A brief but honest introduction

[LeftOfNorthWest]

Relatively new to the world of socialism and definitely new to the world of socialist forums, I have found myself to be left of centre on the political spectrum after being coerced as a impressionable wayward teen to be actively involved with uglier side of the right wing and ultimately seeing the error of my ways in recent years.

I identify my views as democratic socialist and I am here on this forum to converse with others with a similar wave length on current affairs and political on goings. 

 

[Bijou Drains]

LeftOfNorthWest wrote:

Relatively new to the world of socialism and definitely new to the world of socialist forums, I have found myself to be left of centre on the political spectrum after being coerced as a impressionable wayward teen to be actively involved with uglier side of the right wing and ultimately seeing the error of my ways in recent years.I identify my views as democratic socialist and I am here on this forum to converse with others with a similar wave length on current affairs and political on goings.  

Welcome along to our forum, Left of North West. You may find our views rather different to ones you have encountered before, but we're (generally speaking) a friendly bunch. I hope you take time to find out about our ideas and principle and that in time they become ones you agree with and want to help us in our work.RegardsTim

[alanjjohnstone]

Quote:

You may find our views rather different to ones you have encountered before

How different you will see if you read this sectionhttps://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/how-spgb-different

[Anonymous]

I have suggested elswhere that – like most forums – we should have an 'introduce yourself' sectionWelcome to the forum LeftfromNorthWest. You from Carlisle way? This may help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9701BFFPRU&t=22s

[LeftOfNorthWest]

Vin wrote:

I have suggested elswhere that – like most forums – we should have an 'introduce yourself' sectionWelcome to the forum LeftfromNorthWest. You from Carlisle way? This may help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9701BFFPRU&t=22s

 No im from the Greater Manchester Area

[LeftOfNorthWest]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Quote:

You may find our views rather different to ones you have encountered before

How different you will see if you read this sectionhttps://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/how-spgb-different

 Agree with some of those principles but not all of them I do however enjoying reading the articles in the Socialist Standard. 

[alanjjohnstone]

Indicate which sections or statements you have concerns about and why you have reservations about them and then we can then begin the hopefully not too acrimonious discussion of them explaining our reasoning for our positions.As you know we have had well over a hundred years to formulate and defend our principles and we like to think that history and experience has borne us out on many of the disagreements we had with other parties policies (hopefully that is not seen as an arrogant conclusion since many early ideas and organisations that were once popular and were competing with our own have fallen to the wayside.)

[LeftOfNorthWest]

We believe that socialism will be a wageless, moneyless, free-access society It's mainly this aspect I'm struggling to come to terms with, please understand that my intentions when I joined this forum was not to ridicule, insult or even challenge the beliefs and ideals of other socialists and I was completely unware that different socialist partys could have such contrasting perspectives, up until now I had always seen the moneyless society aspect as communism rather than socialism whilst I agree that its a fairly good idea in principle I am sceptical of how many people would happily do away with their hard earned life savings which they may have intended to leave there children to give them a head start in life. The idea of reforming capitalism so that it meets to needs of society rather than line the pockets of greedy few seems an ideal that more people would vote in my opinion.

[Anonymous]

LeftOfNorthWest wrote:

 The idea of reforming capitalism so that it meets to needs of society rather than line the pockets of greedy few seems an ideal that more people would vote in my opinion.

Capitalism cannot be reformed to meet the needs of the majority and you already know that,  otherwise you wouldn't be  looking into socialism. 

[Anonymous]

LeftOfNorthWest wrote:

I am sceptical of how many people would happily do away with their hard earned life savings which they may have intended to leave there children to give them a head start in life.

Giving their children "a head start in life" is vital under capitalism considering workers, and their families,  possess nothing except their mental and physical energies which, of necessity, they have to sell to an employer in order to live.

Quote:

The idea of reforming capitalism so that it meets to needs of society rather than line the pockets of greedy few seems an ideal that more people would vote in my opinion.

[/quote]If capitalism could be reformed to meet the needs of society don't you think that after 200+ years of its existence this would have already been achieved? Under capitalism, the motive for producing goods and services is to sell them for a profit, not to satisfy people's needs. The products of capitalist production have to find a buyer, of course, but this is only incidental to the main aim of making a profit, of ending up with more money than was originally invested. This is not a theory that we have thought up but a fact you can easily confirm for yourself by reading the financial press. Production is started not by what consumers are prepared to pay for to satisfy their needs but by what the capitalists calculate can be sold at a profit. Those goods may satisfy human needs but those needs will not be met if people do not have sufficient money.The profit motive is not just the result of greed on behalf of individual capitalists. They do not have a choice about it. The need to make a profit is imposed on capitalists as a condition for not losing their investments and their position as capitalists. Competition with other capitalists forces them to reinvest as much of their profits as they can afford to keep their means and methods of production up to date.As you will see, we hold that it is the class division and profit motive of capitalism that is at the root of most of the world's problems today, from starvation to war, to alienation and crime. Every aspect of our lives is subordinated to the worst excesses of the drive to make profit. In capitalist society, our real needs will only ever come a poor second to the requirements of profit.

[alanjjohnstone]

And who can blame you, Left, for believing that the Socialist Party must be full of saints and angels for thinking we can have a world where cooperation and compassion predominate?This is a dog-eat-dog society, after all, where only the stongest and the most self-centred and self-interested prosper…until you begin to really look around and see that people do share and help one another…and as you highlight, it begins in the home with ones family….then spreads out to one's neighbours…one's work colleagues…and then to people we don't know or even have met. Think of all those involved in charitable work and others who would do so, if they had the time and who instead give to a charity. And what happens when there is a natural disaster? An earthquake…who is there scrambling through the ruins and fallen walls with bare hands helping to rescue the buried. Governments aren't ordering them to do so…they aren't being conscripted to be of service. We are born human and therefore possess the unique ability to adapt culturally in accordance with the environmental conditions which surround us. We are capable of adopting a great variety of behaviour patterns. There is scarcely a single socialist who has not heard repeatedly the statement that human nature is against socialism.This objection needs to be met. When an opponent of socialism says “What about human nature?”.  Needless to say that when they talk of human-nature they mean human behaviour . When someone says “you can't change human nature”, the reply should be: “who wants to? Human nature is alright as it is!” Human nature as it is makes it possible to exist in all kinds of manifestations, not just support for capitalism but also the potentiality of the change from the behaviour of capitalism to that of socialism.Socialism does not require us all to become altruists, putting the interests of others above our own. In fact socialism doesn't require people to be any more altruistic than they are today. We will still be concerned primarily with ourselves, with satisfying our needs, our need to be well considered by others as well as our material and sexual needs. No doubt too, we will want to “possess” personal belongings for our personal use, and to feel secure in our physical occupation of the house or flat we live in, but this will be just that – our home and not a financial asset. Such “selfish” behaviour will still exist in socialism but the acquisitiveness encouraged by capitalism will no longer exist. The coming of socialism will not require great changes in the way we behave, essentially only the accentuation of some of the behaviours which people exhibit today (friendliness, helpfulness, co-operation) at the expense of others which capitalism encourages and instils within us by indoctrination.Here's something i wrote for another website called "Keeping it in the human family" which might offer an answer to your doubts.http://www.countercurrents.org/johnstone020215.htmYour thoughts that we can reform capitalism for our benefit i think has been answered by the others but it is a long debate and there are many other aspects to our case against the idea that a policy of palliatives would improve the world for the betterment of all, rather than simply create a series of new social problems to solve. 

[jondwhite]

LeftOfNorthWest wrote:

We believe that socialism will be a wageless, moneyless, free-access society It's mainly this aspect I'm struggling to come to terms with, please understand that my intentions when I joined this forum was not to ridicule, insult or even challenge the beliefs and ideals of other socialists and I was completely unware that different socialist partys could have such contrasting perspectives, up until now I had always seen the moneyless society aspect as communism rather than socialism whilst I agree that its a fairly good idea in principle I am sceptical of how many people would happily do away with their hard earned life savings which they may have intended to leave there children to give them a head start in life. The idea of reforming capitalism so that it meets to needs of society rather than line the pockets of greedy few seems an ideal that more people would vote in my opinion.

Our object puts quite a different emphasis on what we want

Quote:

The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.

And Wilhelm Liebknecht on Socialism and Ethics;

Quote:

Pity for poverty, enthusiasm for equality and freedom, recognition of social injustice and a desire to remove it, is not socialism. Condemnation of wealth and respect for poverty, such as we find in Christianity and other religions, is not socialism. The communism of early times, as it was before the existence of private property, and as it has at all times and among all peoples been the elusive dream of some enthusiasts, is not socialism. The forcible equalization advocated by the followers of Baboeuf, the so-called equalitarians, is not socialism.In all these appearances there is lacking the real foundation of capitalist society with its class antagonisms. Modern socialism is the child of capitalist society and its class antagonisms. Without these it could not be. Socialism and ethics are two separate things. This fact must be kept in mind.Whoever conceives of socialism in the sense of a sentimental philanthropic striving after human equality, with no idea of the existence of capitalist society, is no socialist in the sense of the class struggle, without which modern socialism is unthinkable. To be sure Bernstein is nominally for the class struggle – in the same manner as the Hessian peasant is for “the Republic and the Grand Duke.” Whoever has come to a full consciousness of the nature of capitalist society and the foundation of modern socialism, knows also that a socialist movement that leaves the basis of the class struggle may be anything else, but it is not socialism.This foundation of the class struggle, which Marx – and this is his immortal service – has given to the modern labor movement, is the main point of attack in the battle which the bourgeois political economy is waging with socialism.

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