SWP expulsions and squabbles

[tenniselbow]

New ISJ out with an article by Sheila M defending the Cliff-Harman-German legacy on feminism vs the 'Marxist Feminists'. Critical of Lise Vogel, the name most often used by others in the IST who are moving in that direction. "Vogel herself does not go down this route [patriarchy theory] although her own analysis is, in part, about establishing the potential for cross-class alliances among women."

Glad to see you back BB, for the discussion's sake! Funny how often Sheila is quoting German's work given that you won't find any reference to it on the theory section of the SWP website. Is this work not relevant anymore, contrary to what Sheila says, or does the Centre want to deter members from reading books written by persona non grata?

 

[oskarsdrum]

Hmm. The most interesting thing about the McGregor piece is its deep inoffensiveness, to someone like me who finds the IS approach to women's oppression deeply unsatisfactory (I find the 80s pieces like nails on a blackboard, by contrast...)

There's a good survey of some historical and contemporary facts & figures. There's the usual invocation of the Engels book. There's some decent discussion of gender in the workplace. And there's a general defence of unity between women and men in the struggle.

All well and good: but what is staked out here beyond the basics? Where is the critique of the dialectical analysis of economy-culture-gender that characterises 'Marxist feminism'? We've got the accusation of class-collaborationism at Vogel, frustratingly quoteless, so for anyone without the book it's impossible to see whether this is a good characterisation of Vogel's actual argument. And beyond that?

What about a few more pressing questions - what kind of strategies could we use to tackle sexism in the working class, at a time of limited struggle and defeats? Should women's caucuses be a part of socialist organisation and if so, when? If not, why not, and how do you tackle the problem of sexist behaviour and attitudes amongst Marxists? How can we counter the effects of bureactratization in the movement where it perpetuates women's oppression? If women-only organising isn't acceptable, how do we embed zero tolerance of sexist violence amongst men in our organisations?

All this I think stems from a failure to explore two questions - what is women's oppression? and what is gender? Which leaves the conception quite elastic and therefore at the mercy of party leaders - thus 'creeping feminism' accusations etc.

The other strange thing is a disconnection from any debates of the feminist movement today - let's say an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of intersectionality approaches, or of fighting Islamophobia whilst rejecting communalistic apologism for certain forms of women's oppression, or indeed of whether a Nordic style childcare set-up could be a useful anti-austerity demand.

In fact there isn't even a mention of 2 articles in this year's Socialist Register, setting out distinctive socialist feminist strategies (interesting critique of the gendered power structure produced through "charismatic" leadership, as one example among many). In short, it may well do a job of reassuring the faithful, but amongst the movement at large - can't see what it hopes to achieve, really.

 

[oskarsdrum]

Funny how often Sheila is quoting German's work given that you won't find any reference to it on the theory section of the SWP website.

Whoa! that's changed quite recently, it had the 1981 'theories of patriarchy' on there a couple of months ago. Actually not a bad piece - before Cliff the Wise handed down the whole Marxist truth on the matter, and coming up with a defence of his thoughts at the time became the primary concern.

Weird in fact that there's nothing at all of the 'classic' texts on the matter - just a couple of SW pieces, and Orr's ISJ article - which as I've banged on about elsewhere, is a good defence of working class feminism but says nothing distinctive for the "tradition".

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Whoa! that's changed quite recently, it had the 1981 'theories of patriarchy' on there a couple of months ago. Actually not a bad piece - before Cliff the Wise handed down the whole Marxist truth on the matter, and coming up with a defence of his thoughts at the time became the primary concern.

Weird in fact that there's nothing at all of the 'classic' texts on the matter - just a couple of SW pieces, and Orr's ISJ article - which as I've banged on about elsewhere, is a good defence of working class feminism but says nothing distinctive for the "tradition".

It is very odd. Considering the prof has been linking to those classic 80's articles all over his FB page for some time. Almost like the theory page has been hijacked by someone who's never read much of it :-(

I do agree with you that Sheila's piece isn't going to convince the more worked out socialist feminists, it is first and foremost an opening salvo by the look of it. Pretty much a summary of others arguments. Hopefully someone is busy reading and writing a more nuanced answer. Guess part of the problem is there aren't enough heavy hitters left to go round.

 

[oskarsdrum]

Yes! And it was a serious analysis to reckon with, who knows I'd probably have been off on some post-structuralist fantasy if left to my own devices (I like Gimenez's term for it, "discourse reductionism."). as a non-expert, all the anthropology stuff seemed a convincing rebuttal to 'dual systems'.

I agree, it'd be really good to have a serious, sympathetic but robust (if warranted) response to the marx-fems. Sad that early deaths have taken a toll alongside political own-goals. Mind you isn't there someone best suited for the job outside the UK?? A fresh perspective from Ireland, Egypt or Greece could be just the ticket....

 

[tenniselbow]

It is very odd. Considering the prof has been linking to those classic 80's articles all over his FB page for some time. Almost like the theory page has been hijacked by someone who's never read much of it :-(

To be honest, despite the Prof's wider reading and engagement, I do think the paucity of the "theory" section there is representative of the rather narrow reading prescribed within the party. This point was debated somewhere down the thread I know. There is definitely more than a bit of insularity there.

On the Prof's reading, I did find the fact that he accused Seymour of "eclecticism and picking up ideas from all over" rather amusing since he lifted Rawls' liberal theory of justice in his Resources of Critique book, a point for which Harman slammed him pretty heavily in ISJ if I recall correctly.

 

[oskarsdrum]

haha, too true! A world where Marxists can't indulge in a dose of Jessop is a sad one indeed. And you're spot on about the website, no Mandel, Bensaid, Judith Butler, Ralph Miliband, Gimenez, Therborn, Harvey....? Very much jn line with the whole 'what do socialists say about....?' meeting, where you get to find out precisely what the SWP says.

I realised I never read the German article on the party website at all, it's still up on the ISJ Resources section: http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?s=resources ...along with Barker's Poulantzas hatchet job. for shame!

 

[oskarsdrum]

Now then. I'm sure there are many things better in life to do than this, but I'd like to take a moment to quantify the financial pinch that the SWP might be feeling from all this.

1) subs. lets say a minimum of 250 lost subs, averaging £20/month each (£240/year). 60 grand a year gone! That's a few lower league full timers right there!

2) Marxism. Say they sell 1000 tickets, compared to 3500 on average pre-crisis. 2500 x £35 = £87,500, though maybe they can cut their outlay on dead labour given the newly modest scope of this year's event....

3) I presume SW sales are less than half of the seasonal average, but is the paper loss making on a per-unit basis? I guess they must have taken a net hit in recent months though, as I should think they were loathe to cut production numbers. Could be looking at a minimum grand per week there, anyhow, comparable to the subs losses.

4) Given the subs drives, appeal etc (the appeal! there's another one!) I'd imagine they're fairly dependent on the recurrent sources of income, though I know there's various theories out there about the asset access the party has. Probably this could only fund a WRP style zombie life though, and nothing on the scale that we're accustomed to from the world's smallest mass party?

Well. On a separate, but equally unedifying note, I counted up the gender radios of the CC vs iDoop lists the other day. They were both majority male, but the CC female proportion (~40%) was a good bit higher than the iDoop one! have to say that confounded my own expectations.

 

[The39thStep]

Hmm. The most interesting thing about the McGregor piece is its deep inoffensiveness, to someone like me who finds the IS approach to women's oppression deeply unsatisfactory (I find the 80s pieces like nails on a blackboard, by contrast...)

There's a good survey of some historical and contemporary facts & figures. There's the usual invocation of the Engels book. There's some decent discussion of gender in the workplace. And there's a general defence of unity between women and men in the struggle.

All well and good: but what is staked out here beyond the basics? Where is the critique of the dialectical analysis of economy-culture-gender that characterises 'Marxist feminism'? We've got the accusation of class-collaborationism at Vogel, frustratingly quoteless, so for anyone without the book it's impossible to see whether this is a good characterisation of Vogel's actual argument. And beyond that?

What about a few more pressing questions - what kind of strategies could we use to tackle sexism in the working class, at a time of limited struggle and defeats? Should women's caucuses be a part of socialist organisation and if so, when? If not, why not, and how do you tackle the problem of sexist behaviour and attitudes amongst Marxists? How can we counter the effects of bureactratization in the movement where it perpetuates women's oppression? If women-only organising isn't acceptable, how do we embed zero tolerance of sexist violence amongst men in our organisations?

All this I think stems from a failure to explore two questions - what is women's oppression? and what is gender? Which leaves the conception quite elastic and therefore at the mercy of party leaders - thus 'creeping feminism' accusations etc.

The other strange thing is a disconnection from any debates of the feminist movement today - let's say an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of intersectionality approaches, or of fighting Islamophobia whilst rejecting communalistic apologism for certain forms of women's oppression, or indeed of whether a Nordic style childcare set-up could be a useful anti-austerity demand.

In fact there isn't even a mention of 2 articles in this year's Socialist Register, setting out distinctive socialist feminist strategies (interesting critique of the gendered power structure produced through "charismatic" leadership, as one example among many). In short, it may well do a job of reassuring the faithful, but amongst the movement at large - can't see what it hopes to achieve, really.

what makes this a pressing issue?

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Now then. I'm sure there are many things better in life to do than this, but I'd like to take a moment to quantify the financial pinch that the SWP might be feeling from all this.

1) subs. lets say a minimum of 250 lost subs, averaging £20/month each (£240/year). 60 grand a year gone! That's a few lower league full timers right there!

2) Marxism. Say they sell 1000 tickets, compared to 3500 on average pre-crisis. 2500 x £35 = £87,500, though maybe they can cut their outlay on dead labour given the newly modest scope of this year's event....

3) I presume SW sales are less than half of the seasonal average, but is the paper loss making on a per-unit basis? I guess they must have taken a net hit in recent months though, as I should think they were loathe to cut production numbers. Could be looking at a minimum grand per week there, anyhow, comparable to the subs losses.

It's very difficult to know. There will be a direct subs loss from people leaving, certainly. Marxism will lose a chunk of cash too, although they may be able to limit their losses a little if they can switch to a cheaper venue. And they'll save quite a bit of their usual outlay on invited speakers! SW certainly loses money every week anyway and a reduced sale will mean further losses, which again can be mitigated by reducing print runs (and by reducing the paper's staff). Plus their subs income is based on a certain amount of membership churn, and reduced recruitment will hit that beyond simply the effect of recent resignations.

How much any individual factor or the combination of all of them will impact their functioning is very hard to estimate, given that even recent ex-members seem to know almost nothing about their finances. Which strikes me as utterly bizarre. What, by the way, was the official justification for not letting members have access to the books? Surely someone must have asked at least on occasion?

Well. On a separate, but equally unedifying note, I counted up the gender radios of the CC vs iDoop lists the other day. They were both majority male, but the CC female proportion (~40%) was a good bit higher than the iDoop one! have to say that confounded my own expectations.

Ok, that's pretty surprising. What percentage was the IDOOP one?

 

[tenniselbow]

2) Marxism. Say they sell 1000 tickets, compared to 3500 on average pre-crisis. 2500 x £35 = £87,500, though maybe they can cut their outlay on dead labour given the newly modest scope of this year's event....

They claim to have already sold 1,200 I believe.

 

[SpineyNorman]

They claim to have already sold 1,200 I believe.

Could this be the first year ever where Marxism isn't the 'biggest yet'?

I actually think Marxism is something of value that will be lost because of this. I know not everyone on here will agree but IMO if you wanted to hear a range of knowledgeable speakers (I'm talking mainly about guest speakers like Harvey and the like) it was the best event in the country. Sadly, even if the SWP do manage to limit the damage this does to the party I don't think Marxism will ever be like it was again. I was going to go this year too, won't bother now though

 

[tenniselbow]

Could this be the first year ever where Marxism isn't the 'biggest yet'?

I actually think Marxism is something of value that will be lost because of this. I know not everyone on here will agree but IMO if you wanted to hear a range of knowledgeable speakers (I'm talking mainly about guest speakers like Harvey and the like) it was the best event in the country. Sadly, even if the SWP do manage to limit the damage this does to the party I don't think Marxism will ever be like it was again. I was going to go this year too, won't bother now though

Agree with you there, Spiney; it is somewhat of a loss. I too have seen some excellent guest speakers at Marxism... and suffered some dreadfully mediocre party hacks before I knew better.

 

[Red Cat]

You only get beyond mediocre by practicing. I don't see why speaking at political meetings should be the preserve of the excellent.

 

[tenniselbow]

You only get beyond mediocre by practicing. I don't see why speaking at political meetings should be the preserve of the excellent.

I'm not talking about performance quality but content.

There's a difference between being: (1) a stumbling or nervous speaker who has interesting and thoughtful things to say; and (2) adopting an SWP-issue oratory style and repeating a set of preordained party lines on "what socialists say".

Practice will improve the former but not the latter.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

I'm not talking about performance quality but content.

There's a difference between being: (1) a stumbling or nervous speaker who has interesting and thoughtful things to say; and (2) adopting an SWP-issue oratory style and repeating a set of preordained party lines on "what socialists say".

Practice will improve the former but not the latter.

If anything practice makes the latter more aggravating, as a speaker becomes practiced enough in the SWP house speaking style to add just the right notes of confidence and excitement. Say what you like about Chris Harman, on the rare occasions when I heard him speak at a big SWP event, his personal brand of slightly robotic anti-charisma was a pleasant break from the ra-ra-ra stuff.

 

[SpineyNorman]

You only get beyond mediocre by practicing. I don't see why speaking at political meetings should be the preserve of the excellent.

I don't think it's especially elitist to think that hearing David Harvey speak on the financial crisis would probably be more interesting and informative than if John, secretary of the Milton Keynes north branch of the SWP, spoke on the same topic.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

A rather lengthy article by Hannah Sell on a range of issues covered by this thread:
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/ar...ist-perspective-on-fighting-womens-oppression

 

[Nigel Irritable]

As an aside, the article contains the following section:

In his book 'Class struggle & Women's Liberation' Tony Cliff, founder of the SWP, argued that the women's liberation movement was wrong to focus "consistently on areas where men and women are at odds - rape, battered women, wages for housework - while ignoring or playing down the important struggles in which women are more likely to win the support of men: strikes, opposition to welfare cuts, equal pay, unionisation, abortion".

I presume that this is not one of the Cliff books that the SWP strives to keep in print??!!

 

[oskarsdrum]

Thanks for the link Nigel! Enjoyed this thoughtful, well-argued piece. Good critique of Cliff indeed, well, even a staunch loyalist such as Snowball on his histomat blog expressed minor reservations about that book. However I think the same argument is basically there in Harman and McGregor's subsequent outings. This strikes me as an excellent and timely point:

"we fight for the maximum unity of the working class, not by trying to brush issues relating to the specific oppression of women under the carpet, but by campaigning to convince the whole workers' movement it is necessary to take these issues seriously."

I haven't changed my view that an investigation is unlikely to yield a satisfactory "balance of probability" verdict in a significant number of cases (I.e. those with no 3rd party witnesses). But there's a good rationale for the practical position taken by Sell.

More tangentially - for my money, sexist violence mainly is about the patriarchal patterns of gendered behaviour which make violence and physical domination a more common resort for men than for women (I think more specific beliefs about women 'belonging' to men are secondary to this).

Good emphasis on institutional factors in perpetuating oppressive male behaviour by the way. It's all a bit more attentive to reality than anything I can imagine coming out of the swp. Although a retraction of the SH statement would be better still......

 

[oskarsdrum]

It's very difficult to know. There will be a direct subs loss from people leaving, certainly. Marxism will lose a chunk of cash too, although they may be able to limit their losses a little if they can switch to a cheaper venue. And they'll save quite a bit of their usual outlay on invited speakers! SW certainly loses money every week anyway and a reduced sale will mean further losses, which again can be mitigated by reducing print runs (and by reducing the paper's staff). Plus their subs income is based on a certain amount of membership churn, and reduced recruitment will hit that beyond simply the effect of recent resignations.

Aha! Good dynamic analysis, yes indeed, I'd not thought of that. Countervailing factors - I wonder to what extent (semi-)loyalists have upped the subs levels, made an extra effort to get to Marxism and what not. Obviously this isn't likely to be a sustainable effect assuming demoralisation sets on later in the year.

How much any individual factor or the combination of all of them will impact their functioning is very hard to estimate, given that even recent ex-members seem to know almost nothing about their finances. Which strikes me as utterly bizarre. What, by the way, was the official justification for not letting members have access to the books? Surely someone must have asked at least on occasion?

I heard MS himself declaim on this. It's to stop the rozzers getting the intel about what we're up to! So do you get the accounts in the SP? Don't you care about the security of the revolutionary struggle??!?

What percentage was the IDOOP one?

31.6%! Quite a difference to the CC list (which was almost 41%). It's a reasonable sample size too I think, of 500ish each. It could be, I suppose, something to do with other demographic differences, e.g. the suggested bias towards 80s intake amongst loyalists.....frankly someone needs to do the proper research here, it's an essential question for strategizing in movement!

 

[oskarsdrum]

They claim to have already sold 1,200 I believe.

Is that sold or signed up? I've heard that several hundred plus tickets are distributed gratis to IST activists and various grandees etc. If they've sold twelve hundred on top then that is a surprising level of vitality.

 

[sihhi]

what makes this a pressing issue?

At a guess - the fact that working-class women and children experience it as important?

 

[oskarsdrum]

oskarsdrum blathered on:
What about a few more pressing questions - what kind of strategies could we use to tackle sexism in the working class, at a time of limited struggle and defeats?

what makes this a pressing issue?

Well, there are plenty of reasons why it's always pressing, but a particular problem at the moment is the standard response of many marxists - or at least, those of IS heritage - that the main way men's behaviour and attitudes are changed is through partipating in class struggle. Usually followed by an anecdote about the miners' strike. That's an important argument, and I'd like to hear more of other examples where divisions/oppression have been overcome as a result of militant action. The problem is when we're mainly in a period of defeat with precious little serious resistance - and given the chronically poor levels of class organisation, there seems to be every possibility that a new strike wave isn't coming for the foreseeable future - this actually serves to obscure the possibilities for fighting oppression more than anything.

 

[sihhi]

As an aside, the article contains the following section:

In his book 'Class struggle & Women's Liberation' Tony Cliff, founder of the SWP, argued that the women's liberation movement was wrong to focus "consistently on areas where men and women are at odds - rape, battered women, wages for housework - while ignoring or playing down the important struggles in which women are more likely to win the support of men: strikes, opposition to welfare cuts, equal pay, unionisation, abortion".

I presume that this is not one of the Cliff books that the SWP strives to keep in print??!!

It's around and there's other stuff in Harman's guides that echo the line.
Harman expresses it by stating feminism is wrong to concentrate on areas where women are weak (domestic violence, rape culture) but should concentrate where they are strong ie in unions and other united front campaigns - ie basically follow the SWP leadership approach.

 

[sihhi]

Well, there are plenty of reasons why it's always pressing, but a particular problem at the moment is the standard response of many marxists - or at least, those of IS heritage - that the main way men's behaviour and attitudes are changed is through partipating in class struggle. Usually followed by an anecdote about the miners' strike. That's an important argument, and I'd like to hear more of other examples where divisions/oppression have been overcome as a result of militant action.

In a general sense there's lots of it - Con Mech, Imperial Typewriters, Timex in the 1990s - but perhaps you mean more specific stuff. ??

 

[treelover]

Could this be the first year ever where Marxism isn't the 'biggest yet'?

I actually think Marxism is something of value that will be lost because of this. I know not everyone on here will agree but IMO if you wanted to hear a range of knowledgeable speakers (I'm talking mainly about guest speakers like Harvey and the like) it was the best event in the country. Sadly, even if the SWP do manage to limit the damage this does to the party I don't think Marxism will ever be like it was again. I was going to go this year too, won't bother now though

I suspect Left Unity will want to organise smaller day school events quite quickly with good speakers..

 

[The39thStep]

At a guess - the fact that working-class women and children experience it as important?

Which is exactly what it is , a guess. Pressing issue was the term.How would the left know whether it was a pressing issue per se or even where it may be a pressing issue as it doesn't engage with the working class to ask what issues are important?

 

[SpackleFrog]

I heard MS himself declaim on this. It's to stop the rozzers getting the intel about what we're up to! So do you get the accounts in the SP? Don't you care about the security of the revolutionary struggle??!?

Every year at Congress delegates are provided with financial breakdown documents. We're not allowed to take these away with us though, in case they fall in to the hands of MI5. We also elect auditors every year who have to be longstanding members of the party who have never worked for the party. I've never done it myself, think I'm slightly short of the 5 year membership requirement, but I'm told they usually spend a week going through the accounts and then they do a report back for Congress. If memory serves last time the report said that the party needed to be more disciplined about its expenditure on stationary.

To be honest I think the stuff about not being allowed to take the finance docs back to branches is a bit paranoid, I don't think the forces of the state are that interested in how much the party spends on office rent and phone bills. But it's not a bad system really.

 

[sihhi]

Which is exactly what it is , a guess. Pressing issue was the term.How would the left know whether it was a pressing issue per se or even where it may be a pressing issue as it doesn't engage with the working class to ask what issues are important?

By listening to people without asking questions. It might not be "an issue" issue, but it is there and damages people, some groups - women and young - will experience it in a more pressing way than others.