Jeremy Corbyn to be elected Labour Leader?
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Canny letter YMS.
ALB wrote:Which issue?issue 1070, August 6
Quote:Finally, there are organisations and publications such as the Socialist Party of Great Britain, Revolutionary Communist Group, Spiked, Salvage, Lalkar, etc. All dismiss the Labour Party as a rotting corpse.ALB wrote:Today's Times has a front page article "exposing" TUSC candidates and Left Unity members of signing up to vote for Corbyn. I don't think they understand TUSC, the main group behind which is SPEW which is opposed to Labour and sees it as a deadly rival for the leadership of the working class. I doubt if any of their members have signed up. It will be the non-party leftists and trade unionists they conned into standing as TUSC candidates and who think that TUSC really is what it appears to be, i.e Old Labour. Though I see Lewisham ex-Labour councillor Chris Flood is among those named and he's a SPEW member. Maybe if Corbyn wins the ex-Laborites in TUSC like him will begin to drift back to the Labour Party.. Another reason why SPEW won't be supporting him. Peter Taaffe and the rest of SPEW's trotkyist leadership must be worried sick at the prospect of a Corbyn win.From the same article in Weekly Worker:
Quote:It is therefore more than a pity that a swathe of what passes for the ‘Marxist’ left in this country has been wrong-footed, has been surprised by the actuality of the Corbyn campaign; considers it a danger, even an existential threat. Taken together, perhaps the most notable Corbyn-sceptics are the Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Party in England and Wales and the Independent Socialist Network. Three organisations grouped under the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition umbrella – a Labour Party mark two project – whose 135 candidates in the May 2015 general election won a homeopathic vote for what were anyway thoroughly watered-down, reformist politics.In defence of TUSC and building a “credible left alternative to Labour”, Charlie Kimber, SWP national secretary, warns that there is “a real danger that Corbyn’s campaign can turn people back to the worm-eaten project of transforming Labour”.A sentiment echoed by Peter Taaffe, SPEW’s general secretary. Though he does not quite express outrage at Corbyn’s success, he does say this:"[W]e do not believe that he will succeed in reclaiming Labour as a political weapon for the workers’ movement. Any attempt to foster illusions that his challenge could do this is a dead end. The process has gone too far, transforming Labour into a British version of the Democrats in the USA.The expunging of clause four (part four) of Labour’s constitution, which enshrined the movement’s socialist aspiration (sic), and the erosion of the trade unions’ role within the party, are not of recent vintage, but go back to the 1990s. They were preceded by the wholesale persecution – including expulsions – of the left for standing up to the Tories, fighting the poll tax, and so on. Labour councils have ‘passed on’ savage cuts, often without lifting a finger to protect workers."The article is appropriately entitled 'Confusion and disarray'…..
Jeremy Corbyn has said Labour could restore its historic commitment to public ownership of industry – known as Clause IV – if he were party leader. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33839819
I was thinking. If Corbyn is successful in winning the Labour leadership, all that will be achieved is a further distraction from revolutionary thinking, as our class will once again be led down a blind alley of mainstream reformist promises, as Labour attempt to retake the "left" by jumping on the anti austerity band wagon. I'm probably stating the obvious?There have been a few topical panel type shows I've seen recently where he's described as a plain speaking good guy, in complete contrast to the slick, polished, car salesman "blairites".
SocialistPunk wrote:I was thinking. If Corbyn is successful in winning the Labour leadership, all that will be achieved is a further distraction from revolutionary thinking, as our class will once again be led down a blind alley of mainstream reformist promises, as Labour attempt to retake the "left" by jumping on the anti austerity band wagon. I'm probably stating the obvious?Another way of looking at it, SP, is that there is no 'revolutionary thinking' within our class, and there never has been, which is why Labour periodically gets elected to run capitalism.Labour don't 'lead' anywhere, not even 'down blind alleys of reformist promises'.I put it down to a complete failure of revolutionaries to actually explain anything to their fellow workers, and to even have any faith in the abilities of those non-Communist workers to develop themselves.There are even supporters of the so-called Socialist Party here who won't have workers' democratic control of production. Why any worker should think that some elite form of 'socialism' should be any better than capitalism, these non-democrats never explain.Elitism in socialists points to Labour. From this perspective, Corbyn is the good guy.
LBird wrote:I put it down to a complete failure of revolutionaries to actually explain anything to their fellow workers, and to even have any faith in the abilities of those non-Communist workers to develop themselves.Socialism has not happened because of 'The failure of the revolutionaries' ? If only those with knowledge could explain to the workers! This is an elitist position. By your own definition. You have no faith in workers being able to work it out for themselves.
Vin wrote:You have no faith in workers being able to work it out for themselves.That's right, Vin.I didn't 'work it out for' myself and you didn't 'work it out for' yourself.We both heard and read arguments made by other workers.You, like robbo and YMS, seem to believe that my arguing for social production of social knowledge is 'elitist'.And that the democratic control of that social knowledge production is out of the reach of workers.
Vin wrote:Socialism has not happened because of 'The failure of the revolutionaries' ? If only those with knowledge could explain to the workers! This is an elitist position. By your own definition.You haven't a clue, Vin.If your inane thoughts are the best that the SPGB can produce, we workers are better off remaining with Corbyn, no matter his political shortcomings.At least he doesn't claim that 'ideas' are 'material', or that 'thoughts' are 'concrete', or any of the other Engelsist nonsense that has passed for 'philosophy' amongst socialists for the last 130 years.This 'materialism' is a dead end for workers, Vin, and you're welcome to it. Until you back out of the cul-de-sac, with help from workers like me, you'll remain in a small sect.This bollocks has to be challenged, before we can take on Corbyn and Labour.
Sometimes, i think our failure is one of language.
Quote:There are even supporters of the so-called Socialist Party here who won't have workers' democratic control of production. Why any worker should think that some elite form of 'socialism' should be any better than capitalism, these non-democrats never explain.How easy this could be interpreted that society will have no social control over production and that it is a re-iteration of the syndicalist sectional control of production which i think many have now transcended in their vision of a new economic system. As a democratic decision-making structure workers-councils are only part of the production and distribution process of socialism. I think we should identify and emphasise in our language our membership of a common humanity (DannyL does this effectively) and not just the working class. How many of us cringe when we hear that term "proletariat" used…almost as many as when we hear "precariat" or "lumpen-proletariat". No i am not advocating the rejection class politics or class analysis but for us to consider the way we express it. Occupy was successful in avoiding the "working" v "middle" class red-herring…we are the 99%…"Power to the People" as John Lennon sang. Nor am i placing myself or the blog beyond reproach for the alienating use of words and phrases.Isn't the first thing the ruling class do is co-opt the language of revolution (or merely dissent), re-define it, commercialise it, and turn it against us so it no longer has any meaning. Do we engage ina rear-action and doomed to failure fight to keep our terminology or do wewith such a rich vocabulary we possess keep adapting our language to capture the imagination of people and offer alternative descriptions of what we seek to accomplish. I find it strange that many who applauded Russell Brand for bringing the case for revolution into the popular political discourse are not applying the same logic to Sanders or Corbyn re-introducing "socialism" to the electoral campaigns. For sure, they share exactly Brand's faulty understanding of what is meant by socialism. What we have to do is retain the public enthusiasm for the idea of change but to steer it towards what we argue is real socialism and not the reformist version that has prevailed since the 19th C. and now being represented by the likes of Corbyn and Sanders with the support of the left-wing reinforcing their mistaken definition of what socialism is. It is exactly the same battle and perhaps against even much greater odds than we originally faced in 1904. BrianG in his talk said, and i think others share his opinion, that the Scottish referendum made talking politics "respectable". i think the general left-ward drift of mainstream politics not just in the UK but world-wide (albeit, there is also a corresponding equally as striking right-turn taking place in other parts of th globe) is having a similar effect. The Corbyn-effect is to extend the general election campaign in some ways to a fairly important post-election post-mortem that goes beyond simply the leadership of the Labour Party that i don't think has occurred after the last few elections.When politics is being debated and discussed, as it is now, we should be part of it even if it is to pour cold water over some of the delusional thought being promoted. But if common ownership is being talked about, by all means lets join in and push forward the conversation to delve deeper into what common ownership actually entails. Socialism hasn't happened because its time has not yet come to paraphrase that well known saying. Why is not an easy question to answer but if the objective conditions now exist for its establishment then there are subjective reasons why it has not occurred. In defence of the Party, we have always been a negligible influence so how can it be said we are culpable. This can be widened to the Left as a whole. There are greater forces afoot which are persuading people of the futility of attempting radical change and restricting them to cosmetic superficial reformism. Until we develop a strategy that taps into another side of peoples' personas, one that we do know exists because occasionally, even if for short periods, it has come to the surface and expressed itself collectively, all we can do is do what we do now but try to be more efficient at it and in practical terms we have a lot of potential in communicating the ideas and views we hold a lot better than we do now. The way we express our ideas is one of those.I can be corrected on this, but the manner of writing in the Socialist Standard was once debated…some thought it was more akin to university essays and a decision was made to drop abstract Marxist theory and word articles simpler and have more general themes. Has it worked?…i'm not sure but that is not my point. I'm citing this as evidence that we can talk about basics and change our approach in actual practice.
alanjjohnstone wrote:I think we should identify and emphasise in our language our membership of a common humanity (DannyL does this effectively) and not just the working class. How many of us cringe when we hear that term "proletariat" used…But I'm not a 'member of a common humanity', alan.I'm a worker (proletarian) who, together with the rest of the working class on this planet (the proletariat), is in an exploited relationship with a boss (bourgeois) who, together with the rest of the boss class on this planet (the bourgeoisie), is in an exploiting relationship with workers.This is a social structure, not a collection of individuals, and the structure is internally divided, not a commonality.I think that anyone stressing 'common humanity' and cringing at the term 'proletariat' is blind to exploitative social relationships, and is essentially some sort of liberal.
ajj wrote:No i am not advocating the rejection class politics or class analysis but for us to consider the way we express it. Occupy was successful in avoiding the "working" v "middle" class red-herring…we are the 99%…"Power to the People" as John Lennon sang.If you wish to argue that 'we are the 99%' or that you wish to see 'power to the people', we have no politics in common, alan.I'm not part of any 99% (the proletariat is probably about 80%, with the petit-bourgeoisie 15% and the bourgeoisie 5%), and the term 'the people' just hides this exploitative structuring of humanity.I wish to see the 80% physically and ideologically destroy the other two classes. This doesn't mean destroying the 'individuals' in those classes, but destroying the exploitative relationships that allows 20% of humanity to exploit 80%.I'd rather be open about this revolutionary and democratic position (80% will tell 20% what is going to happen), and stop pretending that changing terms or phrases will change the world.I'm a Communist, Marxist, Proletarian Democrat.Whilst the rest of the proletariat isn't, my politics will remain sidelined, and capitalism will continue.Unless class consciousness develops in the proletariat, then the bourgeoisie will remain in power. And talking about '99%' or 'the people' only harms that development.
ajj wrote:Socialism hasn't happened because its time has not yet come to paraphrase that well known saying. Why is not an easy question to answer but if the objective conditions now exist for its establishment then there are subjective reasons why it has not occurred. In defence of the Party, we have always been a negligible influence so how can it be said we are culpable. This can be widened to the Left as a whole.Not least of the reasons that 'it has not occurred' is because so-called 'revolutionaries' have been telling workers for 130 years that 'the rocks talk to the revolutionaries'.I was shocked to find that the SPGB also does this.If workers can't democratically control physics, why should they be able to democratically control politics?Unless maths, physics and all scientific knowledge production, which is always social, is under our class' control, then we can't control 'the means of production'.Whilst the 'revolutionaries' are telling workers that 'workers can control the factory production of widgets, but not the clever stuff', why should workers have any faith whatsoever in either themselves or the 'revolutionaries'?It's elitism, pure and simple. And so anti-democratic.
alanjjohnstone wrote:I find it strange that many who applauded Russell Brand for bringing the case for revolution into the popular political discourse are not applying the same logic to Sanders or Corbyn re-introducing "socialism" to the electoral campaigns. For sure, they share exactly Brand's faulty understanding of what is meant by socialismThere's probably something in this, just as the existence of the USSR kept the term "socialism" at the centre of political discussion — with our niche being to explain that it wasn't really socialist and which disappeared when the USSR collapsed.Some members of the Oxford Communist Corresponding Society are applying this logic to the Corbyn phenomenon. Unfortunately, they seem to have gone overboard in supporting the campaIgn to get him elected Labour leader rather than simply getting in on the act by using it to disccuss socialism. This is obviously going too far even if his election would change the terms of political discussion (moving the "Overton window" Brian G mentioned to the left) but nothing else (it won't make capitalism any more reformable in the interest of the wage and salary working class).Ironically Corbyn hasn't been using the word "socialism" all that much. It's been more the media using it to try to put people off him, though the effect is the same: the word and the concept get discussed. Anyway, here he is 2013 talking about his idea of socialism:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZvAvNJL-gE
Although there was an element of squeze in th election campaign against Corbyn, at leat the discussion was broadly critical of capitalism, and what to do about it — naturally, it was difficult to find space on a crowded platform to put our differences across (though I think I managed it on most occaisions): admittedly, by proclaiming that we want to abolish the NHS(!). But it would be better to be attacking a Labour party for the poverty of it's ambition, rather than them making a proud point of the poverty of their ambitions.
In that video of him speaking at the Oxford Union in 2013 he defines socialism as "from each according to their MEANS, to each according to their needs" rather than "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs". This is a very significant difference as his version implies the continued existence of money incomes which are to be redistributed from those with more to pay for services for those with less. Which brings out well the difference between Labour Party "socialism" (such as it is) and real socialism. Socialism is not about the redistribution of wealth but about the common ownership of it.
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