Migrants are our fellow workers

[ALB]

Report from comrade who happens to be in (former East) Germany at the moment:

Quote:

Just found a refugee welcome centre at Rostock Station. Clothes and food. Also offer place to stay. 1000 to 1500 dealt with at weekend. Young people (30 to 40), mostly students. No older people (one guy thought there ought to be sympathy from post war expellees). No lefty bandwagoning but most probably in groups as were reluctant to talk of this. Organised by facebook.

[Anonymous]

[Ike Pettigrew]

For me, the direction of this discussion is why, despite having broad sympathies with world socialism, I cannot join the Socialist Party.  I think your position on this is naive, simplistic and wrong.Mass immigration is the result of capitalism.  It turns workers into slaves, depresses wages, destroys indigenous cultures and identities that bind people together, undermines social cohesion and creates repressive political conditions.  It is workers who are hurt by this.  Multi-culturalism, which is the social model adopted in the West for managing the resultant mixed societies, only serves to harden perceived racial and cultural differences between workers and encourages atavistic attitudes and mutual suspicion and hatred.If we want to help our fellow workers, socialists should oppose what is happening and should be urging Third World workers to stay in their own countries and fight for socialism in solidarity with us, not help to destroy 'Europe' as a cultural entity.This is particularly important given the method posited by the Socialist Party for achieving socialism: which is through peaceful consciousness-raising and parliamentary representation in the different capitalist countries and territories.  I accept this does not necessarily require an advanced level of development in capitalism and could be achieved at any time, even in relatively undeveloped capitalist and pre-capitalist economies, and could even be achieved during a 'crisis', but I would argue that the conditions for socialism would be optimised and socialism is more likely to be actualised if capitalism is permitted to progress and develop in providing workers with autonomy, education and a high standard of living.  Once abundance becomes apparent, the social relational basis of capitalism will gradually begin to erode and devolve.  I believe this evolutionary approach, which emphasises the authentic nature of human beings and their differences, is much more likely to bring about a viable form of world socialism.By supporting mass immigration, the Socialist Party is suggesting that capitalism should go in a more regressive direction and become a vastly more unequal system with deeper divisions between the ruling and working class.  You may believe that this will make a socialist revolution more likely.  I would argue that it makes such a revolution less likely, as it does not take account of the differences in capacity between racial and cultural groups.  As matters stand, I believe the Socialist Party's 'socialism' is anti-revolutionary in nature.

[Anonymous]

Have a look at our stated position.  Here is something for now http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/subject/immigration?page=1 http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/should-socia  

[Ike Pettigrew]

Yes, thank you.  I can appreciate the socialist position because I think a global, resource-based economy would address these issues, probably once and for all.  I suppose what isn't clear to me is whether my position is contrary to socialism, as the Socialist Party formulates it, or just in opposition to individual members of the Party who happen to be commenting here.  My understanding is that the socialist position is logically against mass immigration because of the problems it creates for workers, but at the same time I can see that individual members very much take a 'leftish' view of things and are in sympathy for the migrants.That's fine.  Those members are perfectly entitled to their views and opinions, but given that is the climate of opinion in the Party (or appears to be), I'm not at all sure I would be comfortable contributing to debates as a member.  I am not in sympathy with migrants, and I believe there are important differences between different racial and cultural groups.  I believe white Europeans have a right to exist – apart from anything else, Marx and Engels produced their great works while in Europe, and their ideas have their roots in Europe, and Engels was European, while Marx was culturally so.  All the key capitalist, socialist and anarchist thinkers – in fact, almost-all the key thinkers in the majority of fields – are European.  To wish for the destruction of the people who created that culture is rather stupid and self-defeating.Obviously anybody who makes their way to the West should be given food, water and shelter while they are here, but that should be on the specific pretext that they are to be sent back to their home country immediately, or as soon as ever possible.  The obligation on migrants is to fight for better conditions in their own countries, and for those migrants who have a more advanced understanding of things, there is the additional task of working to promote socialism. I fully support solidarity with workers internationally, but that does not necessitate that they come here en masse and destroy our societies.  I know that you will say it is capitalists who are doing the destroying, and yes I agree that the process is capitalism (in what I see as a degenerated form), but that does not exculpate individual workers from their duties and responsibilities.  If we all blame capitalism for things, then why are we here?  We control our own destinies (within reason).

[Anonymous]

I am not surprised you would feel ucomfortable discussing such issues with us. I certainly feel uncomfortable discussing your neo-nazi views on 'race'. I find them  offensive, based on ignorance  and you would definitely  not be able to join this party with such viewsBut you are welcome to express them and I am sure they will be challenged.Workers, black, brown, red or yellow have no 'country of their own'. Nation states represent capitalist interests. You or I did not choose to be born here or anywhere else. The workers of this country own no more of the UK  than the migrants entering it1% of the worlds population owns more wealth than the rest of us. Every country consists of two classes: the owners of the means of production and the rest of us who have no option but to sell our labour power to them. I have more in common with a Syrian worker than a capitalist that owns this country.If you have read Marx, then you will understand why he said: 'workers of all countries unite, you have nothing to lose but your chain and a world to win' 

[alanjjohnstone]

Ike, your argument is one with a long history within the workers movement and over the years it has been directed at many peoples. Fear-mongering and divisive politics play well in creating more xenophobia and it has a long history. You blame the capitalist class for the problem but punish the worker. “The Voice of the Aliens’, a manifesto published by Jewish workers which we recommended as a read. We will quote from it: “To punish the alien worker for the sin of the native capitalist is like the man who struck the boy because he was not strong enough to strike his father.” http://mailstrom.blogspot.com/2007/04/voice-from-aliens.html There is much truth in what it says and you are an echo of those in the trade union movement it criticised At the turn of the 20th C it was the Chinese that American workers feared and took action to restrict their entry. No doubt you know of Eugene Debs who opposed this tendency that you presently reflect in his letter to his party. https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1910/immigration.htmWhat is less known is that this was a departure from an earlier position where he opposed the arrival of immigrants. Debs had inherited the prevailing prejudices of the "Know Nothing" Party. He attacked the immigration agents as representatives of capital – “enemies of American workingmen” who wished to “chinaize the county” and he openly welcomed legislation that permitted the authorities to return “to their despot cursed home” the “victims” of these agent’s efforts. Debs found the Italian’s even less desirable than the Chinese. “The Dago” he claimed “works for small pay, and lives far more like a savage or a wild beast, than the Chinese,” This Italian “fattens on garbage” and cares little for civilization, and therefore, “able to underbid an American workingman” Only in this way can the Italian appear industrious and Debs warned that Italy “has millions of them to spare and they are coming”Jews fared little better, too. When it was announced that the London Board of Guardians had instated a program to transfer Russian-Jewish immigrants to the United States, Debs claimed that that this would increase the already increasing hostility towards immigrants. Identifying these immigrants as “criminals and paupers” Debs bemoaned the fact that most were able to “take up a permanent  residence” and strongly asserted that “it was possible to end the infamous business”Debs views on negroes at no time ran counter to the ARU members ant-black feelings. Reporting that a new Texas law required separate coaches for black and white Deb’s stated “There might come a time when in the South whites and blacks will be on terms of social equality , till then it were better to fight separately”. Debs supported without any record of dissent the Brotherhoods attempts to rid the railroad of black firemen and the anti-black clause in the Fireman’s constitution.These early views of Debs all changed from experience and made the unions and the Socialist Parties ever more stronger as the recorded influence of the foreign-born sections of the IWW, SLP and SP, shows and these positive factors were highlighted by the Irish immigrant James Connolly when he was a labour organizer active in America and organised many non-English speaking Italians.Yes, as you can see, fellow Europeans, such as the Poles and the Romanians, followers of the same "culture", the same religion and competitors for the same jobs have all been castigated in the recent past by British workers with proposals of restrictions upon them at the risk of destroying European "unity", the EU.If we go back not too far in history the anti-Irish workers in the UK also demanded that they "go home " too. Same in the USA…was not there nickname …the black Irish…just one level above slaves.Here in Scotland the capitalists used Lithuanian immigrants. At the beginning of the 20th century in Lanarkshire, there was much vitriol against Lithuanian incomers. They were employed in the iron works and the coal pits, and they too were accused of wage-cutting and scabbing. Nevertheless, the Lanarkshire County Miners’ Union, in the space of some 15 years, went from offering support to miners willing to strike against Lithuanian workers to demanding that Lithuanian miners in Lanarkshire should not be deported. During those 15 years, the Lithuanians had joined the union in large numbers and were active in it. Unionisation was the key to improved relations between the Lithuanian labour force and the LCMU. Once the Lithuanians began to respond positively to local strike demands, the other allegations made against them were simply not an issue. The adoption of a more class-conscious attitude and the strength of their newfound loyalty to the union was in part due to the fact that the union had taken some very positive steps to encourage Lithuanian membership, such as printing the rules in Lithuanian and offering entitlement to claim full benefits.But you say immigrants come here en masse and destroy our society. The other side of the coin is that they build society. Which worker has not eaten spaghetti and meatballs, indulged in curry and drank some lager. Immigration creates diversity that is welcomed by people unless of course you are one of those few who thought that rock'roll was the devils music of the negro as many bigots did as the decried Elvis Presley…music is something that crosses over differences. No, even empirically, you are wrong about our "culture" being destroyed. On the contrary, it is strengthened by incorporating other peoples ideas and imagination and customs.Capitalism is built upon two freedoms…the free movement of capital and the free movement of labour…How strange it is that all the attention is placed upon restricting the second of those …I do not see the vigilantes out on the street picketing Amazon from re-locating its profits to a low-tax foreign country. But people who went to Australia and America and Canada and Argentine and many other places…(almost two million UK ex-pats in the EU) …all went as economic migrants…yet,now they are safe, they are tossing away the ladders they used for others and you want to shut the door on peoples who have only one reason for leaving their homes families and friends, to better their lives…something you too aspire to but you merely seek to ensure you keep out the competitors…Your grandfather probably opposed women's equality in the work-place, for the same reason…a woman who was not in the kitchen and who wanted to work was a rival for a job , and the bosses could under-cut pay by employing them…until they organised with the unions..The youth too had wage differentials imposed and not so long ago …every company had pay scales determined by age…up to 30 in some cases….Divide and rule goes beyond race, colour and nationality…skilled worker v the unskilled worker…uneducated and diploma-certificate holder…Don't be a pawn in their power games, Ike…Don't accept the propaganda and look at the bigger picture and the longer term. Also look around you at your fellow bed-mates, your "allies",  and wonder what side you are really on…Trump the billionaire?….  

[Young Master Smeet]

Ike Pettigrew wrote:

I fully support solidarity with workers internationally, but that does not necessitate that they come here en masse and destroy our societies. 

They only 'destroy societies' in the same way children destroy societies, they speak a different language, have funny food and dress differently too.  Should we ban children?As it stands, we want to destroy capitalist society, and it's artificial division into nation states, and replace it with a world community.

[Ike Pettigrew]

Vin wrote:

I am not surprised you would feel ucomfortable discussing such issues with us. I certainly feel uncomfortable discussing your neo-nazi views on 'race'. I find them  offensive, based on ignorance  and you would definitely  not be able to join this party with such views

I am not uncomfortable discussing these issues with you or anybody else, however I would be uncomfortable as a member.  That's not because I think my views are incompatible with socialism.  Quite the contrary: I think my position is more socialist than yours.  But it's clear from browsing this Forum that the Socialist Party is in the grip of metropolitan leftists like yourself.  That's not a criticism really, as you're entitled to your views.I do, however, find your reply a little odd.  You refer to my having "neo-nazi views" that are "offensive" and "based on ignorance".  I think this is just moral peacocking on your part.  It's a way for you to feel better about yourself and not have to consider examining your own views.  Only one of these three, your charge of ignorance, is a valid point in rational argument.  I don't care if my views offend you, not because I want to offend you, but because it's just a point of view that I am expressing here.  Neither of us can 'prove' anything, and besides, I'm not attacking you personally.  As for "neo-nazi views", I could be an unreconstructed reactionary this-or-that, or a worshipper of Hitler and the Black Sun, but that's not something that has any bearing on the validity of my views about particular things. But you say I am ignorant, and while there is certainly no shame in being ignorant, I am keen not to be, so I should be glad to know what you think I am ignorant of and why. I can thereby improve my understanding.  What I suspect, however, is that the problem is not my 'ignorance' but that we have a difference of opinion, based largely on a differing interpretation of evidence.It seems you have also appointed yourself as a one-man Executive Committee.  You say that I "…definitely would not be able to join this party with such views."  I suppose it makes a change from democratic centralism.  I have no doubt you are right, though.You then move into a simplistic regurgitation of Socialist Party dogma in the form of the usual studenty points, some of which I fully- or partly agree with.  Let me comment on each:

Vin wrote:

Workers, black, brown, red or yellow have no 'country of their own'.

If by "no country of their own", you mean that as workers, we do not formally own resources in any signficant sense, I entirely agree and I accept this is a significant point – indeed, much of my own analysis depends on it – however, I think you are wrong to end your analysis there, resting on the assumption that different types of people are really just the same.   The crux of the problem for you and the Socialist Party is, I think, this fact that there are significant racial differences between groups, which will affect the prospects for socialism and the nature of any socialist system that can be practically viable.  There is also the attendant 'problem' that most people, especially whites, have strong racial instincts that are expressed tacitly in such things as white flight (which is an embarrassingly obvious reality now in Britain), informal discrimination and sexual selection.  What people like you are doing is helping to create an apartheid society in all but name, in which non-whites become a kind of underclass in the West – which is disgusting, even if it does make sense from a dialectical point-of-view. And on the dialectical point, as I see it you are basically sacrificing innocent people instrumentally to shift society towards a state of revolt.  I suspect what you are thinking is that as the white population of the West is replaced, the more dumbed-down, racially-mixed masses will eventually rise up against capitalism.  My take on that has been explained above, but I will, briefly, repeat it here.  If capitalism regresses in this way into some kind of dystopian command-and-control society, perhaps facilitated by technology, it's at least as likely that the grip of the ruling class will harden under these circumstances and things could go down all sorts of nasty avenues.  The capitalists will inevitably be overthrown at some point – they will know this themselves.  But as a Socialist Party member, you must know that the achievement of socialism is based on raising consciousness through experience and education.  That's certainly the route I would prefer to go down, at any rate, and I also happen to think it is the only way, so I think the dialectical struggle you, and people like you in the reformist hard Left, are attempted to incite will not result in progress.   In my opinion, mass socialist consciousness can only be the result of the social development of capitalist societies.  Socialism to me is not an underdog philosophy.  Rather, it is the logical progression from a highly-developed form of capitalism.  A high-technology, autonomous, high IQ, resource-based society, could be socialist.  A poverty-stricken, low IQ, hierarchal society would struggle to begin a purposeful transition to socialism, I think.  There is much more I could say on this particular aspect of the subject, but I will leave it at that for now.I think the Marxian analysis of history and culture is very strong, but I don't accept that it explains everything.  We are not just workers.  We are also part of organic societies that practice and reproduce cultures.  In that sense, different peoples do 'own' and belong to different places, having been influenced culturally by their physical environments, so there is a racial factor that intersects with class – we might call this 'genetic materialism', in that genetics interacts with the environment to influence the organisation and development of human beings.  Admittedly, cultures must develop and change, and will differ significantly from one time and place to the next, and there is cross-pollination and mixing of races, but a simple and important observation is possible: the cultural differences that exist between human societies are down to the fact that different people have evolved in different places and have become identifiable as discrete and distinct racial groups, with some groups more intellectually capable than others.  I think any analysis of society has to take account of these differences.  To not do so would result in an incomplete analysis, wrong conclusions and dangerous prescriptions.

Vin wrote:

Nation states represent capitalist interests. You or I did not choose to be born here or anywhere else. The workers of this country own no more of the UK  than the migrants entering it

I'm not going to dispute your assertion that nation-states represent capitalist interests.  It seems to me they potentially represent lots of things, including those interests, but in the case certainly of western European nation-states, they are also the cumulative result of very long histories in which people of the same racial background have developed a shared culture.  So while I did not choose to be born here in Britain, I am not going to end my observations there.  My 'British' identity does represent something. I accept that capitalism is the consistent system around the globe, but each society and civilisation will produce a different expression of this system, depending on the people inhabiting it.  India is capitalist, just like Britain, but I don't want to live in India.  I could, however, quite happily live in a country that is culturally broadly similar to Britain – more or less anywhere in northern Europe, most parts of Anglophone countries, etc.. That said, I can easily recognise that I have common cause with the working class of India, but it needn't and doesn't follow that I want to live with or amongst Indians or allow my society to become racially-mixed and indistinguishable from any other capitalist country.  That would be to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Apart from anything else, my understanding of capitalism is built on the historical struggles and scholarship of mostly European people.  If we abolish the culture that created socialism in the first place, then what happens to socialism as an idea?  Does a crop grow without seeds? You could reply by pointing out that socialism does not have to be called 'socialism', and just like capitalism, it can be conceived of, practised and expressed in all sort of ways, and take both primitive and sophisticated forms.  It's not necessarily for an advanced culture such as white Europeans to formulate socialism as a system in itself.  Anyone can simply practice socialism, but my point would be that socialism as an organised system of use and as the progressive outcome of capitalism is a sophsticated idea that requires not the 'destruction' or 'failure' of capitalism, as such (though that may yet be the catalyst).  If anything, the 'success' of capitalism is needed as a prerequisite for socialism. It's an historical process in which society must develop, without which 'socialism', as such, would just be a form of primitivism.  It follows, for me, that to destroy the race and culture that has begun this trajectory for humanity is quite counter-productive and self-defeating, and to be blunt, rather stupid.Capitalism can progress to socialism, or it can regress in a more atavistic direction.  We, as socialists, have an interest in promoting the evolutionary progress that truly revolutionises society.  The progress of Man to become a superior Man, and the progress of capital to a world of abundance.  Thus, to my mind, revolution is a synonym for evolution.  To revolve society, we must see to it that society, and the people in it, evolve.  Anything that impedes evolution is an enemy of revolution.  Among other things,there must be a recognition of some uncomfortable facts about human nature and human differences.

Vin wrote:

1% of the worlds population owns more wealth than the rest of us. Every country consists of two classes: the owners of the means of production and the rest of us who have no option but to sell our labour power to them. I have more in common with a Syrian worker than a capitalist that owns this country.

I have some important things in common with Syrian workers, Lebanese workers, Egyptians, Somalians, Malians [they are not just coming from Syrian].  As workers, we occupy a similar position in society from an economic standpoint, so we have common cause in that our class enemy are the capitalists.But here's my question: Is the Third World worker helping me, or advancing the cause of socialism, by coming to this country?  Shouldn't he be working to improve conditions in his own country?  And if he is an advanced worker, shouldn't he be working for socialism in his own country?  Or is socialism just for the West?  Is it that you think white Europeans are an obstacle to socialism, so best be rid of them?  I suspect you don't want to reply to me on those points, except to repeat, parrott-fashion, the 'citizen of the world' dogma attributable to Karl Marx, which I will now come on to.

Vin wrote:

If you have read Marx, then you will understand why he said: 'workers of all countries unite, you have nothing to lose but your chain and a world to win'

I agree workers of the world should unite, but that does not mean that workers of the world should step on each other's toes, and in some cases, metaphorically trample other workers underfoot.  Workers have responsibilities to each other too.  I respect Indians, Syrians, Kenyans, Indonesians, Malaysians, Huang Chinese, Vietnamese, Tibetans, Iranians and Pakistanis.  I do not wish to interfere with their cultures, which in some cases are quite fine, nor would I see replaced the people who produced those cultures.  I think that's quite a reasonable view to take of things.  I want socialism because I think it would be a better system, but I am not prepared to commit the cold, callous, silent outrages against civilised life of the kind you advocate to get it.  I also doubt the many thousands of victims of rape and sexual assault in dozens of places around Britain and in towns and cities across Europe, would be too taken by your crude Marxian axioms.  Socialism is an important goal for humanity, but human dignity is also important.  People are not cogs to be used by you to achieve your ideological ends. 

[Ike Pettigrew]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Ike Pettigrew wrote:

I fully support solidarity with workers internationally, but that does not necessitate that they come here en masse and destroy our societies. 

They only 'destroy societies' in the same way children destroy societies, they speak a different language, have funny food and dress differently too.  Should we ban children?As it stands, we want to destroy capitalist society, and it's artificial division into nation states, and replace it with a world community.

And you want to do that by creating new divisions in society, between different ethnic communities?  So we swop one type of division for another and introduce soft apartheid into Western countries, with a black underclass, Moslem communities and white flight?   And we will still have nation-states too, with no sign of socialism on the horizon? So capitalism continues on as before.  You hope that maybe, over decades, the whites will mix with the non-whites and form a race-neutral population, that will then demand socialism.  That's the plan.  I think you're crazy.  I think for one thing, what you'll find is that people form into racial groups naturally – it's just nature – and even if the old racial distinctions start to lose relevance, new racial groups will emerge.  You only have to look at socieites in South America to see what happens when you try to mix populations together.  Class and race are social forces.  They intersect, and in the case of South America, 'white' status has become privileged and the class divisions are deeper than ever.An understanding of both capitalism and socialism as historical forces is needed here.  In my view, socialism is not, per se, about "destroying" capitalism.  Rather, it is about developing capitalism into a self-directed, resource-based system of use. This historical development is, or will be, predicated on the successful development of capitalism.  What socialists need to be doing is encouraging the full development of capitalism in the Third World so that the working class of the Third World can develop the necessary consciousness and understanding of their class position and the necessity to capitalism of socialism as a new system. On the point about culture, I don't understand the analogy with children, but I think culture is an important part of what keeps people together as a 'community', and therefore it might play an important part both in the transition to socialism (which I would argue is already well under way) and in the socialist society itself.  I think we'd probably both agree that Western societies have become more anomic in nature over the past few decades, and that this has been caused by capitalism.  Does this make socialism more or less likely?  I would say that if people are astranged from each other and have a sense of being highly-individuated, then that might partly explain why it is becoming difficult to inculcate socialistic thinking in people and why even intelligent people can struggle to understand socialism. The degenerate and predatory nature of capitalism, as it stands today, is another problem.  To an extent, I think the far-Left and also the far-Right do provide some of the answers to this, in that capitalism can be managed in a more social democratic way.  I believe the hope for socialism is the emergence out of capitalism of greater autonomisation and the breakdown of hierarchies.  I think that process is already underway in the West, but could be slowed or halted by swamping Western countries with Third World migrants, as they introduce social and welfare costs into the system.

[Ike Pettigrew]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Ike, your argument is one with a long history within the workers movement and over the years it has been directed at many peoples. Fear-mongering and divisive politics play well in creating more xenophobia and it has a long history. You blame the capitalist class for the problem but punish the worker.

No, you're presenting a loaded and twisted interpretation of what I said.  I have been careful to explain the basis of my position, and how it is consistent with socialism, and also my belief that while, yes, workers should be in solidarity, they also need to recognise that they have responsibilities to each other.  Being in solidarity doesn't and shouldn't mean being abused.  And opposing an influx of workers that might disrupt society and even undermine living standards does not mean that those foreign workers are being punished or victimised.  In point of principle, workers, even socialist ones, have the right to fight for better conditions and oppose things that might result in worse conditions.It's not about blaming the victim. That's just emotional rhetoric, and only a stupid or gullible person would be taken in by it.  From a class perspective, workers in Europe should be in solidarity with the migrants, again I agree, but being in solidarity with somebody or some group doesn't mean allowing yourself to be exploited and eventually replaced by that group.What we have are different groups of workers.  It may be that capitalist and pre-capitalist societies exploit the divisions between these groups (e.g. Bacon's Rebellion), but these groups have not been created by capitalism.  That's your problem here.  There are differences, for instance, between ethno-Europeans and blacks; and Europeans and Arabs.  These differences result in very different societies.  Don't Europeans have the right to defend the society they belong to?  Is solidarity with workers in contradiction to this?   Should British workers have the right to defend living standards, working conditions, public services and their way of life?  Maybe you could answer these questions in a direct, non-evasive way?  I don't want the usual crap about the need for people to do jobs British people won't do or prop up the health service.  You're not a lefty.  We both know why these people are being brought in.  There are plenty of British workers available, and besides, each new person brought in represents non-organic growth in the population which will place further strain on services in the future.  Turning to your extensive quotes and links, I don't see your point.  If people have made these arguments before, then that would not surprise me.  If it proves anything, it is that these issues have been around for a long time.  Were people also advocating world socialism more than a hundred years ago?  But we're no nearer, are we?  In fact, if anything, we're actually farther from the goal.  Does that invalidate socialism as an idea?  The founders of the SPGB had cause to be optimistic, but what will happen to the idea of socialism when Europe is Islamicised and no longer European?  Will there still be a Socialist Party in existence?

alanjjohnstone wrote:

These early views of Debs all changed from experience and made the unions and the Socialist Parties ever more stronger as the recorded influence of the foreign-born sections of the IWW, SLP and SP, shows and these positive factors were highlighted by the Irish immigrant James Connolly when he was a labour organizer active in America and organised many non-English speaking Italians.

Has mass immigration made America stronger or weaker?  Given the problems now faced by American society (I assume you watch the news), could you explain how the 'racial' Debs was wrong and the 'non-racial' Debs was right?

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Yes, as you can see, fellow Europeans, such as the Poles and the Romanians, followers of the same "culture", the same religion and competitors for the same jobs have all been castigated in the recent past by British workers with proposals of restrictions upon them at the risk of destroying European "unity", the EU.If we go back not too far in history the anti-Irish workers in the UK also demanded that they "go home " too. Same in the USA…was not there nickname …the black Irish…just one level above slaves.

Are you saying that British workers should not be allowed to defend their living standards?  Don't, please, come back with the Socialist Standard Party Line that it's not the fault of workers and that I'm blaming the victims, blah, blah, etc..  Yawn.  I know the average SPGB member is a frustrated Leninist, but I can only take so much. I know workers are not responsible for deciding wages and living standards, but that's not my point here.  Just because British workers might oppose the influx of Eastern Europeans, it doesn't follow that those foreign workers are being punished, blamed or scapegoated for problems with capitalism.  Workers in Britain have the right, as political actors, to identify the proximate causes of problems and ask for those causes to be dealt with.  Workers abroad can fight for better living standards in their own countries, just like British workers can.  So, we come back to my question – I am asking you, are you saying that British workers should not be allowed to defend their living standards?

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Here in Scotland the capitalists used Lithuanian immigrants. At the beginning of the 20th century in Lanarkshire, there was much vitriol against Lithuanian incomers. They were employed in the iron works and the coal pits, and they too were accused of wage-cutting and scabbing. Nevertheless, the Lanarkshire County Miners’ Union, in the space of some 15 years, went from offering support to miners willing to strike against Lithuanian workers to demanding that Lithuanian miners in Lanarkshire should not be deported. During those 15 years, the Lithuanians had joined the union in large numbers and were active in it. Unionisation was the key to improved relations between the Lithuanian labour force and the LCMU. Once the Lithuanians began to respond positively to local strike demands, the other allegations made against them were simply not an issue. The adoption of a more class-conscious attitude and the strength of their newfound loyalty to the union was in part due to the fact that the union had taken some very positive steps to encourage Lithuanian membership, such as printing the rules in Lithuanian and offering entitlement to claim full benefits.

This is all very interesting, but has it not occurred to you that:(i). the Lithuanian workers were replacing local workers;(ii). the local workers and their union objected and campaigned against the Lithuanians, not because they disliked or hated Lithuanians necessarily or wanted to punish them, but because……well……they wanted to keep their jobs, their communities, start families, maintain their way of life, you know, things that normal people who don't join the Socialist Party want to do; and,(iii). the union eventually had no choice but to accommodate the Lithuanians because, with capitalist help, they became a settled part of the community, and as is the normal way of things, outsiders eventually became accepted. This is an example of how capitalism can be callous and wreck people's lives.  I want socialism, but I'm not prepared to bring it about by doing the same thing.  I would prefer that capitalism acts to defend living standards and that socialism emerges as a natural consequence of capitalism as its social relations become irrelevant.[quote-alanjjohnstone]But you say immigrants come here en masse and destroy our society. The other side of the coin is that they build society. Which worker has not eaten spaghetti and meatballs, indulged in curry and drank some lager. Immigration creates diversity that is welcomed by people unless of course you are one of those few who thought that rock'roll was the devils music of the negro as many bigots did as the decried Elvis Presley…music is something that crosses over differences. No, even empirically, you are wrong about our "culture" being destroyed. On the contrary, it is strengthened by incorporating other peoples ideas and imagination and customs.[/quote]Without wishing to be patronising in kind, I think it's safe to say that white European people and their culture are diverse enough on their own without bolting-on a smorgasbord of other cultures from around the world.  I think you also have to understand that there is a distinction between radical cultural change and organic change.  The examples you provide are of organic influences on British or European culture from elsewhere.  That's just a natural process, and doesn't involve large-scale population replacement.  What is happening now is not quite the same.  We are witnessing revolutionary demographic changes that will radically shift the basis of society, albeit it will remain capitalist.  I suspect the reason you and other members of the Socialist Party don't grasp this is because most of you will be white 'middle-class' people, probably living in largely white and affluent areas of the country.  I appreciate that will not be true of all of you, so please don't jump on me if it isn't true of you in particular, but I would expect the general demographic of the Socialist Party is white and middle-class/affluent working class.  This is obviously going to influence how you look at things.  You are living in a bubble. 

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Capitalism is built upon two freedoms…the free movement of capital and the free movement of labour…How strange it is that all the attention is placed upon restricting the second of those …I do not see the vigilantes out on the street picketing Amazon from re-locating its profits to a low-tax foreign country. But people who went to Australia and America and Canada and Argentine and many other places…(almost two million UK ex-pats in the EU) …all went as economic migrants…yet,now they are safe, they are tossing away the ladders they used for others and you want to shut the door on peoples who have only one reason for leaving their homes families and friends, to better their lives…something you too aspire to but you merely seek to ensure you keep out the competitors…

Yes, I agree actually that the Right should protest the behaviour of these companies, and also do more campaigning work on the other issues that represent the root cause of migration.  But then again, I don't see all that much effective activity, or much activity at all, about multinationals, from the Left either, or from the Socialist Party, for that matter.  And not everything is reducible to economics.  I understand why the tendency to reduce things this way is there, but the people who founded the ethno-European societies in North America and Australasia were motivated by more than just monetary gain.  I wish no ill on anybody, no matter where they are from, but Europeans have the right to fight for their survival as a single, distinct group.

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Your grandfather probably opposed women's equality in the work-place, for the same reason…a woman who was not in the kitchen and who wanted to work was a rival for a job , and the bosses could under-cut pay by employing them…until they organised with the unions..The youth too had wage differentials imposed and not so long ago …every company had pay scales determined by age…up to 30 in some cases….Divide and rule goes beyond race, colour and nationality…skilled worker v the unskilled worker…uneducated and diploma-certificate holder…

It's fascinating when a 'socialist' likes the idea of women as wage-slaves.  This serves to reaffirm my view that the Socialist Party is leftist more than socialist.  I don't believe in women's rights, and I suspect a socialist society, if it ever came about authentically, would have very little time for such views.

alanjjohstone wrote:

Don't be a pawn in their power games, Ike…Don't accept the propaganda and look at the bigger picture and the longer term. Also look around you at your fellow bed-mates, your "allies",  and wonder what side you are really on…Trump the billionaire?….  

I am looking at the big picture, and I am certainly not on the side of Trump, but I do have an understanding that political change has to happen within the framework of what is now possible.  The field of possibilities can change radically, sometimes very quickly, as a result of events.  For instance, what we are now seeing with Trump and the breaking apart of the leftist capitalist narrative is that racial issues can be discussed again.  I think it's only a matter of time before racial nationalism becomes mainstream. So, even though I don't support Trump, and even though Trump himself is not in any sense a racialist or racial nationalist, we can see that his success is creating a space for new political possibilities, albeit that you won't like what is coming. The other factor in change is the undercurrent in society of technology and social attitudes.  People are becoming less deferential and more aware of the duplicitous nature of Western governments, largely due to the information available on the worldwide web, and advances in technology will also facilitate greater autonomisation.   These two pressures will, I think, undermine capitalism, as people 'unplug' themselves from the system and seek out not just alternative ideologies, but alternative consciousness and lived experiences.  That's my model of a quiet, peaceful death for capitalism – and I hope that is how it happens.   It may be so quiet and peaceful, that ordinary people don't even really notice the change much – sort of like the Industrial Revolution. However, if whites do lose control of their societies, then I think we're in for something nasty.  The danger is that without settled, stable, homogeneous populations, Western societies are going to move in quite an authoritarian direction in order to control their populations and sustain their economies.  They will have populations that are more fractious, with lower average IQ levels, and less able to function freely or maintain advanced, technology-based societies.  I am not hostile to the Socialist Party and its positions, but I do think the survival of Europe is going to be very important.  If ethno-European societies fall, then I would argue that socialism becomes less, not more, likely.

[alanjjohnstone]

I don’t know where to begin. There is so much wrong with the case that you make which can only be judged as a pretence of being socialist. Even this reply won’t be able to do justice to disproving your arguments. But here goes.Shall we begin with your claim that you “don't believe in women's rights” and that they should be encourage to take up employment because it is encouraging them to wage-slaves. How noble and gallant you are to remove the choice from them? An almost identical argument was made by the slave-owning plantation-owners of the American South to defend their instution…better to be a chattel slave than a wage slave. But what is good for the goose is good for the gander, so why then do you condemn the threat of unemployment to European and UK workers, when you declare that immigrants taking their jobs as you seem intent upon insisting, is saving indigenous workers from being wage slaves.Staying on the topic of womens’ rights, all the experts, and I do mean all the experts, project a declining population for Europe as a whole, the demographic prediction is that there will be a drastic drop of people of working age and a rise in the population of old folk which means less productive workers supporting more and more who are dependent upon them. I take it you are not in favour of euthanasia for the old and feeble so there are two options. One is the rational choice, invite the young from those parts of the world that has rising youth numbers …or two…turn European women into baby machines to reverse the trend, perhaps following the Hitlerite and Stalinist models of presenting medals for those who breed the most. Somehow, with your attitude towards women not permitted to make their own decisions, I think you’ll pick the secon and penalise females for not having kids.You simply can’t see that your case consists of protecting vested interests. “ workers, even socialist ones, have the right to fight for better conditions and oppose things that might result in worse conditions.”And that is exactly what some workers said about the black workers or unskilled workers and female workers entering the work-force and now about immigrants and exactly what I accused you of doing. You want to keep your “privileged” position at the price of excluding and keeping down other people and refusing to turn your wrath and ire at the very folk that take advantage of your myopia. Yes, the quote I gave in the previous post is very apt…stop being a bully and instead when look down on people make sure it is only because you are bending down to give them a helping hand up.“eventually replaced by that group.” You have accused me of emotional rhetoric but are blind to your own. Care to tell me the % of the Europe’s population that the current arrival of refugees present? I shall offer you this. The TOTAL foreign-born population residing in the EU in 2014 amounts to 33 million people, or 7% of the total population of the 28 EU countries (above 500 million people). The number of followers of Islam in Europe was in 2010 13 million. By 2030, Muslims are projected to make up 8% of Europe’s population…Are we to be replaced by less than 10% of the population. And you say I am wrong when I call you scare-monger.There is no denying that the arrival of so many people so quickly is a logistical and infrastructural nightmare, but it is not a situation which cannot be overcome. When Algeria got its independence from France one million pied-noirs departed and arrived in France. France coped. When Germany re-unified 2 or 3 million Ossies in a relatively brief period headed to what was West Germany. Germany coped. What we are discussing in not just one country being part of the solution but the whole of Europe. Where there is the will, there is the way.  Has mass immigration made America stronger or weaker, you ask? Can I state the very obvious. Immigration made America, as it did Canada, Australia and Argentine. All countries made up of immigrants. How can you say it has weakened these countries? The American continent’s First Peoples and the Aboriginal people and the Maori of New Zealand, would perhaps rightly challenge me on this. Your “indigenous” people aren’t native, are they, but interlopers. Nor are the blacks in the America’s immigrants…they were forced to go live there, in chains and still they are being made to pay the price  “Are you saying that British workers should not be allowed to defend their living standards?” Are you saying the English are not entitled to defend their standards from in-coming Welsh and Scots? That those in the Home Counties should not defend themselves from those Northerners new-comers. Should east-enders in London should now stop those from south London from re-locating. Shall we now stop those from the bottom of the street applying for jobs that those at the top of the street also seek. Imagine if in the United States of America moving from the Eastern sea-board to the West Coast in search of employment was banned? But of corse they tried, didn't they. "Grapes of Wrath" and all that, didn't matter if the okies from the dust bowl came over in the Mayflower, western states tried to turn them back…for the same reason you wish to apply to foreigners…you are a competitor, a rival.  Before the chickens came home to roost from a refugee rise caused directly by European and American war policy, UKIPs concern was the number of Eastern Europeans. Farage railed against the Poles and Romanians stealing jobs and cutting wages and causing crime. The fact is the law gives EU workers the right to go live and work anywhere in the EU they choose. I well remember the TV series ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet’. Of course, you don’t like our SPGB case because it is backed up by official research. Eastern European are not stealing jobs, many were creating them, nor apart from some localized effect did they contribute to British workers suffering pay cuts. Facts I am sure since you claim to be knowledgeable will be aware of, but you choose to dismiss to suit your own agenda. The Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs show that most east European immigrants take jobs that no Dutch worker would accept, such as picking vegetables in greenhouses. They pay more in taxes than they claim in benefits but you prefer to blinker yourself to this information since you don’t want to accept it. The  only effective way to reduce immigration is to lower living standards, reduce real pay and increase poverty to make coming here unappealing. This has now been shown to be the Cameron’s immigration policy and do not be fooled that it will only apply to incoming migrant workers. Simply look at the vast numbers of benefit claimants sanctioned for declining low-paying or even no-pay zero-contract employment. Anti-immigrant rhetoric is employed only as a means of preparing the way for attacks against the entire working class.Ike, you may well bemoan the loss of traditions and blame foreigners for eroding them. But you overlook the penetration of the city centres by real estate speculators and rural beauty spots exploited by tourist industry over-development.  Nor have you expressed outrage by the Americanisation of culture that contains more consumer decadence with its McDonalds or Starbucks than anybody coming from the Middle East. There is far greater damage caused to tradition and culture by financial speculation and capitalist globalisation than by migrant groups insulating themselves in their own little communities. History shows that language and religion are not insurmountable obstacles to social integration. The conflicts fought between protestants and catholics were, in most of Britain, long and bloody (Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland are still dealing with this) but for most part, whether a person is a Church of England, Welsh chapel or Church of Rome is now an irrelevance. Anti-gay bigots are increasingly finding themselves isolated is another example of how social attitudes change for the better. To garner votes, politicians are willing to create an atmosphere of fear than one of mutual respect and solidarity and despite all your proclamations of expressing international solidarity, I fail to see any proof of it. Have you in your replies supported an increase in foreign aid spending, the end of expansionist wars, of compensation for passed Empire crimes, of curtailing tax havens which are mostly in British protectorates? Have you advocated cross-border strikes and boycotts? No, you play lip-service to internationalism but you are effectively supporting our class enemy…the ruling class.  The scapegoating of immigrants is especially grotesque. The reason why Britain (and much of the rest of the world) has been economically devastated has more to do with the City of London and Wall St than foreigners sweating in back-breaking work backs in the fields and food factories of East Anglia. But Big Business have much better PR departments. And, in the end, politicians don’t argue with their pay-masters for long. The poor, the vulnerable and the defenceless  – especially those who do not share the same language or customs or religion – have always been a convenient scapegoat for a society’s various ills. It’s the oldest trick in the book and regardless of your self-image as someone who thinks – you have been gullible enough to have fallen for it.People don’t normally interpret the world through a series of facts and logic. We often understand the world through what we are told, picked up from the media. Where people are forever being told that immigration is responsible for all of the ills of the world, the effect of highlighting immigration is mostly to confirm to people the stories in their head which tell them to blame those of other races than themselves, those less rich than themselves. When life gets tough, people turn on those they define as the other, the outsider.  Maligning migrants becomes fair game, especially for vote-seeking populist politicians. Austerity effects all workers but the clamp down usually begins with the vulnerable and weak. We see this with ATOS and attacks on the disabled and sick. A few years ago, it was all single mothers fault getting deliberately pregnant to jump the housing waiting list that we had homeless and now the blame of the refugee. Is it not immigrants but rather the capitalist class which are constantly out-sourcing work abroad and  opening factories in other countries who is the enemy.Reading your comments on the other posters responses to you, i could go on and on but i leave them to answer you in their own way.I should perhaps for full disclosure, reveal I am an immigrant.  

[Anonymous]

Ike Pettigrew wrote:

Vin wrote:

I am not surprised you would feel ucomfortable discussing such issues with us. I certainly feel uncomfortable discussing your neo-nazi views on 'race'. I find them  offensive, based on ignorance  and you would definitely  not be able to join this party with such views

I am not uncomfortable discussing these issues with you or anybody else, however I would be uncomfortable as a member.  That's not because I think my views are incompatible with socialism.  Quite the contrary: I think my position is more socialist than yours.  But it's clear from browsing this Forum that the Socialist Party is in the grip of metropolitan leftists like yourself.  That's not a criticism really, as you're entitled to your views. 

I can see how my statement could be misleadingWe are a democratic organisation without leaders. The executive committee is not appointed but elected annually by the entire membership and its function is to administer the wishes of the membership as expressed via party polls, party rules and conference decisions. You will not find a more democratic political party.Anyone may join the party regardless of gender, race, colour or 'culture' as long as you convince the party that you understand our caseI was expressing my opinion as a member. Your views conflict sharply with ours, you even think we are 'leftist'. Can you not understand how a dark skinned migrant would be offended by your views? And would that have any thing to do with morality or 'leftism'While I am on the subject of 'left' the Party has opposed all leftwing groups since its formation in 1904, this is a matter of recordMany on the 'left' would prevent you from expressing your opinion, one reason why we oppose them.Our case is not based on morality but on the interests of the working class, black, white, yellow red etc

[Young Master Smeet]

Ike Pettigrew wrote:

On the point about culture, I don't understand the analogy with children, but I think culture is an important part of what keeps people together as a 'community', and therefore it might play an important part both in the transition to socialism (which I would argue is already well under way) and in the socialist society itself. 

Well, that's obvious.  But it's widely dem,onstrated that language difference exist between generations (and even within people across a lifetime) language isn't stable.Culture isn't stable, as the maroon communities demonstrate, people make new cultures as they come to live together.Race doesn't exist, at most there are historic accidental demographies.We are about replacing the accidental associations of language with the conscious association of producers. I have more in common with a Syrian worker than Iever will with a British capitalist, and their struggle against the authorities that would drive them into the sea rather than help them flee the war is my struggle too.

[SocialistPunk]

Hi Ike,Good to see a new face willing to get involved with discussion.I'm curious as to the quote by you I highlight in bold below. Are you referring to "racial" groups as a whole, or pockets of "racial" groups within specific environmental, economic, cultural situations?

Ike Pettigrew wrote:

the cultural differences that exist between human societies are down to the fact that different people have evolved in different places and have become identifiable as discrete and distinct racial groups, with some groups more intellectually capable than others.

[Author]

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