DJP
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In the descriptive sense of the word socialism is an ideology. There’s nothing wrong with saying that. Ideology critique isn’t a type of realtivism. Is about analysing which ideologies (or political theories) are internally coherent and fit with our current best understanding of the empirical sciences.
You have to apply the methods you use for analysing other people’s thought to your own.
“the real struggle isn’t against fascism, populism, or Trumpism — it’s against capitalism in all its forms”
There’s a word missing here, “just”. Of course we are against fascism, populism, and Trumpism. But it’s more than just that. We are also for socialism. And you can’t get that while fascism, populism, or Trumpism are significant ideological influence within the working class.
I don’t think the tick box approach to ideologies is particularly useful. Eg something must have x features before we call it “fascism”. Ideologies and conceptual competents that make them are fluid and interchangeable. Ideologies are more like “family resemblances”. Eg we all know what a game is, but it’s impossible to come up with a check list that would encompass all games.
“Lost in Ideology” is an excellent recent popular book on ideologies and ideology critique. I highly recommend it.
“There is no fascism, and there are no fascists; therefore, the struggle against fascism is only an illusion, as well as the struggle against communism is also an illusion, because it has never existed”
Nothing to see here. Move on. Do not interfere with the free speech of the masked men bundling people into the back of the van.
The empirical evidence is that people’s minds are changed gradually through shared community and activities, rather than by jumping straight into competitive debate or by challenging facts. That’s why people engaged in activities such as trade union activity are much less likely to have rascist views – they’re engaging in a common project with people from lots of different backgrounds/
https://iai.tv/articles/we-need-to-stop-talking-about-politics-auid-3375
https://sarahsteinlubrano.substack.com/p/what-to-do-instead-of-talking-aboutHopefully that will help lift the gloom.
I think the first step is to drop the moral superiority complex.
The second step is to realise that online / social media isn’t the best environment for changing views. It’s actually the worse place. (also a high percentage of comments on social media will be generated by bots and not human beings)
From the Lueer review: “Without transparent accounting, decisions about distribution are made by self-proclaimed representatives of the associated producers, such as experts, bureaucrats, and moralists.”
Obviously, this is a false dichotomy. There are more options than just between workers councils co-ordinating based on ‘labour time accounting’ or ‘self-proclaimed representatives’ dictating who gets what.
In capitalism the productivity of labour is increased for the purposes of increasing surplus value. In communism, the productivity of labour is increased for the purpose of increasing free time.
If “labour time accounting” (meaning the counting of actual concrete hours of labour) is the means by which individuals can draw from the stock of consumer goods (i.e if the longer hours you work means the more consumer products you can get) then where’s the incentive for this reduction of working time? And wouldn’t the tendency be for workers to inflate working hours and for productivity levels to drop?
Has Lueer even entertained this real possibility?
Any society needs to keep track of how long it takes to make things and how much labouring capacity it has in order to allocate this between different branches of production. The difference between socialism and capitalism is that in socialism this calculation takes place before the fact of production. And the amount of labour it takes to make something would just be one, amongst many, considerations not the sole guiding principle.
Unless I’ve missed something, Lueer seems wide off the mark.
“Abolishing money” is such an ass backwards way of describing it. I scanned through the article, what stood out to you?
Thought this article from Grace Blakely, former supporter of Momentum but now part of Greens’ “eco-socialist” group, may be of interest here:
“So, is it correct to say not all members of the working class produce surplus value”
Of course, for one thing not all members of the working class, proletarians, will be engaged in wage labour.
I’ll try to write a proper review but the short answer is better explanation of what was meant by the transformation of the state in Marx is in Liepold’s book. Bernes’s is worth reading as a history of the ideas of the various groups that inspired the present day “communisation” writers.
But if you’re looking for any new insights into political theory or strategy there’s nothing there. These people seem to have their own version of minority revolution – workers councils are seen as way for the communist minority to insert itself into positions of power above the non-communist majority.
There also seems to be some kind of belief that every crisis or disruption presents some kind of latent tendency towards communism. For example, they think that communism could start by an inssurection that takes hold of warehouses and logistics distributes the goods according to need – wishful thinking in other words.
It’s us who are the realists – there is a real need to consider the political questions of legitimacy and control of the coercive forces of the state. The “communisisers” just seem to think that such things will unfold by themselves due the pressure of events and this unfolding will work to the advantage of communism.
“What about reading/dictating and recording the articles of the Socialist Standard ?”
This is actually a new project that started this month.
http://www.worldsocialistradio.com
Or
Or on our revived YouTube channel
I finally got a copy of the Jasper Bernes book. “The Test of Communism” is chapter two, of three. The first chapter is something about workers councils, where he seems to be shoehorning the Paris Commune into that. Will report back…
