'Why we need communism', Tent City University, Finsbury Square, London EC2, 11 April

[Alf]

Why we need communism

Lunchtime meeting at Tent City University, Finsbury Square, London EC2

Wednesday 11 April, 2012, 1pm -3pm


Introduced by Alan Ward, author of the book Communism is not just a nice idea, published by the International Communist Current

We need communism - not the state capitalist nightmare of Stalinism but a global human community without states, markets or money – because:

- capitalism, as a world-wide system of production, can offer us no future except crisis, war and ecological catastrophe

- this system cannot be reformed or made more ‘democratic’

- at the same time, the possibility of producing and living for our real needs already exists

Come and discuss why we need a completely new society and how we can get there

[Alf]

this is on tomorrow

[The Jay]

Would it be possible to upload this on YouTube? I would very much appreciate it if that's possible.

[Alf]

Not sure if I can get the equipment in time, but i will see what i can do. Thanks for your interest.

[Alf]

Non-event. Perhaps most of the energy of the occupation is being directed towards the protest at Leyton Marsh against the planned building of another Olympic facility, but Finsbury Square felt like a spiritless place, a far cry from the heady days of the occupation in the summer. I had agreed to do this talk because the organisers had contacted me and said they were having a series of lively lunchtime meetings. But I should have been warned by the fact that on the occupation website there was no evidence of any publicity for the event, or anything else on the Calendar except 'general assemblies'. When I got to the site with a couple of other comrades there were very few people about and no one seemed to know what was going on, and when I said the meeting was about communism I got the reply, more than once, that 'not many here would be up for that'. So after waiting for a while we left for the anarchist bookshop in Whitechapel. Should have checked the website - that was closed. So to avoid a total washout, we went to the Kusama exhibition at the Tate Modern for a bit of semi-surrealist art appreciation, carefully avoiding the Damien Hirst show.

[Railyon]

Bummer. Really sorry to hear that, mate. Is the speech available somewhere or is it your book in a nutshell?

[Alf]

Thanks for that. I was going to keep it to the basics and focus on where capitalism is now, whereas the book (the first volume of the series) deals mainly with the development of the notion of communism in the 19th century. I usually work from a few skimpy notes so i'm afraid that the speech as such only exists in a Platonic World of Ideas.

[bricolage]

alf, occupy stuff in the uk is a dead end. I disagree with you that it ever had 'heady days'.

[Alf]

It's true the occupy movement in the UK suffered the weight of many confusions. But it has to be seen in its international context. It did for a moment create a space for fruitful discussion at the very least.
What is your view of the international phenomenon as a whole -we have taken a general position on it here: http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201203/4766/statement-social-movements-2011

[bricolage]

It's true the occupy movement in the UK suffered the weight of many confusions. But it has to be seen in its international context. It did for a moment create a space for fruitful discussion at the very least.
What is your view of the international phenomenon as a whole -we have taken a general position on it here: http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201203/4766/statement-social-movements-2011
I haven't got time to read the article at the moment but briefly, I think it was completely different for different countries and dependent on the social situation and previous levels of conflict there. class struggle in america was unbelievably low and it was a definite step forward there, despite the many many (x infinity) problems it it does seem to have (at least in certain places, ie. oakland, new york) taken on a productive role. in greece it seemed a step back and was quickly eclipsed by the re-emergence of the mass strike, in spain probably forward, in the UK (which also had low levels of struggle but still higher than the US) it has always been an isolated activist hangout and very divorced from 'normal' life. I don't this could ever have been overcome no matter how much leftists ENGAGED!!1!! with it.