DJP
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“All-in, is this true?”
Yes, for one example, see this: https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1935/1930s/no-366-february-1935/marx-force/
<i>So violence is never justified?</i>
The SPGB position isn’t a pacifist one. If a recalcitrant minority was to use force to block the majority from obtaining Socialism, then it would be justified to use force against them. That’s why there is a section in the DoP about the necessity of socialists gaining control of the armed forces.
But the difference between the SPGB and those that think a minority can achieve ‘good by force’ is that the SPGB thinks that socialism can only be bought about through conscious majority co-operative action; since a socialist society will require this kind of conscious cooperation in order to function as such.
The “usual explanations” about anarchism generally aren’t that good because there’s so much bad and inaccurate history written about anarchism, usually written by hostile or uncomprehending parties. The idea that anarchism mainly appealed to peasants or appears where capitalism hasn’t developed just doesn’t fit with the facts.
The best studies include:
“Black Flame” by Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt. Which is unfortunately out of print. Though the text overly equates anarchism with syndicalism.
This, as yet unpublished, PhD thesis by Oscar Addis: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.843328
And, “Making Sense of Anarchism: Errico Malatesta’s Experiments with Revolution” by Davide Turcato.
This podcast about Eric Hobsbawm’s ‘Primitive Rebels’ is worth listening too: https://podtail.com/en/podcast/abc-with-danny-and-jim/episode-27-eric-hobsbawm-s-primitive-rebels/
Incidentally, why isn’t the party making its own podcast? Something that would be easy to do to reach out to people.
I think this podcast on “teenage tankies” might be of interest here:
It’s a bit of trick to call them ‘pay rises’ though! I wouldn’t be surprised if most of these still represented a real terms pay cut when rises in the cost of living are subtracted.
“Alternatively, wait for Socialism”
I’m sure all the members of the aunt sally party are doing that.
In reality, revolutionary socialists have always been prominent and active members of the trade union movement – but have always been aware that this is just a rear-guard action and that trade unions can only play a conservative role.
So they have about a quarter of a million people signed up. I wonder how many of them would actually be cancelling direct debits, I would have thought a quarter would be a very optimistic estimate.
The only thing that is going to result from this is that those participating will end up paying more on their energy bills, or in worse financial trouble than they were before.
Boycotts (i.e consumers “strikes” which this is) can be effective, but only if the take-up is high enough and the goal is reachable. Doesn’t look like this is the case here.
Would be wiser, and more effective, to get involved with supporting the other trade-union led campaigns that are taking off.
“but that is not the sense in which I am using the word ‘struggle’”
What did you mean by it then? Violence?
“I don’t think everybody must have an opinion on everything. I’m not sure why you think I do or why you had to make that point at all or what you’re trying to tell me.”
Well you talked about having to measure the “dynamic consent of the overwhelming majority of people from one day to the next”. Sounds like some kind of mass opinion poll to me. What questions would they be asked?
“Unless there is some technological process available to confirm the dynamic consent of the overwhelming majority of people from one day to the next”
So you think everybody has to have an opinion about everything?
“There would be capital (there has to be, otherwise industrial capacity is limited), and people would have private possessory property, including homes they live in or use, but there would be no property system”
What do you mean by capital here? Things like factories? Or financial capital?
“From that point, there would be no ‘world socialism’, as such, in the shape of a political authority. Instead, there would be a more complex post-socialist system – really a complex of systems – made up of individuals and groups making purely industrial decisions, probably at a very small scale, and mostly self-directed. In some respects, it would resemble a classical market system because production would be in response to both use/need and demand, except there would be no ‘market system’, as such.”
How is this different to the federalist ideas of the anarchist communists?
“It is the idea that socialism can simply be abolished, it does not have to be struggled for, and possibly it cannot be struggled for, and any such struggle is futile and always leads back to capitalism or some similar system. In other words, socialism can only be achieved by democratic means in the sense of people voting for it.”
This isn’t the Socialist Party case at all, more like a caricature version of it. Of course socialism has to be struggled for! The capitalists aren’t just going to hand it over, this means action outside of parliament will be just as important as that inside it, if not more. This is why majority understanding is crucial; if the parliamentary route is blocked (I have no doubts that there would be attempts to do this) the effect would be a further loss in the legitimacy of the capitalist class and a further empowerment of the socialist majority who wouldn’t just be sat about passively.
Not sure which part of the book you’re talking about, you could be right, but seems a bit of a vain criticism to me. I don’t think the SPGB is particularly relevant to the development of anarchism in Britain, or elsewhere. The SLP was mentioned in relation to Syndicalism and Guy Aldred, no?
The Heath book is a history of anarchism, so why would you need to mention the SPGB? The WSM is briefly mentioned in the book BTW. It’s just hard to find where since the book is let down by there being no index (or proper references). The Nick Heath book is worth looking at, in fact it’s right up there with the best on the topic. The Morris one is not bad, but it’s just a large pamphlet really.
