h.moss@swansea.ac.uk
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And from what Andrew Northall says in his letter, after that socialist minority seizes power, the ‘education’ of the working class and the production of sufficient wealth to satisfy all needs is likely to be decades in the making, during which time that minority will remain in power. Just how attractive a proposition is that? Also he pours cold water on the notion that we could quickly or immediately produce enough for everyone or that even today the means exist to produce enough for everyone’s needs. It’s true that there are different views on this and, as he correctly observes, a moneyless, voluntarist socialist society couldn’t necessarily use existing capitalist systems of production and infrastructure at the drop of a hat once a majority opts for socialism, so some adjustments will no doubt be needed. But the idea that such adjustments will take ‘years’ or ‘decades’ just doesn’t stand up. All sorts of figures get flung around but AT’s contention that there’s no real evidence that existing or potential production wouldn’t be able to meets all needs more or less immediately if used for that purpose just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. There’s all sorts of evidence for the opposite viewin fact. But just one simple example: the World Food Programme’s 2024 ‘Global Report of Food Crises’, which offers the most comprehensive account and evidence of annual global food production, finds that enough food was produced that year to meet the needs of 11 billion people (https://www.fsinplatform.org/report/global-report-food-crises-2025/). And if that’s being done within a system whose purpose is to produce to sell not to feed, how likely is it that we couldn’t feed everyone in short order if society sets about producing to feed and not to sell?
‘Another letter from a Party member in this week’s Weekly Worker:
https://www.weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1545/letters/
Great letter too.
I’ve not read his latest stuff, but his other projects having come to nothing, he appears to be desperate.
Though the Homepage of the website doesn’t do exactly what Wez wants (and it would be good if it could, but I don’t think we’ve got sufficient ‘staff’ for it), there is still a topical ‘snippet’ on an up-to-date issue on the Homepage that changes on a weekly basis. Better than nothing.
Yes, write to the Standard. There aren’t enough letters in the Standard. It’s good for debate and copy.
‘The best thing for Ukraine and for all of us now would be for the Ukrainians to oust Zelensky and agree to Putin’s demands, ending the war.’
Much more likely that Putin gets ousted than Zelenskyy. Though I agree with Robin that, whatever happen, the Donbas and Crimea are most likely to end up Russian.
Interesting article here. Well worth reading.
And in one of the other letters in yesterday’s Weekly Worker, the Party is mentioned too (albeit in a less than flattering way). It’s from Andrew Northall, a former SPGB member, I believe. As below:
‘As a long time reader and subscriber to the Weekly Worker, I have long understood this basic approach to minimum or immediate demands is core to its basic approach and that of the rather tiny group which exists behind it. I was pleased to see this basic approach clearly reiterated by Jack Conrad (‘Labourism without Labour’, April 3) – and, I have to say, in vivid contrast to the voluminous confusion and obfuscation of Mike Macnair, who, in far too many self-indulgent wordy confusing and obscure articles, reveals no real communism at all, but more a throwback to 19th century social democracy, and two of its later key outputs – the Socialist Party of Great Britain and the Mensheviks in Russia.’
