ALB
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International Review was not edited by Paul Mattick (he just wrote the occasional article for them) nor could it be described as "council communist". It was basically more "anti-Bolshevik Marxist" and published the first English translations of Luxemburg's Reform or Revolution and Martov's The State and the Socialist Revolution.There's another good article on Spain here that was first published in Wildcat in 1986:http://www.af-north.org/Subversion/subversion_18.htm#spainIt was originally published under the title "Spain '36; The End of Anarchism?" This version republished in Subversion and put on the internet by the Anarchist Federation (ex Anarchist Communist Federation) has the title to "Spain 36, the End of Anarcho-Syndicalism?" I don't know whether it was Subversion or the AF who changed the title (probably the AF). From our point of view of course the original title was better.It's been translated into French (in issue No 30 of our then French-language publication Socialisme Mondial) and Portuguese so we already have a ready-to-hand introduction in these languages to our criticism of "self-managed capitalism" (revived today by such groups as Michael Albert's Parecon).
I see things haven't changed since we published our educational document on the SWP in 1995. Here's an extract on Conference Procedure from section III:
Quote:The main item on the agenda is a report by the Central Committee on the political “perspectives” which is usually a document of pamphlet-length. The Central Committee also submits other reports – on work in special areas of activity (industry, students, women), internal organisation, finance – for the Conference to discuss. In the SWP, branches still have the formal right to submit motions, but they are strongly discouraged from doing so. As an explanatory note intended for new members, accompanying documents submitted for the party’s 1983 Conference put it:“Branches can submit resolutions if they wish and these may [sic] be voted on. But in recent years the practice of sending resolutions to conference has virtually ceased” (Socialist Review, September 1983).What this means is that it is the Central Committee – the leadership – which quite literally sets the agenda for the Conference. The branch delegates meet, therefore, to discuss only what is put before them by the Central Committee. Not that the delegates are delegates in the proper sense of the term as instructed representatives of the branches sending them:“Delegates should not be mandated . . . Mandating is a trade union practice, with no place in a revolutionary party”.Since voting on motions submitted by branches is dismissed as a “trade union practice”, another procedure, more open to manipulation by the leadership, is operated:“At the end of each session of conference commissions are elected to draw up a report on the session detailing the points made. In the event of disagreement two or more commissions can be elected by the opposing delegates. The reports are submitted to conference and delegates then vote in favour of one of the commissions. The advantage of this procedure is that conference does not have to proceed by resolution like a trade union conference”.No branch motions, no mandated delegates, what else? No ballots of the entire membership either. In the first volume of his political biography of Lenin, Cliff records in shocked terms that “in January 1907 Lenin went so far as to argue for the institution of a referendum of all party members on the issues facing the party”, commenting “certainly a suggestion which ran counter to the whole idea of democratic centralism” (Lenin, Building the Party, p. 280)In fact no official of the SWP above branch level is directly elected by a vote of the members. One power that the branches do retain is the right to nominate members for election, by the Conference delegates, to the National Committee, but, as over presenting motions, they are discouraged from nominating people who do not accept the “perspectives” espoused by the Central Committee. So elections do take place to the National Committee but on the basis of personalities rather than politics. However, it is the way that the Central Committee is elected that is really novel: the nominations for election to new central committee are proposed not by branches but . . . by the outgoing central committee! Once again, in theory, branches can present other names but they never do.It is easy to see how this means that the central committee – the supreme leadership of the organisation – is a self-perpetuating body renewal in effect only by co-optation. This is justified on the grounds of continuity and efficiency – it takes time to gain the experience necessary to become a good leader, so that it would be a waste of the experienced gained if some leader were to be voted off by the vagaries of a democratic vote. Choosing the leadership by a competitive vote is evidently something else “with no place in a revolutionary party” any more than in an army.This, incidentally, is how the Politburo was (s)elected in the USSR which the SWP admits was state-capitalism.
I don't think that the difference between us and the Leninists is over the diagnosis that at the moment the working class does not want or understand socialism. It's about what to do in these circumstances.They say that the working class can never come to a socialist understanding under capitalism and that therefore socialists (in the broadest sense) should organise as a vanguard that seeks to win a working class following on the basis of what they think the workers can understand, i.e reforms and improvements within capitalism.We say that workers can come to want and understand socialism (after all, we have and there's nothing particularly special about us) and that socialists should therefore concentrate on explaining capitalism and socialism (how capitalism can never be made to work in their interests and why common ownership and democratic control of the means of production is the only framework within which the problems workers face can be solved) rather than offering reforms of capitalism.The Leninists end up taking the same practical position as open reformists of the Old Labour type — offering reforms of capitalism to attract working class support — except that they disagree as to who should be doing the offering: a Leninist vanguard or Labour candidates and MPs? Both seek a following and both see the other as rivals to lead of the working class.
What they say about Duncan may well be true, but the people saying it seem to be some sort of front for the likes of the BNP.
Here's another example of the Leninists of the SWP thinking that the working class are too thick to understand the straight socialist case and therefore need a party "to fight for the best possible deal for working people within the present system". It's from the Sunderland Echo of 2 November 2006:
Quote:Revolution laterIn his slightly separatist letter (Oct 10), Steve Colborn tells us that the "only way forward" is socialism, but that the Respect Party is not the way to achieve it. Well of course it isn't. Steve knows as well as I do that the only way to real socialism is through revolution and smashing of the capitalist system and all its machinery. As a member of the revolutionary Socialist Workers' Party I would like nothing more than to see this happen. Unfortunately though, a mass uprising just isn’t on the cards right now. Yes, many people are dissatisfied with mainstream politics, but how many are clued-up on the system and are ready and willing to fight for the alternative in the way that is necessary? It is a sad fact, but the masses are doped with materialism and entertainment, and while Corrie is on the telly and there's a lager and pizza in the fridge we are not going to see revolution. Therefore, there is a need for the next best thing, Parliamentary reform. The Respect Party aims to fight for the best possible deal for working people within the present system. And it's essential such a party exists, even if only as a fringe party, to prevent the rich from being all-powerful. I sincerely hope Steve manages to stir the masses and wake them from their slumber. Till then though, all we have is our vote. Gary Duncan, Respect Party, Hylton Castle, Sunderland. [http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.co.uk/2006/11/revolution-later.html ]This was before Galloway kicked the SWP out of Respect. I think that since then Gary Duncan, who was the SWP's main man in Sunderland, has also left the SWP. Perhaps one of the comrades from the North East can confirm this. But at the time he was nevertheless expounding the SWP view.
No objection to calling it "communism" (or anything else) as long as it's clear that we're referring to a classless, stateless society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production where money, wages, etc will have become redundant. We call it "socialism" for historical reasons.I think the link between "vanguardism" and "reformism" (as advocating reforms within capitalism) springs from the Leninists' basic assumption that, left to themselves, workers are capable of acquiring only a trade-union consciousness (in the broadest sense, to include Labour Party type politics). It follows from this that, in its everyday political activity, the vanguard has to "lower" itself to the workers' level and offer slogans and reforms suitable to their perceived capacity to understand. Which means of course offering a programme of reforms to be achieved within capitalism.Here's an example, from an exchange I had on the Kingston Anti-Cuts Facebook page. Kingston Anti-Cuts is dominated by the SWP. They produced a draft leaflet which just attacked cuts and the bankers. I asked::
Quote:Hope I'm not being dogmatic but this suggests that we can have a better future without getting rid of capitalism. What's wrong with using the C-word? Everybody else is.One of them replied:
Quote:Well you can, but you bring people into talking about capitalism not through united front leaflets but through conversations, interventions in meetings, helping to improve material conditions through the unions (I know the SPGB are unique in thinking that trade unions and socialism have nothing to do with one another but well, it's wrong). Something purely descriptive as the extent of austerity currently is fine, connects with people more easily than a broader talk of capitalism which most people feel too disempowered to be convinced by via a leaflet.So they don't think that workers can understand even the concept of capitalism !
There's also this from the Publications/Study Guides section of this site, about the SWP (up until 1995):http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/study-guides/where-swp-comingAnd chapter 5 on "The Mythology of the Left" in our pamphlet The Market System Must Go. This was based on a brilliant article written by David Ramsay Steele in the 60s or 70s entitled "Officers Looking for Infantry", whose title says it all.
Of course it doesn't and isn't, but the reformism he advocates is. He is not a socialist but a leftwing French nationalist who wants a stronger role for the state (and what politician wouldn't say they didn't stand for the general interests of humanity?). In other words, he stands for a French national state capitalism. But at least in France the word "socialism" is still in general use, which gives us a way in even if only to explain what it's not, as used to be the case when the USSR still existed.
That reminds me. James Heartfield has put links on his site to both our review and our recording of the meeting. He has added photo of his own. See http://www.heartfield.org/
Young Master Smeet wrote:When you think returns are less than investment, such slow growth in what we would call capital formation is quite astounding, and cuts to the heart of the current crisis.Great minds (and consultancies) think alike. Here is an article by Paul Lachowycz of Fathom Consulting that appeared in the Times on 26 November:http://www.fathom-consulting.com/Insightnews/Opinionpieces/2012-11-26/Forget-the-grand-designs/Look at the table there, which shows a drop in "the real rate of return on fixed capital investment" from 4% in 2008 to about 0.5% today and note his comment:
Quote:The centrepiece of the Coalition’s ‘growth strategy’ is already focused on encouraging the private sector to get involved in infrastructure spending. The main plan has been to kick start investment for around 500 proposed infrastructure projects with pension fund capital worth £20bn. So far the proposals have completely failed to take-off. The government has been unable to encourage the private sector to invest in new roads, housing or anything else for that matter. Official data show that infrastructure spending is down 11% from a year ago and the government has raised less than £1bn.We are not surprised it has failed. Not because as the CBI claims the government has failed to provide insurance. There is a simpler explanation – the chronically low rate of return. At Fathom Consulting we calculate that the real rate of return on all fixed capital expenditure has collapsed in recent years and stands at just 0.5%. For infrastructure specifically, it is lower still, and may even be negative. No wonder the private sector wants a blanket guarantee to pass the risks completely to the public sector.Yes, no wonder the capitalist firms that make up the CBI are not prepared to invest in infrastructure projects (and so much for the capitalist apologists' justification for profits as a reward for risk-taking).We'll be commenting on this in more detail in the January Socialist Standard.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Some fascinating stats from the 2011 census:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20677321Quote:The second-most common category was "No religion", comprising more than a quarter of the population (25.1%; 14.1 million), up from 7.7 million (14.8%) in 2001.Eat your heart out, Robin !
DJP wrote:If you have the texts for these this can soon be rectified.Sent you the Morris review. The other one, on Chavism, will have to be scanned (unless you can copy it from the on-line PDF version).This passage from Morris from the January 1887 Commonweal, quoted in both the book and the review, is a fine statement of the socialist case on war:
Quote:Meantime if war really becomes imminent our duties as socialists are clear enough, and do not differ from those we have to act on ordinarily. To further the spread of international feeling between workers by all means possible; to point out to our own workmen that foreign competition and rivalry, or commercial war, culminating at last in open war, are necessities of the plundering classes, and that the race and commercial quarrels of these classes only concern us so far as we can use them as opportunities for fostering discontent and revolution;. that the interests of the workmen are the same in all countries and they can never really be the enemies of each other; that the men of our labouring classes, therefore, should turn a deaf ear to the recruiting sergeant, and refuse to allow themselves be dressed up in red and be taught to form a part of the modern killing machine for the honour and glory of a country in which they have only a dog's share of many kicks and a few halfpence, – all this we have to preach always, though in the event of imminent war we may have to preach it more emphatically.Book review from Socialist Standard here:http://www.myspace.com/socialiststandard/blog/438301718For some reason this (and another book review) don't appear in the html on-line version.
I went to the introductory meeting this morning. Plenty of Hyde Park habitués there exchanging reminiscences. Looks like an interesting and worthwhile project. I don't think there is any danger of us being ignored, as one of the volunteers involved in the project is a Party member and our Archives Dept has been in contact with the organisers to offer them access to our archive of photos which they have accepted. Some interest was expressed in other speaking places in London (Tower Hill, Lincolns Inn, etc) which have died out.There will be two free training days on Tuesday 18 December and Tuesday 29 January from 11am to 4pm at the Bishopsgate Institute to which people are urged to "bring old photographs, documents, articles and recordings of Speakers' Corner or anything else you might have for the archive" and "learn about archiving, cataloguing and conservation from specialist staff at Bishopsgate Institute". Comrade Richard Headicar was said to be coming to the one in January.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Sadly another example of banks make money out of nothing , this time by Professor of Binary Economics at Trisakti University, Jakarta, Indonesia, Rodney Shakespeare is a Cambridge MA, a qualified UK Barrister, a co-founder of the Global Justice Movement and a member of the Christian Council for Monetary Justice.Yes, the "Christian Council for Monetary Justice" has been spreading their ideas in the Occupy Movement, particularly through Quaker (and Labour Party member) John Courtneidge who we clashed with at one of the recent New Putney Debates. Their chairman, Cannon Peter Challen, was one of the panel at a meeting organised by the Occupy at the Bank of Ideas last January. He was one of those who refused to describe himself as anti-capitalist. Basically, they are against interest, which they denounce as "usury", but not against any other aspects of capitalism, as if capitalism could function without interest.Their President is Labour MP Austin Mitchell, one of two openly currency-crank MPs. The other is Tory Douglas Carswell.
