jondwhite
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Another surge in membership for the DSAhttp://inthesetimes.com/article/19795/socialisms-trump-bump-democratic-socialists-america
Here's Engels in that great pamphlet
Quote:since Bismarck went in for State-ownership of industrial establishments, a kind of spurious Socialism has arisen, degenerating, now and again, into something of flunkyism, that without more ado declares all State-ownership, even of the Bismarkian sort, to be socialistic. Certainly, if the taking over by the State of the tobacco industry is socialistic, then Napoleon and Metternich must be numbered among the founders of Socialism. If the Belgian State, for quite ordinary political and financial reasons, itself constructed its chief railway lines; if Bismarck, not under any economic compulsion, took over for the State the chief Prussian lines, simply to be the better able to have them in hand in case of war, to bring up the railway employees as voting cattle for the Government, and especially to create for himself a new source of income independent of parliamentary votes — this was, in no sense, a socialistic measure, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously. Otherwise, the Royal Maritime Company, the Royal porcelain manufacture, and even the regimental tailor of the army would also be socialistic institutions, or even, as was seriously proposed by a sly dog in Frederick William III's reign, the taking over by the State of the brothels.A faction within the SWP set up a forum briefly in 2013 for members only.http://internationalsocialismuk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/is-network-new-forum-launched.htmlThe AWL claim they are the only ones discussing ideas openly, they have refused to print letters from me pointing out the SPGB have had a forum for over ten years
I think there's a better case for abstaining from the referendum in Surrey than on the question 'Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?' The referendum in Surrey is an almost textbook example of the sort of 'political trading' to which we have always been opposed. And the phrasing of the EU membership referendum could probably have allowed socialists to vote 'no' on a semantic point.Having said that, claiming 'there are no working class interests at stake' was a poor formulation when used for the EU referendum and would be even worse in the Surrey referendum. Higher taxes would almost certainly get a different amount of crumbs, and its only being proposed because they expect Surrey voters won't vote for higher taxes and it will strengthen their mandate to cut services.
The Ex-Worker podcast has reached 54https://crimethinc.com/podcast/54and updateshttps://crimethinc.com/2017/01/09/under-no-managementincluding live coverage of J20https://crimethinc.com/2017/01/19/continuous-live-coverage-of-j20
My assumption was Platypus Review was an academic journal in size so it seems strange that is was a broadsheet, have they perhaps printed out journal-sized pages with small (or reduced) font size on larger pages?Not quite sure where they are coming from, but their website (the url references 1917) should elaborate and there are various articles including by them in Weekly Worker from a few years ago. They seem keen to host debates and the SPGB reputation is to participate in debates so its good that face to face contact has been made.http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/963/dissecting-the-platypus/http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/authors/chris-cutrone/Perhaps they could host a debate in London on the Russian Revolution this year and invite us to participate.
One of the pamphlets titled 'World of Free Access' dated 1982 has been scanned in full and made available online herehttps://www.scribd.com/doc/112030675/World-of-Free-Access-1982
just reading about one of the works of sci-fi writers censored as 'bourgeois pseudo-science' in the name of 'communism'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magellanic_Cloud
Quote:When the novel was first published, parts of it were censored by the Communist authorities. Lem famously denounced[citation needed] the censored version, calling it too optimistic about Communism. At the time, this was a bold sign that demonstrated Lem's confidence that his singular status as a Polish author of international renown would protect him from state repression. A complete version was published in the 1990s after the fall of Communism.Because at the time of writing cybernetics was a banned "bourgeois pseudoscience", Lem invented the term mechaneurystyka ("mechaneuristics").This passed me by and is almost a year old now, but the Venus Project have a new film called The Choice is Ours (2016)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb5ivvcTvRQI will have to make time to watch it.
The Adam Smith Institute have debated the SPGB in recent years. One for me to transcribe I think. Wasn't Adam Smith himself not quite as in favour of the "free market" as the Institute bearing his name?
It seems this is part of a wider project called 'Prolitca' to which we could possibly contributehttps://prolitca.wordpress.com/newspapers/the-western-clarion/
