Young Master Smeet
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Vin Maratty wrote:It would be extremely undemocratic for an administrative committee to make up there own minds about what to do. But I don't think you meant to say that. It would be simply absurd to have party rules, conference decisions and party polls and then elect an EC to make up their own minds.
Erm, no.I believe it was conference 1935 pass the following resolution:"The EC shall stand and turn thrice widdershins if a black cat walks across head office roof during an EC meeting held on a Tuesday or a Thursday in an even month, unless there is a dog in Edgeley Lane."The EC members would have to make their minds up:1) Whether a black cat had walked across the roof.2) Whether it was a qualifying day/month3) Whether there was a dog in Edgeley Lane.Before deciding whether to stand and turn thrice widdershins. They would also have to decide how fast to turn widdershins. They might decide whetehr or not to designate someone to watch the roof durign qualifying meetings in case there's a cat, or should they ignore it unless a cat makes its presence known?
Steve,well, discussing procedures, Ed made up his mind, and that is procedurally valid.To take a hypothetical (based in part on fact) there was a relatively famous libel case involving a woman in Hackney who moved from the Labour, to Respect, to the Tories in a short space of time. If she applied, I'd support the EC refusing her membership, based on her recent fickleness. I'd say the infamous "balance of probability" test applies.As I've said, though, part of democracy is that this process isn't finished. There are other points to be raised, at the appropriate place and time.
You're not getting through because your point is baseless and mistaken. Don't go blaming me for you being wrong. I don't see a conflict of interest, ED has nothing to gain nor lose: he simply has an opinion, and has acted upon it. You're entirely right, the rulebook guides an open process, that is ongoing.
LBird,"the mind of the Party" is to not admit to membership anyone whose membership would be detrimental to the interest of the party: the EC members have made that determination, and are going to be asked to think again. The wider party may now intervene if it so wishes.I think that's slightly better than hoping for telepathy from our EC members.I have a couple of points I want to put to my own branch about this, but I'm going to show them some courtesy and raise the points there first.
I'm not hiding behind the rulebook, I'm pointing out the actual structures involved and rebutting accusations of anti-democratic practices. Some lurkers may find it useful to see.I cannot see any problem with members of the EC being from the same branch (certainly not one that could be solved by barring that circumstance), and frankly I feel it's more than a little insulting to two EC members in suggesting they can't make their own minds up on a situation.As a point of principle, I'd have no objection to the executive functions being handled by a branch (as has been known to happen in the First International and a few anarchist organisations),
Sigh.
Quote:Rule 17. The Executive Committee shall publish and control the Party literature. Election Statements and Election Manifestos must be approved by the Executive Committee before printing excepting handbills and leaflets. They shall establish a literature agency, from which all Branches shall be supplied, establish and maintain communications with Socialist Parties abroad and otherwise generally administer the work of the Party in accordance with Party polls, Party rules and Conference decisions, and to this end may appoint sub-committees. Names shall be called for, subject to the Executive Committee being authorised to appoint members directly to these sub- Committees if no nominations are received.Where no further instruction is available, the Object and the disciplinary rules apply (i.e. EC members should not act in a manner detrimental to the interests of the party and the furtherance of its Object). Rule 1 calls for the EC to ratify new members' applications: if they deem such ratification to be detrimental to the party's intrests they have an obligation to vote against ratification. If members and branches object to any decision made, they have the right to call the EC to account over it through a number of channels (EC members are under no obligation to consult a priori over the colour of Head Office furniture or other sundry decisions, it's up to the membership to call out a decision and say they think it important and worthy of wider attention).
1) the EC is not a representative body, nor a delegative one; it's irrelevent which branches EC members come from. They're responsibility is to the EC and to the membership as a whole (who have the option to reject EC candidates even when the number of nominations is equal or fewer than the number of posts being annually elected).2) The EC does, IIRC have a requirement to declare an interest; but I don't see one here. The question at hand was not the dispute between the two men, but the suitability of a candidate for party membership. Ed has provided reasons that are valid within the rules for the way he voted.3) I expect branches may well start sticking their oar in between now and the next EC meeting.Remember, kids, democracy is a messy business.
Skidelsky's review is slightly more readable and interesting:http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/book-review-capital-in-21-century-thomas-piketty/#.U5F599j4LwA
Oh, and from his Wikipedia article:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_K._GalbraithHe's listed as 'Post-Keynsian' (which coul, I suspect, mean anything but includes Robinson, so a touch of pick-up from Marx from that route at least: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-Keynesian_economics).His writing's suggest he may be half sensible (from a very quick skim I found this contribution to one of our local bug-bears):
Quote:In the modern world, when the Treasury writes you a check, your bank credits your account. That's how money creation works. The Treasury then issues bonds to absorb that money.TWC,cheers for clarifying that. I was mislead by him having the same initials. I shall write to him forthwith demanding a name change.
And here's a savaging from the ultra keynsian JK Galbraith:http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/kapital-for-the-twenty-first-centurythis is an interesting bit:
Galbraith wrote:Thanks to the French Revolution, registry of wealth and inheritance has been good in Piketty’s homeland for a long time. This allows Piketty to show how the simple determinants of the concentration of wealth are the rate of return on assets and the rates of economic and population growth. If the rate of return exceeds the growth rate, then the rich and the elderly gain in relation to everyone else. Meanwhile, inheritances depend on the extent to which the elderly accumulate—which is greater the longer they live—and on the rate at which they die. These two forces yield a flow of inheritances that Piketty estimates to be about 15 percent of annual income presently in France—astonishingly high for a factor that gets no attention at all in newspapers or textbooks.ALB wrote:Was reviewed in the May Socialist Standard:Was that actually a review (as in the author had read the whole book)? I took it as a report of the news controversey, and we were waiting for a more detailed review. Anyway, I think someone has linked to Harvey's review before, but in case not:http://socialistworker.org/blog/critical-reading/2014/05/18/david-harvey-reviews-thomas-pi
ISTR that in fact Adam Smith advocated a wealth tax (as opposed to taxes on income, sales or land), and indeed, this would be a good way of clearing out the non-capitalist rentiers and property owners, but they wouldn't put up with that for long.So, up to 1970 the top 10% only had six times their share: and that was with a tight labour market, relative to the capital available. They broke out with the expanding worldwide available labour force (and under those conditions it's arguable that state action actually savd the capitalists money by refining the labour market).Where Piketty is right is that capitalism is global and we need to (and indeed can only) act globally.
That isn't/won't be our position. Whilst we might formally register for the no camp, just to keep ourselves legal, we'll be calling for a write-in vote for World Socialism, AFAIK
gnome wrote:I can think of one very good reason. The local branch, despite the best efforts of several comrades, is still not a functioning unit of the Party. I may be wrong but a recent online meeting of North East branch was inquorate.Other branches have gone through periods of inquoracy in the past (Central London certainly did), the point is, if Vin comes back the branch would cease to be inquorate.There is another option which is that the inquorate branch meeting proposes a postal ballot of branch members, that would just require a quorate vote to be effective (and would not be underhand). Last time this was mooted Vin seemed reluctant to draft a supporting statement, but that would work, and we'd have a functional branch back.That, or we get the physical meeting organised, I'm looking into that.
