robbo203
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If we truly are to have confidence in the working class, why do we assume the Left are the ones more likely to kick things off: with their long training in leftist contempt for us?
They are the ones responsible for our isolation, and their language repels the majority of workers.And yet it remains the case that the Left are more receptive to socialist ideas than the Right. I am willing to bet good money that far more members of the WSM came from a Left or labour background than came from a Right or Tory background. This has implications for how we target our propaganda
I think it indicates that rather than seek out the Socialist Party as some of us are hoping, those who might share some of our ideas will persist within the Labour Party and carry on banging their heads against the brick wall.
Perhaps they ought to be contacted and asked to explain how some of their ideas are compatible with them remaining in a capitalist political party albeit one with good intentions
I don’t think the Socialist Party and the WSM should be looking for political juncture like the leftwingers,
That is not what was being suggested. Of course nobody is saying we should seek common cause with left wing reformists if that is what you are implying. I am merely suggesting we should maybe focus more on targeting the Left, persuading them to embrace socialism as a political objective , because all things being equal, left wingers tend to be more receptive to socialist ideas than right wingers. Probably more so now after the crushing defeat of the Labour Party which so many on the left had joined in the expectation that things would change
People associate us with Trots, and don’t hang around for explanations and history lessons.
True but there is always a spectrum when it comes to people. We need to target those more likely to hang around for explanations and history lesson
There will be stiff competition for their attention coming from Trotskyists saying that what is needed is a disciplined vanguard party to lead the workers and anarchists calling for so-called direct action in the streets to get reforms.
True . But the influence of Trot organisations has diminished considerably in recent years and I cant see the anarchists making much headway in their protest much as I prefer them to the Trots. At least some of them are more on our wavelength. I think the time has arrived when the Socialist Party will finally begin to make some real progress providing we do things properly and dont botch things up
It looks like a no deal Brexit is once more a possibility. If that happens what are the likely consequences?
Oh dear, here we go again. Look what happened with Catalonian nationalism
If some here are correct in their educated guesses that we face an unprecedent reign of Parliamentary power from Johnson with his Commons majority, where can the opposition go but on to the streets.
One thing is for sure. The Tories are going to fail woefully in living up to their expectations. Its the same with any Party trying to administer capitalism. Give it a year of two and the Johnson government is going to be deeply unpopular – particularly once Brexit is done and dusted and the chickens come home to roost
What of the opposition? I take it as axiomatic that people on the Left tend to be more sympathetic to socialist ideas than those on the right. It thus makes sense to target more of our efforts on the former rather then the latter.
Declining support for a Tory government is going to translate into thousands of workers trickling back to Labour. The so called “red wall” in the North of England is going to rebuild itself brick by brick. The political cycle in which Labour alternates with the Tories in running capitalism is going to reassert itself.
And so we are going to find ourselves back to square one. All the more reason to focus our efforts particularly on those left inclined workers who voted labour and whose illusions have been shattered by this election. The idea that a Jeremy Corbyn government, for all its good intentions , would have made a fundamental difference to the lives of ordinary workers needs to be vigorously challenged. Its one thing for politicians to make wild promises, its quite another trying to keep them. In capitalism there is no such thing as a free lunch and what you gain on the one hand you lose on the other
Labour will come back from this bruising defeat but I strongly suspect it will only do so by moving to the right in a bid to capture the centre ground. That will be the moment of truth for those on the left who have entertained illusions that labour’s agenda is some sort of socialist agenda. Will they continue in their wishful thinking that capitalism can be administered “in the interests of the many not the few” or will they finally give up on this pointless pursuit of the holy grail. And how can we best encourage them to take the latter course of action?
I did not detect any such receptiveness to any form of revolution in the election that we could possibly attach ourselves to.
Not during the election itself, Alan, but possibly now in the aftermath of the election with the Left in disarray and deeply demoralised, we might begin to see a greater degree of receptivity.
Also I wouldn’t say our fixation on this election has been “inordinate”. There is little doubt that what has happened represents a kind of watershed moment, rather different from the ordinary run of the mill elections in my view
“There is no biological reason they shouldn’t understand, but there may well be psychological and social reasons that are not encompassed by the simplistic view that it’s “capitalist propaganda.”
I think it is important to acknowledge that our fellow workers exist on a spectrum of receptivity to what we have to say. Its not a question of inability to understand. There is absolutely no reason why any worker could not understand what we have to say. Rather it is question of wanting, or being bothered, to understand what we have to say. It is a question of values.
We tend as a political party to place inordinate importance of rationality and logic and overlook or marginalise the role of irrationalism or emotion. Human beings are neither purely rational nor purely irrational and perhaps if we made the effort to address both these aspects of our nature in a more balanced fashion it might help the grow our movement.
I have always believed that easily the most important factor impeding the growth of the movement is the “small party syndrome” – we are small because we are small – which exactly illustrates the significance of irrational thinking in politics. Our smallness ensures that we continue to remain small. Being small conveys the idea that we lack credibility and lacking credibility means we continue to fail to recruit significant numbers of workers to our cause. Its a vicious circle.
But its a vicious circle we can break free of by breaking through a critical threshold in terms of numbers after which the recruitment of new members becomes progressively easier. What that threshold is I dont know though we can all hazard a guess. The point is that NOW is the most diffuclt and perilous part of the journey towards a mass movement of socialism. By the time we have become a mass movement the entire social and political environment would have been radically transformed. Growing will be plain sailing by then.
In the context of these elections and the years leading up to these elections, what we have been witnessing is the hollowing out of the Left outside of the Labour and now the deep demoralisation of the Left inside the Party. I have always belieived and I think most comrades will agree that the Left presents more fertile ground than the Right in which to plant the seeds of revolutionary socialism. So this development is important.
While we might all be aghast at the results of this election in that such a large fraction of the working class should have placed its trust in such a transparently and obnoxiously anti-working class organisaton as the Tories – at least Labour to their credit talked about things like “workers rights” which is completely alien to a Tory worldview – I think it is also clear that we have entered a period of opportunity and promise for our tiny socialist movement given the state of Left politics today.
We need to seize the moment and do whatever it takes to reaching that critical threshold of members to become a credible political force
Talking of the influence of the media there is quite an interesting article here on Labour blaming the media for its poor showing
“This new politics, embodied by Jeremy Corbyn, has lost in its first electoral showdown. But the circumstances of its defeat should embolden us. In the words of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, “An old world is dying, and the new cannot be born. Now is the time of monsters.”
Its seem like it will only take the experience of an actual labour government to finally extinguish the naïve idealism of its Left wing supporters though the prospect of such a government seems remote in the near future
What are the chances of Northern Island likewise breaking away from a (very dis)United Kingdom, post Brexit?
Perhaps an SS article on the appalling behaviour of British press is called for
