Young Master Smeet
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OK, let's try a little roleplay:
A wrote:: I'm a pacifist.B wrote:Pacifists are no better than fascists.A wrote:Are you calling me a Nazi?B wrote:If the cap fits…A wrote:Arsehole.Moderator wrote:Knock it off, the pair of you: this is a warning.B wrote:Why are you warning me, you fascist, A abused me.A wrote:Coz you're an arsehole.Moderator wrote:Right, you're both on moderation.OK, a little vignette. How long would each stay on Moderation? As long as it takes, is the short answer. Suppose A's next post is on the same thread
A wrote:I am a pacifist, but I am also an anarchist, I believe in standing up to the friends of power, who would use the fascist bogey to pursue their own authoritarian ends.Such a post might get through, it's not in violation of the forum rules, but, in the Mod's opinion it is carrying on the dispute, and A is showing no sign of letting it go. B posts on a different thread entirely, but snarks the Mod. B, though, has form and has been under moderation on several occasions.In my opinion both would stay under moderation until it was clear the heat had died down, and both had shown that they were not itching to get back at each other's throats…
I don't think, as such, we're disagreeing. All I'm saying is that socialism isn't a software upgrade to be market tested and installed complete and functioning. When the abolitionists called for an end to slavery, they didn't come up with a complex detailed plan for what the slaves could do next. We are the abolitionists of wage-slavery, we don't, and can't, know what will come next, all we need is to know that we can do things differently.The working class isn't going to be convinced by a nice blue-print of how socialism will work, what will convince us is that the wages system becomes unsupportable.Medieval anti-communists used Aesop's 'The Belling of the Cat' to explain why the peasants would be crushed by the aristocrats. No-one would be willing to actually put the bell on the cat, despite thinking it's a good diea. Class struggle, and necessity, is our answer to that: the workers will have to put the bell on the cat, at some point.
http://piraniarchive.wordpress.com/home/investigations-campaigns-and-other-stuff/the-break-up-of-the-wrp-from-the-horses-mouth/ Simon Pirani gives an account of the break-up of the WRP (hat tip Stuart, late of this Parish).
This is a useful discussion, since I'm slated to give a talk entitled 'Can socialism work' sometime in March. What I would say, is that in some senses, it doesn't matter: we're not selling a plan, or a thing in itself, we're selling class struggle. We stand for the emancipation of the workers, and don't give a damn about the precise ins-and-outs of how that will be achieved, ending the wages system is what matters. After that, it's up to free workers, who can co-operate to achieve their collective ends, to sort out the nimminy-pimminies.
Sorry, I wasn't clear, not 'If we're right that socialism can work.' but 'If we're right that the class struggle will lead the working class to need to fight against the current system and replace it with some mechanism under its own control.' we can't check that, as such, since that's an analysis/prediction extrapolated from current and past events (we can, though, look for counter-indicative events/trends/logics). We can feed in, and try and shape that debate with, the evolved ideas of the blue sky thinkers, as well as the gleaned crop of experimentally/theoretically proven methods. After that, we can rely on the simple fact that folk are smart enough to run their own lives; for propaganda purposes, all we need are two things: to show it could work, and that society can change its organisational methods. Beyond that, and we're heading into utopianism.
Alaric wrote:The examples you give are, at best, prima-facie evidence for the feasiblity of a socialist society that is better than the current.I'd suggest that is all that is needful at present, for us (although that is not to suggest that further research isn't useful). Beyond that, I don't think we need to persuade people to a particular model of society at all, if we're right, then through class struggle such ideas will emerge and grow *of necessity*.
http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/greeley.htm
Lincoln wrote:My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.That is a famous and oft quoted passage, but, if you follow the link above you'll see he also says:
Lincoln wrote:I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.Also, his Second Inaugural address is striking:
Lindoln wrote:One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/inaug2.htm
Alaric wrote:Where is the demonstration that "it is technically feasible to organise on a non-monetary/democratic basis"?swell, it's all around us, and littered through history: ancient Empires organised on a grand scale, across different climate zones and with advanced division of labour, such as the Incas were organised on a moneyless basis[*]. All day, every day, we use non-monetary calculations in our workplaces to administer real resources and deliver services: supermarkets use vast repositories of data from marketing and research much more than they use price signals to control their stock; in our own families, we don't charge each otehr for our time, etc.Of course, as a socialist movement grows, we will need to move from general principles, and we can only imagine that there will be serious practical debates as a part of the growth of the movement.I don't see what Stiglitz's contribution can make to managing socialism: his critique of the market is interesting, but that seems to be about it. [*] Of course the Inca empire was not socialist, the point is that none-money organisation on a vast and ongoing scale has existed, and is thus not impossible.
Part of the problem is that we don't need to engage in the detail of these solutions: all we need to demonstrate is that it is technically feasible to organise on a non-monetary/democratic basis.For example, the question of HS2, which is currently raising controversy, does not rest on a detailed knowledge of how a train engine works, only that such trains can be used on high speed lines.Of course, we'll use such mathematical/technical processes as are widely available and used in many firms already, and more: the brightest and best would be dedicated to these problems rather than engineering stock market purchasesing programmes; but I doubt whether the lack of a clear and detailed blue-print for a post market society is holding us back.And I say all this as one of the ones round here who spends perhaps too much time reading around the subject, and who found the News about Market Design Nobel economics quite exciting (BTW, maybe we should talk about a 'designed economy' rather than a 'planned economy', that could be useful…).
Quote:Moreover, what our critics dislike most about us – how we organise ourselves – is crucial to our ability, as Jones puts it, to punch above our weight. Our version of democratic centralism comes down to two things. First, decisions must be debated fully, but once they have been taken, by majority vote, they are binding on all members. This is necessary if we are to test our ideas in action.Secondly, to ensure that these decisions are implemented and that the SWP intervenes effectively in the struggle, a strong political leadership, directly accountable to the annual conference, campaigns within the organisation to give a clear direction to our party's work. It is this model of democratic centralism that has allowed us to concentrate our forces on key objectives, and thereby to build so effectively the various united fronts we have supported.That is, a strong leadership can manoeuvre and shift quickly, and build alliances that may well be repugnant to their membership. Coupled with the capacity to provide the apparatus to gerry build an organisation, that is what enables the SWP to intervene and control.The most fascinating aspect of this debate is it shows us how the SWP conceive of themselves. Most importantly, is their fundamental denal of the democratic principle that a minority should be able to try and turn itself into a majority, minorities should just remain defeated, is their view…
To keep banging on, ISTR, he was in favour of the gradual abolition of slavery (essentially, in the same sort of vein as a Labour reformist).As a politician from Illinois, he'd have been aware at how important the Mississippi was to enabling that landlocked state to trade (he had once worked on a paddle steamer), that would have motivated his defence of the union stance (when an Illinois state legislator, he had been part of a Whiggish faction which nearly bankrupted the state on public navigation works).I'd recommend Gore Vidal's Lincoln, which uses documented events, and, IIRC, manages to keep a certain mystery around the internal workings of Lincoln's mind during the great dramas.http://www.gorevidalpages.com/2011/05/bookslut-on-gore-vidals-lincoln.html
Another one, quickly, because I think Marx is on the money here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1862/03/03.htm
Quote:Lincoln is not the product of a popular revolution. This plebeian, who worked his way up from stone-breaker to Senator in Illinois, without intellectual brilliance, without a particularly outstanding character, without exceptional importance-an average person of good will, was placed at the top by the interplay of the forces of universal suffrage unaware of the great issues at stake. The new world has never achieved a greater triumph than by this demonstration that, given its political and social organisation, ordinary people of good will can accomplish feats which only heroes could accomplish in the old world!He was, from the accounts I read, considered a non-entity who could be played by Great Men like Seward, but he adroitely used the powers of his office to achieve his ends.
And of course, Uncle Charlie made short work of claims the war wasn't about Slavery:http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/10/25.htm
Uncle Charlie wrote:The question of the principle of the American Civil War is answered by the battle slogan with which the South broke the peace. Stephens, the Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy, declared in the Secession Congress that what essentially distinguished the Constitution newly hatched at Montgomery from the Constitution of Washington and Jefferson was that now for the first time slavery was recognised as an institution good in itself, and as the foundation of the whole state edifice, whereas the revolutionary fathers, men steeped in the prejudices of the eighteenth century, had treated slavery as an evil imported from England and to be eliminated in the course of time. Another matador of the South, Mr. Spratt, cried out: "For us it is a question of founding a great slave republic." If, therefore, it was indeed only in defence of the Union that the North drew the sword, had not the South already declared that the continuance of slavery was no longer compatible with the continuance of the Union?Famously, the International Working Men's Association wrote to Lincoln on his re-election (drafted by Marx)
Quote:We congratulate the American people upon your re-election by a large majority. If resistance to the Slave Power was the reserved watchword of your first election, the triumphant war cry of your re-election is Death to Slavery…They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working class, to lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1864/lincoln-letter.htm and here is the letter on Lincoln's assassination: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1865/johnson-letter.htm
Lincoln was a moderate of the abolitionist cause, but there is no doubt that he wanted slavery to end: defence of the union was a strategic position, given the unpopularity of the war. He was the son of small farmers who had been forced to leave Kentucky because they had been out-competed by slave plantations.Despite his public pronouncements, we have his actions. He prosecuted the war (to the point of sacking his generals, and directing military operations himself) despite unpopularity and opposition, and the idea that there could be some conciliation with the South (His Secretary of State, Seward, apparently had a plan for some sort of Carribbeanwards Imperial expansion as a way of alleviating the problem of slavery).The strike against slavery had actually come sooner, when Kansas had become a free state, both sides knew slavery had to expand or die.Irrespective of his undoubted racism, and whether he was an avid abolitionist or not, he did make personal political choices that did end slavery, he could have been a severe block on such a process had he chosen to be so.
And, just to keep plugging at an idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viable_System_ModelAttribution: Nick Green at the English language WikipediaOf course, such a model is recursive, and each stage is replicated in subordinate and superordinate units of an organisation. Now, such models exist, and can be used by use to create a classless society, but the iterative 'hierachies' would have to be used…
