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The latest Socialist Standard has a review of the new film about this despicable woman here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2012/no-1290-february-2012/film-review-iron-lady
This article from last April’s Socialist Standard discusses some of these issues:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2011/no-1280-april-2011/brief-history-public-relations
Socialist Voice, the publication of the World Socialist Party of Ireland, ran 6 crosswords in the late 80s. Here are some of the clues (not all cryptic):Not right, and usually wrong politically (4)Small religion, or Trotskyist ‘mass’ party (4)Won Lenin’s throne after power struggle with Trotsky (5)Citadel of Russian state capitalism (7)At which we can buy back the goods we have produced cheaper than usual (4)Butcher’s aprons usually attached to a pole (5)Finish off everything with Marx’s magnum opus (5)
Yes, Robin, I think a case can be made out for saying that up until WWI Lenin was a leftwing Social Democrat who argued that, under the autocratic political conditions of Tsarism, Social Democrats there had to organise as a hierarchical centralised party in order to overthrow the Tsarist regime, and that for Western Europe he accepted the German party’s model of an open, democratic party pursing a maximum programme (of socialism) and a minimum programme of reforms of capitalism, contesting elections, etc.The trouble is that he changed his position after 1917. He now said that the organisational form and tactics that he had advocated for the overthrow of Tsarism (which was not in fact how Tsarism ended as it collapsed more or less of its own accord; his tactics only worked to overthrow the weak government that emerged following this) should also be applied in Western Europe for the overthrow of capitalism.This is when he would have ceased to be a Social Democrat and became a Bolshevik. In which case The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky and Leftwing Communism An Infantile Disorder are the significant texts of Leninism. I suppose this means people like Phan Binh can mount some sort of a case for their view as long as they ignore Lenin’s post-1917 writings and of course practice. But it makes them leftwing Social Democrats to the disgust of Leninists who remain true to his post-1917 position.
I started to read this but I’m afraid I didn’t get very far. As far as I can see the author is trying to rehabilitate Lenin by saying that he wasn’t really a Leninist but someone who favoured an open, democratic party (a leftwing Menshevik then?). I doubt it and it certainly upset other Leninists who insisted that he really did stand for a centralised, hierarchical vanguard party to lead the masses. A couple of them quote Trotsky’s ridiculous statement (which could be said to be the essence of Trotskyism) that “The world political situation as a whole is chiefly characterized by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat.”
Sid Ryan in that Guardian makes some good points about the limitations of consensus decision-making. Contrast that with the high hopes entertained at the beginning by anarchist David Graeber of this as a new model for decision-making everywhere. Consensus decision-making is ok is small groups, but I suspect anarchists like it because it avoids them having to deal with what they have traditionally called “the tyranny of the majority” and which the rest of us call democracy.The Minutes of the General Assembly which discussed electoral action have now been published (they, like us, publish them for all to see and full credit to them for this). Here’s the relevant part:
Quote:Occupy for Mayor of London w.g.Bit of a contentious subject, still process in making. Idea is to have a platform have Occupy in politics. The GA consensus is the mayor of London. 8pm Bank of Ideas (tonight). Are also on groupspaces.Technical point (outside disruption): do we have any members of tranquility here?From my understanding of initial statement, I don’t see the compatibility between political office and occupy undertaking.It’s meant to be a protest vote. The point is, they’re not running to win. They’re running as a protest candidate. The idea is, instead of not voting anything, you’re voting something, it makes for more publicity for the movement.Jack – did you get consensus at GE?I think they did at Bank of Ideas. They tried to get a proposal to a GA here, it kept getting pushed back, GAs not happening.Inka – on groupspaces, there’s been an almost unanimous rejection of the idea. Also, I feel insulted by this working group’s direction because Occupy is specifically not a political party. You say you’re going for the protester vote, just keep Occupy out of it. Don’t poison occupy.You should really look and see at who and what is using Occupy. You’ll never be able to hold a word. It does have particular connotations with a particular protest movement but it’s being used all over the place.Laura – this is not a space for discussion. Needs to happen somewhere else.Inka – if a working group, this is a new problem as far as I’m concerned, this is probably the first example we haveTina – has this working group been officially endorsed by GA?Ruth – do you and the other people at the working group, do you accept that if there is no consensus in the GA here, you cannot use the name occupy in any mayoral campaign?Vica – this meeting is about working groups sharing information. We also invited people having discussion groups at the moment. It’s important that we’re aware of what’s going on.This clearly needs to have a GA in its own right. We need to cut off the discussion here now until this GA happens.Kurt – our management team needs to be replaced by a facilitation team. Congratulations, you’re very good managers, you squash everything.Note how the opponents of the proposal use lack of consensus to defeat it. More like the “tyranny of the minority” except that in this case there probably wouldn’t be a majority for it anyway. So why not settle the matter by a vote?
It’s not going to happen under capitalism of course since it’s geared to using the increasing economic surplus due to increasing productivity to accumulate capital not to make things better for people. That’s why, for instance, instead of reducing the age of retirement they are planning to increase it to 68 and even 70.
I think the reply may have been based on the assumption that the enquirer was a supporter of Parecon as suggested by their blog. I’m afraid, Ladybug, that we do disagree fundamentally with them. Hopefully, though, you have moved/are moving on from them.
Something funny is going on. The reason people can’t follow the link I gave to the London Occupy blog is that the item has been taken down. In fact it was only up there for a few hours. I take it this reflects a disagreement among the activists, some of whom may be opposed to going into electoral politics (because they don’t think the movement should get involved in this or maybe even because they support some other party like the Greens).In any event, they seem to have come up against the limitations of consensus decision-making which was never as ideal as they sometimes gave the impression. At some point, on some issues, as we’ve always said, a vote has to be taken with the minority having its say and the majority having its way.By chance I kept the full version of the statement which is set out below:
Quote:Occupiers Announce Intention to StandPosted on January 22, 2012 by occupylsxOn Saturday 21st January, several occupiers from Occupy London formally announced their intentions to stand as Mayoral and London Assembly candidates in the upcoming May 3rd elections in London later this year.They asked other occupiers at the evening General Assembly to encourage and support their bids as Independent candidates, as they attempted to “engage directly with the political process as a high profile level during a key point in 2012.”They stated that there was “no intention to form any Occupy political party,” but rather that they were to be Independent candidates taking part in a “direct action.” They also announced that they did not speak for Occupy, but supported it and its principles.The short presentation provided by the occupiers intending to stand revealed that a small working group had been set up to “work on the strategy and determine the viability of the task” before the formal announcement, and that this working group had shown that there was “extremely strong support” for their potential campaign that could “tip the balance between Conservative’s Boris Johnson and Labour’s Ken Livingstone.”The occupiers listed the many benefits that standing for election would bring, citing the increased media coverage and the increased ability for Outreach with the issues that have been raised by Occupy London.The announcement concluded by detailing how the candidates are more than capable of actually winning the election, by using their media expertise to “harness people power” and stated that the chance for Occupy London to be an integral part of the events over the next few years was “simply too big to pass by.”In the final words of the standing occupiers: “We need to seize the state – not flee it. This is direct action at the ballot box. We are talking about getting deep within the system and striking at the very heart in ways few ever thought we could. If you want to change the system, then you need to Occupy the system. It is time for people to reclaim politics. It is time for Occupy to reclaim politics for the 99%.”As I said, the “final words” are ok, but if they really think that their “media expertise” can get someone elected they are either naive or suffering from delusions of grandeur. Another possible reason why the blog item was deleted?
Some of the Occupy London people have just announced that they intend to contest the London mayor and assembly elections in May.I like the way they put it:
Quote:We need to seize the state – not flee it. This is direct action at the ballot box. We are talking about getting deep within the system and striking at the very heart in ways few ever thought we could. If you want to change the system, then you need to Occupy the system. It is time for people to reclaim politics. It is time for Occupy to reclaim politics for the 99%.This at least distinguishes them from the various anarchists and other anti-parliamentarists (or “anti-pantis” as they are known in Glasgow) who frown on this sort of thing and say we should try to ignore or by-pass the state. The trouble is that they won’t be contesting these elections on the basis of winning control of political power to end capitalism and usher in a society where productive resources have become the common heritage of all and where the principle “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs” will apply, a society without banks or money, but in all probability on some list of reforms.In any event we will be contesting two constituencies in these elections on just such a programme to encourage “the 99%” to act for themselves for a change.
Showing how we’ve been consistent over the years this article from 1925 on the confused idea of a “Scottish Workers Republic” has just been added to the archive section of the Socialist Standard on this site:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1920s/1925/no-254-october-1925/confusion-scotland
Went to this meeting yesterday but only participated in the sessions on Participatory Economy and Participatory Politics. They are not as radical as they seem on paper, seeming just to want to make life as it is today more “participatory”.We have already clashed with them over their views on the economy where they want to retain pay (related to effort) and to continue to restrict people’s consumption to their work effort and so have to put a price on goods and services too. They talk about abolishing money but only in favour of credits which one of them said he was prepared to call “consumer money”.They talk of a “vision” but in fact they offer a blueprint and not a very nice one at that, as one where everybody has to fill in a form at the beginning of the year setting out what they plan to consume in the year and which has to be scrutinised by neighbourhood councils. It’s the same at work: everybody has to fill in a form saying how much effort they will put in and which will be monitored not by management (as today) but by fellow workers (which surely would be worse). And their proposal for repeated revisions (at least 7) to a provisional plan so as to eventually bring supply and demand into balance must be a joke (we’d be spending all our time in meetings); not that it would work anyway.Having said that, their views on “participatory politics” based on ideas put forward by Stephen Shalom are more sensible and correspond more or less to the sort of participatory democracy that we envisage existing in socialism but in the context of a moneyless, wageless society of common ownership and free access.We are not the only ones to criticise “parecon”. Here’s two more, detailed criticisms:Can participatory economics tame marketplace relations?An anarchist society that wallows in regulationAnother critic has described it as “nonsense on stilts”.
Are we sure this isn’t one of his (Charlie Veitch of the Love Police) spoof videos?As to Stefan Molyneux, there’s a good point-by-point refutation of this mad marketeer by Peter Joseph here.It’s 50 minutes but everything is there: refutation of the ideas that capitalism has or could exist without the state; that resources are finite and desires are infinite; that without prices, efficient resource allocation is impossible; that the calculation problem is insurmountable; etc. In fact, this is one of the best (if not the best) video refutation of the so-called “economic calculation argument” on the internet as well as putting the case for a money-free world of abundance and open access. And it’s been seen by over 68,000.
I made a mistake. Chris Bambery resigned from the SWP last year. But he’s still a Trotskyist. In ant event, here is the passage where he suggests that an independent Scotland might be able to avoid austerity:
Quote:However, on a more positive note, in campaigning for a “yes” vote for independence we can promote the argument for an “anti-austerity Yes vote”. Cameron (and now British Labour Party leader Ed Miliband) wants to doom us to at least a decade of austerity. By campaigning for Scotland to escape that nightmare we can fight for our vision of a new society and that can help build resistance south of the border.He can campaign (and vote) as much as he likes against the nightmare of prolonged austerity but it won’t make any difference as that’s what capitalist conditions demand at the moment. Better to campaign, like us, to replace capitalism with socialism.In the meantime the Links site in Australia has published comments by two members. Go here and scroll down.
In the 5th (1962) edition when discussing so-called “perfect competition” Samuelson does talk of “any positive profits (in excess of a ‘normal return’ on capital and labor invested) will in the long-run equilibrium be competed away” (p. 542) and of “the most perfect competition (where pure profit is zero)” (p.660). Perhaps this inconsistent distinction between “interest” and “profit” reflects a confusion in the minds of academic apologists for capitalism as to the best way to defend the income of the capitalist class.If they want to call profit “interest”, fair enough. But, in the present situation, where banks and “interest” have become a dirty word they may have backed a loser. Expect another change of emphasis in future editions of Samuelson’s Economics.I think this distinction goes back further than the “marginalist revolution in economics”. It’s also in Henry George’s Progress and Poverty (that I’ve been re-reading after getting into an argument with a Georgeist at Occupy St Pauls) which was first published in 1880. Here’s how he summarised the conclusion of Chapter 10 on “the laws of distribution”:
Quote:Land, labor, and capital are the factors of production. Land includes all natural opportunities or forces. Labor includes all human exertion. Capital includes all wealth used to produce more wealth.The output is distributed in returns to these three factors. Rent is that part that goes to owners of land as payment for the use of natural opportunities. Wages are that part that constitutes the reward for human exertion. Interest is that part that constitutes the return for the use of capital.In Chapter 13 entitled “False Interest” (but in the book edition I have “Of spurious capital and of profits often mistaken for Interest”) he says:
Quote:Profits properly due to the elements of risk are also frequently mislabeled interest. Some people acquire wealth by taking chances in ventures where most suffer losses. There are many such forms of speculation, especially that method of gambling known as the stock market. Nerve, judgment, and possession of capital give an advantage. Also, those skills known as the arts of the confidence man. But, just as at a gaming table, whatever one person gains someone else must lose.Everyone knows the tyranny and greed with which capital, when concentrated in large amounts, is frequently wielded to corrupt, rob, and destroy. What I wish to call the reader’s attention to here is this:These profits should not be confused with the legitimate returns of capital as an agent of production. Any analysis will show that much of what is commonly confused with interest is really the result of the power of concentrated capital. For the most part, this should be attributed to bad legislation, blind adherence to ancient customs, and superstitious reverence for legal technicalities.Examine the great fortunes said to exemplify the accumulative power of capital: the Rothschilds, the Vanderbilts, the Astors. They have been built up, to a greater or lesser degree, by the means we have been reviewing — not by interest.In other words, precisely the arguments employed by Steele, though George placed himself on the left, seeing “profits” as bad and arguing in the preface to the first edition that “laissez-faire (in its full true meaning) opens the way to a realisation of the noble dreams of socialism” !
