ALB
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I think his criticism of Marx was that Marx saw capitalism being replaced by a working class forced to do so by impersonal economic and historical forces rather than by their own free will and choice, i.e that Marx was some sort of economic determinist. He liked Lenin (and Mao) because they emphasised rather "revolutionary will", i.e were by contrast voluntarists (my guess is that he's an ex-Maoist). This doesn't mean that he liked what they achieved. Here's how he concluded his chapter entitled "From Marx to Lenin":
Quote:However great Lenin's achievement, it consolidated the dehumanized view of workers fundamental to the Marxist paradigm, and gave further impetus to the tradition, already well-established in Marxisn, of seeing middle-class intellectuals as the source and guiding force of revolutionary consciousness. It has led to revolutions which are technocratic and dehumanized, and has resulted finally in the widespread discrediting of the idea of revolution itself — until the Marxist paradigm of history is finally overthrown.This is the sort of criticism of Marx put out by the old Solidarity Group of ex-Trotskyists in the 1960s and 70s when they published translations of articles by "Paul Cardan" (Castoriadis) e.g. History and Revolution: A Revolutionary Critique of Historical Materialism. But this probably says more about how they were taught to interpret Marx when they were members of their previous political group.I do agree, though, that having a different interpretation of Marx is not entirely beyond the pale as long as you agree on what socialism is and how to get there (but I imagine a branch or the membership applications committee would have a dilemma if an applicant did take up Stratman's position).Also, Stratman argued against using the word "socialism" or "communism" to describe the sort of post-capitalist society aimed at, using instead "revolutionary democracy". Once again, not beyond the pale or the end of the world, as we too have discussed this. Stan Parker pointed out in his review that the words "revolutionary" and "democracy" have been just as much dragged through the mud as "socialism" or "communism".But I think there were (and maybe still are) other, more fundamental differences as over whether a revolutionary party should advocate reforms within capitalism as well as revolution or should itself get involved in campaigns for reforms.Still, it's good to see that "thin red line" of those advocating genuine socialism (whatever they call it) has got wider than it has been for years.
We did make them available for members and sympathisers to buy and no doubt sold a few but we didn't endorse it as "Party literature". That's how I got my copy.
You're right. There is some good stuff in the first document on "Thinking About Revolution" and we should try and make contact with them again.I say again because some of us met David Stratman when he was in England in 1996 (I think) to promote his book We Can Strange the World. The Real Meaning of Everyday Life. Steve Coleman was so impressed by him that he agreed that the Party should take copies of his book. Stan Parker and me who had actually read the book knew that the Party would not be able to endorse it (because it was critical of Marx arguing that Marx did lead to Lenin and that there "the Soviet Union and other Communist societies represent not a betrayal of Marxism but its fulfillment"). It was a bit embarrassing as the (free) books arrived but we couldn't distribute them (they may still be in a box somewhere in Head Office).Stan wrote a review of the book that appeared in the September 1996 Socialist Standard. One of the points he made was:
Quote:Stratman talks about a "revolutionary party", yet he is very vague about what a revolutionary democratic world will actually be like, other than that it won't be capitalism. Will it be a world in which the means of wealth production and distribution will be commonly owned and democratically controlled? Will it be a world in which there are no nation states, no armies and police forces, no buying and selling, no money?It looks as if in the meantime Stratman has come round to answering "yes". See the "Summary of Proposals for a New Society" on page 2 of the document :
Quote:We propose a democratic revolution to sweep away the elite power and class domination that so distort our present world. We propose a new society in which:• All who contribute to society, or who are not obligated to do so because they are children, elderly or otherwise unable to work, have free and equal access to its goods and services, which are shared according to need, not bought and sold. Money is not used. There are no rich and no poor people.• All the things that people use to produce goods, such as factories and mines and large tracts of land, belong to all the people. These things are like the air we breathe and the sunshine that warms us—a common treasure for all of society, not the property of a few.Interesting extract from an article in today's Times headed "Don't expect robots to do it all for you — or steal your jobs":
Quote:The demonstration [of some robots at work] was part of a debate at the Work Foundation about robots and enhanced humans, asking the question will they steal our jobs? The answer, it seems, is "not quite". Geoff Mulgan, the chief executive of Nesta, a charity set up to promote innovation, points out that predictions about armies of robots in the workplace have yet to come to pass. Rather, globalisation has left companies chasing cheap labour overseas instead of replacing human beings with automatons. "The public," he says, "is still astounded to discover how little robots do and how feeble they still are."It seems the public have been misled by talk of a coming "exponential" growth of robotisation. Meanwhile capitalism itself impedes robotisation because firms won't introduce it if getting the work done by humans is cheaper.
simondav wrote:The system has to collapse eventually anyway, because the real economy cannot service the increased interest and debt repayment.This is a bit of a wild claim which I don't think is endorsed by Positive Money, is it? It certainly isn't by your star witnesses Sir Mervyn King, Paul Tucker and the others.But don't worry, the system is not going to collapse because not all interest can be repaid. Interest comes and can be paid from past or future production. It's only a subdivision of profit, and profit comes out the surplus value workers produce when they work in the real economy.
It looks as if Cameron may not be able to get his plan to send arms to fuel the Syrian Civil War through Parliament, with Putin hammering home:
Quote:I believe you will not deny the fact that one should hardly back those who kill their enemies and eat their organs – all that is filmed. Do you want to support these people? Do you want to supply arms to these people?and Boris Johnson saying don't arm these maniacs. See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10124089/Boris-Johnson-Dont-arm-the-Syria-maniacs.htmlIf Labour, Liberal and enough Tory and other MPs vote No then it won't happen, though as this would only be a consultative vote it could if Cameron decided to go ahead anyway. But he seems a weaker, and less opinionated man, than Blair and probably doesn't want to go down in history as a war-monger like him.Ironic (for some) if it turned out that a vote (or threatened vote) in parliament proved more effective in stopping an escalation of violence than a mass street demonstration.
This talk is good, concluding that UKIP are not "the BNP in blazers" but an external fraction of the Tory party. And it's audible, unlike the questions. Should we not consider when this is the case (as fairly frequently, unfortunately) we should publish the recording just of the talk but without the question period?
Who would have thought that events would gift us with so striking a confirmation of our analysis that cooperative enterprises are forced, by the economic laws of capitalism which they are powerless to overcome, to behave in the same way as avowedly capitalist enterprises?
jondwhite wrote:And presumably that addressing crowds as "men and women" wasn't controversial because it was considered too cisnormative. Ah well, maybe one day this will be the party objection.Cisnormative? Never heard of it till now. What is it? What do you have to do to be one? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Or should it be spelt "sisnormative"?
OK, I'll email him. At the time he was representing the "Karl Menger Society" named after the founder of the so-called Austrian School of Economics whose more well-known theorist was the ineffable Ludwig von Mises and his "economic calculation argument", but this doesn't seem to exist any more. Now he's some sort of Tory Party official.
The comparison used here shows that they do see themselves as trying to do on the political field what unions try to do on the economic field — protect workers' living standards under and within the capitalist system. Fair enough to a certain extent, cxertainly as far as trade union action is concerned, but this is not some indirect route to socialism. In fact, it's not a route to socialism at all but like going round and round the Circle Line in London.Those attending the Assembly are supposed to have a wider understanding and a wider aim than merely stopping things getting worse than capitalism. Maybe they have, but in proposing "People's Budgets" and the like are assuming that capitalism can be reformed so as to benefit wage and salary workers and their dependents. The point we are making is that it can't and therefore we should be concentrating on campaigning to replace capitalism by socialism as a system of common ownership, democratic control, production for use not profit, and distribution on the principle of "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs".We seem to be the only people making this point.
Actually, "Comrades and fellow workers" used to be the standard way that Party speakers opened their indoor talks (or lectures as they were in those days). "Fellow Workers" was how you opened an outdoor meeting. It was also how our election manifestos began. When in the 1950s some outdoor speakers began addressing outdoor audiences as "Men and Women" a big theoretical controversy broke out …
Robert Fisk says it all:http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e85_1371257368Pity we can't use it as an editorial in next month's Socialist Standard
Latest silly story on this theme:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/06/14/dna-tests-estimate-that-prince-william-is-0-3-to-0-8-percent-indian/
simondav wrote:as does my father Bill Davies on his web site http://www.legalforgery.comThis site illustrates the confusion that arises if you define bank loans as money and then assume that it is the same as money issued by a central bank. You end up proposing that "bank money" should be replaced by "government money"; which would mean, on the one hand, restricting the supply of funds to industry and, on the other, causing raging inflation. If implemented it would make things werse not better. Which is why it never will be. Those in charge of running capitalism may not understand completely how capitalism works, but they are not that stupid.
