Ed Milliband on Marxism and Capitalism

[Manic Impressive]

It is a perfect Indian summer morning in Ed Miliband’s patch of north London. God (though Mr Miliband does not believe in Him) 'is in His heaven, and all is right with the world’. I knock on the door of his pleasant family house in Primrose Hill. 'It’s such a nice day,’ he says, 'let’s go for a walk’. We stroll up the hill, and the Labour leader is greeted by smiling multi-ethnic children in their comprehensive-school uniforms as he passes. We sit outdoors at a café on the greensward and local fans ask him to pose for photographs. Ed and his brother David, whom he beat for the leadership, were brought up here. The chief is at ease among his tribe. After a mobile-phone-free holiday in Greece, Mr Miliband is relaxed.

The hang-dog style of his public speaking is at odds with his amused conversational manner. Two years in, and preparing for his party’s annual conference, he contemplates a solid poll lead over the Conservatives, and a Coalition which has lost momentum. The man whom the Tories like to write off as an unelectable geek is starting to present a challenge. He says that the assumptions which have governed politics for 30 years have changed: he wants to break the consensus, just as Mrs Thatcher did in opposition in the late 1970s. He wants to talk about what he believes. He calls it 'the explanation for me’.

To my surprise, he is eager to start with his Marxist background. His late father, Ralph, was a leading thinker of the pure Left. Capitalism, with what he saw as its inherent injustice, was the great enemy. Ed’s mother Marion is a lifelong Leftwing activist. During the miners’ strike in 1984, she took young Ed, then aged 15, up to Derbyshire to meet the wife of a striking miner whom she had befriended. In the Miliband household, the workers of the world were rarer than the intellectuals, but they were the heroes. Mrs Thatcher was an ogre, and the Right wing of the Labour Party was the bête noir. 'My dad was sceptical of all the Thatcher aspirational stuff. But I felt you sort of had to recognise that what she was talking about struck a chord.’

Ed’s was a happy childhood, he says. His father could be 'slightly sectarian’, but he was 'attentive’ to his children, and fun. He encouraged them to form their own views. 'Dad, do we believe in God?’ asked young David one day. 'It’s up to you,’ his father replied, 'I don’t.’ When Ralph Miliband died in 1994, says his younger son, 'I lost my lodestar’.



Yet Ed did form his own views: he stands for the sort of Labour Party which his father always excoriated. 'I want to save capitalism from itself,’ he says. Old Ralph, who lies buried a few yards from Karl Marx in Highgate cemetery, didn’t want to save it at any price.
The son rejected Marxist dogma. What he retains are the 'values’ of his socialist upbringing. It was the 'refugee situation’. Both his parents were Jews who fled the Nazis. (Ralph’s birth name was Adolphe, but he changed it because it was the same as Hitler’s.) Ralph and his father made it to Britain in 1940, but his mother and sister were stuck, and hidden by a gentile French family throughout the war. Many relations perished. 'When I was about seven,’ says Ed, 'I went to see my mother’s mother in Israel. There was a picture of a man on the wall. “Who is that ?” I asked, in the way children do, and my granny looked very sad. I was taken aside and told it was my grandfather, who had died in Auschwitz’.
The young Milibands were not brought up to feel strongly Jewish – 'I would actually have preferred to have had more of a sense of it’. Like many people touched by the Holocaust, their parents were reluctant to talk about it. 'Dad preferred to talk about his time in the Royal Navy’ (from 1943-46). But the background of persecution taught the boys 'to take the world seriously – not in an “eat your spinach” sort of way – but a really intense belief that we had to do something to make the world a better place’.
Ed particularly needs his lodestar now, because – 'it’s ironic that I should be using the phrase’ – we are living in a crisis of capitalism. 'I am now much clearer than I was two years ago about the depth of change we need.’ He goes on: 'Tony and Gordon were products of their historical circumstances.’ They had to break with the past, but in the process, New Labour became too credulous about business: 'The consensus around regulation ['light touch’] turned out to be really problematic.’ The project became 'too easy and accepting’ about globalisation: 'It’s just not true that all the top CEOs will leave the country unless we pay them whatever they demand’.
Mightn’t his father have been right after all, then? I recite the famous phrase from Clause 4 – the bit of Labour’s constitution which New Labour momentously discarded: 'To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange’.
Why is that so unacceptable to the Labour leader in the age of bankers’ bonuses?
At this point, a mosquito settles on my shoulder. With a commanding show of decision, Mr Miliband squashes it, spattering its remarkably copious blood over my light grey suit. So that’s how he deals with capitalist parasites.
Clause 4 is wrong about ownership, he says. 'We’ve learnt that the state is no good at running, say, the car business’. But Clause 4, I persist, doesn’t talk about state ownership (though that is what most of its supporters meant). It speaks of 'common ownership’. Isn’t ownership one of the greatest problems of the current disasters? 'Definitely!’ he exclaims. So wouldn’t forms of common ownership be a good thing?
He looks interested, but cautious. 'A company is not accountable just to its owners, but to its workers and its customers.’ He cites Anthony Crosland, the moderate Labour thinker of the 1950s, who argued that capitalism had changed fundamentally. 'He even said that bosses no longer felt they could pay themselves whatever they liked. What on earth has happened between then and now?’
What Mr Miliband wants is 'responsible capitalism’. His father would have called that a contradiction in terms, wouldn’t he? 'Yes! But I believe capitalism is the least worst system we’ve got. I believe in the creativity of Blackberry [picking up his], or whatever. But I want it to be more decent, more humane, more fraternal.’ An employee should be on every remuneration committee. There is 'a strong case’ for making takeovers more difficult. He was attacked for his conference speech last year in which he divided businesses into 'predators and producers’, but 'I was definitely right’. It is ironic, says Mr Miliband, that Mrs Thatcher’s reforms, which attacked many vested interests, created new ones: they need to be taken on. There are too few banks, and six companies control 99 per cent of energy supply: 'This is about the free market working properly’. It just isn’t enough to deregulate the private sector. Wealth is created by 'the private sector working with government. We shouldn’t be ashamed of wanting an industrial policy.’ There are 'different capitalisms’ – Scandinavian as well as American.
So, is it good to be rich? 'Yes, if you make it the hard way,’ he says.
But he doesn’t quite like his own answer. 'It’s not for me to pass moral judgment. It’s the Jimmy Carr point; what are the rules?’ He doesn’t object to wealth as such, but 'the scale of inequality scars our society’.
Tax should not be punitive: 'I’ve said that 50 per cent is pretty much the limit’. Labour under Brown exhausted the possibilities of transfers through taxation, and this is 'the toughest thing’ for his party to accept.
Now that there are no 'proceeds of growth’ to play around with, he wants 'predistribution’ rather than redistribution, a living wage rather than a hand-out.
If we can remedy the woes of capitalism, Ed Miliband hopes, we can remoralise our society. 'The experience of the Olympics was a moment my generation hadn’t known before. It really did feel as if we were all in this together. The Tories were on to something when they used that phrase, but they haven’t done anything with it. What depresses me about David Cameron is how he’s changed. Five years ago, he was hugging a hoodie. Now it’s so different. It does people’s heads in.’ He thinks Blair’s Millennium Dome was a 'manufactured’ effort to re-forge a national identity. The London Olympics have achieved the real thing.
Yet the structure of society does not reflect these values. 'John Major wanted a country at ease with itself. That’s so important. But how can people feel at ease when those at the top are ripping everyone else off?
We want a market economy, not a market society’. Conservative-minded people recognise this as much as the Left, he thinks. Unrestrained free markets can destroy other valuable things – a 60-hour week, for example, undermining family life.
He adds that people’s feeling of powerlessness in the face of capitalism is matched by the same sense in relation to government. The state 'seems remote and unaccountable’ and 'it remains an issue for the Left’ to acknowledge this properly. Central government should stop worrying about the structures of local government and 'devolve the powers anyway’. I note, however, that his idea of power to the people does not extend to a referendum on Europe – 'We’ve had one’ (he was six years old at the time!).
Standing back, doesn’t he face a deeper problem? The crisis of capitalism is so deep: people don’t believe politicians can do anything about it. He acknowledges the disillusionment, but says he has inherited his father’s hopefulness: 'Look at the previous generation – the Berlin Wall, apartheid, Northern Ireland: things that looked insoluble changed. Politics can rise to these challenges.’
I bring him back to where he started. Isn’t the great lesson from his parents’ that socialism was a god that failed? 'No!’, exclaims Ed Miliband vehemently, because socialism is not a rigid economic doctrine, but 'a set of values’ It is 'a tale that never ends’. Indeed, the strange fact is that 'While there’s capitalism, there’ll be socialism, because there is always a response to injustice.’



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/9544522/Ed-Miliband-interview-I-want-to-save-the-capitalism-my-father-hated.html#

[MustCrushCapitalism]

Typical neoliberal politician.

[Uppity Prole]

He's trying to convince readers of a RW rag that he's not one of those nasty say-shellists like his father.

This is because the Telegraph's core readership consider anything to the left of Ken Clarke as out-and-out Marxism.

[Hit The North]

Some advice to Miliband: reheating the same stew over and over will only result in food poisoning.

[REDSOX]

just more new labour mush

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Milliband may have been saying what the readers wanted to hear, but it was a Telegraph journalist that wrote it, right? When I realised that I found the somewhat fawning tones of the article to be a bit surprising.

[Proteus2]

But I believe capitalism is the least worst system we’ve got.

Is this the capitalism that relies on huge state welfare? Because it seems to rely on another system for its existence.

[Manic Impressive]

Milliband may have been saying what the readers wanted to hear, but it was a Telegraph journalist that wrote it, right? When I realised that I found the somewhat fawning tones of the article to be a bit surprising.
I know right

Torygraph Journo saying this

It speaks of 'common ownership’. Isn’t ownership one of the greatest problems of the current disasters? 'Definitely!’ he exclaims. So wouldn’t forms of common ownership be a good thing?

[Ocean Seal]

I thought that this was going to be an essay by the user, I'm sorely disappointed.

[L.A.P.]

ed milliband's critique of capitalism > Ed Milliband's critique of capitalism

[The Idler]

Are there no revlefters members of parties who argue for a (critical) Labour vote (without illusions)?

[Proteus2]

Are there no revlefters members of parties who argue for a (critical) Labour vote (without illusions)?

The irony is that Miliband is basically saying, whether he knows it or not, that there is 'no alternative'. All I have to offer is more of the same.

[ed miliband]

ed milliband's critique of capitalism > Ed Milliband's critique of capitalism

hahaha, i thought it would be necessary to point out that yes, this is a different - obviously less important - ed miliband.

(only one 'l', for some reason - strange spelling, i know)

[Hit The North]

Are there no revlefters members of parties who argue for a (critical) Labour vote (without illusions)?

I recall that you were extolling the effectiveness of peaceful voting and its superiority to street protest and strike action in another thread. That's the most uncritical and illusory statement on voting that I recall reading on these boards.

And I wonder who you expect workers to vote for, given that your own party can only muster one candidate per general election?

[Yuppie Grinder]

Ed Milliband is a qt, believes in capitalism with a human face and doesn't afraid of anything.

[The Idler]

I recall that you were extolling the effectiveness of peaceful voting and its superiority to street protest and strike action in another thread. That's the most uncritical and illusory statement on voting that I recall reading on these boards.

And I wonder who you expect workers to vote for, given that your own party can only muster one candidate per general election?
Huh? Asking if there are any revlefters calling for a critical Labour vote is a question not a statement. Isn't calling for a critical Labour vote without illusions what Socialist Worker (formerly Labour Worker) have been known to do? I think its counterproductive to do so even if the Labour leader was Tony Benn or Michael Foot.

[Manic Impressive]

I recall that you were extolling the effectiveness of peaceful voting and its superiority to street protest and strike action in another thread. That's the most uncritical and illusory statement on voting that I recall reading on these boards.

And I wonder who you expect workers to vote for, given that your own party can only muster one candidate per general election?
Giant Strawman but if you really want to judge success by election results we did get more votes than your TUSC coalition at the last election. I guess you don't follow the SWP party line on calling for a critical Labour vote?

[brigadista]

careerist politician

[Hit The North]

Huh? Asking if there are any revlefters calling for a critical Labour vote is a question not a statement. Isn't calling for a critical Labour vote without illusions what Socialist Worker (formerly Labour Worker) have been known to do? I think its counterproductive to do so even if the Labour leader was Tony Benn or Michael Foot.

Yes SW has, in the past, called for a vote without illusions in Labour from a tactical point of view. Whether this was counterproductive or not is debatable, what is true is that millions of workers would have voted Labour anyway, regardless of what Socialist Worker called upon them to do. I think it is important to realise that when SW makes this demand, it is not aimed abstractly at the class as a whole, but to those workers who read SW. In other words, it is a critical intervention in the election designed to arm workers who are already socialists with arguments they can use with fellow trade unionists and workmates. It is better, from a basic class consciousness point of view, for workers to critically vote Labour than Tory - or at least this was the case before the post-Thatcher political convergence.

But, back to my question, if you think it is counter-productive for workers to vote Labour but you (SPGB) are in favour of voting, rather than abstention, then who do you expect workers to vote for?

[Manic Impressive]

But, back to my question, if you think it is counter-productive for workers to vote Labour but you (SPGB) are in favour of voting, rather than abstention, then who do you expect workers to vote for?
We only tell workers to vote for Socialism (us or a party with the same platform of which there are none) or to spoil their ballots by writing socialism across it. But then again we tell people who think that we are Left wing agents of capital not to vote for us.

Here's an example of our electioneering

We don’t want your vote. We don’t want your vote if you think socialism means nationalization, higher taxation, welfare state, council estates, national liberation, legalising marijuana or anything of that sort. In short, we don’t want your vote if you think we need to keep and act within existing capitalism.
On the other hand, if you do want a society of common ownership and democratic control; a worldwide co-operative commonwealth; the emancipation of labour from the chains of capital; then we’re your people, because that’s all we stand for.
Well, there’s a further catch, because all we’re doing is holding the banner aloft. If you want to make socialism happen you’ve got to prepared to do the work yourself – we’re not leaders, and don’t want to be. If you need someone to lead you into the promised land, some other bugger’ll lead you straight back out again.
That’s the choice in this election in a nutshell. A choice between confusing the issue, like whether it’s better to be dominated by British capitalists or European ones; whether it’s better to only allow capitalists to exploit us for a third of our waking hours, rather than a half; whether the state is the one that extracts profits from our labour, or private employers; or, making our demands crystal clear.
If you call yourself a socialist, why do you want to waste time trying to figure out how to make capitalism run better, anyway? The power to change the world lies in your hands, you don’t need to be bound by accepting things as they are – the point is to change them. If a majority decided to remake the world, no force on Earth could stop them.
A vote for the Socialist Party is a vote that says you are ready to act to make this change. A signal to your fellow socialists that they are not alone. A signal to your fellow workers that some people take the actual idea of socialism seriously, rather than relegating it to some bedtime fairytale never-never for after the work of running capitalism is done.
Let’s end on William Morris: “One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman: two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad; ten men sharing an idea begin to act, a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and the cause has victories tangible and real; and why only a hundred thousand? Why not a hundred million and peace upon the Earth? You and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer that question.”

[The Idler]

By the way I can see why my first post might have sounded like I was calling for a critical Labour vote without illusions.

[pluckedflowers]

I saw this, by Alexander Cockburn, recently after his death:


I asked the future leader what I asked all interns as a matter of form, “Eddie, is your hate pure?”

The man who first asked me that question was the late Jim Goode, editor of Penthouse.

Like Playboy, Penthouse would pay good money for long articles about the corruption of America, thus giving the pointyheads an excuse to thumb through the pinups. Goode, tall and cadaverous, was gay, clad in black leather as he crouched on the floor of his office, gazing morosely at hundreds of photos of bare-breasted women.

As I entered with some screed about corporate and political evil, he’d snarl, “Alex, is your hate pure?” “Yes, Jim, my hate is pure.”

It was a good way of assaying interns. The feisty ones would respond excitedly, “Yes, my hate is pure.” I put the question to Eddie Miliband. He gaped at me in shock like Gussie Fink-Nottle watching one of his newts vanish down the plug hole in his bath. “I…I… don’t hate anyone, Alex,” he stammered.

It’s all you need to know.

[Manic Impressive]

By the way I can see why my first post might have sounded like I was calling for a critical Labour vote without illusions.
Also I don't think we should chastise the people calling for a tactical Labour vote too much. Or even those who join the Labour party in the hopes of changing it. They are, afterall only following Lenin's orders and as we know independent thought is not their strong point.

[brigadista]

the labour party is like a convention of middle managers , accountants and social workers - i despise them

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

We only tell workers to vote for Socialism (us or a party with the same platform of which there are none) or to spoil their ballots by writing socialism across it. But then again we tell people who think that we are Left wing agents of capital not to vote for us.

Here's an example of our electioneering

We don’t want your vote. We don’t want your vote if you think socialism means nationalization, higher taxation, welfare state, council estates, national liberation, legalising marijuana or anything of that sort. In short, we don’t want your vote if you think we need to keep and act within existing capitalism.
On the other hand, if you do want a society of common ownership and democratic control; a worldwide co-operative commonwealth; the emancipation of labour from the chains of capital; then we’re your people, because that’s all we stand for.
Well, there’s a further catch, because all we’re doing is holding the banner aloft. If you want to make socialism happen you’ve got to prepared to do the work yourself – we’re not leaders, and don’t want to be. If you need someone to lead you into the promised land, some other bugger’ll lead you straight back out again.
That’s the choice in this election in a nutshell. A choice between confusing the issue, like whether it’s better to be dominated by British capitalists or European ones; whether it’s better to only allow capitalists to exploit us for a third of our waking hours, rather than a half; whether the state is the one that extracts profits from our labour, or private employers; or, making our demands crystal clear.
If you call yourself a socialist, why do you want to waste time trying to figure out how to make capitalism run better, anyway? The power to change the world lies in your hands, you don’t need to be bound by accepting things as they are – the point is to change them. If a majority decided to remake the world, no force on Earth could stop them.
A vote for the Socialist Party is a vote that says you are ready to act to make this change. A signal to your fellow socialists that they are not alone. A signal to your fellow workers that some people take the actual idea of socialism seriously, rather than relegating it to some bedtime fairytale never-never for after the work of running capitalism is done.
Let’s end on William Morris: “One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman: two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad; ten men sharing an idea begin to act, a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and the cause has victories tangible and real; and why only a hundred thousand? Why not a hundred million and peace upon the Earth? You and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer that question.”

Why not encourage voters to spoil their ballots? It amounts to the same result in the end.

[zimmerwald1915]

Manic Impressive: "We only tell workers to vote for Socialism (us or a party with the same platform of which there are none) or to spoil their ballots by writing socialism across it..."

Noxion: "Why not encourage voters to spoil their ballots?"

Just thought it was funny. :laugh:

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Manic Impressive: "We only tell workers to vote for Socialism (us or a party with the same platform of which there are none) or to spoil their ballots by writing socialism across it..."

Noxion: "Why not encourage voters to spoil their ballots?"

Just thought it was funny. :laugh:

Sorry, I only caught the bits where it said "don't vote for any of those other bastards, but vote for us". It threw me off.

But also I think it's disingenuous. Are they legitimising the bourgeois electoral system by taking part? Obviously since they have candidates standing. So the message encouraging people to spoil (which I note only is a direct quote from Manic Impressive, not the SPGB) is contradictory and makes them as bad as the rest.

[Hit The North]

Giant Strawman but if you really want to judge success by election results we did get more votes than your TUSC coalition at the last election. I guess you don't follow the SWP party line on calling for a critical Labour vote?

in reverse order:

I'm no longer in the SWP and so don't have to follow any party line. But I note that as a line it is contingent on circumstances, not some unchanging principle (I know that might be difficult for you to digest coming from a party that has not had a single new idea in 100 years).

Where do you get that? In the last general election, the SPGB stood one candidate, coming third last out of nine candidates and receiving 143 votes. Embarrassingly, you were beaten by the Christian Party who got 200 votes, perhaps proving that a properly religious party is more popular than a pseudo religious one. Source.
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/constituency/1392/vauxhall)
Meanwhile TUSC fielded around 42 candidates and in Lewisham, for example, received 645 votes. Their best result came in Coventry West where Dave Nellist won 1592 votes. In only 3 of the constituencies in which they stood did TUSC receive fewer votes than the SPGB received in Vauxhall. Source.
(http://www.tusc.org.uk/pressreleaseresults.htm)
But of course in both cases the British working class ignored their appeal in massive numbers. And my point wasn't to "judge success by election results" at all. My point was to question the logic of the SPGB's approach, more particularly The Idler's interpretation of this approach, when, in another thread he claimed:


Voting is more effective, democratic and peaceful than the streets or strikes.

So, I have not raised a "giant strawman", I asked him to justify how the SPGB can prioritise voting over street protests and strikes and yet fail to provide a serious number of socialist candidates which the working class can vote for.

If the SPGB (self-avowed "real socialists") will not, then who will? And if the SPGB cannot, then what good are they?

So far, he, and you, have failed to provide an answer.

[Hit The North]

But also I think it's disingenuous. Are they legitimising the bourgeois electoral system by taking part? Obviously since they have candidates standing. So the message encouraging people to spoil (which I note only is a direct quote from Manic Impressive, not the SPGB) is contradictory and makes them as bad as the rest.

The bourgeois electoral system isn't legitimised merely through participation in it. It depends on what the message is. It is possible, as the SPGB do, to stand candidates that are critical, cynical and anti the concept of bourgeois representative democracy. For instance the Nazis ran on an anti-democratic ticket and did pretty well out of it.*

So I don't agree that this is the main problem with their "line".

*Not that I'm remotely drawing parallels between the SPGB and Hitler, obviously.

[Grenzer]

Are they legitimising the bourgeois electoral system by taking part? Obviously since they have candidates standing. So the message encouraging people to spoil (which I note only is a direct quote from Manic Impressive, not the SPGB) is contradictory and makes them as bad as the rest.

I don't see how they could be when one considers that their platform, which is very clearly and directly stated, entails the destruction of the said same system.

[Manic Impressive]

in reverse order:

I'm no longer in the SWP and so don't have to follow any party line. But I note that as a line it is contingent on circumstances, not some unchanging principle (I know that might be difficult for you to digest coming from a party that has not had a single new idea in 100 years).
Congratulations mate, I didn't know. Always said you was too good for them. They do change a lot, more than the weather in fact, wherever or whatever a cause may be they are sure to be found trying to take control of it in order to gain a few more signatures.


Where do you get that? In the last general election, the SPGB stood one candidate, coming third last out of nine candidates and receiving 143 votes. Embarrassingly, you were beaten by the Christian Party who got 200 votes, perhaps proving that a properly religious party is more popular than a pseudo religious one. Source. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/constituency/1392/vauxhall)

Was talking about the mayoral actually. In regards to where and why we choose to stand candidates is based on realism. We know that as of right now we won't win an election so the only reason to stand is to promote socialism but also of a measure of how many class conscious workers are in the area. Now sure we'd like to stand candidates in every constituency at every election but firstly we don't have the manpower to do the work required to campaign in every constituency and it would also be a heavy financial burden on the party. I don't think anyone would claim that there's a large class conscious presence within the UK so it would be a waste of time, money and resources to stand in every constituency at the moment. However, standing in elections is proven to be our best way to attract members and supporters.


But of course in both cases the British working class ignored their appeal in massive numbers. And my point wasn't to "judge success by election results" at all. My point was to question the logic of the SPGB's approach, more particularly The Idler's interpretation of this approach, when, in another thread he claimed:

Voting is more effective, democratic and peaceful than the streets or strikes.

Yep and I'd back that statement 100%. But your argument is a strawman. You are misinterpreting what we are saying. If we're going to have a revolution and create a new society based on common ownership then what is the best means of doing it? As peacefully as possible. I fail to see how anyone could disagree with that. The reason is not only avoiding millions of workers dying in the process but to create the most conducive material conditions possible in order to achieve that goal. The best way to avoid violence is to use their own weapon, parliament, against them. If the state stops the workers voting then the state loses it's legitimacy in the eyes of the rest of the workers. Helping to further the use of other methods.


So, I have not raised a "giant strawman", I asked him to justify how the SPGB can prioritise voting over street protests and strikes and yet fail to provide a serious number of socialist candidates which the working class can vote for.
well you have because we're talking about two totally different things. The Idler in that statement is talking about revolutionary strategy, the end game if you like. You are talking about the best way to raise class consciousness. Strikes are about reforms or defending present conditions they are not about revolution and for all the strikes we've had over the last 150 years none of them have seen large leaps in class consciousness. As Marx said:

Trades Unions work well as centres of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerrilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class that is to say the ultimate abolition of the wages system
As I've said many times before we don't campaign for reforms. We are a single issue party and that issue is revolution. We accept nothing less, no half measures, no small victories only the abolition of capitalism. So that's why we don't campaign to save the NHS, or for student tuition fees or nationalization. Like all the other parties.
And where have these tactics of supporting reforms to capitalism got anyone? How has it advanced the cause for revolution? How has it raised class consciousness in significant degrees? The most successful of those groups who use these tactics must be the social democrats and as we can see from this thread we all know where that will end up.

[Manic Impressive]

Sorry, I only caught the bits where it said "don't vote for any of those other bastards, but vote for us". It threw me off.
Sorry maybe I phrased it badly :shrug:


But also I think it's disingenuous. Are they legitimising the bourgeois electoral system by taking part? Obviously since they have candidates standing. So the message encouraging people to spoil (which I note only is a direct quote from Manic Impressive, not the SPGB) is contradictory and makes them as bad as the rest.
No it's not contradictory. We say don't vote for any capitalist parties or any parties that want to run capitalism i.e. SPEW's electoral campaigns.

Not sure where I'll find an "official" quote at the moment or how it would be any more official coming from any other member. But I remember hearing a story about one member being expelled after voting for labour in some election. It's certainly grounds for expulsion, voting for a capitalist party, you can find that in our rule book. But yeah if we're not standing in an area we tell people to spoil as we do ourselves.

Here's the "official" party pamphlet on using parliament http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/whats-wrong-using-parliament

[Hit The North]

Congratulations mate, I didn't know.

No need for congratulations. It's just as much my failure as the party's.


In regards to where and why we choose to stand candidates is based on realism. We know that as of right now we won't win an election so the only reason to stand is to promote socialism but also of a measure of how many class conscious workers are in the area. This all sounds a wee bit parochial. "In the area"? If TUSC, formed a few years ago, can stand 42, why are the SPGB, after more than a century of existence, confined to one candidate? Doesn't this alert you to a problem in your overall strategy? Even if the sole purpose of the SPGB was to act as a study group and to propagate and popularise socialist ideas, it has proven to be unable to transcend its tiny cultish presence in British political life.


I don't think anyone would claim that there's a large class conscious presence within the UK so it would be a waste of time, money and resources to stand in every constituency at the moment.
True, but there's a good deal more class consciousness in the UK than just in the constituency of Vauxhall or various other boroughs of London. If you believe that the SPGB represents the only valid platform for socialist ideas, don't you think that this hitherto kindly but decidedly amateurish organisation has a duty to get its act together and start getting serious?


Yep and I'd back that statement 100%.That's a shame, because it is a decidedly one-sided and unMarxist position.


But your argument is a strawman. You are misinterpreting what we are saying. If we're going to have a revolution and create a new society based on common ownership then what is the best means of doing it? As peacefully as possible. I fail to see how anyone could disagree with that.In all likelihood the ruling class will disagree. It is never a matter of how violent or peaceful the oppressed want to be in securing their liberation, but how violent the oppressors react to maintain their oppression.


The best way to avoid violence is to use their own weapon, parliament, against them. If the state stops the workers voting then the state loses it's legitimacy in the eyes of the rest of the workers. Helping to further the use of other methods.
Well this appears to concede to the revisionist idea that bourgeois democracy can be used to further the interests of the proletariat; or that the capitalist state is somehow controlled by the political executive - surely an illusion of liberal democracy. Meanwhile, history has already proven that if the working class restricts itself to the rules of bourgeois democracy that the ruling class has nothing to fear from allowing workers possession of the vote.


well you have because we're talking about two totally different things. The Idler in that statement is talking about revolutionary strategy, the end game if you like. You are talking about the best way to raise class consciousness. Perhaps, but there is a definite and concrete relationship between your revolutionary strategy and raising class consciousness, is there not? For it depends on a mass surge of class conscious workers electing the socialist government that will then, I presume, begin prosecuting the revolution. The problem the SPGB has is that it does not have a conception of how this surge in revolutionary spirit will emerge, except as a spontaneous flowering of consciousness.


Strikes are about reforms or defending present conditions they are not about revolution and for all the strikes we've had over the last 150 years none of them have seen large leaps in class consciousness. I'd suggest that with the right amount of study it would not be difficult to prove empirically that periods of intense strike action relate to relatively high levels of class consciousness. This might fall short of revolutionary class consciousness in many cases but there is no denying that there is a necessary connection. Or does the SPGB deny this? But if they do, then where does class consciousness come from. If not from the battles and experience of the class it must be from book-learning or from Heaven!


As I've said many times before we don't campaign for reforms. We are a single issue party and that issue is revolution. We accept nothing less, no half measures, no small victories only the abolition of capitalism. So that's why we don't campaign to save the NHS, or for student tuition fees or nationalization. Like all the other parties.Ever thought that not engaging in the day to day struggles of the working class is one of the reasons that, after more than 100 years of existence, your party is still insignificant?

See, there's this thing called the class struggle which, if we are to believe Marx and our own desires, will eventually lead to the overthrow of capitalism. But the class struggle is like an iceberg, where the revolution is the summit representing 5%. The rest, the 95%, is workers resisting the power of capitalism, vainly attempting to maintain the semblance of a decent life in the face of constant attempts to tighten the rate of exploitation. It is through these struggles that the proletariat comes to know itself and forge itself into a revolutionary force. If the SPGB refuses to participate in the fight to secure decent education, decent public health, decent working conditions, then it doesn't deserve an audience among workers. The proof of this being that, in actuality, it doesn't have that audience.


And where have these tactics of supporting reforms to capitalism got anyone? How has it advanced the cause for revolution? How has it raised class consciousness in significant degrees? The most successful of those groups who use these tactics must be the social democrats and as we can see from this thread we all know where that will end up.
We support reforms without supporting reformism. In fact, in the act of standing shoulder to shoulder with other workers fighting for reforms, we must be harsh in our critique of reformism. Those who don't fight, don't win and, therefore, have no confidence in their ability to win.

How has the strategy (or really, the lack of one) championed by the SPGB advanced the cause for revolution?

[Geiseric]

careerist politician

Hit the nail on the had. I lol'd when it said he changed his middle name because it was hitlers, that's so bizarre. I mean if your name was like "ed hitler milliband," I may understand. Anyways, I stopped caring when it said he wanted to compare himself to "thatcher's opposition." You can just tell when an article is a waste of time to read.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I don't see how they could be when one considers that their platform, which is very clearly and directly stated, entails the destruction of the said same system.

You're not going to destroy the system by electing one or two candidates to it. Makes absolutely no sense to decry the parliamentary trough while sticking one's snout in it. Do you think it a mere coincidence that the more radical a party is relative to bourgeois political norms, the smaller it is?

[Die Neue Zeit]

the labour party is like a convention of middle managers , accountants and social workers - i despise them

I can understand your beef with middle managers, but what's your beef with the latter two? :confused:

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The irony is, that his opposition to the Labour Party's - and UK labour movement's - love of the state is not in itself mis-guided or at all unfounded, it's just that his solutions, as shown by his rejection of common ownership, are totally unimaginative. This is because he is a capitalist and works within those confines.

It's annoying because, we're often presented in the UK between a free-market right, and a pro-state left. In reality, neither of these options are either inspiring or worth fighting for, the only difference being that, in real terms, us workers might be safer economically (in the short term, I might add) in a paternal government-led economy than in a rabid deregulated one. But still, it's a non-sequitor to say that, because the most capitalist form of capitalism is that of the free-market, that the opposite must be the government-controlled market, and that as this is the opposite, it must be Socialism, or Socialistic. It's just not true and it's a real propaganda loss for our movement.

Sadly, most - if not all - Socialists in the UK have spent decades missing this point in between deciding whether to support this communist country or that, or whether to, you know, walk out of a conference and start a new even smaller party with a name that has more characters than the party has members.

[Die Neue Zeit]

It's annoying because, we're often presented in the UK between a free-market right, and a pro-state left. In reality, neither of these options are either inspiring or worth fighting for, the only difference being that, in real terms, us workers might be safer economically (in the short term, I might add) in a paternal government-led economy than in a rabid deregulated one. But still, it's a non-sequitor to say that, because the most capitalist form of capitalism is that of the free-market, that the opposite must be the government-controlled market, and that as this is the opposite, it must be Socialism, or Socialistic. It's just not true and it's a real propaganda loss for our movement.

You're underestimating the impact of permanent capitalist nationalizations. Even Engels didn't make this mistake when he argued that there were no negatives.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

You're underestimating the impact of permanent capitalist nationalizations. Even Engels didn't make this mistake when he argued that there were no negatives.

Engels was writing well over a century ago. Times have changed, in case you hadn't noticed. Permanent capitalist nationalisations:

a) do not exist anymore, since neo-liberalism enjoys a great hegemony over discredited Keynesianism, and

b) do nothing but blunt class consciousness and lead to political reaction, as the post-war period of Keynesian policy implementation provide ample evidence for.