alanjjohnstone
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Im not sure i agree that should casually dismiss all this. There has been a problem for the Left and they are struggling to come to terms with changes in recent politics like the relationship to the Occupy Movement. The Weekly Worker also reports a split in Die Linke in Germany as more people commit to the Pirate Party. It also discusses the rise of the Greek anti-austerity alliance Syriza who are refusing to use their 17% of the general election vote to enter a coalition government so it is not a parochial issue. This mix of a general malaise of the Left has create a sort of vacuum with all sorts are trying to fill it and existing parties having to re-define themselves. John Crump criticised the party for being slow to appreciate a change in the 50s and 60s and viewed it as a missed opportunity. He points out it took 4 years before the party got out a Labour Party pamphlet after they got elected in 1964. And as1968 and the New Left sprung forth, the anti-Lenin pamphlet of Martov was deemed of limited appeal for the party to publish. His critique is available in files section of Spopen or Spintcom, forget which. And here we are with all the advantages of our own capable technology still slow to produce any substantive responses to developments since the 2007 recession began, last years Occupy movement began and all manner of splits and re-alignments in the left-wing. Perhaps, we should be quicker off the mark this time around to tap into a dissatisfaction within those who have already crossed the line as they see it and call themselves as socialist or anti-capitalist. That just may involve raising our own profile with specific literature addressing specific concerns of those activists who disparage a politcal party such as ours, usually based on misconceptions and myths . As previously suggested elsewhere by me, we should be issuing invitations for debate, offering speakers and lecturers, and as i have said here putting out themed pamphlets in printed and on-line forms. I know little of the ACI but just how much do they really know about us. i went to their web-site and discovered the word socialism does not appear anywhere until i used the search engine that led to a Pham Binh article supporting its non-use. When this split first came to our notice, we should have contacted and been in communication with them, even if there was little hope or expectation that they would respond. But our approach would nevertheless been a challenge to their own orthodoxy which appears all a bit old hat and pure rhetoric,imho . But the price if we already had the relevant literature, zero for an e-mail , a stamp for snail-mail. We should have been more positive to the less rigid and more receptive, if also more nebulous, Occupy Movement. We have our own hall for public meetings. Surely, invitations and overtures could have been made to Occupy activists to visit and address ourselves (and hear our views garnered from decades of history and experience). How many local people would have been interested to attend No.52 to listen first hand to spoke-persons from Occupy at the height of their publicity and in the process hear our attitude. If we wished to evoke and express the hostility clause, we could have withdrawn the customary free tea and biscuit !!! As Crump says , missed opportunities…and as others say – we often move at a glacial speed
Iain while no means pro-SPGB does have a real understanding of the SPGB position and is a useful ally in criticising the Left by exposing it as being non-marxist, whereas, the SPGB truly reprsents the view of Marx on politics and revolution and elections. In other areas such as calculation in kind there is also an overlap with Iain. But we did incur his ire when we were critical of his book on Proudhon. He is another anarchist where it might be fruitful to invite for a comradely presentation and exchange of different views rather than be openly hostile towards.
Another worth while article to read. Obviously, not everything in it can be agreed by the WSM such as the call to vote for 3rd party candidates but nevertheless i highlight some of its more thoughtful sections http://www.alternet.org/economy/155432/colonized_by_corporations/?page=entire “Revolutions take time…The most effective revolutions, including the Russian Revolution, have been largely nonviolent. There are always violent radicals who carry out bombings and assassinations, but they hinder…more than help revolutions. …Radical violent groups cling like parasites to popular protests… Violent radicals are used by the state to justify harsh repression. They scare the mainstream from the movement. They thwart the goal of all revolutions, which is to turn the majority against an isolated and discredited ruling class. These violent fringe groups are seductive to those who yearn for personal empowerment through hyper-masculinity and violence, but they do little to advance the cause. The primary role of radical extremists, such as Maximilien Robespierre and Vladimir Lenin, is to hijack successful revolutions. They unleash a reign of terror, primarily against fellow revolutionaries, which often outdoes the repression of the old regime. They often do not play much of a role in building a revolution….” “The power of the Occupy movement is that it expresses the widespread disgust with the elites, and the deep desire for justice and fairness that is essential to all successful revolutionary movements. The Occupy movement will change and mutate, but it will not go away. It may appear to make little headway, but this is less because of the movement’s ineffectiveness and more because decayed systems of power have an amazing ability to perpetuate themselves through habit, routine and inertia. The press and organs of communication, along with the anointed experts and academics, tied by money and ideology to the elites, are useless in dissecting what is happening within these movements. They view reality through the lens of their corporate sponsors. They have no idea what is happening. Dying regimes are chipped away slowly and imperceptibly. The assumptions and daily formalities of the old system are difficult for citizens to abandon, even when the old system is increasingly hostile to their dignity, well-being and survival. Supplanting an old faith with a new one is the silent, unseen battle of all revolutionary movements. And during the slow transition it is almost impossible to measure progress.“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong,” Fanon wrote “When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.” The end of these regimes comes when old beliefs die and the organs of security, especially the police and military, abandon the elites and join the revolutionaries.” “A revolution has been unleashed across the globe. This revolution, a popular repudiation of the old order, is where we should direct all our energy and commitment. If we do not topple the corporate elites the ecosystem will be destroyed and massive numbers of human beings along with it. The struggle will be long. There will be times when it will seem we are going nowhere. Victory is not inevitable. But this is our best and only hope. The response of the corporate state will ultimately determine the parameters and composition of rebellion.”
Another article from Chomsky which makes for provocative reading. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/05/201251114163762922.html In it in a more sombre perhaps pessimistic tone Chomsky lays out the stark choice before us:- “I’m just old enough to remember the Great Depression…Despite the hard times, there was a sense that, somehow, “we’re gonna get out of it”. It’s quite different now. For many people in the United States, there’s a pervasive sense of hopelessness, sometimes despair. I think it’s quite new in American history. And it has an objective basis. In the 1930s, unemployed working people could anticipate that their jobs would come back. If you’re a worker in manufacturing today – the current level of unemployment there is approximately like the Depression – and current tendencies persist, those jobs aren’t going to come back…We’re really regressing back to the dark ages. It’s not a joke. And if that’s happening in the most powerful, richest country in history, then this catastrophe isn’t going to be averted – and in a generation or two, everything else we’re talking about won’t matter. Something has to be done about it very soon in a dedicated, sustained way.It’s not going to be easy to proceed. There are going to be barriers, difficulties, hardships, failures. It’s inevitable. But unless the spirit of the last year, here and elsewhere in the country and around the globe, continues to grow and becomes a major force in the social and political world, the chances for a decent future are not very high.””The Occupy movements could provide a mass base for trying to avert what amounts to a dagger pointed at the heart of the country…where we’re heading…the Occupy movement is the first real, major, popular reaction that could avert this. But it’s going to be necessary to face the fact that it’s a long, hard struggle. You don’t win victories tomorrow. You have to form the structures that will be sustained, that will go on through hard times and can win major victories. And there are a lot of things that can be done.”What can be done? According to Chomsky its workers’ self-managed co-operatives (see the recent UCS post on Socialist Courier) but less predictably, increased government spending on infra-structure such as high speed trains and even a “Buy American” programme!But there is no denying that a determined fight-back has to be launched and expanded by the working class and that it will find expression in various ways.
http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2012/05/living-wage.htmlhttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2012/03/living-wage.html Needless to say, we won’t turn around to someone on the minimum wage that he should not fight for a rise in it, to say the levels of a living wage, nor will we say to the person on a living wage that they should not demand a re-definition of what makes a living wage a living wage. Just as we do NOT tell workers NOT to fight for higher wages and better conditions in their contracts. BUT we do say none of those ultimately solves anything for the wage-slave. It appears in South Africa, though, the debate on whether businesses should be given a subsidy for each young worker hired has taken on a different and perhaps a party political aspect. In statuatory minimum/living wages the subsidy is to the capitalist class as a whole, not individual enterprises.
Link to his Marx class http://hutnyk.wordpress.com/centre-for-cultural-studies/what-is-to-be-done/
Regards your second question, Adrian, the next meeting at 52 Clapham High St is this Sunday. You will be very welcomed and all your questions I hope will be adequately answered.”Marxism, Physics and Philosophy” (Clapham – 3.00pm)Sunday, 13 May 2012 – 3:00pm – 6:00pm
“Established in 1972 by the late global investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton, the prize is a cornerstone of the John Templeton Foundation’s international efforts to serve as a philanthropic catalyst for discoveries relating to the questions of human purpose and reality. The monetary value of the prize is set always to exceed the Nobel Prizes to underscore Sir John’s belief that benefits from discoveries that illuminate spiritual questions are bigger than those from other worthy human endeavours.”http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9258784/The-Dalai-Lama-to-give-away-1m-at-St-Pauls-Cathedral.htmlShould all those scientists therefore turn their attention away from health research, and other material inquiry, towards spiritual exploration? Hmmm??
A few facts and quotes garnered from our blog Socialism or your money back:Roger Revelle former director of the Harvard Center for Population Studies estimated that Africa, Asia and Latin America alone, simply by using water more efficiently, could feed 35 billion to 40 billion people – seven to eight times the current world population – and that assumes no change in technology.The former director of the Agricultural Economic Institute at Oxford University, Colin Clark, has estimated that if the world’s farmers were to use the best methods of farming available, an American diet could be provided for 35.1 billion people. If a Japanese-style diet were provided, this number would be trebled.Global agriculture currently produces 4,600 calories per person per day, enough food to feed the world populationThe University of Michigan – a switch to organic agriculture would be more than enough to support an estimated population peak of around 10-11 billion people by the year 2100″we have shown that it is possible to both feed a hungry world and protect a threatened planet,” Jonathan Foley, head of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment.Eco-farming could double food production in entire regions within 10 years while mitigating climate change, according to a new U.N. report.In 1996 the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that the world was producing enough food to provide everyone with 2,700 calories a day, 500 more than is needed by the average human.According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1997, 78 percent of all malnourished children aged under five live in countries with food surpluses.”The problem is that many people are too poor to buy readily available food” …Even though ‘hungry countries’ have enough food for all their people right now, many are net exporters of food and other agricultural products.”Since 1948, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, annual world food production has outpaced the increase in population by about 1 percent. Despite sufficient national food production to meet the needs of Pakistan’s 170 million people, according to WFP, some 83 million people, almost 50 per cent of the population, were food insecure by 2010In the 2009-2010 crop year, the world produced 2.26 billion metric tons of cereals. Approximately 0.2 metric tons (440 pounds) of cereal grains provide the food energy an average human needs for a year. Dividing the 2.2 billion metric tons produced by 0.2 metric tons required per person shows that current grain production could feed 11 billion people.”Can we feed a world of 9 billion? I would say the answer is yes,” Robert Watson, chief scientific adviser to Britain’s Department of Environment and Rural Affairs and a former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”Hunger is not a food production problem. It is an income problem.” Robert Fox of Oxfam Canada. “There is no food shortage in the world. Food is simply priced out of the reach of the world’s poorest people.”Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala , World Bank Managing Director – “There is not a global food shortage — there is a price crisis”The Financial Express of Bangladesh “…if all the earth’s available arable land, water and technology were to be used to produce food, it could feed sixty billion people, according to one FAO estimate
Has the ban on party members also being members of the British Humanist Association been formally rescinded ?
Can i refer you to this thread which also discusses much of your concerns in more detail. http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/100-reserve-banking
I blogged about him a few years backhttp://mailstrom.blogspot.com/2007/05/paresh-chattopadhyay.html The party library has his book The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience It is well worth a read, i still paraphrase an example of his that if the Soviet Union was socialist because of central planning of the economy then 2nd World War America can justifiable be described as a socialist society too. In regards of whether he is aware of us, I know it maybe spamming of sorts but shouldn’t we have an e-mail list of academics and scholars (Chattopadhyay, Chomsky), political actvists (Derek Wall), journalists (John Pilger) who are on our wave-length even if not in complete 100% agreement and every month send the link to the new month’s Standard (and each new pamphlet or any Party statement when these arise)
