stuartw2112
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We issued an appeal for a broad party of the left, signed up 10,000 people to it, and are now trying to establish a broad party of the left, because that's what we're openly in favour of. We're also openly in favour of socialism (see Left Party Platform statements). Don't see what's opportunistic about that. Sending a letter to the Socialist Platform, on the other hand, proposing a link up, even though secretly (not put in the letter, though not that secretly if you're going to be daft enough to admit to it on a public forum) you have no hope for it at all and disparage everyone involved in it, but think what the hell, we might make a point and pick up some members. Who're the opportunists, again, I'm confused?
ALB: No scientific standards, if that's what you mean. I'll just carry on judging it as I have been judging it. Are we open and democratic? Are we helping people who need help? Are we including them in our organisation and decision-making? Are we making steps forward in our own education, understanding, actions? Are we moving in a direction which, if we keep going, will end up democratising society, ending oppression or injustices, democratise or otherwise hold to account social institutions, change our behavior and ideas for the better? Etc, etc.YMS: I've got nothing against you approaching the Socialist Platform if you want to. I was just drawing attention to the similarity between your own "means" and those you're wont to sneer at. It's no surprise to me that SPGBers would read the "Socialist Platform", note the similarity in words, and then turn up armed to the teeth with leaflets. It's just amusing to me that everyone's "means" and methods and actions are fair game for the most condescending sneering apart from your own, which is apparently a model of righteousness. Except, as I pointed out, they are in this case indistinguishable.Anyway, the methods you are right to rejct but both wrongly assume are at full play in Left Unity – those of the old SWP – have been overwhelmingly rejected, I'd say unaminously rejected, even by those who are (if you insist) "Trotskyists", even by those who were, until recently, SWP members. Some things, believe it or not, really do change.
The Nostradamus method is very simple and can give the illusion of scientific prediction. All you do is say that something will happen in the future, but without giving specifics or a timeframe."Left Unity will be a failure. Occupy was a dismal failure.""OK, when, and by what standards, and compared with who or what?""Eventually, and when compared with our strategy, which is to get everyone to agree with us, and establish a future imaginary utopia where everything is totally lovely and works perfectly.""Right, wow, that's fantastic. Do you people by any chance have a paper I could buy?"
Nice comments Jools and I agree with you. You can always, of course, propose amendments to the statements – or even put forward your own if you can find support for it! As ever, the best of the debates are actually going on in the local groups around the country and in the national meetings. The Internet, as ever, gives a somewhat false and more poisonous impression! Cheers
One minute Comrade Nosradamus is telling us what is and isn't possible, the next he's penning a letter to the Trotskist platform to see if he can't tie up with them … Or cadge some members out of the ploy, as he doesn't really believe in it. Talk about people in glass houses!
jpodcaster wrote:"That's what I'll be doing. Imagine how brilliant it would be to be part of a genuinely open and democratic organisation that included libertarian socialists, anarchists, councillists, syndicalists, feminists and thousands of working people fighting against austerity and working towards a post-capitalist society?"Hi Jools, sorry for the tardy reply, but I don't come by here that often. I totally agree with what you say (and with your reservations and questions – bring those with you too). And you're right, Left Unity is open to all individuals, regardless of what else they are a member of, but not to organisations, and the democratic basis of the organisation is "one member, one vote". The group's "EC", or National Coordinating Committee, is arguably even more democratic than the SPGB's EC, in that it consists of a ten-member directly elected portion, but also one delegate from every national group. This means that even the "EC" meetings are essentially conferences of the whole "party" (party in formation).I am a signatory to the Left Party Platform not the Socialist one, roughly for these reasons:http://leftunity.org/for-what-its-worth-my-thoughts-on-left-unity-and-the-platform-debate/Look forward to seeing you in Left Unity!All the best,Stuart
Now I've seen the actual comment and context, I don't suppose it's quite as bad as I thought. It does imply, though, that the member would not support on principle a movement of local councils that refused to, say, evict tenants because of the bedroom tax. So clearly anti-working class.On another note, I saw someone elsewhere comment on the result by saying that they weren't surprised TUSC beat the SPGB because the SPGB's case is the most intelligent, and you can't expect that to get anywhere in this lunatic society. Has he got a point? He must have as Jonathan Chambers assures me that I've got to go off and get myself an education before commenting further! Gulp! I'd better go do just that.
The fact that that's where you see the dividing line tells us everything and backs up my earlier comment: that you and the left sects you despise are basically exactly the same. OK, so you and the three blokes who write Libcom agree. That's lovely. You want to get into a room together and discuss what socialism will be like (no one knows), or just when exactly the Russian Revolution went wrong (no one cares). Fine! Get in your room together! We know how many people will be there. 30 max!But what's been exciting and interesting about Occupy and Left Unity is that we're seeing new people come into politics with new ideas, new enthusiasms. They don't want to hear your speeches, or what the difference is between you and Workers Power. They want to organise democratically, they want to do things, change things, right now, not after the revolution, and they want to have genuinely free and open discussions. Free and open doesn't mean that both you (or LibCom) and Workers Power come along and get equal time to bore everyone to tears. It means that people who have never been involved in politics before come along and discuss their experiences and their hopes and fears and what they want to do. It means learning lessons from the people who are actually doing things – the people you lot sneer at as "reformists", but are actually heroes because they're the only reason the world isn't a shittier place than it already is. It means conclusions are reached at the end of the discussion, not the beginning.These things are actually happening. A new generation and a new politics is in formation. I can already hear you sneering – you lot are actually proud of your cynicism! Shameful! What's happening is exciting, but you lot will never get to see it because all you see is fault. You turn up with all the answers sewn up, and don't seem to notice that the people with the questions aren't impressed with your answers and never will be. The only thing you'll ever see, and what you're so ludicrously proud of having seen, is what exactly "socialism" – in your hands, an ideal construct, with no existence in reality – is like. Again, no one cares! You made it up! It doesn't exist!Come out into the light, comrades. It's confusing and confused and baffling and chaotic out here. But it's where the life is.OK, that's it from me. Sorry for ranting. No doubt it'll amuse you more than offend you anyway. Speak to you all again in about six months or so if past form is any guide!All the bestStuart
Ed: Your method is faintly ludicrous and complicated by the fact that we're dealing with translations from different languages. You can Google "planned economy" all you like, but it doesn't change the fact, denied by no one but you it seems, and spelled out clearly by themselves, that Marx and Engels saw the alternative to capitalism, the anarchy of the markets, as being socialism, which involved planning. In fact, even more problematic for your method, is the undeniable fact that Engels (and presumably Marx too), saw the centralisation of production in the hands of the state, including nationalising the banks and credit, as being a preliminary and necessary step towards socialist transformation.Adam: Yes, I was thinking of Robin's stuff too. But surely that's not the final word.
Bill: I agree current economic order is not the same as Hayek's utopian vision of spontaneous order, but I'm afraid your metaphor rather confused than clarified things for me! Is the current order orchestrated, or jamming? Probably a bit of both, though it looks like the metaphor's collapsed already!Adam: Yes, I've heard all that before, as you know. My point would be that you can make a great deal of ideological fuss and academic debate over all these definitions and visions and revisions, and no doubt that's very useful in separating yourself from everyone else and creating a USP for the party and yourself. But actually, Ken Loach's vision of socialism and yours are identical for all the practical difference it makes in the here and now.
Alan: Yes indeed, but those are pretty modest payouts by City standards, if not by socialist ones.Adam: Yes, I suppose that was the implication of the argument I read. The argument seemed plausible to me, but I've not looked at the details.
Nice point Bill. I was interested, back at the height of Occupy, to see that many people were reading their Hayek. Might decentralised democratic decision making lead to the emergence of spontaneous economic (socialist) orders, something like Hayek argued happened with free markets? Might an Occupy consensus model if it took off lead spontaneously, without central planning, to a socialist economic order? Probably not, but I'm sure there's interesting debates to be had here, work to be done.
I read a good column on this in a financial magazine recently, and the take home lesson is indeed Bill's. Ironically, the Co-op might have been better off it had indulged in all the complex financial jiggery-pokery that is often blamed for the crisis. The big finance side of things has proved less risky, perhaps, certainly more profitable, than the straight high street banking that some have claimed we all need to get back to.Adam is wrong though. Guardian readers and others, including myself, who moved to the Co-op did so because it is indeed more ethical than the alternatives, has better customer service, works harder at community relations, pays its staff, doesn't have to pay huge bonuses to City spivs, etc, etc. People who moved their money to the Co-op weren't wrong to do so. It's people who can't see anything in the world except through their narrow sectarian goggles and think everyone but them is a deluded idiot who are really quackers.
