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As 1 January was the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Lincoln in the US Civil War, the March Socialist Standard will cover this issue. There will also be a review of the Lincoln film.Even the official US government's archive site recognises its limitations in practice:

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President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union military victory.

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There are some people who want to replace a Marxist analysis of women’s liberation with one centred on patriarchy theory

The SWP are dead wrong about Leninism and so-called "democratic centralism", but not about this. We need to be careful about endorsing people who make the above sort of criticism of the SWP. In fact, perhaps the best thing that Chris Harman wrote was his refutation of the above view in his "Engels and the Origin of Human Society".I don't know who Donny Mayo is but this is the sort of criticism we should be backing:

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And in his article on why he is leaving the SWP, “Donny Mayo” (…) claims there is a “global crisis of old-style Trotskyist Leninism” and that the SWP is an example of a “historically outdated model” and that democratic centralism has become an “increasingly cultish mantra”.

Don't know about "has become", though. It always was.

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It's the other way round too. Some of the behaviour of non-humans also has to be learned. You might think that birds can fly by "instinct". Apparently not according to this video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI8yWl3AUOUIf even some birds need to learn to fly it's not surprising that humans, with our brain permitting adaptable behaviour, have to learn to do practically everything. In fact I can't think of any human social behaviour that does not have to be learned. Of course the biologically inherited capacity (such as prehensile thumbs,etc)  to engage in such behaviour has to exist — that's why we can't fly, except by constructing aeroplanes..

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I think Jack Conrad and the Weekly Worker are being excessively pedantic. When the SWP say that "the workers create all the wealth under capitalism" all that they are meaning to say is that the labour that today creates wealth by working on materials that orifinally came from nature is that of the working class. They no more mean to say that workers create the materials that originally came from nature than we do when we refer in Clause 1 of our Declaration of principles to "the working class, by whose labour alone wealth is produced".But let's be pedantic. Conrad is claiming that Marx's statement in the Critique of the Gotha Programme denying that labour is "the source of all wealth" refutes the SWP statement. But does it? Does saying that labour "creates" or "produces" all wealth mean that it is "the source" of all wealth too? I wouldn't have thought so. Labour is not the source of all wealth. It is just that without labour wealth can't be produced, i.e nature can't be transformed.And when Conrad raises the point that peasants and artisans also produce wealth (by their labour) this is the sort of objection that we expect pedants to raise against what we say in our Declaration of Principles:

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when visiting Greece, I enjoy drinking the rough village wines sold along the roadside by small farmers; I buy newspapers from my local British-Muslim newsagent; and I get my shoes repaired by the British-Bengali cobbler over the road. Such little businesses produce use-values and therefore, by definition, wealth too. With such examples in mind, it is surely mistaken to baldly state that “workers create all the wealth under capitalism”.

But even he seems to think he's gone too far here since he adds:

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In theoretical terms, forgetting or passing over petty bourgeois commodity production is a mote, a mere speck of dust, in the eye of the SWP’s ‘Where we stand’ column.

What does he want them to say: that "workers create the great bulk of wealth under capitalism" or us to say "by whose labour most wealth is produced"?And, to end on a really pedantic note, what wealth does his "local British-Muslim newsagent" produce?

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Jonathan Chambers wrote:

Some people, for example, are very averse to risk-taking whilst others display a gung-ho attitude to personal danger.  Is it not possible that such behaviour is due to a genetic predisposition and therefore susceptible to modification?

Yes, perhaps, in fact it probably will have something to do with genes, but these are ways in which one part of their body, their brain, tends to work. As to specific behaviour they are a bit vague. You could say the same sort of bad eyesight. In other words, human genes govern the make-up and functioning of the body, not the way humans behave in society.

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Bartlett's comments echo what Tory MP Douglas Hogg (later Lord Halisham) said in the debate on the Beveridge Report in the House of Commons in 1943 and quoted in our pamphlet Beveridge Re-Organises Poverty:

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Mr. Quintin Hogg, M. P. (Conservative) in the Debate on the Report. He said“Some of my hon. Friends seem to overlook one or two ultimate facts about social reform. The first is that if you do not give people social reform, they are going to give you social revolution….Let anyone consider the possibility of a series of dangerous industrial strikes following the present hostilities, and the effect that it would have on our industrial recovery….” (Parliamentary Debates, 17th February, 1943, Col.1818.)

Our pamphlet went on to make an interesting point against those who think that a growing socialist movement will inevitably be met by repression:

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In passing we would draw attention to the implications of the first part of Mr. Hogg’s remarks. It will be noticed that Mr. Hogg, in face of what he considers to be a threat of social revolution, does not, as has often been suggested to us, advocate such measures as closing down Parliament or rendering socialist organisations illegal, but hopes by offering sufficient bribes in the way of social reform to be able to keep away the evil day.

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Obviously individual humans have different genetic make-ups, otherwise we'd all be clones. But I was talking about the behaviour of humans as a species, not of individual behaviour (clearly somebody prevented by gene therapy from developing some dangerous bodily defect will behave differently than they otherwise would). Nobody has yet suggested what kind of general human behaviour could conceivably be changed by genetic engineering. The Blank Slate is a Red Herring. It's not, despite Steven Pinker, what either Marx or the Cultural Anthropologists assumed..

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Actually, the space engineer Douglas Mallette has made the point that any Mars or Lunar Base would have to be organised on the lines of what the Zeitgeist Movement call a "resource-based economy"or on what we would call on socialist lines, i.e without money and with needs supplied free among other things. As here for instance:

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As an engineer, more specifically a space geek engineer, what TVP [The Venus Project] offered as a solution option made complete sense to me right away. Why? Because what they described as a Resource Based Economy (RBE) is exactly how a Mars or Lunar base would HAVE to operate in order to maintain the lives of the astronauts that lived there.

So perhaps this isn't an off-topic joke after all.

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Editorial committee reply:Even though it has a price uncultivated land has no value as it is not the product of labour. Improvements to land due to the exercise of labour will have value and will affect the price of land, but, economically speaking, these improvements are capital rather than land even if they are incorporated in it. It remains a fact that land, as such, is a pure product of nature and that those who own it are able to extract an income from the rest of society purely and simply because they own it and without having to cultivate or develop it. Of course they can do this, in which case their income will be part monopoly rent and part profit on capital. But it still remains the case that part of their income (or price of the land if they sell it) reflects the fact that they monopolise a part of the Earth's surface which provides them with an income for literally nothing.

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Here's a couple of attempts by OXFAM from the letters column of the Socialist Standard to defend their position:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2003/no-1181-january-2003/lettershttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2003/no-1190-october-2003/letters

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Interesting news item here, revealing both the sort of thing that human genes govern and how culture governs human behaviour:http://www.bris.ac.uk/alspac/news/2013/164.html

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Tom Rogers wrote:

Attributing a philosophy or viewpoint to the priorities of capitalists doesn't explain why and how it exists and why it is so widely-accepted.

Doesn't it? What about the ruling ideas in any (stable) period being the ideas of the ruling class? Since employing the most productive (of profit) workers, irrespective of skin colour or gender, is in the overall interest of capitalists and capitalist corporations you would expect the aspiration to "race" and gender equality to become the dominating view (as opposed to discrimination).The book I'm reading, Remaking Scarcity by Costas Panayotakis, sums up Walter Ben Michaels' case as:

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According to Walter Ben Michaels, who has voiced this view, concern with racism, sexism, heterosexism, and discrimination amounts to little more than "the dream of a truly free and efficient market" which obscures the real source of injustice, namely class inequality. In Michaels's view, American society's interest in non-class forms of discrimination constitutes a capitulation to "the neoliberal consensus" that "[t]he only inequalities we're prepared to do anything about are the ones that interfere with the free market"

 

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What is interestnig in the figures Oxfam have produced is that they are talking about the global elite's income rather than their wealth. This avoids the objection that to direct some of their wealth towards the starving would only be a one-off. Highlighting their income is to draw attention to a continuing stream of wealth. Of course it's not going to happen, but it does show that enough wealth is being produced even today under capitalism to eliminate extreme destitution. This vindicates our contentiont that, by in addition eliminating the waste and artificial scarcity of capitalism, socialism could easily produce enough to provide everybody on the planet with a decent standard of living.

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I'm just reading a book which criticises the author of this book, The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality, Walter Benn Michaels, but it seems to put the case against "identity politics" (as opposed to class politics) quite well. In other words, that capitalism can live with (and even encourage in the interest of economic efficiency) "race" and gender equality but not with social equality.More on his views here:http://newleftreview.org/II/52/walter-benn-michaels-against-diversityhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyruiScXqcUhttp://www.amazon.com/The-Trouble-Diversity-Identity-Inequality/dp/B001GQ3DTC

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To see how criticism of the SWP's self-styled "democratic centralism" applies to other such organisations, look at the constitution of the "Alliance for Workers Liberty" here:http://archive.workersliberty.org/resources/constitution.htmlOther Leninist organisations are criticising the SWP for not applying "democratic centralism" properly. Our criticism is more fundamental: we are critcising "democratic centralism" as such.The AWL constitution clearly spells out what "democratic centralism" means in practice — a hierarchical organisation dominated by its leaders.

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To be effective, our organisation must be democratic; geared to the maximum clarity of politics; and able to respond promptly to events and opportunities with all its strength, through disciplined implementation of the decisions of the elected and accountable committees which provide political leadership.(emphasis added)

Below the "leadership", there are two levels of membership: "candidates" and "activists":

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Members will normally be admitted as candidates, to go through six months of education, training and disciplined activity before being admitted as full activists. A branch or fraction may, at the end of six months, extend the candidate period if it judges that the above requirements have not been fulfilled adequately. In such a case the candidate has the right to appeal to the Executive Committee. Candidates do not have the right to vote in the AWL.

On promotion to "activist", members are required to, among other things:

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2. Engage in regular political activity under the discipline of the organisation;4. Sell the literature of the AWL regularly;

They have to ask "leave of absence" if they can't do this for some reason:

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A member suffering from illness or other distress may be granted a total or partial leave of absence from activity for up to two months; but the leave of absence must be ratified in writing by the Executive Committee, and the activist must continue to pay financial contributions to the AWL.

If they stop selling the AWL's paper without this permission, then they are in trouble:

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Where activists have become inactive or failed to meet their commitments to the AWL without adequate cause such as illness, and there is no dispute about this fact, branches, fractions, or appropriate committees may lapse them from membership with no more formality than a week's written notice. Activists who allege invalid lapsing may appeal to the National Committee.

They can even be fined:

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Branches, fractions, and appropriate elected committees may impose fines or reprimands for lesser breaches of discipline. Any activist has the right to defend himself or herself before a decision on disciplinary action is taken on him or her, except in the case of fines for absence or suspensions where the AWL's security or integrity are at risk.

As to branches and "fractions" (AWL members boring from within other organisations), they can elect their own organisers but these are responsible to the leadership not to those who elected them:

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Each branch or fraction shall elect an organiser and other officers. The organiser is responsible to the AWL and is subject to the political and administrative supervision of its leading committees for the functioning of the branch or fraction and for ensuring that AWL policy is carried out.

They can even give orders to those who elected them:

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Branch or fraction organisers can give binding instructions to activists in their areas on all day today matters.

But if they step out of line the leadership can remove them and replace them with someone of their choice::

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The Executive Committee and the National Committee have the right in extreme cases, and after written notice and a fair hearing, to remove branch or fraction organisers from their posts and impose replacements.

What self-respecting person would want to be a member of such an organisation? I think this means that we are not going to get anywhere with current members of these organisations, and that we'd do better to direct any efforts in this direction towards their ex-members. Perhaps, then, any statement on the current SWP situation should adopt the "we told you so" approach.

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