Voting v. Not Voting, Which is Superior?

[Dunk]

So. I'm sitting here eating my delicious bowl of spaghetti and wondering whether voting for SPUSA's Presidential candidate is a superior form of protest against bourgeois democracy versus choosing not to vote at all.

I know he can't win, so a vote for him would just be an act of protest for me. Hypothetically, if SPUSA or any other socialist or communist party ever does field a candidate for any race that has a realistic chance of winning, is electing a candidate who will only be capable of limited reform should they win an endorsement of reform over revolution? Should revolutionaries vote for the most radical candidates that run for office in bourgeois democracies while agitating for revolution? We all know emancipation doesn't come from above, so does it matter? I'm also pretty pissed off with the party because his running mate is a business owner. Right now, I'm leaning toward not voting and admit I'm considering leaving the SPUSA.

Thoughts?

[rundontwalk]

My personal view is that voting for the right people helps more than it hurts, as long as one does so with the understanding that voting can't solve all problems.

I mean, think of all the benefits that can be derived from working within the existing political structures and voting in more left leaning candidates. Right to work laws can be repealed. Environmental protections can be strengthened, etc. etc.

By not voting you're not helping in getting those things done.

[Demogorgon]

Neither action will have any effect at all. You would be as well to flip a coin if those are the choices you are faced with. Personally I would be inclined to vote for the Socialist Candidate though. While some here would say that not voting is best because voting somehow "legitimises the system" in truth not turning up is often seen as a sign of general satisfaction by those in charge.

[pax et aequalitas]

They say voting is useless, but so is not voting. Besides, you can't complain about voting being useless when you don't even do it, IMO. That's how I see it.

[Manic Impressive]

The more votes a socialist candidate gets the more they are perceived as a legitimate alternative. Even if the likelihood of the state being captured through electoral means may be slim, participating in elections may become a useful tool to get our voices heard and spread class conciousness. Although obviously a socialist candidate should never stand on a reformist platform.

[zimmerwald1915]

Whether you as an individual vote or not makes very little difference, in a whole slew of ways. It doesn't make that much of a difference to you personally. Since you're thinking about these matters it's fairly clear that going into a voting booth and filling out a card, flipping some levers, tapping a screen or what have you isn't going to make you a bourgeois toady in any kind of mechanical way. I suppose if your polling station is out of your way you could spend some time finding it, waiting in line, and then voting that you might rather be spending some other way. But really that's it. It doesn't make much difference to the bourgeoisie or their system if you vote either. It's not like anyone's gonna let socialism be voted into power, and heck, the bourgeoisie doesn't even depend on large-scale voter participation for political legitimacy anymore, though factions within it can make political capital out of their ability to mobilize large sectors of the population.

What is problematic is not the act of voting itself, unless you subscribe to contracturalism and believe that the act of voting is an act of legitimation of the state and by extension of the whole rotten bourgeois socity. What is problematic is not even agitating or organizing during elections or around issues raised in the bourgeois media circus. What is problematic is organizing an election campaign per se, telling people to vote, for whom to vote, and what reformist program their vote will, supposedly (of course it doesn't) advance. It's not consciousness-raising, it's not party building, and it's exhausting.

[The Idler]

Workers who won't vote for socialism, won't strike for socialism.

[bricolage]

Workers who won't vote for socialism, won't strike for socialism.
Socialism doesn't need workers to want it.

[DaringMehring]

Either way, you won't make an impact.

As for whether to do it, that is almost a religious question (religion seems to be filled with instructions on what to do that doesn't matter).

You might consider, whether you think it is appropriate to vote at all, or whether that puts your seal of approval on the bourgeois democratic process, and its bloody results. You of course also have to ask yourself, whether you agree with the SPUSA's politics.

Good luck -- but the world isn't holding it's breath to find out the result.

[The Idler]

Socialism doesn't need workers to want it.
It does.

[bricolage]

It does.
It doesn't. And my dad's bigger than your dad.

[Manic Impressive]

Socialism doesn't need workers to want it.
Perhaps you could explain what you mean as it seems as though you are saying that socialism can be forced on to workers who don't want it.

[bricolage]

Perhaps you could explain what you mean as it seems as though you are saying that socialism can be forced on to workers who don't want it.
No I'm trying to say the socialism won't happen from waiting bit by bit via propaganda, missionary work and conversion for enough workers to be ideologically committed to a new human community who then decide to flock to a ballot box and vote for full and total communism. I agree with Marx when he says;

Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.As such the movement towards communism will come from the everyday struggles against social conditions such as the 'mere labour struggles' that people like The Idler or DNZ condemn. That the struggles against the conditions and forms of commonality that accompany them can expand and grow, causing a massive rupture in the social relations of capital and a gateway to something new.

For from being forced on workers 'the emancipation of the workers...' (you know the rest) but you don't have to know Marx backwards to emancipate yourself you just have to fight for you interests.

The Idler and the SPGB line that he represents say you have to have socialists before socialism, revolutionaries before revolution, I don't and instead agree more with what Martin Glaberman says here;

Something Marx wrote can help put this in a fundamental theoretical framework. In The German Ideology, one of his early writings, he wrote:

"Both for the production on a mass scale of the communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution; this revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew."�

I suggest that this is the opposite of what most people think Marx said. Marx didn't say we have to create new people in order to make a revolution. He said we have to make a revolution in order to create new people. Where does the revolution come from? Do you mean that the American working class, the sexist, racist, American working class can make fundamental changes in this society? It has over history. But if you think that you are going to reinvent the American working class first, and then make fundamental changes, you might as well retire and leave the struggle. It just doesn't work that way. Revolutions are made; the CIO upsurge was made, by ordinary people with all the limitations of the society "” driven by 36 seconds for the rest of your life. If you can live with that daily reality, there will not be any fundamental change.

[robbo203]

Socialism doesn't need workers to want it.

How on earth can you say that? In point of fact the very opposite is true. Unless and until a majority of workers want and understand it, socialism simply will not come into existence.

The mistake of so many leftists is to use capitalist revolutions as a kind of template for a communist/socialist revolution. This is simply not the case; they are radically different in form and substance. The latter has to be a class conscious majoritarian one because the new mode of production that it ushers in cannot function without the kind of behavioural expectations and values that such a consciousness entails. The Communist Manifesto says it in a nutshell:

All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority

Any group or party that seeks to introduce socialism without workers actually wanting it will, of neccesity, have to resign itself to administering capitalism It will thus transmute itself into the class enemy

[bricolage]

Any group or party that seeks to introduce socialism without workers actually wanting it will, of neccesity, have to resign itself to administering capitalism It will thus transmute itself into the class enemy
You misunderstand me, I am not saying an elite group of political militants forces their way to power and imposes communism from above, quite clearly this is what was attempted (or rather not attempted, in that there were just attempts to impose alternative forms of capitalism) throughout the 20th Century and resulted in untold misery. What I am arguing is that the organic movement of the class towards communsim does not entail a prior ideological conversion of the masses. This simply will not happen. Workers will fight for their interests and out of those fights the socialist movement will emerge.

[The Idler]

You misunderstand me, I am not saying an elite group of political militants forces their way to power and imposes communism from above, quite clearly this is what was attempted (or rather not attempted, in that there were just attempts to impose alternative forms of capitalism) throughout the 20th Century and resulted in untold misery. What I am arguing is that the organic movement of the class towards communsim does not entail a prior ideological conversion of the masses. This simply will not happen. Workers will fight for their interests and out of those fights the socialist movement will emerge.
And will a socialist society emerge irrespective of whether this socialist movement constitutes a majority?

[bricolage]

And will a socialist society emerge irrespective of whether this socialist movement constitutes a majority?
And what is a majority? 50.1%? What is the point at which we reach an acceptable majority?

[robbo203]

No I'm trying to say the socialism won't happen from waiting bit by bit via propaganda, missionary work and conversion for enough workers to be ideologically committed to a new human community who then decide to flock to a ballot box and vote for full and total communism. I agree with Marx when he says;
As such the movement towards communism will come from the everyday struggles against social conditions such as the 'mere labour struggles' that people like The Idler or DNZ condemn. That the struggles against the conditions and forms of commonality that accompany them can expand and grow, causing a massive rupture in the social relations of capital and a gateway to something new.;

This is one humungus red herring. Noone is disputing that the "movement towards communism" originates from small beginnings in day to to day struggles etc and it is a complete misrepresentation of the line taken by organisations like the SPGB that they "condemn" such struggles. It is a source of constant amazement to me that so many on the Left still peddle this nonsense. The SPGB's literature unambiguously spells it out - they approve wholeheartedly of militant trade union action but do not themselves as a political party get involved in this. This notwithstanding the fact that many SPGBers are or were themselves militant trade unionists. All that they assert along withg Marx is that such struggles are by their nature limited and defensive and will not in themselves lead to the overtheow of capitalism. You can criticise that if you like but you cannot claim that the SPGB et al dispprove of these struggles. There is absolutely no warrant for saying so.



For from being forced on workers 'the emancipation of the workers...' (you know the rest) but you don't have to know Marx backwards to emancipate yourself you just have to fight for you interests..;


Fighting for your own interests is not enough. It is a necessary but not sufficient condition for establishing socialism. Trade unionism is purportedly about fighting for the interest of workers but even at its most effective, it is not about changing the system but about fighting our corner within the system. To change the system you have to have an alternative in mind and that means you have to wantand understand socialism



The Idler and the SPGB line that he represents say you have to have socialists before socialism, revolutionaries before revolution, I don't and instead agree more with what Martin Glaberman says here;


Glaberman is talking crap. He is faling to grasp that there are two quite distinct sense in which we can can talk about"revolution".

There is the fundamental sense in which a revolution equates with a change in the basic mode of production. Marx is certainly not suggesting that you establish socialism first and then people will become socialist. On the contrary he is quite explixit about this: for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary. That means quite clearly for socialism itself to succeed and become established ,consciousness has to be altered beforehand and not afterwards. He then talks about this alteration taking place in a revolution but here he is obviously talking about revolution as a transformative process, the second sense of the term revolution. A fundamental change in peoples outlook, in other words. That is indeed a gradual and incremental process unlike "revolution" in the first sense which in the Communist Manfiesto is characterised as the "most radical rupture" with traditional property relations.

Besides which, irrespective of the semantics of the word "revolution", we are talking about socialism and I am responding to your assertion "Socialism doesn't need workers to want it." . It certinaly does and The Idler is quite correct to point that out.

[thesadmafioso]

It all depends on the larger political context of who is running and upon what basis of support. Let's take a quick look at the SPUSA candidates, what does their actual political foundation look like? Is it based upon the traditional mass organizations of the worker? Is it met with a wide breadth of support throughout the working class?

Clearly it is not. This is the issue which occurs when a leftist party is isolated too heavily from the front lines and the trenches of the class struggle. Socialism in the US isn't going to come from the Socialist Party as it stands, they are simply too separate from the currents of the proletarian and their organs.

Now, if we were to take a mass party of labor, one with a concrete basis of support in the organizations of the worker and in the proletarian class itself, one which could turn out hundreds of thousands of workers with ease, then you would be looking at a different matter entirely. If such were the case, then there would be a legitimate chance for voting to break the paradigm of the two parties of the rich and a collection of powerless fringe parties, as the worker would truly have an entity in the equation capable of altering the political status quo.

[bricolage]

robbo when Marx talks about the alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary he is talking about this alteration taking place within a period or movement of intense class struggle, struggle that emerges from everyday struggles/strikes/riots/whatever and not from ideologically convinced majorities flocking to polling stations. conditions forge consciousness is the simple point here. it's also rather misleading for you to talk about this solely in the realms of trade unionism (similar to the way that the SPGB do), when I don't believe the types of struggle that we are talking about will come from this realm. the fact that you see this as the case is syptomatic of the argument that workers cannot fight for their own interests unless subordinated to a particular form of organisation, for 'mere labour struggles' its the trade unions, for 'political struggles' its the line of the SPGB.

the point is you cannot just wait until a majority (like I said, what is a majority? is it 50.1%, a figure completely divorced from on the ground reality?) believe in 'socialism' before doing anything because this simply won't happen. pro-revolutionary groups have a role in holding collective memories and using these to try and expand and broaden organically emerging struggles, but its not up to them to put for a blueprint for a future society that everyone else to agree with before we can start to fight for it.

maybe I am being to harsh on the SPGB but I am just going on my experiences of them. what I have found is they have a very detailed and largely correct critique of state capitalism similarly a view of what socialism might look like yet there involvement in actual struggles is non-existent (once again from my experiences) and that their focus is on propoganada so people can pass the test to get into them or campaigning for elections when they come around. I fully accept I may be wrong about them condemning everyday struggles yet on this website you'd be forgiven for thinking they do when you have posters like The Idler who parrot their line but are otherwise only capable of making one sentence posts, wanking over chomsky quotes or condeming the movement of the class.

[bricolage]

To summarise;

1. A 'majority' is an artificial figure divorced from the social conditions it exists within.
2. This majority is not going to come into existence outside of a period of intense (dare I say revolutionary) class struggle.
3. Even if this majority could come into existence prior to such a period (via ideological proselytizing) what would it do? How does a mass vote of the majority bring about socialism? Social relations happen in workplaces, not parliaments.
4. If this 'majority' is not going to exist prior to a revolutionary period what possible praxis is there left apart from the class movements that occur against the social conditions of the working class?

[Hit The North]

This is one humungus red herring. Noone is disputing that the "movement towards communism" originates from small beginnings in day to to day struggles etc and it is a complete misrepresentation of the line taken by organisations like the SPGB that they "condemn" such struggles. It is a source of constant amazement to me that so many on the Left still peddle this nonsense. The SPGB's literature unambiguously spells it out - they approve wholeheartedly of militant trade union action but do not themselves as a political party get involved in this. This notwithstanding the fact that many SPGBers are or were themselves militant trade unionists. All that they assert along withg Marx is that such struggles are by their nature limited and defensive and will not in themselves lead to the overtheow of capitalism. You can criticise that if you like but you cannot claim that the SPGB et al dispprove of these struggles.


It is certainly a position that demands criticism. If it is true that labour disputes "are by their nature limited and defensive and will not in themselves lead to the overthrow of capitalism" then this is precisely why Marxists should intervene practically in workers struggle and under the banner of socialism.

The SPGB's orientation of not agitating, educating and organising in the class struggle, means that their support for strikes is really a form of abstention and so is no real support at all. Individual members of the SPGB might be excellent trade unionists (although the majority membership now look beyond the age of retirement!) but what is the point of a having a political party of socialists if they only ever act as individual workers?

And if the overthrow of capitalism will not come from socialists agitating, educating and organising for that goal as a party and thereby developing these struggles and winning support through strengthening the practical solidarity and political content of worker's strikes, then where will it come from?

The reason the SPGB remains a tiny and insignificant (as well as rapidly ageing) "party" is because it has no sense of praxis, cannot prove its ideas in practical activity and so passes the attention of anyone engaged in struggle at any particular time. This is because it is no party at all, merely a debating society.

[Kamos]

Regarding voting - it's really such a non-issue that it doesn't matter. However, if I were you I'd take a practical approach as opposed to an ideological one. If you have a very bad government and your local progressive party would be a great improvement and would have a realistic chance of winning, go for it. If not, it's probably better to save the walk. To be more specific, I wouldn't vote in your case - one of the Demoblicans are gonna win anyways, the SPUSA doesn't stand a chance, and the mainstream parties aren't that bad compared to certain other countries' leading parties (such as ours in Hungary).

[robbo203]

robbo when Marx talks about the alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary he is talking about this alteration taking place within a period or movement of intense class struggle, struggle that emerges from everyday struggles/strikes/riots/whatever and not from ideologically convinced majorities flocking to polling stations. conditions forge consciousness is the simple point here. it's also rather misleading for you to talk about this solely in the realms of trade unionism (similar to the way that the SPGB do), when I don't believe the types of struggle that we are talking about will come from this realm. the fact that you see this as the case is syptomatic of the argument that workers cannot fight for their own interests unless subordinated to a particular form of organisation, for 'mere labour struggles' its the trade unions, for 'political struggles' its the line of the SPGB..

Lets try and clarify things here. Of course ideas change, and consciousness develops, through struggles. This is not in dispute . Nor is it disputed that these struggles are multifaceted and varied. I only gave the example of trade unionism as an example. I am certainly not suggesting that it is the sole example or that there are not other forms of organisation that workers can adopt in pursuit of their interests. Trade unionism wont bring about socialism but that doesnt mean it has to be rejected. The SPGB too has a somewhat broader perspective on the matter of struggle than you seem to imagine and does not limit "acceptable" activity to simply trade unionism on the one hand and revolutionary propagandism on the other. Its just that it confines its role strictly - perhaps too strictly - to the latter



the point is you cannot just wait until a majority (like I said, what is a majority? is it 50.1%, a figure completely divorced from on the ground reality?) believe in 'socialism' before doing anything because this simply won't happen. pro-revolutionary groups have a role in holding collective memories and using these to try and expand and broaden organically emerging struggles, but its not up to them to put for a blueprint for a future society that everyone else to agree with before we can start to fight for it...

I wouldnt disgaree with any of this but this is rather straying from the point - that you need a majority to want and understand socialism before it can happen. How much of a majority is difficult to say and i dont profess to have a clear answer. Certainly the bigger the better and voting, for all the criticisms levelled against it, is really the most or even only practical way to guage the opinions of large numbers of people. As the Idler said if people were not prepared to vote for socialism they would certainly be prepared to strike for it let alone take up arms for it. Not having a majority does not and should not stop you from doing something. Nobody is asking you to "wait" in that sense until such a majority materialises. It is only that for socialism to happen we have of necessity to wait for the majority to want and understand it but theres lot we can do in the meantime to bring that possiblity closer



maybe I am being to harsh on the SPGB but I am just going on my experiences of them. what I have found is they have a very detailed and largely correct critique of state capitalism similarly a view of what socialism might look like yet there involvement in actual struggles is non-existent (once again from my experiences) and that their focus is on propoganada so people can pass the test to get into them or campaigning for elections when they come around. I fully accept I may be wrong about them condemning everyday struggles yet on this website you'd be forgiven for thinking they do when you have posters like The Idler who parrot their line but are otherwise only capable of making one sentence posts, wanking over chomsky quotes or condeming the movement of the class.


I have my criticisms of the SPGB too and have one or two serious issues with them that prevent me from being a member - their absurd policy on excluding religious applicants being one of them (not that I am religious myself), All the same I think the SPGB has generally been grossly unfairly treated by the Left and all sorts of baseless myths have grown up like mushrooms around it. Its hightime a more balanced and reasonable perspective prevailed . For all its faults the SPGB in my opinion still stands head and shoulders above any other political organisation I can think of

[Belleraphone]

Voting for third parties does have a small effect if enough people do it. The abolition party and know-nothing party got quite a bit of votes, and government had to change policy slightly to appeal to those voters. Same with Progressive party.

[robbo203]

It is certainly a position that demands criticism. If it is true that labour disputes "are by their nature limited and defensive and will not in themselves lead to the overthrow of capitalism" then this is precisely why Marxists should intervene practically in workers struggle and under the banner of socialism.

The SPGB's orientation of not agitating, educating and organising in the class struggle, means that their support for strikes is really a form of abstention and so is no real support at all. Individual members of the SPGB might be excellent trade unionists (although the majority membership now look beyond the age of retirement!) but what is the point of a having a political party of socialists if they only ever act as individual workers?

And if the overthrow of capitalism will not come from socialists agitating, educating and organising for that goal as a party and thereby developing these struggles and winning support through strengthening the practical solidarity and political content of worker's strikes, then where will it come from?

The reason the SPGB remains a tiny and insignificant (as well as rapidly ageing) "party" is because it has no sense of praxis, cannot prove its ideas in practical activity and so passes the attention of anyone engaged in struggle at any particular time. This is because it is no party at all, merely a debating society.

Sorry but this is complete BS and yet another gross caricaturisation. I might add that no one on the Left is in a position to scoff at the insignificance and smallness of the SPGB; when it comes down to it we are all basically in the same boat on that score . Indeed compared to some Left groups the SPGB is a veritable mass movement


Your claim that the "SPGB's orientation of not agitating, educating and organising in the class struggle, means that their support for strikes is really a form of abstention and so is no real support at all" is based on a profiound misunderstanding of the SPGB position. It fully supports militant trade union struggle but does not itself as a political party get involved in trade union affairs - let alone try to "organise" (manipulate) workers on the shopfloor in typical vanguardist instrumentalist fashion - for a very simple reason that makes absolute sense when you think about it.

Trade unions consist of workers of many different political hues. To intervene in a strike as a political party would be to undermine and detract from the solidarity of workers involved in strike by drawing attention away from what they have in common to what differentiates them politically. The SPGB has often been accused of sectarianism but in this case its outlook is the most unsectarian possible. It is it leftists critics with their vainglorious prescriptions of organising the strikers under their own political banner who in fact are the sectarians here. Unity is strength and political divisiveness cannot but undermine it

It laughable really but what you call "agitating, educating and organising in the class struggle" amounts to little more than flogging your newpaper at the factory gates. Your SPGBers can and indeed have done this too but at least they don't entertain some overblown pretension about leading the workers as a political party out of those same gates on a strike. Its for the workers themselves to decide this, not the political activists. Keeping political parties out of the frame altogether represents in my view the best chance for workers to develop and nurture a sense of genuine class solidarity and class consciousness despite their political differences by focusing on what they have in common. Indeed, it is only through the development of this class consciousness "in praxis" as you call it, that their political outlook might come to change in a revolutionary direction

[bricolage]

I wouldnt disgaree with any of this but this is rather straying from the point - that you need a majority to want and understand socialism before it can happen. How much of a majority is difficult to say and i dont profess to have a clear answer.
I think the point is that a 'majority' is an abstract figure that you can't just pinpoint at a certain period in time. Additionally it is still remains unclear as to what this 'majority' would do once it had occurred. As a hypothetical, 55% of the population suddenly want socialism, what then?

As the Idler said if people were not prepared to vote for socialism they would certainly be prepared to strike for it let alone take up arms for it.
But this is the point, workers don't need to strike for socialism they just need to strike for their class interests. It's this which is the movement towards communism. I imagine there will be a majority that want socialism but this won't happen until socialism is forging itself, at the very end of a revolutionary period or movement. In contrast this revolutionary period or movement will very likely begin with a minority of socialists but a mass movement of class militants. The two in my opinion are very different.

Not having a majority does not and should not stop you from doing something. Nobody is asking you to "wait" in that sense until such a majority materialises. It is only that for socialism to happen we have of necessity to wait for the majority to want and understand it but theres lot we can do in the meantime to bring that possiblity closer.
Yet every organisation that subscribes to the 'majority' viewpoint spends its time (to most observers) solely on propaganda work to reach the fabled majority. While on its own not a pointless activity (on the contrary an integral part of class struggle) when it is the totality of political work it is simply useless.

I haven't given very good answers here because this argument has happened many times here before and becomes very cyclical. In my opinion basing a praxis solely on the eventual 'majority' results in a decline into dead end propaganda work and 'the long wait', additionally while official literature may deny it it leads to an increasing detachment and negative approach to the 'mere labour struggles' of the class (for example positions taken by DNZ or The Idler on this website).

[Manic Impressive]

I think the point is that a 'majority' is an abstract figure that you can't just pinpoint at a certain period in time.
Don't you think that a vote is a good way of judging if there is a majority in favour of socialism?


I imagine there will be a majority that want socialism but this won't happen until socialism is forging itself, at the very end of a revolutionary period or movement. In contrast this revolutionary period or movement will very likely begin with a minority of socialists but a mass movement of class militants. The two in my opinion are very different.
Socialism doesn't form itself, it is formed by the working class. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you again but what you seem to be advocating is for socialists to form socialism on behalf of the working class and then hopefully the working class will then slowly start to come around to the idea and do the rest.


Yet every organisation that subscribes to the 'majority' viewpoint spends its time (to most observers) solely on propaganda work to reach the fabled majority. While on its own not a pointless activity (on the contrary an integral part of class struggle) when it is the totality of political work it is simply useless.
And yet it's failure at not producing a revolution is also the greatest argument for trying to create a class concious majority before attempting to take control of the state. For as we've seen time and again those who have attempted to administer socialism on behalf of the working class have failed miserably. If they have not started out as capitalist nations they have all reverted back to capitalism. Perhaps if the workers had been class concious and knowledgeable about socialism then they may not have allowed the so called "socialists" to fuck things up.

You do seem to have had some negative experiences in the past with the SPGB perhaps you should come down to a meeting sometime, I might even by you a beer afterwards :)

[robbo203]

I think the point is that a 'majority' is an abstract figure that you can't just pinpoint at a certain period in time. Additionally it is still remains unclear as to what this 'majority' would do once it had occurred. As a hypothetical, 55% of the population suddenly want socialism, what then?).

But that surely is the point? It is unrealistic to talk of 55% of the population "suddenly" wanting socialism. The desire for socialism is an incremental process of social transformation in which the entire social environment itself becomes transformed including the nature of the oppsition that a socialist movement is likely to encounter (as Ive just argued in another post on anarchocommunism and violence in the learning section). 55% voting for socialism implies perhaps another 30 or 40% halfway there but not quite convinced. Like the Tory ladies of the Womens Institute who routinely volunteer their labour for every good cause in the town. You start calling them communists and they would die at the very thought of it but in effect they are engaging in good old fashioned communist praxis



But this is the point, workers don't need to strike for socialism they just need to strike for their class interests. It's this which is the movement towards communism. I imagine there will be a majority that want socialism but this won't happen until socialism is forging itself, at the very end of a revolutionary period or movement. In contrast this revolutionary period or movement will very likely begin with a minority of socialists but a mass movement of class militants. The two in my opinion are very different.


Like I said ,striking for your class interests or becoming class conscious, is a necessary but not sufficient condition for communism. To get rid of capitalism - that is, to actually effect a revolution - you have to have something to replace it with. The communist movement has to be both positive in the sense of moving towards a clear objective and negative in the sense of being predicated on a class struggle.

I dont diagree with your characterisation of the "revolutionary period". It is a period of social transformation and the input oif class militancy is a vital component. But we should never forget that the presumption in calling it a revolutiuonary period is that it will lead to the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by communism (socialism). The presumption must therefore be that the small minority of socialists at the start of this period must become the majority at the end of it in order for this revolutionary movement to achieve consumation, to realise itself




Yet every organisation that subscribes to the 'majority' viewpoint spends its time (to most observers) solely on propaganda work to reach the fabled majority. While on its own not a pointless activity (on the contrary an integral part of class struggle) when it is the totality of political work it is simply useless.

You see the problem here is one of defintion. What do you mean by "political work". Maybe we are talking at cross purposes but when i as a political activist engage in, say, trade union activity, am I enfaging in political work? I dont think so. This is the point I made in connection with the SPGB. Because it engages more or less exclusively in political progandism (which you agree is necessary) this does not mean that regards oither things as unimportant or unneccesary. It is simply that it holds that a political party is an inapproroate vehicle for pursing those other purposes. The scope of the political party is thus deliberately and narrowly defined to political work only. You will see from my previous response to Prole Art Threat that there is a sound reason why the SPGB, for example, does not intervene in trade unionism as a political party even if individual SPGB members are active trade unionists.

It is this notion which Prole Art Threat seems to entertain that a political party should become all things to everyone, some kind of multipurpose overarching institution, that I am questioning. I am saying very clearly that we should NOT put all our eggs in one basket - "the Party". Trying to do so leads to conceptual confusion and the abandoment of communist aa clear objective as you become embroiled and bogged down in other matters. There should be more of a free floating relationship between communist propaganda and these other things. But I repeat I am NOT arguing against becoming embroiled in other things like trade union striuggle form instance. Its just that you clearly need a kind of functional separation between the political and the economic and the SPGB is absolutely correct in making and adhering to this distinction in my view



I haven't given very good answers here because this argument has happened many times here before and becomes very cyclical. In my opinion basing a praxis solely on the eventual 'majority' results in a decline into dead end propaganda work and 'the long wait', additionally while official literature may deny it it leads to an increasing detachment and negative approach to the 'mere labour struggles' of the class (for example positions taken by DNZ or The Idler on this website).

I take the exact opposite view. Labour struggle for the sake of labour struggle - that is without conceptually linking it to an end goal - induces a sense of chronic negativity and eventual disillusionment and apathy. Its what I call the treadmill syndorme. We need to be able to articulate and offer what Keith Graham calls an "escape interest". The escape interest of our class lies with a communist society. The idea of a communist society needs to be creatively interposed into praxis of class struggle to connect with the logic of that struggle to provide some sense of a way out of the mess that is capitalism.

The relative insiginficance of organisations like the SPGB who clearly articulate this escape interest does not, as you seem to suggest, mean that what they are doing is pointless. On the contrary their lack of impact is in part the direct outcome of choices made by others who prefer to go down some other path, who think that somehow a communist society can be magicked into existence without us having to think or talk about it, who place their trust in some enlightened vanguard to steer us unknowingly to this communist utopia. There is more than a trouch of a self fulfuilling prophecy about all this

The SPGB is not operating in a social vacumm and it is naive to suggest that it is. There are things wrong with it, I know all too well ,but overwhelmingly its poor showing after 100 years in existence is due to factors beyond its control. And this applies not just to the SPGB . You remain small precisely becuase you are small, becuase your smallness seems to convey a lack of credibility. Its a vicious circle and its a vicoius circle that can only be broken by individuals having the imagination and the daring to say "I dont give a fuck that you are small, does what you say make sense to me. Does it connect with the reality I experience"

When enough of us do that, then we shall be one the road to revolution

[Comrade-Z]

maybe I am being to harsh on the SPGB but I am just going on my experiences of them. what I have found is they have a very detailed and largely correct critique of state capitalism similarly a view of what socialism might look like yet there involvement in actual struggles is non-existent

Perhaps that's because they correctly recognize most existing struggles as reformist, as mere efforts at renovating capitalism or staking out a place within it, and thus useless for our purposes as revolutionaries.

The core message of reformism, whether in victory or defeat, is not that workers and capitalists have opposing interests. It is that some capitalists are "more unfair" than other capitalists, and that we workers must strive to keep our bosses "honest." As such, reformism is completely mystifying and leads in no way towards revolution, but rather away from it.

Think about how successful the left has been at reformism over the last 100 years...and how far we are still away from revolution (perhaps farther than ever before). For all of that reformism, what do most workers understand of Marxism, of class-consciousness, of communism?

Yes, the SPGB is small. Yes, the SPGB is not involved in action for the sake of action, or for the sake of having meaningless reformist victories to brag about. In any case, I think the SPGB is one of the best organizations out there. Sadly, it will not become popular until the material conditions further discredit reformism as futile and make revolution appear inevitable and commonsensical. For now, though, people cling on to a few successful defensive reformist battles and see in them the continued renewal of reformism as a paradigm.

[bricolage]

Don't you think that a vote is a good way of judging if there is a majority in favour of socialism?
Yes it is a good way of judging this but no I don't think it is that relevant. If you look at any revolutionary or proto-revolutionary upsurge in history and if you took a cross section of that population the day before a majority would not be in favour of socialism or even of workers councils or any form of insurrection. That is because the workers simply did not know it was going to happen, because it is material conditions and social forces not ideational views that force change.


Socialism doesn't form itself, it is formed by the working class. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you again but what you seem to be advocating is for socialists to form socialism on behalf of the working class and then hopefully the working class will then slowly start to come around to the idea and do the rest.
No this isn't what I am saying, what I am saying is that socialism/communism will come about as a extension of the existing class demands that are made by workers revolts in the here and now. Workers must consistently struggle for their own interests yet these interests run contrary to the interests of capital thus they will constantly be countered with narratives of 'affordability', of 'national interest' and so forth. When class movements see past these narratives and continue to press for demands they will eventually come into complete opposition to the continuation of current society. At this point it will become evident that the continuation of such interests to their conclusion (ie. the abolition of work and wage labour) necessitates the eradication of capitalism.
Of course it probably won't happen exactly like that, this is just a guess. My point is that along this way it is the fight for workers interests and not the fight for socialism that creates the revolutionary moment.


And yet it's failure at not producing a revolution is also the greatest argument for trying to create a class concious majority before attempting to take control of the state.
What do you mean by take control of the state? The current state? The state form? What is the state form?
[Genuine questions]


For as we've seen time and again those who have attempted to administer socialism on behalf of the working class have failed miserably.
But this isn't what I'm advocating, I think there has been some mistake here.


Perhaps if the workers had been class concious and knowledgeable about socialism then they may not have allowed the so called "socialists" to fuck things up.
Workers under the Soviet Union continued to fight for class interests (the most obvious example being Kronstadt) but this had nothing to do with being socialists. It was just an identification of the state with a continuation of previous social relations. Being more enlightened socialists wouldn't have helped them any more I don't think.


You do seem to have had some negative experiences in the past with the SPGB perhaps you should come down to a meeting sometime, I might even by you a beer afterwards :)
Ha, maybe. I do live near Clapham...

[bricolage]

robbo sorry that I'm not replying to everything you've written but I kind of feel that I'd be repeating what I'm writing in other posts.


But that surely is the point? It is unrealistic to talk of 55% of the population "suddenly" wanting socialism. The desire for socialism is an incremental process of social transformation...
And how does this incremental process come about, via the very same labour struggles (as well as non-labour struggles, ie. riots, rent strikes, occupations, blah blah) that are decried as 'un-revolutionary' and 'un-socialist'.

Yet my point still remains, what does the majority do once it becomes socialist? Voting for socialism doesn't seem to cut it.


The communist movement has to be both positive in the sense of moving towards a clear objective and negative in the sense of being predicated on a class struggle.
I disagree, it's not up to us to propose these blueprints of a future society and then expect them to be reached. The nature of a such a society comes from the bonds and such formed in struggle today. We don't really know what communism will look like and we shouldn't pretend we do.


I take the exact opposite view. Labour struggle for the sake of labour struggle - that is without conceptually linking it to an end goal
Well I think there is an end goal; the generalisation of class militancy, and its this which directs social forces. Take the UK as an example, every left or whatnot group saw member figures rise throughout the 70s and early 80s and decline as the decade ended and collapse in the 90s, they are only recuperating that now. Yet that had nothing to do with the strength of propaganda work but because from 1968 (that the times called the year of the strike) throughout the 70s with the two miners strikes, grunwick, and continued wildcats, peaking in the 79 with the winter of discontent there was ever increasing and successful class revolts. However with the defeat of, most prominently, wapping and the miners strikes and the trimuph of thatcher and the neoliberal project this all feel apart. Its only now in response to austerity measures that such militancy is returning. As such no matter how good socialists were at converting others it was the strength of the class and not of the 'socialists' that really determined their numbers. When the class were defeated so were the socialists. If you want more socialists then you need more 'Labour struggle for the sake of labour struggle'.

And by the way I don't criticise the SPGB because they are small, every group is small, but because I disagree with their political program. Just thought I'd make that clear.

[bricolage]

Perhaps that's because they correctly recognize most existing struggles as reformist, as mere efforts at renovating capitalism or staking out a place within it, and thus useless for our purposes as revolutionaries.
Look for starters the critique of reformism was never a critique of reforms but a critique of the idea that reforms can on their own lead to socialism. What is then important is where these reforms are coming from, there is a vast difference between the labour party bringing in a law because they are feeling nice and a law being forced by a mass class movement.

Your argument seems to be that we reject every organic struggle of the class because its 'reformist' and wait for the 'communist' struggle to emerge. Well I'm sorry but you're living in a vacuum, workers won't strike for socialism but they will strike for their interests and that is what counts.

[robbo203]

Socialism doesn't form itself, it is formed by the working class. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you again but what you seem to be advocating is for socialists to form socialism on behalf of the working class and then hopefully the working class will then slowly start to come around to the idea and do the rest.

Yes this is kind of what I thought might be implied by what Bricolage but Im sure that is not what he or she meant. It is the Leninist theory of the vanguard - that you as an "enligthened" elite should capture power first and then set about "educating" the workers. This is absolutely guaranteed to end in failure and disappointment.

Withoit a majority wanting and understanding socialism, the vanguard will be forced to continue with the administration of capitalism, And as we know from past experience, any political party that gets elected to power or for that matter usurps power by some other means on the pretext that it is going to run things in the interest of the working class ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS changes it tune once in power and, given sufficient time for this process to work itself out, will end up as much, if nor even more, viciously antiworking class and politically reactionary as its predecessors. I only have to mention the so called British Labour Party to rest my case.

Try administering capitalism and changing it for the better and you will end up being changed by capitalism for the worse. That is a dead cert and a good enough reason for stating clearly - dont ever try to capture power before a majority want and understand socialism. You're on a fools errand if you think otherwise...

[Hit The North]

Sorry but this is complete BS and yet another gross caricaturisation. I might add that no one on the Left is in a position to scoff at the insignificance and smallness of the SPGB; when it comes down to it we are all basically in the same boat on that score .


I'm not scoffing, comrade. After over 100 years of existence the small and ageing membership of the SPGB is no joke but points to some serious problems in its strategy.


Indeed compared to some Left groups the SPGB is a veritable mass movement.In order to be a movement, the collective must be prepared to move. As we already know, the SPGB prefer to sit - and wait. Indeed, this is its strategy.


Your claim that the "SPGB's orientation of not agitating, educating and organising in the class struggle, means that their support for strikes is really a form of abstention and so is no real support at all" is based on a profiound misunderstanding of the SPGB position. It fully supports militant trade union struggle but does not itself as a political party get involved in trade union affairs - let alone try to "organise" (manipulate) workers on the shopfloor in typical vanguardist instrumentalist fashion - for a very simple reason that makes absolute sense when you think about it.
No, I fully understand the position. The SPGB is unwilling to actively support workers in struggle although it is willing to pay generous lip-service to the struggle. It is only willing to engage, as a party, as a collective of socialists, in abstract propaganda. There, I've just stated what you stated above but more succinctly.


Trade unions consist of workers of many different political hues. To intervene in a strike as a political party would be to undermine and detract from the solidarity of workers involved in strike by drawing attention away from what they have in common to what differentiates them politically. This is a bizarre formulation. The idea that the intervention of socialist ideas in workers struggle will increase the political divisions between workers merely plays into the hands of the trade union bureaucracy which already wields domination through the imposition of its own rotten political ideas. You betray the potential of workers power every time you surrender the notion that the economic struggle is, at the same time, a political struggle against capital. And once you realise that the struggle for socialism is the uniting of the economic and the political struggle for workers power, then you realise the bankruptcy of the SPGB's strategy.


The SPGB has often been accused of sectarianism but in this case its outlook is the most unsectarian possible. It is it leftists critics with their vainglorious prescriptions of organising the strikers under their own political banner who in fact are the sectarians here. Unity is strength and political divisiveness cannot but undermine it
Well I guess that the difference here is that the "vanguard" parties are interested in building the party on the basis of recruiting workers in struggle rather than on the basis of an appeal to benign intellectualism.

What you and the SPGB don't seems to realise is that there are already political forces attempting to shape workers struggle. There is the trade union bureaucracy and then there is the capitalist state and its media. All the SPGB strategy does is leave the political field open the enemies of workers power.

The idea that workers organise solidarity in some purely economic fashion that is separate from politics, both within the class and within the class struggle, is pure abstraction. The kind of abstraction that springs from a party that shys away from engaging in actual workers struggle but prefers to hold debates in local libraries.


It laughable really but what you call "agitating, educating and organising in the class struggle" amounts to little more than flogging your newpaper at the factory gates. Your SPGBers can and indeed have done this too but at least they don't entertain some overblown pretension about leading the workers as a political party out of those same gates on a strike. Your opening rebuke about "gross caricaturisation" is visited upon you twofold. Firstly, to reduce intervention to paper selling is weak and lazy. Secondly, the "pretension" you refer to exists not in the fantasies of those you criticise but in the fantasy imposed on them in the imagination of the critic himself.

Finally...


Its for the workers themselves to decide this, not the political activists. Keeping political parties out of the frame altogether represents in my view the best chance for workers to develop and nurture a sense of genuine class solidarity and class consciousness despite their political differences by focusing on what they have in common. Indeed, it is only through the development of this class consciousness "in praxis" as you call it, that their political outlook might come to change in a revolutionary directionMore abstraction! The "workers themselves". Are you talking about the reformist workers or the Lib-Dem workers or the Tory workers or the apolitical workers? Meanwhile, I refer you to my comments above: the political parties are already there: the Labour Party, the Tory press - in fact everyone except the imperious SPGB.

And workers who remain divided politically cannot "nurture a sense of genuine class solidarity and class consciousness", because this requires a realisation that the economic and political are the same sides of the same debased coin of capitalism. In order for their political outlook to become revolutionary they will need to act as a political force at the same time as they act as an economic one.

The SPGB is not operating in a social vacumm and it is naive to suggest that it is. There are things wrong with it, I know all too well ,but overwhelmingly its poor showing after 100 years in existence is due to factors beyond its control. And this applies not just to the SPGB . This presupposes that the SPGB’s fortunes rise and fall with the class struggle, but because the party does not actually engage in the class struggle this is an unsafe supposition. Tell me at what point in the 20th Century was the SPGB at its peak and how did this both reflect the level of class struggle and enable the SPGB to further develop the struggle?

You remain small precisely becuase you are small, becuase your smallness seems to convey a lack of credibility. Its a vicious circle and its a vicoius circle that can only be broken by individuals having the imagination and the daring to say "I dont give a fuck that you are small, does what you say make sense to me. Does it connect with the reality I experience"
So when will this be and how will the SPGB help to bring about this glorious occasion? And whilst you’re big on spelling out the pretensions of others, exactly what are the pretensions of the SPGB? Does it expect the workers to flood into the Party when they have overcome their limitations and sweep the party into power? Or what?

[bricolage]

@robbo
Once again I'm not advocating Leninism, the vanguard or anything of the like. It is only by the movement of the working class itself that communism can be realised, what I am arguing is that the class revolts and insurrections that constitute this movement do not have to be directed towards the explicit implementation of some blueprint of socialism, but rather just in defence and pursuit of class interests. If anything it's a poor re-hash of councilist thought and not crude 'Leninism'.

[Hivemind]

xIraCchPDhk

[#FF0000]

I'm going to go back on everything I've ever said or believed right now and say "go vote", but only so people can't try and use that card on you when you criticize the state of things.

"gugbubgubgubg if u didnt vote ur part of the problem"

So yeah, vote so that dumbness doesn't hit you.

Or lie.

[Ele'ill]

I'd say don't vote and articulate why you don't vote- and not care when they have nothing to say except for 'rrrrrrrrrrrrr but you have to vote because then u have nothing to say if u don't do it pftpftpfptpfptppfptpptp'

Saying- 'yeah I vote but it doesn't do anything' will only result in 'yeah but you still vote so you must think it does something'.

I'd rather spend the time getting coffee with friends.

[robbo203]

And how does this incremental process come about, via the very same labour struggles (as well as non-labour struggles, ie. riots, rent strikes, occupations, blah blah) that are decried as 'un-revolutionary' and 'un-socialist'. .

Labour struggles per se are not incremental. Nor are riots, rents strikes, occupations and so on. When you say somethingis incremental it presupposes a sense of direction and therefore some end goal to which you are striving. What I have been trying to get across to you is that the incremental nature of this process comes from the articulation of such a goal. Labour struggles are built into the very fabric of capitalism. They offer no way of transcending capitalism. To transcend capitalism you have to some alternative to capitalism. Does that means it is futile to engage in labour struggles? Of course not. Indeed it would be downright stupid to stop struggling. Communist ideas arise out of the struggle but then react upon the struggle to invest it with a sense of direction. and purpose. It needs that interaction between the struggle and the ideas to happen for this incremental process to take hold. Its a bit like a steam engine. You needs the coal to get the engine moving but where the engine moves to is another matter. Not a particularly good metaphor i would admit - i think it is one that Trotsky once used - but Im sure you get my drift



Yet my point still remains, what does the majority do once it becomes socialist? Voting for socialism doesn't seem to cut it.


Voting for socialism is the culminating act of the revolutionary movement and of a process of revolutionary transformation that would ential much more than just political propagandising and "converting" workers to socialism, Neverthless once we are a majority whats holding us back? What the problem with using the vote as a clear indicator to demonstrate not only to ourselves that we are in a majority but, equally importantly , to our political opponents? Whats wrong with using the vote as a clear signal to coordinate the changeover to a socialist society - what the communist Manfiesto called the "most radical rupture" with traditional property relations. By its very nature it is something that needs clear cut society wide coordination would you not agree?




I disagree, it's not up to us to propose these blueprints of a future society and then expect them to be reached. The nature of a such a society comes from the bonds and such formed in struggle today. We don't really know what communism will look like and we shouldn't pretend we do.


"Blueprints" of a future society is one thing, having a clear understanding of the basic nature of such a society is quite another. I am all for speculating about the finer details of a (socialist) communist society but I would'nt dream of suggesting that this is what the struggle for such a society must strive to implement. But thats quite different from saying we dont really know what communism will look like . You HAVE to know something about what communism will be like otherwise all you would be struggling for is a vacuous label devoid of any meaning. Thats ridiculous. We definitely do need some idea of what communism will look before we establish it as how else could we uphold it as a goal to be striven after? How would we even know we had even arrived at a communist society if we didnt know what it meant? Im sure this is not what you are suggesting and that what you are getting at are the finer details, the instituional architecture of a communist society and so on that we should not set in concrete beforehand. I would agree but this clearly cannot be the case with the basic defintion of communism itself, People do need to understand this in advance and what it implies in order to establiosh communismin the first place. In order , ino ther words, to effect a revolution.




Well I think there is an end goal; the generalisation of class militancy, and its this which directs social forces. Take the UK as an example, every left or whatnot group saw member figures rise throughout the 70s and early 80s and decline as the decade ended and collapse in the 90s, they are only recuperating that now. Yet that had nothing to do with the strength of propaganda work but because from 1968 (that the times called the year of the strike) throughout the 70s with the two miners strikes, grunwick, and continued wildcats, peaking in the 79 with the winter of discontent there was ever increasing and successful class revolts. However with the defeat of, most prominently, wapping and the miners strikes and the trimuph of thatcher and the neoliberal project this all feel apart. Its only now in response to austerity measures that such militancy is returning. As such no matter how good socialists were at converting others it was the strength of the class and not of the 'socialists' that really determined their numbers. When the class were defeated so were the socialists. If you want more socialists then you need more 'Labour struggle for the sake of labour struggle'.
.


What you have basically done here is to priove the very point I was making! Labour struggles dont in themselves lead anywhere except an endless repetition of the same thing. The effectiveness of labour struggles waxes and wanes in response to capitalism's own trade cycle. If your theory that we need more labour struggle for the sake of labour struggle in order to get more socialists was correct then why did all that militancy fall away. Why did the left contract so sharply in the way that it did.

Point is you are never goingto win the class struggle on the industrialf ront. You might win the odd battle but never the war. Capitalism will remain at the end of it and therefore the capitalist class' monolopy on the means of living. Every success on the industrial front is a presage of some failure to come. The bottom line is profit. Squeeze the capitalists too hard and they will close down shop and relocate elsewhere or whatever. But long before you even reach that point they will have got you by the balls anyway. Individuals will be fretting about their mortgages and all too willing to forfeot that higher wage demand for the sake of hanging onto to their job

Far be it from me to say give up the struggle because you cannot win it. Thats not what i am saying at all. Quite the contrary we need to struggle, to be as militant as we can, but we also need to be realistic and to appreciate the limits of what all our struggling can achieve, limits set by capitalism itself as you yourself imply. Sometimes for example it might be far more sensible and shrewd not to go on a strike, to limit the damage. Its all very well going down in a blaze of glory but it doesnt help you afterwards.

The point is not to merely stuggle for the sake of struggle which will only end up in disillusionment sooner or later but rather to invest our struggle with a sense of communist purpose and a vision of a communist alternative to aim for and around which we can unite - even in the face of industrial defeat

[Agathor]

Marx and Engles, as far as I know, were committed to parliamentarianism after Germany began to diversify suffrage. That was, I believe, the dividing factor of the First International; Marx wanted the left to participate in elections, Bakunin didn't.

Anyway, that's all for historians. Marx would have been disgusted if he knew that people in the year 2011, with more than a century of experience with parliamentary institutions, were still deferring to his judgements.

[bricolage]

I think the basic point you are making the 'labour struggles' (and to reiterate I'm using this as representative of all kinds of struggles that take place against immediate social conditions, not just those in the workplace) 'offer no way of transcending capitalism' is incorrect. They do because they pit the interests of workers against the interests of capital. It is understanding that these interests will only be met by the eradication of the latter (something gained through struggle and not literature) that we can get anywhere near to revolution.

What I also feel is missing here is a recognition that 'mere labour struggles' can rapidly transcend their immediate apparent reductionism. For example the miners strike which was a movement against pit closures ended affecting relations between men and women through the women support groups and the roles miners wives took, as well as the same for homosexuals (theres a good film on this actually), furthermore links were made between the role of the British police and that which they played in the north of Ireland, in South Africa, in the inner cities, transcending racial and generational divisions. Finally as Thatcher herself admitted if the struggle has extended to other industrial areas it would have won showing in a nutshell the need to move beyond sectional trade unionism and the divisions it creates in workers. So you ask why this militancy waned, well quite obviously because it was defeated by truncheons, scabs and divison, because the success of such struggle don't 'wax and wane in response to capitalism's own trade cycle' but in response to the strength of the class.

You assume they will always fail because they haven't brought about communism but they have brought about mass generalisations in class militancy that were defeated yes but nonetheless existed in a powerful way.

Yet I still cannot understand how a majority voting for socialism alters the social relations of capital. I'm not trying to be deliberately dense here but I cannot understand how the praxis you and the SPGB promotes is actually supposed to work. I still cannot see what differentiates it from the utopian socialists Marx so viciously opposed.

[robbo203]

I'm not scoffing, comrade. After over 100 years of existence the small and ageing membership of the SPGB is no joke but points to some serious problems in its strategy.

Yes there are some problems in its strategy but not in the way you think


I'm
In order to be a movement, the collective must be prepared to move. As we already know, the SPGB prefer to sit - and wait. Indeed, this is its strategy...

More caricaturisation and a rather silly one at that. Ask any SPGBer and they will laugh at the idea





No, I fully understand the position. The SPGB is unwilling to actively support workers in struggle although it is willing to pay generous lip-service to the struggle. It is only willing to engage, as a party, as a collective of socialists, in abstract propaganda. There, I've just stated what you stated above but more succinctly.

This is a bizarre formulation. The idea that the intervention of socialist ideas in workers struggle will increase the political divisions between workers merely plays into the hands of the trade union bureaucracy which already wields domination through the imposition of its own rotten political ideas. You betray the potential of workers power every time you surrender the notion that the economic struggle is, at the same time, a political struggle against capital. And once you realise that the struggle for socialism is the uniting of the economic and the political struggle for workers power, then you realise the bankruptcy of the SPGB's strategy.
...

No, you do not understand the position at all. In fact you missed the point completely . I do not counsel against the "intervention of socialist ideas in workers struggles at all". Quite the contrary!! What I arguing against was the direct intervention of a socialist political party qua party in the affairs of trade unions and I gave you my reason for thinking that - that it distracts attention away from what should unite a politically very diverse workforce in their industrial struggles Trade unionism would then become the battlegorund of political sects each jockeying for power and influence. That would be a disaster in my view and its effect on trade unions would be crippling

Trade unions are more likely to function effectively without the patronage and input of political parties - and by that i mean any and all of them. I left the UK some years ago so I am not particularly au fait with the situation regading the political levy. It is certainly a disgrace to my way of thinking that the trade union movement continues to have links with a capitalist political organisation like the Labour Party




What you and the SPGB don't seems to realise is that there are already political forces attempting to shape workers struggle. There is the trade union bureaucracy and then there is the capitalist state and its media. All the SPGB strategy does is leave the political field open the enemies of workers power....


I think you meant the economic field, not the political field, did you not? But in any event its not true. I think the SPGB understands very well thank you very much that there are "already political forces attempting to shape workers struggle" As far as I understand it, the SPGB's position vis a vis trade unions is precisely that they should rebuff those very forces and concern themselves singlemindedly and militantly with the interests of their own members. .

While the SPGB refuses on good grounds to get actively involved in trade union movement in the practical snese you seem to approve of that does not mean it is reluctant to disseminate it ideas within this movement. I guess this is probably where the confusion lies on your part. If you check through their literature you will begin to see a very different picture emerging to the one you seem to fondly entertain. For example here's a little peice that I came across the other day when I was doing a bit of historical reseach. Its from a very early copy of the Socialist Standard - 1912! - which makes it all the more interesting for that

L. Mackinnon (Manchester) writes:
"(1) On page 6 of the SPGB Manifesto it says "the workers’ organisation, political and economic, must be on the basis of their class." I want to know what the workers’ economic organisation is.
(2) On pages 22-3 you say "Trade Unions being necessary under capitalism, any action on their part on sound lines should be heartily supported." I should like to know what you would call sound lines.
I have numbered the above questions for convenience in answering."
The answer to the first query is that the present economic organisations of the workers is the trade union movement. Mainly containing non-Socialists, its efforts are poor, but when the members recognise the class struggle their activities will bear greater fruit.
In answer to the second question our reader will find the sound lines indicated in the Manifesto itself. On page 7 we say "Any efforts on their part to resist the encroachment of the master class deserve our sympathy and support." After showing the limits that resistance finds in the rapid development of machine industry, we go on to say, speaking of the economic organisation: "its tactics must be aggressive and its aim revolutionary."
The real and important step, therefore, is to convert the members of the unions into Socialists, for until you make Socialists you cannot have Socialist unionism. They must be taught - in the words of the Manifesto itself - that the "basis of the workers’ organisation must be class solidarity and class interests."
"Sound lines" mean that while fighting the daily battles the toilers must adopt a policy of "No Compromise". They must have no regard for the master’s interests or property. "Conciliation" and "Arbitration" schemes and long notices must be strenuously opposed. They have got to teach their members that the interests of workers and employers are in direct opposition. Above all, the trade unions must use all their powers to increase the solidarity of the revolting working class and show the need for the toilers acting as a class. There must be no blacklegging of one section upon another, and the grievance of one part must become the interest of all. Thus only can the unions be moulded into a body capable of assisting in the revolutionary change.
A. K.
May 1912

I think "AK" is Adolph Kohn a founder member of the SPGB



The idea that workers organise solidarity in some purely economic fashion that is separate from politics, both within the class and within the class struggle, is pure abstraction. The kind of abstraction that springs from a party that shys away from engaging in actual workers struggle but prefers to hold debates in local libraries.

It is not "pure abstration" as you claim. If you think about it rationally it makes perfect sense. How on earth can you expect workers to "organise solidarity" in both an economic and political sense jointly. The idea is crazy. Political solidarity implies some common purpose and outlook. How many in the trade union movement are genuine revolutionary communists? If you are honest about it, a tiny fraction. If you are suggesting that economic solidarity should be combined, or coincide, with political solidarity then you are talking about a tiny trade union movement consisting only of revolutionaries which for that very reason will be pretty ineffectual in waging the industrial struggle - because it is so tiny

You might retort that what is not what you mean but then what else could it mean - that we should join in political solidarity sith those who are not revolutionary. Labour Party trade unionists? Lib Dems? Conservatives? So either you have a tiny trade union capoable of expressing real solidarity and consisting only of likeminded revolutioationaries or you sell your sould to the devil and join in political solidarity with your conservative and labour workers. Which is it?

You can surely now see the utter absurudty that you logic leads you into and why in fact the SPGB position of keeping separate the political and economic fields makes sense. You might well scoff at the abstractionism of the SPGB but, to be honest, there are times when you really couldnt do without it.

[Hit The North]

More caricaturisation and a rather silly one at that. Ask any SPGBer and they will laugh at the idea


They can laugh all they like but until they can show me how the SPGB has intervened actively in the class struggle (even just the political struggle) then I will maintain that as a party the SPGB is incapable of decisive action. Further, I'd argue that a party that cannot act is not a party at all, but a debating shop.


No, you do not understand the position at all. In fact you missed the point completely . I do not counsel against the "intervention of socialist ideas in workers struggles at all". Quite the contrary!! What I arguing against was the direct intervention of a socialist political party qua party in the affairs of trade unions

But what would these socialist ideas amount to? A fundamental one would be that the workers need an independent party that can act in the political sphere whilst maintaining links with the economic struggle. Or does the SPGB deny that the workers need such a party? Another would be that the division between the economic struggle and the political struggle is a bourgeois invention used to mystify the relations of capitalism and the capitalist state. It allows bourgeois parties to argue that labour organisations should be purely economic and leave politics to the professionals in Parliament. By refusing to intervene collectively in the labour struggle as the party of socialism and, instead, condemning this attempt by other groups, the SPGB maintain this bourgeois fiction of a separation between the economic and the political.


Trade unions are more likely to function effectively without the patronage and input of political parties - and by that i mean any and all of them. I left the UK some years ago so I am not particularly au fait with the situation regading the political levy. It is certainly a disgrace to my way of thinking that the trade union movement continues to have links with a capitalist political organisation like the Labour Party.

Even taking aside the Labour Party, there still remains the union bureaucracy, itself an articulation of bourgeois reformist prejudices. Talking about trade unions functioning more effectively, simply means leaving the field open to the bureaucracy.


I think you meant the economic field, not the political field, did you not? But in any event its not true. I think the SPGB understands very well thank you very much that there are "already political forces attempting to shape workers struggle" As far as I understand it, the SPGB's position vis a vis trade unions is precisely that they should rebuff those very forces and concern themselves singlemindedly and militantly with the interests of their own members. . That may be so, but if they continue to disengage from struggles when they happen or leave it to individual members to raise lone voices, then no one will hear these fine sentiments. No contradiction there for the SPGB who have denounced organised socialist agitation as harmful, but in this life if you don't speak up no one will hear.


While the SPGB refuses on good grounds to get actively involved in trade union movement in the practical snese you seem to approve of that does not mean it is reluctant to disseminate it ideas within this movement.

Except it won't agitate therefore it does not disseminate its ideas to those who count - workers in struggle.



It is not "pure abstration" as you claim. If you think about it rationally it makes perfect sense. How on earth can you expect workers to "organise solidarity" in both an economic and political sense jointly. The idea is crazy.
The idea isn't crazy. The idea is that when workers organise economically they are committing a political act.


Political solidarity implies some common purpose and outlook.
Acting in economic solidarity implies a common purpose and outlook, does it not? The point is to build on that initial level of unity. Otherwise how will workers ever transcend the limitations of "mere labour disputes"?

[robbo203]

I think the basic point you are making the 'labour struggles' (and to reiterate I'm using this as representative of all kinds of struggles that take place against immediate social conditions, not just those in the workplace) 'offer no way of transcending capitalism' is incorrect. They do because they pit the interests of workers against the interests of capital. It is understanding that these interests will only be met by the eradication of the latter (something gained through struggle and not literature) that we can get anywhere near to revolution..

My argument is quite simple and straightforward - labour struggles in themselves offer no way of transcending capitalism. You say they do because they pit workers interests against capitalist interests and that it understanding "that these interests will only be met by the eradication of the latter" that we will get near to revolutiuon. But cant you see the fatal flaw in your whole argument . Its staring at you right beneath your nose and is encapsulated in the single word "understanding". So it is the ideas - the "understanding" - that arise out of class struggle that brings us to the position of being able to effect a revolution. You are thus conceding that abstract propagandism is actually a critical part of the whole revolutionary process. And you are conceding that to effect a revolution we have to have some idea of a post revolutionary society iand whatis actually meant by the interests of capital having been eradicated. In other words you have to have some idea of communism.

Also, you present a quite false dichotomy when you say this understanding can only be gained through struggle and not "literature". There also sorts of ways in which such an understanding can be gained and one does not preclude the other. You dont have to have read communistl iterature to become a communist but it certainly helps if you have. Besides, abstract propaganda is not confined to the written word. A public meeting or a chat in a pub serve the same purpose


What I also feel is missing here is a recognition that 'mere labour struggles' can rapidly transcend their immediate apparent reductionism. For example the miners strike which was a movement against pit closures ended affecting relations between men and women through the women support groups and the roles miners wives took, as well as the same for homosexuals (theres a good film on this actually), furthermore links were made between the role of the British police and that which they played in the north of Ireland, in South Africa, in the inner cities, transcending racial and generational divisions. Finally as Thatcher herself admitted if the struggle has extended to other industrial areas it would have won showing in a nutshell the need to move beyond sectional trade unionism and the divisions it creates in workers. So you ask why this militancy waned, well quite obviously because it was defeated by truncheons, scabs and divison, because the success of such struggle don't 'wax and wane in response to capitalism's own trade cycle' but in response to the strength of the class. .

Well this last point of yours does not quite ring true becuase the "strength of the class" is quite clearly influenced by the capitalist trade cycle. You can hardly deny that the bargaining power of workers is significantly undermined when mass unemployment grows.

On the other points you make, yes, I wouldnt disagree butI still get the feeling that you are trying to push me into some kind of either/or black/white position. Im not rejecting the need to engage in struggle just becuase I assert that the struggles in themselves do not lead to a revolutionary outcome . My postion is different. What I am saying is thatit is the intervention of ideas - and above all the clear idea of a communist alternative to capitalism - which arise out of that struggle and reacts back on it - that leads us towards a revolutionary outcome. So itis the struggle plus the ideas that make for revolution - not one pr the other. The ideas wouldnt exist without the class struggle and the class struggle wouldnt lead us to revolution without the clear idea of the communist societysuch a revolution would realise







You assume they will always fail because they haven't brought about communism but they have brought about mass generalisations in class militancy that were defeated yes but nonetheless existed in a powerful way. .

I dont say labour struggles will always fail. What i said is thats ome battles will be won but the war will always be lost as long as we dont formulate and work towards a clear alternative to the capitalist system which necessarily operates in the interests of capital



Yet I still cannot understand how a majority voting for socialism alters the social relations of capital. I'm not trying to be deliberately dense here but I cannot understand how the praxis you and the SPGB promotes is actually supposed to work. I still cannot see what differentiates it from the utopian socialists Marx so viciously opposed.

Well now Marx himself urged that workers struggle to win the " battle for democracy" so this has nothing to do with his views on utopian socialism. But the point about that vote is not only that it is the only really effective way of counting heads; it is also the most effective way of publicly stripping the social relations of capital of all legitimacy. Its is saying decisively what society now wants and providing a clear signal by means of which it can coordinate the changeover to a new socity.

I have never really had any problem with the idea of using the vote to bring about socialism and to be honest I think some of the arguments that my anarchist comrades bring up against it are pretty weak and not very well though out. The only thing I would say is that while we are talking about an electoral approach to achieving socialism there is a lot more to achieving socialism than just this and it is in this regard that I think the SPGB's postion is itself somewhat weak

[robbo203]

They can laugh all they like but until they can show me how the SPGB has intervened actively in the class struggle (even just the political struggle) then I will maintain that as a party the SPGB is incapable of decisive action. Further, I'd argue that a party that cannot act is not a party at all, but a debating shop.


This is a ridiculous claim. The SPGB may not be a particularly effective organsiation but to suggest that it has not intervened actively in the class struggle (even just the political struggle) is utterly absurd. Its entire propagandistic output is a form of intervention in precisely this struggle



But what would these socialist ideas amount to? A fundamental one would be that the workers need an independent party that can act in the political sphere whilst maintaining links with the economic struggle. Or does the SPGB deny that the workers need such a party? Another would be that the division between the economic struggle and the political struggle is a bourgeois invention used to mystify the relations of capitalism and the capitalist state. It allows bourgeois parties to argue that labour organisations should be purely economic and leave politics to the professionals in Parliament. By refusing to intervene collectively in the labour struggle as the party of socialism and, instead, condemning this attempt by other groups, the SPGB maintain this bourgeois fiction of a separation between the economic and the political.

Well now I have to ask - what exactly do you have in mind by "intervene collectively in the labour struggle as the party of socialism". Get involved directly in the conduct of the trade unions? Ive already pointed out to you that this would be counterproductive and stupid. It would be reduce trade unionism to a mere battleground of squabbling political sects. It would disunute rather than unite the working class. You talk haughtilty of "the party of socialism" but, of course, every sect would see themselves as precisely this to the exclusion of of every other.

When I talk about the separation of the economic and the political spheres I am talking strictly in these functional or operational terms. I am not talking about the dissemmination of ideas . After all the SPGB sells or gives away its literature at trade union conferences and its members talk to fellow trade unionists about socialism. But in terms of their actual functioining, trade unions are better left to themselves and their members. Open the door to political parties to run or intervene in the unions in this way and you will soon see the abandonment of this so called "bourgeois fiction" you talk of leading to an even greater impact of bourgeois political ideas on the trade unions than is the case today. The bourgeois political parties will be queing up to put their stamp on the trade union movement. You can rely on that and it has happened before. It wont be long before we can expect to see conservative trade unions, lib dem trade unions and labour trade unions etc etc. As for revolutionary left since it is comparatively minuscule, you can draw your own conclusions. Nice one, comrade. Anything else to unite the working class around, eh?






Even taking aside the Labour Party, there still remains the union bureaucracy, itself an articulation of bourgeois reformist prejudices. Talking about trade unions functioning more effectively, simply means leaving the field open to the bureaucracy
.

Youve just shot yourself in the foot again. The bourgeois reformist prejudices you refer too are precisely those that are nurtured and sustained by precisely the kind of organised links with political parties that you advocate - in this case the capitalist Labour party.



That may be so, but if they continue to disengage from struggles when they happen or leave it to individual members to raise lone voices, then no one will hear these fine sentiments. No contradiction there for the SPGB who have denounced organised socialist agitation as harmful, but in this life if you don't speak up no one will hear..

Really? And you have evidence of the SPGB denouncing "organised socialist agitation" as harmful cos I would just love to see it.



Except it won't agitate therefore it does not disseminate its ideas to those who count - workers in struggle.

Thats bullshit and you know it. Apart from anything else it is absurd to suppose that the only way in which ideas can be disseminated is through "agitation" (whatever that means)




The idea isn't crazy. The idea is that when workers organise economically they are committing a political act.

Come on now - you are completely evading the point I made, with weazel words. I was talking about political solidarity and economic solidarity being convergent aspects of class struggle. Political solidarity betweeen revolutionaries only would, of course, mean in this context a tiny insignificant trade union movement - for the obvious reason that the revolutionary movement is itself tiny. Poltical solidarity with anyone and everyone, on the other hand, would mean solidarity with all sorts - conservatives lib/dems and labour. In either case the outcome would be disastrous but such a disaster follows strictly from your rather clueless and ill thought out dogma that the economic and political field should be considered inseparable and unified in every respect. It makes perfect sense in some respects that they should be separated





Acting in economic solidarity implies a common purpose and outlook, does it not? The point is to build on that initial level of unity. Otherwise how will workers ever transcend the limitations of "mere labour disputes"?


Precisely . And in order to secure that common purpose and outlook you need to remove anything that will detract from it - like squabbling political sects scrambling for power and influence in the unions that i talked about Give class unity,a chance to grow and develop organically and the appropriate ideas will follow suit more easily. The point is to be around to engage with and help foster the emerging consciousness that comes out of that. Thats actually what the SPGB does, come to think of it, despite your gross and ill informed caricaturisation of it .

[Zav]

Voting can help bring reform, but it won't fix all of society's problems. Ultimately your vote won't matter because the U.S. electoral system runs on a first past the post system (sort of, it's a bit shady with the electoral college, gerrymandering, the fact that it's a big auction, and general fudging), however voting for a minority candidate does garner support for the following election.

[Morgenstern]

Vote and be politically active. When the bourgeois tell you not to strike, just vote, you can reply that you already voted and it did nothing.

[Comrade-Z]

I don't support voting in the current system, but I wouldn't object to voting as a public counting-of-heads in favor of socialism, with the understanding being that the working class would have to then see this as the signal to rise up and make the revolution happen.

The question is, can you trust the state electoral machinery to give an accurate counting of heads? Need the vote come from a capitalist election? What if it was an internal vote of the working class done by an independent working class commission chaired by a coalition of delegates from the various socialist parties? That way you could run the vote as often as you liked (every month, even, during revolutionary periods to judge fast-changing swings of momentum) to see how close you were getting to where self-conscious working class rule was becoming a possibility.

[Hit The North]

This is a ridiculous claim. The SPGB may not be a particularly effective organsiation but to suggest that it has not intervened actively in the class struggle (even just the political struggle) is utterly absurd. Its entire propagandistic output is a form of intervention in precisely this struggle.


Robbo203, I need to dispense with these claims of yours about the SPGB quickly so we don't derail this thread. Now, as you admit, you haven't lived in Britain for a while and so might not realise that the reality is that the SPGB are practically invisible; their literature is practically unknown both inside and outside of the labour movement and socialist left; and that its membership is now estimated at under 500 people and increasingly elderly. As this link (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spintcom/message/5623?l=1) attests, in its 2006 conference a mere 150 members returned their voting papers out of 369 papers sent out. Because the SPGB operates an one-person-one-vote system, we can safely deduce that its membership in 2006 was fewer than 370 members and its active membership half of that.

Now this is after 100 years of existence so any claims about the impact the SPGB has had on the class struggle must be taken with a pinch of salt, whilst to suggest that their long-term strategy has "some problems" is masterly understatement.

The rest of your post retreads some pretty well worn clichés about vanguard politics that are at least as stereotypical as the claims that the SPGB consists of mainly teachers and librarians. I don't want to discuss them in this thread.

But bringing the issue back to elections, in the recent 2010 general election the SPGB stood ONE candidate. Really, what was the point? Only workers who were lucky enough to live in his constituency had the opportunity to vote for socialism (and precious few did). This was the most pointless tokenism and points to the fact that even in terms of their own politics, the SPGB is not serious. How can the workers vote for socialism if the party of socialism cannot be bothered to field a viable number of candidates?

To the OP I'd say, voting for socialist candidates in bourgeois elections is ok but agitating for others to vote the same way is more valuable. This way you get the chance to convince other people about the case for socialism.

[Manic Impressive]

you're talking out your arse mate. I'm not disputing your figures from 2006, they're probably correct but what you fail to understand is that the SPGB is not trying to build a party to lead the working class, which is why we don't use the press ganging tactics of the SWP. The party should not be judged on how many are members but perhaps on attendance levels. I've no idea if this is good or not but for instance day school last month had an attendance of around 65 of those I'd say no more than 20 were members.
On the visibility issue I'd personally prefer to be seen as a party of low visibility but solid politics than a party accused of sending undisciplined and unknowledgeable members to every possible demo with their placards and their papers and their megaphones and getting on everyone's nerves for high jacking other peoples causes like any good vanguardist party would. And finally funnily enough at a meeting last night it was decided that me and two other comrades would be representing the party at the "2nd Lewes Festival of Trade Unionism and socialism 2011" oh shit prolly shouldn't have told you that there'll be 50 SWPers with papers and megaphones coming now. :p

P.S. I'm not a librarian :)

[Rusty Shackleford]

Neither is superior, neither is inferior. Class struggle takes place on many different 'battlefields' and in many different forms. What it boils down to is if participation in elections is to be done, then the character of the campaign is what must be looked at. If it is a class struggle campaign, it is revolutionary. If it is a campaign solely for the purpose of having a seat in government, it is reformist.

[robbo203]

Robbo203, I need to dispense with these claims of yours about the SPGB quickly so we don't derail this thread. Now, as you admit, you haven't lived in Britain for a while and so might not realise that the reality is that the SPGB are practically invisible; their literature is practically unknown both inside and outside of the labour movement and socialist left; and that its membership is now estimated at under 500 people and increasingly elderly. As this link (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spintcom/message/5623?l=1) attests, in its 2006 conference a mere 150 members returned their voting papers out of 369 papers sent out. Because the SPGB operates an one-person-one-vote system, we can safely deduce that its membership in 2006 was fewer than 370 members and its active membership half of that.

Now this is after 100 years of existence so any claims about the impact the SPGB has had on the class struggle must be taken with a pinch of salt, whilst to suggest that their long-term strategy has "some problems" is masterly understatement.

The rest of your post retreads some pretty well worn clichés about vanguard politics that are at least as stereotypical as the claims that the SPGB consists of mainly teachers and librarians. I don't want to discuss them in this thread.

But bringing the issue back to elections, in the recent 2010 general election the SPGB stood ONE candidate. Really, what was the point? Only workers who were lucky enough to live in his constituency had the opportunity to vote for socialism (and precious few did). This was the most pointless tokenism and points to the fact that even in terms of their own politics, the SPGB is not serious. How can the workers vote for socialism if the party of socialism cannot be bothered to field a viable number of candidates?

To the OP I'd say, voting for socialist candidates in bourgeois elections is ok but agitating for others to vote the same way is more valuable. This way you get the chance to convince other people about the case for socialism.

I am well aware that the SPGB is not faring particularly well - though I suspect its influence is probably rather greater than you imagine and that as an organisation it punches well above its weight. Standing a single candidate in the elections may well be tokenism of a sort but I dont think the SPGB or any other small party is in any position to field candidates in every constituency, or even a sizeable number, and risk losing £1000 in lost deposts - or whatever it is these days - for each attempt. Multiplied by 600 plus constiuencies thats a lot of money! I have no idea where the SPGB stood but I guess there would probably be a local branch there so that standing a candiate locally was probably intended to boost the local branch which sort of makes some sense.

But all this is by the by. What I was attacking was your absolutely ludicrous claim the SPGB has not intervened actively in the class struggle (even just the political struggle) As i pointed out, its entire propaganda output is a form of intervention in precisely this struggle and you have woefully failed to address this point. The usual kneejerk retort one encounters - and I am not suggestesting this is is necessarily your postion - is that what counts is "action not words". To me this is a sociogically inept if not downright crass observation. It is to present a totally false dichotomy. The class struggle exists even if we are not really aware of it and we dont need to intervene to make it happen. Its there all along. What we need is to help make it a matter of widespread awareness, to faciliate the transformation from, what Marx called, a class-in-itself to a class-for-itself. Anyone who thinks this can be done without the mediation, transmisson and exchange of ideas, that it can somehow mechanically come about through "action" or "activity" alone is utterly deluded. The class stuggle is also quintessentially a struggle of ideas, ideas that emerge from the material conditions and react back on them. Thats why the ruling class hold power - through their hegemony in the realm of ideas. There is no such thing as an idea-less struggle.


I actually think that despite its small size the input of the SPGB has been invaluable in this regard. It is a grossly underrated organisation and down the years has been the subject of an awful lot of misinformation and mythmaking - particularly on the part of the Left, if I might say so. There are very few organisations that clearly and forthrightly come up with the genuinely revolutionary alternative to capitalism and spell out exactly what this means - a moneyless wageless stateless global community in which the means of production are held in common. Most of the left do not even talk in these terms. Their vision of the way ahead goes no further than the utopian and fruitless endeavour of trying humanise and reform capitalism. Where socialism is even referred to, and not mistaken for state capitalist measures of nationalisation, it is tucked away or appended as some half- embarrassed afterthought onto, and at the end of, a long list of reformist demands that must take priority according to these left reformists. In other words, socialism is something you pay token lipservice to and then comfortably forget while you busy yourself with demanding that the capitalist state does this or does that.

Of course the SPGB is not without its faults - I myself have several serious criticisms to make of the SPGB. But I can tell you this for sure - as a political organisation it stands head and shoulders above just about any other one I can think of. After more than 100 years in existence it has made no real progress in terms of membership growth but you can hardly put that down to the SPGB alone. Had it not been for loud siren calls of reformism, labourism and soviet state capitalism throughout the 20th century that all but drowned out the tiny voice of the SPGB, who knows how history might have turned out? Now that the former have been exposed as utterly descredited and ideologically bankrupt who knows what the future might yet hold - if the SPGB can finally get it act together. It is not unknown for small insignificant little organisations to quite suddenly mushroom into a mass movement. It could happen again

[Decolonize The Left]

No I don't vote for politicians.
Yes I do vote on policies and laws.

- August

[Hit The North]

I am well aware that the SPGB is not faring particularly well - though I suspect its influence is probably rather greater than you imagine and that as an organisation it punches well above its weight.

I actually think that despite its small size the input of the SPGB has been invaluable in this regard. It is a grsosly underrated organisation

But I can tell you this for sure - as a political organisation it stands head and shoulders above just about any other one I can think of.

Blah blah blah. You can "suspect" and "think" or all you like, what you can't do is substantiate any of your sanctimonious claims. Where does it punch above its weight? How is it underrated? In what terms does it stand head and shoulders above any other political organisation you can think of? These are just words. Typical of the SPGB: All words, zilch action. All you mean, is that you personally agree with their ideas, but you cannot name a single campaign where the SPGB has left its mark on British politics. Outside of the arcane debates of what represents a "pure interpretation" of Marxism and the supposed deviations of Leninism and Trotskyism, the SPGB has always been and remains an irrelevant organisation. But don't take my word for it. Let's look at the resolutions of this mighty organisation in its 2006 national conference:


Motion 1. "That no money be sent to overseas groups".
> Manchester Branch.
> Vote 1 For: 69 Against: 74 Abstain: 6 MOTION Not Carried.
>
> Motion 2. "This Conference rules that the Party shall cease sending money
grants to overseas groups or individuals, but shall continue to give every
assistance to socialist activities abroad by way of printing and dispatching
campaign material from Head Office." South London Branch.
> Vote 2 For: 79 Against: 63. Abstain: 7 MOTION Carried
>
> Motion 3. "That no more by-elections be contested as they appear to be a waste
of money." Lancaster Branch.
> Vote 3 For: 72 Against: 70 Abstain: 7 MOTION Carried
>
> Motion 4. "This Conference is in favour of Head Office being used for the
purposes of regular evenings of musical/cabaret/political events." South London
Branch.
> Vote 4 For: 129 Against: 16 Abstain: 4 MOTION Carried
>
> Motion 5. " This Conference rules that 2002 edition of the pamphlet Socialist
Principles Explained be withdrawn and that the 1975 edition be re-issued with
appropriate minor amendments." South London Branch.
> Vote 5 For: 66 Against: 66 Abstain 17 MOTION Not Carried.
>
> Motion 6. "This Conference rules that it is policy that any socially useful
law will be retained in Socialism." South London Branch.
> Amendment to Motion 6
> West London Branch. "That the word 'law' be replaced with 'regulatory
measures'."
>
> Vote 6 On the amendment. For: 83 Against: 50 Abstain 16 Carried
> Vote 7 If amendment carried For: 87 Against: 46 Abstain: 17 Carried
> MOTION AS AMENDED CARRIED
>
> And for information: Vote 8,If motion unamended, For: 53 Against: 81
Abstain: 15Tremble capital! Read and weep for the certainty of your demise! But rest assured that the mighty SPGB will retain all of your "socially useful laws" after the revolution. :lol:


Standing a single candidate in the elections may well be tokenism of a sort but I dont think the SPGB or any other small party is in any position to field candidates in every constituency, or even a sizeable number, and risk losing £1000 in lost deposts - or whatever it is these days - for each attempt. Multiplied by 600 plus constiuencies thats a lot of money! Yes, and because they pathetically refuse to collaborate with any other socialists outside of their 369 members they'd have to foot the bill themselves. Too much, I guess, for them to actually get off their arses and raise the money to stand more candidates. Be too much like campaigning, I suppose.


But all this is by the by.Not really. You're making your big claims about their influence, but standing one candidate in the 2010 General Election is the only concrete things I can find that they've done in recent years. Maybe you can enlighten me and point to something else that encapsulates their awesome influence?

By the way, the single SPGB candidate stood in the London constituency of Vauxhall (where I believe they have had some experience of fielding two local election candidates) and the candidate, Daniel Lambert, amassed a glorious 143 votes. At least they beat Workers Power who crawled in with 103 votes. So I suppose I should concede to the correctness of your earlier assertion that compared to much of the left, the SPGB is indeed a "mass movement". ;)


What we need is to help make it a matter of widespread awareness, to faciliate the transformation from, what Marx called, a class-in-itself to a class-for-itself.
Of course, the question is what we do to facilitate this. I don't think putting out propaganda in a monthly magazine that is basically distributed through postal subscription and standing one candidate in a general election in a constituency, chosen on the basis of it being the site of past electoral failure, is going to do it.


Anyone who thinks this can be done without the mediation, transmisson and exchange of ideas, that it can somehow mechanically come about through action or activity alone is utterly deluded.I disagree. Anyone who thinks that is a moron. I don't know any serious Marxist or socialist who thinks that.


The class stuggle is also quitessentially a struggle of ideas.Perhaps. But ideas change through struggle, not through reading Socialist Standard when it drops through the letter box. Besides, workers in struggle will only engage with socialist ideas if there are socialists putting forward their ideas side by side in the struggle.


Most of the left do not even talk in these terms. Their vision of the way ahead goes no further than the utopian and fruitless endeavour of trying humanise and reform capitalism.Outside of the Labour Party left, what socialists believe this? You seem to enjoy conjuring up these 'hollow men' to give substance to your prejudices.


Now that the former have been exposed as utterly descredited and ideologically bankrupt who knows what the future might yet hold If the SPGB can finally get it act together. It is not unknown for small insignificant little organisations to quite suddenly mushroom into mass movements. It could happen again Now you just sound like one of the desperate vanguardists you so despise with your illustrated dreams of the party suddenly swept up to the head of revolutionary movement - presumably accompanied by a sudden surge in subscriptions to the Socialist Standard!

Meanwhile, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the increasingly aged and infirm membership of the SPGB to get its act together; not unless the nation's retirement homes are poised to become the hub of the next revolutionary outbreak.

But out of interest, what would the SPGB "getting its act together" actually constitute, do you think?

[00000000000]

As many others have said, voting for a socialist candidate stands more chance of having some impact (however small) than sitting at home on polling day as a form of protest.
You can make arguements about revolution vs participation, but if a democratic system is in place where you live, it doesn't make sense to not participate if there's a candidate standing that holds your views.

[not your usual suspect]

If voting could change anything, it would be illegal. Whoever you vote for, a politician will get in. It is degrading to have a master. It is more degrading to choose a master. There are multiple other slogans. The point, voting is a waste of time. Your socialist candidate cannot win. Or, if they do win, they will just be another capitalist politician. Witness the various people with principles (greens and leftists) who upon getting into government have discarded those principles like soiled, ruined, underwear. Your socialist candidate will happily discard you as well once elected.

[robbo203]

Blah blah blah. You can "suspect" and "think" or all you like, what you can't do is substantiate any of your sanctimonious claims. .


Ouch. Seems Ive hit a raw nerve judging by the vehemence of your response to my post. You still nursing a bruised ego after an encounter with an SPGBer in which you came off second best or something? It would certainly seem so. As for calling others "sanctimonious", have you looked at your own scribblings lately? Sheesh. There are a few other words that spring to mind - like "pompous", "patronising" and "sneering"

Yes, I am not ashamed to say that i do substantially agree with the SPGB outlook. I have my differences with them but all in all they are far more right than wrong. More to the point, how many other organisatons do you know of that clearly and unequivocally advocate a revolutionary socialist alternative to capitalism - a moneyless wageless stateless community based on common ownership and the democrartic control of the means of prodiuction. Not many I best. Most "socialists" organisations entertain no other vision of the future than one in which the basic economic categories of capitalism continue to exist - wage labour, production for the market, capital accumulation and so on - usually under the supposed benevolent guidance of a state albeit that oxymoron to beat all oxymorons - the so called "proletarian state" in which the slaves get to rule over their slave masters while oddly enough still remaining slaves. If genuine socialism (above) is mentioned at all it is usually treated as some ultimate long term goal conveniently postponed until more pressing matters have been dealt with. The "socialism" of such organisations is just tokenism, paying lipservice to the goal. It is not serious at all

Which brings me to the gist of your long rambling diatribe against the SPGB - that its "all words zilch action" . I cannot name a single campaign, you say, "where the SPGB has left its mark on British politics". Campaign? Campaign for what? You still dont get it do you? The SPGB is not a reformist organisation. It does not "campaign" to pressure the state into doing this or doing that. That is not what the SPGB is about at all. Manic Impressive has it exactly right when he says "On the visibility issue I'd personally prefer to be seen as a party of low visibility but solid politics than a party accused of sending undisciplined and unknowledgeable members to every possible demo with their placards and their papers and their megaphones and getting on everyone's nerves for high jacking other peoples causes like any good vanguardist party would"

For all your puffed up sense of your own self impoirtance what, might I ask, has the reformist campaigning Left with which you clearly identify yourself, actually achieved, huh? What "mark" have you left on British politics yourself, as you pomposly put it. As I said several posts ago no one here is in a position to ridicule the SPGB over its relative insignificance. Every group or party on what is called the "hard Left" is pretty much miniscule and ineffective when it comes down to it

There is "action" and then there is "action". You with your crass festishisation of "action" fail to appreciate the point that some kinds of action, the kinds of action you seem to be touting for here, can in fact often be pretty harmful and damaging to the revolutionary cause. Reformism is a case in point. It ensnares individuals in the delusion that capitalism can somehow be made to run in the interests of the working class, that an inhuman mechanism that is the profit system can somehow be humanised, that the leopard can be cajoled into changing its spots. It is a massive diversion from the struggle to end capitalism rather than mend capitalism. And here you have a clear choice - it is one or the other.

It seems to me that you are in complete denial about all of this . You ask that "Outside of the Labour Party left", what socialists believe that capitalism is a system that can be humansied and reformed for the better? Ha, Ha and bloody Ha! Wake up and smell the coffee, sunshine! Most of the "socialists" on the hard Left do and, if I might throw your insult back in your face, it is through their actions, if not their words, that they expose themselves as the non-revolutionary reformists they are. If you want me to reel off the rank reformist programmes of various assorted hard Left orgaisations, I will happily do so. The evidence is ovewhelmng and undeniable

The class struggle is something that happens - irrespective of whether we are aware of it or not. We dont need to "enact" the class struggle. What we do need is to clarify what the struggle is about. We need militant class consciousness and understanding. This is where your observation about the SPGB came across as so utterly inept and naive with your dumb dichotimisation of "all words, zilch action". Many SPGBers I know of are militant trade uniuonists (and by the way your characterisation of the SPGB membershipas "aged and infirm" is not only insultingly ageist in tone but misleading in much the same way as if were to call the SWP a party of adolescent student types) SPGBers I know of are involved in all sorts of actions. There was a prominent Trade unionist I knew , Wally Preston, who was firebrand in the shop stewards movement and an SPGBer to boot who left the SWP years earlier in disillusionment. I suspect you dont really know much about the SPGB at all and have probably not met a real live member in the flesh. Afterall its so much easier to cull reports of SPGB conferences over the internet like some sad computer nerd to provide juicy material for a few smug ill-informed and out-of-context digs at the SPGB. Talk about "armchair revolutionaries", eh?

Point is that while the SPGB strongly supports militant industrial action is does not itself get involved in a practical sense in the business of trade unions. That is up to individual SPGBers. I tried to explain to you before the sound rationale befind this policy but obviously you took none of this in. Still, thats entirely up to you if you dont want to listen. I cant force you to.

One final thing, I cannot really let you get away with this comment. In response to my point that anyone who thinks the transformation from, what Marx called, a class-in-itself to a class-for-itself "can be done without the mediation, transmisson and exchange of ideas, that it can somehow mechanically come about through "action" or "activity" alone is utterly deluded" you said:

"I disagree. Anyone who thinks that is a moron. I don't know any serious Marxist or socialist who thinks that."

Now I dont know if this was typo on your part and you meant to say "I agree" but clearly this is contradicted by your subsequent grudging acknowlegement that the class struggle is indeed a struggle of ideas. However according to you "ideas change through struggle, not through reading Socialist Standard when it drops through the letter box. Besides, workers in struggle will only engage with socialist ideas if there are socialists putting forward their ideas side by side in the struggle."

Actually, no, ideas change for all sorts of reasons including through reading literature and publications like the Socialist Standard and not just through "struggle". If that was not the case what would be the point of any organising putting out any sort of literature at all? What would be the point of this forum come to think of it? Struggle is an important factor also, of course, but it doesnt necessarily change ideas in the direction desired. It can just as easily lead to cynicism, apathy, disillusionment and despair or even the belief that it is "all the fault of those immigrants" who have taken away our jobs and undercut our wages...

That is why the propagation of ideas is so important, so vital, And this is what the SPGB is pretty good at doing and is widely acknowleged to be so by many assessments Ive come across, even from hostile critics. . Of course it helps when you are putting forward your ideas side by side with others in the struggle. But that is precisely what SPGBers routuinely do i my experience - , despite your ill informed caricaturisation of the organisation - albeit in an often low-key face-to-face fashion and not, as Manic Impressive puts it, like a bunch of vanguardists hijacking someone else's protest with placards and megaphones

[Paulappaul]

I don't think it is very Marxist to look at things in terms of "Voting vs. Not Voting" - it would seem that what we should really be considering is, under what circumstances will parliamentary action lead to the further unification of the working class. It would seem that under Western conditions, where class struggle is manifesting itself in these type of mass assemblies and occupations, we should be pushing a program (the very heart of a party and of our work) here rather then in some election.

just my two cents. I'm a Communist, not pro - parliamentary or anti - parliamentary.

[thriller]

It's up to you. Some people to choose to vote for the most right-wing people because their fuck ups could lead to more oppression, and therefore more opposition from workers. Others feel like voting is pointless. Others might think voting for a radical candidate is important cause it could show the people that no matter who they vote for, the ruling class will never relinquish their power peacefully. I vote because not everyone can, and I feel like if I don't I'm rubbing it in people's faces in say China or Saudi Arabia. I'd vote for him. Stewart is a good comrade. As far as the VP goes, it's not like the VP has any power anyways.