Dear Editor . . .
Just Stop Oil
Arising out of the article in our May issue on Just Stop Oil ((‘Just Stop Oil: The failure of a tactic’), we received two emails from Tony Marone, XR Public Engagement Working Group, which we have combined into one.
The subtext of the disbanding of Just Stop Oil was that their aim had been achieved. If it was misrepresented as them having achieved their aim through their own actions alone, then that of course is not correct. However, you surely have to allow for a little self-encouragement in a world that is unremittingly bleak?
The conflation of JSO and XR through the involvement of Roger Hallam in both movements is poorly judged. The actions of JSO were neither overtly supported nor overtly denounced by XR – XR is XR, JSO is JSO.
Roger Hallam left XR in 2021 when he set up Insulate Britain (which still exists) and then moved on to set up JSO. It has been 4 years since Roger Hallam has been considered anything other than a founder member of XR. He holds no position in XR now.
The 3.5 percent minority theory was something that is closely associated with Roger Hallam, but was based in empirical research done by Chenoweth and Stephan (2011) on political campaigns from 1990-2006.
Roger was a high profile advocate of this theory when he was with XR, however it does not inform our current strategy.
You can read more about it (including links to the Chenoweth and Stephan (2011) paper) here:
https://commonslibrary.org/social-movements-and-the-misuse-of-research-extinction-rebellion-and-the-3-5-rule/
I personally hold the SPGB in some regard for their educational work. However I am in constant wonder and puzzlement over how all organisations of the left seem to prefer criticising Fellow Travellers to attacking the pillars of neo-liberal capitalism.
As the saying has it, “the Right looks for Converts, The Left looks for Traitors”. Isn’t it past time to abandon ideological purity?
Reply:
We never claimed that Roger Hallam was still connected with XR and can understand why XR should want to dissociate itself from him. We did, however, say that both he and XR were committed to the theory and tactic that a minority of only 3.5 percent should try to bring about system change.
We say this is mistaken and undemocratic and that a majority of the population must be in favour of socialism before it can replace capitalism.
Thanks for the link to that article about the misuse of the 3.5% rule. We note that this rule no longer informs XR’s strategy. In which case, your website need updating as it still states:
‘We have a shared vision of change: Creating a world that is fit for generations to come.
We set our mission on what is necessary: Mobilising 3.5% of the population to achieve system change – such as “momentum-driven organising” to achieve this.’
In passing, your vision of ‘a world that is fit for generations to come’ is a bit vague. So vague in fact that everybody – and every organisation – will share it. Who wouldn’t want that? ‘System change’ is a bit vague too; from what system to what other system?
There may be a case for the multitude of reformist organisations to get together instead of criticising each other. That’s up to them. But there is no case for us, as an organisation that campaigns for socialism and nothing else, to join them or not to point out their inadequacies. – Editors.
‘White privilege”?
This letter is in response to the Pathfinders article in the May Socialist Standard, titled ‘Without Distinction of Race or Sex‘.
Firstly, I’m against the author’s argument that the capitalist system will always promote whites over more talented minority-ethnic candidates; it’s in the best interest of enterprises to hire the most talented worker for the job. Poor white people don’t see talk of ‘white privilege’ as an attack on their ‘rights’, they see it as being an attack on them due to their skin colour.
We shouldn’t fall into the bourgeois trap of fighting for equality among the proletariat (based on skin colour, etc), not that that’s achievable anyway. While certain groups of people (on average) and individuals undoubtedly have harder lives under capitalism than others, the entire capitalist class oppresses the entire working class. Our enemy is the capitalist class (they screw us all over, though some more than others).
None of us are free until we are all free.
Matthew Shearn
Reply:
The article was not advocating but explaining the critical race theory argument that ‘disadvantaged groups will never get a fair shake unless a little positive discrimination is introduced’ and that ‘as things stand, the system will always promote whites over more talented ethnic candidates’. It then goes on to make your exact point, that discrimination is not logical for employers, before adding that ‘prejudice is not logical’, a view with which you will hardly disagree.
The article refers in passing to ‘talk of “white privilege”’, but we ourselves don’t use the term as it could imply that all ‘white’ workers discriminate against all ‘non-white’ workers whereas such discrimination is an historical left-over from colonialist times which many workers today emphatically do not endorse. Much violence is perpetrated by workers scapegoating other workers, and there’s nothing ‘bourgeois’ about saying so. If, as we argue, the route to class emancipation is class solidarity, then the question is how best to achieve that solidarity. So we call out worker-against-worker discrimination and violence for what it is, in effect class betrayal. –Editors