Jeremy Corbyn to be elected Labour Leader?

[alanjjohnstone]

Lbird while i acknowedge our party has remained an insignificant influence, let's be blunt, your reflect the views of a party of one, as you yourself are fully aware.  One of our strengths is that we do not always listen to what the workers say when they express themselves democratically.  We have not been a populist party following the ebb and flow of the prejudices prevalent within our class by changing our principles to follow what fellow workers believe. We have submitted our political opinion on the world to a contest of votes and unfortunately that has the result of 0.2% on average at the polls. But we do not accept that those who vote Tory or Labour by strength of numbers have better insight into the world around us. At times we must oppose our fellow homo sapian and declare they are misinformed and mistaken in their ideas and because the majority hold to one view, does not make it right…  Nor have we touched the forelock to our "intellectual betters" who frequently advocated and promoted ideas that could not withstand deeper scrutiny. We have not been slaves to the sociologists and economists and historians and philosophers who sought to interpret that world. Changing words does indeed change the conversation …and as a Marxist you know full well the Communist Manifesto devotes several chapters to the meaning of the terms and why socialist was discarded and substituted by communist. If you want to simplify class it is easy …It is "them and us" and us will take power from them so that we can change the economical and social system to one where us and them disappear as separate categories. Words as social constructs do sometimes outlive their purpose and we shouldn't be protecting our language as sacred cows not to be tampered with if we can offer ideas in a diffferent way so to make understanding clearer. This is as far i have ventured to declare. What we can do, we should endeavor to do and not try and accomplish the unachievable. 

[LBird]

ajj wrote:

Lbird while i acknowedge our party has remained an insignificant influence, let's be blunt, your reflect the views of a party of one, as you yourself are fully aware.

My views reflect the views of Marx, (Engels at times), Dietzgen (in part), Pannekoek, Korsch, Hook, Avineri, etc. etc. (I've given lists of names who've influenced me many times). Your party's refusal to recognise that my views are widely held, is part of the problem. Marx held them.Whereas your views reflect an uncritical acceptance of Engels' 'materialism', which influenced the Second International, Lenin, SPGB, etc. etc.

ajj wrote:

Nor have we touched the forelock to our "intellectual betters" who frequently advocated and promoted ideas that could not withstand deeper scrutiny. We have not been slaves to the sociologists and economists and historians and philosophers who sought to interpret that world.

Yes, the party has.The unscrutinised forelock-tugging to 'elite experts' is here for all to see. Ask how many members agree with the democratic control of physics and maths? ….. [extended silence]I've even given you the pamphlet name and page number, so you can check where Engels started all this 'materialist' nonsense. You are all slaves to a defunct 19th century ideology, called 'positivism', which Engels called 'materialism'.

ajj wrote:

This is as far i have ventured to declare. What we can do, we should endeavor to do and not try and accomplish the unachievable.

Unless we accomplish the 'unachievable', we won't have had a revolution.Why the party has got anything whatsoever against either Corbyn or religions, baffles me. By 1904 the die was cast. The SPGB isn't a revolutionary party. It's based upon Engels, which even Engels tried (unsucessfully) to repudiate.What's more, the religious overtones of the replies to my detailed discussions, arguments, quotes are clearly those of the faithful.No quote from Marx, where he says things which contradict the religious belief of the faithful in 'matter', ever have any effect.They know The Truth, and they're not going to have workers criticising it, and undermining their own importance as elite thinkers, who are there to tell workers The Truth.At least I think my views should be under democratic control, but the 'elite experts' do not think that theirs should be.For them, 'physics' comes from 'out there'.For them, 'maths' comes from 'out there'.For them 'rationality' comes from 'out there'.No room for workers' democratic control in anything with real power. Because the 'elite experts' have a special method, based upon their special consciousness, which tells them, and only them, what 'out there' says.Just like Lenin and his party.

[imposs1904]

Interesting vox pop video from Speakers' Corner Heiko Khoo's where he asks people queuing up for a Jeremy Corbyn meeting for three reasons why they are voting for Corbyn.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC76yIQ4uXI&feature=youtu.be

[ALB]

Very interesting. Incidentally, it raises another problem for the band of professional politicians who currently control the Labour Party: what to do about Trotskyists who never left the Labour Party such as Heiko himself and one of those interviewed who said he sold "Socialist Appea"l?  I see that Chris Knight gets a cameo appearance. I think he falls into this category or at least used to.It remains to be seen if the Labour establishment can muster enough votes from MPs and high-paid councillors running councils to outvote the sort of enthusiasm shown by Corbyn's supporters. I can't see who else, apart from aspiring MPs, would want to vote for any of the other three. We'll see.It's clearly true that if Corbyn hadn't have been standing the Labour leadership contest would have been boring and probably wouldn't have made the headlines any more than the one for the LibDem's new leader did. Who'd be interested in a contest between three non-descript non-entities, not even media hacks?Just bought the papers. The front page headline in The Times is "New Poll has Corbyn on course for victory. Hard-left candidate almost doubles lead". This is going to be interesting.

[alanjjohnstone]

i think the most common used description of Corbyn in these interviews was principled. 

[alanjjohnstone]

"It's clearly true that if Corbyn hadn't have been standing the Labour leadership contest would have been boring and probably wouldn't have made the headlines any more than the one for the LibDem's new leader did."So true…You wouldn't have guessed that there is a leadership election for the leader of Scottish Labour, would you?The result will be announced on Saturday…Kezia Dugdale or Ken Mackintosh…Who? …Who cares?

[Young Master Smeet]

Here are the current odds at the bookies:http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/next-labour-leaderAlthough William Hill on their live site are offfering 1/16 (it was 1/15 when I started writing this, that's how things are moving).

[moderator1]

Vin wrote:

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.

1st Warning: 1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.

[moderator1]

LBird wrote:

You're one of the main culprits, Vin.

2nd Warning: 1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.

[moderator1]

LBird wrote:

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.

3rd Warning: 1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.This poster is suspended for an indefinite period.

[Young Master Smeet]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/11/jeremy-corbyn-close-deficit-poor-labour-economy?CMP=share_btn_twJohn McDonnel joins the fray, in quite a clever article. 

Quote:

So alongside deficit elimination, the Corbyn campaign is advocating a fundamental reform of our economic system. This will include the introduction of an effective regulatory regime for our banks and financial sector; a full-blown Glass-Steagall system to separate day-to-day and investment banking; legislation to replace short-term shareholder value with long-term sustainable economic and social responsibilities as the prime objective of companies; radical reform of the failed auditing regime; the extension of a wider range of forms of company and enterprise ownership and control including public, co-operative and stakeholder ownership; and the introduction of a financial transactions tax to fund the rebalancing of our economy towards production and manufacturing.

I've bolded what I think is the most interesting, and most unrealistic bit: it's better than nationalisation, but impossible in a world of multinational companies and the drive to make profits, some firms will be more profitable than otehrs, that can't be stopped, and firms must compete for capital and labour.

[Young Master Smeet]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33884836Robert Peston has some vintage snarks:

Quote:

There are plenty of political moderates who question why, at a time of scarce resources, it is a priority for messrs Cameron and Osborne to give tax breaks to better-off dead people.

(someone clearly thinks he is fire proof, or doesn't care)Anyway, a pretty decent breakdown on the problems with Corbyns policy:

Quote:

Central banks, like the Bank of England, have an extraordinary privilege and power to magic money out of nowhere. Which is another way of saying that money has no intrinsic value, and is only worth what we as a society determine it is worth. And, in the reality of global financial capitalism, it is currency traders who decide what sterling is worth, nano-second by nano-second.

(Thanks Robert, someone talking sense about currency)

Quote:

Now to be clear, none of this is to argue that Jeremy Corbyn is wrong to want more investment in energy, housing and other infrastructure. But it is to say that if the Bank of England were mandated to do that, most investors would conclude that the Bank of England's primary objective was no longer to preserve the value of the currency but to finance politically popular projects….In those circumstances, sterling would weaken, with inflationary consequences – and perhaps with devastatingly inflationary consequences.

A clear and balanced analysis: the policy is a bit risky and may be counter productive (it all depends on the scale).

[ALB]

Case here from an ex-member sort of supporting Corbyn's election even if not actually joining up to vote for him:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/comments/my-election-contest-jeremy-corbyn

[Anonymous]

I received an email today which is relevant to this thread. It suggests three reasons why we should welcome a Corbyn win.It is in the form of a letter to the SS re Bill Martin's  comments on Corbyn.I know the Socialist Standard will deal with this but I suspect it will reach more people if it is discussed on the Internet. While on this subject, have we offered Jeremy a 'discussion forum' of some sort? Or do we still call them 'debates'? 

[alanjjohnstone]

Tony Blair  – "If Jeremy Corbyn becomes leader it … will mean …possibly annihilation." He neglected to add "within 45 minutes"

[Author]

Posts