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Detailed analysis by a socialist here:http://www.stephenshenfield.net/themes/international-relations/164-ukraine-popular-uprising-or-fascist-coup

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I think it is unfair to dismiss the Citizens Income idea because it is similar to Social Credit's "social dividend". That's as unfair as dismissing the Zeitgeist Movement as anti-semitic for (at one time) blaming economic woes on international bankers just as fascists do.The other argument (which I hadn't come across before) that, within capitalism, it is no substitute for the Welfare State is more reasonable. In effect, it's giving people a wad of notes and saying "survive", which is a reflection of US libertarianism but also of the anarchistic individualism released by May 1968.The best argument against it is one put by the LU speaker:

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one which simply wouldn’t WORK in pure economic terms

Which is the argument we have developed in more detail in our articles on the subject. For instance this one and  this one.This looks like being one difference between them and the Green Party.

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

Weekly Worker has a report on the LU conferencehttp://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/1004/left-unity-moderate-party-takes-shape

Here's a couple of other reports to balance it:http://leftunity.org/a-raft-of-solid-left-wing-policy-conference-report/http://www.independentsocialistnetwork.org/2014/04/left-unity-policy-conference-a-further-small-step-forward-but-pete-mclaren-reports/I think we have to concede that they are at least trying to proceed on the basis of democratic decision-making, but of course, the members being reformists, the result will be (and was) a democratically-decided reformist strategy and demands with disagreements only over which reforms of capitalism to pursue.It is interesting that a majority did not support a "yes" vote for Scottish separation nor a "no" vote for withdrawal from the EU (even if this means in practice giving their members a free hand to vote either way). This at least puts them ahead of the likes of the SWP and Tariq Ali on Scotland and of Bob Crow, the CPB and Arthur Scargill on Europe.I see ex-comrade SW's motion for a basic citizens income fell, a bit surprising as I would have thought that was the sort of reform they would go for as the Green Party has done.It is still not clear whether or not they will ever contest an election or under what name. This from the leftunity.org document:

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Left Unity is not standing in this year’s European elections, as it is generally considered too early in the party’s life to do so. A motion saying the party should not support any other candidates fell, though it was pointed out that there are currently no plans to do so apart from supporting the anti-fascist campaign in north west England.Electoral strategyA motion from West London set out Left Unity’s electoral strategy, saying that “Electoral support for a new left party will only advance to the extent that it is genuinely representative of working class communities, has no interests separate from theirs, and is an organic part of the campaigns and movements which they generate and support.” It calls for only fielding candidates where the political support and resources exist for a real campaign.Rugby’s motion saying we should move towards bringing in smaller left groups into ‘One Party of the Left’ narrowly fell. Pete McLaren, moving the motion, said, “The clue is in our name… we are about uniting the left.” However Joseph Kisolo from Manchester, speaking against, said we “shouldn’t be looking to unite the already existing left”, which is too white and male. Bianca Todd added that we should look to “the wider movement” while still working alongside other groups. An amendment from Rugby saying Left Unity candidates should be able to stand in elections under other electoral names also fell, but a further motion calling for the party to “avoid electoral clashes” with other left candidates passed.

And this from the ISN (who, incidentally, have adopted the old "Socialist Platform" as theirs but who are still affiliated to TUSC):

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There were two more motions on electoral strategy. Bristol moved Motion 26 calling for LU to campaign with prospective Green and Labour candidates on a number of issues including a ban on bank bonuses and above-national average pay hikes, a statutory right to work and a 7 hour working day. There was little debate and the motion was defeated. Pete McLaren moved Motion 27 on electoral clash avoidance and moves towards electoral pacts, with the initial aim of creating the largest ever challenge in the 2015 General Election. One speech was taken against, which John Penny used to suggest LU should go forward on its own, and that what was being suggested would lead to endless internal debate. Nick Wrack, speaking in favour, disagreed with that conclusion and argued that the working class wanted unity in campaigns, industrial disputes and elections. Motion 27 on clash avoidance was agreed overwhelmingly.

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ALB wrote:

I don't think they are into funny money schemes.

I might have to take this back as I've just remembered that their candidate for Richmond at the last election, Peter Dul, once wrote to my local paper attacking "fractional reserve banking" and calling for "debt-free money". See:https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/spgbmedia/conversations/messages/192But I don't think this is official UKIP policy and won't be supported by Farage and his newly-acquired team of spin doctors.Since the main thing UKIP is advocating, ie. UK withdrawal from the EU, is against the interests of the dominant section of the capitalist class in Britain it will be interesting to see what dirty tricks they get up to to discredit Farage and UKIP if they turn out to be a real threat to their interests.

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

Some extracts from an interviewhttp://truth-out.org/news/item/22819-noam-chomsky-ecology-ethics-anarchismRosa Luxemburg went along with the Spartacist uprising, though she was opposed to it. She was opposed to it not in principle but because she realized it was going to fail, was going to be crushed. But out of solidarity she went along with it, and she was killed.

That's a point we've often made. Significantly, the Socialist Standard of the time associated this uprising rather with Karl Liebkneckt who was also killed in it.

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There is already a separate thread on this:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/zero-marginal-cost-society

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Ralfy has revived a discussion on libcom from 2007 on this. One of the articles referred to in the earlier discussion is this one from a couple of Irish anarchists:http://www.indymedia.ie/article/81815It's quite an intelligent and well-balanced analysis (but it's Thomas not John Malthus).

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I don't think Clegg was suggesting that UKIP was actually advocating a return to the gold standard, was he, but simply giving it as a rhetorical example of the sort of nostalgic thing that UKIP would advocate. Or has some UKIP buffoon proposed this, as Ron Paul of the Tea Party in America does?One thing that did strike me was how Farage, in his populist rant, did not attack the bankers as part of the Establishment but only career politicians and big business. That's because UKIP in London is all in favour of the City, defending it against EU regulation. In fact, that was their line during the Greater London Council elections in 2012 when most of the candidates on their list worked in the City (as did Farage himself of course). So I don't think they are into funny money schemes.

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I watched the Forage-Clogg debate on BBC2 last night and, with Forage's appeal for a "people's army" to "topple the establishment" of career politicians and big business "who got us into this mess" , UKIP seems (or is trying to be) more like the know-nothing Tea Party in the US. Which is why it is a bit worrying that most people who saw it seem to have sympathised with what Forage said, even though Clogg pointed out that the "independent UK" UKIP proposes is a complete "fantasy". It would be nice to think that this was because Forage opposed military intervention abroad in contrast to Clogg's war-mongering over Ukraine and Syria but I doubt it.

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More on this, showing that it is not a "NASA funded" paper:http://links.org.au/node/3786

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The London office of the European Parliament has now added us to the lists contesting the South East Region:http://www.europarl.org.uk/en/european_elections/candidates2014.htmlSo has the wikipedia entry for this constituency:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_East_England_%28European_Parliament_constituency%29Wikipedia also mentions that we will contesting the Wales Region:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wales_%28European_Parliament_constituency%29

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We got an advance review copy and our review should appear in the May Socialist Standard. I've read it myself and Seymour, who led the revolt within the SWP, must have been itching to leave it. He comes out as open reformist, holding up the Syriza party in Greece as the model. He seems to have found his natural home in the Left Unity party.Having said this, his chapter on "Ideology", in which he explains that the capitalist class has not simply brainwashed the working class into supporting capitalism but that it is more complicated than that, is not at all bad. And he does make a case for electoral participation as against what he calls "anarcho-reformism", i.e direct action alone for reforms.

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He seems to be want to be the new Bob Crow. But what's the point of a Labour Party Mark 2 when the whole concept of a reformisttrade union party has failed? Mind you, if a new trade union funded "Workers Party" is founded then all the Trot and other entryists will quickly bore themselves out of Left Unity and into the new party.

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This is just common or garden currency crankism, as even Positive Money would recognise. Article 123  of the Lisbon Treaty is the favorite bugbear of French currency cranks after one of them, Etienne Chouard, made a big issue of it in the referendum in France on the Treaty in 2005 where he played a prominent part in the Non campaign.The Article merely confirms the long established practice where governments borrow (to finance their spending over and above what they raise through taxation) via central banks selling bonds to commercial banks and other financial institutions (which of course is not "money creation" as it assumes that the money to buy the bonds already exists) .What it bans is central banks simply creating money and giving it to the government to spend, even if this takes the form of the central bank lending the government the money. But this hasn't happened in developed capitalist countries for ages and is only practised these days in countries like Zimbabwe and certain South American banana republics (and even oil ones like Venezuela). The currency cranks want this to be practised here too. It's not just them of course but all leftwing reformists. They ought to be careful about what they wish for.

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Apparently the Left Unity party at it policy conference in Manchester this weekend again put off testing its real level of support by contesting elections. At least this is how I interpret this passage from an article by Salman Shaheen, its Principal Speaker:

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Now that Left Unity has agreed a core set of policies, the hard work of campaigning can begin. The party has had an encouraging start for an organisation that emerged from nowhere to be built from the bottom-up by independent activists fed up with the political status quo. But for Left Unity to succeed, it will now have to turn outwards. It will need to campaign on the streets, in the workplaces and in the unions. It will have to support – not hijack – local campaigns across the country to save hospitals and libraries, to shut down fracking sites, to oppose the bedroom tax and to stop the racist EDL. Only when Left Unity has done all of these things, when it has actively tried to make a difference to the lives of poor, vulnerable and oppressed people, will it have the right to ask for their vote.Ukip may be making the headlines as we approach the European elections next month, threatening to steal thousands of votes from the Conservatives and forcing them to watch their right flank. But Labour will have to watch its left flank in the months and years to come. Because Left Unity is on the move.

Labour won't be worried as long as they don't contest elections. And if they don't contest elections all they'll be is a loose coalition of existing single issue campaigns and various entryist Trot groups, not much different from the trade union and left Labour supported "People's Assemblies". Or maybe they think they can do all these things in time for the general election in May 2015. We'll see.This interview with Salman Shaheen on BBC is also very revealing with Andrew Neil raising all the relevant points:http://leftunity.org/video-salman-shaheen-on-bbc-daily-politics/

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