[Ed]

Of course it's not the SLP, I really can't remember what it's called I'll have to ask him. I believe it's a very small party. But if admice doesn't want to join WSPUS as she said, then I'll do my best to try to help her find something she may agree with more. The important thing for me is that someone agrees with the end goal, even if they have disagreements with the strategy. I hope admice will keep in touch though whatever she decides. And no I fundamentally disagree that the WSM companion parties are the only genuine socialists.

[Ed]

admice wrote:

I think a better way to look at that is functional. A trade union function has it’s hands full dealing with union issues and is limited by and to that primarily, necessarily, but a union member could be a socialist but pursue union activities and socialist activities.

Old Karl would agree

Quote:

After this very long and, I fear, tedious exposition, which I was obliged to enter into to do some justice to the subject matter, I shall conclude by proposing the following resolutions:Firstly. A general rise in the rate of wages would result in a fall of the general rate of profit, but, broadly speaking, not affect the prices of commodities.Secondly. The general tendency of capitalist production is not to raise, but to sink the average standard of wages.Thirdly. Trades Unions work well as centers of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class that is to say the ultimate abolition of the wages system.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ch03.htm#c14

[Ed]

I seem to remember Adam coming back from an occupy meeting quite a while ago with a leaflet given to him by a lady from California, she had flown over especially to see occupy London. From the leaflet they seemed pretty similar to us (but different) and we spoke about contacting them. Can't remember their name though.Have you been in contact with anyone from WSPUS they may have a better list of contacts in your area. Although thinking about it I do have an aquaintance in America who is sypathetic towards us. He's a DeLeonist can't remember the name of their party either but from what I remember they do have 'leaders'. I can try and dig up that e-mail address for you. Got a feeling he's on the east coast, in Chicago or something. But he rejects elections in the US for many of the same reasons that you do.On the police thing. I don't think there's a unified opinion on the matter within the party. Details like that are better left to the future which we can't predict. However, personnally I don't think there could be any kind of police force as we know it today as it is clearly a product of capitalism. It may prove to be the embrionic basis of something which may fill some of the same roles. But It would be so different to the current state of things that it would be difficult to call it a police force. If property is 9/10ths of the law then 9/10ths of their job has been abolished. 

[Ed]

stuartw2112 wrote:

Ed, you've not answered my points, but refused them. Left Unity is an attempt to form a new socialist party. So, that socialist party will not live up to all your expectations. Welcome to the real world. The spgb doesn't live up to mine. But, given the seriousness of the current situation, is there a way forward for socialists, and for the working class? That's what we're discussing. The 'Ukip of the left' thing was not invented by us and should not be taken too seriously or literally. But are we aiming to do what Ukip is aiming to do and drag the nation's common sense back to the left? Yes – that's the mimimum programme. Although, as I've pointed out before, these are just my views. LU as yet has no aims and no policy. It's in formation.

I've answered the second point. That it cannot be compared in any way to the founding of the SPGB. One is a broad left party who has the intent of running capitalism the other is a group which split away from such a party having learned the futility of such a strategy.Perhaps you need to define socialist party. Cos from what I see you're just another capitalist party. In that your immediate aim is to take over a part of the management of capitalism.The statement you posted doesn't seem to be much different from labours clause 4. Was the labour party a socialist party at it's inception? Or perhaps in 1949? Was it Kinnock the renegade who ruined it all?

stuartw2112 wrote:

Ps Ed you've also misunderstood the whole thing. I am not a supporter of the 'socialist platform' and do not consider them at all the radical wing of the thing.

stuartw2112 wrote:

Ed, I've just realised that you must have got your opinion of LU from the recent Socialist Standard article on it. Sorry, but that is totally misleading. I have no problem with the socialist platform people being in LU – indeed I am friendly with a fair few of them – but to portray them as the bold socialist visionaries fighting a lone if misguided battle against the opportunists and reformists is just a joke – the kind of joke we Adam and I just agreed to leave behind. Cheers

My comment about that particular grouping was not to try to represent your opinion but the optimism shared by some members of this party. I would agree with you at least on this point. "do not consider them at all the radical wing of the thing." I have no sympathy for any of the left; the last refuge of the bourgeoisie.

[Ed]

stuartw2112 wrote:

PS I'd like an answer to two points raised above if anyone's interested in continuing the discussion.The first is the dismissal of Left Unity as a non-socialist organisation. I posted a statement from the Left Party Platform – the statement of aims that will probably (in my opinion) win the day at the founding conference. It contains a definition of socialism and a commitment to attaining it that I can't see any socialist objecting to. So, LU will be a socialist party when it is founded (the rival aims statements are no less clear in their definitions and commitment).The second was my attempt at humour regarding the SPGB's founding conference. I was joking but trying to make a serious point. All the criticisms levelled at Left Unity, and considered to be witheringly damning, could easily have been levelled at the SPGB founding conference. So what's the difference? Why does the SPGB not instead welcome LU and send it fraternal greetings, as I believe it did the Second International? (Not that I think it a foregone conclusion that we'll be that significant, of course, but it's surely not completely beyond the bounds of possibility either.)Cheers

I find your second paragraph intriguing. You seem to have given up already. I thought the goal for left unity was to do for the left what UKIP has done for the right. Isn't that who you are trying to emulate? Has your defeatism set in already? Where will you go when you get tired of waiting for left unity to have any success, how long will it take? I don't think the founding of the SPGB is analogous at all. Much better would be the founding of the SDF. The first Left Unity project. What seems to happen to any genuine revolutionaries in these broad church left groupings is that they will be marginalized. They then have two choices, split as the founding members of this party did or remain and become ever more insignificant voices as they did in France. You're going down an already well trodden path filled with bitter disappointments, Perhaps this socialist platform will discover that in time and take the same decision as the founding members of the SPGB did and split.

[Ed]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

  Come back and patronise us when you have a 1,000 socialist members.

Or one for that matter

[Ed]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Oh, we do discriminate…non-socialists are not permitted to join , nor those who hold religious beliefs, racist or sexist ideas. That alone reduces our pool of potential members.

I don't really agree with the part about not accepting those with racist or sexist views. We live in a racist, sexist society. To think that every member can erase over night all prejudices that they have been taught since birth by the simple fact of growing up in such a society is not based in materialism. To say that we don't have any problems in that area just because we are socialists is to say that there is no need to challenge those views within ourselves. The fact is everyone no matter what their gender or ethnic background have certain prejudices about race and gender. 

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Our membership sadly does not reflect the population. It is mostly white,  male and european . We have been described as Anglo-Marxist. We have also been accused of being the aristocracy of labour,  even of being  autodidacts as if that was a bad thing.

I don't think we are a particularly white party. We have to remember that Britain is 88% white unless we were appealing to minority groups the statistical average will probably always reflect that. The 51% of women however is another matter. On the Anglo-Marxism thing I thought that was just because it was the type of socialism that developed within English cultured countries, not that different to how we might say French Marxism for the Guesdists,or Russian Marxism for the Bolsheviks (we might not say that but others have). No different to how Marx spoke of German socialism and French socialism. 

mcolome1 wrote:

Most of the social sciences taught at the universities are twsited, and they do not present the real social reality, as we have an article which shows that for sociologists there are more than 50 social classess in our society which is not true, because there are only two social classes, and there is not a third one, or there are not middle point between the social classess.

I've always made a distinction between social class, the bourgeois class system you mention being taught at universities and the Marxian definition which I've always called socio-economic class. Social class exists in the same way as races exist, in that they are merely subjective categorizations with no way of scientifically separating them from each other. However, they have an existence through ideology, in that we may treat someone differently based on their social class as we may do with race (by we I mean people in general not specifically the party). Social class also has an existence in unique cultural differences and ideology, which would include morality and things like that. So no they don't exist like races don't exist but they do exist in the same way racism exists. Hope that makes some sense.

[Ed]

Not enough, but no less than any other political organization. As to why that is, it's a good question but I don't have the answer. Some say it's because women are more burdened by family life. It could be because as children boys are more likely to be taught about politics (I think it might have been that way in my family). It could be that women are put off by the somewhat aggressive nature which men tend to debate and find they struggle to get their voices heard. There's just a few reasons others have come up with but in the end I don't know how accurate if at all any of those answers are, maybe an amalgamation maybe none of the above.In the branch I'm in, of the regular attendees we have more women than men.We don't do anything differently it's just the luck of the draw.As for "a different perspective" I think people have different perspectives on all kinds of things. Perhaps you could expand a bit on exactly what you mean by that part. What do you think, if any, the difference in perspective is?

[Ed]

As much as the concept of an "athiest church" troubles me, I am intrigued enough to go along some time to see what it's all about. Perhaps armed with some leaflets how the gods were made perhaps.The positive of this of course is the social organization of workers an act of community in our increasingly isolated society.

[Ed]

My take on the title question of this thread "Do we need the Dialectic?". No we don't need dialectics at all. Does the case for socialism rest on dialectics? No. So if no what practical use is it? It can sometimes be used to present an idea in a certain way to make more sense to a like minded individual, but it's main use is just for intellectual masturbation. Whatever floats your boat I suppose.

[Ed]

What is the subject of the debate?

[Ed]

admice wrote:

An alternative analysis would take a book, but there was communism in 'primitive' societies, so capitalism wasn't necessary.

This is why I object to the term primitive communism. For me the quote marks are in the wrong place, better would be primitive 'communism'. As what is meant by communism is not a society based on 'to each according their abilities to each according their need'. Primitive communism may have been a classless society but it was far from a society of abundance. It was a society where you could find yourself so hungry that you may have to eat your neighbour or a family member.As Engels said

Quote:

Was not the abolition of private property possible at an earlier time?No. Every change in the social order, every revolution in property relations, is the necessary consequence of the creation of new forces of production which no longer fit into the old property relations.Private property has not always existed.When, towards the end of the Middle Ages, there arose a new mode of production which could not be carried on under the then existing feudal and guild forms of property, this manufacture, which had outgrown the old property relations, created a new property form, private property. And for manufacture and the earliest stage of development of big industry, private property was the only possible property form; the social order based on it was the only possible social order.So long as it is not possible to produce so much that there is enough for all, with more left over for expanding the social capital and extending the forces of production – so long as this is not possible, there must always be a ruling class directing the use of society’s productive forces, and a poor, oppressed class. How these classes are constituted depends on the stage of development.The agrarian Middle Ages give us the baron and the serf; the cities of the later Middle Ages show us the guildmaster and the journeyman and the day laborer; the 17th century has its manufacturing workers; the 19th has big factory owners and proletarians.It is clear that, up to now, the forces of production have never been developed to the point where enough could be developed for all, and that private property has become a fetter and a barrier in relation to the further development of the forces of production.Now, however, the development of big industry has ushered in a new period. Capital and the forces of production have been expanded to an unprecedented extent, and the means are at hand to multiply them without limit in the near future. Moreover, the forces of production have been concentrated in the hands of a few bourgeois, while the great mass of the people are more and more falling into the proletariat, their situation becoming more wretched and intolerable in proportion to the increase of wealth of the bourgeoisie. And finally, these mighty and easily extended forces of production have so far outgrown private property and the bourgeoisie, that they threaten at any moment to unleash the most violent disturbances of the social order. Now, under these conditions, the abolition of private property has become not only possible but absolutely necessary.

and Kautsky on the differences between the priorities of the feudal lord compared with the capitalist

Quote:

One feature of those times, however, stands out in marked contrast to our own. In these days the chief object which the capitalist sets before himself is the accumulation of wealth. Your modern capitalist can never have enough money. His great desire is to employ his whole income in amassing capital, expanding his business, undertaking fresh enterprises, or ruining his competitors. After acquiring his first million he strives for a second, for he fears being outstripped by some rival, and wishes to secure his possessions. The capitalist never employs his whole income for his personal consumption unless, indeed, he is a fool or a spendthrift, or unless his income is insufficient for his wants.Moreover, the wealthiest millionaire can lead the simplest of lives without diminishing the respect in which he is held. Whatever luxury he may permit himself, he keeps out of sight of the general public – in ball-rooms, chambres-séparées, in hunting-boxes, card-rooms, &c. Consequently, the millionaire is indistinguishable from the mass of his fellow-citizens when he is in the street.A very different state of things existed under the system of natural production and petty manufacture. The incomes of the rich and powerful, whether in natural products or money, could not be invested in shares or government bonds. The only use to which they could put their revenues was that of consumption, or – so far as they consisted in money – in the accumulation of valuable and imperishable things – precious metals and precious stones. The larger the incomes of temporal and spiritual princes and nobles, of patricians and merchants, the greater their luxury. Being by no means able to expend their wealth on themselves, they employed it in keeping up large establishments of servants, in the purchase of fine horses and dogs, in clothing themselves and their dependents in sumptuous apparel, in building lordly palaces and furnishing them as magnificently as possible. The craving for amassing treasure contributed only to the increase of luxury. The haughty lord of the Middle Ages did not, like the timorous Hindoo, bury his treasure in the ground; nor did he deem it necessary to shield it from the sight of thieves and tax-collectors, as do our modern capitalists. His wealth was the sign and source of his power, and he displayed it proudly and ostentatiously in the sight of all men; his garments, his equipages, his houses, glittering with gold and silver, with precious stones and pearls. That was indeed a golden age; and a golden age for art as well.

Interestingly he uses the term natural production there. I remember the last primitive communism thread on here. ALB found the original German of 'primitive communism' which actually translates better as 'natural communism'. I still think it's a mistake to include the communism part in it. You might as well say the proletarians of ancient Rome lived in primitive capitalism. While there might be some similarities it does not make it the same thing.

[Ed]

steve colborn wrote:

Hi Brian,I do not think "transparency of the party decision making process", is all the lads were talking about. It is also about providing a "place", where the far flung members of Central Branch, can come together to discuss and confer, much as members of "branches" do at their regular meetings. To widen democratic inclusivity. Steve Colborn.

What would be great is if central branch could organize itself into a proper functioning branch. Holding monthly branch meetings via the internet. Putting motions to the EC, conference and ADM It's greatly needed imo. Although it is central branch members who will have to be responsible for maintaining it and no one is stepping up to do that, I wish they would.

[Ed]

LBird wrote:

Ed wrote:

I think it's a very interesting question LBird.

Yeah, isn't it just!

yeah it is I love this stuff 

LBird wrote:

Once again, I could intepret 'the working class as a whole' to mean Workers' Councils, because 'as a whole' suggests a 'structure', rather than an aggregate of individuals lumped together, who vote as individuals in parliamentary elections, as we have now.

I would hope that workers councils would not be separate from the working class as a whole. But as a whole neither are workers parties separate from the class, they are part of the same thing, the working class as a whole. If workers have started organizing into councils and they vote for the spgb to do what they have said they will do that gives the spgb a democratic mandate to carry out those actions as directed by the class most of whom presumably will be involved in some kind of workplace organization. So yeah if you like the party is subordinate to the class but so are workers councils presumably. Which is why I mentioned my thought about viewing the spgb as not that different from a workers council in that regard. And in fact the party structure should act as a model for workers councils in the future. 

LBird wrote:

The term 'symbiosis' in politics usually merely gives ideological cover to the side that is doing the 'exploitation'. Power is a one-way street.Dracula to victim: 'Of course, we're in a symbiotic relationship, aren't we, friend? I need blood, and you need the attentions of the count to validate your miserable existence, so, really, we need each other!'Yeah, an interesting question…

That's the trouble with words innit they can mean all things to all men.

[Ed]

Here's a thought, you could see the party as just another workers council tasked with the overseeing of the state's destruction or transformation. Just as other workers councils would be tasked with organizing and transforming other industries.That may be a bit out there for some but a different way to look at it perhaps.

[Author]

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