ADM and Whiteboard Videos

[jondwhite]

Here's a passage from Socialist Standard December 1915

Socialist Standard December 1915 wrote:

The key to the future was obtained not by imagination but by science … [Socialism] was only Utopian so long as the class-war was in its rudimentary stages… Utopianism, i.e. the deliberate attempt to plan beforehand a social ideal, while it became obsolete, nevertheless persisted in a new form. Instead of being part of an honest criticism of society it became a phase of capitalist politics To try and project a detailed castle in the air as ‘the ideal State’ is… nothing more than wandering round in a circle, for their ‘details’ are all derived from the capitalist system itself, and can, therefore, never get them out of it, and the Socialist Party of Great Britain is following the only scientific course in opposing their endeavour to get the workers to indulge in such peregrinations. We are not keen on drawing pictures of the future. Shall slaves imagine freedom they have never known? We are concerned with the vital present – the oppression of our class and our struggle to end it 

 There are many party pamphlets that are much better than SaaPA including; The Manifesto of the Socialist Party, Is Labour Government the Way to Socialism, Nationalisation or Socialism, War and the Working Class, Socialism, Why Capitalism will not collapse, Socialism and Religion, Russia 1917-1967.Non party pamphlets would likely generate even more interest including The Communist Manifesto, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific or particularly any by William Morris.However, the original proposal in 2015 to branch for the whiteboard animation stated it was to accompany one of the better existing talks.

[robbo203]

jondwhite wrote:

There are many party pamphlets that are much better than SaaPA including; The Manifesto of the Socialist Party, Is Labour Government the Way to Socialism, Nationalisation or Socialism, War and the Working Class, Socialism, Why Capitalism will not collapse, Socialism and Religion, Russia 1917-1967.Non party pamphlets would likely generate even more interest including The Communist Manifesto, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific or particularly any by William Morris..

 The above pamphlets are not "better" than SaaPA – just different. SaaPA goes some way to filling a void that depararely needed filling – namely, providing a more detailed and nuanced description of what socialism is about – though a lot more still needs to be done in this area.  If you think that Party would come across as credible to the newcomer by offering just a few simplistic formulaic generalities about socialism then think again. Thank heavens the SPGB has moved on from that and Pieter Lawrence's original paper was a turning point in that respect Personally I think the the SPGB  should be churning out pamphlets and "positon papers"  every few weeks (when was the last time the Party published a pamphlet?) Even if necessary relaxing the procedures involved by, for example, commisioning sympathetic outsiders over whom of course it would still have full editorial control. The SPGB could take a leaf out of the tiny free market  outfit – the Libertarian Alliiance – that produces an astounding array of publications for its small size..Check here http://www.libertarian.co.uk/?q=publications The more diverse and detailed your literature stock the better – at least in my opinion

[Anonymous]

robbo203 wrote:

Personally I think the the SPGB  should be churning out pamphlets and "positon papers"  every few weeks (when was the last time the Party published a pamphlet?) Even if necessary relaxing the procedures involved by, for example, commisioning sympathetic outsiders over whom of course it would still have full editorial control. The SPGB could take a leaf out of the tiny free market  outfit – the Libertarian Alliiance – that produces an astounding array of publications for its small size..Check here http://www.libertarian.co.uk/?q=publications 

Why not sign up and join us in  this endeavourMy apologies if you have rejoined and are working on some new pamphlets  

[jondwhite]

Far from 'a few simplistic formulaic generalities about socialism.' Engels observes;

Socialism, Utopian and Scientific wrote:

And as each one’s special kind of absolute truth, reason, and justice is again conditioned by his subjective understanding, his conditions of existence, the measure of his knowledge and his intellectual training, there is no other ending possible in this conflict of absolute truths than that they shall be mutually exclusive of one another. Hence, from this nothing could come but a kind of eclectic, average Socialism, which, as a matter of fact, has up to the present time dominated the minds of most of the socialist workers in France and England. Hence, a mish-mash allowing of the most manifold shades of opinion: a mish-mash of such critical statements, economic theories, pictures of future society by the founders of different sects, as excite a minimum of opposition; a mish-mash which is the more easily brewed the more definite sharp edges of the individual constituents are rubbed down in the stream of debate, like rounded pebbles in a brook.To make a science of Socialism, it had first to be placed upon a real basis.

Actually the party did come across as credible with the pamphlets I mentioned, Socialism and Religion sold out and went through multiple reprints. These were also far from 'a few simplistic formulaic generalities about socialism.'

[Anonymous]

Democracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZevovBwyBI&feature=youtu.be

[robbo203]

jondwhite wrote:

Far from 'a few simplistic formulaic generalities about socialism.' Engels observes;

Socialism, Utopian and Scientific wrote:

And as each one’s special kind of absolute truth, reason, and justice is again conditioned by his subjective understanding, his conditions of existence, the measure of his knowledge and his intellectual training, there is no other ending possible in this conflict of absolute truths than that they shall be mutually exclusive of one another. Hence, from this nothing could come but a kind of eclectic, average Socialism, which, as a matter of fact, has up to the present time dominated the minds of most of the socialist workers in France and England. Hence, a mish-mash allowing of the most manifold shades of opinion: a mish-mash of such critical statements, economic theories, pictures of future society by the founders of different sects, as excite a minimum of opposition; a mish-mash which is the more easily brewed the more definite sharp edges of the individual constituents are rubbed down in the stream of debate, like rounded pebbles in a brook.To make a science of Socialism, it had first to be placed upon a real basis.

Actually the party did come across as credible with the pamphlets I mentioned, Socialism and Religion sold out and went through multiple reprints. These were also far from 'a few simplistic formulaic generalities about socialism.'

 I don't think Engels' comment is relevant  here.  There is a lot more that we can definitely say about socialism that goes well beyond the abbreviated description of a society based on such generalities as  the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production etc. These additional and necessary  attributes of a socialist society which give give a fuller and rounder picture of such a society derive from 2 sources: 1)  Inference/deductive thinking2)  Observation and analysis of broad trends in production possibilities An example of the former would be the decisive repudiation of the concept of apriori society wide planning and consequently the acknowledgement of what follows from that – that  a socialist production  system MUST to some degree be  decentralised and a self regulating..  This has huge implications for the organisation of a socialist society itself which need to be spelt out in clear an unmistakble terms. An example of the latter would be the constraints operating on global agriculture which I recall Pieter Lawrence has a great interest in.  We have a rough idea of how much food we need to produce to feed the global population taking into account its projected growth –  more or less 10 billion by 2050 – to provide a more or less adequate diet for everyone  If you cant produce enough food to support a socialist society how is such a society possible?  So  we are necessarily bound to look into this question if we want to put forward socialism a solution to the world's problems.  We have to factor in such things as soil erosion rates, increasing water scarcity in some parts of the world,  fuel transportation costs, biotech advances, food wastage and so on to get better idea of the kind of agricultural system we would need to develop in a socialist society. Or to take yet another example – socially useless labour which is my particular hobby horse.  If we have an idea of the extent of capitalism's structural waste then this allows us to see how much more a socialist could produce in the way of socially useful wealth even by scaling down on the overall extraction of resources and developing a more sustainable system of production The point I am making is that if you don't say more about a socialist society,  if you simply leave your description of such a society at a level that is so abstract and generalised –  you are just not going to convince a sufficient number of workers to embrace socialism.  Overwhelmingly it is going to be dismissed as utopian,  a nice idea.,  academic but wholly impracticable. People ARE interested in the practicality of ideas and this is where, up until relatively recently, the SPGB has been very weak.  Ironically it needs to embrace the practice  utopian speculative thinking much more enthusiastically if it is to avoid the accusation frequently leveled at it that it is – utopian   

[Anonymous]

Vin wrote:

Democracyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZevovBwyBI&feature=youtu.be

That's the laborious way it would have been done in the past and the way some folk might want to do it now.  But there's a much simpler way, isn't there?  Entrust the appropriate sub-committee to come up with the goods, having first sought the opinions of others.  Which in part is precisely what's happening here.

[Anonymous]

Gnome, I'm finding the scribe software a good way of getting my point accross and it's good practiseI have made 'democracy' private, it was tongue  in cheek but we do have a problem getting this project underway within a reasonable time.One way to speed things up would be to convert  an  existing party statement into 'scribe' format. I can't see why such a project would need to go back and forth.NB  Perhaps a little off topic and something for another thread.With so many members now online we could seek changes in the rules to allow the organisation of  an online 'branch' or 'committee'?? May sound crazy at first but it could become necessary at some point 

[jondwhite]

Sorry but it wasn't just Engels in his seminal pamphlet, as well as the Socialist Standard, but also Marx was quite clear;

The German Ideology wrote:

Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence 

 So you might like visions of Fourier, Owen, Morris (written as fiction), Buckminster Fuller, Jacques Fresco, TZM, Novara or Elon Musk – but being utopian isn't a defence against accusations of utopianism. As for people being interested in the practicality of ideas, I would hazard a guess that membership (and SS readership) declined during the production for use committee's fruitless existence.

[Anonymous]

robbo203 wrote:

Or to take yet another example – socially useless labour which is my particular hobby horse.  If we have an idea of the extent of capitalism's structural waste then this allows us to see how much more a socialist could produce in the way of socially useful wealth even by scaling down on the overall extraction of resources and developing a more sustainable system of production

There are aspects of future society we can be certain ofThis is perhaps something we should put in our next manifesto."A socialist majority will close all banks, insurance companies, weapons manufacturing, estate agents, stock exchanges, debt collecting agencies, Benefit agencies, etc etc and all ex employees will have free access to all goods and services and will be free to take part in democratic organisation of goods and services."Let's be bold

[Anonymous]

Vin wrote:

Gnome, I'm finding the scribe software a good way of getting my point accross and it's good practiseI have made 'democracy' private, it was tongue in cheek but we do have a problem getting this project underway within a reasonable time.One way to speed things up would be to convert  an  existing party statement into 'scribe' format. I can't see why such a project would need to go back and forth.

Yes, I had realised you weren't being entirely serious! 

Vin wrote:

NB  Perhaps a little off topic and something for another thread.With so many members now online we could seek changes in the rules to allow the organisation of  an online 'branch' or 'committee'?? May sound crazy at first but it could become necessary at some point

But there are still many members who are not online and plenty more who are but do not visit or participate in this forum.  This situation needs to rapidly change if the party is to survive as a viable political organisation.  In any case the time is fast approaching when branches, as we know them, the party's unit of organisation since its inception, will be things of the past.

[jondwhite]

Here's a ten minute whiteboard animation I hadn't come across before, again based on an existing talk delivered without thought to animationhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdbbcO35arwI came across via the reading sessions page of talksocialism.com, so was a bit surprised to read

Quote:

At the other end of the political spectrum is Karl Marx. With the collapse of communism, people have come to dismiss Marx as an irrelevance, but this is wrong. I don’t have much time for Marx’s utopian vision of socialism nor his labour theory of value, but his understanding of capitalism was superior in many ways to those of the self-appointed advocates of capitalism. For example, when free-market economists were mostly against limited liability companies, Marx saw it as an institution that will take capitalism on to another plane (to take it eventually to socialism, in his mistaken view). In my view, 150 years after he wrote it, his analysis of the evolution of labour regulation in Britain in Capital vol. 1 still remains one of the best on the subject. Marx also understood the centrality of the interaction between technologies (or what he called the forces of production) and institutions (or what he called the relations of production), which other economic schools have only recently started to grapple with.

http://hajoonchang.net/economists-who-have-influenced-me/

[Anonymous]

Very good.  There are some very good videos out there but none mention the SPGB.IMHO I think we should produce something introductory,  that explains how we are diffirent and dispels the myth that socialism has existed and failed.Are there any good party talks along those lines? 

[jondwhite]

Vin wrote:

Very good.  There are some very good videos out there but none mention the SPGB.IMHO I think we should produce something introductory,  that explains how we are diffirent and dispels the myth that socialism has existed and failed.Are there any good party talks along those lines? 

There's The Historical Place of the SPGB, and What is Socialism: Debate with the Labour Party.

[Anonymous]

jondwhite wrote:

There's The Historical Place of the SPGB, and What is Socialism: Debate with the Labour Party.

  NB I had not forgotten how well Steve Coleman represented the SPGBHis opening talk against the Labour Party would make an excellent Whiteboard Animation?

[Author]

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