Dave
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Can the Israeli working class play an important role in the overthrow of the Israeli state? Can they do so in co operation with their Palestinian brothers and sisters? I woud say yes to both questions while the majority of the left in the UK refuses to see the Israeli working class playing any progressive role in the current period.
The problem with most people on the reformist left is that they are unable to see that the politics of Benn have failed and are still failing. Just look at the way that wages have been slashed over the last few years, the welfare state is being dismantled brick by brick a report on the news this evening argued that GP's are becoming in danger of becoming extinct, poverty is rising in fact the list is endless and getting worse. Harsh but true.
I suspect another failed leftist strategy. I also suspect those that turned up today will be the nucleus of this "new" gathering and it would be interesting to know what the makeup wasof those who attended in terms of age, gender and ethnicity. Were they people who had been around the block many times beofre.This time next year LU will be still a tiny insignificant organisation. When will the left wake up and see that the working class is still not militant enough not yet conscious enough to see the need for socialism. There's still a hell of a long way to go before they are.
Hi StuartI think that it's a sad reflection of the times that we live in that even the thought of calling an organisation socialist can be seen as sectarian silliness. It seems to me that we need to repopularise the idea of socialism as being a democratic collectivist way of utilising the productive forces of a global society for the benefit of humanity as a whole and not the privileged few. Up until comparitively recently socialism was something that held no fear for workers in fact there was a popular mood towards it.
1,000 active or passive members the distinction is important in deciding whether there is a serious base for a party which can be something more than a passing fad. How many members, where are they geographically located, what literature is being sold, to how many people, who are the regular buyers etc will give one an idea whether the organisation is well placed to be a serious competitor with Labour Party.The reality is that left reformist parties such as TUSC, Socialist Alliance, Respect etc all received small votes and never looked like being a serious challenger to the Labour Party. The same will be true for LU.Alanjjohnstone hits the nail on the head when he makes reference to the task of a socialist party is to help bring about a socialist transformation of society but LU is not a socialist organisation. Also struggles to defend workers within the parameters of a capitalist society will occur even without a socialist input.The first task of socialists is to recognise reality before we can change it.
The 1000 founding members that stuartw2112 mentions are they active members or are they paper members? I suspect the latter rather than the former. Also the idea that Left Unity is something original is wide of the mark for LU is in the mass party tradition which always falls apart at the first serious test. The reality is that there is not a small never mind large political space to the left of labour. Also with Miliband talking left for the next election then whatever space there is will be closed down. No if you want to build a left sstyle Labour Party then surely the best strategy is to join the LP. At least the International Marxist Tendency is doing this.Myself I do beleive that there is a need for an independent SOCIALIST party that recognises that as capitalism fails to deliver a decent quality of life for workers while ensuring that the wealthy become even more obscenely wealthy then workers will be open to a socialist argument and will do something about it. Reformism will fail and there is a need for a network of socialists of however small amount of members and supporters.
When it comes to looking after capitalists interests especially in crisis then the Labour Party has historically done it's duty in defending capitalism. The problem is that workers have viewed the Labour Party as somehow representing their views. Even after been proved wrong so many times workers will still vote and support Labour. Nasty or not.
Major problem for socialists is that workers have already internalised the capitalist perspective which sees capitalism as the only natural and viable method of organising society. The greatest success that the bourgeoise has globally been able to completely marginalise any socialist perspective. Of course it's useful to argue that all previous perspectives that called themselves socialist weren't in fact socialist but in fact a form of state capitalist but many workers did see them as being socialist and did in fact take some inspiration that a more humane form of society was possible. Now this has largely dissapeared and in fact needs to be rebuilt and internalised by workers as being part of their life and as part of their future.One positive however is that capitalism will continue to fail globally and workers will be forced into struggles however unevenly and sporadically against the effects of capitalist accumulation. When workers decide that enough is enough and that the increase in inequality has further developed while the wealthy grows even more wealthy then the seeds of the socialist argument will find an audience.
While not a member of the SPGB I do think that an article on the Co-op with its historical development and the reasons why it had to fail using it's own criteria would be quite useful. It was or should have been no surprise to any Marxist that the end result of the Co-op would be that it would become another capitalist business whether it took a hundred years or a shhorter time frame. Although I'm certain that the Rochdale pioneers would have been disgusted how their beloved enterprise would turn out. After all they did genuinly believe that co-operative businesses could be run using co-operative principles that would also be applied not only to retail but also to the productive sector of the economy.I'm not too certain however whether to give over a full issue of Socialist Standard would be all that productive.
The Co-operative model has never really worked for years now so it's no great surprise that they are behaving like any other capitalist buisness. Of course the dream of somehow insulating the Co-op from capitalism was never really viable as Marx pointed out in the Povert of Philosophy when he argued against Proudhonist ideas that there can be islands of co-operation in a capitalist sea. Using this analogy I would say that the capitalist sea has swallowed the co-operative movement just as it should have done.
The problem facing unions today is the lack of both working class militancy combined with the lack of a clear politicalperspective. I would agree with alanjjohnstone when he points out that at Grangemouth the unions should have led a militant fightback. Firstly I don't think the workers would have voted for strike action and secondly if the unions had led an occupation of the plant in favour of some sort of nationalisation the Condem government would not have nationalised it. The outcome would have been a serious defeat for the Grangemouth workers. Of course the conditions that were imposed on the workers are a disaster but an even bigger disaster would have been the workers loosing their jobs at least the workers can wait for a more propiatus time to fightback.Also the left does need to remember that the unions are not revolutionary organisations and never will be. They are there to negotiate wages and conditions. The importance is to have Marxist workers in as many workplaces as possible arguing and trying to convince them that capitalism is a failing destructive system and offers no future. There is also the need to try to recreate some sort of socialist culture within the working class and again unions will not do this.
No matter how small or dispersed we are we will pass the Marxist perspective to the next generation of socialists and this is someting to be optimistic about. Even if we don't see the mass internalisation of a socialist consciousness within the working class the seeds will have been planted even if it's leaving info in public places. As capitalism generates more inequalities and wealth gravitates to the capitalist class workers will start to fight back and in the process will become more politically aware.
There have been periods when workers have been politically passive and on the surface there seemed to be very little happening but below the surface material changes were slowly changing workers perspectives. I think that we are in a similiar situation today where on the surface workers are being attacked through the cuts in wages, lowering welfare benefits, poor housing or unaffordable housing, unemployment, temporary contracts etc. Also the recent Grangemouth fiasco and todays announcements of job losses at Royal Navy shipyards all see workers however grudgingly accept these job losses as an unecessary fact of life. No wonder many Marxists and workers generally become dissillusened with the abilty of workers to effectively fight back.However I do think that beneath the surface there is a growing resentment especially amongst younger workers which could be turned into a socialist direction given the right type of work by socialists. Not by running willy nilly to the next demo or the next protest which is attended by ever fewer members of our class. No there has to be the method of addressing genuine problems and putting forward a socialist answer. This may and will take time but needs to be done for there will come a time when workers will go into action and the work done by socialists now will pay off or hopefully will pay off.
Thanks everyone will check all the links out. Seems like the SPGB has been wrote out of most working class history. Good to see you all going strong after the last hundred or so years.
