Random
Ethnic nalgocrat
I don't think any of the choices you pose are likely or welcome. In fact, it seems you've posed the Q in this way as to make your favoured choice inevitable.
British and Irish Communist Organisation
- Thread starter articul8
- Start date
eoin_k
Lawyer's fees, beetroot and music
Sorry if I am misreading your post articul8. Are you really trying to use the critique from "Give up Activism" as a justification for your labour party membership?
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
It's not about being in or out of the Labour party - the same dilemma will be faced by socialists in either case. The current I'm talking about in the 70s was mostly CP rather than Labour anyway. They were asking the left to think more seriously about what they really meant by socialism, and how it could actually be implemented - how to get from where we are to where we want to be. Strikes and demos are all very well but they are fundamentally negative, they might help to fuck capitalism up but they don't necessarily build a movement capable of actually building a positive alternative.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
always means join the labour party.
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
I'm not relying on BICO for insights! They look like a right bunch of loons. Nevertheless Bill Warren was one of the people in the CP who started to open this debate - I'm not sure why he joined BICO - he was probably a contrarian too.
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
the problem of programme and what it is possible to implement is posed acutely for a party that actually has a measure of support and can get elected to run something.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
I think you'll find that 'programme' means very little to labour as they've shown repeatedly over the last decade that they're very flexible if you've got enough dosh
Or have you forgotten, inter alia, lakshmi mittal and bernie ecclestone?
Random
Ethnic nalgocrat
Can actually get elected and can actually implement socialism? "We must support Labour, as they've got the possibility of building an embryonic socialist system".
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
What is it possible for a left party to do in positions of power, and how should it relate to building extra-parliamentary power in order to make possible a revolutionary alternative to capitalism?
This thinking was starting to happen in the 70s - but it was in a climate of defeat and from a position of relative weakness. It's posed very sharply for a party like Syriza just now.
This thinking was starting to happen in the 70s - but it was in a climate of defeat and from a position of relative weakness. It's posed very sharply for a party like Syriza just now.
Random
Ethnic nalgocrat
The left/socialist elements in teh LP are even more defeated and even weaker. The LP is a long way from Syriza. Labour is the UK equivalent of PASOK, for goodness sake!
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
I'm not talking about Labour today, I'm talking about debates in the 70s when the left had some measure of influence. The questions being asked are valid for any party which stands on a left programme and gets into positions of influence.
A thought experiment. Imagine after 79 that Labour stayed united, Tony Benn had stood for leader and won, and the left were in the ascendent in both party and country - and there is a reasonable chance of winning the 83 election if they can get a decent programme together. Would would socialists have sought to bring forward, and how much of it could be implemented, and how could the electoral platform be used to build mass, extra-parliamentary support in the country?
AES - viable? Or what would have been needed to make it into something more than a protectionist, bureaucratic/reformist fix? Nationalise the top 250 monopolies? Would this automatically have triggered a revolutionary situation? Would it have commanded popular support...?
Of course Labour is nowhere near this situation. But perhaps the weakness of the left has been compounded by the fact that it has lacked any sort of positive strategy of its own.
A thought experiment. Imagine after 79 that Labour stayed united, Tony Benn had stood for leader and won, and the left were in the ascendent in both party and country - and there is a reasonable chance of winning the 83 election if they can get a decent programme together. Would would socialists have sought to bring forward, and how much of it could be implemented, and how could the electoral platform be used to build mass, extra-parliamentary support in the country?
AES - viable? Or what would have been needed to make it into something more than a protectionist, bureaucratic/reformist fix? Nationalise the top 250 monopolies? Would this automatically have triggered a revolutionary situation? Would it have commanded popular support...?
Of course Labour is nowhere near this situation. But perhaps the weakness of the left has been compounded by the fact that it has lacked any sort of positive strategy of its own.
Random
Ethnic nalgocrat
Why does doing this kind of roleplaying help us in the here and now? Are you planning to present your findings to Syriza? Or are you, in fact, saying that this debate has relevance in the UK of the 2010s, with no left party whatsoever, of any size, with any credible chance of implementing a Bennite programme?
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
you see, even asking the question of what the left would actually do with any measure of power isn't judged "relevant" - no wonder no fucker is voting for left candidates. How are we to win support for socialism without building confidence in the idea that other forms of social/economic relations are possible and we have the first idea how to go about getting there?
These are real issues for Syriza on a national scale, but even on local scales parties like Die Linke face similar challenges about what is to be done. If the Labour left had a serious strategy of its own it might be able to break out of its present marginality.
Random
Ethnic nalgocrat
Rephrase that sentence, replacing Labour with PASOK or the Democrat Party and you see how ridiculous it is. The trouble for the labour Left isn't that they have no grand vision of transformation. It's that they're part of an organisation committed to driving forward neo-liberalism.
JimW
支那暗杀团
Remember back-stab does double damage!
Random
Ethnic nalgocrat
Now I just have to work out which Faction I'll support. And which Faction within that Faction.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Don't mistake your neo-liberal monstrosity for the ICP in 1921. And please, don't pretend that it's a party of rank and file Bordigas held back by bad leadership and external conditions.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
And why politics is suddenly reduced to internal labour leadership battles (cue: it's not, this is just part of the wider movement)
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
To which you can give ready answers right? Given your trajectory and defence of that trajectory.
Who decided that 'its' about this btw? Those already committed to an answer within the question. Who decided on the question to be asked?
Who decided that 'its' about this btw? Those already committed to an answer within the question. Who decided on the question to be asked?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Cloth capped badiou-ism. Can someone photoshop badiou's face onto eric heffer storming off some labour party stage please? I think that just about sums this nonsense up.
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
Not Badiou at all - I don't see where you get that from. I'm talking about strategy not event. Closer with Gramsci.
Heffer was a bit of a legend though:
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
The name is irrelevant. The pathetic meshing of rhetorical radicalism with old fart labourism is the the point.
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