ALB
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There's an article in today's Times by Dieter Helm, Professor of Energy Policy at Oxford University, where he makes the following claim:
Quote:There is no shortage of oil, gas or coal. We are not running out of any of them. There is enough to fry the planet many times over.A summary of the article can be found here:http://www.thegwpf.org/dieter-helm-lost-gamble-forcing-energy-bills/The whole article shows why it is impossible to pursue a rational energy policy under capitalism as the relative prices of the various source of energy are always changing, with governments forced to go for the cheapest for the capitalist industries within their borders to remain "competitive".So much for peak oil. It looks as if it is the scare over this that has peaked. But, as long as energy derived from burning fossil fuels is cheaper than from using renewable sources, this is what will happen. So the danger is not the collapse of capitalism through oil running out but of more CO2 being emitted affecting global warming.
The two are not incompatible, admice. The main purpose of this forum and the Yahoo WSM Forum is to "promote our platform" (after all, we pay for them and our members devote their time to maintaining and moderating them) but we do this by encouraging discussion, including criticism, of what we stand for. Since you've been here you'll have noticed "dissenting opinions" from reformists (look at the current discussion on the Luxemburg thread), currency cranks and even out-an-out racists as well from others who don't agree with our approach on how to get to socialism. We welcome this because through discussion is one of the ways in which people become socialists. It also tests the validity of our views.
Interesting interview here on how and why Mandela and the post-apartheid ANC government had to compromise with world capitalism (rather than go for national state capitalism):http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mA5N5hca_WY
I know they are a strange bed-fellow but UKIP also accepts that:
Quote:Every attempt to tax wages sets in motion a “shifting” process whereby the tax finishes up as a corporate impost anywaySee their proposed tax policy here (scroll down to point 1.3):http://www.ukip.org/issues-2/policy-pages/tax
What was interesting about that 1928 reply was that it said that a Socialist councillor, if so instructed by those socialists who elected them, could vote to defy the law, contrary to the embarrassing episode in one of the local by-elections we contested this year where a party member questioned another candidate's right to stand for saying he would be prepared to defy the law.Presumably the editorial committee had in mind incidents like Poplar rates rebellion of 1921:http://www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk/poplar-rates-rebellion-1921
That blast from the past is very good. We can use it next time we face opposition from TUSC candidates, probably in next year's London borough elections.
Here's the review from the Socialist Standard in 1939 of the first English translation of her pamphlet:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1930s/1939/no-415-march-1939/reform-or-revolution-rosa-luxemburgThe quotes given here bring out that she did distinguish between "legislative reform" (the term used repeatedly in chapter VIII as the alternative offered to "revolution") and trade unionism.Incidentally, in the original German she did not use the word "reformism", despite the translator (an SPGB sympathiser in the US) giving the title of chapter V as "The Consequences of Social Reformism and General Nature of Revisionism". The original does not contain the words in italics. Presumably the word was not in use at the time in its current sense, another reason why she cannot be said to have described trade union activity as reformist.
They better hope that somebody doesn't start a "No Platform for Radical Feminists" campaign. That's where this sort of hooligan politics leads, as the SWP is now finding to its cost. Direct action to prevent free speech is as bad state legislation to do this.Here's how our members have behaved in such circumstances:
Quote:“Students at the London School of Economics last night voted strongly to apologize to Professor H. J. Eysenck for the incident on Tuesday during which he was punched and kicked as he started to address the school’s Social Science Society. But although voting was about five to one at a mass meeting attended by about 600 of the school’s students, a later motion attacked Professor Eysenck’s views on race, heredity and intelligence and said that those responsible for the attack should be actively defended against any disciplinary action . . . Moving the successful motion to apologize to Professor Eysenck, Mr D. Zucconi, who said he was a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain and the World Socialist Society, said: ‘An issue like this in general cuts across political differences. The events on Tuesday were a disgrace and discredit to socialism and a blow for fascism’. Responsibility for the attack on Professor Eysenck has been attributed to the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist).” (Times, 11 and 17 May 1973).The Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) again!
If I remember rightly, Immanuel Wallerstein in his book Historical Capitalism argues that among the first capitalists were sections of the old feudal ruling class who, seeing the world capitalist system develop from the middle of 16th century, decided to reconvert into capitalists and invest their wealth in production for sale on a market with a view to profit. A bit like sections of the nomenklatura in the old USSR converting themselves into capitalists when the state capitalism there collapsed.
What you seem to be saying in effect, pgb, is that Lenin was essentially right when he said that the working class is only capable of developing a trade union consciousness. Agreed that that is all it has done so far but socialists must hold that they are capable of more. Otherwise we'd have to resign ourselves to trade unionism or Labourite type politics (or go fishing or live our life without bothering about politics).
alanjjohnstone wrote:One thing we have to be clear upon and what Luxemburg explicitly explains – the SPD will only be the party of opposition , regardless of the reformist position and won't enter parliament/council in coalition to take office or minority party to run capitalism' and end up in the same predicament as the Greens in Brighton. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/15/greens-blown-it-in-brightonThis from another thread can also usefully appear here too. The Greens are running Brighton as a minority administration. Next year they will be forced to make cuts as a result of central government funding being reduced and, having taken responsibility for running capitalist administration at local level, have to decide what to do. Apparently there are some Green councillors would want to pursue the same policy as proposed by TUSC. The Guardian journalist met one of them
Quote:Ben Duncan is one of the alleged watermelons, and the councillor who accused Kitcat of betrayal in his blogpost.(….) Now, he is really on the warpath. There is mileage, he reckons, in the idea of the Greens following the lead of Trotskyite Labour councillors in 1980s Liverpool, refusing to set a cuts-based budget, and thereby putting Brighton in the vanguard of UK-wide anti-austerity resistance.Appropriately enough, we meet in a city-centre cafe called the Red Roaster. "I think we need to do something that makes people think: 'Hang on – if you vote for the Greens you get something different,'" he tells me. "On behalf of people around the country, we need to make it Brighton and Hove versus this government, about austerity. We should either refuse to set a budget or try and set a budget that under the current legislation would be unlawful, and say to the government, 'Well, you come in and do it – you see how local people benefit from you sending a hit squad in to take over from elected politicians who won't deliver your austerity measures.'"Makes you wonder if some Trotskyists have decided to "enter" the Green Party. The Green Leader of the Council is opposed to this:
Quote:Kitcat isn't impressed. "It's absurd, frankly," he says. "Gestures like that will actually change nothing for residents, because the government will impose a budget on the council anyway."True.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Just to widen it a little, i think RL reflects a social democratic view as also espoused by Debs in AmericaOK, let's widen it, to those in the "impossibilist" tradition in North America: the SLP and the SPC both of which, like us, were committed to standing in elections on a socialist ticket and so faced with the same question as us as to what a Socialist "MP" (or whatever) should do.In 1910 Victor Berger of the "Socialist Party of America" (Debs's party) was elected a member of the US House of Representatives for a district in Wisconsin. He was an open and out-and-out reformist. In 1911 De Leon, of the rival Socialist Labor Party (which was an "impossiblist" party) wrote a series of articles in the Daily People commenting on Berger's activities in Congress. These were later published as a pamphlet, the latest edition of which is called A Socialist in Congress: His Conduct and Responsibilities. The SLP to the 1963 edition says:
Quote:This pamphlet answers the question: How would a Socialist act if he were elected to Congress or to other high office? The Marxian answer is given by Daniel De Leon, this country's master Socialist, in an analysis of how a false Socialist acted. A basic part of the answer is that a real Socialist would not use his office to advocate reforms of capitalism. He would use it as a rostrum from which to attract the attention of the workers of the land, and from which he would show that capitalism cannot be reformed so that it will operate on behalf of the workers. He would demonstrate the imperative necessity for the elimination of capitalism, and the need for a Socialist reconstruction of society.Good stuff. Basically De Leon criticised Berger for not using his position to propagate Socialist ideas. He only praises him once, for proposing a constitutional amendment that would make it easier to change the Constitution.Also in 1910 Charlie O'Brien, of the Socialist Party of Canada, was elected to the Alberta Legislature. His first speech was published as a pamphlet The Proletarian in Politics. The SPC added a note at the end:
Quote:NOTE.– The amendment to open the agreement between the government and the A. & G. W. Ry Co. was the only question upon which O’Brien voted in the House in connection with this affair. Just previous to the next division he said: “I am asked to record a vote of lack of confidence in the government. Why, of course, I have no confidence in this or any other government. I know that governments are for the purpose of pacifying slaves, and holding them in subjection while the masters take the largest possible amount of the surplus values. How could I have confidence in a government that would (just previous to dissolution) pass an eight-hour law for coal miners, and then in less than six months after re-election nullify a very important part of that law on a cheap pretext of a possible scarcity of coal? But then, if I do as I am asked, record a vote of lack of confidence in that government, I, by the same action, vote confidence in this opposition. And who are they? They are just as bad as the government, perhaps worse.” O’Brien concluded by saying: “I have no confidence in either of you, and it does not matter to me which of you win. It is a fight between political representatives of different corporations over surplus values that have been and are to be stolen from my class. When I voted on the last division I did so because I saw an opportunity to benefit a few of my class, the laborers in the construction camp. There is no opportunity to get anything for the workers on this vote, and I shall not vote. On every vote where there is no opportunity to get something for my class, I shall not vote. On every vote where there is no opportunity to get anything for my class, I shall leave the House and refrain from voting. The Attorney General has said that this is a family quarrel. Correct. Between you be it!” And O’Brien left the House.That's the stuff.Ken MacLeod in his SF novel The Stone Canal imagines a situation in which there are a couple of "World Socialist" MPs and who are faced with a vote of confidence in the existing government:
Quote:The next day the government lost a no-confidence motion (due to the abstention of only five MPs, the three Workers Power and two World Socialists) and fell, to be replaced by a more radical coalition drawing in support from the smaller parties.Abstaining can have consequences, but Charlie O'Brien was right that to take part in such a vote is to support one or other capitalist party or coalition.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Surely in the current immigrations debate if May introduced her intentions of retrictions we would be vociferous in opposition. Would we also not put forward our own counter proposal of open door borders?I'm sure we would denounce immigration controls, but not so sure not that we would counter-propose an "open door borders" policy under capitalism. (More likely that we would say that we want the world without borders that socialism would be). No state is going to adopt such a policy so this would fall into the category of "unrealisable" reforms. But would we actually advocate or propose it? Is it in fact our policy?Officially, it is our policy that a minority of Socialist MPs should not propose anything, only vote for, against, abstain or not take part in the vote, on proposals put forward by other MPs, i.e. that they should not themselves propose any reform measures (as that would be the thin end of the slippery slope to reformism).Of course, as you say, that's us today. What would actually happen in the future would be up to the socialist movement at the time. Maybe the future mass socialist movement will adopt instead what Luxemburg or Debs advocated. Hopefully no (especially not Debs's oxymoronic concept of so-called "socialist reforms"), but it's not up to us today.
