ALB
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Nobody is being snubbed or disingenuous. We are a democratic organisation and make decisions in an ordered and democratic way.The election committee made a recommendation to the EC (to drop the project), which the EC rejected. Two members came forward offering to take over from the stage that had been reached, i.e. where there was an almost finished script that had been worked on by a number of members on a dedicated mailing list (members of the audiovisual and election committees plus some members of South West Regional Branch). So the project is continuing. As I said, the script has been finalised and other work is continuing.It was always the intention that, after the election, the video should be adapted to be used as a general Party video. We are urgently in need of these. There exists a second script which was not retained but which could be used to make a general video. Somebody is needed to work on that.
Let's not get wires crossed or duplicate work. Two or three comrades are already working on the election video (and, contrary to what has been suggested, they do have experience of film-making and sound recording and access to animation). The script has been finalised and work has started on the story board.The focus of the broadcast was decided at the August EC Meeting, on a recommendation from the election and audio-visual committees:
Quote:That any broadcast should focus on two topics:– How life in a socialist society would benefit (providing specific examples) the individual worker.– Socialism is a worldwide social system.The EC will get a progress report tomorrow.
It seems that he really is going to go ahead with this:http://ianbone.wordpress.com/2013/12/29/thinking-of-bing-a-class-war-candidate-want-to-meet-the-rest/
I still say it's a good thing that "socialism" is no longer a dirty word even if it is not being used properly. Given our approach and the language we use it can only be to our benefit if words like "socialism", "capitalism" and "revolution" are coming back into political circulation after they were mockingly dismissed by capitalist ideologues following the collapse of the Russian state capitalist empire twenty or so years ago.
Mind you, perhaps there is a reference to some of us after all:
Quote:a membership consisting of sartorially challenged older malesWhy should we complain about being left out of Trotwatch list? I'd be more concerned if we were included in it.
I don't know why we are considering machine translation for things in Welsh when we've already got material in Welsh and have native Welsh-speakers in the Party. There's this on the WSM website:http://www.worldsocialism.org/noneng/wal1.phpIt was originally published in the July 1969 Socialist Standard as a bi-lingual editorial. In English the title was "Socialism: One World". This was to mark Prince Charles's invesitature as Prince of Wales. On the front page he was portrayed as a puppet wearing a number of badges which said "LoveThy Betters", "Divide & Rule" and "Have you had a leek today?"I'm sure the Object will have been translated into Welsh, probably by the late Comrade Vic Brain who wasn't just a native Welsh-speaker but also some sord of bard who wrote poetry for the Eisteddfod.I think YMS's machine translation of our name gets the word order wrong (as machines do). We are PLAID SOSIALAIDD PRYDAIN FAWR (Pity we can't drop the "fawr"). Or more accurately: Y BLAID SOSIALAIDD PRYDAIN FAWR. Here's the site of the Welsh Communist Party. Note that their name is: Plaid Gomiwnyddol Cymru.And here's an example of one of their Party Election Broadcasts:http://www.welshcommunists.org/index.php?page=cybroadcastNot that I think we should attempt something like this.The Labour Party is: Plaid Lafur. Scargill's SLP is Plaid Lafur Sosialaidd.
Jonathan Chambers wrote:'Diminishing returns', I think, sums it up perfectly.Falling profits = Dimishing returns, ha ha. But one point is that Ricardo was proved wrong about diminishing (physical) returns from agriculture. I'm sure he'd be surprised, if pleased, to find capitalism still going some 200 years after his death. Marx would too no doubt but not because he expected capitalism's economic mechanism to run down, but because he expected the working class would have acted to end it by now.
I see that the main speaker for the proposition is Martin Jacques, formerly of the old "Communist" Party. He can't be returning to his roots can he? I thought he'f moved a long way since those days. Didn't he end up as an adviser to Blair or something?
Actually, despite the polemical tone, I think Michael Yates has a point: the so-called law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall is not that central to Marx's analysis of capitaism. But he is wrong to state that it was Marx who "discovered" it.That capitalism would eventually reach a stagnant state due to the rate of profit falling too low was a common assumption of economists of his time and before. Both Adam Smith and David Ricardo held this view. Ricardo attributed it to an external factor (diminishing returns from agriculture). Marx was trying to offer an explanation internal to capitalism, i.e. the rise in the proportion of capital invested in machinery and plant compared with that investing in employing labour-power.If Yates's opponent was arguing what he says they do then they are wrong. For instance:
Quote:Put simply, my accuser is certain Marx demonstrated that as capitalism develops and businesses succeed in expanding their production, they discover, against their will, a falling rate of profit on their invested capital. The resulting decline in profitability is the cause of economic crises, as businesses refuse to make investments at the lower rate, resulting in a reduction in their workforces, reduced consumer spending, and so forth. The “tendency of the rate of profit to fall,” is, according to its adherents, the fundamental “law” of capitalism, the central star around which everything else revolves.I don't know if this is what his "accuser" does actually argue (because he does identify who they are), but I don't think this is a realistic theory as to why capitalist crises occur. Of course, since capitalism is a system driven by the search for profits, what happens to the rate of profit is important, but the question is: does the rate of profit fall because of the smaller and smaller proportion of capital invested in employing workers? Even if it did, this would be a (very) long-term trend which could not explain shorter fluctations such as govern the capitalist boom/slump cycle.Yates makes a good point here:
Quote:Will the inevitable economic crises bring forth rebellion and revolution? History doesn’t give us much reason to be optimistic. Will the crises deepen, each one worse than its predecessor, ultimately making life so unbearable that the exploited masses rise up in fury, destroy capitalism, and set about building a socialist world? Again, reality provides little comfort to those who think that this has been the case or will be someday.This has been a subject of discussion in the party, but I think we've learnt the lesson that an economic crisis is not necessarily the best condition for the spread of socialist understanding. I remember a discussion some years at Conference as to whether economic crises get worse and worse or not. After the tenors had presented the case for and against a delegate got up and said that it didn't make any difference either way as far as the case for socialism is concerned. Perhaps that answers Alan's question.Yates mentions another possible scenario that might favour the growth of socialist understanding:
Quote:Today, it seems more sensible to think that the expansion of capitalism into every part of the globe and every aspect of our lives will sooner rather than later generate a catastrophic environmental meltdown. This is the crisis that is most likely to happen, profit rates notwithstanding. Whether it will be the catalyst for revolution is anyone’s guess.Who knows indeed? But this would be a return to the sort of explanation offered by Ricardo: something outside capitalism's operation as an economic system, in fact, back to "diminishing returns" from agriculture (nature) again.Incidentally, I wonder whether Yates's accuser isn't Andrew Kliman who is a vigorous critic of the politics of Monthly Review?
Yes, that's right. There is no obligation on any party anywhere to field a complete list. So in the SE Region we could present a "list" of any number from 1 to 10. In fact "Independent" candidates count as a one-person list.One reason for presenting a full list would be to show we are a serious political party. Another is that, if we can get candidates from different parts of the region, we stand a chance of getting some publicity in the local media where a candidate lives, eg.one from the Isle of Wight might get us publicity in the local media there. Actually, we do have a candidate from the Isle of Wight, but we could do with one from the Brighton area.By the way, one of the tasks of the Media Committee next year will be to compile a list of the local daily and weekly newspapers and local radio stations in the region.The electoral system used is a complicated one more usual in the rest of Europe, but you don't find Farage and UKIP condemning it asan un-British European import as without it they probably wouldn't get any MEPs elected.
Actually, it looks as if the qualification for getting a Party Election Broadcast in the Euroelections in Wales will be to present a complete list (last time only a nearly complete list was required). As the Wales Region elects 4 MEPs this means that we would have to find the full 4. No problem of course.Speaking of candidates, anybody from an EU country can stand, so we could have a member on our SE list who lived in Germany or France or Italy, etc. That might have some value in showing that we are not just interested in the UK (even though there'd be a lot of bureaucracy involved). Pity we haven't any members in Rumania or Bulgaria to ram home this point ! After all, Farage is one of the MEPs for the SE region. We'd get a lot of publicity if our list contained a socialist from one of these countries.
Brian wrote:According to my welsh dictionary the translation for World Socialist Movement is Byd Sosialdaidd Symudiad.Although I only learnt Welsh to primary school level (so I am only able to talk about cows, horses or pigs in a field but not about politics) this doesn't seem quite right. Surely we don't have to rely on consulting a dictionary. Isn't there a native Welsh-speaker in Abertawe branch?
The election video is primarily concerned with the Wales Region if we decide to contest that too (but that depends on the video being done) because it's only there that it would be broadcast on TV. It could also of course be publicised in the South East Region too, eg on our manifesto.Our name in Welsh, by the way, is Y Plaid Sosialaidd Prydain Fawr.
admice wrote:Just listened to 6, 7, 8 and 12 of this. The trouble is although he defines "money as a claim on labor" and "debt as a claim of future human labor" he then ignores the labour (production) aspect and sees the growth of the economy as being driven by the need to pay interest on debt rather than as by the imperative to accumulate more and more capital out of profit created by labour. This makes him give a purely monetary and financial explanation of how capitalism works, including crises.But it's production for profit not production for interest that drives capitalism and leads to uncontrollable "growth". Interest is only a subdivision of profit and so can only come out of this (as the definition "debt is a claim on future labor" implies) and does as profits are generally greater than legally-payable interest (if not, of course, the interest cannot be paid and isn't).He also says, at the beginning of 6, that money is inevitable, which of course we don't accept.
