[Mike Foster]

If you've already made a booking, details of the venue and session times will be arriving through your letterbox in a few days' time. This includes info about a so-far unannounced extra!

[Mike Foster]

Available only at Summer School: a new pamphlet of Socialist Standard articles on the theme of relationships!

[Mike Foster]

There's a facebook summer school page, where more updates on the event will be posted. It's here: https://www.facebook.com/events/397277923702854/?fref=ts

[Mike Foster]

I'm pleased to announce the first confirmed talk of the weekend: Steve Clayton will discuss 'Family In Class Society: Engels to Anti-Oedipus'.More announcements are on the way!

[Mike Foster]

I haven't seen or read any of the Hunger Games films or books, but they certainly look interesting based on what Ed says. It would be interesting to know what the author of the books' political views are, and if any of them have been toned down for the film adaptations, in the same way that the film of V For Vendetta has a different political message to that of the original graphic novel.The premise of the Hunger Games reminds me a bit of Logan's Run, which describes a future society where anyone over 21 (in the book) or 30 (in the film) is 'eliminated'. Here, it's a metaphor for fears of overpopulation (which were more prevalent in the 60s and 70s when this came out than they are now) and fears of aging (which are probably more prevalent now).As for comparisons with Lord of the Flies, I'm not sure if there's much of a link. Lord of the Flies gives the view that people can't co-operate without the framework for society being imposed by an elite. This would probably be the view of the fictional elite in The Hunger Games, but based on what Ed says, this wouldn't be the message of the film/book itself, which sounds more optimistic about co-operation. 

[Mike Foster]

The CCS kindly invited me along as a guest speaker. The talk's a revised version of the 'Marxism, Physics and Philosophy'  one given in Clapham last year.If anyone can make it, mine's a pint of bitter.

[Mike Foster]

Sorry,  DJP, I probably misunderstood about Rubin. Looking at the text, we should probably discuss more than just chapter 3. I'm not sure if we need a week of reading time before posting comments, but I'm happy to go with the consensus.

[Mike Foster]

Count me in, with another vote for the Rubin text. I think the length of this text is about right, to start off with anyway. I think we should be wary of discussing whole books, especially something as weighty as Capital, where chapters or sections should be discussed in more digestible chunks.I tend to prefer as few limits or moderation as possible. So, I think some of the suggestions made above might restrict the discussion a little. In particular, I don't think we need to restrict membership or have too much active moderation of responses. We should probably post a few ground rules as a permanent thread on that section of the forum, though, such as reminders about relevance of comments, avoiding personal abuse etc. Hopefully common sense will guide most people.In terms of timescales, I think two weeks would be about the right length of time for a particular text to be discussed, with comments allowed right from when the thread opens. Perhaps threads about texts could be started on the 1st and the 15th of each month? A week or so before the start of a new text, the moderator would open a new thread to ask for suggestions and votes for the next one to be discussed. We'd then have that week to make suggestions or vote for a text someone else has suggested. A thread for an old text could be left open after its fortnight in the spotlight, in case anyone wants to add to it afterwards. After a while, we should have an interesting bank of threads about different texts. It would be nice to occasionally discuss films or TV programmes as well as written texts (as long as they would be able to elicit enough meaty discussion, which might be a rarity).

[Mike Foster]

I like the idea of a separate forum section for discussing texts. I'm not sure if it should be called 'Socialist Book Club', though, as this might suggest restricting it to 'socialist' books. Some texts worth discussing might not merit the 'socialist' tag. I don't think we need a separate committee to set the texts, though. It would be fairer for anyone to make suggestions, and the first five or so received are then voted for. After a few days the text with the most votes gets discussed.

[Mike Foster]

Thanks for the other suggestions. I tried to download the Perlman text at work, until a message came up saying that 'militant and extremist' websites were blocked!I'm very rusty on Hegel, so I'll try to make it to your talk on the 20th, Steve. I haven't got very far with Lukacs yet, and it'll be interesting to hear his definition of 'reality', following on from what you said.

[Mike Foster]

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I'd forgotten about Perlman, so I'll look into his pamphlet. Lukacs gets more disappointing the more I read of his stuff. In the later preface to History and Class Consciousness he says that he rejected most of what's in the book, which doesn't inspire much confidence

[Mike Foster]

Thanks for the interesting discussion and suggestions of texts. I remember reading the one about the SWP a few years ago, and it's very thorough and detailed.  As others have said, the link between vanguardism and reformism seems to be in the patronising way that vanguardists think that reformism is the limit of working class understanding. Also, a vanguard isn't going to argue for anything beyond maintaining a society with leaders, as they would be arguing themselves out of a position of power. Truly revolutionary organisations advocate transferring power to the working class as a whole rather than another elite.

[Mike Foster]

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I’ll look into other venues. There’s possibly Newman College, too, where we held a Summer School ten or so years ago. I’m not sure how many boxes it ticks, though, as it’s less straightforward to get to.I haven’t heard any more about the bloke at Harborne Hall, but I’ll try to find out.I hadn’t forgotten your great suggestion, Ray, and what I had in mind was closer to your ‘relationships’ idea. Perhaps ‘sexuality’ isn’t a broad enough theme to stretch to five talks, but ‘relationships’ is. Then, there would still be room for a talk about same-sex relationships, which I think should be included. Thanks for the idea!

[Mike Foster]

Summer School’s over for another year, and hopefully everyone who battled their way through the rain to get there had a good time. I certainly did. Thanks very much to the other speakers for giving such clear and thought-provoking talks, and for taking the time and effort to put them together. The discussion after each session was lively and interesting, too. It’s not often enough that we get the chance to chat and chew over ideas together. Roll on 2013’s summer school (although I need a bit longer to recover from this one before I can think about next year’s!). Thanks are also due to Dave, for helping out with the publicity. 

[Mike Foster]

If you’d like to book a place, please let me know before the end of the weekend, as the venue have asked for a list of attendees. Many thanks.

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