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SWP expulsions and squabbles

Louis MacNeice said:
October 1979, the SPGB recognise that there are lots of different Trotskyist groups, that none of them are very good and that this is front page news; no definitely not a bit mad at all. I'm sure no one wanted to read about threats to British Leyland and the promised public sector finance cuts.
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What did you expect? 'TUC MUST CALL A GENERAL STRIKE NOW!'
 
Analysis of what was happening and why, how the class was responding (or not) and where this might lead, what opportunities it might open and what reactions it might provoke on the part of state/capital, what wider effects this would have on culture, social 'common sense' etc
 
butchersapron said:
Analysis of what was happening and why, how the class was responding (or not) and where this might lead, what opportunities it might open and what reactions it might provoke on the part of state/capital, what wider effects this would have on culture, social 'common sense' etc
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You mean something like this, from the same issue?

As the days get shorter you may care to be reminded of last winter. Remember the crocodile tears shed by the Tories over the sick who were endangered because of the strikes in the NHS, the hypocrisy over schoolchildren who could not continue their studies, the nauseating cant spewed out over the dead who were not being buried because of the grave-diggers' strike, the simulated sympathies they whipped up for the OAPs and claimants who were unable to collect their weekly pittances because of civil service strikes? The humanity shown by the Tories was truly impressive. Now they are in office several people, including some union leaders, have noticed something odd. Those same humane Tories, so concerned over the young, the sick, the old and the dead, are now ruthlessly trying to reduce government expenditure with the result that services for these groups are going to be hit far worse than by any of last winter's strikes.

For example, education spending is being slashed, and long term prospects for the young in education are thus becoming far worse than anything that might result from a few short strikes. With a savage nineteenth century anachronism like Rhodes Boyson in charge (as much use as swine fever to agriculture, as one Labour MP put it), the Tories are laying about higher education like Samson in the Temple. The NHS is being drastically cut too. So workers who are suffering from illnesses (many caused by capitalism anyway) will have even less chance of being admitted to hospital, and will get even poorer services when they get there. Where are the crocodile tears now? The Tories are looking after the profit system; the tears will look after themselves.
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Things don't seem to have changed in the last 35 years (except that Rhodes Boyson is now called Michael Gove). But then that's what you'd expect as capitalism continued.
 
frogwoman said:
An energetic organiser without much real work to do can cause havoc by spending his time hatching grandiose schemes to impress the CC, conspiring against “problem members” (those whom the organiser has taken a dislike to for whatever reason) and generally swaggering about like a pound shop Lenin.

:D
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Sounds like the Gaulieters of old...
 
Random said:
Do you seriously think that counts as analysis? The tories are bad, capitalism is bad, capitalism causes illness and the tories are cutting the NHS, it's bad.
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Well, capitalism is "bad", isn't it, and it doesn't change basically. But what about this (also from the same issue)?
Sections of the left have claimed to be able to bring exploitation to an end by the use of the co-operative. There are several variants on this particular version of slavery run in the interests of the slaves. The basic idea is for workers to combine with management to run a factory in the interests of the employees. It is of course a pipe-dream, and as the realities of capitalism break in on the cooperatives, their ideals go up in smoke. In the 1970s this particular dream has been pushed hard by the pipe of Tony Benn. In a smoky fog of euphoric confusion, this Labour Party answer to Noddy in Toyland helped create the Meriden motor cycle co-operative. The workers were going to run the factory, and the problems of production for a ruthlessly competitive market were to vanish. They did not. The co-operative has had to lay off workers and is under intense pressure to repay the interest due on the original loan made by the then Labour government to enable it to start.

The final irony is not that the capitalist system has defeated another Utopian scheme. The co-operative is almost certain to be shut down because it cannot pay its debts to the local Coventry Council. Coventry gave the co-operative ten days in which to pay the outstanding rates of £72,000 (The Guardian, 22 August 1979). If the co-operative does not pay (it almost certainly can't), the Council will bring court proceedings which may be the end of Meriden. The Coventry Council is Labour.
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This could be today too with people like Michael Moore and Richard "When Capitalism Hits the Fan" Wolff pushing workers' co-operatives again. I'm not sure if the Institute for Workers Control is still calling for Lucas Aerospace to be run on these lines.
 
Jean-Luc said:
Well, capitalism is "bad", isn't it, and it doesn't change basically. But what about this (also from the same issue)?
This could be today too with people like Michael Moore and Richard "When Capitalism Hits the Fan" Wolff pushing workers' co-operatives again. I'm not sure if the Institute for Workers Control is still calling for Lucas Aerospace to be run on these lines.
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That's much more interesting and useful, thanks. Although this still falls under critiques of the left, rather than info about capital or class.
 
Jean-Luc said:
OK.

1. Is the executive committe of your party elected as a slate?
2. Who proposes this slate?
3. Who sets the agenda for the party's conference?
4. Who chooses the organisers and who are they answerable to?
5. Can they issue binding instructions to ordinary members?
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1. Yes-for both national and executive committees
2. The NC and EC propose each others slates, and the membership can propose alternative slates.
3. The EC sends out documents, the branches reply - the agenda is determined from there.
4. The NC - but answerable to the membership, instant recall.
5. No. I can honestly say that nobody in the SP has ever told me to do anything, save from one branch secretary. He has since left the party and a lot of those who knew him felt he never really got over being a member of the SWP for 16 years, for some of which he worked full time for them. I've been asked to do things, and sometimes i say no.

Now answer all of the questions you asked me in relation to the glorious SPGB.
 
Jean-Luc said:
Well, capitalism is "bad", isn't it, and it doesn't change basically. But what about this (also from the same issue)?
This could be today too with people like Michael Moore and Richard "When Capitalism Hits the Fan" Wolff pushing workers' co-operatives again. I'm not sure if the Institute for Workers Control is still calling for Lucas Aerospace to be run on these lines.
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That Marx fella talked very supportively about co-operatives, thought they were important. They do employ more people than multinationals, worldwide.
 
Jean-Luc said:
Well, capitalism is "bad", isn't it, and it doesn't change basically.
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Do socialists only have to change what they do if capitalism changes 'basically'; i.e. stops being capitalism? I would have thought that socialists would need to deal with the tactics of capital of their own time. But obviously you've been doing this for a while now so you probably know best.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice
 
SpackleFrog said:
1. Is the executive committe of your party elected as a slate?
2. Who proposes this slate?
3. Who sets the agenda for the party's conference?
4. Who chooses the organisers and who are they answerable to?
5. Can they issue binding instructions to ordinary members?
Click to expand...
1. Yes-for both national and executive committees
2. The NC and EC propose each others slates, and the membership can propose alternative slates.
3. The EC sends out documents, the branches reply - the agenda is determined from there.
4. The NC - but answerable to the membership, instant recall.
5. No. I can honestly say that nobody in the SP has ever told me to do anything, save from one branch secretary. He has since left the party and a lot of those who knew him felt he never really got over being a member of the SWP for 16 years, for some of which he worked full time for them. I've been asked to do things, and sometimes i say no.

Now answer all of the questions you asked me in relation to the glorious SPGB.
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Thanks. I think I can answer for many organisations that aspire to be democratic, eg trade union branches and voluntary associations and clubs.

1. Candidates are elected as individuals, i.e the members vote for individuals (whether the system is the first 10 or whatever past the post or the single transferable vote). Candidates are nominated by branches.
2. The slate system is not applied, particularly not by an outgoing committee proposing the slate as that means committees perpetuating themselves through co-optation.
3. The Conference agenda is set by branches proposing motions. The executive committee cannot propose motions.
4. Branches elect their own organisers who are responsible to them.
5. So your party is not as bad as the AWL whose constitution includes this rule: "Branch or fraction organisers can give binding instructions to activists in their areas on all day today matters."

The main difference between this democratic form of organisation and the Leninist model is that the executive bodies do not propose their own slate of candidates and do not set the Conference agenda and so a self-perpetuating leadership which can get the policies it favours adopted is made more difficult (as opposed to encouraged, in fact institutionalised, in the Leninist model).
 
How subject to change has your EC been over the last 20 years? This is relevant if we loo at the bureaucracy/substitution angle that the latest goonboy post was covering. Or we could move it to the hilarious SPGB thread.
 
Jean-Luc said:
Thanks. I think I can answer for many organisations that aspire to be democratic, eg trade union branches and voluntary associations and clubs.

1. Candidates are elected as individuals, i.e the members vote for individuals (whether the system is the first 10 or whatever past the post or the single transferable vote). Candidates are nominated by branches.
2. The slate system is not applied, particularly not by an outgoing committee proposing the slate as that means committees perpetuating themselves through co-optation.
3. The Conference agenda is set by branches proposing motions. The executive committee cannot propose motions.
4. Branches elect their own organisers who are responsible to them.
5. So your party is not as bad as the AWL whose constitution includes this rule: "Branch or fraction organisers can give binding instructions to activists in their areas on all day today matters."

The main difference between this democratic form of organisation and the Leninist model is that the executive bodies do not propose their own slate of candidates and do not set the Conference agenda and so a self-perpetuating leadership which can get the policies it favours adopted is made more difficult (as opposed to encouraged, in fact institutionalised, in the Leninist model).
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You haven't got any policy disagreements to argue over. The line is the line and if you don't like it you are out. Simple.
 
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