DJP
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Well the meeting surely must have left an impression!
Slight digression, but out of the groups that split from the ICC the group Internationalist Perspective is the most interesting or least bad.
I see their most recent article may be worth talking about in the economic calculation thread. Though I’m not sure if their criticisms of “democracy” relate to formal bourgeois/liberal democracy or to the concept of “democracy” in general.
Labor vouchers and radical democracy: is that the post-capitalist road to a human community?
Interesting account, but don’t you think talking about “knocking someone’s block off” sounds a bit childish?
The ICC, as an organisation, are more than half mad. Everybody knows that. But, especially in these post-pandemic times, face to face meetings and discussions are a very important thing. I think it is useful to be able to know what is going on, in order to discuss, defend, and propagate socialist ideas.
I think if you take Lew’s argument to its logical conclusion you would have to close the public forum.
To think that allowing a post to appear in a comment section or forum implies an all-out endorsement is a gross misunderstanding of how these are generally understood.
“This action was initiated by one member. Democratic accountability requires majority consent – something the ICC despises.”
Any action needs to be initiated by someone. But at the time (10 years ago!) the committee as a whole was fine with it – that’s how working on a committee works. You’re not suggesting that every committee should have to put every decision to a majority vote of the whole membership are you?
Personally, I think forum posts are of a very different nature to things printed in an official publication. I guess if you’re that bothered you can raise it through the party’s democratic channels – but it’s already been like this for 10 years!
I’m no longer a member so it doesn’t affect me. It would be a shame to lose a place to see where meetings are listed though..
“Why are we allowing the ICC to advertise their meetings here? I think it was a previous moderator who made the decision, based on the idea that we are part of the “thin red line”.”
Unless something changed after I left, belonging to a supposed “thin red line” was never a requirement for being able to post in the forum, or this section specifically. As explained in the section description; “Such postings do not imply political approval of, or agreement with, the SPGB. Inappropriate posts may be deleted.”
Knowing about meetings of other groups is a useful thing. Surely you would want to talk to these people, at least sometimes?
They say a recording will be added to here:
https://www.youtube.com/@ThePhilosopher1923I haven’t read the full book yet, but the appendix written by William Clare Roberts on the French translation was useful and interesting.
William Clare Roberts’ “Marx’s Inferno” should be required reading.
I think if there ever was a nuclear war it would more likely be because of a mistake, like this one which was narrowly averted.
Wasn’t sure if this merits a new thread but thought would post here this good YouTube explanation of why co-ops are still subject to imperatives of the market. It’s a follow-up to an early video book review he did about a book from Wolff.
“Why put these on duty, if everything’s a bluff?”
Obviously because part of a bluff is making yourself look like you can physically carry out your threat.
You knew that anyway.
Incidentally, if you look through Marx the only time you will find “abolishing money” mentioned is when he criticises Proudhon. Obviously, we don’t have to copy everything from Marx mindlessly but I think there is a strong indication here. We need to explain clearly what the problem is, and that way people can work out for themselves what the solution is.
Jumping straight to some effect or feature of socialism is to put the cart before the horse and can lead to gross misunderstanding.
Isn’t this similar to the arguments about “abolishing the state”?
I.e:
1. Money and the state cease to exist as a consequence of something else happening first – the abolition of private property and the institution of production for use.
2. Something can cease to be without it being “abolished”. And in reverse – you can’t “abolish” something which no longer exists.
This is just a question of language, and all that matters is which phrasing gets the idea across most clearly – and the answer to that could be different in different contexts.
“To say otherwise suggests that money will have some sort of function in socialism.”
That doesn’t follow.
Money exists because of a certain kind of social relation. Once that form of social relation is ended money ceases to be. There’s no need to add the extra step of ‘abolishing money’ – such a concept is superfluous when it comes to socialist revolution.
Can please people stop posting links to that junk website “Global Research”.
