Strategy and practices of the right

[davestephans]

Sorry 'm so demanding. Can you recommend books or readings on  strategy and practices of the Right? Was reading about Left Unity, thinking about herding cats, and want to learn more about how they are so cohesive and effective. Part of it it the democratic and independent nature of the left, I know, but jeez, we ought to be able to come together more. We have some smart people too.

 

 

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.   Aristotle

[jondwhite]

There'd be no point in contesting elections together as we stand for fundamentally different things. Unity is not what is holding back socialism. Marx and Engels have written about this, James Connolly and Wilhelm Liebknecht too. Would you like particular texts?

[robbo203]

davestephans wrote:

Sorry 'm so demanding. Can you recommend books or readings on  strategy and practices of the Right? Was reading about Left Unity, thinking about herding cats, and want to learn more about how they are so cohesive and effective. Part of it it the democratic and independent nature of the left, I know, but jeez, we ought to be able to come together more. We have some smart people too.  If liberty and equality, as is thought by some are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.   Aristotle

Dave  Socialists wouldnt really regard themselves as part of the Left, strictly speaking, so "Left Unity" is not a burning issue with us. The left-right distinction is an expression of the capitalist poliical spectrum in which  the left as much as the right share certain common assumptions with regard  to the kind of society they seek to bring about.  Neither seeks to transcend the wage labour- capital relation.  Neither seeks the abolition of commodity production or the state.  All these things are key aspects of the kind of society we socialists want to get rid of – capitalism Some leftists purport to have sympathy for the kind of society we advocate – socialism – as an "ultimate" goal   (meaning never) but most harbour a kind of distorted Leninist defintion of "socialism" as something to do with the state.  Many who understand that all this leninist version of socialism boils down is state capitalism,  still continue to support the futile policy of trying to reform capitalism in the unfounded belief that this will somehow pave the way to socialism.   It wont.  The struggle to achieve a socialist society has to involve, among other things, stepping off that endless treadmill of trying to mend capitalism as opposed to trying to end capitalism This site contains a vast bank of information on all sorts of topics,  going back over  a hundred years since the formation of the Socialist Party.  Just use the search facility if you are looking for something in particular

[Anonymous]

"Left" and "Right" wing are both cheeks of the same arse of capitalism. It doesnt matter which cheek is uppermost, the workers always get shit on.  There is a lot of evidence to support this metaphor, you only have to ask 

[Anonymous]

The reason they support reformism is they figure workers are too dumb to understand striving for socialism and need to be led to that goal by 'revolutionary' leader types.

[Anonymous]

I have not seen any left-socialist unity, but I have seen many left-rgiht unity. Both are wings of the same bird Right wing or left wing are two wings of the same bird that is called capitalismThe left wing and right wing are always moving their wings, and moving a lot of winds, each claiming that they have the solutions to our problems and that the other is always wrong. Both wings are part of a single bird. A bird that is repulsive and is vicious. A bird that destroys our lives while its wings distract us, whether they are right or left wing. The same bird controls both wings, and the bird itself provides life. That bird is capitalism. The right wing and the left wing are integral parts of capitalism, and are equally tied to the destruction of this economic system which places gain above human beings. Capitalism can not solve our needs and no matter what wing it tries to try, or try to reform it. For hundreds of years, both the right wing and the left wing have deceived us by building a utopia that works only for the minority, the capitalist class. Every leftist or right-wing government is a slave to the capitalist economy. Capitalism, by its very nature, is an unstable system that always works in ups and downs, a time of progress and a period of depression and although there may be economists or well-intentioned leaders to manage capitalism have to act against the interests of the working class This is not a problem of good or evil, or of competition or incompetence. Capitalism can only operate for the benefit of the interests of the capitalists who control the means of production and the distribution of wealth. It can never serve the interests of the majority which survives from wage labor. The left wings have not advanced socialism for a single day. They have assisted capitalism to reform itself and to stop socialism. The material conditions of socialism have improved with the historical advance of capitalism, that is why talking about bourgeois revolutions in our time is totally incongruous. Social production has increased on such a scale that poverty can be eliminated through real socialism, and the elimination of poverty is not beneficial to capitalism, when capitalism itself is the producer of poverty. The right wing continues to tell us that capitalism is the only viable system (although obviously it is not). The left wing will continue to claim that with them things will improve, if we accept the gradual (which is forever) the road to social reforms . We would have to ignore both, only the working class, united world-wide aware of what socialism is, could establish a society that would solve our problems. Let's work for socialism, not reforms. In many places the left wing claims that their conditions have improved in their governments, but the results show the opposite, because if that is true because in many of those places the working class has replaced them with right-wing governments? The people are not stupid, the Left Wing governments have been defeated because they have not improved the conditions of the working class. In Sweden for example, social democrats who have dominated politics for more than 50 years were replaced in 1991 because the working class was not satisfied with them. In Great Britain, voters have been wavering between labor parties and conservative parties for many years, and in some Latin American countries workers have also vacillated between right wing and left wing governments, and some leftwing governments have ended in collaboration with their own bourgeoisie, and have ended up defending their interests    I am sorry for the long sentence.   It was copied from this blog http://marcos-msm.blogspot.com/2010/08/ala-derecha-o-ala-izquierda-son-dos.html

[jondwhite]

The OP was asking about strategy and some of these replies are about reformism not strategy. As for the left supporting reformism only to win power, that fails to rule out the left as revolutionary.

[Anonymous]

jondwhite wrote:

The OP was asking about strategy and some of these replies are about reformism not strategy. As for the left supporting reformism only to win power, that fails to rule out the left as revolutionary.

The only revolutionary lettists who have existed were the French Jacobins, and the Haitian Jaqcobins

[moderator1]

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