Russell Brand
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If the party took the same attitude to reformist campaigns and social activism of all kinds as it does to the trade unions (and why not, since the unions are often leading them anyway), then I would no longer have any problem with its position or attitude or politics. Speed the day!Funny you should mention Pieter. I always think of him when talking about reformism. Once he was telling me about the (reformist?) campaign he had been involved in to save the local bus service. You'd really have to be mad to oppose or not get involved in supporting such things, which Pieter might well have said, though I can't quite remember!
New thread needed. This is about Brand. I personally have been suspended from this forum on numerous occasions for going off topic three times. Third warning and BANG I am gone There are at least two member due for three warnings.
I've been banned with no warning for nothing – the moderators need reining in or sacking. All discussion spins away from the point – it's the nature of it.
I will put the same challenge to you, ajj, as I put to Stuart:
wrote:show us one—only one instance is necessary—just one diversion of the social surplus from its rightful owners, the capitalist class, that didn’t find its way back to its true social destination.If you can’t demonstrate one instance—only one—over the past 111 years since the Party was founded in 1904, then the two of you are spinning populist delusion, like Brand.
Twc's question is incoherent and is probably, like any conspiracy theory, set up so as to be always right by definition. But if it can be answered, there are thousands of examples. What are trade unions for but haggling over which share of the wealth will go to workers and which to its "rightful owners"?
Should the party join in with calls for longer chains and less whipping or should we fight for the end of chains?Should there be an end to the only organisation advocating the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism?Reformism ha! There are children in the 'modern UK' starving thanks to reformismReformism is to accept the continuation of this. If I thought slavery could be run in the interests of the slaves, I would have joined Labour years ago. Capitalism is about exploiting, using, killing and humiliating the working class, I don't want it, reformed or otherwise.
stuartw2112 wrote:I've been banned with no warning for nothing – the moderators need reining in or sacking. All discussion spins away from the point – it's the nature of it.Not on! I think Mod should tell the forum when he is suspending someone. I have called for changes but I seem to be alone opposing the secrecy of mod and IC.
It's a very good point, Vin, and will take us back to the subject of this thread. Children, and indeed adults, *are* going hungry in this country, if not exactly starving. The churches have organised a network of food banks to feed them. Russell Brand has put his own money into setting up a cafe to help others who are suffering. What have the "revolutionaries" done? Written a devastating pamphlet? (Not a personal attack. You might have done far more than they have, or I have, for all I know. Just making a point.)
stuartw2112 wrote:It's a very good point, Vin, and will take us back to the subject of this thread. Children, and indeed adults, *are* going hungry in this country, if not exactly starving. The churches have organised a network of food banks to feed them. Russell Brand has put his own money into setting up a cafe to help others who are suffering. What have the "revolutionaries" done? Written a devastating pamphlet? (Not a personal attack. You might have done far more than they have, or I have, for all I know. Just making a point.)I would prefer to write a pamphlet than to actively support capitalism, slavery, war, hunger, poverty, mentalillness. Revolutionaries don't have the blood of the working class on their hands,You may well blame revolutionaries for what the reformists are responsible for. But I thought you were more astute than that.
We all actively support capitalism by buying things and working. But there is no alternative on that front. When it comes to alleviating suffering, though, we do have a choice. To blame those who choose to act for social ills beyond their control, while claiming moral superiority for doing nothing, is grotesque.
I would have thought Vin and TWC that campaigns by the trade unions since Marx's time of limits to the working day but since then, score after score of health and safety regulations in industry such as the end of child labour and the ongoing campaigns against such in the Third World. Of course, you wll counter and with some justification that only laws that benefit the ruling class are passed or enforced but in many cases that is indeed the situation where the working class are using the divisions and rIvalry of various sections of the ruling class fo its own benefit and which reduces the share of surplus value for their share of profit. Vin you worked in an industry that spawned probably more numerous legislation laws specifically for itself than any other industry. Are you saying that each and every mining regulation was fully supported, firstly by the private mine owners and then the state – owned NCB. Or did not the union have any say and muscle in their enforcement.
Quote:It must be acknowledged that our labourer comes out of the process of production other than he entered. In the market he stood as owner of the commodity “labour-power” face to face with other owners of commodities, dealer against dealer. The contract by which he sold to the capitalist his labour-power proved, so to say, in black and white that he disposed of himself freely. The bargain concluded, it is discovered that he was no “free agent,” that the time for which he is free to sell his labour-power is the time for which he is forced to sell it, that in fact the vampire will not lose its hold on him “so long as there is a muscle, a nerve, a drop of blood to be exploited.” For “protection” against “the serpent of their agonies,” the labourers must put their heads together, and, as a class, compel the passing of a law, an all-powerful social barrier that shall prevent the very workers from selling. by voluntary contract with capital, themselves and their families into slavery and death.n place of the pompous catalogue of the “inalienable rights of man” comes the modest Magna Charta of a legally limited working-day, which shall make clear “when the time which the worker sells is ended, and when his own begins.” Quantum mutatus ab illo! [What a great change from that time! – Virgil]Oh, so despite what i take as his bit of sarcasm (or is irony) at the end and even when workers themselves opposed it, Marx understood the need for reform and the campaign for it as a class need. I dare say you would indeed accept the end of the free medical service and free education because they benefit the ruling class as a whole by making us better and fitter workers, more profitable for employers. I dare say the reason we can see a host of public health laws is because the ruling class don't have a natural immunity to disease and that now the back-lash to such legislation is that they simply live elsewhere rather than tackling it. i dare say the over-60s in Scotland should surrender their free bus passes as being sectional bribes to a redundant cast-off ex-workers…but of course you will claim the bus company capitalists like Brian Soutar, the SNP supporter, designed and defended such a travel concession. Oh, his company doesn't support it and describes it as forcing Tesco to prove pensioners with free food despite government subsidies to compensate…again the capitalist class collectively picking up the bill…and many demurring at what they deem an unnecessary cost to them… Are we not to make the reproduction of daily life, to cite the title of the pamphlet recommended by Stuart, as expensive as possible for the ruling class. that we are to help out our employers by selling our sweat and blood as cheaply as possible and not exacting as high a price for it as we can. Surely we should and these demands shouldn't stop at the factory gate but extend to every aspect of our life. When workers gathered together and insisted that the employer enter into collective negotations on their contracts or face a walk-out, is it not the same as when a group of tenants join as an association and demand changes to their leases and threaten a rent strike. I believe our position was to oppose reformism, not reforms themselves since some will be beneficial.
Quote:Some workers welcome reforms; some reforms have improved working class conditions, but no reform can abolish that basic contradiction between profits and need.my emphasis
Quote:In 1910 some members, interpreting this principled anti-reformism as a dogmatic opposition to all reforms under capitalism, put their point by writing a letter to the Socialist Standard signed "W. B. of Upton Park". The reply given to them was that a single socialist or a minority of socialists elected to parliament on the basis of whether such measures benefitted or harmed the working class. For example, if measures extending the freedom of socialists to disseminate ideas or reducing election deposits or banning religious control of schooling were on the agenda it is quite possible that a socialist minority would be instructed to vote for them…Like dogmatic sectarians, inspired by doctrine to dismiss social reality, they went as far as to argue that no reforms have ever helped or could ever benefit the working class. The exchange of documents between the Executive Committee, expressing the position which we maintain today, and the ultra-sectarian Committee, of which McCartney was possibly a member, is highly educative and explains well why our party is opposed to reformism but not to reforms.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1993/no-1063-march-1993/book-review-dare-be-daniel-history-one-britains-earWalking the line of defending reforms gained or struggling for improvements and reformism is a tight one to walk and the reason why i quoted Luxemburg…that sometimes workers may well not get it always right but as a class they will recover while submitting to a party line all the time is always self-defeating. Once more i refer to actual practice of a socialist delegate to parliament
Quote:O’Brien concluded by saying: “I have no confidence in either of you, and it does not matter to me which of you win. It is a fight between political representatives of different corporations over surplus values that have been and are to be stolen from my class. When I voted on the last division I did so because I saw an opportunity to benefit a few of my class, the laborers in the construction camp. There is no opportunity to get anything for the workers on this vote, and I shall not vote. On every vote where there is no opportunity to get something for my class, I shall not vote. On every vote where there is no opportunity to get anything for my class, I shall leave the House and refrain from voting. The Attorney General has said that this is a family quarrel. Correct. Between you be it!” And O’Brien left the House.– The Proletarian in Politics, https://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/
And there ends another bombing raid from me for now. Thanks for the chat, hope to see you all again somewhere down the road. Cheers
I'm not sure if i am doing the right thing by drawing attention to the way our blog reports various reform movements and humanitarian causes. To end every post about the tragedies and suffering with the usual sign-off…"only socialism which is blah blah blah, will end this" would be rather repetitive, and it would also be emasculating those who are striving to protest and resist, sometimes successfully in particular cases. We report and highlight the problems caused by capitalism and we relay information and pass on statements of those involved in trying to end or mitigate those situations.TWC, since you are in Australia, in the past the blog, for example, has featured the immigration policy of the Australian govenment and offered expressions of working class solidarity and sympathy to the asylum seekers and economic migrants detained or turned back. We have linked this to Fortress Europe, the UKIP anti- Eastern European and to South African xenohobia. In fact perhaps the current bioat people crises in SE Asia is caused by the lead of the Australian position of naval interception forcing refugees to seek sanctuary in less wealthy countries with less state infrastructure to cope. The blog has called for an end to this treatment, if not directly but by inference . Do you expect the blog to demonise the many organisations that are challenging the prevailing false capitalist narratives and who are trying to stop these actions of capitlaist inhumanity in every message we post. Or do we applaud that some put solidarity and fellowship before vested interests. In regard to the blogs environmental coverage, it has been pointed out that we cannot achieve socialism if the world has already been destroyed and our message is constantly that without socialism the world will be destroyed. And the ecological mission can only be achieved by a socialist society and that the se activists must adopt the aim…but, importantly, we do not say they should also then abandon their campaigns and protests and concentrate solely on the socialist case, as i think Vin, suggests we do, (forgetting his NERB comrade's critique of fracking perhaps). Understanding the underlying cause of the problem helps the immediate fight. If we want to present life as simply only black and white with no shades of grey, we will be seen as having no true perspective of reality. …i argue much of the issue for the SPGB is our presentation, and our practice, not our theory that a working class incapable or unwilling to struggle against the effects of capitalism are not going to be able to organise for the fight for socialism. I can’t find the source but I am sure the SPGB explained that does not minimise the necessity or importance of the workers keeping up the struggle to maintain wage-levels and resisting cuts, etc.If they always yielded to the demands of their exploiters without resistance they would not be worth their salt, nor be fit for waging the class struggle to put an end to exploitation. However I did note thisThe Socialist Standard wrote
Quote:"It seems unlikely that the working class and its organisations are strong enough to stop these austerity measures being imposed, let alone imposing their own demands. But we must start from where we are. David Cameron and the new government will be expecting that you’ll just take whatever’s coming to you. We must try to prove them wrong…where socialists have their most vital contribution to make – a clear idea about alternatives is not mere utopianism, but an important ingredient in inspiring successful struggle. An upturn in class war, such as we’re seeing in Greece, and may perhaps soon be seeing in this country too, is the only basis on which socialism can begin to make sense and seem like a credible and possible alternative to capitalism for the working class as a whole."my emphasisAnother Socialist Standard said
Quote:"We welcome any upsurge in the militancy and resistance and organisation of our class. But we also know, from bitter experience, that work of an altogether quieter, patient, more political kind is also needed. The skirmishes in the class war must be fought if we are not to be reduced to beasts of burden. But as human animals capable of rational thought and long-term planning, we must also seek to stop the skirmishes by winning the class war, and thereby ending it. .."again my emphasisTo repeat my previous post, I see little wrong with people campaigning for reforms that bring essential improvements and enhance the quality of their lives, and some reforms do indeed make a difference to the lives of millions and can be viewed as "successful". There are examples of this in such fields as education, housing, child employment, work conditions and social security. Socialists have to acknowledge that the "welfare" state, the NHS and so on, made living standards for some sections of the working class better than they had been under rampant capitalism and its early ideology of laissez faire, although these ends should never be confused with socialism. However, in this regard we also recognise that such "successes" have in reality done little more than to keep workers and their families in efficient working order and, while it has taken the edge of the problem, it has rarely managed to remove the problem completely. Socialists do not oppose reformism because it is against improvements in workers' lives lest they dampen their revolutionary ardour; nor, because it thinks that decadent capitalism simply cannot deliver on any reforms; but because our continued existence as propertyless wage slaves undermines whatever attempts we make to control and better our lives through reforms. Our objection to reformism is that by ignoring the essence of class, it throws blood, sweat and tears into battles that will be undermined by the workings of the wages system. All that effort, skill, energy, all those tools could be turned against class society, to create a society of common interest where we can make changes for our common mutual benefit. So long as class exists, any gains will be partial and fleeting, subject to the ongoing struggle. What we are opposed to is the whole culture of reformism, the idea that capitalism can be tamed and made palatable with the right reforms. If the view remains that the struggle for reforms is worthwhile then imagine just how many palliatives and ameliorations will be offered and conceded by a besieged capitalist class in a desperate attempt to retain ownership rights if the working class were demanding the maximum socialist programme of full and complete appropriation and nothing less. Reforms now derided as utopian will become two-a-penny in an attempt to fob off the workers. Perhaps, even, capitalism will provide a batch of free services, on the understanding that this is "the beginning" of a free society, but, of course real socialists will not be taken in.The welfare state – most particularly its health service component – originally represented an advance for many workers, though it was certainly not introduced with benevolence in mind. We have never said that all reforms are doomed to failure and do not really make a difference to workers' lives? There are many examples of 'successful' reforms in such fields as education, housing, child employment, conditions of work and social security. The Socialist Party does not oppose all reforms as such, only the futile and dangerous attempt to seek power to administer capitalism on the basis of a reform programme – reformism.But as Vin has pointed out and the moderator no doubt will caution, we have strayed considerably from the topic of Russell Brand
BTW, Stuart, when you return can i have your opinion on these statements and where you disagree:“That's why, actually, we are not sectarian and the left are. We join workers struggles as workers. We take part in the democratic process as equals with our fellows. We do not join for purposes of our own; we have no programme of demands hidden up our sleeves to be produced at a later date, nor a one-party dictatorship to produce as a nasty surprise at an even later date. That's why, when we join workers struggles as individuals and not as a leadership party, and reject the left, we are not being sectarian — quite the opposite. We are being principled socialists. As for the proposal to join a new SDF, what's the point? We'd just have to leave it again, as we did the old one. ”“Workers do not need any advice or leadership from socialists when it comes to struggling to defend their own interests within capitalism. They do it all by themselves all the time. However, such struggles have their limits within capitalism: they cannot go beyond the law of value, and the combined forces of the capitalists and the state can almost always defeat them if they put their mind to it. Workers who realise this tend to become socialists. As they become socialists, they see the necessity for going beyond such day to day struggles (these unavoidable and incessant guerilla battles, as Marx put it) and the need for a political party aimed solely for socialism. This political party must not advocate reforms, not because it is against reforms (how on earth could a working class party be against reforms in the working class interest?), but because it wants to build support for socialism, and not for reforms.”“We do not oppose workers defending their social wage. See recent issues of our journal, the Socialist Standard, for confirmation. What we oppose is a socialist party promising to do something about the social wage, NHS, etc, not because it really gives a stuff, or is deluded enough to think that capitalism can deliver on its demands, but because it wants to recruit members, win votes, or give workers an education in failure, in the limits of struggle. The reason we are against such tactics are amply demonstrated by recent history, eg, of the Labour Party.”
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