[DJP]

jondwhite wrote:

So the SPGB steal a march on the SWP?

???

[DJP]

I've not yet read the article that Robbo mentions. However I read Marx for his analysis of capitalist social relations not for his metaphysics. Marx never wrote much on his metaphysics anyhow. The 'materialism' in the 'materialist conception of history' seems more to do with grounding historical processes in (material)social relations rather than a metaphysical enquiry into the nature of the universe and reality.I think there is some scope in discussing the metaphysics of materialism but this is best done by looking at texts other than Marx. Also 'materialism' can mean many different things depending on who the writer is…

[DJP]

Unless you've got a specific question I think there's far too much bredth here for a discussion topic..

[DJP]

Are you sure this is not one of those horrible automatic robot voice things? Sounds spookily like it to me…

[DJP]

JordanB wrote:

Why do you think it is that these vanguard parties go on to establish state capitalism rather than socialism ?

The vanguard revolution model is the form the transition from feudalism to capitalism took in states where feudal social relations where more entrenched, they just used certain aspects of socialist ideology to get everyone on board. Lenin himself knew that socialism or communism (both are the same for us) was impossible at that stage in history and that for them state-capitalism would be the only possibility.Also, you simply can't force people to co-operate. You can't get to a society of mutual co-operation, which is what socialism is or it is not socialism, without the majority wanting and understanding it.

[DJP]

Potentially it could happen, but only when the majority want it, understand what has to be done and democratically carry it out.When? Probably not next Tuesday.

[DJP]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Access to the Daily Mail is blocked in Thailand.

Probably not when you use this:https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en

[DJP]

SocialistPunk wrote:

These are the instruments of oppression, the coercive forces.

Well yes perhaps, but you've left a lot out of the picture….Here's a list of current UK government departments, how many of these are doing work that would be useful to a socialist society?https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations#non-ministerial-departments

[DJP]

SocialistPunk wrote:

So what's it to be? Active abolishion of "the state" and it's relegation to the dustbin of history, or transformation? That's all I was ever trying to resolve.

Like money the state is not 'abolished' but looses its function since there is no longer any private property. The transformation of property relations is what relegates the state to the dustbin of history and whatever useful administrative functions that remain are adapted as necessary.

Engels wrote:

The anarchists put the thing upside down. They declare that the proletarian revolution must begin by doing away with the political organisation of the state. But after its victory the sole organisation which the proletariat finds already in existence is precisely the state. This state may require very considerable alterations before it can fulfil its new functions. But to destroy it at such a moment would be to destroy the only organism by means of which the victorious proletariat can assert its newly-conquered power, hold down its capitalist adversaries and carry out that economic revolution of society without which the whole victory must end in a new defeat and in a mass slaughter of the workers similar to those after the Paris Commune.The first act by virtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society—the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society—this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The State is not “abolished.” It dies out.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

you won't have the proletariat electing the truth, because you claim that you know the physical, and that you can know this without a vote.

So what makes the above statement true, in the abscence of a vote?But we're digressing and we've been here a million times before… I'm out of here.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

DJP wrote:

…that is there will be no body that exists as a structure seperate to and above the whole of society…

Of course, for you, there will be.

You're confusing me with comrade Strawman again. But like I said a while back 'discussing' with you is a waste of my time.

[DJP]

SocialistPunk wrote:

So we're back where we started, with some believing an undemocratic system of coercion can be tamed and transformed into "the agent of emancipation" and others, myself included, believing that the agent of emancipation is the revolutionary working class itself, ie people. And that social organisation in a socialist society needs no state machinery to function.

I don't think there's much to discuss since the DOP states ""That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself". So we all agree that the agent is the working class.You just seem to be confusing yourself by muddling 'agents' with 'structures'. Yes their will be no 'state machinery' in socialism (that is there will be no body that exists as a structure seperate to and above the whole of society) but there will still be a need for some kind of structure so that the democratic co-ordination of production and consumption can happen. Otherwise it will not be socialism.

[DJP]

I think this article on "Workers Control" is relevant:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1960s/1965/no-725-january-1965/workers-control

Quote:

The phrase "workers' control" is today frequently used as if it were some sort of definition of socialism. In fact it is nothing of the kind, implying as it does the continued existence of a working class and control of the productive system by units less than society.The origin of the idea can be found in the 19th century divisions between socialists and anarchists. These saw society from two completely opposed points of view. Socialists saw society and the individual as reciprocal terms; the one couldn't exist without the other. The anarchists, on the other hand, as a caricature of bourgeois individualism, saw the individual as the important unit, as an isolated being. For them society was a restriction on the freedom of the individual. While socialists recognised the need for an organisation to arrange the affairs of society as a whole, the anarchists were for a free federation of local communities and as much decentralisation as possible.Socialists did distinguish between society and the state. In their view the State, as a coercive instrument, only flourished in class societies and was the instrument whereby a ruling class controlled society. In the classless society of the future there would be no coercive government machine, central control would be purely administrative. Unfortunately many people, including some who called themselves socialists, overlooked this distinction between society and the state.[…]Kropotkin put forward the idea that the basic unit of the future society should be the free commune; where necessary, as for running things like the railways, these communes should be linked in a loose federation. This is the doctrine of Anarcho-Communism; it should be contrasted with the socialist view, that the basic unit of future society can only be society itself.[…]Ideas of workers' control became more popular in periods of disorder of the sort described above. The experiences of these periods have provided the basis for many theories' of workers' control and of spontaneous revolution without understanding or organisation. They have become part of a general mythology fostered by loose-thinking and an inadequate understanding of the nature of present-day society. These episodes in Russia, Italy and elsewhere have very little relevance for socialism; they were not socialist in character and could not have led to socialism, even if they hadn't been suppressed.[…]Basically the demand for workers' control is a demand that the workers on the shop-floor should control production through a workshop organisation rather than through society. Quite apart from the fact that there won't be any "workers" under Socialism, this demand is unrealistic and Utopian. The productive system of today is incredibly complicated in its world-wide organisation. It could only be controlled by society as a whole through a fairly complex and permanent administrative apparatus. To suggest otherwise is to ignore the nature of the modern world with its large-scale industry.

[DJP]

SocialistPunk wrote:

I'll say it once more in case it hasn't sunk in. Controlling parliament is not essential for socialism to come into existence.

If there's no conscious and active majority then socialism is not going to happen. But do you think there's any good reason for this majority to not send delegates to parliament?

[DJP]

gnome wrote:

Which "revolutionary groups" would they be then?

Come on, we didn't invent this stuff….There's at least five "groups" in the UK (more worldwide) I could think of that share the goal of a stateless, moneyless world of common ownership but differ from us on how to get there (and therefore it is impossible for us to undertake any practicle co-operattive action with them).

[Author]

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