DJP
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Read under where it says “Legalised Brutality”. Is that showing on your screen? You might need to scroll down if viewing on a phone.
“the question then arises how do you differentiate trade union struggle from reformism if both involve a “power struggle”?”
Strange question. Two different things can share one, or more, common features without being the same in all other ways. How do you differentiate between a car and a van if both involve wheels and engines?
By the way, I didn’t think the letter was bad, was just interested in seeing how Marx was using ‘political’. It’s one of those words in which the meaning is very much dependent on the context.
The only one on the front page!
Robin. In you letter you say that “In other words, the field of reformist activity is essentially political, in contrast to trade unionism, which is an essentially economic and defensive struggle – a distinction also, incidentally, made by Marx.”
Can you provide a reference to Marx here?
I’m not sure such a clean split can be made – a lot of the reformist parties came out of the trade unions, and struggles between workers and their employers *are* political in the sense that they are about relations of power.
I would have thought it was better to say that the distinction is between struggles to defend and improve working conditions and the struggle to establish socialism. These are two qualitatively distinct things since they have two distinctive goals. No need to refer to one as being ‘economic’ and the other ‘political’.
The things produced in socialism would be goods for use, not commodities.
A commodity, by definition, is a good produced for exchange.
What do you mean by the abolition of commodity production? The end of production for exchange surely? If so you completely correct.
“Maybe the Party should get into Tiktok or something..”
Yes the party should be doing that kind of thing. But not without some kind of connected strategy behind it.
“Maybe reconnecting with past members could be part of a strategy for renewed growth.”
Be careful with that, it could cause annoyance more than anything. And no need to keep asking people to join. It looks like you’re begging. If they want to rejoin they’ll use their own initiative.
Judging from the crowd at Summer School there’s been a failure to connect with people in the millennium generation and younger. I think this is due to a failure to adequately use the media types of the internet age. The collapse of physical meetings is a concern too.
“Wouldn’t it be good if we focused on a few specific wards & threw everything we have at them at every election?”
I think this is more or less a description of what is happening already?
Without wanting to piss on the picnic, I’m not convinced of the effectiveness of electioneering as a method of publicising socialism in the present situation. But that doesn’t mean we should not do it, and I could be wrong after all.
“What, then, is the point of a socialist party putting forward measures that many will see as desirable and possible even under capitalism? That will encourage reformist illusions, attract the support of non-socialists and set the party on the road towards evolving into a possibilist party relegating socialism to a remote goal and concentrating on trying to get reforms to capitalism, as happened to the old SPD in Germany.”
Yes, not standing on a platform of reforms is a strategic consideration for the reasons mentioned above. But once there was a significant number of socialists within parliament they could also support reforms if they were beneficial to the working class. I don’t know how controversial this is – but at this stage they could even propose legislation that could aid the socialist movement (for example laws that limit oligarchic control of the press).
It’s not a simplistic position of “reforms=bad” but one about what is necessary to build a socialist movement.
As an aside could I ask why people leaving the party was a subject for discussion in the first place? I would have thought, when compared to other political parties or voluntary organisations in general, the churn of members was quite low. Has this recently changed?
“I have to say I do like the Lucky Black Cat video for the style of delivery and its wit”
Yes I like that too
Perhaps this could have gone in another thread but posting this video to show the importance of YouTube in the contemporary media age. If it’s any consolation all of the political parties are making poor use of it. Individuals making videos in a shed manage to get far more reach.
The video titles on this channel are a bit clickbaity but it gives interesting insights into the current struggles within US politics.
“Mike Mcnair of the Weekly Worker comments on our contribution”
It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be though he deliberately seems to conflate leadership in the sense of having ideas first with leadership in the sense of being able to dictate and enforce decisions.
With regards to the comment about splits – seeing as the list encompasses about 125 years and some of the splits are just a handful of people breaking off to do their own thing, I don’t think you can really say the SPGB is doing particularly badly on that front.
This is just another version of the ‘who would do the dirty work?’ question.
If a job needs doing and it’s too dangerous for people to do then it wouldn’t get done or technical solutions would have to be found so that it could be done.
With regards to the specific issue of nuclear power, I don’t think the party currently possesses any technical experts in this field. We shouldn’t be pretending that we are, and prescribe how people in an imagined future should act.
All we can do is outline how such a decision could be made and carried through in the absence of market mechanisms.
