robbo203
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Someone said it lasts for more than 2 hours. I only watched so far to the brief description of projects A and B. Have you got to the end? In fact will anybody?
Well, I have just finished looking at the video. It’s long and I had to do it in two sittings. There is certainly a lot of useful material in there – quite thought-provoking, in fact. She is certainly an effective communicator though some people might find her wacky sense of humour a bit OTT. I didn’t mind it that much though there were one or two times when she engaged in it for a bit too long
In the end, she came out with 3 actual alternatives, the third one a derivation from the first
1) NTC socialism (non-transferable currency)
2) Free access communism
3) UFI socialism (universal full income)No 3 shares with no 2 the fact that labour is completely voluntary and uncoerced in the sense that you still get access to goods even if you choose not to work but each individual is allocated spending points which are non transferable (as with NTC socialism).
She gave a pretty decent rundown of the reasons why free-access communism could work and I particularly enjoyed this part of the video. We would have criticisms of the the NTC socialism model obviously and she did touch on some of these.
She ended with a discussion of various forms of participatory planning – such as in Kerala and in Spain during the civil war. One could easily imagine some aspects of these being adopted in a socialist society.
All in all I thought it was very good video and certainly, I learnt some things from it. I would certainly recommend featuring it on our website but with a short intro from us on where we disagree with some of the ideas – notably NTC socialism – with a link to articles on our website
TBH I”m still not sure why that Lucky Black Cat video is supposed to be special. The idea that a fully communist society would be one without markets is commonplace amongst people concerned with that type of thing.
DJP, I am not saying her video is unique or special and in fact, if there are others talking about the same thing and in much the same vein I would urge that these too be featured on our website. I haven’t seen the one you linked to and will check it out. I have to say I do like the Lucky Black Cat video for the style of delivery and its wit….
Thinking again about the point Moo makes about leaving off “planning how we’re going to solve problems, such as lifting people in the Global South out of extreme poverty as quickly as possible” till we are a much larger movement – perhaps a clarification would be in order…
Moo, if you are talking about detailed planning then you are probably right. We cannot predict when, or if, we are ever going to be a mass movement – not to mention the circumstances prevailing at the time that would affect the details of such planning anyway.
Perhaps “planning” is the wrong word here. But we do need a theoretical approach or perspective informed by the data that is already available to us now as to how we might broadly go about tackling this issue. We can’t just say “The problem is capitalism and the solution is Socialism” and leave it at that. We have to explain and justify to the outsider why we consider socialism to be the solution and in a way that is convincing and persuasive. That unavoidably means getting into the nitty gritty- outlining some of the mechanisms, institutions or procedures that might be brought into play – even if we preface or qualify what we say by pointing out that it is provisional.
We cannot NOT do this. If we do not do this then what we have to say about socialism will come across as utterly vague, utopian and too abstract to convince anyone.
Of course, in practice members do have a lot more to say about socialism than simply that it is “moneyless wageless classless and stateless based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production”. Nevertheless, we should be saying much more than we do and out in the open for all to see.
We should be actually encouraging debate within the Party and perhaps also in the Socialist Standard itself (a debate forum as a regular feature, perhaps?). I know members have different views on matters such as the role of nuclear power in a socialist society or whether people should turn to vegetarianism and abandon a meat-based diet. I don’t see a problem at all with having these kinds of debates and we shouldn’t try to pretend we are, or should be, a monolithic entity
Maybe this is partly what lies behind the idea that we shouldn’t get too much into the details of a socialist society – namely the fear that talking about it will have a divisive effect on what is after all a small organisation, maybe causing some to leave and thus making the organisation even smaller. So we clam up to retain a sense of unity.
Actually, this strikes me as a very misguided way of looking at this matter. A certain degree of divisiveness (beyond the basic agreement over the fundamentals, of course), is something to be welcomed and encouraged. Ironically, this is probably much more likely to draw in the outsider and encourage him or her to join the Party – knowing we are not a monolith.
The Party needs to develop a culture of feeling relaxed and comfortable with the idea that we are not ever going to see eye to eye on everything. Nor should we
When it comes to planning how we’re going to solve problems, such as lifting people in the Global South out of extreme poverty as quickly as possible, I believe we should wait until the World Socialist Movement starts to really take-off before doing that (for example, when the SPGB has at least 100,000 members).
The problem is, Moo, that if you do that then the effect is make it sound like socialism is just some vague abstract formula disconnected from the world we live in. This is what is so offputting for many people coming into contact with the Party. It conveys the idea that we are not really serious about establishing socialism
While we are not in the business of writing detailed “recipes for the cook shops of the future” as Marx put it, there is surely a sensible middle path between this and a formulaic abstract approach which consists in just providing the sketchiest definition of socialism imaginable and leaving it at that. People will just dismiss the idea as airey fairey if you are not prepared to go into more depth about what what socialism would entail.
There are a lot of things we can say about socialism that logically stem, or can be inferred from, the basic definition itself. There is even more we can say about socialism that stems from current developments and technological possibilities. We should not refrain from, or be scared about, saying these things. They need to be said if we are to come across as minimally credible.
I remember Pieter Lawrence used a wonderful turn of phrase to explain this point of view. He said something along the lines that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be “hostages to the future”. If we want to make a socialist future then we have to imagine it in considerably more depth than we currently do
“I have been a socialist for as long as I remember, and I still am. I am in accord with the DoP. But I think that, with respect, the party is not fit for purpose. Why? I think it’s because so little thought is given to a socialist society. Yes, Socialism will be unutterably better than capitalism, but this isn’t often put in the Standard”
I strongly endorse this sentiment that there should be much more focus on the nature of a socialist society in our literature. Although, comrade, having said that, I don´t quite know why you felt the need to leave the Party for that reason. I hope you reconsider and rejoin. There are others within the Party who share precisely the same opinion as you.
The problem is that any such shift in focus has to come from members themselves. We are not a top-down organisation. Stuff that gets to be published in the Standard is freely written by members, for the most part, without direction as to content – commissioned material. That doesn’t mean that branches cannot put forward a view on the matter and urge that more material of this nature be published, From a writer’s point of view it would be good to know what kind of material would be of interest not only to members but to the general public.
I think you are right in emphasising a need for a shift of focus. I get the impression that in the last few years, there has been a growing interest in the concept of a post-capitalist society – on internet forums (such as the large “Moneyless Society FB group with 24K members and many other such groups) and in the publication of more and more books on this very topic. A case in point is the buzzword “de-growth communism” which has recently come into circulation and takes on board the notion of ecological limits to production. In a way, it contrasts sharply with another trendy buzzword “fully automated luxury communism” (FALC) But note that in both perspectives the basic focus is a non-market alternative to capitalism.
The Party has itself made contributions towards firming up or consolidating the idea of a post-capitalist society – putting more flesh on the basic bones of the idea. I don’t know if you were a member back in the 1980s or thereabouts but there were various initiatives going on then which culminated in the formation of a “Production for Use” committee. The late Comrade Pieter Lawrence wrote up a very lengthy report which later bore fruit in the publication of a pamphlet called “Socialism as a Practical Alternative” which you can access on this site
I am very sympathetic to your anti-consumerist stance which in my case is partly driven by an interest in environmental issues and the anthropology of writers like Marshall Sahlins, author of “Stone Age Economics; The Original Affluent Society”. However, there is a need to strike a balance between the kind of stoicism advocated by de-growth communists and the technological fantasies of FALC enthusiasts. We are indeed going to have to reconsider some of our lifestyle choices come a socialist society if only because there is this enormous deadweight of actual material poverty to deal with that exists most particularly in the global South. Tackling that is unavoidably going to entail a massive readjustment in the way we allocate resources
However, we have to also take into account the enormous productive advantages that a socialist society will have – above all, the elimination of capitalism´s massive structural waste in the form of socially useless work – that will allow us to tackle this problem much more effectively without adversely impacting too much on material standard of living of workers elsewhere in the world (the capitalists are another matter, of course). I think there will be some negative impacts, as you suggest, but this will be vastly compensated for by the big improvement in the quality of life. For most workers in the West, this is the real issue – the quality of life and the drip effect of chronic insecurity, not so much the lack of material goods. This obsession with consumerism is just a pain in the backside and a bore.
A scarcity mentality that feeds a competitive outlook on life (and consumerism itself) will die out anyway, and all the more rapidly once the material conditions of many workers in what is currently the Global South, improve. There has of course been some improvement in this part of the world already, however, and one only has to consider places like China where hundreds of millions have been lifted out of absolute poverty. So to an extent, capitalism is preparing the ground for us and making our task easier to accomplish in a socialist society.
Anyway, this is just my tuppence worth…
Maybe an alternative is for it to be reviewed in the Standard?
Or maybe both? It would be good to beef up the videos on this website
I don’t know if you know this already or not, but if your videos get enough views YouTube pays a share of it’s advertising revenue to the content creators. There’s probably at a guess tens of thousands of people who earn a living that way.
I am not that familiar with the set-up but this surely would be all the more reason why someone like this person would want us to publicise her videos. It would broaden the audience and therefore increase the number of visits to her site. She benefits from that and I have no problems with that at all. In a sense we would be helping each other.
I don’t think the party should simply be “publishing this on the website” though, at least not without passing comment.
Why not make a feature and talk with some “BreadTube” creators about their experiences making socialist-ish content? That would help reach out to other, and larger, audiences.
Well, if the video is making exactly the same case as us, and especially if it is making the case in a manner that is effective and interesting, I cannot see any reason why the party should not advertise it. What is there to lose? After all the party website does feature books written by non-members so why not videos? In fact there is all the more reason to do so since a video is immediately accessible and free of charge. Much more use should be made of videos in my opinion
I don’t disagree with your last point but there has always been a problem in the Party with getting more comrades actively involved. It strikes me as being an effective use of resources that if there is already a video out there that is saying more or less what we are saying that we should make use of it.
Sure, we can make a comment or two introducing the video. For example, as Adam has noted the postcapitalism video offers 2 alternative versions of a post-capitalist society – the one involving labour vouchers and the other free access. We could simply comment that we favour the latter option and maybe supply a link to an article on the SPGB website where we criticise labour vouchers.
It’s all very do-able in my opinion
Well all her videos are freely accessible so I don’t think it would be a case of her obtaining a living from the videos per se. I think she is part of the Patreon set-up and sort of relies on donations via Paypal so actually she is more likely to be inclined to favour us publishing it on the website for that reason.
I haven’t seen the entire video but so far it looks good to me. Im quite impressed with her style I have to say.
I’ve come across more videos by “LuckyBlackCat” which judging from the name suggests she might be more of an anarchist or anarcho-communist. At any rate, she seems to be someone definitely worth contacting. Im wondering whether we might ask her if she is OK about using some of her videos on our website. Is this something the AV committee could do?
Anyway here´s another video of hers
Trump is actually a failed businessman with multiple bankruptcies.
I know some of his businesses have gone bankrupt (and he also has substantial outstanding debts) but I don’t know if it would be accurate to call him a failed businessman. Failed businessmen tend not to be billionaires but according to Wikipedia:
“For decades, Forbes has assessed his wealth, currently estimating it at $6.8 billion as of mid-January 2025. Meanwhile, Bloomberg estimates his wealth at $7.08 billion as of the same date, although Trump himself claims a much higher net worth.”
If anyone has any doubts about the economic motives of the Ukraine Russia war…
“We have enough rare earth metals, and you can see that Russia has been occupying our territories since 2014. Part of these territories indeed has large deposits of minerals. We are open to having our partners, who help us defend the land, develop these resources. They push the enemy back with their weapons, presence, and sanctions. And this is absolutely fair,” Zelenskyy noted.
Also this
Did I get that right? Trump is proposing that the US takes over the Gaza Strip – he actually said in the video “we will own it” – in order to “develop” it (and no doubt the oil reserves off the coast as well) . Feigning concern, he has asked the Arab nations (not the US of course) to find it in their hearts to take in the Palestinians as refugees
This, in a press conference with the smirking Netanyahu beside him…..
Check out the vid
Also this
Unbelievable. Just unbelievable. Presumably, this will add to the list of American capitalism´s would-be land grabs: Panama, Greenland, Canada…LOL Makes you wonder if there wasn’t some plan behind the US support of Israel´s murderous bombing capitalism after all.
We are back to the late 19th century when the various European powers carved up Africa in the “Scramble for Africa”. Naked capitalism showing us exactly what it is all about. And if and when China invades Taiwan, these people will not have a leg to stand on
I don’t know if the source is reliable or not. Still, it looks like Mark Rutte the NATO secretary General is intent on ensuring that the US remains firmly wedded to this organisation. There would seem to be growing divisions within NATO over what to do about the Ukraine situation and it seems possible that a resolution to this stupid pointless war might be in sight …
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/trump-is-right-nato-chief-reacts-to-us-claims-1738504201.html
Karl Marx over estimated the taking of class consciousness by the world working class, in our time millions of workers are supporting their own exploiters, in my entire life I had never seen anything like this before.
Absolutely spot on! I have never seen circumstances quite so dire as the present tbh. It’s almost like a kind of delirious masochism that workers have succumbed to. The capitalist left wing are partly responsible for this state of this but I think primarily what we are seeing is a kind of Stockholm Syndrome being manifested on an huge scale. Its sickening seeing workers identifying with the likes of Trump and Musk who clearly couldn’t give a flying f··k about them and you just have to pay a visit to Twitter/X to see this happening all the time. So depressing it makes me want to cancel my account there.
This relentless focus on the individual – the Great Man theory – is deeply disturbing and regressive. It’s like in olden times when the wellbeing of society was ideologically bound up with the wellbeing of the monarch. When you beheaded the head of state society was supposedly reduced to running around like a headless chicken LOL
The Right is rampant in many parts of the world now, and growing stronger, but at some point, the see-saw of capitalist politics is going to kick in and we will probably see a movement in the opposite direction – towards Leftist populism again (of which Bernie Sanders and Jeremey Corbyn were perhaps, abortive examples).
Historically, I guess revolutionary socialism has tended to fare better in a social climate where Leftist thinking was more dominant even though we are fundamentally opposed to left-wing capitalism as such. Of course, Starmer´s Anti-Labour Party are not in any way Left-wing and you might still see a further shift to the Right in the form of the Reform Party. But elsewhere maybe not. Maybe the workers will eventually see through the fraud of right-wing politics with its familiar themes such as anti-immigration and so on but let’s hope they also learn from the lessons of the Left´s past failures as well should it regain some influence.
In that case, I wonder how the cause of revolutionary socialism will fare? Grim though the present may be, maybe there is hope for the future, after all ….
Trump – the consummate con artist
