[ALB]

ALB wrote:

Not very often that we hear about abolishing the wages system on the radio or TV.

Actually, it’s becoming a weekly event. A comrade phoned me last night to say he’d just seen the Party platform at Hyde Park with “Abolish the Wages System” on TV. I just checked and it’s 1hour 20 minutes into the film “London – The Modern Babylon” shown on BBC2 yesterday evening at 9.30. Can be seen again here:http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00smkqn/London_The_Modern_Babylon/Is anybody copying these for posterity?

[ALB]

West London branch were also out this afternoon, in Kingston covering a local anti-cuts demonstration (why do they call it “Tory austerity” when it’s capitalist austerity?). Only about 20 there but we sold a couple of Standards and got talking to some people and then went for a drink.

[ALB]

Keep calm. Things are in hand. Here’s the leaflet that’s been prepared:

Quote:

A future that works?The market system works. But not for us. It works for the handful of people who own industry or land. Most of them are doing well and getting richer. For them, the present system works, through our hard work.For us, the workers, it doesn’t. The real value of wages has shrunk. Housing is becoming more unaffordable for many, rents are rising and benefits are being cut. Unemployment is at staggering proportions, especially among young people.The truth is being revealed across the world: that the system is run in the interests of those who own it. For governments, repaying debts to those who got wealthy from our work is more important than us receiving education or health care.For us, the future won’t work so long as we depend on an economy based on the market with the private or state ownership of the means of living.In our workplaces we co-operate. We don’t charge our colleagues for our time: we work together. It’s just that we work together for our employers. If we owned the land and all the places of work ourselves, we could work together to make all the things we need, without buying and selling and without an employing class.The alternative is voting for parties that support the market system: parties that inevitably have to accept the existence of poverty and unemployment.While we build a movement to bring about a better future, it’s important that we use trade unions to defend ourselves and get the best deal we possibly can under the present system. We must ensure democratic control of trade unions, and not follow charlatans and adventurers to glorious defeat. We should rely on ourselves, not leaders.If we want to transcend the defensive position forced upon us by the pressures of the profit system then a vision beyond capitalism has to be on the agenda.That future we call Socialism, a future where we would have common and democratic ownership of the resources of the world. A future that will work if the majority of us want it and are prepared to work for it using democratic struggle to create a world of common wealth.

We’re having 15,000 printed. This is ambitious but 20 October co-incides with our Autumn Delegate Meeting so, with delegates from outside London, we’re expecting twice the usual number of members who normally turn out for demonstrations like this.We’ll have a literature stall in Hyde Park but arrangements have not yet been made to get leaflets to members who will be at the start on the Embankment but it’s still two months away.By the way, the late comrade Eddie Grant always said that socialists never march. Only soldiers do that. We walk or amble. 

[ALB]

colinskelly wrote:

PS. anymore background on R.R. La Monte?  I have had a brief search and come up with some interesting-looking book titles but not much general information.

I remember reading a book of his on socialism and was going to check if it was in the Party library, but I see it can be read in full on the internet here along with some of his other writings.All I know is that he was a prominent leftwing member of the (reformist) Socialist Party of America and an editor of the International Socialist Review (we’ve got copies of this in our Library but not in the lending section).What I didn’t know till I read his article on War on the internet was that he adopted a pro-War position on WWI denouncing Marxism and international socialism and taking up an anti-German and American patriot position, as can be seen from this excerpt:

Quote:

It would hardly appear necessary to say that in my humble judgment the proper course for such American Socialists as are still affiliated with the Socialist party is to get out of it as quickly as may be and give their whole-hearted support to the Government of these United States in its splendid fight to “make the world safe for democracy.” For myself I am proud to say I have not paid one cent of dues to the Socialist Party since the German Socialists voted for the war budget on August 4th, 1914; I voted for Woodrow Wilson for President in the election of 1916; I resigned from the Union Against Militarism when it began to attempt to hamper our government by a peace agitation after we had broken off diplomatic relations with the Kaiser’s government; promptly on its organization I enlisted as a private soldier in the Connecticut Home Guard, the only military organization in which my age permitted me to enlist, and I am now serving as a sergeant in the Home Guard, doing my part to protect my neighbors from the violence of well-meaning if feeble-minded pacifists, and releasing the regular militia for service against the enemy that “our” Party has been so zealously aiding. I further confess that I have so far given way to what this magazine stigmatizes as “vulgar patriotism” as to buy a Liberty Bond; and should there be further loan issues I have every intention of being vulgar again.

No wonder that from this point on he disappears from working class history. Deservedly. 

[ALB]

It’s ok, one of the books that a studious Socialist in the past would have had on their bookshelf (it was published in 1908).One drawback is Untermann’s introduction of the concept of “secondary exploitation” in a footnote on p. 195-6:

Quote:

after the wage workers have been exploited by the industrial capitalists in the sphere of production, they may have to submit to a secondary exploitation on the hands of the merchant in the sphere of circulation, because the merchant may not only have to buy his commodities from some industrial capitalist, who sells his commodities above their price of production, but may himself make an extra profit under favorable market constellations by selling at a still higher price than he would ordinarily, quite aside from adulterations, etc., which permit him to sell a product of small value at the price of the genuine articles. This fact of secondary exploitation, which I maintain in harmony with Marx, has given to some misinterpreters of Marx, for instance to La Monte, an opportunity to claim, that the admission of this secondary exploitation would be equivalent to transforming the Socialist Party from a revolutionary organization into a reform organization. This is practically the same faulty logic, which cannot reconcile the program of immediate demands with the revolutionary platform of International Socialism.

Party writers and lecturers on Marxian economics agreed with R. R. La Monte’s criticism. After all, if the workers have already been fleeced at work by the employing capitalist, how could they be fleeced again? They could be swindled by shopkeepers of course, but if this became general it would exert an upward pressure on wages since the employer would not be getting the full value of the worker’s labour-power.Untermann’s riposte to La Monte could have been aimed at us.

[ALB]

Here’s a couple more articles from the Socialist Standard Archives pages on this site:www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1914/no-118-june-1914/passing-de-leonhttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1990/no-1029-may-1990/american-marxistMembers and others should make use of the Archives page here :http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/archiveIt contains articles going back to 1904 and is a mine of interesting historical and theoretical stuff. The Search function works too.On our relations with what one member once described as “our political cousins” in the SLP here and in America they were never good. Ill-tempered polemics continued right up until the 1960s. Here’s a typical example:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1918/no-162-february-1918/slp-anchors-dragging-reviewThe main difference was over the relative importance of economic and political action. They said that economic action was more important. We said that this was syndicalism and that the workers had hardly any economic power under capitalism, hence the imperative need to first get control of political power. Any attempt to “take and hold” the means of production without this (or as an afterthought, as the SLP taught) would end in disaster. The other differences (eg on Russia, labour-time vouchers, internal democracy) are set out in the 1969 article Marcos mentioned.As to the Socialist Party of America, we didn’t think much of them either:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1913/no-101-january-1913/pseudo-socialist-vote-usBut members have still maintained a soft spot for Eugene Debs:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1980s/1985/no-975-november-1985/trade-unionist-extraordinary-eugene-debsThe pre-WWI Socialist Party of Canada we liked (they took the same position as us on the primacy of political power). Some of their early articles can be found on the SPC’s site at:http://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/under “Our Rich History of Social Analysis”. More can be found on this Canadian Labour History site:http://www.socialisthistory.ca/Docs/docs.htm#PreComThat should keep you going!

[ALB]

Should this be in the World Socialist Movement section rather than here (which is meant for comments on articles in the Standard)? But, while I’m writing, my view on the blog is that we should not post more than one item a day but nobody takes any notice.

[ALB]

Here (from the Marxists Internet Archive) is what we said of Friedman when he first appeared on the scene in 1970.

[ALB]

I didn’t see much wrong with Dave Flynn’s personal comments on Occupy. It could just as easily have come from an SPGB member as from an ex-member.

Quote:

It provides an open door policy to the public, and a space where ideas can be discussed on an ad hoc basis or in more detail if you prefer. It provides educational facilities including the use of “expert” guest speakers (often mavericks from the banking/corporate world itself), and offers the maxim “anyone can teach, anyone can learn”. This is thoroughly inspiring stuff by any standards, but what of the content?Banks would have to be prevented from the corrupt practice of creating money and debt from nothing, so the idea of currency reform was an overriding concern. Contempt for modern banking seemed to go hand-in-hand with empathy for industrial capital which was characterised as being fleeced by the financiers. The overall impression seemed to be that we do not live in a globalised system of capitalism, but a form of banking landlordism, and insofar as we have capitalism at all it is not proper free market capitalism, but a form of crony capitalism. As one Speaker said “Not the capitalism that Adam Smith fought for”. It is worth pointing out that this particular gentleman had previously published for the Adam Smith Institute and also rather gingerly paid homage to Frederick Von Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. There were a few communist interventions which were well received by some people but the prevailing viewpoints were as described above.The interesting thing about the relationship between the form and content is that even though many libertarian communist boxes are ticked, such people appear trapped in a petit bourgeois worldview reminiscent of nineteenth century Proudhonism, and it was precisely this which I found most frustrating.

I was with Dave at that meeting and was just as frustrated as him that Occupy had organised a meeting at which some (in fact most) of the speakers were openly pro-capitalist. What I don’t understand are those who imply that we should give such people a free run and not say what we think, on the grounds that this would be telling the movement what to do. Dave didn’t agree with this as he was one of the two “communist interventions” saying that it was the capitalist system, not the banks, that had caused the problem and that it was communism, not banking reform that was the solution.

Quote:

Even if we believe that “socialism” or “libertarian communism” is the answer, we are still no further forward. Aspiration alone will not be enough to advance the revolutionary process, no matter how much we talk about class struggle, workers councils or even the SPGB’s revolutionary use of parliament. If we are indeed in the early stages of a revolutionary period, it would be arrogant in the extreme to claim we know exactly how things should be played out. Existing political theories and practices may well preserve knowledge from the moments that have gone before, but it is reasonable to assume in our modern age that new forms and practices will come into play.

I imagine that this is the passage that Stuart likes but what is it actually saying beyond that we shouldn’t predict or dictate to the future? In any event, it is still thinking in terms of a revolution to end capitalism and replace it by socialism. Just like us. Or are we to assume that advocating socialism is also dictating the future?

[ALB]

Someone has brought up Canadian currency crank Paul Grignon on another thread (the one about banking). As Francesco recommended his crap video Money as Debt at the Hammersmith meeting, I think it worth recording what Gringon thinks of a moneyfree society. Here’s what he wrote in an email to us dated 15 October 2009:

Quote:

In a socialist system in which there is no money how does one get what one needs or wants? Are we allowed to have “wants”? To me it seems that it must mean saying goodbye to the ultimate freedom that matters to people, the freedom to EARN what we desire. Am I correct? If there ‘s no money, there’s no measuring of energy exchanges. Therefore there’s no way to EARN more than your fellow by working harder or having more initiative than he does. If I am correct, then everything has to be assigned to us. How and by whom?This is the exact same question I ask the Zeitgeist Addendum/Venus Project followers who also insist that we need to do away with money completely. So in that respect you are on the same team with Zeitgeist against me.I think such ideas are escapist nonsense at best and a deliberate attack on real monetary reform at worst. Why? Because it will NEVER HAPPEN. So it is a completely safe “utopian” vision to sell people on and DISTRACT THEM away from understanding and demanding real substantive reform to the actual system we are currently enslaved to, the one that IS HAPPENING IN REAL LIFE.

So he sees a moneyless society as a distraction from monetary reform! Pity not all Zeitgeisters see that it’s the other way round.

[ALB]

Paul Grignon is a classic Currency Crank who spouts utter nonsense. For instance, in the “analysis” he invites us to refer to here, under section 8 he seems to think that all deposits with banks originally come from money banks have lent! There is an exchange with him in the December 2008 and October 2009 Socialist Standards:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/dec08/page16.htmlhttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/oct09/page19.htmlWe also had an email exchange with him. Here’s it what he says about socialism (email of 15 October 2009):

Quote:

In a socialist system in which there is no money how does one get what one needs or wants? Are we allowed to have “wants”? To me it seems that it must mean saying goodbye to the ultimate freedom that matters to people, the freedom to EARN what we desire. Am I correct? If there ‘s no money, there’s no measuring of energy exchanges. Therefore there’s no way to EARN more than your fellow by working harder or having more initiative than he does. If I am correct, then everything has to be assigned to us. How and by whom?This is the exact same question I ask the Zeitgeist Addendum/Venus Project followers who also insist that we need to do away with money completely. So in that respect you are on the same team with Zeitgeist against me.I think such ideas are escapist nonsense at best and a deliberate attack on real monetary reform at worst. Why? Because it will NEVER HAPPEN. So it is a completely safe “utopian” vision to sell people on and DISTRACT THEM away from understanding and demanding real substantive reform to the actual system we are currently enslaved to, the one that IS HAPPENING IN REAL LIFE.

Ironic, then, that Zeitgeist should be recommending his videos (as they did at the Hammersmith meeting on 22 July).His “solution” is to keep capitalism (and the “freedom” to work for wages) but introduce some sort of electronic money which would not allow interest (as if you could have capitalism just with profit but not interest). People would have to keep their savings under their bed and interest would only be able to paid in kind (so if you borrowed 6 apples giving back 7 in return would be allowed). And he thinks that he is living in the real world! 

[ALB]

I only said that if you didn’t watch it you wouldn’t be able to discuss it with fellow-workers at work or in the pub or the supermarket queue (or even the golf club or the dinner party):http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spopen/message/15074

[ALB]

gnome wrote:

the party should be closing it down and concentrating its efforts on this forum.

Be careful what you wish for. One of the two main wreckers of the WSM Forum has just migrated to this one. If it was closed down I’m sure the other one would too. Fortunately this forum has a Rubbish Bin facility where posts from them can be automatically directed.

[ALB]

stevead1966 wrote:

“So as the openning ceremony celebrates miners strikes, the Jarrow March, the suffragettes, and Liberty’s Sami Chakrabarti carries the flag,…”

I know members don’t watch this sort of thing, but I did on the recommendation of a comrade who said we should if only to be part of the real world. Party members were right: this was a festival of British nationalism, but not quite what you might have expected. In fact the queen looked pretty pissed off with it and one stupid Tory MP (the one who went to a stag party where the piss-heads gave Nazi salutes) has criticised it as more leftwing than the Beijing opening ceremony.You can see why. Not only were there references to miners strikes, the Jarrow March, etc but there were scenes of smug top-hatted capitalists smoking cigars while the workers toiled in dark satanic mills, the rehabilitation of the Sex Pistols and the queen openly becoming part of a fantasy world by talking to James Bond.I know that the leftwing slant that Danny Boyle (he must be a leftie surely?) gave to British nationalism is probably all the more insidious for that, but it wasn’t the spectacle that members who boycotted it might have expected. Not at all King and Country, Land of Dopes and Tories stuff.

[ALB]

For the record as the programme will disappear after 3 weeks, what Bill, who was our candidate in Merton & Wandsworth for the London elections in May, is shown as saying at a hustings meeting in Putney is:

Quote:

We are talking about creating a community of goods and abolishing the wages system and having common and democratic ownership and control of the means for producing and distributing wealth.

Not very often that we hear about abolishing the wages system on the radio or TV.

[Author]

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