SPGB

[Gravediggers]

May i remind you of the specific things that you say class consciouses consists of:

Quote:
When socialist talk of "class consciousness" they specifically mean a working class consciousness that recognises their subservient role within the capitalist mode of production and how this came about. It follows, a prerequisite is a general understanding on how exploitation takes place to extract surplus value from the workers and create profit, rent and interest for the capitalist class. This does not mean you have to attend study groups on the reading of Marx for in its essence the formula for exploitation can be explained by an examination of the wages system itself.

Broadly speaking the workers produce more than enough to live within a set number of hours. For example, within an eight hour day we can produce sufficient to meet our everyday needs and to reproduce our labour power within 6 hours, the other 2 hours is extracted by the capitalist has surplus value.

What I've described here is economic class consciousness and although many workers would identify with this description there are also many other workers who have formed the impression that its down to, 'a fairs days work for a fair days pay' leading to the myth's like a hard days work never killed anybody, or I have the freedom to choose my employer, or my exploiter deserves their hard earned wealth through dint of perseverance and frugality, etc.

Another aspect of economic class consciousness is the struggle for improvements in the condition of the workers and this by its very nature involves the workers organising themselves into trade unions and organisations struggling for particular reforms. It is however a struggle which is continually on the defensive for when capitalism is in crisis or it is the general opinion that the workers can afford a particular service these reforms are eroded or removed. For the capitalist class hold all the cards.

Socialists do not deride workers for participating in such struggles, indeed if the class have no intention of ending up in the gutter it can under such conditions only struggle as, 'a class in its self', where it seeks to alleviate the pressures of wage slavery. However, there have been many attempts to make this aspect of class struggle has the necessary stage towards a revolutionary situation. History illustrates they have all failed for a variety of reasons.

Those differences aside, there is also "political class consciousness" and this entails not only recognising and understanding how exploitation takes place but also acknowledging that the capitalist mode of production is not here for the benefit of the working class and being prepared to do something about it so there is a radical and complete change in the social relationships.

Contained within a political class consciousness is a determination not to compromise with capitalism in any shape or form when pursuing a socialist revolution. For instance, I've mentioned in previous posts that socialists refuse to work within the 'political system' but abide by the 'political process'. And I've also mentioned previously that the politically conscious organised workers choose their own weapons and strategy when confronting the capitalists class. For not to do so is self-defeating and involves compromise on the principle that the socialist revolution is not a revolution led by leaders seeking to impose their will on the majority, but a revolution of the majority.

In short, the workers have become a class for itself, with only one item on the agenda: self-emancipation

So what is your beef with this?

 

[butchersapron]

Apart for all the posts outlining my problems with this idiocy?

 

[butchersapron]

Yes except we are not talking about vagueness, rather the reverse, in that the politically class conscious workers are very clear and aware on the aim and objective of socialism and how to get it so to ensure the means are harmonised with the ends. For instance the nearer the revolution becomes the more planning and preparation will be taking place. In effect we wont be sitting on our arses waiting for it to happen we will actively be making it happen as a politically conscious working class. In fact this aspect of the transformation is taking place right now before our very eyes, and not just with the SPGB and the World Socialist Movement. For there are others within the libertarian tradition who discuss this very topic/subject.

Ask robbo he's got a list on who they are.

Who are they robbo?

 

[robbo203]

No model at all. I place experience, lived experience - at the centre. danny will now say that his and his parties reflection on experience means they're necessarily advanced. If he doesn't he has no grounds on which to claim that his party is in advance of the mass of people.

for blagsta: consciousness for people like the above simply means agreement with them. A set of beliefs rather than a process of self-and social awareness. If you define class consciousness as 'agreeing with me/us' then it's useless..And it opens the door to we're advanced you're backward - this is is for your own good.

I think you are confusing two things here The process by which you come conscious of class and what that class consciousness consists in. No Marxist or SPGBer would say class consciousness means "agreeing with me/us.". Thats just silly. What they would say and what i would say is that class consciousness means accepting or recognising that there are such things as a capitalist and working class and that the relationship of one to the other is an antagonistic one. The "agreement" comes when you realise are not alone in thinkiing this.

Incidentally I cant help thinking that your comment "consciousness for people like the above simply means agreement with them" is a freudian slip. You meant class consciousness didnt you but it does hint at your diversionary approach which is to draw attention away from the object of class consciousness to the process by which you become class consciousness which for you in some mystical way does not involve agreement with others. Presumably for you class consciousness is a eureka thing aint it?.

 

[butchersapron]

This doesn't work if i reject the class consciousness model - and i do. BTW the SPGB just did say what you said they never would.

 

[Gravediggers]

Apart for all the posts outlining my problems with this idiocy?

All you've outlined are your pathetic attempts to rationalise the irrational. So why is this idiocy?

 

[Gravediggers]

Presumably for you class consciousness is a eureka thing aint it?.

Or perhaps he thinks its a given truth?

 

[butchersapron]

All you've outlined are your pathetic attempts to rationalise the irrational. So why is this idiocy?

That's a massive embarrassing lie. You've ran out of ways to convince me of your status as an 'advanced worker'. Next, europe!

 

[Gravediggers]

This doesn't work if i reject the class consciousness model - and i do. BTW the SPGB just did say what you said they never would.

Go on tell us what we have supposed to have said which robbo said we never would.

 

[robbo203]

This doesn't work if i reject the class consciousness model - and i do. BTW the SPGB just did say what you said they never would.

I dont quite understand what you are getting at.

How would it not work if you reject the class consciousness model and what does this mean? Are you saying there are no classes or what? You seem to be very cyptic in your statements.

As for the SPGB are you saying they would say they dont think you are class conscious unless you agreed with them. Becuase thats a load of bollocks for sure . You dont have to have even heard of the SPGB or Marx to be class consciousness and those of us who have heard of the SPGB and dont agree with everything they say can still be class conscious in every sense of the word. The SPGB would be the first to agree.

 

[butchersapron]

Have you read the last 5 pages of this thread?

Where's the list?

 

[butchersapron]

Go on tell us what we have supposed to have said which robbo said we never would.

What did robbo say that you'd never say?

No Marxist or SPGBer would say class consciousness means "agreeing with me/us."

You did when you outlined what class consciousness consists of. When you listed what specific beliefs you need to agree with.

 

[two sheds]

With the U75anarchists, it's like getting on a coach where the driver has an idea where you're going, anarchism, but has no directions, map, clue HOW to get there.

Ah but having a driver would go against the whole idea of u75 anarchism surely - you'd instead have to have one person with foot on accelerator, one on brake, someone steering, and everyone else fighting over where we are on the map and where we actually want to go

LOL Im not a SPGB member. Got ya.

whoops

I think you have me mixed up with somebody else. Don't worry, I don't usually catalogue of other people's viewpoints either.

Nah I'm right on this one - it was your post 1467, only a throw-away comment though.

So, to answer your question.As I say I’m not an anarchist and what I’d like to see is almost outside politics. The trouble with political parties is that they have entrenched views. They have their own view of the world which seem based on emotional decisions, and try to impose that on society.

For example, what if the SPGB got the working class all together in a room and asked them what they want and they replied ‘yes well the idea of a socialist society is very nice and I’d love to live in one but I’ve got two kids and the thing above all else for me is to put food on the table for them. I’m a bit concerned – with all work being voluntary – we might suddenly have a country full of celebrity chefs and nobody to plough the fields. “As the SPGB stands, you’d have to ignore their wishes because you’ve already decided what is best for them.

I tend to see the problems we have as the effects of ‘the system’ rather than being caused by individuals – I’d be acting just the way that businessmen do in the situation they’re in – you can’t not act in that way because if you did you’d be out of a job. What we actually need is to improve the ‘system’, and the person who really seems to have understood that is W. Edwards Deming. The language he uses is acceptable to business but is actually empowering for workers.

To improve a system you work backwards from the outcomes you want. You Evaluate what we need against what we’ve got, Plan how to get where you want to go, then Do it while Checking progress and Adopting the new system /Amending it or Abandoning it if it actually totally fucks up. And you work on a small scale to test out what you’re doing.And yes it's a statement of the bleeding obvious but no fucker does it.

Personally, I’d like to see some attempt to ‘model’ the economic and social factors that go to make people happy and fulfilled (hours worked, commuting distance, pay, size of house/garden, size of family, conditions in neighbourhood etc etc etc). Then you can look at your resources and see how you can best spread them round to get the outcomes you want. Effectively you feed the data into a computer and press a large button on the front labeled ‘Optimise’ that would redistribute resources to best effect for the majority.

Now I quite realize that this isn’t going to work – nothing ever does. The temptation with political systems then is to look for scapegoats, but the correct response is ‘what is wrong with the system?’

 

[robbo203]

What did robbo say that you'd never say?



You did when you outlined what class consciousness consists of. When you listed what specific beliefs you need to agree with.

I said you dont have to be in the SPGB or agree with everything it says or even to have heard ofthe SPGB in the first place to be class conscious. Has it occured to you that it is SPGB that is agreeing to a " model of class consciousness" that was not something that it invented. Class consciousness is not dependent on the SPGB and the SPGB would I am certain go along with this

 

[butchersapron]

My posts refered to who and what?

Given you're still not in the SPGB. I was only going on he arguments offered the SPGB on here.

 

[Gravediggers]

What did robbo say that you'd never say?



You did when you outlined what class consciousness consists of. When you listed what specific beliefs you need to agree with.

So according to you an outline is cast in stone. That is realllly is stretchingggg it to make it fit your argument and disingenuous IMO, especially when I later clarified that they are not specific to any agreement.

 

[butchersapron]

You mean you took it/them back? Which parts or all?

 

[butchersapron]

...when I later clarified that they are not specific to any agreement.

You what?

You mean you take it back, that you think you are wrong.

 

[Gravediggers]

Ah but having a driver would go against the whole idea of u75 anarchism surely - you'd instead have to have one person with foot on accelerator, one on brake, someone steering, and everyone else fighting over where we are on the map and where we actually want to go

Yeh don't we know it!

For example, what if the SPGB got the working class all together in a room and asked them what they want and they replied ‘yes well the idea of a socialist society is very nice and I’d love to live in one but I’ve got two kids and the thing above all else for me is to put food on the table for them. I’m a bit concerned – with all work being voluntary – we might suddenly have a country full of celebrity chefs and nobody to plough the fields. “As the SPGB stands, you’d have to ignore their wishes because you’ve already decided what is best for them.

What gives you the idea that there will be too many chefs and not enough agricultural workers? Firstly, production is part of our social make up, it needs to be in order for us to survive. Indeed, we need to be useful and busy to express your humanity, for we find when we are not useful we suffer the consequences of ill health. Secondly, you assume there will be an imbalance on fulfilling our needs, by failing to take into account that the work involved with buying and selling alone will realise millions of workers from useless toil. This in effect means there will be a surplus working population
to the requirements of production for use.

Thirdly, and more importantly, this surplus working population would not be forced to put their nose to the grindstone, so to speak, but set their own pace, their own output, their own hours and days to work, etc. Common ownership of the means of living under participatory democracy would have no role for party politics which means bye, bye SPGB.

“As the SPGB stands, you’d have to ignore their wishes because you’ve already decided what is best for them." What blathering nonsense!

 

[robbo203]

For example, what if the SPGB got the working class all together in a room and asked them what they want and they replied ‘yes well the idea of a socialist society is very nice and I’d love to live in one but I’ve got two kids and the thing above all else for me is to put food on the table for them. I’m a bit concerned – with all work being voluntary – we might suddenly have a country full of celebrity chefs and nobody to plough the fields. “As the SPGB stands, you’d have to ignore their wishes because you’ve already decided what is best for them. ’

Forget about the SPGB for a moment. The SPGB goes out of existence once we have socialism anyway. We are talking about people in general organising to produce directly for need, not for the market, and voluntarily cooperating to that end.

Now the discussion has opened up about what a socialist society would actually be like which is much more productive than quibbling over silly ideas such as whether or not one agreees with some "model of class consciousness".

So OK lets focus on this instead. Why would you be concerned that we "might suddenly have a country full of celebrity chefs and nobody to plough the fields" ? On what grounds do you think this might be a problem?

To put it in context, probably something like over half of all the formal sector jobs in a modern capitalist economy like the UK would simply disappear in socialism becuase they would no longer be needed. They dont actually produce anything that enhances human welfare. Banks, for example, would have absolutely no purpose whatosever in a moneyless economy. The same with a thousand and one other money-based jobs. The extent of capitalism's structural waste is literally massive and growing both absolutely and relatively year upon year.

So you would have this huge reservoir of labour and resources to tap into in socialism. Which means you would have far more people available to do socially useful production - like ploughiong fields! So you think there might not be any one willing to plough the fields, eh? Well, look at the garden allotment movement. Look at all the other charitable and voluntary things that go on even today. Do you realise that the grey economy - the unpaid or moneyless sector of economy - is actually larger in terms of total labour hours expended than both the white sector (the formal economy) and the black economy put togetner? Now thats a thought to consider...

And heres another thought. In a volunraistic socialist society you are not going to be restricted to just one job. You can experiment. You can try whatever different types of work take your fancy. Variety is the spice of life as they say. Chances are that the num,bner of people volujhterring for ploughwork in a socialist society will probably vastly exceed those availabbe for poorly paid agricultural wage labour under capiutalismn. And you will not have a boss standing over you and hounding you to do this or that. Work will be a pleasure not a drudge. . If you go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/worldincommon/message/10568 you will find an intereresting youtube presentation which provides evidence to show that money incentives far from boosting perfioance actually have a negative effect. We work better without money.


A finalk point (though there are many more I could make which i might leave for later). In socialism, in a monyeless wgelss society in which we all have free access to the things we need and voluntarily cooperate with one another to produce these things, there is no more question of "us" and "them". There is simply "us" - the people , the volk , the mense. There is no more talk of "what are you in government going to do for us". All that bullshit we will have left far far behind us. Thankfully..

In socialism we will recognise our vital mutual indeterdependence. In socialism we will have what the anthropologists call a "moral economy" in which everyone recognisies that everyone depends upon upon everyone else and that this entails a moral obligation on all of us to contribute to socewtyu to the best of our abilities. Not that our our contributions need to be looked upon as a burden. I would see work as a form of creative expresssion (without which we are diminished as human beings) and none more so than in a society in which labour is completely voluntaristic and unpaid.

If perchance there was some remote possibility that everyone would want to be a celebrity chef rather than plough the field - personallly as a gardener and a crap cook i would far sooner be doing the latter - well, then there is nothing for it. These wannabee celebrity chefs are gonna have to roll up their sleeves and get down to some serious ploughing if they want food on the table. Not that that is going to be a problem in socialism. We wont be dumping food or paying farnmers not tpo produce while people go hungry

Thus socialism is a society in which people will become truly responsible and mature adults. We wont be relying on some nanny state to do things for us. We wont be humiliating ourselves by begging for charity. And work that needs to be done, and what today we might think is less likely to be done, will be precisely the kind of work that would attract the most esteeem and status in a socialist society. Afterall in a socialist society when we can take what we need without payment of any kind how do we differentiate between one another in terms of statis and esteem except in terms of what we contribute to society

 

[butchersapron]

Pretty pictures

Where is the brush from?

 

[butchersapron]

Btw a 'moral economy' was EP thompson via Polanyi - there will be no economy at all. That's what communism means.

 

[two sheds]

“As the SPGB stands, you’d have to ignore their wishes because you’ve already decided what is best for them." What blathering nonsense!

Oh tish.

Well say we got to the point where there is actually a majority who want and will vote for a socialist party. What would you say to them if they (or the party they are part of) say 'well actually we don't think that doing away with money immediately is the right way to go - we'd prefer a transitional phase where we are paid a fair wage and profits are fed back into the business rather than being siphoned off to individuals'.

Would you support them?

 

[Gravediggers]

You what?

You mean you take it back, that you think you are wrong.

Butchers I've been saying for quite a while you have made an assumption into a conclusion, and that you have been trying to rationalise the irrational. And you have gone and proved this with the use of one word, "outline".

Your assumption was that the SPGB seemed to be a vanguardist party and when I posted my outline you then came to the conclusion that we are a vanguardist party. You then stuck with that conclusion come hell or high water, through thick and thin because there it was in black and white. But it order to maintain your conclusion you had to ignore the fact that an outline is just that an outline, or if you like a broad sketch of possibilities. Nothing more and nothing less.

Its no wonder you were reluctant to provide a definition of vanguardism/ vanguardist for if you had you would have illustrated you either got the wrong end of the stick or you were in denial.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

What gives you the idea that there will be too many chefs and not enough agricultural workers? Firstly, production is part of our social make up, it needs to be in order for us to survive. Indeed, we need to be useful and busy to express your humanity, for we find when we are not useful we suffer the consequences of ill health. Secondly, you assume there will be an imbalance on fulfilling our needs, by failing to take into account that the work involved with buying and selling alone will realise millions of workers from useless toil. This in effect means there will be a surplus working population
to the requirements of production for use.

Thirdly, and more importantly, this surplus working population would not be forced to put their nose to the grindstone, so to speak, but set their own pace, their own output, their own hours and days to work, etc. Common ownership of the means of living under participatory democracy would have no role for party politics which means bye, bye SPGB.

“As the SPGB stands, you’d have to ignore their wishes because you’ve already decided what is best for them." What blathering nonsense!

The blathering nonsense is all too apparent between your opening two paragraphs and your closing sentence; the SPGB knew best at it's foundation (evidenced by its hostility clause), it knows best now (evidenced by the unedifying contents of their contribution to this thread), and it will know best in that dreamed of future containing as it does, not just it's own demise but that of all political associations.

Such is the unchanging world of the vanguard SPGB, those most advanced of workers, that you go away for a weeks holiday and the same stale thin vomit is being retched up again and again. Welcome to another century of heaving for socialism and goodnight.

Cheers and cheerio - Louis MacNeice

 

[Gravediggers]

Oh tish.

Well say we got to the point where there is actually a majority who want and will vote for a socialist party. What would you say to them if they (or the party they are part of) say 'well actually we don't think that doing away with money immediately is the right way to go - we'd prefer a transitional phase where we are paid a fair wage and profits are fed back into the business rather than being siphoned off to individuals'.

Would you support them?

Of course we would, but - and its a very big but - that is unlikely to happen, for we are talking about a politically conscious working class who are fully aware of all the what ifs, maybe's and consequences of their decisions. In fact they would have already have gone through the transitional phase with the planning and preparation before hand. And more importantly, a politically conscious working class would be determined and serious on completing the revolutionary process with no hang ups in between.

 

[two sheds]

@ robbo: fair do's. I wouldn't argue with most of that.

One point, though, would people be actually doing the ploughing? Surely we'll have high tech oxen to do that. I'd say we'd be more likely to run out of tractor crankshafts which might mean we *did* all end up pulling a plough around.

 

[robbo203]

@ robbo: fair do's. I wouldn't argue with most of that.

One point, though, would people be actually doing the ploughing? Surely we'll have high tech oxen to do that. I'd say we'd be more likely to run out of tractor crankshafts which might mean we *did* all end up pulling a plough around.

I like that - high tech oxen. hehehe. Here in my part of the world we still have teams of mules to do the terraces and fertilise the ground with manure.
Love it. But so much food arouind here - southern Spain - goes to waste becuase of stupid market regulations imposed by bureaucrats in Brussels. Thank christ we wont have any more of that bullshit in socialism

 

[FreddyB]

I said you dont have to be in the SPGB or agree with everything it says or even to have heard ofthe SPGB in the first place to be class conscious. Has it occured to you that it is SPGB that is agreeing to a " model of class consciousness" that was not something that it invented. Class consciousness is not dependent on the SPGB and the SPGB would I am certain go along with this

So where does it come from this consciousness? Who came up with the concept in the first place and in what context and what for?

 

[robbo203]

So where does it come from this consciousness? Who came up with the concept in the first place and in what context and what for?

Good question. If you are talking specifically about about class in a capitalist context I guess it would have emerged spontaneously out of the class struggle engendered by early capitalism. One thing is for sure - the idea peddled by Kautsky and Lenin (in his What is to be Done) that revolutuoinary socialist ideas, the embodiment of class consciousness in its self-aware form as class -for-itself, can be brought to workers only "from without", by bourgeois intellectuals like Marx and Engels, is sheer nonsense. The Chartist movement consisted of ordinary workers and made a huge impact. Though it fizzled out in the 1850s it laid ther foundations for the early socialist movement in Brtain. As for Marx and Engels , well, they learnt their communism from German and French artisan workers in Paris. The League of St Just with which Charlie and Fred associated and later became the Communist League for which the Communist Manifesto was written, was somewhat hostile towards bourgeois intellectuals as I understand it.

The SPGB itself, incidentally, began life as an organisation of ordinary workers and typically consisted of working class autodidacts. The sprinkling of university types that we find in it today as we do in other organisations was really a post war phenomenon. Barltrops book about the SPGB called The Monument, largely anecdotal and not altogether reliable, does give you a good taste of life in the SPGB and is amusingly written. Dave Perrin's Book The Socialist Party of Great Britain: Politics , Economics and Britains Oldest Socialist Party is superior in my view and very well researched. You could learn a lot by dipping into it.