robbo203
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Incidentally, Robbo, if your proposal is to have any chance of success I wouldn’t tie it to a head-on attack on “science” and “philosophical materialism”. That will get people’s backs up and is a separate issue
I am emphatically not attacking science or the scientific method. What I am attacking is the ridiculous nonsense that scientists – the same goes for socialists – are 100% rational and that people who believe in some deity or whatever must therefore be 100% irrational.
We are, all of us, without exception – you, me, the Pope, and Mr and Mrs Smith next door – a mix of rational and irrational. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves
If Lucretius and those Deist bourgeois philosophers you refer to accepted our goal and our democratic method of achieving it along with our opposition to nationalism , sexism, and racism then why the hell should we not admit them? What is more important – achieving socialism and growing the movement to achieve socialism or engaging in some arcane pointless philosophical debate about the meaning of life and whether some entity called god exists?
If we were serious about wanting to achieve socialism, we would want to remove any and all obstacles in the way of growing the movement to help achieve socialism. As it is , we are turning away people who could join this movement and make good socialists and who pose no threat whatsoever to the socialist integrity of this movement. More to the point by our intransigence we are driving them into the welcoming arms of other organisations that dont share our socialist objective
So who exactly is being rational – or irrational?
“Our species cannot hope to extricate itself from its current perilous condition without engaging in rational thinking on the widest possible scale. Religion is one of the main barriers to such an expansion of rational thinking.”
The pragmatic case for amending and softening our approach to religious applicants for membership is persuasive. A sizeable chunk of applicants are rejected because they hold religious beliefs in one form or another. Typically the response on being rejected is one of dismay, particularly in the case of individuals who are very enthusiastic about what we have to say and agree with us on more or less everything else, barring the question of religion. So they drift away , never to be heard of again. By our actions, we have probably driven them into the arms of some reformist political organisation and caused them to become completely disenchanted with socialism as an objective. We have thus strengthened our political opponents.
For a tiny organisation whose numbers are shrinking this is not a rational approach to take – ironically! The above statement is based on a caricature in equating religion with irrationality and science with rationality. But every single human being on this planet, socialists included, is a mixture of rational and irrational thinking. We wouldn’t be humans if we were not. Ever since the publication of Thomas Kuhn’s work <i><b>The Structure of Scientific Revolutions</b></i> (1962), it has become impossible to seriously maintain that the practice of science is not also profoundly influenced by irrational motives
The only form of materialism that should be of any practical interest to socialists -since we are, supposedly, a practical movement, not a philosophical debating club – is historical materialism. Philosophical materialism is just academic navel-gazing. It is perfectly possible to be a historical materialist and hold religious beliefs
It is quite true though that many religions can have pernicious social effects. It is this that should be our sole concern as socialists , not the metaphysics of religion as such which is more or less irrelevant
We can address this question effectively by excluding from membership
- individuals who belong to organised religions
- individuals who subscribe to theistic notions of divine intervention in human affairs
One beneficial consequence of this is that this will encourage individuals to abandon their membership of an organised religion and so we will be able to contribute in a much more effective manner to the decline of organised religion by adopting this stipulation. As things stand, we reinforce the power of organised religion by denying religious applicants the choice of having to abandon their particular church or whatever in order to become a member of our organisation
Finally, it should be remembered that applicants have to meet multiple requirements in order to become a member of this organisation. For example , they cannot support nationalism or the principle of leadership/vanguardism. If some metaphysical belief in spiritual energy or an afterlife or whatever, seriously impacted on these core socialist principles, this would “come out in the wash”.
It all likelihood such beliefs would have zero impact on those principles of ours that really matter. So to that extent our current blanket an all religious applicants is completely superfluous and redundant
We need to focus only on what is obnoxious about religion – that is its social consequences. Arguing that it is irrational or “encourages irrationality” is completely irrelevant and springs from a bourgeois Enlightenment belief that reifies rationality and depicts human beings as fundamentally rational entities whereas the older Medieval view saw rationality as something embedded in the universe itself- the Great Chain of Being. The bourgeois Enlightenment philosophers , as it were, simply relocated or transferred this rationality into the human mind itself, thereby despiritualising Nature and reducing it to dead inert matter available for capitalist exploitation.
How ironic that a revolutionary socialist organisation should follow in the steps of the bourgeois Enlightenment philosophers in reifying “rationality”!
We can also support Richard Wolff. It is also dogmatic to accept everything that Marx and Engels wrote because on their time communes were very popular and many were created by the what Engels called the utopian socialists.
I don’t dogmatically accept everything Marx and Engels wrote -far from it – and nor do I support Richard Wolff and his views on worker coops . All I am saying is that it come across as very dogmatic to assert without even bothering to qualify your statement that coops and communes have been a “complete failure” which is factually incorrect anyway.
If they are a complete failure where does that leave us in the WSM who – if we are to be honest with ourselves – have completely failed to make significant progress in over a century of being politically active. I can’t help noticing that you conspicuously declined to answer this question
I think it would be wise to be a little less smug about ridiculing others for being a complete failure when we are not exactly a shining example of success ourselves
“Peasants communes were tested in Bolivia and Venezuela and it was a complete failure, as well, workers coop were tested in Venezuela and Bolivia and both were a total failure, and workers coop were also tried in Argentina and they failed too.”
We have to be very careful about dismissing worker coops and communes as a “complete failure” when we in the World Socialist Movement have hardly been a raging success! Or are you suggesting we too should be dismissed because we have “completely failed” to make significant progress in the 100 plus years we have been around?
Both Marx and Engels had positive things to say about worker coops and communes. Marx, for instance spoke of coops as constituting a transitional form from the “capitalist mode of production to the associated one” and how the “co-operative factories of the labourers themselves represent within the old form the first sprouts of the new” even if they reproduced “everywhere in their actual organisation all the shortcomings of the prevailing system” (Capital Vol 3)
Similarly with regard to communes Engels wrote:
“When one talks to people about socialism or communism, one very frequently finds that they entirely agree with one regarding the substance of the matter and declare communism to be a very fine thing; “but”, they then say, “it is impossible ever to put such things into practice in real life”. One encounters this objection so frequently that it seems to the writer both useful and necessary to reply to it with a few facts which are still very little known in Germany and which completely and utterly dispose of this objection. For communism, social existence and activity based on community of goods, is not only possible but has actually already been realised in many communities in America and in one place in England, with the greatest success, as we shall see.” http://marxengels.public-archive.net/en/ME0121en.html
Dogmatically dismissing coops and communes as a complete failure strikes me as being neither helpful nor even accurate. Is the giant Mondragon cooperative a “complete failure”? Clearly not. In capitalist terms it is quite successful. There have also been hundreds, if not thousands, of communes around the world that have successfully managed to continue over many years, even decades.
We need a more nuanced understanding of what “success” or “failure” means in this context. Not many people would argue that the purpose of communes or coops is to deliver socialism as we in the WSM understand the term. So the question might be better phrased – can these institutions inadvertently, if not intentionally, assist the spread of socialist ideas by providing examples of lived experiences and practices that go against the grain of capitalist convention and capitalist ideology?
I believe they can – potentially – though it doesn’t necessarily follow that they will. Our job as socialists is not to discourage workers from adopting particular lifestyle choices that they see – in many cases quite rightly in my opinion – as being more congenial than conventional wage slavery but rather to point out that they need to go beyond mere lifestyle choices if they want to bring about a fundamental change in society
Because ultimately that is what is needed insofar as no commune or coop however successful can ever really escape the consequences of operating in a capitalist society
I don’t care what people call themselves, or who they vote for. If you’re living collectively, own the means of your survival, and also provide the labour implicit in that survival .. you’re a communist/socialist as far as I’m concerned. It’s worker ownership and non-surplus productivity
Hi Headbutt
I would agree that to the extent we have to somehow survive in capitalism doing what you suggest above may well be preferable in many ways to conventional wage slavery. I would also go along with the suggestion that it is probably more conducive to developing a communist/socialist outlook
However, I dont think it necessarily follows that you are, or will become, a socialist or communist as a result. There are a wide range of different kinds of intentional communities, some with quite a different purpose or mission to others. Check out this link
Your description could also apply to peasant proprietorship which is still very significant in much of the Global South but could probably be more accurately described as pre-capitalist than post capitalist
I guess the point is that socialism or communism – synonyms as far asclassical Marxism is concerned – is a post capitalist and global system – a stateless, classless moneyless non-market alternative to capitalism. A commune might incorporate some of the features of such a system but is not really a social system as such and cannot really isolate itself from the ramifications of the social system we currently live under – global capitalism
That is not to say there is no benefit in joining a commune or whatever from a pragmatic standpoint and if this is what you have in mind then I would say go for it. However, it is not prerequisite to being a socialist or communist. The vast majority of us who are socialists or communist would fall under the category of being conventional wage slaves though I do know of one or two comrades who have lived , or are living, in communes
Regarding “worker ownership and non-surplus productivity”, if you are referring to producer coops I am rather more sceptical than I am in the case of communes. Though Marx envisaged coops (along with the joint stock company) as being a transitional form en route to a post capitalist society he nevertheless saw them as being very much constrained and limited by the economic laws of capitalism. I live in Spain which is home to what is perhaps the world’s famous cooperative – Mondragon. It has a chain of retail outlets – Eroski supermarkets (one near Malaga which I have occasionally popped into) – which are frankly indistinguishable from any other capitalist supermarket.
Mondragon seems to have steadily moved away from its founding philosophy as it has grown in size. This link might be of interest to you
https://libcom.org/library/myth-mondragon-cooperatives-politics-working-class-life-basque-town
Its a tricky argument and I think one needs to be careful about how one goes about defining terms.
Take the concept of economic growth. As explained earlier, I would argue that this concept is virtually meaningless from the standpoint of meeting human needs. If anything, economic growth detracts from the task of meeting human needs. It diverts vast quantities of human and natural resources away from meeting human needs. And it undermines our ability to sustainably meet these needs in the future because of its destructive impact on our natural environment in the form of climate change, marine pollution etc
I take it as read that all socialists are opposed to economic growth in this sense and to that extent can be called “no-growthers”. But that doesn’t mean we dont want human needs to be adequately met using the technological potential we already possess. On the contrary the argument should be that economic growth defined as increases in national GDP, gets in the way of meeting human needs for the reasons explained.
Therefore we should be very about careful not to unwittingly come across as endorsing the concept of economic growth in critiquing people like the eco-pessimists you refer to who talk about the need for individuals to reduce their carbon footprint. Their problem is that they are not looking at the matter from a social system perspective even if they pay lip service to the idea of attacking “capitalism” in some cases which really just boils down to attacking “greedy corporations” not capitalism as such.
Its not that there is not a need to reduce our carbon footprint at the level of society. For instance, a report has just been released showing that a total of 28 trillion tonnes of ice have disappeared from the surface of the Earth since 1994 which is pretty alarming https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/earth-has-lost-28-trillion-tonnes-of-ice-in-less-than-30-years/ar-BB18gUAh But you cant begin to address the question of society’s carbon footprint unless and until you begin to address the nature of the society we live in. If environmentalists want us to reduce our consumption they should direct their comments to the super-rich, not the ordinary person in the street struggling to make a living
This is where we socialists have a role to play. But it doesn’t help if we alienate environmentalists by using the language of the capitalist growth addicts
In the 1970s we confidently proclaimed that socialism would be a world of abundance on the basis of modern technology. Since the recent advent of eco-pessimism with Greens and Christians telling us we have been consuming too much even under capitalism we have been less confident about this.
Abundance is a function of both supply and demand. Demand cannot be deemed infinite or unlimited as the economic textbooks would have it because if that were the case, abundance and, by extension, socialism, would be inherently unrealisable. We would be perpetually living in a condition of scarcity which reinforces and rationalises the continuation of capitalism. It therefore follows that as socialists we need to conceptualise demand as something limited and reasonable, a cultural construction informed by such things as concern for the environment as well as the needs of others.
Consumerism is not about workers “consuming too much” or being “paid too much”. God forbid that we should even think this in a world in which tiny handful of billionaires own as much half of the world’s population combined. Obviously I fully support militant working class trade union action to get as much as they can in the way of wages out of a system that screws them over. What they dont get the super rich parasites get in what is, after all, essentially a zero sum game
The ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class. Consumerism is an aspect of this ruling class ideology and is bound up with other aspects of this ideology such as our celebrity culture and the pathetic fawning over the lives of the rich and famous in trashy magazines like Hello or celebrity-oriented TV shows. So we have workers fantasising about a lifestyle of conspicuous consumption, an otherworldly existence of luxury yachts and stately homes which they will never get to see let alone savour, except perhaps on a TV screen. How often have we been told that socialism is impossible because “what if everyone wanted their own luxury yacht or Porsche car?”
In this respect consumerism is thoroughly reactionary. It focusses on the individual, not our class, and it encourages us to emotionally identify and bond with – even imitate to the extent that this is possible – the class that exploits us. By all means let us organise to take back some of the fruits of our labour stolen from us but it would be very wrong, I think, to confuse this with consumerism which means something altogether different…
My objection was to those in the North who say they want to “undevelop” here. Maybe they are only objecting to the consumerism and waste of capitalism but in that case the word “undevelop” is unfortunate as, to most people as well as me, it suggests turning the clock back in some way. The word “degrowth” is even more unfortunate as it suggests a cut in people’s personal consumption.
If “de-growth” suggests a cut in people living standards then presumably “growth” means an increase in living standards . But this does not necessarily follow. For instance “growth” in capitalist terms can mean an increase in economic inequality and, at the same time, static or declining living standards for the majority.
In the literature, “economic growth” simply means an increase in GDP as the summation of the value of all monetised activities occurring within a particular nation state and within a particular time frame. If I employed 1000 labourers to dig a giant hole and then to fill it in again, in practical terms I would have achieved nothing useful but I would nevertheless have contributed to GDP – Gross Domestic Product – and, by extension, to allegedly increasing the living standards of the population (which is measured by dividing GDP by population to arrive at a per capita figure).
However since most economic activity carried on in the formal capitalist economy is completely socially useless from the standpoint of meeting human needs – like our giant hole – and, moreover, is a massive and growing drain on the human and natural resources of the planet, the concept of “growth” and by extension, that of “living standards” is virtually meaningless from a socialist standpoint. We should not encourage the kind of thinking that goes with them
I dont think anyone here would not be in favour of “using modern technology rationally to satisfy people’s needs” but we do need to broaden our conception of needs. We need the exponential increase in the disposal of plastic waste brought about in the name of raising people’s living standards like we need a hole in the head. We should not be reluctant to say this for fear of affronting that holy cow of capitalism – the pursuit of endless growth. We should be much more vigorously unequivocal about opposing capitalist growth and in favour of human-centred approach to development that acknowledges and acts within the constraints of our physical environment
The productivist outlook of Marx and the promethean talk of “increasing the productive forces of society” belongs to the 19th century when it was at least understandable. But the productive potential for socialism has been around for at least century and we should adjust our thinking – and our language – accordingly.
What matters now, increasingly, is the demand side of supply/demand equation and we should not be seen to be inadvertently encouraging, or giving succour to, the consumerist ideology of capitalism and its existentially empty, not to say environmentally irresponsible, quest of consumption for the sake of consumption. Like the proverbial snake eating its own tail, this is not going to get us anywhere
These peoples were completely debunked at the WSM forum and then I was told to block them, and one of them was invited by me to the WSM forum, and now all the shit falls on me.
So who told you and why did you chose to comply with the wishes of this individual (s) anyway since this goes against the democratic tradition of the WSM in inviting criticism from ALL opponents? We are not some Stalinist organisation and we are not selective in extending the democratic principle of free speech to our opponents. If we can’t deal with criticisms of opponents in healthy debate then that sends out the message that our case doesn’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to such criticism and that we prefer to hide behind a wall of censorship to conceal this weakness.
As a socialist, I fundamentally reject this way of doing things as a matter of principle
Maybe this is just a question of language again, but to talk of “domination” raises the question of who is doing the dominating. The working class, men and women, are definitely dominated by the capitalist class including female capitalists but do males dominate women in the same sort of way? The term is best used for actions by a state.
I dont think anyone is suggesting males dominate women in the same way as the working class is dominated by the capitalist class. But that does not mean, of course, as a broad generalisation that there is not some way in which you can say “males dominate women” in capitalism. If there were not it would be difficult to explain why something like, for example, the gender pay gap should even exist. Demanding equal pay – a trade union issue as you say – doesn’t quite address the point since this has to do with equal remuneration for the same kind of work done. The gender gap has more to do with the fact that women tend to be pre-dominant in certain lines of work that are relatively low paid rather than others and the gap would not disappear even if men doing these same jobs were paid exactly the same (which I think they have to be by law anyway, no?)
But yes I agree that what we are talking about probably does boil down to a question of language. The actions of a state and the overt or threatened use of force is indeed an example of what the term domination can mean but it is not the only way in which this term can be usefully understood. For instance, one could say “the news was dominated by the story about the royal marriage” or the “city skyline is dominated the construction of this new high rise building”. Here the term domination has quite different connotations
Talk of a “male dominated class society” does not necessarily have to mean what you think it means if you move away from this conception of “domination” as exclusively denoting the actions of a state involving the use of force Class domination is indeed the basis of capitalism – no question about that – but it meshes with and amplifies other forms of domination that form part of lived reality of workers under capitalism.
The problem is that by seeing everything through the lens of class – crucial though it is to our understanding of capitalism – you are in effect denying or suppressing those other aspects of the lived reality that many workers experience – like the discrimination that women or black workers experience in their daily lives. This creates a conceptual gap between us and these workers who we want to appeal from our exclusively class-based perspective when really what we want to do is accommodate their concerns and acknowledge the discriminations they are subject to WITHIN this perspective. But we dont really do this or we dont really do it enough. Its almost like saying to these workers that the discrimination they face in their daily lives doesn’t really matter. Its like a whole layer of lived reality has been stripped out of the discussion as far as these workers are concerned and this makes it much more difficult for them to relate to what we are saying.
Perhaps this is the reason why we have so few female and black comrades within our ranks and perhaps, also, this is was what prompted Lancaster branch to put up that motion for conference . Dont get me wrong – class is the master key (if I can put it in these pseudo-sexist terms) in our analysis of capitalism. The only real and lasting solution to all these kinds of discriminations is the abolition of capitalist class society. But we dont do ourselves any favours by downplaying or ignoring the important role these discriminations play in perpetuating this society. A good enough reason to confront them head on and proactively and vigorously oppose them
I don’t think those behind the motion want to admit non-socialists or reformists but, to be perfectly honest, I do think they want to attract women who think that capitalism should be defined as a “male-dominated class society” and that “capitalism and patriarchy are aspects of the same thing” (the terms in inverted commas are from their own circulars).
But objectively speaking is it not the case that there IS discrimination under capitalism. For example in terms of the gender pay gap. I dont think it is unreasonable to talk of a “male-dominated class society” in this sense providing it understood that the primary factor in the equation is class – the domination of one class (which of course includes both men and women) by another. Subsumed within the broad framework defined by class domination there is a tendency for males to “dominate” females such as expressed in such forms as income distribution etc
Gender discrimination is derivative from or enabled/buttressed by capitalism and the way in which class interreacts with all sorts of other contingent factors in the context of capitalist society. But it does exist and its does have a real impact on the lives 0f the working class women. It would be foolish to just sweep it under the carpet and pretend it doesn’t exist
My guess is that the aim of those who proposed it was to try to attract “feminists” in a much narrower sense than your definition (of anyone, man or woman, who stands for equal treatment of men and women).
I am not quite sure what you mean by this , Adam. You are not surely suggesting a sort of entryist strategy is being employed to “attract” feminists, in your narrower sense, into the Party , whether or not these be genuine socialists?
Clearly that is nonsense. Let’s start with the basic commonsensical proposition that all comrades on both sides of this debate are revolutionary socialists not reformists. There is only one individual here who seems to have succumbed to some kind of ridiculous conspiracy theory and believes otherwise even to the point of recommending that some members of SPGB should support a capitalist politician like Kamala Harris. Good thing this individual is not a member of this Party because that is a most outrageous thing to say about fellow socialists.
I think critics of the Lancaster motion read far too much into it. I interpret it simply as an attempt to signal a more robust proactive approach to combating sexism which, as socialists, we MUST do just as we MUST combat racism and nationalism and anything else that seeks to divide workers. If adopting such an approach results in more female workers joining the Party then that is a good thing, surely. The gender imbalance in the Party is worrying and I dont think one can plausibly deny that it has an off-putting effect as far as some women are concerned even if others might not be put off by it.
I think adopting a more robust proactive approach to combating sexism can help even if only at the level of the kind of image we project as an organisation. Image matters. The problem is that some comrades tend to take an over-rationalistic or super-rationalistic approach to the matter and we see this in this thread. The world in their eyes should follow the contours of a neat and tidy little logical syllogism. If X happens then Y must result. But the world is not like that. The world is messy and unpredictable and people are not mere logic machines but have feelings as well, often very irrational
I am not averse to the idea of clarifying and improving the wording of the Lancaster motion but lets stop with this silly conspiratorial nonsense that the intent of the motion is somehow to transform the SPGB into something other than the 100% revolutionary socialist organisation it is. Such insinuations are grating and demoralising and completely unbecoming of fellow socialists
The problem is that because of the badly worded resolution that was put forward we now leave ourselves open to the accusation that we are reformist.
Unless we can be found to be actually advocating reforms then there is zero chance of this happening. or to be more precise zero chance of such an accusation being sustained. Since nobody in the Party is advocating reforms that I know of your problem is a non problem. I wouldn’t worry about it. The only person in the entire world who seems to think we have gone reformist is active on this forum
If, as seems to be the unanamous opinion of everyone in the Party, the party has always stood for gender equality, and that Feminism can be defined in those terms, and further that was the meaning intended by the resolution, what was the point of the resolution.
If the point was merely to clarify what the party’s position is, can we expect further resolutions to conference stating the bleedin’ obvious, like it “is possible for a Socialist to be a Democrat”,
Or how about “is it possible to be a socialist and sexist”? Perhaps that was the point of the resolution – to ensure that such a possibility does not exist as far as the SPGB is concerned. Or do you think there is no trace of sexism in the Party at all?
There is no need to give a lecture or to file a court case to demonstrate that this resolution about Feminism is totally wrong because it is open to too many interpretations, for me, it is simply a resolution for open reformism and collaboration with bourgeois reforms
This is complete bullshit. I have challenged you several times to provide clear and concrete proof that the Lancaster motion is, in your words, an invitation to open reformism and collaboration with bourgeois reforms. You have conspicuously declined to provide any such substantive evidence preferring instead to pompously intone that “There is no need to give a lecture or to file a court case to demonstrate that this resolution about Feminism is totally wrong” So you evidently consider yourself exempt from , or above, the need to provide any hard evidence to back up your ridiculous assertion about the supposed reformist intentions of some members How is this not indicative of the very elitist thinking you claim I exhibit?
When I became the moderator of the WSM, Robbo also said that the forum was in decline because I was the moderator, but the dirty job was offered for many months by the prior moderator and nobody wanted to take the position and I did it and I had to confront a lot of problems, the forum was already in decline before I joined it, and I was able to send the invitation to many militants in others countries who joined the forum but most of them did not speak English
I am not saying you did not put a lot of effort into running the WSM forum. You did and I applaud to you for that. But this is not my criticism. My criticism is that you did not run the WSM forum in a particularly democratic manner – but rather in a Stalinist fashion by arbitrarily banning certain individuals whose views you did not approve of. It is this I contend that accelerated the decline of this forum further. The irony is that you have in the past accused certain members of the WSPUS of behaving in a Stalinist fashion when that is exactly how you have behaved!
I would prefer to be a member of a Marxist/Leninist forum which are open for discussion and they do not delete your messages, and I receive many invitations from them. If I treated so badly the members of the WSPUS why I have received an invitation to participate in their activities?
As explained in my response to Bijou nobody has deleted your post and nobody has suggested that it be deleted – only that it be deleted from the “President Biden” thread and be transferred to this sub-forum along with the other posts including my own that were transferred here. If you feel more comfortable joining a Marxist-Leninist organization dont let me stop you. Go ahead and do it That you should even mention this speaks volumes in itself. What is your angle in saying this – emotional blackmail or something?
If you have received an invitation to participate in activities of the WSPUS despite your past record of insulting some of their members as “Stalinists”- and I assure you I have all the evidence I need to back up this claim – perhaps that suggests a willingness on the part of the WSPUS now to forgive and forget your past misdemeanours and to urge you to cooperate with them in growing the WSPUS. Which begs the question – why have you not accepted their invitation if your allegiance does lie with the WSM as you say?
