Karl Marx in London: Owen Jones on Marxism

[Anonymous]

 

Owen Jones on Marxism

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24765270

 

 

[ALB]

You can watch it  here for another 7 days (it starts 24m 29s in);http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03gprs0/Daily_Politics_01_11_2013/A comrade rang me this morning to say Owen Jones had been on TV talking about Marx, so I watched it expecting a load of rubbish (Jones being a trendy reformist) but in fact I have to confess that he wasn't all that bad at all. He pointed out that Britain wasn't a political democracy in Marx's day and that Marx envisaged the possibility, with the extension of the franchise to most workers, of a peaceful winning of power for socialism. Strange, though, to see a Labour Party supporter speaking favourably of Marx.What was bad was not him but the woman professor from Oxford who said that Marx foreshadowed a vanguard party such as Lenin formed and Andrew Neil himself who kept on implying that the USSR had been "Marxist". Jones actually used an argument we've often used to refute this: East Germany called itself the "German Democratic Republic" but nobody thought it was democratic, so why consider the USSR socialist just because it called itself that?

[steve colborn]

Every time Owen came close to making a point, the fat balding, ginger headed Scottish arse interupted. Why invite on a guest, when all you will do is fuck up his relevant contribution? Answers on a postcard to ginger Neil! Steve Colborn.

[alanjjohnstone]

According to Matt on Spopen, it seems like Owen Jones has recommended one of Socialist Party blog posts. .His Twitter feed provides a link. In reply to someone who says,"It's stretching it a bit to suggest that Marx anticipated a parliamentary road to socialism @OwenJones84. Can we  have the reference please?"He just says, "Read This" and links tohttp://socialist-courier.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/marx-and-engels-on-power-of-vote.html

[alanjjohnstone]

 fat balding, ginger headed Scottish arse"…tsk, tsk, i'm not sure how many isms you have upset with that description. 

[Anonymous]

As we would say it's bad patter wee man.

[admice]

Sorry, slight derailment. Would you kindly provide links or reference so I can learn how Britain became as socialist as it is? Don't know the history. thank you.

[ALB]

I see the date of that tweet was 1 November:https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/396302820648837120Interesting because, to back up his claim that Marx thought there could be a peaceful winning of political power under certain circumstances, Owen Jones quoted not from his speech in 1872 in Amsterdam but from something he wrote in the 1850s and which is quoted in the blog of our friends North of the border but which is rarely quoted by anyone else.Speaking of the Chartists, Marx wrote in 1852:

Quote:

But universal suffrage is the equivalent of political power for the working class of England, where the proletariat forms the large majority of the population, where, in a long though underground civil war, it has gained a clear consciousness of its position as a class and where even the rural districts know no longer any peasants, but only landlords, industrial capitalists (farmers) and hired labourers. The carrying of universal suffrage in England would, therefore be a far more socialistic measure than anything which has been honoured with that name on the continent. Its inevitable result, here is the political supremacy of the working class. [Marx emphasis]

This was in an article he wrote in August 1852 for the New York Tribune which curiously (though perhaps not) is not on the Marxist Internet Archive.Are we allowed to speculate that Jones mugged up on Marx before the programme by consulting what we say?  But then where else would a Social Democrat go to built a case that Marx wasn't a Leninist?

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

According to Matt on Spopen, it seems like Owen Jones has recommended one of Socialist Party blog posts. .His Twitter feed provides a link.In reply to someone who says,"It's stretching it a bit to suggest that Marx anticipated a parliamentary road to socialism @OwenJones84. Can we have the reference please?"He just says, "Read This" and links tohttp://socialist-courier.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/marx-and-engels-on-power-of-vote.html

Even if we agree with Marx and the SPGB that ‘a parliamentary road to socialism’ can at least play a part in the process of revolution, isn’t it also true that workers will in parallel organise their own structures, as the SPGB concedes that some strands of the Communist workers’ movement will construct ‘non-parliamentary councils and committees’.

SPGB pamphlet wrote:

…the non-parliamentary councils and committees that anarchists advocate as instruments of social revolution.

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/whats-wrong-using-parliamentAnd not just ‘anarchists’, but ‘council communists’ (and perhaps some pseudo-Leninist groups) also advocate such Workers’ Councils (or soviets).My question is:‘What would be the power relationship between an SPGB majority in parliament and those Workers’ Councils?’Obviously, SPGB members would also be involved, like most workers, within the Workers’ Councils, because the revolutionary process would involve both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary elements. But, where would sovereignty lie?In simple terms, who would control the weapons?On achieving a parliamentary majority, at least in theory (if not practice, given coup-organisers within the military and wider state (The Curragh, ‘Clockwork Orange’, Column 88, etc.)), the state weaponry would be under the control of workers’ delegates within parliament, but Workers’ Councils will also clearly have their own armed Workers’ Militias, which will have developed to defend Communist meetings, picket lines, buildings, etc., during the revolutionary process.The potential for clashes between these ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ armed groups clearly exists, given the realities of political power and disagreements between various Communist strands.If I was asked that question at the moment (ie. ‘who should control the arms?’), I would be inclined to answer ‘The Workers’ Councils’. That is, at the moment of achieving a parliamentary majority, the SPGB (and any other party’s delegates within parliament) would transfer political control of the armed forces to the Workers’ Councils, so that the army and airforce especially would be subordinate to Workers’ extra-parliamentary control. We don’t want any jiggery-pokery and manoeuvres within parliament that re-transfers ‘legitimate’ control of the military back to the ‘previous owners’, and allows the officer corps to reclaim ‘legitimacy’ at a moment of crisis. If the majority of SPGB delegates was slender, MI5 hit-squads could assassinate a few, and (before new elections could be called to replace the dead Communists) precipitate a re-run of the ‘transfer’ vote which then returns a majority for the reactionaries, who then immediately ‘legitimately’ use the armed forces to suppress the Workers’ Councils and their armed militias. The ruling class won’t dither, in these circumstances.I suppose I’m asking does the SPGB have a ‘twintrack strategy’, of being elected to both parliament and any emerging Workers’ Councils, but on the understanding that the ‘parliamentary track’ is always the subordinate one. That is, that fundamentally the SPGB favours Workers’ Councils as the location of sovereignty and legitimacy for workers’ power, and that the ‘parliamentary road’ is a mere supplementary tool to help to achieve that aim, the castration of parliament.Or, is an SPGB-dominated parliament to be the controller of the weapons?

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

 If I was asked that question at the moment (ie. ‘who should control the arms?’), I would be inclined to answer ‘The Workers’ Councils’. That is, at the moment of achieving a parliamentary majority, the SPGB (and any other party’s delegates within parliament) would transfer political control of the armed forces to the Workers’ Councils, so that the army and airforce especially would be subordinate to Workers’ extra-parliamentary control. We don’t want any jiggery-pokery and manoeuvres within parliament that re-transfers ‘legitimate’ control of the military back to the ‘previous owners’, and allows the officer corps to reclaim ‘legitimacy’ at a moment of crisis. If the majority of SPGB delegates was slender, MI5 hit-squads could assassinate a few, and (before new elections could be called to replace the dead Communists) precipitate a re-run of the ‘transfer’ vote which then returns a majority for the reactionaries, who then immediately ‘legitimately’ use the armed forces to suppress the Workers’ Councils and their armed militias. The ruling class won’t dither, in these circumstances.I suppose I’m asking does the SPGB have a ‘twintrack strategy’, of being elected to both parliament and any emerging Workers’ Councils, but on the understanding that the ‘parliamentary track’ is always the subordinate one. That is, that fundamentally the SPGB favours Workers’ Councils as the location of sovereignty and legitimacy for workers’ power, and that the ‘parliamentary road’ is a mere supplementary tool to help to achieve that aim, the castration of parliament.Or, is an SPGB-dominated parliament to be the controller of the weapons?

 The SPGB does not support the handing over of the army to 'workers' councils'. The reason we would send delegates to parliament would to prevent State violence from being used against the peaceful democratic organisation of production for use. A socialist majority would immediately begin disarming the capitalist state.

[LBird]

Vin Maratty wrote:

The SPGB does not support the handing over of the army to 'workers' councils'.

So, to be clear, the SPGB will keep control of arms, and thus dominate the Workers' Councils by threat of force?Or am I missing some subtlety, or making an unwarranted, unspoken assumption that the SPGB doesn't?

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

So, to be clear, the SPGB will keep control of arms, and thus dominate the Workers' Councils by threat of force?Or am I missing some subtlety, or making an unwarranted, unspoken assumption that the SPGB doesn't?

 I did not say that please reread my post.  By the way I am not a member and not speaking on the party's behalf.  

[LBird]

Vin Maratty wrote:

LBird wrote:

So, to be clear, the SPGB will keep control of arms, and thus dominate the Workers' Councils by threat of force?Or am I missing some subtlety, or making an unwarranted, unspoken assumption that the SPGB doesn't?

 I did not say that please reread my post. 

Well, you said:

Vin Maratty wrote:

The SPGB does not support the handing over of the army to 'workers' councils'. The reason we would send delegates to parliament would to prevent State violence from being used against the peaceful democratic organisation of production for use. A socialist majority would immediately begin disarming the capitalist state.

Since this was a reply to my question about the 'parliament – workers' councils' relationship of (armed) power, but you neglected to mention that very thing, I was forced to attempt to 'fill the blanks'.If, as I said, I'm 'filling the blanks' incorrectly, you have the ability to correct me.Why haven't you taken this chance? In my experience, when someone summarily replies 're-read my post', they are either hiding something or being asked to consider something that they've not thought about and are confused and so bluster.I'm open to your correction, comrade.I'm asking questions, not stating facts or a hard-and-fast position of my own.If Vin declines to participate and answer my reasonable political question, could another member of the SPGB enlighten me? And, if necessary, change my present position?

[Anonymous]

I am willing to debate if you are willing to stop 'filling in the blanks'. You not only filled in the blanks you complety negated what I actually said.  What I am unwilling to do is defend myself agains remarks I did not make and which you invented. This would be a complete waste of my time. If you reread my post and ask me a 'reasonable political question' on it, then I will answer you.

[LBird]

Vin Maratty wrote:

I am willing to debate if you are willing to stop 'filling in the blanks'. You not only filled in the blanks you complety negated what I actually said.  What I am unwilling to do is defend myself agains remarks I did not make and which you invented. This would be a complete waste of my time. If you reread my post and ask me a 'reasonable political question' on it, then I will answer you.

I'm afraid I decide what I consider to be 'blanks' in answer to my questions, comrade, and am well able to formulate my own questions, and decide upon their reasonableness.You'll be glad, though, that I actually agree with you!It would be 'a complete waste of your time', to continue without engaging with my questions, rather than expecting me to ask questions of your devising or to your liking.Sorry, comrade, and thanks for your efforts.Well, since Vin has said that they're not an SPGB member, is there anyone from the SPGB who could answer my questions, and perhaps alter my views?

[Author]

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