Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
None entirely convincing, but none less convincing than applying the term "capitalism" to mean "anything we don't like". But that's for another thread.
SWP expulsions and squabbles
- Thread starter Nigel Irritable
- Start date
None entirely convincing, but none less convincing than applying the term "capitalism" to mean "anything we don't like". But that's for another thread.
butchersapron
When I was in the Party he was head of SWSS. He became a CC member a few years (2008-9?) after I left, but he can only be about 28 now.
When I was in the Party he was head of SWSS. He became a CC member a few years (2008-9?) after I left, but he can only be about 28 now.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Wolves poly?
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
If that is your understanding of the theory nigel, then the education within the SP and the SP(I) is even worse than I thought!
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
Shocking isn't it.
Jo C was similar but I quite like him. He even had a proper job for a couple of months at one point.
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
Yes, true - that's normally what's done with the term "liberal". Believe in womens' rights, free speech, racial equality, equality of opportunity? Liberal cunt.
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
Yeah that sounds about right, time wise.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Oxbridge as well is he?
bolshiebhoy
socialism leinster drink
Too right. You just missed John Rees describe this episode as "the single biggest implosion of the revolutionary left since the Italian left meltdown of the mid 1970s"
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
The implosion that didn't happen.
bolshiebhoy
socialism leinster drink
This isn't the right thread of course as NI says but that's a cracking comment belboid, bang on the money. Just the sort of crass description of state cap that the Millies used to feed their younger members. Anyway enough of this it's indulgent of us all!
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
Cambridge, got a first in physics.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
No, I'm quite familiar with Cliff's "theory", and its revisions, and a number of other "state capitalist" theories, some predating his, and find none of them even slightly convincing. Trotsky, Shachtman, Ticktin, etc have all produced theoretical frameworks with more explanatory power. However, while I broadly lean towards Trotsky's view, as expanded into "Proletarian Bonapartism", I don't find any of the main theories entirely convincing on every issue and aspect, and tend to agree with Jim Higgins' observation that all of the various "theories" of Stalinism have generally been better at pointing out the flaws in other theories than they have at providing their own unassailable accounts.
I've always found that the mark of the very stupidest SWP members has been a conviction that "State Capitalism" has provided their organisation with the secret keys to the universe. It's almost always accompanied by a broad ignorance of the detail of Cliff's (contradictory) theories and a near total ignorance of any other theory.
But as I've said above, this is really something for another thread as it's the kind of classic set piece argument that could go on for thirty pages here with nobody changing their minds.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
And the young one?
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
Just know he went to Cambridge.
bolshiebhoy
socialism leinster drink
That's terribly undialectical of you fella I'm sure John would say. The implosion is a process, only a hopeless empiricist would take the lack of an implosion so far as evidence of no impending implosion.
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
So not just the biggest on the British left but the world wide left.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
You're getting a bit Zhou Enlai and the French Revolution here. He's talking about the Italian left "implosion" of the 70s.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Someone who was on the CC just a year ago is a pretty big "scalp" for Counterfire. But he clearly hasn't brought a group with him or they'd be advertising the fact.
I note also that a certain SWP-sympathising academic's insistence on calling Rees and German "Lord and Lady MacBeth" on Facebook seems to drive the Counterfire people absolutely nuts.
I note also that a certain SWP-sympathising academic's insistence on calling Rees and German "Lord and Lady MacBeth" on Facebook seems to drive the Counterfire people absolutely nuts.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Like trotsky and ww3 - he's not wrong, it's just that it hasn't happened yet.
bolshiebhoy
socialism leinster drink
Oh feck was he, of course yeah I see now why he'd say that, my bad.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
none of which is really consistent with what you said before, but, yeah, another time, another thread.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
What/which implosion?
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Exactly.
bolshiebhoy
socialism leinster drink
Well yeah I thought it telling that he sees the swp as THAT important.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
That's what they taught him. It's what they taught you. What party are you both in?
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
Stuck in a bubble the lot of them and that include the opposition.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
I just started a response to this explaining precisely why it's consistent, and then had to restrain myself. It's one of those topics that exercises a kind of magnetic pull towards endless polemical exchanges. Even now that it doesn't really fucking matter very much.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
bolshiebhoy
socialism leinster drink
It is a little like Joyce and his obsession with the Catholic Church he'd 'left' I grant you.
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