10 Minutes for Socialism

Alan  Its became a habit to talk of the declining fortunes of the Party (Ive done it myself) but are we so certain this is the case.  I might be wrong but at least in terms of membership I have the impression that the Party is very slowly growing in size over the last one or two years = almost all of course via the internet

Can someone confirm that this is the case or not?

Less than a third of our membership took part in the last Party poll and even taking into consideration that some of us like myself slipped through the net, does that sound like a healthy virile party to you, Robbo?

Most members decline to participate even as armchair revolutionaries, which to-day, as Matt explains, sitting with lap-top, has a vital role for activism and no longer need be disparaged.

We are acquiring new members but as you say, it is through the internet. So let us play to our strengths and concentrate activity where we have a degree of success – on the web.

But I will add very many caveats to that, in that we very much do require a physical presence, as well. I have never suggested we do not campaign in elections. The very opposite in fact.

I keep urging we up our profile at protests and demonstrations and keep proposing ways to make our voice heard.

What drew Zeitgeist Movement to our attention? Their banner to abolish money on a march.

Too often, my criticisms are treated in isolation to the wider approach I’v talked about in the past.

How often have I proposed the re-structuring of the WSM into a more unified entity where we exercise E-democracy to administer it and make decisions

How often have I suggested that we conduct a thorough re-evaluation of the Party through a dedicated conference involving not just the companion parties but with sympathisers and (dare I say it) willing fellow-travelers from the Thin Red Line.

Robbo, you too with the Guildford Road adapting the party’s path saw a need for a different way of doing things.

At branch meetings I remember Matt often upbraiding me for my almost neo-Leninist compulsion to get members doing stuff, forgetting the individual personal circumstances of members. He kept reminding me that what makes us different is that we are a voluntarist political party. We do what we do. Nobody makes us. He has again said the same here in his post.

But even when doing the very minimum is an option, many members do not do anything. DaveC rightly tells us, the burden within the Party is placed on too few members shoulders.  We need to adjust how we operate to lighten the load.

I think there is psychological reasons in the dropping interest from members in the Party. Many have lost  confidence that the Party is growing and we see that branches struggle to achieve quorums or engage in any activity. Branches were very much always a social focus for members. Hopefully, Lancaster’s experiment will be taken up by other branches to host similar events. Bijou’s idea is also a trial I welcome. The downside is that they are not local activity that can be carried out daily or weekly or even monthly. People need constructive things to do to feel useful.

And most definitely the deadly fatalism is that members do not see the prospect of socialism itself becoming a reality in the near future, and that is despite all the pre-conditions for it falling into place, not just the material for potential abundance but also ideological – and I refer to the withering away of religious beliefs (at least in the developed world), the wider acceptance of those from other “races”, the end of daily discrimination for those with different sexuality, the continual extension of women’s “rights.” We witness school-kids becoming politicalized enough to strike for their ideas, urging workers to join them.

But equally we still sadly face the continued strength of negative ideas, such as nationalism and following populist leaders and their policies of palliatives

The SPGB can never rest on its laurels until our message is absorbed and accepted by the majority of our fellow-workers. Rather than tear ourselves apart with internal disputes, we need to discern our inner-strengths.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by alanjjohnstone.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by alanjjohnstone.

“Admittedly, nobody has joined the party…”

Increasing the name recognition and offering our vision for contemplation is in itself valuable…people will join the dots themselves in due course each time reality matches the theory.

I found it promising that we began to engage in discussion forums with some of  our opponents rather than adversarial formal debates. Comradely criticism is always more welcome than hostility, to refer back to something Rubychard rose in another post.

Dave wrote :

We don’t have our own machine but even if we did we haven’t the members, especially with the expertise, to make them, or the inclination, “to hand out free, along with the red SPGB flag to carry”.

We struggle to find enough members to dispatch the Standard each month.

Pure pie in the sky.

And some members want others members to resign. This party can’t even afford to lose one member. It takes years to recruit one member