[ALB]

Another one. Today’s Times reports a speech by the Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, calling for an end to the banking monopoly of the big Chinese state banks. Taking for granted that banks are essentially financial intermediaries between lenders and borrowers, the report says:

Quote:

The monopoly in question refers to the dominance of China’s four largest banks — hugely profitable, state-owned entities that include the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China and get away with offering feeble interest rates on deposits. Three of China’s big four number among the top ten banks in the world. Because the Government sets deposit rates and minimum lending rates, the banks are guaranteed profit margins of 3.5 per cent.

This compares to a current  “net interest margin” of 2.0 to 2.2 percent in UK banks.

[ALB]

They sent us this directly too. Here’s some on the list of those on their “Interim Consultative Committee”.

Quote:

The Interim Consultative Committee helping to guide that activity and which will remain operational until there is a founding convention is: Noam Chomsky – United States David Graeber – US/England David Harvey – United States John Pilger – England

I can’t believe that any of these believe in the Parecon blueprint for an ideal society. It looks as if they’ve signed up to something without checking first. What do you think Stuart? Ask David Graeber?

[ALB]

ALB wrote:

Something to please Stuart (and us?):http://gothamist.com/2012/03/28/did_you_get_a_free_ride_on_the_subw.php

More on this:

Quote:

TWU Leader Won’t Disown ‘Occupy’ for Fare-BeatingBy SARAH DORSEY | Posted: Monday, April 2, 2012 5:00 pm John Samuelsen, president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, said March 29 he was “not in any way critical” of the illegal actions of Occupy Wall Street members and dissidents in his own union who, without his knowledge, chained open gates at numerous subway stations a day earlier during the morning rush hour, giving straphangers a free ride.By April 2, however, the union leader added, “They could’ve taken more precautions to make sure [Subway Station Agents] weren’t put in harm’s way.”The protesters, who said anonymous Local 100 and Amalgamated Transit Union members calling themselves the “Rank and File Initiative” told them which stations to target and tipped off their co-workers so they didn’t interfere, said they were angry at the lack of funding for transit.‘Money into Bankers’ Pockets’“Instead of using our tax money to properly fund transit, Albany and City Hall have intentionally starved transit of public funds for over twenty years,” the activists said in a press release. “The MTA must resort to bonds (loans from Wall Street) to pay for projects and costs,” they added, calling the agency “a virtual ATM for the super-rich.”They pointed out that the MTA spends more than $2 billion a year to pay off its debt.“This means Wall Street bondholders receive a huge share of what we put into the system through the Metrocards we buy and the taxes we pay,” they concluded.Local 100 was the first New York local to officially endorse Occupy Wall Street last fall, and has held several rallies with the movement; Mr. Samuelsen spoke at Zuccotti Park when his members marched there after a November contract rally.When asked if last Wednesday’s actions made him think twice about working with Occupy Wall Street, he initially said not at all.“If these types of actions…bring attention to the injustices that have been doled out to New York State working families, then so be it,” he said.‘On the Same Page’While union officials had no prior knowledge of the protests, “we are on the same page with the Occupy movement when it comes to recognizing the facts that the banks are getting rich off of New York’s transit system,” he said, adding that “if it’s true that members of my union are participating in the protests, that’s their business; this is America. They’re not doing it as a member of Local 100.”MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz declined to comment on Mr. Samuelsen’s response, but said, “We take Wednesday’s theft-of-service activity very seriously and we are working with the NYPD on ways to prevent it from happening again. If and when an employee is implicated, we will respond appropriately.”A One-Time Stunt?The protesters, who created realistic-looking MTA-style fliers that read, “Free Entry—No Fares Collected” told a Village Voice reporter the events had been planned months in advance, and that they were unlikely to repeat the same tactic in the future, though they’d hold other actions.Ken Margolies, a labor specialist on the extension faculty at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, said that although the protests took place during contract negotiations, it was unlikely the union would be punished under the Taylor Law for the actions of a few anonymous members.“They’d have to show that this was being done with the union’s knowledge and that the union could stop it and didn’t,” he said. “It would be hard to enforce. They’d have to show that this was really a ruse.”Mr. Margolies said these kinds of wildcat actions were often “unnerving” for management during negotiations.“It could be a form of pressure on the MTA to settle because to the extent that they think this might spread, they will be looking for ways to prevent it,” he said. “If you know the union is doing this, you can get them to stop. But if there’s an elusive group that you can’t identify…it’s a real wildcard for them.”A California Precedent?He pointed to a December Occupy protest that shut down the port of Oakland, California during International Longshore Workers Union contract negotiations; the union said the action, which it didn’t back, was a ‘critical element’ in getting a favorable pact settled.But conditions in Oakland were much different than they are for a public-sector union in New York right now, where a strong Governor successfully pressured two state-employee unions into accepting three years of wage freezes last year and is now pushing the MTA to follow suit. Local 100 is also bound by the Taylor Law, which limits its options by imposing hefty fines on public-sector unions and their members that strike.

[ALB]

It seems we are  Marxist-Lennonists?

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So that’s where the table and banner went ! Hope Kent & Sussex are not going to expropriate them permanently as we’ll need in London for Saturdays in April …..

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I know that when a few years ago we did a Survey of Socialist Standard readers we were surprised to find that about 25% of them had voted Labour at the previous election (which might have been the 1997 one when the Tories were kicked out), but those would have been sympathisers and maybe even why they remained sympathisers and didn’t become members.As to members voting for other parties, I’ve heard of resigning members and recently ex-members voting for the Green Party, Scargill’s SLP or Respect (and they was a member who was expelled for voting for the SDP). But of course that goes against the Lesser Evil argument as doing this, under the present election system, risks splitting the anti-Greater Evil vote and letting them in. I don’t think Chomsky would have approved either.If it’s not an impertinent question, when you and Dave Flynn resigned the previous time, you (plural) said that one of you had voted Labour and the other had voted Respect. Which way did Dave Flynn vote? And what do you recommend I do in my part of the world where the Labour Party is a non-starter and it’s a 19th scenario between Liberals and Tories (at the last election the effective choice was between a millionaire Liberal and a billionaire Tory)? Vote Liberal to keep the Tories out?

[ALB]

Saw your socialist analysis here, but how did it go in the end?

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Yes, just the music for a socialist to have played at their funeral instead of “I did it my way” ! But I doubt if Lennon was influenced by us. I think he composed it at a time (1971) when he was strongly influenced by Tariq Ali and his paper Red Dwarf (an influence also shown by Lennon’s support for the IRA). Ali was then a Trotskyist in the “International Marxist Group”. He definitely knew us and that we wanted a society with no religion, no countries, no possessions and no money. I’ve got a letter from him dated 1968 in which he says that he doesn’t think he could give “a vary illuminating talk on abolition of money to SPGB comrades” and asking if we had a pamphlet on the subject.

[ALB]

I’ve now finished reading that book on “Anarchist Economics” and am pleased to report that there are 2 chapters, by writers describing themselves as “libertarian communists” (Deric Shannon and Scott Nappalos), making the same criticism as us of both “market anarchism” (derived from Proudhon and propagated today by modern “mutualists” such as Kevin Carson) and of  Michael Albert’s “parecon” — one of them even refers to our pamphlet Socialism As A Practical Alternative. Both writers advocate instead “from each according to ability, to each according to need”Nappalos criticises Albert’s blueprint for proposing a modified wages system (by linking people’s consumption to the amount of work effort they put in). He also makes the same critcism as us of having your fellow workers judge how hard you work:

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Having coworkers judge each other’s work would turn the gossip and infighting at work presently from an annoyance into a system of power over wages.

Yes, it would be worse than now when this is judged by management !

[ALB]

Something to please Stuart (and us?):http://gothamist.com/2012/03/28/did_you_get_a_free_ride_on_the_subw.php

[ALB]

I challenged him to put his money where his mouth was and to bet that massive deflation (falling prices, yet higher unemployment, food and other shortages, debtors prisons, etc) would happen within the 2-5 years he predicted against my bet that it wouldn’t. Some of the ZMers in the audience were shocked as, after all, Jacque Fresco and Peter Joseph argue that technologically we could have a world of abundance now. I’ve since emailed the organisers offering to debate him at next year’s Z-Day in Cardiff  on “Why the economic system will not collapse” and in 5 years time on “Why the economic system did not collapse”.He was mixing up two things: so-called peak oil and the economic collapse of capitalism through some flaw in its monetary and banking side. The second is not going to happen because the supposed flaw doesn’t exist.  As to peak oil, if this is the case, as it becomes more and more difficult to extract oil then its price will rise. This will have two consequences. It will make it profitable to exploit previously unprofitable sources including tar sands, shale and deposits under the North Pole. And it will accelerate the search for substitutes such as renewable energies and nuclear power. He claimed this wouldn’t work because it would cost more energy to use these than the energy they would produce (I’m not competent to comment on this but maybe there’s an engineer in the house?), but he himself admitted that there was enough coal to last for centuries.So, don’t be alarmed. It’s not going to happen (even if nothing is going to go smoothly and without undesirable side effects as long as we have capitalism). No need to stock up tins of food or convert your savings into gold.

[ALB]

From the Raconteur supplement on “Funding Britain’s Growth” in yesterday’s Times:

Quote:

It is not in the nature of a bank to take risks. As a rule, they make a relatively small profit on lending — usually in single digit percentage points … [Doug Richard, founder of School for Startups]

What Richard is talking about is the net interest margin, a key concept for understanding how banks work and which currency cranks ignore.

[ALB]

stuartw2112 wrote:

it’s sometimes hard to tell if you’re not actually there.

You’re not saying, are you, that this means being there in a tent? Or can visiting occupations and talking to people there, reading their leaflets, blogs, etc count as well?

[ALB]

It’s not easy from over here to work out exactly what’s been happening in Oakland. Here’s a rather different analysis, from some “ultraleftists” on the spot (taken from one of their discussion forums I’m on). Don’t know if there’s any truth in their allegation that the movement there has been hijacked by a bunch of varied vanguardists (and of course any contacts with the organised trade-union movement would be anathema to ultraleftists even if not such a problem for us and a delight to vanguardists):http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/01/30/18706115.php

[ALB]

The examples we used to give to back up our argument that socialism and communism meant (and mean) the same thing were:1. Engels’s 1888 Preface to the English edition of the Communist Manifesto where he explains why, when it was “the most widespread, the most international production of all Socialist literature”, in 1848 it was called the Communist rather than the Socialist Manifesto.2. The Manifesto of English Socialists, issued jointly in 1893 by the Social Democratic Federation, the Hammersmith Socialist Society and the Fabian Society (!) and signed by, among others, William Morris, George Bernard Shaw, Hyndman and Sidney Webb, which declared:

Quote:

On this point all Socialists agree. Our aim, one and all, is to obtain for the whole community complete ownership and control of the means of transport, the means of manufacture, the mines and the land. Thus we look to put an end for ever to the wage-system, to sweep away all distinctions of class, and eventually to establish national and international communism on a sound basis.

Marx himself seems to have preferred to call himself a Communist. Which is why he referred to two phases of communist society rather than to socialism and communism being to separate phases of post-capitalist society. We have to admit, though, that there was one pre-Lenin socialist who did use the terms in this way — William Morris, though even he called himself indifferently a socialist or a communist.There were also reformists who said they stood for “socialism” (meaning nationalisation) and not for “communism” (abolition of wages system, no money, to each according to needs). Thus, Ramsay MacDonald wrote in the chapter of his The Socialist Movement  (1911) entitled “What Socialism is not”:

Quote:

“From all according to their ability; to each according to his needs ” is a Communist, not a Socialist, formula. The Socialist would insert “services” for “needs.” They both agree about the common stock ; they disagree regarding the nature of what should be the effective claim of the individual to share in it. Socialists think of distribution through the channels of personal income ; Communists think of distribution through the channels of human rights to live. Hence Socialism requires some medium of exchange whether it is pounds sterling or labour notes; Communism requires no such medium of exchange.

So, Lenin would have got his distinction, not from Marx, but from Ramsay MacDonald ! Come to think of it, they did have something in common: despite coming to power in different ways, both tried to make capitalism work in the interest of the workers and both failed (because this is not possible).Engels’s articles calling for the abolition of the wages system were written for the trade union paper the Labour Standard in 1881 and can be found here.

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