Paid to protest – career activists

[Anonymous]

robbo203 wrote:

Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:

jondwhite wrote:

'Crystal clarity and mass awareness' is measured by membership numbers of the WSM / SPGB etc.

I like that it's at an actionable definition and presumably measurable and countable.  is there a consensus on this definition?  How do we prevent members of the WSM /SPGB, etc, from establishing themselves as the elites or in some way a class above the non-members?Do you know the current rate of growth or decline for membership numbers of WSM/ / SPGB etc?   what is the consensus answer for the percent of the population needs to become members of the WSM / SPGB and achieve crystal clarity to qualify as mass awarenes for the socialist revolution?  100%, 50%, 5%, other? Does socialism, as defined by the consensus of WSM/SPGB etc members. only exist if it is dominant worldwide or can local dominance serve to declare a local region socialist?  100% of the planet or is it 100% of a nation, or is it 100% of a city or is it 100% of a village, or is it 100% of a single persons economic exchanges?

 Socialism cannot be established by a minority.  Period. That is the position of the WSM and it is one that has been reiterated countless times.  Ipso facto that rules out any kind of elitist or vanguardist perspective. You have to have a majority because you cannot operate a socialist society without the populace understanding and accepting as it were,  the "rules of the game" – the norms,  values and behavioural expectations of a socialist society.  You can argue how much of a majority you require but I think this is being  a bit pedantic.  If 51% of the population were "fully socialist" in outlook then it is more than likely that a further  30-40% of the population would be well on the way to becoming socialists themselves. They might quibble about one or two aspects of socialism  but more than likely would go along with the majority without demur.  This is often the case – even hostile opponents of socialism, display in their dealings with others around them a kind of "socialistic" – for want of a better word – pattern of behaviour or mentality. The point is that the growth of the socialist movement itself progressively modifies the wider social environment in which it exists.  Socialist values and socialist ideas cannot but help seep into this wider enviroment and subtly transform the relation between the movement itself and those outside of it.  My belief is that the latter will come to more and more resemble the former at least in certain respects.  Two radically opposite worldviews cannot coexist and flourish in the same soil in which they are rooted.  One must necessarily draw nourishment away from the other.    Authoritarian fascism for example would be reduced to a tiny insignificant rump, in my view , by the time the socialist movement can be counted in the millions Finally, it is completely unrealistic to expect socialist ideas to flourish in one part of the world and remain insignificant elsewhere.  There are 3 main reasons  for saying this1)  Global communications technology that allow for the near instantaneous dissemination of ideas everywhere and, as well as that, the  stepped up movement of people around the world as carriers of ideas2) Increasing uniformity of conditions and experiences across the world as a result of globalisation and growing interdependencies,  giving rise to increasing convergence in thinking3)  The pro-active decisions of the globally-organised socialist movement in selectively directing propaganda resources to those parts of the world that are lagging  in socialist consciousnesss in order to reduce, if not eliminate altogether,  spatial inequaiities in the extent of this consciousness – which inequalities it will have a very strong interest in reducing for the sake of ensuring a smoother transition to socialism

Very interesting. . . I'd like to try an experiment in practicing socialism that I'd like to try out with you?  Are you interested in reading how more of my thoughts about your comment in an environment that was more conducive to socialism?  If you believe socialism demands free access for anyone in the world to comment or vote on anything they want, then I have a way to practice that now with you as part of my response.  I created a google document because I can set the privacy setting to 100% public, so I'm inviting you to join a 100% public conversation that anyone can join in and edit or comment on or vote on. This is not spam or an advertisement and it's really just easier to manage privacy and sharing with a google doc than with a comment on this forum, which won't allow for upvoting a comment or searching comments easily and editing sucks on this board.  Also the editor in google docs is way better and I can add pictures and write faster and easier.  So that's a good reason to try this experiement in socialism with me too.  So by continuting this discussion in a google doc, we gain several socialist friendly advantages that I'd like to explore with you.  anyway, here's the link. . . https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aY6824gdoHi0VuegrSk2WNwVRRtdbFaGSKque-kYwe4/editTake off your chains and be free. 

[Anonymous]

robbo203 wrote:Socialism cannot be established by a minority.  Period. That is the position of the WSM and it is one that has been reiterated countless times.  Ipso facto that rules out any kind of elitist or vanguardist perspective. Which part of that statement don't you understand ?   _______________________________________________________   This is the concrete definition of FREE ACCESS: https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2007/no-1234-june-2007/what-free-access-means Socialists often describe socialism as a society where there will be free access, but what could this mean in concrete terms?Socialism will be a society of free access to what has been produced. This does not mean alcohol being made available to children or anyone being able to get hold of guns. But there’ll be no money, credit cards or cheque books, no artificial barriers to people having what they’ve decided they want. But how would free access work, and would it lead to a free-for-all and chaos as people just took more and more?It doesn’t matter whether they’ll be called shops, stores or warehouses, but there will be places where people will go to collect goods. Whether it’s food, clothes, electrical gadgets or whatever, these places will in some ways be like the shops that exist nowadays but in other ways will be rather different. There will be no price tickets, check-outs or security guards. There’ll be no ‘buy one get one free’ offers, no brightly-coloured promotions trying to pressurise you into buying certain goods. There may well still be shop assistants, whose task it really will be to assist people rather than talk them into purchases. There will still be plenty of choice, and probably more real choice than exists today, when you can ‘choose’ among masses of near-identical products. If you want food, no doubt you will go with a shopping list and make sure that you load what you want into the shopping trolley. And then you’ll just leave, since you won’t have to pay for anything. 

[alanjjohnstone]

"Socialism cannot be established by a minority. Period." [my emphasis]Robbo, what is a majority is an interesting question. I'm not one who considers it a numerical defintion but one that is a political one…a politically effective majority and that need not be 51% of the population or 51% of those listed on the electoral roll, or those 51% who turned out to vote. I don't think the question f how to define a majority is pedantic.It is vital that we act according to the prevailing will of the people otherwise a recalcitrant ruling class could deny the legitimacy and that the assumed majority did not, in fact, exist. Our aim is a majoritarian revolution, one involving the active and democratic participation of a majority of the population. But on saying that, i also have a more nuanced outlook on the question.In an earlier exchange i was reminded that the Socialist Party was set up when over half the population didn't have the vote – women and still a large proportion of men.Our Parliament pamphlet explains:

Quote:

"we use terms such as “majority” and “majoritarian” this is not because we are obsessed with counting the number of individual socialists, but to show that we reject minority action to try to establish socialism – majority as the opposite of minority….a majority (yes, but in the democratic rather than mere mathematical sense)…."

It is about an effective majority, not simplistic formalism of number counting. It may be acknowledging that there is an already established world majority of socialists who have, to some extent, voted with their feet and re-organised their jobs, freely distributed food and goods, refused to go to war, or whatever. We won't just sit on our arses for Jon Snow on Channel 4 News declare the success of the revolution on a swingometer. In the fall of the Communist Party governments of the Eastern Bloc no-one waited around for a massive vote of millions of people since the malaise of state capitalism was plainly evident, allowing individual revolts in each of the countries or individual Soviet republics. Circumstances will determine if Parliament will be the engine of change or not much more than a rubber-stamping exercise.  i think the SPGB position is one that we do not rely on Parliament but that we use it if we can. We think it is the most effective way to get socialism with the minimum of violence. Elections are a useful expedient when the alternative is a bloody failure on some barricade or strangled general strike. But we're not legalists – if the capitalists withdraw the franchise or change its rules we'll have to act without it. Being dependent on the bourgeois offering us a voting opportunity for socialism is not the party case.Most successful revolutions of the past required a third of the people active support – which would be enough for an election of any capitalist party. If this third of the population actively supporting the revolution outweighs active opposition sufficiently to achieve its goals, with the rest of our class either passively support us or just keeping their heads down below the parapets to see what comes out of whatever crisis and comes to pass, that constitutes a sufficient majority of socialists, imho. It should be defined as "functional majority", or such terms, and also not put in thrall of the capitalist process. Capitalist politics, when they interact with our class at all, are fraught with ballot-rigging and gerrymandering. The franchise, even when considered "universal", always excludes large sectors of our class. We should also allow for the large possibility that any transition will not be that orderly – by the time we have succeeded there will be no need for such a ballot because the outcome will be obvious and have been the result of class warfare. It is essential for the revolutionary process that this majority is suffice to make socialism work as a system of society and the deciding factor on the 'majority' is going to be how many of the population will be willing to make socialism actually work.We cannot assume that all of our class will want to be actively involved – many for purely personal social or health reasons but for whatever reason will not want to stick their heads above the parapet. Also lots of our class will be in organisations that have interpreted the situation differently, whether , anarchists, even Trots or what-not , and would be as likely to cooperate in many aspects of a revolution . We should have a revolutionary model which refers to socialism being brought about by a sufficient majority of socialists – sufficient in their political willingness and awareness, not a 100% at the polls or even a 51% active support. We talk of as in a 1955 EC Statement of "The overwhelming mass of the people will participate, or fall in line with, the process of reorganisation " [my emphasis]. Class societies only persist because a majority support or acquiesce to the social system. Once these start to be withdrawn we can expect a revolution.For sure some of our members suggest that when we reach a third support, we should be patient and wait a few months more and lessen the possibility of violence, because then the chances are that we would have 40-50% of workers revolutionised, but it will be left up to the revolutionary period to decide. However, tThere are a wide variety of potential scenarios for revolution. We would be fools if we limit ourselves to what is theoretically perfect – and thus highly unlikely – rather than asking the question "what do we actually need to make a revolution?" and proceeding on that basis. The problem is not getting people to think "socialism is a good idea" but also transforming that into mass social action. We need to be able to act in an imperfect world rather than waiting for a perfect one. Revolution is not merely an announcement of a successful ballot, it is a process, and the process itself will draw our fellows into the struggle. The revolution makes the mass party – the actual date that power can be seen to shift to ourselves is not the beginning, but the beginning of a different phase. As with many other aspects of  the socialist case, it is not in our interests to over-simplify a complex and complicated reality

[Anonymous]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

"Socialism cannot be established by a minority. Period." [my emphasis]Robbo, what is a majority is an interesting question. I'm not one who considers it a numerical defintion but one that is a political one…a politically effective majority and that need not be 51% of the population or 51% of those listed on the electoral roll, or those 51% who turned out to vote. I don't think the question f how to define a majority is pedantic.It is vital that we act according to the prevailing will of the people otherwise a recalcitrant ruling class could deny the legitimacy and that the assumed majority did not, in fact, exist. Our aim is a majoritarian revolution, one involving the active and democratic participation of a majority of the population. But on saying that, i also have a more nuanced outlook on the question.In an earlier exchange i was reminded that the Socialist Party was set up when over half the population didn't have the vote – women and still a large proportion of men.Our Parliament pamphlet explains:

Quote:

"we use terms such as “majority” and “majoritarian” this is not because we are obsessed with counting the number of individual socialists, but to show that we reject minority action to try to establish socialism – majority as the opposite of minority….a majority (yes, but in the democratic rather than mere mathematical sense)…."

It is about an effective majority, not simplistic formalism of number counting. It may be acknowledging that there is an already established world majority of socialists who have, to some extent, voted with their feet and re-organised their jobs, freely distributed food and goods, refused to go to war, or whatever. We won't just sit on our arses for Jon Snow on Channel 4 News declare the success of the revolution on a swingometer. In the fall of the Communist Party governments of the Eastern Bloc no-one waited around for a massive vote of millions of people since the malaise of state capitalism was plainly evident, allowing individual revolts in each of the countries or individual Soviet republics. Circumstances will determine if Parliament will be the engine of change or not much more than a rubber-stamping exercise.  i think the SPGB position is one that we do not rely on Parliament but that we use it if we can. We think it is the most effective way to get socialism with the minimum of violence. Elections are a useful expedient when the alternative is a bloody failure on some barricade or strangled general strike. But we're not legalists – if the capitalists withdraw the franchise or change its rules we'll have to act without it. Being dependent on the bourgeois offering us a voting opportunity for socialism is not the party case.Most successful revolutions of the past required a third of the people active support – which would be enough for an election of any capitalist party. If this third of the population actively supporting the revolution outweighs active opposition sufficiently to achieve its goals, with the rest of our class either passively support us or just keeping their heads down below the parapets to see what comes out of whatever crisis and comes to pass, that constitutes a sufficient majority of socialists, imho. It should be defined as "functional majority", or such terms, and also not put in thrall of the capitalist process. Capitalist politics, when they interact with our class at all, are fraught with ballot-rigging and gerrymandering. The franchise, even when considered "universal", always excludes large sectors of our class. We should also allow for the large possibility that any transition will not be that orderly – by the time we have succeeded there will be no need for such a ballot because the outcome will be obvious and have been the result of class warfare. It is essential for the revolutionary process that this majority is suffice to make socialism work as a system of society and the deciding factor on the 'majority' is going to be how many of the population will be willing to make socialism actually work.We cannot assume that all of our class will want to be actively involved – many for purely personal social or health reasons but for whatever reason will not want to stick their heads above the parapet. Also lots of our class will be in organisations that have interpreted the situation differently, whether , anarchists, even Trots or what-not , and would be as likely to cooperate in many aspects of a revolution . We should have a revolutionary model which refers to socialism being brought about by a sufficient majority of socialists – sufficient in their political willingness and awareness, not a 100% at the polls or even a 51% active support. We talk of as in a 1955 EC Statement of "The overwhelming mass of the people will participate, or fall in line with, the process of reorganisation " [my emphasis]. Class societies only persist because a majority support or acquiesce to the social system. Once these start to be withdrawn we can expect a revolution.For sure some of our members suggest that when we reach a third support, we should be patient and wait a few months more and lessen the possibility of violence, because then the chances are that we would have 40-50% of workers revolutionised, but it will be left up to the revolutionary period to decide. However, tThere are a wide variety of potential scenarios for revolution. We would be fools if we limit ourselves to what is theoretically perfect – and thus highly unlikely – rather than asking the question "what do we actually need to make a revolution?" and proceeding on that basis. The problem is not getting people to think "socialism is a good idea" but also transforming that into mass social action. We need to be able to act in an imperfect world rather than waiting for a perfect one. Revolution is not merely an announcement of a successful ballot, it is a process, and the process itself will draw our fellows into the struggle. The revolution makes the mass party – the actual date that power can be seen to shift to ourselves is not the beginning, but the beginning of a different phase. As with many other aspects of  the socialist case, it is not in our interests to over-simplify a complex and complicated reality

That's all agreeable, to me I guess or stuff I don't care about. I care about putting a number on the socialist power in society so we can use that number to guide or strategy and action.  I want a meter that says we are 20% to the total we need and I don't care if it's way off on the percent.  What I care about is that when we enact a bad strategy we can mesure the number again and see the number change and use that to course correct our arguments and strategies.there was a practical to use membership in WorldSocialism.org for a proxy value.  now presumably if we get closer to a socialist majority then we will be able to measure that closness by the numbers of members on the this website for example.  Or maybe you want to use a different proxy measurement like a hypothetical survey question?  I don't care too much about the exact number, or the exact proxy measurement you put forward, but i care a lot that we have available to us as socialist a proxy measurment and an educated guess.  the reason for using this proxy measurement is it helps us talk more concretely about socialism and discover what our proxy measures over time and how accurate it is if we keep historical records and such then we can use this information to advance the cause of socialism.  So I totally agree or don't care about everything you all are saying about what you're idea of socialism is or isn't.  But I really want a quantative solution because that's what I work with by training and skill and "my ability" is in analyzing quantative data not in debating the intent of historical authors.  

[Anonymous]

[/quote]Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist].  So I totally agree or don't care about everything you all are saying about what you're idea of socialism is or isn't.  But I really want a quantative solution because that's what I work with by training and skill and "my ability" is in analyzing quantative data not in debating the intent of historical authors.   [/quote]So, if you do not care. What the fuck are you looking for in this forum ?  Is this your playing ground ? 

[Anonymous]

mcolome1 wrote:

Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:

.  So I totally agree or don't care about everything you all are saying about what you're idea of socialism is or isn't.  But I really want a quantative solution because that's what I work with by training and skill and "my ability" is in analyzing quantative data not in debating the intent of historical authors.   

So, if you do not care. What the fuck are you looking for in this forum ?  Is this your playing ground ? 

I care about socialism and equality and justice and communism and economics.  This forum is for poeple who care about socialism right.   Maybe you want to rename the website to "society for appreciation of old discredited theories that got tried and once ruled over half the global population but failed." and add the subheadig "new solutions to promoting socialism are not wanted here, and we just plan to keep trying the same socialism that didn't work when we tried it on a national scale".  and finally you might add "we on this website believe we know all the answers and it's other people that need to learn from us.  Anyone who disagrees with this belief that Mcolme1 knows all the answers and has the one and only solution to socialism should leave because Mcolme1 defines socialism for everyone and doesn't want anyone who disagrees with him around. "As I've stated many times, Mycolon1, socialism is bigger than you and you don't get to decide all by yourself like a monarch what is and is not necessary for socialism.  You need to get over your self ego and work towards socialism instead of discouraging others who don't satify your need for selfish agrandizement. 

[jondwhite]

We're not stopping you trying your idea, just pointing out we think ours is better and more effective (or less ineffective) if the working class would rather try it. So far, they haven't taken us up in great numbers, but we will continue to try.

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