imposs1904
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I've already made my view known on this. We are shooting ourselves in the foot with the front cover, the memes and some of the contributions on twitter but, at the same time, we have to accentuate the positive. The pieces on Corbyn in last month's Standard were measured and well argued. We were making a case against Corbyn and the phenemenon surrounding his campaign without it appearing overly vinegary or snide. More of this please.I think there are times when a politician's personal ego is so wrapped up in his or her political career – think of Galloway, Sheridan, Abbott and Scargill on the left wing of capitalism for past examples – that is then permissable to take the piss out of the politico as well as their promises but, at the time of writing, I don't think this applies to Corbyn. Part of his 'personal' appeal to his audience has been his lack of pizzaz and the obvious fact that his personality hasn't been shaped by a focus group. Maybe he will change overnight if and when he wins the leadership, and turn into another shiny car salesman masquerading as a politician, but I wouldn't hold my breath. We have to accept that he has tapped into a political movement that no one – NO ONE – saw coming. Not the media. Not the Parliamentary Labour Party. And certainly not the left-wing of capitalism.That is what we have to address, and we have to present our legitimate and consistent opposition to the politics of the left-wing in such a way that we can engage with that section of the working class who kicking against austerity but are still, sadly, locked into old school labourism.
ALB wrote:As DJP explained in his talk at Summer School, that is not begging the question:http://begthequestion.info/I agree, though, that like everything else language changes and that this is an example of a change happening.Have I walked into something? I'm just here to get my coat.
ALB wrote:The March 1934 edition of the Socialist Standard has the following correction on p, 103:Quote:Owing to a misapprehension it was incorrectly stated in the January SOCIALIST STANDARD that the writer of the article "Bolshevism, Past and Present" is a member of the Workers Socialist Party, U.S.A.He is mentioned on page 144 of Gary Roth's biography of Paul Mattick. He also translated Martov's The State and the Socialist Revolution into English under the pen name of "Integer" (reviewed here and sold by the Party). But of course you knew that.
That makes sense. I remember thinking, when I was transcribing the article, 'Interesting review but this isn't really us.' Glad to know that my faulty political antennae stills works every once in a while.It does begs the question, though: did the editorial committee of the Standard publish the review, thinking he was a member of the WSPUS? Would they have published it otherwise?
alanjjohnstone wrote:The often forgotten and neglected Socialist Standard My Space published an interesting account/analysis of Spain from the 1937 council communist journal International Review (editor, Paul Mattick?)http://www.myspace.com/socialiststandard/blog/152388504?MyToken=478de57d-4ab5-4dc4-bf05-2dee0eb61cbc"War sometimes breeds revolution. Continued for any length of time, it seems to defeat revolution."Just stumbled across this old thread when looking for something else.Here's an updated link for the Spain Turns article:http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2006/09/spain-turns.htmlThe editor of International Review was a Herman Gersom.Someone named Gersom had a front page review in the January 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard:http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2014/11/bolshevism-past-and-present.htmlHe's listed as a member of the Workers Socialist Party of the United States, but I'm a wee bit skeptical myself. I may be wrong.
A couple of interesting pieces about Tolstoy from 1905. Not what you're expecting:Tolstoy on Socialismhttp://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2015/08/literary-curiosities-no-2-tolstoy-on.htmlTolstoy "Impossibilist"http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2015/08/tolstoy-impossibilist-1905.html
ALB wrote:ALB wrote:especially, now that 40 economists are reported to have endorsed Corbyn's economic programmeI've been trying to find out who these are and have only been able to come up with this:https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/ourkingdom/35-economists-back-corbyn's-policies-as-'sensible'The only names most people will be able to recognise are Steve Keen and Ann Pettifor. We reviewed a book by leftwing Keynesian John Weeks in the April 2004 Socialist Standard and two edited by Alfredo Saad in May and December 2004. Saad describes himself as a Marxist and, as the reviews recognise, explains Marxian economics well. All the stranger then that he doesn't realise that Corbyn's "proposal to fund public investment by the sale of bonds to the Bank of England" (so-called People's QE) is just Keynes in a new package and cannot work to make capitalism operate in the interest of the working class or even to get it to "grow" again. Or perhaps he does and is just agreeing that Corbyn has opened an interesting discussion on economic policy.The media are reporting that Danny Blanchflower has also signed up. The former member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, that is. A bit more of a catch.
One of the signatories, James Meadway, has just penned an article where he places 'Corbynomics' to the right of the SDP's 1983 election manifesto:http://www.leftfutures.org/2015/08/extreme-back-to-the-80s-how-corbynomics-compares-with-the-sdp-manifesto/PS -Meadway'a background is SWP but he was part of the Counterfire split, and continues to be a member of that grouping.
Cheers. I didn't even think to look at his wiki page.It was one those wee left trainspotter factoids that was lodged in the back on my brain. The other wee bit about Trickett and his time in the ILP – that isn't mentioned in the entry – is that he was supposedly part of a 'Leninist faction' that existed within the ILP at the time. I just wish I remember where I read it. I just seem to remember that that wee bit of juicy gossip was revealed in disparaging terms.
Maybe this is a bit of fluff, but I thought it was interesting. From the New Statesman, a wee run down on Corbyn's team in his leadership campaign:http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/elections/2015/08/who-s-who-team-corbynThe article neglects to mention that Kat Fletcher was a member of the Alliance for Workers Liberty at the time when she was elected NUS President in 2004, leaving the AWL soon after. (I bet they were pleased at that turns of events.). . . And I seem to remember reading – pre-internet, so I cannot verify it – that Jon Trickett was once upon a time a member of Independent Labour Publications, the left group that the Independent Labour Party became when it was re-admitted to the Labour Party in the mid-seventies.
We all get that it's an attempt at a Private Eye'ish style front cover, but I'm not a fan. Vin's right: The Corbyn speech bubble feeds into the narrative being pushed down people's throats in the media right now. It's lazy and it's alienating. Some Party members just don't get it.And what's with the Cameron speech bubble and the 1870s gibe? Disraeli's One Nation Toryism was in power for the second half of the 1870s and it was a bastard sight more progressive than the class warriors currently in power. You don't have to be a historian of the 19th century to know that: A quick glance at his wiki page could have told you that.From the wiki page:Reforming legislation[Under the stewardship of Richard Assheton Cross, the Home Secretary, Disraeli's new government enacted many reforms, including the Artisan's and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act 1875,[176] which made inexpensive loans available to towns and cities to construct working-class housing. Also enacted were the Public Health Act 1875, modernising sanitary codes through the nation,[177] the Sale of Food and Drugs Act (1875), and the Education Act (1876).[176] Disraeli's government also introduced a new Factory Act meant to protect workers, the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875, which allowed peaceful picketing, and the Employers and Workmen Act (1875) to enable workers to sue employers in the civil courts if they broke legal contracts. As a result of these social reforms the Liberal-Labour MP Alexander Macdonald told his constituents in 1879, "The Conservative party have done more for the working classes in five years than the Liberals have in fifty."
A Gilmac article from 1954. One for the SPGB anoraks, 'Some notes on party history':http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2015/08/some-notes-on-party-history-1954.html
From a Barltrop article from 1977, a telling quote from Sidney Webb in 1930 which reveals that the Labour elite has pretty much always despised its own membership and supporters:"that the constituency parties were frequently unrepresentative groups of nonentities dominated by fanatics and cranks, and extremists, and that if the block votes of the trade unions were eliminated it would be impracticable to continue to vest the control of policy in Labour Party Conferences."From this article:http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-left-once-more-boring-from-within.html
jondwhite wrote:imposs1904 wrote:Vin's makes a fair point. I'm not suggesting for a second that we soft-pedal our criticisms of Labour in all its forms, but these memes just seem to be the one tone and I think they're going to backfire on us. Why would Corbyn supporters investigate our politics further if that's the first thing they see coming from us?I think these are only appealing to a small pool of individuals; individuals, in the main, who are already aware of Labour's sorry history in government.what if there was a meme image creates about exposing the anti working class nature of prime minister Cameron or Nigel farage?
I actually think that's different. Despite the apparent 'Jezzmania' – or whatever it's called this week – I don't think Corbyn is as ego driven as your usual professional politician. Maybe that absence of 'look at me, everyone' is part of his attraction for a lot of people at this point. I think he genuinely believes in a more inclusive and democratic Labour Party and movement, and I wouldn't say that for most Labour left-wingers. Sadly, we know it's not going to work out for him.I think it's fair game to have digs at the likes of Farage, Cameron . . . and the Galloways, Livingstones and Abbots of this world because it's so self-evident that it's their self-regard as much as their ideology which motors them, but having snide digs at Corbyn at this point just makes us come off as the sectarians that everyone thinks we already are.In my opinion, it's wrong-headed.
