Utopian Societies
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Utopian Societies Project
Just thought I would inform members about this group? Apparently its Twitter account has only just been created and is following party accounts, obviously aware of our case
Thanks for the link. . . I joined via the google form. I'll share my new user experience with you here about how it works out. At first glance it's good they're using a google form for joining which I feel is the most communist friendly architecture for a form.I believe they must be scientific socialist rather than what is described as utopian socialism from this link on your website. . . http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1999/no-1134-february-1999/utopian-socialism . The phrase "utopian Socialist" is a bit contentious according to wikipedia. . . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_socialism . There's very little information about them, so it's hard to say what they're about.At second glance, there's no way to assess the scope of this and the indications are this could be a one person small momentum day's effort so far. So the concern is that it fragments the support for socialism which would be more effective if unified. There's a problem in advanced cultures like San Francisco for example, of a surplus of choices for voluntary contributions towards solving the housing shortage. There's too many different free association volunatary non-profits vying for attention and influence claiming to solve the same basic need for a less expensive place to live with competing methods and they tend to act in competitive non-unified way. Views on how to solve the housing shortage vary significantly to the extent that these many voluntary, free association, non-profits often work against each other or refuse to cooperate with each other. So the concern is that the page you linked too could decrease the power and ownership capabilities of human volunteer resources that are desired by other organizations such as SPGB. Is SPGB or Socialism served best by consolidating supporters under one organizational umbrella or fragmenting them into several different groups? For example, is the world more or less socialistic and more or less further along towards socialism, if I, Steve SanFrancisco use my limited voluntary contributions of time and reasoning towards their initiative and stop contributing here?
I personally would not spend my time and energies trying to build an Island of socialism within a sea of capitalismI think the idea that workers can create islands of socialism within world capitalism (See Robrt Owen) although admirable in their intentions are doomed to faiure. But the individual or organisation to which I refer to in the OP was unaware that a movement existed to establish a world cooperative to replace world capitalism. He seems excited at the prospect. Let's hope he/they like our proposition More socialists the better
You could mention to them the French Icarian version Progress of Social Reform On the Continent October 23 1843; https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/10/23.htm And the shakers in particular at; http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/marx/works/1844/10/15.htm with 'introduction'; ….The Teutons are all still very muddled about the practicability of communism; to dispose of this absurdity I intend to write a short pamphlet showing that communism has already been put into practice and describing in popular terms how this is at present being done in England and America. [12] The thing will take me three days or so, and should prove very enlightening for these fellows. I’ve already observed this when talking to people here…… https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/letters/44_10_01.htm
after signing up with the google form I recieved a personal email message from the owner of the twitter account. He said he was still in the "infancy" stages and happy to have someone like me who could be valuable in gaining popular support and publicity for his project. I politely informed him I wasn't volunteering my time yet and that I would need to see a convincing busines plan or similar document reviewing past similar projects that are most similar to his and a persuasuive document that showed he understood the pitfalls that had led to past failures as well as a persuasive explanation for how his plan would overcome those pitfalls. I don't usually check my email so I think this is the last I'll be communicating with him on that project, but perhaps he'll join us?
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