Why our approach fails to appeal.
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Fairly obvious, I would have thought. People fear change, particularly proposed change which is untried and untested.
I’m not sure you are 100% correct.
Radical populist right-wingers who are not politicians and have no government experience, Trump, for example, never been tried or tested and with a failed business career, presented themselves as figures for great change.
I don’t have a ready answer, but I suspect there is a deeper level to be explored to find the reason why some political ideas appeal more to our fellow workers,
Primarily, I believe nationalism is one influence.
Racism as well
Religion too.
Not much has really shifted in 100 years.
The same old shibboleths.
But Lizzie is right.
The populists, right wingers etc. are not suggesting a different system of society.
People just can’t envisage taking control by themselves. Their whole upbringing is to rely on authoritarian figures. Even when they go on strike, they are petitioning the bosses. Even the angriest follow a group and leaders, and petition those in power to “do the right thing” – and seldom does that even succeed.
I don’t think mainstream religion is an issue. But nationalism certainly is. National flags are the modern idols of the mass of workers. Even protesters wave national flags when protesting racism, war, etc.
Saying nation-states will disappear is more likely to arouse immediate ire against us than saying money will disappear.
(By the way, has any member been to a function (football, concert) and actually remained seated during the national anthem? I’d be interested to know the reaction you received).
The Socialist Party has one case — its Object and Declaration of Principles — its sole practical purpose and only reason for its being.
Lizzie45 urges suppression of the Party’s case to placate public timidity “People fear change, particularly proposed change which is untried and untested.”
Can Lizzie45 propose a change, that’s been tried-and-tested over the past century, that did not inexorably bind the working class tighter to capital?
The capitalist mode of production thrives on capitalism-friendly public timidity.
The past century has demonstrated, as decisively as any social action can be evaluated, that every conceivable alternative to the Party’s defensible case that has been “tried and tested” has spectacularly failed — even if concessionally judged on its own timid terms — the timid working class that voted for it and, moreover, it has emboldened the capitalist class that under the might of capital managed to finess and defang it.
Thomas and Alan might therefore consider what they already deeply know —
Willful suppression of the Party’s Object and Declaration of Principles eviscerates its sole defensible case.
I know this. What we are discussing is how to overcome the timidity and the things standing in our way.
Just to clarify, I did not assert that I deeply KNOW anything.
What I wrote was “I suspect there is a deeper level to be explored to find the reason why some political ideas appeal more to our fellow workers”
There can be no denying that our socialist message has failed to resonate with our fellow workers. The facts speak for themselves.
I want to KNOW why that is because,IMHO, our case for socialism is so strong as to be incontestable.
We are in an epoch where we have access to a mass audience in every part of the world, yet our progress has not been evident.
In the past, the party would plead poverty despite a wealth of wisdom but we are now a relatively prosperous organisation.
The question we have to ask ourselves and try to identify is why we have not succeeded to communicate with and convince our fellow workers.
” our case for socialism is so strong as to be incontestable. ”
True, but that again assumes that what is rational must prevail.
Workers are working hard every day at things which make the end of the world ever more likely, and therefore their own end. They do it because they need the money, and they’ll oppose us every step of the way when we talk about ending the wages system. A few protest about this and that, who are not in such jobs, but the majority continue, like kamikaze pilots, sealing the demise of life on this globe.
“The question we have to ask ourselves and try to identify is why we have not succeeded to communicate with and convince our fellow workers.”
FWIW The SPGB is virtually invisible online, as well as off. Nobody knows who you are. No regularly updated presence on things like YouTube and Instagram for example. Not that there are any silver bullets, but you could do something about that. Or you could just sit about here moaning and moping. It’s up to you..
It’s the bloody Left more than anything else.
For a century they’ve drowned us out and bandied the word socialism about, making it a word that instantly repels.I don’t think the word is as repellent as you think. The Corbyn era so-called “socialist” Labour party got over 40% of the popular vote in both of its general elections… It’s just that people don’t mean the same thing by it than us.
How many were Labour voters anyway, voting by habit, as Tory voters do? I know Labour voters who switched, too, because they hated Corbyn and called him a Marxist.
Plus, if you circulate among the “socialistic” Left, you’re not getting a true picture of the majority, who are apolitical.What are you talking about, DJP? Yes, Corbyn’s Labour Party got 40% of the vote in 2017, however, they only got 32% of the vote in 2019. Their share of the vote dropped like a stone after they promised a second referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU.
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