen in the long run to the rate of profit in the real world.Ironically, if Piketty's "law" is correct and the rich have a tendency to get richer wouldn't this be a stronger criticism of capitalism than that the rich will tend to get poorer and poorer?
Young Master Smeet wrote:ALB wrote:Was reviewed in the May Socialist Standard:Was that actually a review (as in the author had read the whole book)? I took it as a report of the news controversey, and we were waiting for a more detailed review.
You're right. It wasn't a review but a comment on the controversy surrounding him and his book. We must do a proper review. A copy of his weighty tome is being ordered.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Anyway, I think someone has linked to Harvey's review before, but in case not:http://socialistworker.org/blog/critical-reading/2014/05/18/david-harvey-reviews-thomas-piThis review is terrible. Harvey is getting worse and worse. There is an underlying endosement of "underconsumption" arguments and what's he mean by this:
Quote:From his data (spiced up with some neat literary allusions to Jane Austen and Balzac) he derives a mathematical law to explain what happens: the ever-increasing accumulation of wealth on the part of the famous one percent (a term popularized thanks of course to the “Occupy” movement) is due to the simple fact that the rate of return on capital (r) always exceeds the rate of growth of income (g). This, says Piketty, is and always has been “the central contradiction” of capital. But a statistical regularity of this sort hardly constitutes an adequate explanation let alone a law. So what forces produce and sustain such a contradiction? Piketty does not say. The law is the law and that is that. Marx would obviously have attributed the existence of such a law to the imbalance of power between capital and labor.Would Marx have?
alanjjohnstone wrote:Kshama Sawant in her own words:" If we organize as workers, with a socialist strategy, we can tackle the chasm of income inequality and social injustice"That the classic reformist argument. The question is whether, as a Trotskyist, she is just saying this in pursuit of their "transitional demand" tactic or whether she really believes this, i.e is a classical reformist. I suspect the latter.
