robbo203
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We have a wide potential receptive audience.
Why are we not resonating with them?Partly I think because we are doing precious little to tap into this potential
The problem is we live in the age of the internet and the WSM has simply not yet adapted to this. The vast majority of its membership is inactive, because of isolation and probably not really appreciating what they can do to contribute.
I am beginning to see what can be done on even a small scale with our American companion Party. This time last year it was at the point of collapse. Then it reorganised. All members barring one or two were put on a central discussion list enabling party wide decisions to be made instantly. The website was reorganised upgraded and made more attractive. Members started writing pamplets and most crucially of all , a handful of comrades starting linking to material on the WSPUS website via the social media such as Facebook. The result? The flow of contacts that had virtually dried up started flowing again and now we are seeing new members joining (one just yesterday).
I cannot stress enough that the key to progress is through the internet where increasingly people meet the WSM and through which the vast majority of new members now join. But there is only a tiny handful of members proactively linking to our website material via social media such as Facebook or Quora – I would say less than a dozen worldwide.
If we could triple or quadruple the number of members engaged in this sort of activity I wouldn’t mind betting we would see an explosion in the number of contacts made and the number of new people taking up the trial offer of the Socialist Standard. There is direct correlation between the number of new contacts made and the number of new members made.
This organisation needs to seriously consider developing an approach that would encourage every member to engage in internet work and perhaps some sort of ad hoc committee needs to be set up for that very purpose
Unfortunately, the ‘materialists’ will continue to supposedly try ‘to reconcile… by synthesising’, by actually reducing ideas to the physical. As for Podolinsky, ‘value’ must be ’embodied’. But ‘value’ is a social product, not a form of ‘matter’.
David Pena, if you read the article, actually takes the view that “value” is pre-social – that is, it predate human society and indeed organic life itself. ‘Exchange value’ is predicated on the exchange of energy. He doesn’t seem to understand the point that exchange value presupposes commodity exchange and therefore a particular kind of society in which commodity relations have developed to a vey significant degree.
Strange that he wants to consider himself some sort of Marxist while rejecting this basic Marxian insight
While researching the subject I came across this guy – a contemporary of Marx and Engels with whom he corresponded – who made arguments not dissimilar to those made by Pena
Came across this site.
Some of the Links are interesting. For instance according to one link sustainable development is “Marxist” so we must oppose it. LOL
Fair point Alan if you are defining self government in this specific way. But in no way can this particular reading of the term be equated with the term “socialist government” which definitely implies the existence of a state in my view (and hence classes) and as such is an oxymoron
Is to use the term “self-government” for peoples’ power an oxymoron?
Alan, self government usually refers to the devolution of power from some central state to some region under its jurisdiction. So it implies the existence of a state and by extension class society.
If anarchists want anarchism – a stateless society – they should be joining the SPGB in their droves, not sniping at it from the side lines. You cant have a stateless society without getting rid of class ownership and it is the state that stands in the way of that happening
So it makes complete sense to democratically capture the state precisely in order to dismantle it along with capitalism at the same time. Does any anarchist seriously imagine the state is going to disappear of its own accord?
I would have thought it was pretty obvious why the concept of a “socialist government” aka state makes no sense. A state is an instrument of class rule. Socialism is a classless society. Ergo, socialism is a stateless/government-less society…
As for the idea of a “socialist prime minister and a socialist cabinet” John McEnroe said it best: “You cannot be serious!” What are these personages supposed to do in a society without money, wage labour , profit, taxes etc etc etc.
Perhaps Kaz should enlighten us. What would be their job description?
Much more could be said and it could be said much better but least it something people could link to in the meantime.
Have linked to it in several FB posts and am just sitting here watching the “likes roll in. Others here should do the same. Its quite uplifting
Indeed, and I suspect those “toadying up” to the technocrats will be in their element with a 2020 Summer School topic on ‘Technology’.
I cant quite see the logic of this. I voted for technology as the subject for discussion at the Summer School and there multiple aspects to this including the point that technology is never neutral in its impact on society and has negative as well as positive effects from a socialist point of view. In fact, there is a whole school of thought that focuses on how technology is structured in ways that reinforce and perpetuate existing power relations in society and thus takes , if any thing an anti technocratic stance. I hope this aspect of technology will be discussed as well as the potentially liberating aspects of technology which of course we must discuss as well (which does not mean falling back on some kind of crude technologically determinist view of the world)
So I, for one, think it was an excellent choice for a theme at Summer school and not before time. We have tended to neglect the subject and its many ramifications for too long
The SPGB like a magnet attracts iron filings, attempts to draw the masses in our direction. Nobody AFAIK purposefully searched out the SPGB but by fortuitous events and accidental coincidence came across it. Our job is to make that a lot easier.
Well some people I have corresponded or debated with on the social media have apparently “purposefully searched out the SPGB” having come across the name. Maybe coming across the name was accidental but it seemed to have aroused their curiosity
Your general point is absolutely valid though. The task of socialists is to make it much easier for non socialists to come across the SPGB and by far the best way of doing that is via the social media – for example by linking articles or pamphlets on this site on various FB sites
Probably more than 90 percent of new members to this party join view the internet having heard of us on the internet. The more contacts we generate , the more members we make and the more rapidly we grow as a movement . Its as simple as that
Every member or sympathiser can help by joining in this campaign. It takes a minimal amount of time and effort to make a big difference if we all collectively made that effort
http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/search?q=ten+minutes
This sort of simplicity and oppositionism is why the MLs are thriving.
Are they thriving, though? My impression is quite different although I guess it depends on what you mean by MLs
You all are just so against the Hostility aren’t you? Marx in non-heaven! That’s the best bit.
Hostility should be graduated and fine-tuned otherwise it becomes just a blunt instrument that defeats its own purpose
Just as there is a spectrum of political opinion along which one can place different organisations in terms of their proximity to or distance from our way of looking at the world so there is spectrum of political opinion within such organisations and indeed within the SPGB too. We shouldn’t make the mistake of regarding organisations as monolithic entities
I regard the MFP as being very much “fellow travellers” in wanting essentially what we want. Sure there are some differences in approach but markedly less so than in the case of Frescoists and I am not sure all such differences apply in the case of particular individuals within the MFP
It would be worth discussing what these differences are and whether they can possibly be narrowed or even overcome. I agree with Alan that some kind of joint discussion meeting with them might be fruitful
Nick Tapping is still around as he puts in an occasional appearance in our Facebook page. He knows us of old.
Nick’s views are vert close to ours if not identical – like this one I just come across on the MFP FB site:
“Marx envisioned a global society which has made the monetary system and the state obsolete
What most people think of as communism is in fact state controlled capitalism..ie, the state controlling capital”
