ALB
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That's a point, but Alan was talking about the early days of socialism and the energy structure that might well be inherited. Socialist society wouldn't be able to suddenly close down all nuclear or fossil fuel burning power stations that might exist at that time and conjure up a world-wide energy structure based entirely on renewable sources of energy. There'd have to be a gradual phasing out of the first in favour of the second.
alanjjohnstone wrote:You do a disservice to other comrades when you infer that Pathfinders article on fracking is party-policy.I don't think Paddy was laying down Party policy. He was merely arguing that we were not necessarily opposed to fracking, as some Greens, Nimbys and others are. In fact, if he had said that we opposed fracking and supported the "Stop It" campaigns that would have been trying to lay down Party policy, but it would have been the wrong policy because it is not the Party's policy get involved in such campaigns. I think he put the position most members would support when he writes in his reply:
Quote:Fracking is a mining technology, not an index of political crises. If it can be made safe, and if we need it, we may use it in socialism.Incidentally, since we started having regular columns in the Socialist Standard the writers have had a certain leeway to express their views. Readers might have noticed the differing emphases sometimes taken up by Pathfinders and the Material World column. In this month (and next month) if you read between the lines you can see that Stefan is essentially taking up an anti-car position. Many members will no doubt find this exaggerated (I know I do) but he's not laying down Party policy nor is he that explicit.But to return to the Party's policy or, better, the Party position, I think you too express it well when you write:
alanjjohnstone wrote:We enter a socialist society not with a blank page but with what exists now in capitalism. We have coal mines, we have nuclear power stations and we frack oil/gas. Those will be phased out, imho, as the renewables come on-stream replacing them and the waste of the capitalist economy diminishes.In other words, it is not inconceivable that fracking may (have to) exist in socialism. Or, as Paddy put, "if we need it, we may use it in socialism".
alanjjohnstone wrote:Until workers can decide without the evidence from science being distorted we must abide by the physicians "first do no harm" and exercise the precautionary principle. That is not sitting on the fence and being neutral but siding with the anti-fracking, anti-GM and anti-nuclear power in as much as we say Stop It!The "precautionary principle" is one of the sillier slogans to have emerged (rivalling "think global, act local" and "the personal is political"). One definition of it is:
Quote:the precept that an action should not be taken if the consequences are uncertain and potentially dangerous.If applied to everyday life, this would lead to complete inaction, not even having a bath or a shower in case you slipped and banged your head on the tiles causing death or brain damage. Nobody would drive a car or get on a plane. Nobody would cycle to work (in fact that is so dangerous that they probably shouldn't).It is the slogan of conservatives who want to justify the status quo. It's the argument that, on another thread, Alaric has been using against socialism.It also can also have a perverse effect. Say fracking was banned on the "precautionary principle". There would still be a demand for energy. Where would it come from? The only immediate, practicable source is nuclear energy. But the precautionary principlers want to ban this too. So we are back to coal, which of course they say should never have been allowed in the first place. They'd have probably opposed the use of fire when its use was first proposed.And the principle can be used to defend vested interests. GM food for humans is banned in Europe but not elsewhere. The ban, justified on the precautionary principle, allows competition from GM crops in the US and Brazil to be kept out, so protecting European farming interests.We're best not to get involved in the inter-capitalist interests that are often behind these arguments about which policy governments should pursue. We should certainly not be "siding with the anti-fracking, anti-GM and anti-nuclear power in as much as we say Stop it!" (not that we do or ever have). We should either be neutral on these issues or criticise these lobbies for wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater (or rather, in most cases, for not even wanting to throw out the bathwater). We should also of course criticise and expose the opposing lobbies that plead for capitalist entreprises to be allowed the freedom to do what they want in the pursuit of profit. But whatever we do we must never give the impression that we are anti-scientific advance and anti-new technology.
Stuart, there is another thread on this SWP business and it was discussed there:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/events-and-announcements/swp-pre-conference-bulletins-2012
This is part of a wider debate amongst Socialist Party members about modern technology.Some members argue against, for instance, GM crops and nuclear energy on principle. Others that these could be a great help in socialism towards producing the plenty of useful things we need to provide everyone on earth with a decent standard of living (even if, naturally, under capitalism their uses are distorted by the search for profits).
JH wrote:Water should not catch fire.True, but it does and, apparently, has been before fracking was heard of.
This looks like something for the new Campaigns Committee to be appointed on 2 March to follow up and see if we can book a stall. The anarchists ban us from their bookfair. Let's see if the "radicals" are better.
It's a nice idea but it's not going to get anywhere with Gove as he's already planning to kick Tom Paine and Robert Owen out of the curriculum:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/12/round-table-draft-national-curriculumHe's more likely to re-introduce Empire Day.
Here's another reason why members will have voted to stop contesting parliamentary by-elections:http://www.englishelections.org.uk/england/wby/eastleigh.php14 candidates, 3 of them obvious loonies. We wouldn't get any favourable publicity in a case like this and would risk the ignomy of getting less than one of these loonies, a fate we suffered in the Littleborough & Saddleworth by-election in 1996 (known amongst members as the Little and Sad by-election) when we got beaten by Mr Blobby (though we didn't finish last, but 8th out of 10). TUSC is taking an enormous risk in standing.In any event, any pretence of all candidates getting equal time has been dropped for ages. The TV and radio stations get away with referring viewers and listeners to a website while even the Electoral Commission advises that hustings can be organised without all the candidates.
Here's his manifesto. He's only 20. Maltby is a coalmining town about to suffer the same fate Seaham when the pit there closes at the end of this year:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-20768314Maybe the manifesto we put out in Seaham for the Durham County Council elections in 2005 could serve as a good starting point for any discussion:
Quote:Durham County Council election, Thursday 5 May 2005 To the voters of Deneside Ward from THE SOCIALIST PARTY Candidate Steve Colborn What matters – profits or people? In Deneside and Seaham as a whole, things have been made very much worse over the past 20 or so years with the closure of three collieries. Collieries that have been closed not because no-one wants coal but because we are told it cannot be produced profitably. No profit – no production! That's the basic economic law of capitalism.For over a century millions of pounds worth of coal has been extracted from these mines. The cost has been high. Hundreds killed and thousands injured as a direct result of their employment with thousands more still suffering today as a result of industrial disease. And what has been our reward?Insecurity for ourselves and an insecure future for our children and grandchildren. A lack of amenities that all ought to enjoy after a hundred years of sacrifice. They even tell us that, with the closure of the mines, there can be no more swimming pool. Even though a majority of us are in favour of building a new one, the council has decided no.Why? Is it because the councillors and council officials are uncaring people? We are sure most of them genuinely want to help others. So why are they against improving local amenities? They say they haven't got the money. True, but why haven't they got the money? Because the government won't give it to them. But why won't the government give it to them? Because it hasn't got the money either, and can't get it because its job is to run the profit system and under the profit system businesses must not be taxed too much or the economy will slow down. It's 'no profit – no production' again.This is why we make no apology for raising the issue of the sort of society we live under in this, a local election. It is impossible to separate the everyday issues of a local council election from the social system we live under. Of course everyone needs homes, sanitation, roads, schools and amenities, all the time. But each of these is a problem far beyond what a change of local councillors can bring about. What is required is a complete change in our way of living.If we are going to improve things we are going to have to act for ourselves. We're going to have to organise democratically to bring about a society geared to meeting human needs, not profits. Production to satisfy human needs. That's the way out. But this is only going to be possible, if we control production and the only basis on which this can be done is common ownership and democratic co-operation. In a word, socialism where human care is a priority for all – and without a price tag. Then, if we want a swimming pool we can simply build one.THE SOCIALIST PARTY cannot bring this about for you, and we're not promising to. As ordinary workers ourselves all we promise is to play our part in bringing about a sane, rational, democratic society where we collectively make the decisions that affect us without needing to worry about how to pay for what we want, since meeting our needs will be the one and only priority.It seems that Lincoln was wrong. According to this, in 1840 only 8% of "blacks" in the South were not slaves. But (I'm still living and learning) a few of these were themselves slaveholders.
As the only Party candidate to have been in the same position of being one of only two candidates (in the event you versus Labour), you would be well placed to debate with this TUSC candidate. I'm not sure though that calling him a "piece of filth" to this face would prove very fruitful ! After all, he might prove amenable to the socialist argument despite his current views.
Mention of "dandelion" prompted me to check what Daniel De Leon and the De Leonists said and say about Lincoln. Not surprisingly in view of their "Americanism", it is very favourable as in chapter 2 of the SLP pamphlet Reviling of the Great by Arnold Petersen.They also reproduce an interesting quote from Lincoln in 1861 about labour and capital here:
Quote:It is not needed, not fitting here, that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions; but there is one point, with its connexions, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention.It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above labor, in the structure of government.It is assumed that labor is available only in connexion with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it, induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them, and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers, or what we call slaves. And further it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer, is fixed in that condition for life.Now, there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital, producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation.A few men own capital, and with that avoid labor themselves, and, with their capital, hire or buy another few to labor for them.A large majority belong to neither class — neither work for others, nor have others working for them. In most of the southern states, a majority of the whole people of all colors are neither slaves nor masters; while in the northern a large majority are neither hirers nor hired. Men with their families — wives, sons and daughters — work for themselves, on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand, nor of hired laborers or slaves on the other.I didn't know that "in most of the southern states, a majority of the whole people of all colors are neither slaves nor masters". I can believe that most "white" people there were not slaveholders, but is it true that in most of the southern states most "black" people were not slaves? Anyone know?
alanjjohnstone wrote:The current melt-down of the SWP has over-shadowed the collapse of the United Left Alliance in the Irish Republic.This should probably be a separate thread, but here's more on this history repeating itself for the umpteenth time as a farce as rival Trotskyist vanguards vie for the control of a "united front" body:http://links.org.au/node/3203Can anyone believe that these organisations are ever sincere?
Alaric wrote:I left the SPGB a long time ago.But now you're being more SPGB than the SPGB ! I mean that you accept the common caricature of our position that we are out to convince a majority of the world's population one by one by rational argument of the desirability and feasibility of socialism.This is not the case. OK, at the moment we are trying to convince more people of this with a view to their joining the Party and thus help to speed up the coming of socialism, but we are relying on people's experience of capitalism's failure to meet their needs properly to convince them of the need for socialism, independently of our own activity. The activity of a socialist party is aimed at speeding this up, not creating it from nothing as you seem to be assuming.
