stuartw2112
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Ozymandias, I understand your frustration.Anyone holding the mainstream party view should not oppose the Occupy movement, but should instead be delighted that their long-ignored and ridiculed views are at long last being vindicated. More importantly, they should get down to their nearest occupation and support it. The occupiers don’t need bloody leaflets or smart arses with all the answers or Socialist Standards — not even the totally brilliant and correct articles by Stuart Watkins — they need practical support.The fact that the current protests are small and staffed by the usual suspects (if true, which it isn’t, not entirely anyway) is irrelevant. The protests in America started small and with the usual suspects, but exploded into something bigger, something still growing and developing, mostly in hugely positive directions from a working-class and/or socialist viewpoint. One of the interesting things about it is that the anarchist usual suspects have succeeded in “imposing” (inspiring?) a leaderless, democratic structure to the whole thing – and one that is brilliantly designed so as to stop old left groups swamping it, winning a majoritarian decision, then taking it over. From the point of view of action, this means everyone can get involved, regardless of their political views. From the point of view of politics, it means the discussions can stay open-ended and ongoing, with no one group or perspective able to stamp its authority on it, other than from the point of broadest principles (We are the 99%; This is what democracy looks like).So, most members have got it all wrong. The fact that Henry Georgeists and ‘make capitalism nicer’ folk and people who are not in the slightest anti-capitalist can go along and participate and have their views respected and taken into account, while political discussions go on and on in an open-ended way, at the same time as more and more people are rallied into it on the basis of very broad principles (class conscious, pro-democracy), is a very good thing! As for the small size and scope of the British as opposed to American occupations, this is true. But the crisis is already more visibly and obviously hurting the working class in America, and that pain and hurt will be arriving on our shores very soon (not that it hasn’t already started of course). That could easily swell the Occupy movement here – and the occupations are already there for them, ready and waiting. November 30 could be a turning point, I certainly hope so.Above Adam says he was disappointed that the protestors had taken down the banner saying “Capitalism is crisis” and put one up saying “What would Jesus do?” But you’re wrong about that as well! The camp’s immediate aim and objective was to keep the public space they had created, and that meant defeating the St Paul’s legal action. If old anarchists and socialists had had their way, they’d have just gone into full, hostile, confrontation mode, and lost, heavily, to the police. The Occupy movement in general is far more creative and positive and clever than that. What better way to break St Paul’s than to appeal to the moral principles they supposedly uphold? In any case, it worked. The church did not want the PR disaster of a violent break up of explicitly peaceful, even Christian!, protestors, at their church, supposedly a place of peace and worship.Another thing to notice about Occupy in America: the old slogan about anarchism being a game the police win must be thrown on the scrap heap of history. The police are certainly violently attacking the movement. But every time they do, their every action is broadcast around the world, and the protest movement returns in ever greater numbers. The police are losing. (Incidentally, the movement is also proving something that some SPGB members have been waffling about for ages: the democratic and revolutionary potential of the new communications technologies.)Really, what’s not to like? When members say, “It’s not socialist though is it?” they are betraying that they actually believe the old caricature – that the revolution isn’t worth starting till everyone’s read and fully agreed with their copy of the Socialist Standard, and that it shouldn’t start anywhere but parliament.All the bestStuart
Hi Hch,”stuartw2112 – if you are puzzled why I query the SPGB position on say reformism, is that it has big holes in it whivh I’m trying to get an answer but have been unsuccessful so far: You support workers defending and trying to defend their wages and conditions via unions. SPGB members do it themselves I am told above. But you oppose workers defending their social wage, such as NHS health care, benefits, education etc. You have drawn an artificial ditingtion between the two. Please advise.”The big holes are of your own imagining. We do not oppose workers defending their social wage. See recent issues of our journal, the Socialist Standard, for confirmation. What we oppose is a socialist party promising to do something about the social wage, NHS, etc, not because it really gives a stuff, or is deluded enough to think that capitalism can deliver on its demands, but because it wants to recruit members, win votes, or give workers an education in failure, in the limits of struggle. The reason we are against such tactics are amply demonstrated by recent history, eg, of the Labour Party.Stuart
Hch: What genuinely puzzles me is why the left cannot (or refuses to) understand our position. We understand yours perfectly well.Your position is that workers generally will not become socialists all by themselves, but will, at times, engage in struggle to protect their own interests. Therefore, socialists should organise into political parties that also engage in these struggles with the view of leading the workers to victory, in the first instance, and into support for the party in the second. As the party builds up such support, it will then be in a position to seize power on behalf of the working class and put in place ‘socialist’ (actually, state capitalist) measures.Now, as a broad brush and short statement, true or false?If true, why not do us the courtesy of understanding our position, even if you don’t agree with it? A similarly simple and broad brush statement of our position is this:Workers do not need any advice or leadership from socialists when it comes to struggling to defend their own interests within capitalism. They do it all by themselves all the time. However, such struggles have their limits within capitalism: they cannot go beyond the law of value, and the combined forces of the capitalists and the state can almost always defeat them if they put their mind to it. Workers who realise this tend to become socialists. As they become socialists, they see the necessity for going beyond such day to day struggles (these unavoidable and incessant guerilla battles, as Marx put it) and the need for a political party aimed solely for socialism. This political party must not advocate reforms, not because it is against reforms (how on earth could a working class party be against reforms in the working class interest?), but because it wants to build support for socialism, and not for reforms.Simples.
Hch doesn’t seem to understand that what is at stake here is not a question of tactics or strategy but principle.We believe, to use Lenin’s words but reverse their meaning, that workers, exclusively by their own efforts, are capable of a socialist consciousness. Workers are human beings and individuals in themselves; they are not dumb masses to be tricked, led, deceived, and lied to, for the greater good.That’s why, actually, we are not sectarian and the left are. We join workers struggles as workers. We take part in the democratic process as equals with our fellows. We do not join for purposes of our own; we have no programme of demands hidden up our sleeves to be produced at a later date, nor a one-party dictatorship to produce as a nasty surprise at an even later date.That’s why, when we join workers struggles as individuals and not as a leadership party, and reject the left, we are not being sectarian — quite the opposite. We are being principled socialists.As for the proposal to join a new SDF, what’s the point? We’d just have to leave it again, as we did the old one.Stuart
Dear HcH,As you’ve noticed, we are against leadership, and yet we elect an executive committee, stand candidates in elections, and have ‘leading’ members, ie, some individuals who have more influence, though not more power, than others. This means that either we are completely contradictory nutjobs, or, just maybe, you have misunderstood what we are talking about. Which do you think?Over to you.Stuart
