LBird
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ALB wrote:LBird wrote:Hence, I see the role of propaganda and the battle of ideas within our class as a fundamental one, rather than struggle alone.
Exactly, but that's the point the Left Communists don't get and accuse us of "revolutionary pedagogy" and of being "socialist teachers" from outside the working class. A caricature of our position which shows that they don't learn from the experience of struggling to hear what exactly we do say.
I'm inclined to think that there is a necessary link between Engels' positivist view of science, and the notion that 'struggle/experience' leads to consciousness. The Left Communists, I think, espouse Engels, rather than Marx, on this issue.Ideas come from humans, not rocks.
ALB wrote:LBird wrote:But 'trade unions' are defensive organisations for workers within capitalism. They are not organisations for building offensive means against capitalism, to destroy it.Surely, with the development of Communist class consciousness, workers will themselves realise that the defensive trade unions have to be also destroyed, and replaced with offensive workers' organisations.Yes, the trade unions are merely defensive organisations of the working class within capitalism, but I don't think it follows that they necessarily need to be destroyed to play a part in the socialist revolution. As we say in our pamphlet What's Wrong With Using Parliament? (emphasis added):
Quote:This is not to say that the socialist majority only needs to organise itself politically. It does need to organise politically so as to be able to win control of political power. But it also needs to organise economically to take over and keep production going immediately after the winning of political control. We can’t anticipate how such socialist workplace organisations will emerge, whether from the reform of the existing trade unions, from breakaways from them or from the formation of completely new organisations. All we can say now is that such workplace organisations will arise and that they too, like the socialist political party, will have to organise themselves on a democratic basis, with mandated delegates instead of leaders.But doesn't "will have to organise themselves on a democratic basis, with mandated delegates instead of leaders" in effect mean that they are not 'trade unions'? Perhaps we need to define what actually we mean by a 'trades union', to determine whether it's meaningful to say they can be 'reformed'. I think 'breakaways' or 'completely new organisations' will be the Communist route, rather than 'reform'.
alanjjohnstone wrote:If, on the other hand, management grows stronger and imposes it will easier… we will know trade unions with all their faults do have a constructive role as a counter-balance.But 'trade unions' are defensive organisations for workers within capitalism. They are not organisations for building offensive means against capitalism, to destroy it.Surely, with the development of Communist class consciousness, workers will themselves realise that the defensive trade unions have to be also destroyed, and replaced with offensive workers' organisations.In fact, I'd see the presence of trade unions (and workers' acceptance of them as necessary to defend themselves), as itself an indicator of a lack of class consciousness.That is, the growth and extension of trade unions in a society is a measure of its non-revolutionary temper. I don't see 'class consciousness' developing merely from 'struggle'. If that 'struggle' doesn't have a conscious, Communist underpinning, then the result won't be wider class consciousness. Just, perhaps, better wages and conditions. This isn't to deny those as advantages to workers under capitalism, or a reason not to struggle for those things, but it is to say that it's nothing to do with class consciousness. Class consciousness is the desire to destroy wages, not to improve them.I know that this viewpoint separates me from those comrades who think that 'struggle', in itself, leads to consciousness. I don't think it does, and basing our efforts on the trades unions is, I think, a measure of our weakness as Communists, and of the lack of class consciousness within our class.Hence, I see the role of propaganda and the battle of ideas within our class as a fundamental one, rather than struggle alone.If I were to make these opposing points of view plain, I would say:"struggle leads to consciousness" is being mistaken for "class struggle leads to class consciousness"It needs to be:class consciousness leads to class struggle.Ideas come from humans, not the 'material world' or 'experience'.Ideas have to be tested in the material world or through experience, but the ideas come first, not experience of struggle.The experience of 'pay and job struggles' will lead to consciousness of the need for 'pay and jobs', that is, the wage system.
robbo203 wrote:However, there is a very real danger of transferring a mode of looking at the world pertaining the physical sciences to the social sciences. I'm talking about the problem of "reflexivity "as it is called. We are part of the very thing we are "observing". It is impossible to step outside society abd "scientifically" examine it from an external standpoint as one might a rock or a plant or aome chemical reaction. Indeed, at a more fundamental level of quantum physics with a phenomenom like the "observer effect", some might even question that last claim.[my bold]Yes, "it is also impossible to step outside of society" to examine a rock or the other real things you mention, robbo. Understanding rocks requires a social standpoint, just like social things.What we have to ensure is that proletarian science is based on this realisation. That is, that the 'physical sciences' are brought under the same method as the 'social sciences', which is the complete opposite of the bourgeoisie's 19th century attempt to bring the 'method of physics' into 'social studies', like history, for example.As you say, 'we are part of the very thing we are "observing" '. Nature is examining itself, rock and human, alike.
Ed wrote:The party position on how socialists should behave in parliament is that they would abide by the democratic decisions of the party. So it is left open, an understandable position given that there may be unforseen exceptional circumstances. The question has been a very long standing bone of contention within the party being the issue of the 1911 split and being an issue raised in the 1991 expulsion. Probably the two most damaging internal events in the party's history.Well, I don't wish to be the source of any splits or expulsions……but… it does seem as if the issue being 'left open' is a bit of a fudge, given that it's such a central issue for a party that argues for parliamentary participation. The spelling out of the nature of that participation would seem to be fundamentally important; otherwise, why would anyone of either point of view join the party, if it might go on to embody a policy which they fundamentally disagree with?
Ed wrote:My personal views would be the polar opposite of YMS's. I believe socialists elected to parliament should either not take their seats or vote no or abstain to every piece of legislation. That is what I would argue and vote for in the event of the party ever winning an election.Yes, this view seems to me to be the one expressed by those members who are arguing with the ICC and on LibCom, for the case of 'parliament'. That is, the votes obtained can play a part in helping to determine levels of class consciousness, and that a majority vote would help legitimise those extra-parliamentary forces of workers' councils and parties, in the eyes of the state's personnel, and thus weaken the state's coercive structures.So, the 'parliamentary road', in this conception, is essentially a passive one, that provides a picture of political and ideological developments outside of parliament, and inflicts damage on the state's ability to function as a tool of the ruling class.This is the polar opposite, it seems to me, of Young Master Smeet's view of parliament as a much more active factor in workers' political organisation. I agree with the 'passive' road, which I think is also your view, Ed?I hope other party members and non-members (like me) participate in this discussion, because I'm still unclear about much of this issue, and can only learn from a proper debate.
Young Master Smeet wrote:LBird wrote:That is, that the SPGB thinks that 'parliament' within a capitalist economy can be controlled by the proletariat.Of course the Parliament can be controlled by the proletariat, we only need to win the elections. Whether that parliament could do anything other than govern, ultimately, in the interests of capital, is another thing (and let's recall that web are discussing a non-revolutionary situation in which the working class lacks the strength to overthrow capital). That doesn't mean that we can't open the books, put secret diplomacy to one side and dismantle the anti-democratic parts of the state and make life generally harder for the capitalist class to exert their influence except openly.I'm giving my own opinion, but one which I don't think is entirely without the scope of the party's agreed position.
Thanks for being frank about your personal views, YMS.But I think that those views go against the grain of what's being argued by the party against the ICC and LibCom.Given what you've said, I'm inclined to think that there is some substance in the criticisms being made of the SPGB.
YMS wrote:As to worker's councils, I think the revolutionary political party and workers councils are the same thing, but using different words and looked at with eyes asquint.Well, since I think that there will be a multiplicity of 'workers' parties' organised around different theories and assumptions about various policies, I don't see them as 'the same thing' as workers' councils.If pushed (and this is a very tentative opinion, which I could easily revise), I'd say that workers' councils would be the 'parliament' within which workers' parties tried to gain influence. But the weapons would be under the control of the councils, which clearly would have a political power separate from any particular party, unlike the present 'parliament', which in many ways is a figleaf.As I've argued to the ICC, the class must have the power to disband any party that the class sees fit to.However, these political relationships between party (s) and class are still to me very opaque, which is why I try to stimulate discussion about the issue (and it is related to issues of 'consciousness' and 'revolution by minority/majority').
alanjjohnstone wrote:Shall we intervene with forced collectivisation of the billions who still live a peasant-proprietary way of life…or shall we simply let them get on with it but offer the carrots of co-operative shared free access of tractors and machinery and fertilisers and seeds and what not, in "exchange" for the surplus product, and let them retain their "title deeds" to their little plots of land and consider it more a personal possession than private property and let things evolve at its own pace, if it has no bearing on the majority of us well-being or condition.The whole tenor of your post, ajj, leads me to think you stand closer to the ICC's conception of 'revolution', than what I understood the SPGB's position to be. That is, for the ICC, that most of the 'revolution', in practice, will take place after the revolution.I'm of the opinion that most of the 'revolution' will take place prior to the revolution. That is, proletarian culture and ideas will have displaced most of the religious mumbo-jumbo about cutting bits of skin off kids' genitals, whether girl or boy, and that Communist class consciousness will be dominant, and that the peasantry will be a small minority, after capitalism has trampled across the remaining pre-capitalist modes.As for 'title deeds', I thought that the concept of 'the earth is a common treasury' would trump that ideology? How can someone retain 'title deeds' to our common property?
Young Master Smeet wrote:LBird wrote:I don't recognise this scenario, YMS, as any sort of revolutionary situation.I've no intention of allowing the CBI to exist, never mind to negotiate with it! Or 'to govern within the limits of capitalism'!No money, no market. Production and distribution on the basis of need. What's the problem?Yes, that's right, that's a non-revolutionary situation, where the revolutionary parts of the working class are in the minority, but still able to exercise decisive control of the levers of state machienry whether in localities or nationally by a technical quirk of the electoral system.
This sounds awfully like confirmation of the accusations hurled at the SPGB by the ICC and on LibCom, YMS!That is, that the SPGB thinks that 'parliament' within a capitalist economy can be controlled by the proletariat.But, on the contrary, surely 'the revolutionary parts of the working class' will be embodied in Workers' Councils, not parliament? And that parliament will be merely a propaganda tool used during the non-revolutionary period, and will dissolve itself, because those worker-delegates (ie. Communist MPs) will be controlled by workers, who will now have their own proletarian political structures, once the workers' councils are in a position to supercede parliament?Your scenario leads me to believe that the concerns expressed by the ICC and on LibCom have some substance.I'm still unsure about this issue; perhaps I'm still missing some fundamental point, on either side. Do your views represent the SPGB? Will someone from the SPGB confirm or clarify these points?
Young Master Smeet wrote:Young Master Smeet wrote:Now, we can also envision a situation where the working class could take control of the state, but be unable to abolish capitalism (the vexed question of the local majority, or the technical majority). Whilst it would ultimately have to govern within the limits of the interest of capital, such local/technial majorities could work to keep naked state power out of the direct hands of the agents of capital.I should add, of course, that the situation could arise where the working class collectively and as a whole consciously deals with the capitalist class as a whiole, through some formal mechanism. Not corporatism, but an open line of division say, between the democratic socialist majority's delegates and the CBI.
I don't recognise this scenario, YMS, as any sort of revolutionary situation.I've no intention of allowing the CBI to exist, never mind to negotiate with it! Or 'to govern within the limits of capitalism'!No money, no market. Production and distribution on the basis of need. What's the problem?
alanjjohnstone wrote:At one time long ago i had this romantic idea that we form a International Brigade to liberate socialist minorities in 'medieval' backward countries. Having since visited some places i re-evaluated and just as medieval Calvinism existed in the Outer Hebrides (and Chapel in parts of Wales, i guess) long after it disappeared elsewhere and died its own death in its own time we will let that happen and meantime any who wish to exit such a region will receive a welcome and not be treated as a unwanted as a political refugee or asylum seeker currently is.[my bold]Could you elaborate your thinking on this, please, ajj?To me, your analogy of 'medieval Calvinism' with 'remnants of capitalism' just doesn't seem apt. Surely the successful socialist majority across the world would openly and forcefully intervene, to destroy any remaining exploitative class relationships, anywhere on this planet? Small pockets of 'medieval Calvinism' didn't threaten wider capitalism, in either systemic or individual terms, and could be left to dissolve in time. But for us, even if it could be argued that small pockets of 'remnant capitalism' didn't threaten us systematically (and I'd be very wary of accepting this view), surely the presence of these exploitative socio-economic relations would harm those individuals left within those 'backward' structures?To focus the question, polemically, would we allow FGM to continue, just because some remnant cultures wanted it to continue?This issue of 'intervention' (whether "romantic International Brigade-like" or not), to destroy exploitative socio-economic structures (and their corresponding 'cultures'), needs much more further thought and discussion by Communists, I think.
ajj wrote:i guess if a warlord (or a recalcitrant region) has in his clutches (as in Congo) highly sought after natural resource we will engage in barter. No lifestyle crisis for the rest of us in the rest of the world.This almost seems like an 'I'm all right, Jack!' attitude, ajj!Surely we'd argue that , the earth being a common treasury, the 'warlord' would be expropriated by force, his exploited subjects liberated, educated and socialised into our Communist worldview, and the issue of 'natural resources' and their extraction would be decided democratically, taking into account our world ecology.The warlord would be the one facing a 'lifestyle crisis' (if not a 'life crisis'), not us, anyway! No 'barter' with thieves, no leaving 'the remnant exploited' to their fate, as long as it doesn't impact on our 'lifestyle'.No, intervention would be necessary, IMO.
ALB wrote:I still think that social, political and economic conditions in Russia a hundred or more years were so vastly different from those that exist in Britain, most other European countries, North America, Australasia, Japan, etc that tactics derived from Tsarist Russia are not relevant for us today (and weren't then in Britain or North America either). So, discussing them is interesting but largely of historical or academic interest.[my bold]Personally, I think this constant pre-occupation, with the Bolsheviks' experience during the Tsarist period, is one of the main factors why Communists during the 20th century have had less and less influence on other workers. It might have been relevant in some areas prior to WW2, but since then that period has become increasingly irrelevant to the problems (and potential solutions) of workers on this planet.We must learn to explain our ideas in contemporary terms, not those of the 19th or early 20th centuries. Some can be translated (Marx's gobbledegook is still useful, but needs updating and, most of all, explaining), but the ideas, context and experiences of Lenin and the Bolsheviks are as irrelevant and sleep-inducing to most, as are the minutiae of 8th century Vatican personalities and policies.I've nothing againgst 'historical and academic interests' (if fact, I think that they'll bloom under Communism), but they are not the political and ideological interests that should be our focus, in the present.
ALB wrote:After somebody accused us of accepting Lenin's view in What Is To Be Done? that left to itself the working class is capable of acquiring only a trade union consciousness and that socialist consciousness had therefore to be brought to them from outside the class struggle by "educators", one of our members retorted that it was them who were being Leninist as they assumed that while they were able to reach a socialist consciousness under capitalism the rest of the working class couldn't.Yes, I'm always being accused, on the ICC site, of being a "pseudo-Leninist educator" (my phrase, I hasten to add, not theirs, but it sums up the 'charge' well), for arguing that the proletariat has to educate itself. That is, the working class has to consciously choose Communism.The next 'charge' (also levelled at the SPGB) is my wanting 'consciousness by individual accretion' (me again). Well, yeah, 'how else?'. They always mention 'mass consciousness', as if 'the mass' isn't individuals thinking for themselves.To sum up, I do believe that Communist propaganda must emerge from, be circulated around, and accepted by, the individuals who constitute the 'mass' of the working class. I'm a worker, and do a bit (far too little, perhaps) to help this development to take place, both on the internet, in pubs, in meetings, in work and in the bloody street with strangers, sometimes!Lenin was wrong. Communism is now in (sections of) the working class; it doesn't need 'help from outside'. That particular 'task from outside' was done in the 19th century, not least by Marx and Engels. The working class has since had the task itself of developing Communist class consciousness. It hasn't achieved this yet, but it has to do this itself, in the future. It might sometimes be the result of 'mass struggle' (in the sense of consciousness spreading quickly to many individuals), but more often the result of face-to-face debate and discussions between individual workers, until a 'critical mass' is achieved. This won't be 100%, but neither will it be 5% organised in a Leninist-style party. It has to be a mass Communist consciousness, prior to 'the big day'.Their argument of the 'material struggle' is related to their Engelsian conception of Marx's views. We've had some debate here about that, so I won't resurrect it now. Suffice to say, I think views of science and views of politics are interrelated.
ALB wrote:We could have been even more philosophical and made more of the point (oft discussed here) that humans can't experience anything except via the mind. But I did discuss this with one of the visitors on the train back, who was a student of philosophy, who said he'd been tempted to make the same point.Not 'via' the mind (that smacks of the origin being 'material reality', as for Engels and Leninists), but 'from' the mind. Humans creatively interact with 'reality', and build their social knowledge of the real.Humans create their knowledge of nature and society. That is why we can create Communism. Those who think that 'material conditions' will build Communism, are waiting for 'the rocks' to speak to us. That's why they've failed to bother trying to propagandise amongst their fellow workers. They don't need to, because, one fine day, the rocks will speak and workers will hear. Luckily, the Leninists can already hear these whispers (they have that sort of consciousness), and so can assure the rest of the class what is coming.Personally, I'm not surprised that workers haven't been taken in by this nonsense. I'm not anymore. To my shame, I once was, when I first tried to reject capitalism and went searching for 'Communists'. Whilst the first 'Communists' that workers, starting to ask questions, meet are Leninists/Trotskyists/Maoists, then the bourgeoisie have nothing to fear (from the proletariat, anyway; complete and utter collapse of human society, from social and environmental issues, is another fear entirely).
ALB wrote:Notable is LBird's valiant efforts to put over a case similar to ours making the simple point that there is in fact no "total opposition" between participating in elections and "working in the autonomous organs created by the class struggle". But I don't think he's going to be able to convince the dogmatic anti-parliamentarists there to abandon their dogma and take a more reasonable approach.My 'efforts', though, are directed to getting an informed discussion going, rather than simply 'supporting' the SPGB case. I'm still keen to see a proper exchange, rather than the building and destroying of 'straw men'.This is because I'm yet to be convinced, either way. Perhaps my conception of 'acceptable parliamentary action' isn't the same as the SPGB's official one, and perhaps my understanding of the relationship between 'parliamentary delegates' and 'workers' councils' isn't the same, either.As I say, I think many are in my position, of being unsure of 'just what it is' that both sides are saying…
ALB wrote:The question of how socialist class consconsciousness arose also came up. At one point one of them came close to saying that workers had no need to hear or consider arguments for socialism as this would spontaneously arise from their experience of struggle at work. He later backtracked from this when it was asked why then did they publish a journal and pamphlets and hold meetings and conceded that an organisation putting over the case for socialism was necessary to hasten the growth of socialist (they call it communist) class consciousness.[my bold]After many discussions with both Communists and Anarchists on LibCom and the ICC site, it's become clear to me that this is a central, fundamental, philosophical assumption which opponents both of parliamentary/electoral tactics and any political organisation at all have in common.That is, the belief that 'struggle leads to class consciousness'.I disagree with this, and think that 'struggle' alone (ie. any struggle which doesn't have widespread 'class consciousness' directing at it from the start) will lead down a non-Communist/Socialist road. The result of that struggle will not be Communism.If there is no (or very little) revolutionary consciousness and intent, it will go down bourgeois paths, and retain money and markets. If there is a wider (but still a small minority) consciousness, embodied in a 'party of revolutionaries', it will necessarily have to forego democracy, because democracy applied to a majority non-consciousness will lead to, yes, you've guessed it, money and markets. Thus, the result in this scenario will be undemocratic 'party rule' ('experts' who are 'in the know', both of science and society, an elitist technocracy), and we've seen where that leads during the 20th century.No, we must insist that mere 'struggle' (perhaps for higher wages, lower rents, tax increases for the rich, lead by Militant, etc.) will not lead to Communism. That outcome requires a class conscious proletariat, with a particular end in mind (ie. Communism). Struggle without an 'end' in mind will lead to Bernstein's road. After the 'revolutionary event', slow, evolutionary, reformist change, which will gradually remove money and the market…No, it won't. The revolution in workers' minds has to happen before the revolutionary event. That is, revolution is a long learning process, not just the capturing of political power. The event is the radical break, which ends the process, rather than a mere break in power, which initiates the process of developing consciousness.The market and money must be openly known to be the target of our destruction. While most workers still want money to spend as individuals in markets, they want capitalism, not Communism/Socialism. That aim must be the core of Communist propaganda, and workers must become Communists, because they can see that money and markets must be destroyed.They won't learn that in mere 'struggle', especially if the struggle is for 'higher wages'. Desire for higher wages is not class consciousness.
steve colborn wrote:Ofsted's chief inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, told MPs that, as a former headteacher, he "saw the result of children being brought up badly by their parents" and communities should play more of a role in supporting problem families.Wilshaw's yet another rich dickhead. Social analysis is beyond the thick.Why doesn't he 'see the result of' Cameron, Osbourne and Johnson 'being brought up badly by their parents'. Their parents (and other forebears) were thieves, who for generation after generation have been stealing our wealth. They brought up their little horrors to continue to ransack our society, and yet Wilshaw worries about a few 'problem families', who by comparison cause virtually no problems, and whose 'problems' will be easily remedied, given the economic and cultural resources.Our world community 'should play more of a role in expropriating problem families', not 'supporting' them."Wilshaw! Get to the back of the class, lad! And put on the pointy hat with the big 'D' on it…"
