Young Master Smeet
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The question isn't so much, to my mind whether the workers benefitted, but whether they benefitted as workers, or as clients of a potlatching state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potlatch). The indications are that the regional trends suggest Venezeula did reduce poverty faster than neighbouring countries, and that is a good thing. But, whether the overall politics of Chavez and Chavezismo are overall more harmful in the medium term is a serious matter to consider.
The precise rule is:
Rulebook wrote:Any person desiring membership shall sign the application form signifying acceptance of the object and principles of the Party. Such application shall be lodged with the Branch Secretary, whose duty it shall be to place same before the next business meeting (to which the applicant shall be invited) for consideration. After examination of the applicant, a majority shall decide, subject to ratification by the Executive Committee.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/party-rules-amended-conference-2009As per the online questionaire, any applicant will be asked questions to make sure they support the policies and principles of the socialist party. A specific recantation would not be necessary, but an acceptance of our policies would be.Obviously, the precise examination varies from branch to branch. The questions, though, both online or in person, would be such that someone holding Leninist views could not acceptably answer.
They'd be treated like any applicant member:
Party Policy wrote:Anyone who agrees with the principles and object of the Socialist Party can apply for membership.If they apply through the membership dept. they will be asked
Membership questionaire wrote:Why do socialists maintain that democratic methods such as parliamentary elections, must be used to capture political power for the achievment of socialism?http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/membership-applicationSo, they wouldn't be asked to recant, but they would be asked to commit to a democratic revolutionary process, without leaders.
The problem is, that even his internal politics were what we'd consider anti-socialist, in as much as it was predicated on the beneficent state distributing the wealth (and expecting support, in a gift relation) rather than emancipating the working class to support itself (saving, perhaps, the modest land reforms).So, the evidence is that hero-worship and state power still dominate the ideology of the left. He was a good example of an extreme leftist, but certainly not of socialism.The national-patriotic ideology also drove his foriegn relations: he could have behaved in a counter-hegemonic fashion without allying with authoritarian leaders (although, that may indicate that if he could have got away with it, he may have ruled as a dictator, or if necessary). Certainly, he attempted to get himself exempted from term limits…
History will be kind to him, for he intends to write it…http://www.leninology.com/2013/03/the-crisis-in-swp-part-i.html
That is interesting, though I've seen a lot of commentary that they've been picking up rightward/populist votes.I've also heard comparisons with the Pirate Party in Germany & Sweden, but they've been foundering, partly over the question of leadership overturning the 'Liquid democracy' votes (also issues of instability of policy because of the immediate direct democracy).See here: (link)(A reminder of our recent problem, perhaps, and the need to make sure that liquid democracy is properly structured)
I suppose this will be grist to the mill of the left who see fascism as a "Middle class" affair., though these days a lot of workers do have degrees (indeed, a major driver in the Arab spring was the super abundance of qualified people with no jobs to go to). I suppose the message is that they are people who have something but who feel threatened, and are finding patriotism as a route to protest.
The argument is that the burden of the tax falls on the employers. Workers can, and do, physically pay the taxes (that is hand over the cash), but the operation of the market is on our net/take home real pay. If our take home pay falls below the level at which we're willing/able to work, we force them up (where we can). This means that if a tax increase would reduce our real take home pay, we'll try and pass that burden on to our employer (if we fail, that was a sign that the market was ready to impose a pay cut anyway, and the tax man has taken the cut of profits that would otherwise have gone to the employer). That is, we push up cash wages in order to have the money to pay the tax, and that puts the burden on employers.Self employed workers obviously try to push the burden of taxation onto their customers, in much the same way (obviously, the category of self employed is nebulous, the String Fellows lap dancing club tried in court to maintain that its dancers were self employed, to try and avoid some of the tax and other on-costs, but they lost. The Point is a lot of 'self-employed' workers are only nominally so, often for tax reasons).
Controversial new post over on the blog…http://spgb.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/save-whittington.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fz849The above will be available for one week: it's quite a good programme, back when Stl was still in the SWP…
TheOldGreyWhistle wrote:All the nonsence about abuse, spam etc is a whitewash. This has been a premeditated and planned attack on the free speech of *certain* membersI will not remain in a party with such 'moderation'. It is nothing but censorship.What views do you think you have (or have tried to express) that the premeditated plan attackers want to suppress? Why are you worth censoring?
http://www.neues-deutschland.de/artikel/807483.sozialdemokraten-gruenden-neue-internationale.htmlThis seems to shed some light. Acording to Google translate, it says, among other things:
Machine Translation wrote:The formation of the new alliance preceded disengagement from the traditional Socialist International (SI), which was coming under increasing criticism. Gabriel had announced earlier this year that the SPD would suspend payments to the International – the German Social Democrats were around 100,000 British pounds largest contributor. From an SPD member of the board was at the time reported that Gabriel had the ground that he could not allow "that the SPD with gangsters at a table" seats. This was aimed, inter alia, the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional of Nicaragua.It seems it has been replaced by a "Progressive Alliance":http://www.progressiveallianceconference.org/progressive-network.html
Warm Words wrote:The progressive, democratic, social democratic, socialist and labour movement is founded on the belief in human rights and the pursuit of freedom, justice, social equality and international solidarity. Our time is defined by rapid changes and historic economic and political shifts. Looking around us, many countries are striving with grave economic challenges, while in other geographical areas people have a more optimistic view for the future than ever before. In every circumstance, the demand for progressive policies which provides answers to the needs of ordinary men, women and children is strong.Seems to be their founding object. Apparently there will be apple pie too.
Bugger, just lost my reply. Try again.Short version: socialism isn't a thing. Socialism is us applying the capacity and co-operation we use in our daily lives now. If workers don't think they can run their own lives, they won't create socialism. We run capitalism from top to bottom in a co-operative fashion, and socialism is just about extending that workplace co-operation. There is no chart, no method, no algorithm, just free co-operation. The evidence is in your own life, before your very eyes every day.
Right, I think we're on the same page with scalability.So, the thing to crack is the autonomous agency, and then relations between autonomous agencies. Now, in any large scale firm, departments (or teams, in the usual modern terminology) operate independently, within their structural remit: the director of a firm does not micromanage teams a long way from the management level. So, we do have the modern means of marrying the relations between a close knit team and a larger organisation.My larger point is that socialism lies in what we do now: we run capitalism from top to bottom through collaborative means'; and it won't be some thoroughly worked out model of socialism that will convince people its possible, but folk's capacity to run their own teams and lives now.In firms, we don't charge each otehr for our time, we don't haggle with our managers for the cost of every instruction and we don't pay for stationery or the use of resources during the day.
Alaric wrote:By my definition if you have 6 billlion people having 12 billion 1:1 market based interactions then the market system is operating at a different scale to 600 people having 1200 1:1 market based interactions. My concern about examples of very small proto-socialist societies is that the kind of 1:x relations used in these small societies will not be sufficient (or very useful) to run a society of a much larger scale and complexity. Just as I think market relations tend to be very inefficient for a very small society with simple production processes.Let's take, by way of analogy, an armed band. 10 guys with sticks. If you have 10,000 instances of ten guys with sticks, you don't have any qualitative difference in scale, merely a greater number of instances of the same scale. If you meld that 100,000 men into a coherent fighting force with a command/control structure, you have a fighting force on a much greater capacity and scale.
