[alanjjohnstone]

The socialist measures working-class progress in terms of the development and growth of its awareness of its collective needs and aspirations. Class consciousness, in short. Do they exercise hard won electoral rights along with the right to dissent and protest? Do workers realise the necessity of building class-struggle organisations that are independent of the ruling class? Do they know the value of the strike weapon — but also understand its limitations? Economic power has no meaning when it is confined to just withholding labour power from production, economic power flows from having political control of the state machinery. Are they more and more convinced for the need for a change to the very basis of present society if humanity is to survive? These are our criteria. Socialist activity is to provide a catalyst, to increase and spur on understanding through sharing our acquired knowledge for the self-emancipation of our class. Socialists seek to take advantage of the potential for a struggle to overthrow of the system. And without a core acceptance of a libertarian socialist consciousness there always exists the threat of a movement being hijacked by reformist and gradualist leaders and diverted into a variety of pro-capitalist directions.Although, I have my differences with StuartW, i do agree with his view that people will not suddenly get out of bed one morning and find themselves convinced socialists or that it will be the result of reading the Socialist Standard, no matter how attractive and articulate it is. It will be because of struggles. Our propaganda alone will not suffice since, as often explained, the power of the prevailing ideology through dominance of education and popular culture handicaps our class in the battle of the intellect and ideas. This is not to say that socialist ideas are arrived at automatically solely through practice and it is not to say we should desist from propaganda and educational efforts. Our propaganda is vital to give expression to working class action and to validate workers’ own experiences. The more socialism is discussed and debated, the more likely that protests escalate and intensify into a decisive mass movement against capitalism and its failure as a system to satisfy and fulfil real human needs and wants. We need to relate socialism to the present and demonstrate its practicability. We need to connect struggles such as Occupy with the attainment of socialism. Unlike others who present themselves as revolutionaries we do not project socialism as a remote ideal system of the future but something to aspire for to-day. Occupy’s attempt at non-violent leaderless self-organisation was to be applauded and should have served as a bridge to the structure of socialist administration. Rather than abstaining from participation, I suggest we should have engaged more directly and intervened by means of sympathetic propaganda material aimed at facilitating the growth of socialist consciousness and which relates to current workers’ struggle and demonstrate that a viable alternative to global capitalism does exist. The real future socialist party [NB not capitalised] cannot be apart and distinct from the working class, it has to comprise the whole human community. An aroused class-conscious workers will use their party [again smaller case p] as an agent of emancipation. Our Socialist Party propaganda concentrates upon the educational and teachers are no more leaders than writers or speakers are leaders. Their function is to spread knowledge and understanding so that the workers may emancipate themselves. Our purpose as a Party is to help bring forth the latent strength of the movement.”There are but three ways for the populace to escape its wretched lot. The first two are by the routes of the wine-shop or the church; the third is by that of the social revolution.”  – Bakunin

[alanjjohnstone]

A strange interpretation of advocating direct up-front  engagment with a movement to describe it as “dishonest” and “boring from within”. Perhaps you might define what you mean by the phrase since I would have guessed that historically it is associated with the Trotskyist policy of entryism which is certainly not my intention for the Socialist Party and it is to misconstrue the post as a proposal to do so. I would also have thought when I wrote “Nothing as drastic as becoming assimiliated and surrendering our independence” explains that we remain distinctly separate from  Occupy and be clearly identified as the Socialist Party and that we interact “not one that is based upon the ad-hoc impromptu interventions of party-members as individuals but co-ordinated in the name and as a policy of the party.” doesn’t say joining it as members to be in contravention of our rules. The degree and extent of our involvement with Occupy I purposefully said would have to be discussed within the party. “This has to be done within the party through discussion documents and analyses, conference resolutions.” I think it would also be up to debate within the party that involvement with Occupy in its present form would be lead to a breach of the hostility clause. It is clearly a much less political organisation than Zeitgeist Movement is and more an generalised umbrella working class protest movement. But if you wish to put that to the test, feel free to bring charges against me. It appears to me, when a post such as mine is (wilfully?) misinterpreted by yourself, then lengthy explanations are indeed going to be necessary in future just for clarity since you fail to understand even my short posts!!

[alanjjohnstone]

My view has been pretty much consistent and has been expressed on our blog and by several posts on this list (which i note from a previous post, Hollyhead, you are deign to read due to their word-length). As a party, i think we had some way to go to develop a relationship with Occupy. Foremost, we have to develop a party strategy and a course of action which is not one that is based upon the ad-hoc impromptu interventions of party-members as individuals but co-ordinated in the name and as a policy of the party. This has to be done within the party through discussion documents and analyses, conference resolutions and eventually by actual practice of trial and error. We are a propagandist party with an intimate acquaintance with the various struggles in history of our class since our foundation. Our purpose is to advocate socialism, and advance the necessary pre-requisites for a movement to achieve it, primary a democratic decision making structure, whilst at the same time, identifying and criticising trends that obstruct that object, which is mainly but not entirely the diversion and siren-call of reformist platforms. Our job is to provide the ideological tools (the ideas and the theory and the evidence)  for those in Occupy to maintain an effective anti-capitalism. It is not to lead workers to socialism but to push them by discussion, argument and debate into reaching the inescapable conclusion that for society to go forward, free-access socialism is the only solution. We have to have a physical presence within those working class struggles which seek alternative answers to their problems. It means possessing a confidence in our politics and recognising ourselves as part of the working class and a legitimate expression of it. The mountain won’t come to Clapham High St.- we have to go to the mountain. It can also mean opening up and sharing resources, such as our office space for meetings, our printing facilities and our web-site for exchange of views. Nothing as drastic as becoming assimiliated and surrendering our independence or bestowing our much-needed finances.Darren, you may be right. Many have now written the epitaph of Occupy and conducted the post-mortems. I am not so sure. After all, there are ups and downs, highs and troughs. Nevertheless, Occupy presents the SPGB with the challenge of lessons to be learned and the necessary approach we will need to adopt for similar future class struggles. We have to pin-point the strengths and the weaknesses of our party-case in regards to how it is perceived. More importantly, we have to ensure that the socialist system is seen as a practicable possibility to be worked for, and not one to be casually dismissed as wishful pie in the sky.

[alanjjohnstone]

Also to be welcomed – a good bank?”Carne Ross, is involved with an Occupy offshoot focused on “alternative banking.” In the near future, Mr. Ross said, the group plans to launch what sounds, for all intents and purposes, like a bank under the Occupy name. It will be governed by its users and staff, transparent and risk-averse, and accessible to all, he said. The group has received “tremendously good advice,” he said, from people including the ex-head of Chicago’s largest community bank, former regulators, and even finance professionals secretly moonlighting as activists. “Our vision was always to establish an alternative, not just to debate it,” Mr. Ross said.  “If we could change banking and make it embody the values of Occupy—equality, transparency, democracy—we might not only change the financial industry for the better, but also change the very nature of the economy—and thus society itself…Make no mistake, the kind of bank we are discussing is both plausible, and better, than the conventional for-profit banks. It can and should be done. These ideals are the stuff that make Occupy such an exciting movement to be part of.” – Carne Ross, Revolution Through BankingMore here Very little difference in essence from Labour Party’s leader Ed Milibands recent call for the “creativity” of capitalism to be harnessed and made “more decent” and “humane”. Socialists must be present and vocal within Occupy to combat such reformism masquerading as revolutionary before it takes root. 

[alanjjohnstone]

Apologies for the belated response. Computer problems are hopefully been temporarily at least resolved. My view is that it should transform into a daily e-zine. Logistics and finances determine that we can only produce a monthly journal but with the internet we have a capability of a wide ranging commentary incorporating just straight forward press clippings that often needs little comment, some deeper analyses on specific themes, and special commemorative events. It  does not lead to an overlap or duplication between the blog or the Standard but could be complementary. I have previously mentioned that writers would benefit from a search of SOYMB in preparing articles, just as i use the archives.If i said we could produce a daily newspaper even though with just a circulation of a few hundred each day but lose no money nor require paper sellers,  i am sure many would rightly say go for it.  All required is sufficient bloggers and volunteers, ideal for the armchair revolutionaries.Adam’s criticism that it should have only one daily post is something i cannot understand. Too much goes on in the world but i am sure for visitors that doesn’t mean they have too much is going on their lives that they are incapable of viewing a few posts on a daily basis, even if it means perhaps returning to a more lengthy wordy post at their leisure. There are also practical problems on determining priorities and delegation.Certainly a change in the lay-out and presentation is required. Something more easy on the eye. Word-press has been suggested and the blogs incorporation within the web-site may be beneficial although with my plagiarism i hesitate in linking the blog and the official web-site too closely.

[alanjjohnstone]

The observation about Occupy reflected much of my view and felt for some within the party, criticism of it was treated as being outside it. That our D of P was somehow inferior in regards to Occupy’s fluidity of principles and practice. Indeed, we should have more confidence in ourselves as a legitimate element of the working class and its class struggle. I found this article concerning the Irish anarchist group Workers Solidarity Movement of interest. In many cases the author vindicates positions held by the SPGB  for many years. Some people recently, in particular one ex-member believes that in regards to the Occupy Movement we should not be blowing our own horn but instead learning from those active within it. Those involved in Occupy are apparently more socialist and possess more consciousness than those of us within the SPGB.http://spiritofcontradiction.eu/bronterre/2012/08/16/the-wsm-a-political-analysisThe first criticism he has of the many umbrella groups, and one some of us has made of the Occupy Movement, is the unstructured means of decision making, the prevalance of concensus agreement, empowering minorities over the majority.”…the WSM was in the midst of a long-term turn towards an alternative libertarian movement. This is a rather vague term for working with people who were radical opponents of the status quo but who had an instinctive – and sometimes well reasoned – dislike of Leninism. Its institutional manifestation was the Grassroots Gathering which was organised to explicitly exclude Leninists. It provided a forum for left-libertarians to discuss and socialise…it did provide the impetus for ongoing co-operation between the WSM and the diverse range of individuals who made it up…Anarchism is just a variant of Socialism, it is alienating to mix with political activists who are, at best, deeply uninterested in Socialism and whose primary political expression is through stunts that masquerade as direct action, not to mention their tendency to display the traits of that classic label, lifestylism, especially if your lifestyle is pretty conventional and not given to veganism, poor clothes, organic farming and the like. Obviously, this somewhat facetious description of the cultural divergence between the old and the new is yet another simplification: the dreadlocks versus the cloth cap so to speak. But as usual, the simplification contains a truth and one which, over time, assumed a degree of importance… But they [ Radical activists ] were fundamentally uninterested in winning over the population to radical left-wing ideas; hence the complete lack of interest in how they presented themselves in public or in how their actions would be perceived. Political activism was an expression of moral outrage, not an attempt to effect structural change. The WSM’s ambition was to harness that moral outrage, which, after all, it shared, towards the pursuit of a more a political strategy. To accomplish that it had to ally itself with the fairly amorphous self-described libertarians…We needed to recruit. The sentiment was widespread and the anti-globablisation movement and the colleges provided fertile territory…The magnetic attraction to networking with fellow libertarians was coupled with an insatiable desire for stunts. Direct Action is one of the holy tenets of Anarchism…Anarchists have traditionally been contemptuous of electoralism, the conventional measure of public opinion because the spirited minority is of more importance than the passive majority…In general, the State completely had the measure of the direct actionists and their isolation from the population rendered them impotent…What was notably absent from our aims in of these campaigns was the desire to win over large numbers of people, or at least the willingness to do the type types of things that might make such an aim remotely likely. There was an undercurrent of subsitutionism…”[Within Grassroot Network] Quaker consensus decision making was the default mode; disciplined agenda setting and speaking were rare; the capacity to disagree strongly was inherently limited because it would lead to people getting offended, wandering off and never being seen again…[Irish] Indymedia had a certain glorious chaos about it at that point and the constant encroachment of structure was viewed by some as incipient bureaucratization…The Quaker consensus method is a boon to the status quo, transmuting every attempt at change into a trial by torture. But more than that, the toleration for low quality, hysterical ranting, not to mention the facilitation of the ill-intentioned and the genuinely mentally ill ensured that the site soon plateaued. Amongst the libertarian-left, such toleration was by no means confined to Indymedia. What is striking in retrospect is the degree to which many radicals are happy to be protesters and outsiders rather than part of a long-term counter-project. It is as if the image of radicalism outweighs the substance of socialism in terms of personal allegiance.” He continues to say that “Networks are not well suited to achieving medium-term political aims. They are okay for organising a protest against the G8 or for ad hoc activity on a fairly constrained issue. Their capacity for political discussion tends to be low, their level of organisational structure even lower and their ability to have a sustained impact barely exists. Without an institutional basis the network has no staying power but if it has an institutional basis it is no longer a network but is instead an organisation and one which has to face all the problems that any organisation faces (the basis of unity, policy, accountability, decision making etc).” Further on, he writes “One of the distinguishing features of libertarian style networks is that anybody can turn up to a meeting and have an equal say in the decisions made. This is made possible by the deliberate absence of having a definite membership list. Indymedia, Grassroots, and Seomra Spraoi all persisted for a long time in accepting anyone who might turn up at their meetings as being entitled to partake in decision making, although over time, tighter policies did arise. Such a model makes longer-term planning very difficult as policy can swing depending on who shows up for a given meeting, which is a major reason why such organisations are unable to grow beyond a very small size.”The author also makes this point “For an organisation to be capable of recruiting a mass membership the recruitment bar has to be set very low with respect to ideological unity, a centralised administrative and policy making apparatus is necessary and so forth. Marketing and branding are also important to a mass organisation in a way that it isn’t to a small group of militants. As long as the WSM was Platformist its branding as Anarchist didn’t really matter because it wasn’t geared towards attaining mass popularity for itself.  But once it became an activist organisation that attempted to replicate the function of mass organisations, albeit in a very distorted form, the branding was always going to be unhelpful, even fatal.”He concludes that ” the membership as a whole weren’t particularly interested in thinking about policy and its political consequences. Most members wanted to do things. They were very much radical activists and would have been satisfied with almost any policy that didn’t disrupt that activity or offend their sensibilities.”Some in the SPGB (along with others) offered the same critique of jazz hand decision-making and the frustration of the will of the majority by a minority. Later in the article it is stated that “There had already been mutterings about the spectre of Bolshevism during the membership debate and over various tweaks to the Delegate Council structure; the prospect of centralist organisation is one of the reliable Anarchist bogeymen that is liable to cripple any initiative.”Secondly, he discusses the flaws in the recruitment process for his organisation. The SPGB’s knowledge test is constantly the butt of many jibes from anarchists and the the Left but it seems when compared with the alternatives an efficient means of guaging understanding and agreement with our aims “It is doubtful that a single member who joined after 2004 was assessed on their knowledge of Anarchism and of the WSM in particular… it also gained many members, who however hard-working and good-hearted they undoubtedly were, were not Platformist, perhaps not even socialist: one member notoriously snorted “We’re socialists?” at a branch meeting. The constant round of political activism (protests, leafletting, attendance at libertarian meetings) and the culture of not discussing political fundamentals – hardly necessary since everyone was assumed to be an Anarchist! – hid the reality for a time…2010 was a crux year in which three major debates clarified the long developing fault lines. The first revolved around the recruitment process. It was clear from some members’ surprise at the notion that we were socialists and supportive of the labour movement that there was an issue. The lack of rigour in recruitment was also evident in the establishment of a Belfast branch that had more or less no understanding of our ostensible Platformist basis. Our recruitment process had lost its political content and had become a formulaic fulfilment of the requirement to attend three meetings and agreeing to pay subscriptions. If you agreed to do that it was assumed you agreed with our politics, but that was not actually checked. In fact, I suspect having such a discussion with some members would have led to embarrassment in that they would have been perceived it as a hierarchical move…I proposed to national conference that the secretary and two other members would be responsible for assessing whether prospective members met the criteria for joining. This provoked a lot of controversy, the crux of which revolved around the idea that Anarchists could sit in judgment over another person’s politics and refuse them membership. The opponents of the policy were unhappy with it for a number of reasons: they thought the recruitment process was more or less fine and that any difficulties could be rectified by educational meetings afterwards. They favoured a process which didn’t rely on the subjective judgments of a few or even one individual. They were concerned it would frighten off people from libertarian circles who would see it as anti-Anarchist and bureaucratic to have someone being able to sit in judgment on their politics…There was no systematic inculcation of basic anarchist doctrine; again the assumption was that the membership was familiar with that and indeed in any new group of recruits there were always some who were extremely well versed. But there were others who were not and there wasn’t any expectation that they would become so. It was left entirely up to them to whether that occurred or not… I saw Anarchism as an anti-state version of socialism that emphasised economic rather than political struggle, not as an all-encompassing anti-hierarchical philosophy.  Previously I has assumed that such views were the provenance of liberal rather than socialist Anarchists but the vehemence with which that view was advanced raised doubts not only about the level of commonality of our understanding of Anarchism but also about the utility of Anarchism as a political ideology itself. Clearly Anarchism throughout its history has been prone to an individualist strain and it began to seem that the WSM’s history and nominal adherence to socialism meant less in reality than it did on paper.” Then he moves on to the problems of social activism substituting for  fundamental objectives , and becoming the priority”One of the key problems, as the minority saw it, was the pressure to constantly be doing something. There was always a demonstration around the corner… That desire for action was not without reason however. As an organisation, the WSM depended on it for its profile. We didn’t have any significant intellectual accomplishments that we could point to. We didn’t have any electoral profile that would put us on the map. If we weren’t to lose out to other radical strands there had to be some way of alerting the public to our existence and the occasional bout of handbags filled that gap.” The author later writes “that we were completely unable to capitalise on any work done in campaigns. We had no ratcheting effect, no cumulative benefit from the hours poured into protesting against Shell, racism, war, the banks, or even on foot of our small but solid work in the Bin Tax campaign because there was no institutional basis with which we could organise whatever level of goodwill we had engendered along the way.”As well as partly sharing our analysis of trade unionism that the  leadership reflects the membership.”We felt that criticising the union leadership or putting up posters calling for a general strike, which had been the pattern of our organisational intervention in the trade unions was pointless in and of itself. Radicalism only becomes meaningful if it reflects a real-world tendency beyond the rarefied numbers of the libertarian left. Following Alan MacSimoin, we certainly didn’t think that the union base was radical nor that the union leadership were selling them out. A union leadership reflects, in a general way, the opinions of the base, most of whom are, after all, voters for right-wing political parties. If anything, the leadership is substantially to the left of the base and if by some miracle they adopted Anarchist policies they would soon find themselves out of a job. While criticism of the leadership is fair enough, it’s very much a secondary consideration to influencing that base.”We would be more associated with the “go-slowers” of the the three factions in the WSM, that historically we criticised the “radicals” and “bolshevics” of over-estimating the consciousness of the working class and being overly optimistic on the potential for revolution post -WW1″…there was a further theoretical reason that underlay the differing strategic directions. The minority of go-slowers did not think there was the remotest possibility of socialist revolution in the short-term. Insofar as there could be a breakdown in capitalism and the authority of the state, the likely result would be chaos followed by right-wing nationalist reaction. Socialist ideas just did not have a grip on much of the population.”This i believe would reflect the SPGB position of the necessity of education an socialist consciousness as pre-requisites of the socialist revolution.The other opinions within the WSM existed of a majority that “held that there was the possibility of rupturing with capitalism and the state and a libertarian socialist society emerging, Durruti-like, from the ashes.” And if “Because if revolution is immediately possible, then any event could kick it off and if you miss that event you could have missed a very brief and rare window of opportunity. The example of May 1968 and how it caught the left by surprise was invoked. This was the underlying reason for the interest in the anti-capitalist demonstrations of May 2010; what if they were the start of something big? On the other hand, if you think that not only is the prospect of socialist revolution remote but that it would actually be counter-productive for socialism if a collapse occurred, you couldn’t help but see those same demonstrations as, at best, a bit of a waste of time.”The writer also explains that “For an organisation to be capable of recruiting a mass membership the recruitment bar has to be set very low with respect to ideological unity, a centralised administrative and policy making apparatus is necessary and so forth. Marketing and branding are also important to a mass organisation in a way that it isn’t to a small group of militants. As long as the WSM was Platformist its branding as Anarchist didn’t really matter because it wasn’t geared towards attaining mass popularity for itself.  But once it became an activist organisation that attempted to replicate the function of mass organisations, albeit in a very distorted form, the branding was always going to be unhelpful, even fatal.”The third position within the WSM was those who propose “creating a mass, non-electoral party that would be set up and initially run by the WSM. A major part of it was the modernisation of the use of language (e.g. not to bother mentioning communism), but the basic politics of democracy and equality would remain. The other major facet was a complete rejection of orienting towards the anti-globablisation milieu. He aimed it at regular Joes and thought that it was important not to increase the already considerable distance between us and them by imposing unnecessary cultural barriers between us.”This criticism of the way we appear and the way we communicate such as jettisoning the red and left-wingism and the vocabulary of socialism of course has been voiced within the SPGB at various times by various people. James Connolly during the IWW anti-political constitutional amendment threw cold water over the idea that the “regular Joes” would somehow countenance the weapon of the ballot box being dismissed, and declaring that the workers would in fact use their vote regardless. The article ends with  “One cannot blame lack of dedication for the sheer unpopularity of Anarchism. The causes go deeper, down to the root of the ideology itself. Decent, hardworking people are constrained by a framework that, due its tendency to embrace inward-looking radicalism, an inability to come to terms with non-revolutionary times and an incapacity to adjust itself to the enormous development in capitalism since 1872, condemns its adherents to forever pushing the rock of revolution up an increasingly steep and slippery slope.”Something that many members of the SPGB can sympathise with when they get despondent  

[alanjjohnstone]

Just for a bit clarification. “A far larger percentage of Wall Street’s profits is now derived from the financial sector than from industry or commerce” Factually untrue. Oil companies are the biggest money makers on this year’s Global 500, including besieged BP. Rounding out the top 10 earners are U.S. giants Microsoft and, of course, Wal-Mart.http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2010/performers/companies/profits/

[alanjjohnstone]

Our African blog Socialist Banner has highlighted the Chinese controlled mines in Zambia and elsewhere fairly regularly see for instancehttp://socialistbanner.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/chinese-capitalism.html

[alanjjohnstone]

If ridiculous caricatures of political positions are being made they of course come from yourself, Stuart. The example of the truck-load of lit you mentioned said: “Socialists can only hope that Occupy Wall St develops further, by shedding particular campaigns for the improvement of capitalism, into a general and radical attack on capitalism itself. These are people who are actually looking for answers as to why the world is in such a mess and think we need to be there with truck-loads of leaflets and having a dialogue with anyone prepared to listen to counter-act those with a reformist agenda of a “tamed capitalism” to push. Once again we welcome the fact that some people are moving towards identifying capitalism as the cause of problems they had previously sought to deal with on a single-issue basis, and now we urge them to take the next step and join us in the struggle for socialism as the only practicable alternative to capitalism. Recognising ones class position as many have done on at Liberty Plaza, that they are the 99% and the capitalists the 1%, is the first step, yet an indispensable step, towards socialist consciousness, and the easier it must be for us to put our case across. So how can we as socialists not welcome the emergence of Occupy Wall St? Where else, if not amongst such people, are we to find those we are trying to win over to the socialist case. It can only be hoped that they will come to realise that a real alternative is up for grabs. Socialists are not in the business of protesting for a larger slice of the cake that the workers bake, but for control of the whole bakery plus the grain fields. We argue that we should only settle for free and equal access to all that we produce and all the services we, the working class, provide.” But having now set yourself up on a pedestal as more knowledgeable and more in spirit with the Occupy Movement (not to mention being a soothsayer) than the rest of us mere mortals still inside the SPGB who now by the inference of your language are also now designated to be outside the working class, the minutes of your ex branch don’t appear online like some others, but tell me, what was your own actual motion for the branch’s engagement with the Occupy Movement that precipitated your resignation?”The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement. The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat. The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer. They merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very eyes.”The above should be our approach and i believe we performed within our limitations just that. We push the Occupy Movement forward to a line of march; because of our theoretical advantage, (but perhaps you now deny the validity of the principles of the party you twice joined. ) We identified and exposed the fakirs with their political and economical constructs. We drew attention to the need to go beyond protest and challenge political power. We placed the Occupy movement in its historic and social context, which may have pricked the inflated egos of some participants. We all hoped that the Occupy Movement would grow wider and not remain in isolation but partly due to what was an inherent weakness of organisational structure the vaunted aspirations of November 30 last year, or May Day of this year, opportunities where the Occupy Movement had a potential of inspiring and giving a much needed boost to a previously very insipid labour union movement (which is also now showing some signs of re-invigoration and re-juvenation)  proved sadly disappointing and came to nothing. The link with the public space and the factory floor never reached fruition.Solidarity doesn’t mean silence or playing lip-service to rituals. The arrogance you accuse ourselves of can easily be re-directed back at some of those in the Occupy Movement who believed they were unique but they were in fact in many cases re-inventing the wheel. Workers constantly develop new strategies and tactics in conducting the class war. The positive parts will be expanded upon and furthered and the faults rectified or discarded. These need to be identified and specific remedies taken.If Occupy Movement truly accept that they speak for the 99% then the 99% cannot be excluded from the decision makiing. As i have said to many anarchists, if politics is to be decided on the streets and on the barricades, what about those unable to physically join in and participate, do their voicies get ignored? Electoral involvement helps to bring those people into the decision process – marking a cross on a bit paper should be considered as legitimate as jazz hands. Some could justifiably describe Occupy of being exclusive in the sense that we are all part of the 99% and that those who claim to act and speak for us need to have our permission and authority to do so by some democratic means. If for all extents and purposes Occupy have currently faded away, the search for the reasons should be within Occupy because that is where they are to be found. Not searching for the scapegoats in the attitude of the SPGB or any other political party. Our own particular failure was not having our own clear and determined presence within the Occupy Movement, whether it was by a truck-load of literature, or hosts of public speakers on soap boxes who don’t require a human microphone to be heard, or discussions at the improvised study groups. We should have targetted the online lists with our  position. After all, there is no debate if no-body is aware of your existece or know about your political outlook. What we should not have done and did not do, is to subscribe to the view that Occupy was beyond the criticism.The point really missed is that the class struggle has to evolve into something more tangible than some sort of amorphous anger and all the talking and writing about it won’t bring that about – it takes practical concrete steps and at times stepping on peoples’  toes.

[alanjjohnstone]

Of course, there always some who think their own shit smell of roses. If you accept an analysis that a certain strategy is the more appropriate course of action whether workers council or revolutionary use of parliament where is the arrogance in communicating and promoting those means? The alternative is some sort of radical Bernsteinism. The movement is everything.  The objective indeed remains formless just waiting for all those Left Keynsesians and currency cranks to define the shape who appear to have had a more measure of success than ourselves, not just locally but world-wide. One lesson that has been learned and it something thats is constantly debated on Libcom between those of the Left Communist currents and others in regard to trade unions – whether there is a need for a permanent organisation of class struggle of trade unions or whether the strike committee and ad hoc work-place committees should supplant the union organisation. The same issue of difference exist for those  who desire the abolition of the socialist political party and others who see it as the organisation umbrella where a diverse heterogenous working class gather under. On the personal side one of the most ridiculous scenes i witnessed on TV was a group of Occupiers at a political meeting and aping Wall St Occupiers where because of city by-laws the use of amplification equipment by speakers was restricted so the human megaphone system was devised for those at the back could hear what was going on. This clip showed how the intervention chose to mimic Wall St when there was absolutely no need to use it. It was an example where content is deemed unimportant and is replaced by an improvised form of public address that becomes ritualised. Libcom, btw, has a comment by someone from i think the Pittsburg Occupation who described the way his contribution was sabotaged simply because the human megaphone participants practised their own form of censorship and kept quiet and did not repeat his statements because of their personal disagreement with it. There is ample evidence that due to the manner of the decision making Occupy was NOT democratic in the sense that minorities(often very small minorities) could thwart the majority will or subsitute for it by claiming a legitimacy they did not possess. To argue as i did in  the blog did that this type of “formless” was not desirable but detrimental and arguing that Occupy has to go beyond “structurelessness” may indeed be seen as shit by some but dealt with actualities and practicalities not just abstract theory – revolutionally fluff. As for the future I know it is not materialist to say that history repeats itself exactly but I hope that the present hiatus of the Occupy movement can be seen as mirroring the gap between 1905 Russian Revolution and  February 1917 and that genuine revolutionaries are more effective in warning of and blocking an October,  that the socialist/anarchist movement are more prepared for it without resorting to spouting platitudes.  After all, as the link you gave demonstrates, there is ample philosophying about Occupy, the point is to change it !!!

[alanjjohnstone]

Isn’t it about time we had a dedicated pamphlet on this topic, or at least an educational study guide. I am not sure how much and how detailed Darren P intends to include in his effort but i find our responses are scattered higgelty piggelty in articles and on discussion lists eg their mis-quotes, their misrepresentations of early banking history and what not. Surely we should now be considering collating it all into a proper answer to all this since these currency and bank cranks are not going away and are actually gaining influence with many mainstream commentators being taken in by their seemingly authorative-based evidence.  And it overlaps from those on the Left and Right wings. It is easy enough to say the Media Committee or whichever department that has the responsibilty to respond to articles and blogs but they require the tools. If we have something substantial and in depth then even ordinary members can respond with its link to debunk any banking and money myths they come across. It may not convince those who appear to have gone beyond facts but for the neutral third-parties  i think it is desirable we reach out to them with something meatier to undermine the “reasonable” analysis of Positive Money or NEF I’m not asking too much. I think we have produced enough rebuttals over the years in print  and online and all it requires is editing into a single reply and checked and double checked by those i know are well qualified in the subject. i think it should be treated as a priority.   

[alanjjohnstone]

“Never before in the history of the world has so much cash been hoarded in so many places by so many large organizations…Canadian companies have piled up more than $525 billion in cash reserves – almost a third the size of the entire economy – up from little more than $150 billion a decade earlier. According to a recent analysis by the Gandalf Group, at least 45 per cent of Canada’s biggest companies are hoarding cash rather than investing… In America the Federal Reserve estimates that a staggering $5.1 trillion – an amount larger than the economy of Germany – is piling up in American corporate cash holdings…In Britain, companies have accumulated almost $1.2 trillion in cash and deposits, equivalent to half the entire economy. And, no surprise, investment there grew by only 1.2 per cent last year……It’s strange, because this should be a great time for companies to invest: low prices, low interest rates, cheaper labour costs. A sensible company would build up cash during boom times – when investments are more expensive – and spend it during recessions, when consumer demand is weak and capital is cheap. Yet this is the precise opposite of what actually happens. Companies look at the low consumer demand and become terrified”http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/tear-down-those-mountains-of-cash/article4431702/

[alanjjohnstone]

Steve, you will find plenty food for thought and contrasting opinions in all these following discussion threads and blog links, perhaps too many for you to read through. The riots/disturbances/uprising or how it is variously described was discussed and debated extensively and as far as i know there was no party-line laid down and no overall concensus except that capitalism is a bastard of a system in many ways. Some comrades understand that the revolution may well be a messy affair, others take a less anarchic stance and therefore less tolerant of their fellow workers behaviour.I think most members found the Marxian term lumpen-proletariat (like others eg under-class or precariat), to be ultimately not particularly useful in socialist analysis. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spopen/message/13776http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spopen/message/13528http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spintcom/message/12537http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spintcom/message/12418http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/WSM_Forum/message/47393http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2011/08/riot-or-revolution.html 12 commentshttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2012/01/media-have-been-saying-that-antony.htmlhttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2011/10/rioters-young-poor-but-not-gang-members.htmlhttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2011/08/feral-society.htmlhttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2011/08/criminality-and-riots.htmlBrixton 1981 http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2011/04/brixton-explodes.html

[alanjjohnstone]

The Krugman/Keen debate was touched upon here if any missed it. http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/100-reserve-banking?page=3 i think I like DarrenP’s  tack which seems to be the more appropriate one …Do banks create ACTUAL wealth? and  keeps our eye on  the ball –  the Labour Theory of Value – which may be our best approach rather than get tied up with economists arguing about M0 M1 M2 M3 or whatever. I found Keracher’s pamphlets on economics surprisingly easy to follow about the nature of money and gold and recommend them. Our own John Bisset uploaded the text tohttp://www.marxists.org/archive/keracher/1935/producers-parasites.htmhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/keracher/1935/economics-for-beginners.htm There was talk of up-dating and re-printing Economics for Beginners, but perhaps also combining both into a single edition would also be worthwhile project.    

[alanjjohnstone]

Hch,As you say we have been there before. But just to belabour one point. We have nothing at all against you engaging in a defence of the NHS and the benefits it bestows. As been said before,  the SPGB views it role solely to make more socialists and of course to get elected. We have no objection to workers, nor our own members, getting involved in fights for partial demands but we don’t believe the party should do that and risk a situation of people supporting the party for the wrong reasons. As we have also said,  the party’s task is not to lead the workers in struggle or to instruct its members on what to do in trade unions or community groups, because we believe that socialists and class-conscious workers are quite capable of making decisions for themselves as you clearly do independently of your own particular party affiliation. I am also sure you do not always necessarily accept or follow the party-line in every situation in your every day personal activity. The party is not always right!As an aside i was reading some socialist history and came across this site.http://www.marxisthistory.org/subject/usa/eam/index.htmlIt has an interesting observation. The Socialist Party of Michigan adopted a platform bereft of reforms, standing solely upon the maximum demand calling for the abolition of the wage system and the establishment of an industrial republic. The program proved no impediment to growth, as the group’s membership continued to swell. More evidence that “impossiblist” ideas can be accepted by the working class, even in the bitter class warfare of early 20th century America. 

[Author]

Posts