DJP
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Personally as i have asked, what can Biden really do without a cooperative Congress.
He’s going to have his hands tied a lot of the time. Likely a lot of Republicans are actually happy with the result, they pretty much get to maintain power and have got rid of Trump too.
“which party are you suggesting people in Poland should have voted for and presumably should vote for next time?”
Of course I’m not going to make suggestions about what people in Poland should do, why should they listen to me? I’m not a Poland expert by any stretch of the imagination.
Examples aside. Surely you can agree that hypothetically, however unlikely it may be, there could be a situation where, in the absence of a significant amount of people who would vote for socialism, voting for one capitalist party instead of another could be the most advantageous thing to do for a socialist? (Perhaps one party wants to outlaw socialism for example)
How we act as socialists before there is a mass movement of socialists is different to how we act when there is a mass movement.
” Are you saying that they shouldn’t?”
No, in some circumstances, even if you are in a (vast) minority position, expressing your ideals might make sense, if it will help grow a movement. But in other circumstances, there may be more urgent issues. Everything is context-dependent, that’s what I’m saying
“Can you produce any counter examples?”
There are plenty things that a state can legislate which aren’t directly related to the profit motive. For instance, in Poland abortion has just been made illegal, if a different party had won the election last time round it’s unlikely that would be the case now. I think there’s plenty of examples along this line that could be drawn up to support the “lesser evil” line.
I know you don’t go in for the ‘liberalism is the same as fascism’ silliness, but this kind of thing is relevant here. Certain configurations of capital / state / ‘freedoms’ are preferable to others, and more conducive to the development of socialism.
I don’t think the “lesser evil” thing applies all the time but there are certain cases where it could do.
“Conclusion; if capitalism is the “evil” you should never vote for it. You should only vote for socialism as the common ownership of the means of production, with production directly to satisfy people’s needs and distribution on the basis of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.”
But this only makes sense if there’s already a mass movement of socialists for socialism. We don’t live in that world. I think voting (and politics) isn’t just about expressing your ideals, it’s about trying to effect a change (however limited) in the here and now. Engaging in the real world means you have to get your hands dirty from time to time.
The two arguments above don’t sound to me like there actually against a “lesser evil” at all, more like arguments for people who think they are voting for a “good”. If you think something is a “lesser evil” then you must also think it is an “evil” and presumably you won’t be surprised when it does “evil” things.
Do you not think there are marginal (and sometimes not so marginal) differences between how competing parties can / or would manage capitalism? And do you not think that marginal differences can actually be quite significant, especially to those on the margins?
I prefered Stephen Shenfield’s article to ALJO’s, I think it’s better to have a self-reflective discussion rather than always wheeling out the party line.
Out of interest does any of the SPGB members on this think there ever was, or hypothetically could be, a situation where the “lesser evil” actually is?
All members of the POUM would be under surveillance. Orwell was actually lucky to leave Spain alive. This documentary about the assassination of Nin is worth watching if you are interested in that kind of thing..
‘Privateers’ and pirates are the same thing, just depends on what side of a state line you’re standing. As I’m sure you’ll agree. Still fail to see how they are capitalists though…
“I thought, as merchants, financiers, pirates and slavers they were the same old bourgeoisie.”
Strange that you put pirates in this list. Pirates would come from a variety of social classes (it was one option for runaway slaves) and piracy and capitalism are definitely not the same things, in fact, the rise of capitalism would be the demise of piracy. Piracy is bad for the business of capitalists.
Wez. If you’re interested read the article in the Standard that I wrote, ALB shared the link earlier in the thread or read Ellen Meiksins Woods book, it’s a very good read.
I don’t really know what you mean about representing “a different type of capitalism”. The interesting group of capitalists to look at in that period are the tenant farmers, they were the ones purchasing labour-power. It was the nature of the rents that compelled them to operate in a way that is the same as capitalism operates today.
“every Marxist I’ve ever read or met uses the term bourgeois and capitalist interchangeably.”
Well that only says something about what you’ve read. When talking about the modern era perhaps the distinction isn’t so pressing. But in the works on the origins of capitalism, the distinction is useful since it helps us in explaining why capitalism proper first appeared in rural England and not somewhere else with a fully developed bourgeois merchant class, such as Holland.
Also when we are talking about the origins of capitalism we are going to be talking about more than two classes, it’s only with fully developed capitalism that the landowning and the former middle class get absorbed into each other.
“The owners of a mobile home ( manufactured home ) renting land from landlords are capitalists too according to this analysis”
You misunderstand. “This analysis” isn’t that whoever pays ground rent is a capitalist, but that tenant farmers aren’t really “bourgeois” – they’re not urban merchants.
The fact that farmers in England had to pay competitive rents on the market meant that they had to keep finding ways to increase the productivity of labour, otherwise, become uncompetitive and not able to continue in the rental market – it was this that set the whole dynamic of capitalism going – according to Brenner and Meiksins Wood.
I haven’t read all of this thread, but it seems a bit odd describing early capitalists in England as “bourgeoise” since they were tenant farmers operating in a rental market, not middle-class urban merchants. This was the key discussion in the Brenner debate; whether the genesis of capitalism is in an outgrowth in mercantilism or whether it was more to do with a specific set of property relations that originally only existed in the English countryside. Apologies if this has already been touched upon. “Bourgeois” and “capitalist” are not necessarily synonyms.
