ALB
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Mind you, at a later stage of development I don't think we would have any objection to the unions giving money to the socialist movement. We just don't want them giving money to pro-capitalist parties.
Normally this should be deleted as spam but, moderator, please keep it here as an example of the deviousness of these pay-day loan outfits. Mind you, the figures quoted do explain why more and more people feel they need to borrow money from these loan sharks.
Incedible! Ed Miliband is proposing to do something we've been demanding for over 100 years — stop the automatic contracting-in of trade union members to pay a political levy to the Labour Party.When in the early 20th century some unions started giving money from their funds to the Labour Party this was challenged by a member of the Liberal Party called Osborne. He won and we've refused to support the resulting campaign to reverse the "Osborne Judgement":http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1910/no-75-november-1910/osborne-judgment-why-socialists-do-not-demand-its-The then Liberal government, to retain the parliamentary votes of Labour MPs, did reverse it and unions wsre authorised to set up a political fund, separate from their other funds, from which money could be paid to the Labour Party. Those who objected to contributing to this fund could opt out of paying; otherwise you paid it.To punish the trade unions after the 1926 General Strike the Tory government reversed this in 1927, requiring those who wanted to contribute to the fund to contract in. This lasted till the 1945 Labour government restored the original position, which survives to this day and which Miliband is now proposing should revert to what was introduced in 1927.This is something we can only welcome as we've always criticised workers being in effect tricked into contributing money to the anti-working class Labour Party. Naturally, our members opt out of paying it. If Miliband's proposals go through then we will no longer need to do this.
Surely there are two different questions here: (1) can we now "jump into" socialism straightaway? and (2) has this anything to do with "material conditions? I suggest that the answer to both is "yes". In 1848 the answer to (2) would have been "no" but that's just an academic debate now. Today, socialism could be established immediately — because the material conditions exist. And, as Alex says, the sooner the better.
I don't think that the wording on the cover was "cheap and childish". Yes, it was a pun but this seems to be widely practised these days by sub-editors. Here's a few examples from the Business section of the Times over the last week:FINANCE DEALS HELP FUEL NEW-CAR SALESTERRA FIRMA PULLS FLOAT PLANS AMID SHAKY GERMAN MARKETSCUSSONS TUCKS INTO FOOD MANUFACTURERSOIL ISN'T OVER A BARREL THIS TIMEMy doubt when I first saw the cover was a possible ambiguity over who was stuffing democracy in Turkey: the government or (as the government claims) the demonstrators? Obviously a regular reader would know that the government was meant, but what about others?
I'm not sure that SPEW can be accused of "underconsumptionism"(that crises are caused by a relative decline in working-class consumption) just because they reject a crude version of the falling-rate-of-profit theory of capitalist economic crises. SPEW leader, Peter Taaffe, states their position in this reply to a letter:http://www.socialismtoday.org/157/profits.htmlThere is an argument going on about whether or not profit's share of new production has gone up (and therefore that labour's share has gone down). Kliman's argument is that labour's share has not gone down, so a reduced working class consumption cannot be an explanation for the crisis. As far as I can see Taaffe doesn't enter into this argument. His point is that the mass of profits has gone up (which could of course happen without labour's share going down). He also makes a similar point to us when he says that they are counter-tendencies to the fall in the rate of profit so that this would only manifest itself over a long period.SPEW's view of how to get out of a crisis is based on this view that the money is there but that the capitalists just won't spend it productively. So, it must be taken from them by the government and invested (the same as Keynes said):
Quote:Exact a 50% levy on the hoarded billions of the super-rich to invest in public services such as health, care and education and in manufacturing of socially useful products and services.I can't believe that the SPEW leaders really believe this would work, but it's an attractive bait with which to catch the trade union leaders and activists they are targetting (and who are tempted by underconsumption theories of crisis). After all, they are Leninists who believe that the mass of workers can only understand populist slogans (only the vanguard can understand and discuss economic theory).
Amusing series of tweets here:https://twitter.com/langrabbie/status/352175689698521089Something else to amuse One Eye Grey.
Here's Farage's reply to the CBI (a letter it today's Times) in which he confirms that UKIP wants Britain to have the same relationship to the EU as Norway:
Quote:Sir,John Cridland (Opinion, July 4) is trying to frighten people with dark warnings for when Britain finally leaves the EU.Claims that Norwegian authorities sit around the fax machine impotent, waiting for their latest instruction from Brussels, are risible: 90 per cent of Single Market rules are covered by UN and other international bodies. Norway acts in its own interest on those bodies, which is more than can be said for the UK where our place is taken by the EU. In reality Norway has more influence on EU rules, from outside, than we do from within. It has access to the market but sets its own rules.NIGEL FARAGE, MEP. Leader of UKIPThe leaders of British capitalist business must regard him as an ignorant fool. The problem for them is that he has some popular support and is at present able to wag the Tory dog.
As for the by-election in January Lambeth Council are planning to put a photo of the candidates in Tulse Hill ward on their website and also a link to the candidates' websites. This, in a bid to increase interest and turnout.We have managed to get them to accept not a photo of the candidate ("the face") but of Head Office (the nearest we can get to "the case"). As to website, we have revamped and un-named "Vaux Populi" and inserted a prominent link to our main website. Here's the link (the URL hasn't changed):http://spgb.blogspot.co.uk/Even though they say it's a one-off which they won't be able to repeat at next May's full council elections it's a pity other Councils are not as enterprising as Lambeth.
Yes, it is. It brings out all the issues, as in this extract;
Quote:To put it in economese, is the persistently high level of unemployment a result of cyclical factors (the traditional ups and downs of economic growth) or structural factors (new game-changing technologies, dramatic shifts in the global economy)? (…)From one decades-long leading student of the American economy came a succinct one-liner in favor of cyclicality: "This isn't a jobless economic recovery as everyone insists on calling it; it's simply just not yet a recovery."In other words, as painful as the waiting certainly is, the economy will heal — and once again, create jobs — in time."Brace yourselves," countered Eric Brynjolfsson, from MIT's Sloan School, co-author of "Race Against the Machine," a much-talked-about recent book which argues that the introduction of new transformative technologies has only just begun, and that we're dangerously unable to perceive what's actually going to happen. He added:"Many of our intuitions about what's coming next are going to fail us. All the disruptions we've been talking about today about the past 10 years, the past 20 years — as important as they've been and as hard-hitting as they've been for so many people — are just a small glimmer of the much bigger disruptions that we think are in store for us in the next 10 and 20 years, at least the ones that are related to technology."Princeton University economist Alan Blinder, who served in the 1990s as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, took a more measured view. He believes that both cyclical problems and disruptive technological change are at play, along with the changing face of the global economy:"In terms of the number of jobs, it looks like an awful lot of the problem is cyclical. That's the first problem."The second problem is the lagging average wage. Until a few decades ago, India, China, and the former Soviet Union were isolated and not really participating in the world economy. But now they have roughly doubled the world's labor force, in a couple of decades."What did they bring to the table? Capital? No. They had almost none. But they had a lot of labor. So, if you double the amount of world labor and you don't change the amount of world capital much, then loosely speaking, the returns to labor are going to go down while the returns to capital go up. And this is about to end. And it's not mainly about technology."But then there is the third problem: what's behind the trend toward greater wage inequality? The non-economist in me wants to think about institutions and social norms. Some of the increase in inequality has to stem from changing attitudes in our society. I just don't believe that it's only technology."Listen to John Humphrys get his come-uppance when he tried to argue down an eloquent opponent of the Muslim Brotherhood on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 earlier this morning:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-23176860
Here's another (rather long) one here:http://mustwesuccumb.wordpress.com/The first part about "anti-austerity" not being an alternative or even a programme is ok, but the later bit about needing leaders is not.
I thought this was going to be about Sigmund Freud's book Civilisation and Its Discontents in which he advances the human nature argument against socialism in no uncertain terms, but it turns out to be about his great grandson Lord Freud who is the Tory minister for "welfare".More on this hypocrite here:http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bedroom-tax-tory-lord-freud-1545677Mind you, it runs in the family as his great grandfather was a fraud whose theories are now generally debunked and discredited.
