Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
It all went wrong long before that when they tried haggling with the bus driver.
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
SPGB
- Thread starter Proper Tidy
- Start date
It all went wrong long before that when they tried haggling with the bus driver.
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
Yes I should have qualified it more, what I meant was you can choose whether or not to buy something at a price or agree a price with the seller.
It's a cultural thing if people don't want to haggle and prefer instead shopping around for the lowest price at places with fixed prices then that's fine. You could set-up a workers co-op car club or bus company if you wished.
We are discussing how we as people should economically organize ourselves, that is a moral question. We are saying becuase this is the case, e.g. problems with capitalism, things ought to be different e.g. more socialist.
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
I don't refrain from haggling with the bus driver because of cultural mores.
I couldn't set up a car club or bus company as I don't have the capital needed to buy or lease the vehicles.
Louis MacNeice
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
Yes you should. It would be a start; we are constrained, we cannot do what we like or choose what we want. We are bound about by 'qualifications'; not at all the freely choosing individuals your particular day dream demands.
Louis MacNeice
It's nothing at all to do with morality. Nothing
The last sentence wash rushed, I was being bollocked by an an extremely pissed off partner for being up so late arguing with a "bunch of egotistical wallys". She reads our stuff.
So without the above harassment with more time and thought.
"It can't be claimed that the will be no violence with the Socialism the WSM envisages, but the causes of violence unavoidable with capitalism will have disappeared".
Would have looked more like this.
It can't be claimed that their will be no violence during the start of the Socialist society the WSM envisages with us still carrying some of the psychological baggage of capitalism, but the social causes of this violence unavoidable with it will have disappeared.
I could be wrong about this, but at least I'm prepared to come out in the open and discuss the issue of violence, domestic or otherwise, that disfigures society and be proved wrong.
I've asked the question here: if poverty isn't the cause of domestic violence what is? Is this subject of violence taboo? Is it unique in the universe being an effect without a cause?
Come on guys, put the sniper rifles down, come out of the bushes and let's discuss this crucial issue.
We could start with the state, the public power of coercion, the monopoly of violence. Would an institution that maintains control over those subject to it with violence, or the threat of violence engender a peaceful harmonious society? Discuss.
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
Have you had a bang on the head or something?
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
This is just abstract nonsense. You don't choose whether to eat or not, or how much rent to pay. Choice is not some abstract concept it's contingent on circumstance.
JimW
支那暗杀团
Jaysus moon23, think on. Do you imagine there's free choice in a world entirely shaped by the commodity relationships of capital? You reckon free agreements between individuals can stand up against a world made in capital's image in any but the most trivial or marginalised of spheres? Your level playing field has the mountain of capital at the one end and jumpers for goalposts at the other. Utter fantasy.
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
1. It's no better; it still presupposes what you you're trying to prove i.e. 'the social causes of this violence'.
2. Again you're prejudging the result; your question asks for a singular answer (unsurprising given your one club politics).
Your hopes for the perfect future sound more suited to a kindly Sunday school teacher than the serious socialist propagandist you aspire to be.
Louis MacNeice
p.s. You haven't even addressed GD's question.
Here we go again....
The only way in which you could possibily sustain this particular construction is by interpreting the word "vanguard" is the sense of some advanced section of the working class i.e. one imbued with a communist/socialist outlook. But this is not really what "vanguardism" as such is about, is it? Vanguardism is really a political model of transformation which quite definitely entails a small minority emancipating the majority by leading the later, not yet imbued with this outlook, into a new form of society. It involves the capture of state power by the small minority with the intent to run this new form of society on behalf of the majority.
Clearly, the SPGB cannot possibly be called vanguardist in this sense and you surely would not disagree with this. If you are using "vanguardist" in the sense of just a small minority per se then this is a somewhat trite usage isnt it? Every small party could then be called vanguardist. No scrub that - every party would be vanguardist since no political party represents or embodies the views of the majority of workers. You are thus using the term "vanguardist" in a rather meaningless way
The SPGB makes it abundantly clear that socialism /communism crucially depends on the working class become revoutionary-minded. It refuses even to attempt to lead the workers into socialism/communism because such a society cannot possibly be achieved in this way. The majority must understand and want it before it can be achieved
And when the majority do understand and want it then by defintion there is no more vanguard in the sense of a "small group of advanced workers". Most workers will be thinking along the same lines. The vanguard will simply have disappeared into the pages of history
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Every single one of the leftist parties you condemn makes exactly the same noises about the central role of the w/c in any socialist transformation. Lenin and Trotsky themselves banged on about the cultural backwardness of the w/c in a way scarily similar to you above. You're the same as them, but you just say 'we really mean it, we really do, look it says so in our declaration of principles.
So crude, did Marx teach you nothing?
So crude, did Marx teach you nothing?
You are talking bollocks, Butchers. Or let me put it another way - while Lenin & co certainly did make noises about, and paid lipservice to, the central role of the working class, they also clearly and unmistakably subscribed to the political model of vanguardism I outlined above. The SPGB clearly and categorically rejects this model.
You can hardly deny this. Here are some of the things Lenin said on the matter which proves the point.
One of Lenin's most most explicit statements on the subject is to be found in his Theses on Fundamental Tasks of The Second Congress Of The Communist International published in 1920
On the other hand, the idea, common among the old parties and the old leaders of the Second International, that the majority of the exploited toilers can achieve complete clarity of socialist consciousness and firm socialist convictions and character under capitalist slavery, under the yoke of the bourgeoisie (which assumes an infinite variety of forms that become more subtle and at the same time more brutal and ruthless the higher the cultural level in a given capitalist country) is also idealisation of capitalism and of bourgeois democracy, as well as deception of the workers. In fact, it is only after the vanguard of the proletariat, supported by the whole or the majority of this, the only revolutionary class, overthrows the exploiters, suppresses them, emancipates the exploited from their state of slavery and-immediately improves their conditions of life at the expense of the expropriated capitalists—it is only after this, and only in the actual process of an acute class struggle, that the masses of the toilers and exploited can be educated, trained and organised around the proletariat under whose influence and guidance, they can get rid of the selfishness, disunity, vices and weaknesses engendered by private property; only then will they be converted into a free union of free workers.
(http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1920/jul/04.htm)
Did you notice that, Butchers? Lenin said that only AFTER the exploiters have been overthrown can the workers begin to be educated. The SPGB insist it must happen BEFORE
Lenin was adamant that this vanguard should not restrained from seizing power because of the lack of socialist consciousness. In a speech to the Congress of Peasants’ Soviets on 27 November, 1917 he contended:
"If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years...The Socialist political party - this is the vanguard of the working class; it must not allow itself to be halted by the lack of education of the mass average, but it must lead the masses, using the Soviets as organs of revolutionary initiative…" (Quoted in John Reed's Ten Days that Shook the World , Modern Library edition, 1960, p.15)
Moreover, once the vanguard had seized power it was this vanguard alone which should govern, not the wider working class in whose name it had seized power:
But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class. The whole is like an arrangement of cogwheels.(http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/30.htm)
Clearly, there is a huge gulf separating the SPGB's approach to revolution and Lenin's vanguardism and it is silly to deny this
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
Robbo you can try all you like to limit debate by imposing your preferred definition of what constitutes a vanguard; I can see why you'd want to do so. To expect people to roll over and just accept it because you say so is rather silly.
1. The SPGB refuses no such thing; it demands that the working class follow its educational lead because this is the only way that society can be transformed, and the SPGB is the only party up to the task.
2. When the mass catch up with the SPGB it will all be alright; that's the whole approach in a nutshell.
The problems associated with being a vanguard aren't militated against by denying it your rhetoric but enshrining it in your constitution; at least the Leninists don't indulge in that particular bit of political dishonesty.
Louis MacNeice
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Why the hell would i wish to deny the vanguardist nature of the leninists and trotskyists? Do you honestly think that i'm arguing that they weren't? My point rests entirely on their being so, and that the SPGB's approach is a cowards version of their vanguardism - hence the similarities in your outdated language 'advanced workers' vs culturally backwards workers - you/them. It's your problem if you are to politically cowardly or dishonest to draw the political conclusions that the bolsheviks did - neverthess you both start from the same substantive position - a group of self-selected advanced types who can see further and longer than anyone else by simple virtue of the groups existence, and who have divined the path the w/c MUST follow to emancipation - all other routes being crap (reformism, hostility clause etc).
In fact, the bolsheviks are a lot more honest than you as they repeatedly hammered home their conception of this whereas you deny it by saying we can't be like them, look at our declaration of principles - a trick so crude that it staggers me that a group so sophisticated and advanced would try it on.
Please educate me some more on Lenin as well - you are talking to ignorant half-wits remember.
In fact, the bolsheviks are a lot more honest than you as they repeatedly hammered home their conception of this whereas you deny it by saying we can't be like them, look at our declaration of principles - a trick so crude that it staggers me that a group so sophisticated and advanced would try it on.
Please educate me some more on Lenin as well - you are talking to ignorant half-wits remember.
You are missing the point, arent you? I am not talking about what constitutes a "vanguard". If you listened carefully to what I said you would have seen that i dont actually have a problem with your definition of a vanguard in the descriptive sense of a small section of the population holding a particular set of views which are considered to be advanced or at the cutting edge of social development. What I am talking about is the political theory of vanguardism as a model of social transformation i.e. the idea that a minority can somehow emancipate the majority.
Now clearly you know, as well as I, that this is NOT the view of the SPGB. It is the view of Lenin and Leninism as a I demonstrated in my response to Burtchers but not the SPGB. The SPGB is crystal clear on this score. Socialism can only come if and when a majority understand and want it. The purpose of the SPGB is essentially to promote that understanding.
Thus, when you say the SPGB is a "vanguardist party" this clearly means something different to saying SPGB members constitute a vanguard in the above sense. If it was not your intention to conflate the SPGB theory of revolution with the Leninist theory of revolution then you should have made this clear. Unfortunately you did not.
This is a rather silly way of putting things. The SPGB does not "demand" anything. What on earth are you talking about? The SPGB has a point of view - Im not a member but I think. in the main, what the party is saying is absolutely correct - but it is not "demanding" that you accept this viewpoint. It is simply urging you to consider it. Urging is not the same thing as demanding.
Does the party believe its ideas are the way forward? Of course. Everybody , you included, must surely believe that the view they hold are correct otherwise why on earth hold them? This is a rather specious argument frankly and cuts no ice. But even going along with this argument it is still nevertheless the case that the SPGB believes that unless a majority of workers accept "it's" ideas which it has been assidously promoting, socialism is not remotely possible and that it - the SPGB - will not even attempt to introduce socialism unless and until the majority hold a similar socialist outlook.
Not quite. The SPGB is saying rather more than your simplistic account would suggest. It saying that unless and until the majority becoime socialists you cannot have socialism and there is absolutely no point in seizing political power prior to the attainment of mass socialist consciousness (something Leninists support) for the simple reason that you would then be forced to administer a capitalist society by default. I recall articles in the Socialist Standard making this very point - that if, by some freak accident, the SPGB were to be democratically voted into power but without there being the necessary mass socialist consciousness to introduce socialism. the Party would no more be able to run capitalism in the interest of workers than any other party. The SPGB is I think a highly principled organisation in this respect. I can't think of any other oragisation that says "look if you dont understand what we are on about or if you are not in agreeement with us, please dont vote for us". Credit where credit is due
No . I think it is you who is being a slightly dishonest here by running together two quite separate and distinct ideas. The SPGB does not deny it is at present a small minority - that would be daft anyway - but it does emphatically deny that as a small minority it can emancipate the working class by encouraging the latter to place its trust in it
Proper Tidy
Arsed
Seven paragraphs of semantics and no substance. Must be some sort of record.
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
Not it doesn't ask for trust,. It demands assimilation to SPGB thought.
Louis MacNeice
I think you're wasting your time with these people, Robbo. Whatever you say, they are only interested in coming back with their rebuttals. At least we offer a solution to the problems that capitalism throws up; perhaps we're wrong but what do they offer? Nothing but nitpicking criticisms. Perhaps they can tell us their ideas on making this world a better place to live in. Even if it's still within the confines of capitalism, let's hear about it.
Why do you use terms like "demand", eh? Trying to be tendentious? You have a point of view which you have expressed on this forum. If I said you were "demanding" from others here, their complete assimilation into the thought of Louis MacNeice how would you feel?
Of course everyone believes their point of view is the correct one as Ive explained many times before. Urging others to consider it does not make one a "vanguardist" even if the point of view is one held only by a small minority - a vanguard if you like. Seemingly, you still dont understand the difference
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
I'm not the one stating that I am the only socialist party.
I'm not the one stating that socialism can only be achieved through a majority for me.
I am not the one stating that all other parties, whatever they may claim, are opposed to my truth.
I'm not the one stating that I'm the most advanced section of the working class.
The SPGB not only demands that its members accept this nonsense, but it also demands that, in the interest of the socialist revolution, a majority of the working class must submit to this demand. If they don't, then it is ample evidence of their backwardness.
The SPGB is a vanguard party; they'd be better off attempting to militate against the effects of this uncomfortable truth, than wasting time and energy trying to deny it.
Louis MacNeice
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
That you have no realistic means to realise your Edwardian day dream isn't nitpicking; fundamentally awkward very probably, but not nitpicking.
Louis MacNeice
I am not convinced by the arguments put forward to suggest that the SPGB is 'vanguardist' in the way that the SWP is and happily admits to being. However I remember some years ago reading a thread by the famous 'nomoney' who was the first speegeeb to post on Urban where he/she (I never worked it out) said that to be a member you had to take a test. Vanguardist they possibly are not, but by that account certainly elitist.
Well remembered! I had been trying to recall...
Oh come now this is nonsense and you know it. Of course you are not the one stating that you are the "only socialist party" because - duh - you are only an individual. But your attitude towards your own beliefs are no different from the attitude of the SPGB towards its beliefs - namely you both necessarily believe you are correct. If you didnt believe this why on earth are you here defending your arguments?
Actually, on the the question of the SPGB considering itself to be the only socialist party in the sense of being the only party advocating genuine socialism, I think you are technically incorrect. In the early years of the SPGB there was I believe - someone correct me if I am wrong - an attempt from within the SPGB itself to seek a union with the De Leonist SLP on the grounds that it too was a socialist party having the same objective as the SPGB. There was an article I recall from the Socialist Standard some years ago calling the SLP our "political cousoins", although I think that was a reference to the American SLP
You still dont understand the difference between being in the vanguard of public opinion and being a vanguardist party i.e.subscribing to a particular model of revolution which entails capturing power before the the majority have attained revolutiuonary consciousness. I am frankly getting a bit weary of trying to explain the difference to you. Your stubborn refusal even to acknowlege or discuss such a difference smacks of narrow minded dogmatism, a stubborn determination to trot out the same old stuff without engaging with the arguments put to you by others.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I grow weary of your refusal to agree with the SPGB - i can only put it down to your cultural backwardness.
whichfinder
New Member
Proper Tidy
Arsed
You're the one not grasping it Robbo.
You say the SPGB don't want to lead anybody; that the working class must be convinced of socialism but not necessarily the SPGB. You use this as a rebuttal to all criticisms. Yet the SPGB are hostile to all other political parties as a matter of policy not study, and that shows the lie to your claims - the SPGB want a monopoly as a political party (within the realms of Socialism TM). You want to lead the revolution.
You may not be vanguardist in the Leninist sense - yours is a much cruder and disguised sense - but it is plainly obvious that you are vanguardist.
And trying to draw a distinction between being a vanguard and being vanguardist is pathetic btw.
Similar threads
