robbo203
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mcolome1 wrote:He has already capitulated to the same things that he was opposing on his campaign, he is going to be part of the killing machine of the US government.His career as an honest politician has been thrown in the trash can, and probably his whole career is over because more than 40% of the peoples what were following him are not going to vote for Hillary Clinton
Couldn't agree more. I know its perhaps naive to expect anything different but – boy! – what a disappointment Sanders has proven to be! What a sellout! Unbelievable that he should have actually endorsed Clinton. Better that he had said nothing at all than this. I think he has lost all respect as a politician and has become just another grey suit, I vaguely hoped he might be a little different from the run of mill politicians. But not so, The problem is that Sanders campaign has prompted unpredecented levels of interest in the word "socialism". Whats gonna become of that I wonder?
Ralph wrote:robbo203 wrote:Hi Ralph, Socialists do sometimes turn their attention to the practical organisation of a hypothetical future socialist society. In fact the SPGB published a pamphlet on this very subject here http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/socialism-practical-alternative Finally read this, it's really good… It starts to look persuasive, if this was done back in 1994 was there a different attitude or was this just a rebellion! If you can go this far you can go further surely…
I wouldnt disagree with that. What happened to the whole "Productiion for Use " initiative back in 1980s/90s? It seemed to have just fizzled out, Such a pity. It was one of the most positive projects ever embarked upon by the SPGB
ALB wrote:I am all in favour of us showing how socialism is technologically feasible, e.g that there are enough resources to eliminate poverty, malnutrition, etc but I don't think that will satisfy Ralph. He won't be satisfied till we can tell him where he can park his car or what he will have for breakfast in socialism.Hmm, I dont get the sense that this is what Ralph is asking for which is quite a caricature! He wants, reasonably enough, a more detailed idea of what socialism would entail but not at that level of detail LOL! But you put your finger on it, really. Its not a question of some telling others what to expect in socialism. Rather, its question of drawing in others into the business of shaping those expectations themselves. That is to say, removing this " them" and "us" (the so called experts) dichotomy by encouraging people to see this is a coooperative enterprise in which they themselves are likewise creative agents. That in itself will help to weaken the kind of understandable resistance people put up when presented with an essentially formulaic argument for socialism couched in the most generalised abstract terms. Point is you can only really begin to engage workers' creative identifiction with socialism, in my view, by stimulating or encouraging them to think along these lines, by preseinting – to use Marx's expression – more in the way of "recipes for the cookshops of the future". In other words, putting the ball in their own court, so to speak, and getting them to work through the logic of the argument themselves by inviting their commentary and contribution. Of course, such recipes as we present cannot, and should not, be presented as the final word on the matter and your mention of one aspect of Pieters work being outdated is a timely reminded of that. It must be presented as an open ended process in which the findings reached are always provisional. Neverthless, it is a process that needs still to be undertaken whatever the caveats we attach to it
Ralph wrote:I'm not wanting answers of course but there are thousands of questions just like these that need consideration, let's not assume that it would just work, because it wouldn't, everyone who would buy into the concept would inevitably have some expectation of the outcome, they would be asking these kind of questions, so why not sit down and try and work it out. Consider every way something can fail, preempt solutions or do something a different way and perhaps you end up with a working model something believable for wider consideration. The ability for the "plan" to deliver would be everything, if it didn't then anarchy would follow and there would be no going back.OK I can hear the groans already, we can't try to answer these kind of questions.. and yet they need answering, everyone would need to understand their role, have realistic expectations and contribute accordingly.Catch 22 then, if you can't persuade people to join without having a blueprint then you'll never have the people to make or agree a blueprint. A committee of billions would never achieve it in the time the planet has left, too many cooks spoil the broth, but we nearly all agree when something tastes good.RalphI think you have to differentiate between what socialism might be like and the process of arriving there. Unfortunately we have tended not to be very forthcoming in respect of either of these things, opting for vague generalities that seem safe enough to be techncially correct but which remain unconvincing for most people Socialism can only be ahieved when a significant majority want and understand it. Consequently, the larger the movement towards socialism, the closer we are to socialism, the more detailed the ideas we are likely to have about what a socialist soiety might actually look like in practice. At the moment, we tend to focus on just the broad stuctural or generic feautures of socialism – common ownership and democratic control of the industrial resources, production solely for use , free access to goods and services, volunteer labour and so on and so forth. We make little effort to go beyond this kind of generalised schema which is a pity, I think. It makes socialism appear to be some kind of theoretically abstract proposition remote from our everyday lives. People confronted with this proposition tend to politiely say "its a nice idea" but walk away unconvinced that it is likely ever to be implemented. The temptation for socialists faced with this credibility gap is to fall back on somewhat mechanistic theories of social change. "Socialism is in our material interests" which interests are bound to assert themselves given sufficient time. The problem here is the disconnect between theory and practice, between the individual and the collective (class). It is not necessarily in my immediate interests as a worker to collaborate with my fellow workers against my capitalist employer. It could actually be in my immediate interest to stab my fellow workers in the back as I climb up the greasey pole of career advancement So we need to focus more on what we are trying to achieve as socialists , to put more flesh on the bones of the basic concept of socialism. To take just one of your examples – housing. There are masses of data relating to this subject. For instance, there are huge numbers of properties standing empty at any one time – 1 million in the UK, 3-4 million in Spain, 18 million in the USA, 60 miillion in China. There are in addition millions of square metres of empty offices, retial establishments, warehouses, factories etc etc some of which could be readily converted to accommodation. In Granada in Spain, my nearest city. there is the main hospital near the city centre which has served the community for decades. It is currently being run down as a spanking new hospital has just opened – the largest in Spain. But the old building still has a useful life of many decades ahead of it. It could easily be converted into say student accommodation for the university. At the moment no one has any idea what to do with it. It is data like this that socialists could use to present a more detailed picture of what a socialist could be like and one that would ring true for workers who are quite capable of grasping the absurdity of people living in substandard accommodation or even on the street while millions of housing units remain empty and building workers remain on the dole
ALB wrote:If I remember right Pieter Lawrence thought that socialism would be like today but without money. Maybe he was right. Obviously it will be to start with. Will that do?"Like today but without money" would be a helluva lot different from the world we live in today, though, Adam! As is often pointed , its not so much money that we seek to get rid as the socio-economic relationships that necessitate money. The disappearance of these relationships could not but make for a radically different kind of experience in so many diverse ways. Which is why I would question the logic of the argument that socialism equals capitalism minus the money I agree with Tim: Pieter Lawrence's work on Production for use Committee was, indeed," a missed opportunity for the Party". It has always struck me as odd that the SPGB does not have some kind of research department – maybe something like Labour Research Department – http://www.lrd.org.uk/index.php – producing regular bulletins and/or the odd special issue booklet (e.g.. how can we overcome global hunger?) The information such an entity could collate together and systematise could go a long towards putting flesh on the bares bones of socialism as a concept, making it more credible and relevant to the practical problems we are subject to today.and inspiring workers to become socialists…..
ALB wrote:robbo203 wrote:I find this whole train of thought stemming from Marx expressing an ingrained reluctance to “write recipes for the cook-shops of the future" deeply regrettable. As a matter of fact had Marx been more forthcoming in that regard it would have been far more difficult for the Leninists of all hues to assimilate Marxian thinking to their own anti-socialist and statist project.Actually, Marx did say quite a bit about your (1) and (2) and certainly enough to counter Leninist distortions http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1973/no-832-december-1973/marxs-conception-socialism It was (3) he wasn't so keen on (and of course the "cook-shops" of Marx's day, where you could buy ready-cooked meals, were quite different to those of today). Others like Edward Bellamy and William Morris were prepared to have a go But these are descriptions of what the writer would personally like socialism to be like not what it actually will be. I don't think that would satisfy Ralph. He does seem to be insisting on knowing what the cook-shops of the future will be like rather than could be or might be.
True. Marx did write a fair bit on 1) and 2) and I suppose it would be a bit churlish and pointless to argue that he could have written more to clarify what he wrote and preempt the kind of gross misinterpretations to which his writings have been subjected which we with the benefit of hindsight can see It is in respect of 3), as you say, that his reluctance to “write recipes for the cook-shops of the future" was most pronounced. His rare forays into this area of, lets call it, "futuristic speculation" e.g.. his reference to the division of labour in socialism (it would be "possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic"). or the use of labour vouchers in the first stage of socialism/communism were not very well argued at all. They seem half hearted and/or naffI come back to the point that Pieter Lawrence was making about the need to make socialism relevant in the conditions we find ourselves in today. That does mean going beyond 1). and 2) and taking seriously the need to significantly expand on 3) which is the domain where socialist principles directly engage with the empirical facts we face. Of course such speculations about how socialism will go about solving the problems we confront are provisional , not set in concrete and must always be open to modification and amendment. But the point is that they must still somehow be made. Not to make them betrays a lack of confidence in the possibility of socialism ever happening. Ironically it actually contributes to the impression that socialism is just a utopian ideal that has no practical relevance to the world we live in
The way I look at it, there are 3 different aspects or dimensions to the question of presenting a vision of the kind of society we socialists seek to bring about: 1) A core set of formal postulates that constitute the very definition of socialism we present – for example, common ownership of the means of producing wealth, democratic control, free access to goods and services, voluntaristic character of labour, and so on 2) logical inferences that derive from the above and from the application of this model of society under conditions of real world constraints – for example, the elimination of quid pro quo economic exchanges and all kinds of exchange-related phenomena and institutions such as money, wages, profit; the disappearance of the state as an institutional tool of class society; a spontaneously ordered or relatively decentralised system of production as opposed to one based on centralised or society wide planning (the Leninist model) , etc etc 3) Contingent details that are, of their very nature, unpredictable and uncertain and dependent upon unforeseeable cultural technological and other developments – for example, forms of rationing that might apply in the case of goods that are technically scarce, the degree of automation or labour intensity in the production process, the degree of localisation versus global interdependencein the organisation of production, the treatment of socially deviant or disruptive behaviour and so on I believe that 1) and 2) should obviously be promoted as part of the formal case for socialism and that there should be ample scope for promoting 3) albeit in a more tentative or speculative fashion. This goes hand in hand with my belief that it would be healthy for an organisation like the SPGB not to project a too monolithic image of itself and that it should to an extent accommodate and reflect the diversity of views being expressed in the wider social environment. I find this whole train of thought stemming from Marx expressing an ingrained reluctance to “write recipes for the cook-shops of the future" deeply regrettable. As a matter of fact had Marx been more forthcoming in that regard it would have been far more difficult for the Leninists of all hues to assimilate Marxian thinking to their own anti-socialist and statist project.I always remember the words of the late comrade Pieter Lawrence back in the 1980s when the "Production for Use" project was set up and a report was commissioned. Pieter argued along the lines that if we are not ourselves prepared to say more about a possible socialist future and how it could tackle the existing problems we confront today, then we effectively relinquish the future to the opponents of socialism. We abandon the very ground on which the debate about the future is being waged. We turn socialism into a kind of hollowed-out formulaic set of empty and lifeless dogmas. We need to add flesh to the bones of a future socialist society. We need to draw people into the debate about a possible future society and what it might mean and we can only do that by critically exciting their imagination
Hi Ralph, Socialists do sometimes turn their attention to the practical organisation of a hypothetical future socialist society. In fact the SPGB published a pamphlet on this very subject here http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/socialism-practical-alternative I'm one of those who strongly believes we definitely needs to put more flesh on the bare bones of the idea of a socialist alternative, There is a lot more than can be inferred from the idea that is often left unsaid which is a great pity. While the more fine grained details are arguably of a more speculative nature and are liable to be outdated by the time we achieve socialism, there is much to recommend the process of speculation itself (providing it is understood to be such_ If you can't fire the imagine all you are left with is a dry formulaic response to the question of "what is socialism", Thats not going provide much of an incentive to organise for socialism, I think
Dave B wrote:Hi Robbo is the evil of equality stalin thing this one do you suppose?Hi Dave, Not too sure about that but came across the quote in the text mentioned. Incidentally you wil love this site with a wealth of handy quotes reflecting the evolution of Soviet state capitalism:http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/ussrchap1.html Check it out!
Szaviels, I think you need to be clear what you mean by "class". Class does not strictly denote income differentials – at least in the Marxian sense – though it will entail such differences. Rather, class has to do with one's relationship to the means of wealth production e,g as a capitalist (or owner of capital) or worker. In the Soviet Union , a tiny minority – the state capitalist class or nomenklatura – effectively owned the means of wealth production in a collective class sense via is complete control over the state machine and to the exclusion of the great majority. De facto ownerhsip means the same thing as ultimate control. If you exercise ultimate control over something, you own it, and vice versa. This is why genuine socialism has to be a democratically controlled society. Right from the start the Soviet union sought to shore up and entrench minority control, and therefore de facto ownership, of the means of wealth production. This went hand in hand with spiralling income inequality. Lenin, around the time of the Bolshevik revolution had, seemingly, enthusiastically endorsed the principle of equal pay for everyone – what is called uravnilovka or income levelling – as a political tactic to gain working class support. However, in less than a year later, in an address given in April 1918 (published as "The Soviets at Work") he abjectly recanted: “We were forced now to make use of the old bourgeois method and agreed a very high remuneration for the services of the bourgeois specialists. All those who are acquainted with the facts understand this, but not all give sufficient thought to the significance of such a measure on the part of the proletarian state. It is clear that such a measure is a compromise, that it is a departure from the principles of the Paris Commune and of any proletarian rule." This polarisation of wealth and income is an inevitable aspect of capitalism which any government seeking to administer such a system would be compelled to promote. Stalin too recognised the importance of unequal remuneration upon coming to power and having to fashion policy to fit the needs of the developing system of Soviet state capitalism. But Stalin but went a lot further than Lenin in denouncing the "evil of equality" and declaring Marxism to be the "enemy of equalisation" (cited in Alex F. Dowlah, John E. Elliott. 1997, The Life and Times of Soviet Socialism,Praeger , Wesrport p.82) Uravnilovka, was vigorously opposed on the grounds that it undermined incentives and economic performance. And most surreally of all, Foreign Minister Molotov once declared that “Bolshevik policy demands a resolute struggle against equalitarians as accomplices of the class enemy, as elements hostile to socialism." (Tony Cliff, State Capitalism in Russia, p.69 http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1955/statecap/index.htm). It was perhaps not surprising, therefore, that in Russia, the ratio between the lowest and highest wages steadily increased from 1:1.8 just after the Bolshevik Revolution to 1:40 in 1950 (Ossowski S, Patterson S, Class Structure in the Social Consciousness, Free Press of Glencoe, New York 1963, 116). While such differentials appear modest by western standards, they hardly begin to reflect the true picture. There were a number of other factors that massively augmented the level of inequality within Soviet Union and its satellites. These included:1) The widespread practice of multiple or plural salaries among the Soviet elite2) The “packet system” or "thirteenth month" bonus system whereby some members of the nomenklatura were secretly paid for an additional month in every year by the central authorities as a reward for their loyalty, as reported by Medvedev 3) Payments in kind of all sorts – such as free dachas, chauffer driven cars and foreign holidays – which were massively skewed in favour of the Soviet elite such that the higher up one was in the social hierarchy the larger this component of your income is likely to be in relative and absolute terms4) Corruption, bribery and backhanders from the black economy representing a hidden transfer of wealth to the Soviet elite who were well placed to benefit from this. John Fleming and John Micklewright in their paper "Income Distribution, Economic Systems and Transition" cite the work of researchers like Morrison who, using data from the 1970s, found that countries like Poland and the Soviet Union had relatively high levels of income inequality, registering gini coefficients of 0.31 in both cases, which put them on a par with Canada (0.30) and the USA (0.34) (http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/eps70.pdf). According to Roy Medvedev (Khrushchev: The Years in Power, Columbia University Press. 1976, 540), taking into account not only their inflated "salaries" but also the many privileges and perks enjoyed by the Soviet elite (who even had access to their own retail outlets stocking western goods and various other facilities from which the general public was physically excluded) the ratio between low and high earners was more like 1:100. Some amongst the Soviet elite became very wealthy in their own right and a much quoted source in this regard is a pamphlet published in 1945 by the Russia Today Society (London) called "Soviet Millionaires", written by Reg Bishop, a supporter of the Soviet regime, that proudly boasted of the existence of rouble millionaires there as an indicator of economic success. Some amongst the Soviet elite, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, moved on to transmogrify into the oligarchs of modern day Russia, drawing on their extensive power and influence built up in the Soviet era. As one report notes: According to a 1995 study conducted by the Russian Academy of Sciences, more than 60 percent of Russia's wealthiest millionaires, and 75 percent of the new political elite, are former members of the communist nomenklatura , and 38 percent of Russia's businesspeople held economic positions in the CPSU(http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-11420.html).
jondwhite wrote:There was a post about AskASocialist (which no longer seems to exist) on Sep 2011 on spopen. I have startedhttp://askasocialist.blogspot.comMaybe promote this blogspot in some way. I take it you literally mean you started today?
ALB wrote:In other words, he supported Free Trade as he held that this would help capitalism develop quicker, so paving the way for socialism. Now, of course, capitalism has long since built up the material basis for a worldwide society of plenty for all.That is an interesting observation, Other comments by Marx suggest otherwise, For instance at the end of chapter two of the Communist Manifesto we find him and Fred arguing for a state capitalist agenda precisely in order to increase the productive as rapidly as possible: The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm Seems slightly contradictory to me!
Meel wrote:Bit surprised about the cover of your June Socialist Standard.Quite a catchy headline as it stands, but unfair to lump Corbyn in with the conservative leaders. Many on this forum, and out there among voters, think he is basically “a decent man”, and a principled one.McDonnell and Corbyn may well think that they can “chain the beast” that is capitalism and will find out in time that they cannot. They will be forced to make unpleasant compromises. I know this, you know this.But I just don’t think you will win any friends in waters you may want to fish in with this cover.There is a qualitative difference between Jeremy Corbyn and the leaders you have lumped him in with.Yes I would agree. Corbyn is not a socialist as we understand the term and he leads a party that is unequivocally pro capitalist Nevertheless he comes across and is widely regarded (even by his opponents) as a decent and principled man but, according to his opponents, lacking in the qualities that make him a strong leader, For socialists, of course, that hardly constitutes a defect. On the contrary. It is pretty disgusting the way the media have been treating Corbyn. The negativety is unprecedented. According to my newsfeed today:Earlier Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, became the most senior party figure to call on Corbyn to resign, intensifying the pressure on the embattled leader on a day of drama in Westminster.“It’s a great tragedy. He does have a members’ mandate, but those members who join a political party know that you also need a parliamentary mandate if you’re to form a government,” Watson told the BBC. What a damning indictment of the Labour Party and its anti democratic practices that the parliamentary body considers itself to be above and separate from the party membership who elected Corbyn into power in the first place. I think he is right to face down these machiavellian manipulators as a matter of principle and I dont think there will be many who will lose much sleep if the lot of them get deselected come the next General Election
stuartw2112 wrote:As for this party, well I was right about that too. You've played a very minor role of course, but you have aspirations to play a bigger one and that makes you dangerous. Your anti-intellectualism and abstention from practical politics puts you very much in the same bracket as the thick working class (as one of your own members told me recently). You need to up your game and get serious.I rolled over my bet and have gambled that the outcome will be that we won't actually leave the EU at all because it is too dangerous and risky, as the political class are starting to realise. The democratic thing to do would be to ignore this plebiscite, for parliament to take control via our elected representatives, and take us out of this self-created hell.Hi Stuart Have you come across this – a talk by Paolo Barnard , an italian economic journalist, THE TRUTH ABOUT #BREXIThttps://www.facebook.com/DemocraziaVerde/Not saying Im sympathetic but its raises some interesting points and I would be interested in your comments. I notice this line of thinking coming to the fore amongst those on the Left who voted leave. My gripe with it is that it takes a nationalist – whats best for Britain – rather that a class perspective but then the same could be said of many who voted remain
JOHN GAULT wrote:Mr. Buick, who are you to say what I need? If I work hard, and get rich, and want to buy an expensive house, or a luxury car, who are you to stop me? This is the problem of socialism. The leaders decide who gets the money, and the majority must play along. I can decide how to use my money, whether I use it to get food, get a car, or give to the poor. I don't need your help, idiot.Apart from failing to see that needs will be self defined you also fail to see that money as an institution will cease to exist in a socialist society. Oh and also that the whole undemocratic principle of "leadership" is wholly incompatible with the way socialists look at things anyway. Can I suggest you familiarise yourself with the basics of the case for socialism first of all?
