[Dave]

Thanks Alan will check the blog article probably tomorrow. I'm not sure how we help to bring about the shattering of the ideas which underpin global capitalism. All I do know is that both reformist as well as revolutionary/Trotskyist methods have both miserably failed. The opportunities for a working class/socialist revival have never been greater yet the response from the working class has never been so muted. At times I do despair.

[Dave]

Good thing or not? I think it's more a sign that a lot of the left has given up on the working class achieving anything positive. In it's place is this fetish of small group activity which seeks to appeal to the conscience of the capitallist class to halt the austerity attacks. Also it gives an opening for left celebs such as Owen Jones to think that he is doing something useful. Or maybe I'm just an embittered old socialist who can't see new opportunities.

[Dave]

Thanks ALB for your considered replies to my points they make a great deal of sense to me especially the emphasis on the winning of workers as a class to the perspective of socialism. This to me has been the major failing globally of many left wing movements where the strategy has either to rely on left wing reformists in either the unions or in the case of the UK the Labour Party to attract workers to some sort of mass mobilisation mainly though a general strike to overthrow the government of the day. By this they hope to install a workers government which to me as a strategy has failed miserably.The point is that there is a need for an independent socialist party which will seek to disseminate socialist ideas in the hope that workers can see that only through socialism can the multitude of problems created by capitalism today can be solved. This shift in workers perspective will be countered by the leaders of the capitalist state as can be seen by the recent revalations of Edward Snowdon of mass spying on the population. The capitalist class has no compunction in ignoring the niceities of capitalist democracy if and when required. After all we have seen the use of undercover agents to disrupt various anarchist/eco/ animal rights groups.One other question regarding the development of socialist consciousness within the working class. After many years of being either active or through researching labour history I have come to the conclusion that the idea of false consciouness is probably incorrect to explain why workers have not yet developed a socialist consciousnes. It seems to me that from at least the mid 1800's the working class has by and large developed a consciousness that can be seen to be pro capitalist in the sense that workers see just as the capitalist class does that there is no alternative to the capitalist system and that they do beleive this to be true. Workers have internalised such a perspective and it will be extremely difficult to supplant such a consciousness. The idea that all is required is a revolutionary leadership to break through to a simmering revolutionary passion just beneath the surface of social lifehas never been true and willnever be true.

[Dave]

While I agree that when the working class as a class develops a socialist perspective the capitalist class will more than likely be overthrown with a relative small amount of casualties. After all the Russian reolution of 1917 was a relatively bloodless affair. The problem however is that as the process develops the capitalist class will use a wide variety of methods to sustain their power and part of that will be the use of physical force. The example of Noske is a good one for it shows that the German capitalist class took steps to abort the development of a socialist consciousness and they were helped in this by bad tactics of the sparticists and the left of the Marxist movement. The same will happen in the UK and the working class needs to know that a revolution can be a dangerous but necessary event if class rule is to be overthrown.The example of the collapse of Stalinist/State Capitalist regimes in Eastern Europe is not a very good one as what we saw was a shift within the ruling class where sections of the ruling class became the dominate class. This has happened more than once for example in Britain in the nineteenth century saw a shift within the ruling class when the aristocracy ceded political power to the industrial bourgeosie. This became possible once they saw that the working class can co exist within capitalism without their property rights being seriously clallenged. A revolution is qualatatively different with one class being replaced by another class. A socialist revolution is the most difficult event to accompolish but it does need to be done if barbarism is not to become the norm.One question does the SPGB see socialism as an ethical imperative or a material necessity?

[Dave]

History shows that no ruling class ever gives up its power voluntarily or peacefully. What is certain is that as the working class develops a revolutionary consciousness then the ruling class will take military means to smash the developing workers movement. The British ruling class would do this just as readily as any other ruling class. Now they would do this irrespective of whether there was a parliamentary or workers council political development. The task is to try to combine practical action and theoretical devlopment and that is the problem it has never been achieved in any developed capitalist economy.What I was trying to get at with Chile is that the ruling class will use violence against even reformist political parties if they feel that there power is being threatened.

[Dave]

Looks like the thread has become something else as it started off as a thread on Marx by Owen Jones. I must admit that I have always been irritated with left celebs as this is a mind set of those who wish to be led and not part of a self critical working class where there will be no celebs and will be replaced by an interrelationship between those who may have a certain level of knowledge and wish to facilitate the dissemination of the knowledge collectively.On the topic of workers council and parliament I agree that as marxists we work in the concrete and not in some abstract world which is dominated by the idea, in this case the idea of workers councils. At the moment the working class in the UK is relatively passive and there are no mass resistance to the austerity attacks. The left especially the Trotskyists have tried desperately to force activity through a variety of front organisations and all have failed. The lesson I think is that all we can do is work as socialists within the present structures and parliamentary and local elections are usefull to propagandise for socialism.As far as violence is concerned it all depends on how succesfull workers are in attracting the rank and file of the armed forces to the working class. A mass class conscious confident movement is needed one that knows it will expropiate the capitalist class. Without this mass then the capitalist class would use violence to stop such a develoment after all look at Chile in 1972 and Pinochet.Workers council does not automatically lead to a succesful reolution after all look at Germany in 1919 where workers councils existed and they were dominated by the SPD the German versionof the Labour Party.

[Dave]

Good to hear mcolome because what you describe regarding ML groups where not only political power but also theoretical knowledge is concentrated in a self perpetuating unaccountable clique. The CC in such groups also are reluctant if not hostile to members developing independent theoretical positions. Seems to me that what is required is that Marxists need to be able to engage fellow workers, friends, neighbours  in a open manner and try to win them to a socialist perspective. This engagement should take a variety of forms from campaigns to elections but always critically not sycophantically as LU and PA does. 

[Dave]

A problem I have with Left Unity, Peoples assembly is that they are increasingly relying on left celebs to boost large meetings and then call this a success. Where are the local based groups? Nowhere to be seen. Now to me socialism has to be the conscious self emancipation of the working class against the capitalist class. This self emancipation has to somehow facilitate the mass activity of workers not only by voting every five years or so but the continual expression of working class interests through some form of workers organisations where political decisions are hammered out democratically and then implemented.What I like about the SPGB is the emphasis on winning workers to socialism and to an understanding what socialism will mean.

[Dave]

Hovis was a good example of trade union effectiveness in fighting back against the bosses while Unite in Grangemouth is a good example of how cowardly union leaderships can become in defending jobs and conditions. Whatever happens in a class divided society there will be strikes as workers will be forced to take action to defend working conditions the problem however is how to develop a strategy that is a socialist strategy which seeks to faciliatate a critical working class consciouness. It's no use looking to the unions to develop a socialist strategy which mny on the left do.Glad that the SPGB does not fall into this trap.

[Dave]

A couple of questions to start of with.Does the SPGB branches become involed in campaigns such as keeping open hospitals, schools etc? On the website I've come across local election campaigns in London that have stood as candidates and looked at the election material. I have no problem with socialists standing in elections as the programme is a socialist programme and that if a councillor is elected then there would be no compromise in voting for any cuts of any description. The reason I say councillor is that there is more of a chance of a socialist councillor rather than an MP.What do branches do?

[Dave]

Can't see any of the left splinters becoming anything other than a front for a respective small organisation that has little influence within the wider working class. Seems that even the idea of socialism for the working class has become increasingly mkarginalised during the last thirty years or so.Would be interested in finding out a bit more of the SPGB.

[Dave]

I wouldn't count RESPECT as a socialist organisation it was a cobbled together opportunist organisation which juggled a wide range of competing factions which inevitably would tear themselves apart as it seems to be happening with the recent resignation of five Bradford councillors. Respect was never a leaderless party in fact each faction saw itself as it's leader. Problem was that such leadership is hidden from public view and even from their own members view.On leaderless parties I'd be interested in seeing how they operate in practice. It seems to me that every organisation develops some form of leadership the trick is to ensure that the leadership is transparent, accountable and that members are politically developed to become confident in both theory and being able to apply that theory effectively to encourage wider sections of the working class to be critical and independent and conscious of our own material interests. 

[Dave]

Whats sorely missing from popular debate today is the perspective of a clear socialist alternative where workers move from being the objects of pity which Benn and others on the left see to our own self liberating collective subjects. To do this we need to somehow reclaim and renew the visionary project that was so common to the struggles of the past before state capitalist solutions to poverty, poor housing, unemployment etc took pver. There are no more William Morris's and Owen Jones is a poor substitute.What I know for certain is that  the alternatives being proposed to the Labour Party such as Left Unity, Peoples Assembly, TUSC on offer at the moment are no solution and if anything will end up demoralising those workers especially the younger ones who may have had no contact with socialist ideas. Also the two trends from the past, the reformist and the "Leninist" trend have also up to now have had very little success in either negating the trend of capitalism to systemic crisis or to have failed to build a democratic mass working class movement that will negate capitalism and replace it with a democratic socialist system.Maybe there is space for the SPGB to start to build a socialist political party made up of class conscious workers who have irrevocably broken from capitalism. I don't know I suppose only time will tell.

[Dave]

I think a major contradiction exists for most workers in Britain which is that there is a general decline in a belief that parliament will make workers lives better. Just look at the decline in numbers voting and the general decline in party membership. The other half of the contradiction is that for many workers parliament is the only method of changing society for the better. It's this situation that socialists have to work in and find a way to connect with workers looking for some solution to the current crisis.

[Dave]

Just finished reading the pamphlet Whats Wrong With Using Parliament? and thought that's it's well argued and is based on democratic credentials. What's interesting about the pamphlet is the point that in the UK Parliament has evolved based on the dynamics of the class struggle from being feudal to being capitalist. Never thought about it in that way before. I know that while many workers have little faith in Parliament they still are unable to see any alternative to Parliament at the present time. Maybe there is a need to renew the idea that Parliament and all the associated structures can be transformed into something that can be used to facilitate the transformation into a socialist society. 

[Author]

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