World Socialist Party-US..opinions?

[Tolstoy]

Ive been researching various communist groups and I found this one. Idealogically where are they and what kinds of activism are they into?

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Ive been researching various communist groups and I found this one. Idealogically where are they and what kinds of activism are they into?

They're Impossibilists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossibilism) - meaning they are a sort of anti-Leninist quasi-Orthodox Marxist. They define socialism as the "lower stage" of communism, and in the words of wikipedia, as:
[A] stateless (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_state), propertyless (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property), post-monetary economy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-capitalism) based on calculation in kind (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculation_in_kind), a free association of producers (workplace democracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_democracy)) and free access to goods and services produced solely for use (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use-value) and not for exchange.

They oppose "activism", and act primarily as a propaganda group. In some cases (not sure about the U$), they stand in elections in order to promote socialist ideas - though the reject parliamentarianism, reformism, and "minimum programmes".

[robbo203]

They're Impossibilists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossibilism) - meaning they are a sort of anti-Leninist quasi-Orthodox Marxist. They define socialism as the "lower stage" of communism, and in the words of wikipedia, as:


Not quite correct. As traditional Marxists they dont actually distingush between socialism and communism, treating one as a synonym of the other. So the higher stage of communism is also the higher stage of socialism. Calling socialism the lower stage of communism is actually an innovation by Lenin and of course the WSPUS are not Leninists!

It would be helpful to post a link to their site which actually contains a lot of very useful information if you browse through it. Here it is

http://wspus.org/

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Not quite correct. As traditional Marxists they dont actually distingush between socialism and communism, treating one as a synonym of the other. So the higher stage of communism is also the higher stage of socialism. Calling socialism the lower stage of communism is actually an innovation by Lenin and of course the WSPUS are not Leninists!

It would be helpful to post a link to their site which actually contains a lot of very useful information if you browse through it. Here it is

http://wspus.org/

My bad - thanks.

I read a whole lot of Socialist Party (Canada) literature for a high school project, but that was a decade ago, so, obvs., I'm a little rusty.

[robbo203]

My bad - thanks.

I read a whole lot of Socialist Party (Canada) literature for a high school project, but that was a decade ago, so, obvs., I'm a little rusty.

The SPC (http://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/) started up a publication called "Imagine" which would probably been just about at after the time you started your school project. But I think theyt are fairly small even by comparison with the WSPUS

[The Idler]

I don't think WSPUS are in the Orthodox Marxism tradition (quasi or otherwise) at all rather an earlier Marxism. This may be why the confusion over stageist perspective (a Menshevik thing) and maximalism (a Bolshevik thing). WSPUS put forward a minimum programme (if that even means anything), contained in their object and declaration of principles.
The best book about WSPUS is Role-Modeling Socialist Behavior by Karla Rab available in print here
http://www.lulu.com/gb/en/shop/karla-doris-rab/role-modeling-socialist-behavior-the-life-and-letters-of-isaac-rab/paperback/product-13378951.html
free PDF here
http://www.lulu.com/shop/karla-doris-rab/role-modeling-socialist-behavior-the-life-and-letters-of-isaac-rab/ebook/product-17370502.html

[robbo203]

WSPUS put forward a minimum programme (if that even means anything), contained in their object and declaration of principles.


You surely mean "maximum" programme in this context?

[The Idler]

You surely mean "maximum" programme in this context?
Not sure about the context, but socialism at minimum seems to me to be classless, stateless society of free access. Whether racism, sexism will persist I hope not but seems to me to be the superstructure (that most right-on 'socialists' focus on) rather than the base.

[HumanRightsGuy]

Actually, this thread caused me to do a little reading about the WSPUS, and, if there is a difference between them and DeLeonism (which I would tend to see as anti-reformist revolutionary purism), I can't seem to detect it.

[robbo203]

Not sure about the context, but socialism at minimum seems to me to be classless, stateless society of free access. Whether racism, sexism will persist I hope not but seems to me to be the superstructure (that most right-on 'socialists' focus on) rather than the base.


No I mean "minimum" and "maximum" in the sense of the distinction between the "reformist" and "revolutionary" (respectively) programmes such as obtained in the Second International. The SPGB , the WSPUS' sister party, was an advocate of the maximum or revolutioinary programme and warned quite correctly at the time that the prosecution of a mimumum programme would eventuially lead to the wholesale abandonment of revolutionary socialism by the social democratic parties in Europe. Which is precisely what happened

[robbo203]

Actually, this thread caused me to do a little reading about the WSPUS, and, if there is a difference between them and DeLeonism (which I would tend to see as anti-reformist revolutionary purism), I can't seem to detect it.

There are some differences as well as substantial commonalities. There is a useful summary here on the SPGB website, bearing in mind that the SPGB and the WSPUS are more or identical in outlook, being companion parties.

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/how-spgb-different (see De leonism near the end of the list)


One of the most important differences is the idea of labour vouchers in the early stages of communism which I think is a frankly unworkable as a proposition

[HumanRightsGuy]

OK, so I've read your link.

The differences between the WSPUS and De Leonism appear, to me, to make De Leonism look good and the WSPUS look, well, less good.

Labour vouchers: these seem, to me, to constitute a necessary bridge between capitalism and socialism. An ad hoc arrangement for sure, but HOW ELSE ARE THE WORKERS SUPPOSED TO EAT DURING THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION?

Socialism in one country? The very piece selected by the WSPUS from the De Leonists speaks to me, not of socialism in one country, but of world revolution:



What would a socialist America do about the wages, or capitalist, system in the "third world"?
You are wrong when you say that socialism in America would leave Europe and Japan unaffected. Today, capital is increasingly international. What affects capitalism at its heart affects all its limbs."


***


And that's the whole idea. Seeing as capitalism is increasingly international, socialism in an important imperialist country would certainly be a critical threat to major capital, which seems, to me, to be a fact recognized by major capital to the extent that they have, quite thoroughly, de-industrialized the US to the point that, were the US working class to seize power this minute, it would mean very little, as very little continues to exist of US industry at this time.


***


Work amongst the workers of the Third World appears to be the only reasonable source of hope discernible to me. (And, no, I'm NOT some Jack Barnesist Third Worldist: I'm just telling it as I see it.)


Capitalism has long since gone global: WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR????

[robbo203]

OK, so I've read your link.

The differences between the WSPUS and De Leonism appear, to me, to make De Leonism look good and the WSPUS look, well, less good.

Labour vouchers: these seem, to me, to constitute a necessary bridge between capitalism and socialism. An ad hoc arrangement for sure, but HOW ELSE ARE THE WORKERS SUPPOSED TO EAT DURING THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION?

Socialism in one country? The very piece selected by the WSPUS from the De Leonists speaks to me, not of socialism in one country, but of world revolution:



I think you might be harbouring a bit of a misunderstanding here. Labour vouchers were not perceived to "constitute a necessary bridge between capitalism and socialism". They were actually proposed by Marx as means of rationing goods in the lower stage of socialism or communism (Marx and others used these terms interchangeably as synonyms) -see his Critique of the Gotha Programme . As Marx argued, Labour vouchers were no more money than a ticket to the concert since they did not circulate . They would disappear once communist society had moved on to the "higher stage" and would be replaced by a system of complete free access to goods and services after the level of production had risen to the point making abundance a reality.

Your question concerning what workers are to eat in the meanwhile presupposes scarcity which socialists today - 150 years after Marx - would argue is a phenomenon purely maintained by capitalism with its massively wasteful diversion of resources from real human needs and so would disapppear with the elimination of capitalism. That makes the idea of labour vouchers historically redundant.

But that apart, I think there are intrinsic reasons why the labour voucher scheme is questionable. In practical terms I think it would become a bureaucratic nightmare and a standing invitation to corruption. The Anarchist Peter Kropotkin criticised the idea too . Here's a summary of Kropotkin's ideas usefully together by a contributor on the SPGB forum

We are in agreement with the Anarchist Communist Peter Kropotkin and his ideas expressed in the pamphlet 'The Wages System': he refutes any concept of L TV’s: 1.it makes no sense trying to measure an individuals contribution to production when it is cooperative and social, 2. if production was still individual it would not be fair to ration a person's consumption by number of hours worked because skills being used would have been acquired and benefited from previous society and earlier generations, 3. L TV’s to regulate consumption would be to retain the wages system, 4.goods and services would have Labour Time prices and would be subject to supply and demand, inflation, devaluation, therefore it would be a monetary system. Kropotkin: “A society that has seized upon all social wealth, and has plainly announced that all have a right to this wealth, whatever maybe the part they have taken in creating it in the past, will be obliged to give up all ideas of wages, either in money or in labour notes”.

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/events-and-announcements/anarcho-socialist-party


If there is a need to ration some goods in a socialist /communist society in its early stages I would argue that there are far more effective ways of doing that than via LTVs. I am a strong advocate of the compensation model of rationing which uses quality of housing stock as the basic criterion of rationing. Its a far simpler and more effective method of rationing than labour vouchers and can more easlity coexist with free access to non-scarce goods

There is another useful article here:

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1971/no-801-may-1971/labour-time-vouchers

And a review of a book on De Leon here

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1990/no-1029-may-1990/american-marxist

The SPGB/WSPUS have been characterised as being "political cousins" of the SLP and De Leonists. I thinks thats a fair characterisation. As cousins they may occasionally fall out with each other but at the end of the day they belong to the same family of ideas - revolutionary socialism

[sixdollarchampagne]

In the on-line history of the World Socialist Party in the US, it says that party was not able to capitalize on the mass radicalization of the 1960's, and there are other indications that the WSP in the US is quite small.

The only party I knew that failed to grow in the sixties, was the Socialist Party of America, because, under the control of the Shachtmanites, during the 1960's, that party was a big supporter of the war in Vietnam, and, in fact, the right-wing Shachtmanites nearly destroyed Norman Thomas' party when they were running it. My experience as a member of the SP later on, is that it had well-intentioned, non-Leninist people.

It would be interesting to know why the World Socialist Party in the US could not attract many people in the 1960's.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Well, how could they? The SPGB, who the WSPUS is modeled after, is aggressively abstentionist and blatantly economistic. Their propaganda model is basically badgering people to vote for them in the election so they can implement socialism (as soon as the parliamentary pub closes...). They have little to no theory - just repeating "Marx said that" or "Marx thought that" isn't theory, it's hagiography. And we've seen their response to racism, misogyny, homophobia etc. earlier in the thread - oh, it'd be nice if such things didn't exist, but they're in no way connected to the class struggle, and so we don't really care.

[robbo203]

In the on-line history of the World Socialist Party in the US, it says that party was not able to capitalize on the mass radicalization of the 1960's, and there are other indications that the WSP in the US is quite small.

The only I knew that failed to grow in the sixties, was the Socialist Party of America, because, under the control of the Shachtmanites, during the 1960's, that party was a big supporter of the war in Vietnam, and, in fact, the right-wing Shachtmanites nearly destroyed Norman Thomas' party when they were running it. My experience as a member of the SP later on, is that it had well-intentioned, non-Leninist people.

It would be interesting to know why the World Socialist Party in the US could not attract many people in the 1960's.


I couldn't begin to answer what is a massively complex question but I would suggest that one possible reason has been political competititon from the Reformist Left - which, lets face it, is rooted ultimately in the conviction that capitalism (the wages system) can somehow be made to operate in the interests of the majority. This ties in with its advocacy of state capitalist measures and its representation of state capitalism as "socialism" . Since such measures have indeed been implemented in many parts of the world there is a sense in which the Reformist Left's objective of promoting a minimum programme (to use the jargon of the Second International) while still paying lip serive to (meaning the practical abandonment of ) the maximum programme of overthrowing the wages system/ capitalism, might seem more politically realisable or achievable and thefore politically attractive. The revolutionary socialism of the WSPUS and others which calls for a complete break with the logic of capitalism appears too remote to be realistically obtainable as many see it. In short, it is more sexy and appealing to try to tinker around with the mechanics of capitalism in the short term; you can more easily gain support on that basis


But this, as the WSPUS and others have warned repeatedly, is to engage in a self-fulfilling prophecy that perpetually postpones the socialist alternative by permanantly relegating it to some long term distant future. Reformism will never be able to succeed in a way that allows us then to move on to the business of attending to the maximum programme.

The irony is that we are now living in a time when just about all of the supposed gains of refromism acquired in a period oif capitalist boom are unravelling before our eyes . Reforms are only ever accepted and implemented on the capitalism's terms. The welfare state and the NHS system in the UK for example were only introduced becuase it was a more cost effective alternative to the way things used to be done. However this is changing and reformism itself is in headlong retreat in an age of austrity. As for state capitalism, well the fate of the Soviet Union speaks volumes in itself . But, of course, for many people, soviet state capitalism was "socialism" and thefore the failure of "socialism" in the the Soviet Union means trhe very word "socialism" has become associated with one party dictatorship, economic ineffiency, and drab conformity. In this too the left - or a large chunk of it - has played no small role in its misprepresentation of "socialism"


What is remarkable is not that organisations like the WSPUS have not grown but that they have survived at all. It has been no thanks to those on the Refromist left who have been pushing for a quite different agenda to revolutuionary socialism. However well meaning its efforts, the Refromist Left was never going to realise its objective of making a system of capitalist servitude operate in the interests of the wage slaves.


The irony is that the Reformist Left is now in a state of precipitous decline. It has become politically irrelevant. It is certainly in no position to mock the small size of what John Crump called the "thin red line" (http://theoryandpractice.org.uk/library/thin-red-line-non-market-socialism-twentieth-century-john-crump-1987)

One can only speculate on what might have happened had the refromists heeded the warnings of the "impossibilist" revolutionaires and devoted all that well intended but ultimately futile effort into promoting a genuine socialist alternative to capitalism instead

[robbo203]

Well, how could they? The SPGB, who the WSPUS is modeled after, is aggressively abstentionist and blatantly economistic. Their propaganda model is basically badgering people to vote for them in the election so they can implement socialism (as soon as the parliamentary pub closes...). They have little to no theory - just repeating "Marx said that" or "Marx thought that" isn't theory, it's hagiography. And we've seen their response to racism, misogyny, homophobia etc. earlier in the thread - oh, it'd be nice if such things didn't exist, but they're in no way connected to the class struggle, and so we don't really care.


This is a bullshit caricature. I dont think you have the slightest clue frankly. Do yourself, and us, a favour and do a bit of serious reading before coming out with such rubbish as this. Try their website http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum

I say this as someone who has reservations about certain aspects of the SPGB/WSPUS myself but I wouldnt stoop to misrepresent them in the way you have just done

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

In fact, I have read several SPGB works. Most follow a strict formula - first insist that Marx used the terms socialism and communism interchangeably, with numerous citations, and not a single attempt to argue the point except "Marx thought so". Likewise with the concept of labour vouchers, which no one in the SPGB tradition can stand for some reason. Then resort to slander - accuse every other party of being "reformist" because they actually engage workers' struggles, accuse other parties of "supporting the market" because they do not print "GENUINE FULL ACCESS COMMUNISM" in a large enough font in their pamphlets; if addressing a Leninist group show parliamentary piety toward the Constituent Assembly. End by calling for people to vote for the SPGB, or the analogue.

I don't see how my comments misrepresent the SPGB. They aren't nice, certainly, but there really isn't much that can be said about the SPGB that is nice. Are you claiming that the SPGB is not abstentionist? What struggle are they involved in, then? How do they attempt to intersect actually existing workers' struggles? Or do you think SPGB has a lot of new theory? Surely then you can name one theoretical struggle in the party, besides that business with overproduction? Perhaps you meant to say that the SPGB addresses political issues? Where? And as for their parliamentarianism, that is pretty much the centerpiece of their doctrine.

[robbo203]

In fact, I have read several SPGB works. Most follow a strict formula - first insist that Marx used the terms socialism and communism interchangeably, with numerous citations, and not a single attempt to argue the point except "Marx thought so". Likewise with the concept of labour vouchers, which no one in the SPGB tradition can stand for some reason. Then resort to slander - accuse every other party of being "reformist" because they actually engage workers' struggles, accuse other parties of "supporting the market" because they do not print "GENUINE FULL ACCESS COMMUNISM" in a large enough font in their pamphlets; if addressing a Leninist group show parliamentary piety toward the Constituent Assembly. End by calling for people to vote for the SPGB, or the analogue.

I don't see how my comments misrepresent the SPGB. They aren't nice, certainly, but there really isn't much that can be said about the SPGB that is nice. Are you claiming that the SPGB is not abstentionist? What struggle are they involved in, then? How do they attempt to intersect actually existing workers' struggles? Or do you think SPGB has a lot of new theory? Surely then you can name one theoretical struggle in the party, besides that business with overproduction? Perhaps you meant to say that the SPGB addresses political issues? Where? And as for their parliamentarianism, that is pretty much the centerpiece of their doctrine.


The bullshit continues - bearing out my earlier point that you haven't got a clue what you are talking about

On the interchangeability of the terms socialism and communism see this

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1973/no-832-december-1973/marxs-conception-socialism

Or, for instance, at random - Engel's letter to Bebel, 18-28 March 1875
The people's state has been flung in our teeth ad nauseam by the anarchists, although Marx's anti-Proudhon piece and after it the Communist Manifesto declare outright that, with the introduction of the socialist order of society, the state will dissolve of itself and disappear.


i.e. a stateless society = communism = socialism

The point is that the practice oif treating the words "communism" and "socialism" as synonyms was widespread in the late 19th/early 20th century - as you will see if you read people like William Morris , Bebel, Kautsky and numeorus others In Russia too the early social democratic movement (out of which the Bolsheviks arose) adopted this practice. A Short Course of Economic Science, written by A Bogdanoff, talked of socialism being “the highest stage of society we can conceive”, in which such institutions as taxation and profits will be non-existent and in which “there will not be the market ,buying and selling, but consciously and systematically organised distribution.”. This book was published in 1897 and a revised edition, published in August 1919, was used as a textbook in schools and study circles of the Russian Communist Party (Russia 1917-1967: A Socialist Analysis, Socialist Party of Great Britain 1967). Stalin, too, in this early period talked of socialism in this way. For instance, in his book Anarchism or Socialism (1906) he wrote that "Future society will be socialist society. This means also that, with the abolition of exploitation commodity production and buying and selling will also be abolished and, therefore, there will be no room for buyers and sellers of labour power, for employers and employed -- there will be only free workers". In socialism, argued Stalin, "Where there are no classes, where there are neither rich nor poor, there is no need for a state, there is no need either for political power, which oppresses the poor and protects the rich. Consequently, in socialist society there will be no need for the existence of political power.". (Anarchism or Socialism?J. V. Stalin,Works, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954, Vol. 1, pp. 297-391


On the question of labour vouchers you suggest the SPGB make no attempt to justify their rejection of this proposal. Again this is just bullshit

See here

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1971/no-801-may-1971/labour-time-vouchers

and

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/depth-articles/history/labour-vouchers


and much more besides if you bothered to do your research


You claim they resort to slander - accuse every other party of being "reformist" because they actually engage workers' struggles, accuse other parties of "supporting the market" More bullshit


Since when did the SPGB/WSPUS et al ever reject workers struggles or suggest that such struggles equal reformism? Your problem is that that you evidently dont understand what is meant by "reformism". and therefore you dont understand -or dont wish to understand - the point that they are getting at

You might want to look at this

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/market-system-must-go


.
On their alleged "parliamentary piety" as you put it and calling on the workers to vote for the SPGB - actually they are the only political party Ive come across that tell people not to vote for them if they are not convinced socialists (which makes a refreshing change from the Trot tactic of telling people to vote for the capitalist Labour party "without illusions") - this once again is a complete distortion

You would be better advised to brush up on their real attitude towards the parliamentary process here which certainly does not preclude extra-parliamantary organisation and tactics

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/whats-wrong-using-parliament



And then finally there is that favourite old hoary chestnut so beloved by the nitpickers and kneejerkers on the Leninist Left - the SPGB/WSPUS's so called "abstentionism"

This is most ridiculous claim of all - the notion of that the SPGB/WSPUS somehow advocate abstention from the class struggle. It actually points to the idealistic conception of class struggle that you obviously entertain - that it is something you can turn on or off like a tap by an act of political will. On the contrary you are engaged in the class struggle whether you are conscious of it or not. The idea of class struggle flows out of the material reality of class struggle - not the other way round as you left wing idealists would have it.


The SPGB/WSPUS fully recognises the material reality of class struggle - it is enshrined in its very declaration of principles FFS - and many of its members are activists in the trade unions. Its position is one of militant realism - it advocates the most militant possible activity by workers on the industrial front while recognising that what can be achieved by such means is limited. Hence the need for a political organisation of workers for socialism.

It does not as a political party get actively involved in trade unions and this is where the silly jibe about abstentionism comes from which is based on a complete miusunderstanding of its postion. There is an expression "unity is strength" and that particularly applies on the industrial front. In trying to unite workers in a particular struggle you have to take on board the fact that these same workers have politically diverse backgrounds. If you are some opportunist Left wing sect trying to muscle in and exploit a particular industrial dispute under your banner simply to recruit more members this is inevitably going to alienate a lot of ordinary workers who will tend to see it as a case of a political sect trying to leech off them. Ironically what some on the Left have in mind by militant struggle can have the effect of actually weakening the workers cause rather than strengthening it.

The SPGB/WSPUS refuses to directly and actively become involved in the day to day struggles of workers not becuase its thinks such things are not worth struggling over but because it believes its direct political intervention would actually be detrimental to these struggles. For that struggle to be effective you have to involve as many workers as possible including the great bulk of workers who clearly hold pro-capitalist mainstream views. They need through own experience to come to reject such views and that is not helped by politically antagonising and alienating them. Its therefore as individuals - not directly as a political party - that SPGBers and WSPUSers engage in economic struggles.

I think that is a pretty valid position to take and I defy anyone to show otherwise.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The bullshit continues - bearing out my earlier point that you haven't got a clue what you are talking about

Well, let's see about that.


On the interchangeability of the terms socialism and communism see this

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1973/no-832-december-1973/marxs-conception-socialism

Or, for instance, at random - Engel's letter to Bebel, 18-28 March 1875
The people's state has been flung in our teeth ad nauseam by the anarchists, although Marx's anti-Proudhon piece and after it the Communist Manifesto declare outright that, with the introduction of the socialist order of society, the state will dissolve of itself and disappear.


i.e. a stateless society = communism = socialism

The point is that the practice oif treating the words "communism" and "socialism" as synonyms was widespread in the late 19th/early 20th century - as you will see if you read people like William Morris , Bebel, Kautsky and numeorus others In Russia too the early social democratic movement (out of which the Bolsheviks arose) adopted this practice. A Short Course of Economic Science, written by A Bogdanoff, talked of socialism being “the highest stage of society we can conceive”, in which such institutions as taxation and profits will be non-existent and in which “there will not be the market ,buying and selling, but consciously and systematically organised distribution.”. This book was published in 1897 and a revised edition, published in August 1919, was used as a textbook in schools and study circles of the Russian Communist Party (Russia 1917-1967: A Socialist Analysis, Socialist Party of Great Britain 1967). Stalin, too, in this early period talked of socialism in this way. For instance, in his book Anarchism or Socialism (1906) he wrote that "Future society will be socialist society. This means also that, with the abolition of exploitation commodity production and buying and selling will also be abolished and, therefore, there will be no room for buyers and sellers of labour power, for employers and employed -- there will be only free workers". In socialism, argued Stalin, "Where there are no classes, where there are neither rich nor poor, there is no need for a state, there is no need either for political power, which oppresses the poor and protects the rich. Consequently, in socialist society there will be no need for the existence of political power.". (Anarchism or Socialism?J. V. Stalin,Works, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954, Vol. 1, pp. 297-391

So, I claimed that impossibilists in the SPGB tradition "first insist that Marx used the terms socialism and communism interchangeably, with numerous citations, and not a single attempt to argue the point except "Marx thought so". In response you... insist that Marx (and Engels and Stalin and Bogdanov, who SPGB consistently call Boganoff for some reason) used the terms socialism and communism interchangeably, with numerous citations, and not a single attempt to argue the point (that there is no need to distinguish socialism and communism) except "Marx (and Engels and Stalin and Bogdanov) thought so". It's like you can't help yourself.


On the question of labour vouchers you suggest the SPGB make no attempt to justify their rejection of this proposal. Again this is just bullshit

See here

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1971/no-801-may-1971/labour-time-vouchers

and

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/depth-articles/history/labour-vouchers


and much more besides if you bothered to do your research

So let's look at these articles. Apart from more bloody interminable Marx quotations, they contain two assertions - that there will be no shortages in the socialist society and that "common sense" will prevent what the SPGB considers "excessive" consumption. Both of these points are prima facie implausible, and the SPGB do not even attempt to argue for them.

Of course, almost no mention is made of the role of labour certificates in enforcing labour discipline and so on.


You claim they resort to slander - accuse every other party of being "reformist" because they actually engage workers' struggles, accuse other parties of "supporting the market" More bullshit


Since when did the SPGB/WSPUS et al ever reject workers struggles or suggest that such struggles equal reformism? Your problem is that that you evidently dont understand what is meant by "reformism". and therefore you dont understand -or dont wish to understand - the point that they are getting at

You might want to look at this

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/market-system-must-go

The SPGB explicitly state, in that article and elsewhere, that struggling for reforms is reformism, period. As a result of this mechanicist, formalist notion, the SPGB considers most workers' struggles (and struggles of specially oppressed groups, but the SPGB doesn't even recognise those) to be reformist.

Outside the offices of the SPGB, of course, reformism means an abandonment, explicitly or implicitly, of the maximum programme of the revolution in favour of pursuing reforms. Participating in the struggle for reforms - both in order to build a revolutionary labour movement and in order to create more favourable conditions for the proletariat and specially oppressed groups - is not reformism.


On their alleged "parliamentary piety" as you put it and calling on the workers to vote for the SPGB - actually they are the only political party Ive come across that tell people not to vote for them if they are not convinced socialists (which makes a refreshing change from the Trot tactic of telling people to vote for the capitalist Labour party "without illusions") - this once again is a complete distortion

What is a distortion is claiming that Militant and similar groups represent all of Trotskyism. And I was talking about the "parliamentary piety" the SPGB show toward the undemocratic, but parliamentary "legitimate" Kadet-Eser Constituent Assembly. It really does say a lot about the politics of the SPGB, as does their praise for figures like Martov and Dan.


You would be better advised to brush up on their real attitude towards the parliamentary process here which certainly does not preclude extra-parliamantary organisation and tactics

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/whats-wrong-using-parliament

The pamphlet doesn't preclude extra-parliamentary tactics, but it doesn't really say anything about them either. It's as if the SPGB think that workplace organisations will appear spontaneously, or - more likely - they simply don't care, as long as they have a majority in parliament.


And then finally there is that favourite old hoary chestnut so beloved by the nitpickers and kneejerkers on the Leninist Left - the SPGB/WSPUS's so called "abstentionism"

This is most ridiculous claim of all - the notion of that the SPGB/WSPUS somehow advocate abstention from the class struggle. It actually points to the idealistic conception of class struggle that you obviously entertain - that it is something you can turn on or off like a tap by an act of political will. On the contrary you are engaged in the class struggle whether you are conscious of it or not. The idea of class struggle flows out of the material reality of class struggle - not the other way round as you left wing idealists would have it.

The SPGB/WSPUS fully recognises the material reality of class struggle - it is enshrined in its very declaration of principles FFS - and many of its members are activists in the trade unions. Its position is one of militant realism - it advocates the most militant possible activity by workers on the industrial front while recognising that what can be achieved by such means is limited. Hence the need for a political organisation of workers for socialism.

It recognises the class struggle but does not, as an organisation, participate in it. Hence it abstains from the class struggle, although individual members might be involved in it as individuals.


It does not as a political party get actively involved in trade unions and this is where the silly jibe about abstentionism comes from which is based on a complete miusunderstanding of its postion. There is an expression "unity is strength" and that particularly applies on the industrial front. In trying to unite workers in a particular struggle you have to take on board the fact that these same workers have politically diverse backgrounds. If you are some opportunist Left wing sect trying to muscle in and exploit a particular industrial dispute under your banner simply to recruit more members this is inevitably going to alienate a lot of ordinary workers who will tend to see it as a case of a political sect trying to leech off them. Ironically what some on the Left have in mind by militant struggle can have the effect of actually weakening the workers cause rather than strengthening it.

The SPGB/WSPUS refuses to directly and actively become involved in the day to day struggles of workers not becuase its thinks such things are not worth struggling over but because it believes its direct political intervention would actually be detrimental to these struggles. For that struggle to be effective you have to involve as many workers as possible including the great bulk of workers who clearly hold pro-capitalist mainstream views. They need through own experience to come to reject such views and that is not helped by politically antagonising and alienating them. Its therefore as individuals - not directly as a political party - that SPGBers and WSPUSers engage in economic struggles.

I think that is a pretty valid position to take and I defy anyone to show otherwise.

Without a revolutionary leadership, industrial struggles - and struggles of the oppressed groups that the economist SPGB does not recognise, as well as struggles for democratic rights - are limited by the opportunistic leadership of unions, protest movements, etc. etc.

[robbo203]

So, I claimed that impossibilists in the SPGB tradition "first insist that Marx used the terms socialism and communism interchangeably, with numerous citations, and not a single attempt to argue the point except "Marx thought so". In response you... insist that Marx (and Engels and Stalin and Bogdanov, who SPGB consistently call Boganoff for some reason) used the terms socialism and communism interchangeably, with numerous citations, and not a single attempt to argue the point (that there is no need to distinguish socialism and communism) except "Marx (and Engels and Stalin and Bogdanov) thought so". It's like you can't help yourself.


This is just plain silly. It is not a question of "arguing the point" (what could that possibly mean?) but referring to, and providing evidence of, a linguistic convention or practice. The convention of treating socialism and communism as synonyms was widespread prior to the early 20th century and used by, amongst others, Marx and Engels. I demonstrated the existence of this convention by citing evidence to that effect and all you can come out with is droll excuse that I havent made an effort to explain why socialism and communism are the same. It appears you dont understand the difference between an "explanation" and a "convention"



So let's look at these articles. Apart from more bloody interminable Marx quotations, they contain two assertions - that there will be no shortages in the socialist society and that "common sense" will prevent what the SPGB considers "excessive" consumption. Both of these points are prima facie implausible, and the SPGB do not even attempt to argue for them.

Of course, almost no mention is made of the role of labour certificates in enforcing labour discipline and so on.

This is a bit feeble - isnt it? - or perhaps it was that you didnt bother to read further. Communism/socialism certainly presupposes the technological potential to meet people's needs and communists/socialists have long argued that such a potential exists. The articles in question may not have gone into this in any great detail but there is plenty of other material available that does

Try this for starters

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/socialism-practical-alternative

Your lazy and intelllectually dishonest critique is significant also for the way in which betrays your own very bourgeois prejudices, Next, no doubt, you will be telling us that people are "naturally greedy" and "naturally lazy" (and therefore need to be "disciplined" in the workplace a la scientific Taylorism) :rolleyes:





The SPGB explicitly state, in that article and elsewhere, that struggling for reforms is reformism, period. As a result of this mechanicist, formalist notion, the SPGB considers most workers' struggles (and struggles of specially oppressed groups, but the SPGB doesn't even recognise those) to be reformist.

No, the SPGB has a very specific interpretation of "reformism" as meaning policies enacted by the state to deal with problems arising out of the workings of capitalism. There are many other forms of struggle which are clearly not reformist in these terms since they dont necessarily involve the state at all



Outside the offices of the SPGB, of course, reformism means an abandonment, explicitly or implicitly, of the maximum programme of the revolution in favour of pursuing reforms. Participating in the struggle for reforms - both in order to build a revolutionary labour movement and in order to create more favourable conditions for the proletariat and specially oppressed groups - is not reformism..

Your ability to tie yourself up in knots knows no bounds. You agree that reformism means abandoning the maximum programme of revolution in favour of pursuing refroms and yet somehow you think pursuing reforms will "build a revolutionary labour movement". Talk about lack of logic!

And you miss the whole point of what I was saying. Left wing reformism has been a huge historical failure. Quite contrary to what you say it has diverted effort away from the task of building a revolutionary labour movement and if anything has cemented political allegiance of workers to capitalism via their support for reformist political parties





What is a distortion is claiming that Militant and similar groups represent all of Trotskyism. And I was talking about the "parliamentary piety" the SPGB show toward the undemocratic, but parliamentary "legitimate" Kadet-Eser Constituent Assembly. It really does say a lot about the politics of the SPGB, as does their praise for figures like Martov and Dan.



This is another bullshit misrepresentation of yours and exposes once again your lazy approach to researching the subject. Any old ad hominen will do.

No, the SPGB does not have any illusions about so called bourgeois parliamentary democacy. In fact, if you bothered to reads it actually says that here

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/whats-wrong-using-parliament#1

I would say that the SPGB's postion on parliamentary elections is very close to that of Engels as expressed in his introduction to Marx's Class struggle in France - that it is simply a useful tool, no more:

"The Communist Manifesto had already proclaimed the winning of universal suffrage, of democracy, as one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat, and Lassalle had again taken up this point. Now that Bismarck found himself compelled to introduce this franchise as the only means of interesting the mass of the people in his plans, our workers immediately took it in earnest and sent August Bebel to the first, constituent Reichstag. And from that day on they have used the franchise in a way which has paid them a thousandfold and has served as a model to the workers of all countries. The franchise has been, in the words of the French Marxist programme, transformé de moyen de duperie qu'il a été jusquici en instrument d'emancipation — transformed by them from a means of deception, which it was before, into an instrument of emancipation.[458] And if universal suffrage had offered no other advantage than that it allowed us to count our numbers every three years; that by the regularly established, unexpectedly rapid rise in our vote it increased in equal measure the workers’ certainty of victory and the dismay of their opponents, and so became our best means of propaganda; that it accurately informed us of our own strength and that of all opposing parties, and thereby provided us with a measure of proportion second to none for our actions, safeguarding us from untimely timidity as much as from untimely foolhardiness — if this had been the only advantage we gained from the suffrage, it would still have been much more than enough. But it did more than this by far. In election propaganda it provided us with a means, second to none, of getting in touch with the mass of the people where they still stand aloof from us; of forcing all parties to defend their views and actions against our attacks before all the people; and, further, it provided our representatives in the Reichstag with a platform from which they could speak to their opponents in parliament, and to the masses outside, with quite different authority and freedom than in the press or at meetings.


As for the SPGB's praise for figures like Martov, well, it is certainly true that Martov's devastating demolition job on Lenin and the Leninist approach to revolution has been well recieved in SPGB circles . See here

http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/pages/theory/martov.html



[/B]The pamphlet doesn't preclude extra-parliamentary tactics, but it doesn't really say anything about them either. It's as if the SPGB think that workplace organisations will appear spontaneously, or - more likely - they simply don't care, as long as they have a majority in parliament.
[B]


More bullshit. Here's what the pamphlet actually says:

This is not to say that the socialist majority only needs to organise itself politically. It does need to organise politically so as to be able to win control of political power. But it also needs to organise economically to take over and keep production going immediately after the winning of political control. We can’t anticipate how such socialist workplace organisations will emerge, whether from the reform of the existing trade unions, from breakaways from them or from the formation of completely new organisations. All we can say now is that such workplace organisations will arise and that they too, like the socialist political party, will have to organise themselves on a democratic basis, with mandated delegates instead of leaders.

With the spread of socialist ideas all organisations will change and take on a participatory democratic and socialist character, so that the majority’s organisation for socialism will not be just political and economic, but will also embrace schools and universities, television, film-making, plays and the like as well as inter-personal relationships. We’re talking about a radical social revolution involving all aspects of social life.







It recognises the class struggle but does not, as an organisation, participate in it. Hence it abstains from the class struggle, although individual members might be involved in it as individuals.


How ironic! You arre the one liberally throwing around insults of "economism" yet you yourself have an extremely economistic notion of the class struggle thinking it is limited only to the economic field. It is not. It also takes the form of a political struggle and as the SPGB sees itself its role is to further the political aspect of the class struggle - or rather to serve as anstrument for workers to do that. Moreover, while the organisation itself does not get direct and actively involved in economic struggles it recognises the need for active militant involvement of workers in that field - a point that you churlishly decline to acknowlege





Without a revolutionary leadership, industrial struggles - and struggles of the oppressed groups that the economist SPGB does not recognise, as well as struggles for democratic rights - are limited by the opportunistic leadership of unions, protest movements, etc. etc.

Rubbish. The struggle for democratic rights like the right to vote is something that the SPGB actually supports. It does not support the idea of so called revolutionary" leadership" and its corrollary of a sheeplike mass of followers since that is directly contrary to the Marxian precept of working class self emancipation - not to mention democracy itself to which you profess to have some sympathy

[The Idler]

The idea that participation in (actually in most cases this means supporting) reforms can add up to a revolutionary movement is the essence of the minimum-maximum fallacy.

Since the early days, impossibilist parties have been involved in labor unions, for example the role the Socialist Party of Canada played in the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919, regarded as the most influential strike in Canadian history.

You're probably not familiar enough with the SPGB to understand why requesting robbo203 to name one theoretical struggle in the party is pretty uninformed about theoretical struggles in the party. The Guildford Road to Socialism and gradualist minimum-maximum programs is one.

As for the misrepresenations and the Menshevik mud thrown, it won't stick. If Ortho-Trots think they can lead unconscious workers then what are they waiting for?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

This is just plain silly. It is not a question of "arguing the point" (what could that possibly mean?) but referring to, and providing evidence of, a linguistic convention or practice. The convention of treating socialism and communism as synonyms was widespread prior to the early 20th century and used by, amongst others, Marx and Engels. I demonstrated the existence of this convention by citing evidence to that effect and all you can come out with is droll excuse that I havent made an effort to explain why socialism and communism are the same. It appears you dont understand the difference between an "explanation" and a "convention"

Do you really expect us to believe that the authors of the article were merely making a point about linguistic conventions in the 19th century? That is, how shall I put it, completely ludicrous, unless you would have us believe that the SPGB is some sort of society for linguistic anachronism.

And yes, if you want other people to adopt the specific convention you advocate, you have to demonstrate its utility. Obviously no one would, for example, adopt a convention that uses different words for round and rectangular money, since that convention would be completely useless and incredibly obtuse. Likewise, if you want other people to use socialism and communism interchangeably, well, argue for it. In particular, address the issue of the transitional society (and yes, I have read SPGB articles on that concept, all of which try to establish that Marx didn't call for a transitional society, which might even be true, but is completely besides the point).


This is a bit feeble - isnt it? - or perhaps it was that you didnt bother to read further. Communism/socialism certainly presupposes the technological potential to meet people's needs and communists/socialists have long argued that such a potential exists.

Communism presupposes the development of the means of production to such an extent that the possibility of strict production for need exists in the long term. But, first, in the long term we will all be dead, and second, a possibility needs to be actualised, and the victory of communism will not magically create the necessary infrastructure, labour discipline etc. (in fact, in the short term, it will damage these things).


The articles in question may not have gone into this in any great detail but there is plenty of other material available that does

Try this for starters

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/socialism-practical-alternative

Again, what specific parts of the pamphlet do you think are relevant? Because as far as I can tell the pamphlet talks about communism that has already been attained, not about the productive capacities, the infrastructure, labour discipline, technological limits, etc. etc., of the present period.


Your lazy and intelllectually dishonest critique is significant also for the way in which betrays your own very bourgeois prejudices, Next, no doubt, you will be telling us that people are "naturally greedy" and "naturally lazy" (and therefore need to be "disciplined" in the workplace a la scientific Taylorism) :rolleyes:

Workers aren't naturally lazy or greedy, but the conditions in which they find themselves today create quite an understandable aversion to work and labour discipline. At this point, that is purely besides the point. But in the transitional epoch, these workers will have to organise a disciplined, centralised economic machine. And that won't come easy. The history of the labour movement demonstrates as much.

It is a bourgeois prejudice to view workers as lazy incompetents who need to be dragged by the neck by Our Enlightened Committee. But viewing them as faultless angels is an equally bourgeois prejudice.


No, the SPGB has a very specific interpretation of "reformism" as meaning policies enacted by the state to deal with problems arising out of the workings of capitalism. There are many other forms of struggle which are clearly not reformist in these terms since they dont necessarily involve the state at all

So what extraparliamentary struggle does the SPGB participate in as a party? I mean, alright, there might be individual SPGB members in these struggles, but that is not enough. There are probably more Labour party members than SPGB members in those struggles, but that doesn't mean Labour is an important part of them.


Your ability to tie yourself up in knots knows no bounds. You agree that reformism means abandoning the maximum programme of revolution in favour of pursuing refroms and yet somehow you think pursuing reforms will "build a revolutionary labour movement". Talk about lack of logic!

It's not that I've tied myself into knots, but I appear to be in a knot from your distorted perspective. Struggling for reforms is necessary - first, to improve the condition of the proletariat momentarily, and second, to attract people to a revolutionary standpoint by explaining the connection between their immediate demands and the maximum programme of the revolution. Like the SI social-democrats, you seem to think the minimum and the maximum programmes apply to two different worlds and have nothing in common. But the minimum programme merely gives the working class a real chance at attaining the maximum programme. And without the socialist revolution, the accomplishments of the struggles connected to the minimum programme will be eroded. That is the real tragedy of the reformists - they can't even provide lasting reforms.


And you miss the whole point of what I was saying. Left wing reformism has been a huge historical failure. Quite contrary to what you say it has diverted effort away from the task of building a revolutionary labour movement and if anything has cemented political allegiance of workers to capitalism via their support for reformist political parties

Given that Bolshevik "reformism" succeeded in building a workers' state, this is simply hot air.


This is another bullshit misrepresentation of yours and exposes once again your lazy approach to researching the subject. Any old ad hominen will do.

No, the SPGB does not have any illusions about so called bourgeois parliamentary democacy. In fact, if you bothered to reads it actually says that here

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/whats-wrong-using-parliament#1

So, does the SPGB criticise the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly or not?


As for the SPGB's praise for figures like Martov, well, it is certainly true that Martov's devastating demolition job on Lenin and the Leninist approach to revolution has been well recieved in SPGB circles . See here

http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/pages/theory/martov.html

I know. And that alone ought to raise a few eyebrows - Martov was a centrist, a member of the Organising Committee, in the end a scab and hypocrite who attacked the Bolsheviks at every opportunity while around him the German government was killing communists. The praise SPGB heaps on him and his comrade-in-arms Dan is just as damning to their politics as the praise Healy heaped on Qaddafi and Khomeini.


More bullshit. Here's what the pamphlet actually says:

This is not to say that the socialist majority only needs to organise itself politically. It does need to organise politically so as to be able to win control of political power. But it also needs to organise economically to take over and keep production going immediately after the winning of political control. We can’t anticipate how such socialist workplace organisations will emerge, whether from the reform of the existing trade unions, from breakaways from them or from the formation of completely new organisations. All we can say now is that such workplace organisations will arise and that they too, like the socialist political party, will have to organise themselves on a democratic basis, with mandated delegates instead of leaders.

With the spread of socialist ideas all organisations will change and take on a participatory democratic and socialist character, so that the majority’s organisation for socialism will not be just political and economic, but will also embrace schools and universities, television, film-making, plays and the like as well as inter-personal relationships. We’re talking about a radical social revolution involving all aspects of social life.

In other words, they will be formed at some point, but we have no idea how, and we definitely aren't going to come up with a strategy concerning these organisations. Which is pretty much what I said the SPGB position was.


How ironic! You arre the one liberally throwing around insults of "economism" yet you yourself have an extremely economistic notion of the class struggle thinking it is limited only to the economic field. It is not. It also takes the form of a political struggle and as the SPGB sees itself its role is to further the political aspect of the class struggle - or rather to serve as anstrument for workers to do that. Moreover, while the organisation itself does not get direct and actively involved in economic struggles it recognises the need for active militant involvement of workers in that field - a point that you churlishly decline to acknowlege

It really is the height of absurdity to call voting for the SPGB a "political struggle". Where is the SPGB when real political struggle happens? It is nowhere to be found. Take, for example, the struggle for free abortion on demand - does the SPGB even have a position on that? Earlier, the Idler simply dismissed the democratic struggle against racism and misogyny, and given that the SPGB doesn't even acknowledge these struggles in their propaganda, their position seems to be common in the party.


Rubbish. The struggle for democratic rights like the right to vote is something that the SPGB actually supports. It does not support the idea of so called revolutionary" leadership" and its corrollary of a sheeplike mass of followers since that is directly contrary to the Marxian precept of working class self emancipation - not to mention democracy itself to which you profess to have some sympathy

Ha, good luck with the spontaneous movements of workers with no revolutionary leadership. I mean, they've managed to accomplish nothing or worse, but perhaps this time you'll be lucky?

[The Idler]

Just on this point, neither I nor the SPGB dismiss the struggle against racism or sexism.

I don't know if the term "spontaneous" is a genuine mistake but it often gets used as a straw man and the only supporters of "spontaneity" I can imagine are the likes of Situationists or maybe autonomists etc. (open to correction from Situationists and autonomists here) not a political party aiming to capture political (not economic or industrial) power.

[robbo203]

Do you really expect us to believe that the authors of the article were merely making a point about linguistic conventions in the 19th century? That is, how shall I put it, completely ludicrous, unless you would have us believe that the SPGB is some sort of society for linguistic anachronism.

And yes, if you want other people to adopt the specific convention you advocate, you have to demonstrate its utility. Obviously no one would, for example, adopt a convention that uses different words for round and rectangular money, since that convention would be completely useless and incredibly obtuse. Likewise, if you want other people to use socialism and communism interchangeably, well, argue for it. In particular, address the issue of the transitional society (and yes, I have read SPGB articles on that concept, all of which try to establish that Marx didn't call for a transitional society, which might even be true, but is completely besides the point).


Look, there is nothing inherent in the mere words "socialism" or "communism" that says they must be considered synonyms or indeed be treated as having different meanings for that matter. I am simply stating a bald fact that in traditional Marxist usage they were regarded as synonyms. That was the convention then . End of story. There is no intrinsic reason to do with the labels themselves that they must be regarded as synonyms and therefore your request to "demonstrate the utlity" of treating them as such is just not sensible. Where does "utility" come into it? What you are asking for is a meaningless request. If you want to go ahead and call socialism an economy in which the means of production are nationalised (i.e., state capitalism) go ahead and do so but dont expect to get away with claiming that is what traditional Marxists thought.



Communism presupposes the development of the means of production to such an extent that the possibility of strict production for need exists in the long term. But, first, in the long term we will all be dead, and second, a possibility needs to be actualised, and the victory of communism will not magically create the necessary infrastructure, labour discipline etc. (in fact, in the short term, it will damage these things).


The possibillity of strict production for need already exists and indeed has long existed in case you weren't aware. It is capitalism that is the obstacle or barrier to producing enough - primarily, but not solely, through the massive and steadily growing diversion of resources away from socially useful ends i.e. those ends concerned directly with the satisfaction of human needs. Communism immediately releases this huge amount of human labour and materials for socially useful production. Of course that does not mean that with a wave of magic wand everything will be hunky dory. Nobody is claiming that. There may will be a need for some form of rationing and Ive suggesed one model - the compensation model - that might be applied in the earlier stages of communist/socialist society ( see the "Opting out of Communism thread in OI learning). However, there will undoubtedly be a dramatic improvement in the situation in all sorts of ways more or less immediately. To take just one example there are currently 6 million empty homes in Spain (if you include also second homes and not only those unsold on the market). Communism will immediately makes available homes to people who are currently homelesss or living in substandard accommodation and why not?



Again, what specific parts of the pamphlet do you think are relevant? Because as far as I can tell the pamphlet talks about communism that has already been attained, not about the productive capacities, the infrastructure, labour discipline, technological limits, etc. etc., of the present period.



"As far as you can tell" suggests you havent really read the pamphlet at all. Read chapters 6 and 7 for example



Workers aren't naturally lazy or greedy, but the conditions in which they find themselves today create quite an understandable aversion to work and labour discipline. At this point, that is purely besides the point. But in the transitional epoch, these workers will have to organise a disciplined, centralised economic machine. And that won't come easy. The history of the labour movement demonstrates as much.



If the conditions in which workers find themselves create an understandable aversion to work, as you put it, that is because those conditions are part and parcel of capitalist society which will have ceased to exist. Unlike you with your vangaurdist and elitist obsession with the need to to impose "discipline" on us workers - the untermenschen in your worldview - I take the view that the emancipation of our class can only be done by the class itself - not some vanguard or central committee or political party. A working class that consciously wants and understands what a socialist society entails and then moves en masse to create it does not need to be "disciplined" into ensuring that such a society functions properly. Socialism is about as far removed from the world of Scientific Taylorism and Leninist one-man and top-down management as it can possibly be.

The fact that you can even invoke the example of the history of the "labour movement" of all things in support of your argument demonstrates to me that you are thinking in terms of "us" and "them" - the vanguard and the workers who need to be disciplined and cajoled by the vanguard into producing. The labour movement exists in the context of capitalism as an organised body of workers to resist the downward pressure on wages and conditions exerted by capital. Your citing of the labour movement in support of your argument implies that you see something similar happening in socialism - no doubt with those who operate this "disciplined, centralised economic machine" of yours that throws you into such a fit of ecstasy just thinking about it, being the enforcers of such "discipline"




It is a bourgeois prejudice to view workers as lazy incompetents who need to be dragged by the neck by Our Enlightened Committee. But viewing them as faultless angels is an equally bourgeois prejudice.


Well you are the one that is arguing that the workers need "discipline" and that they must therefore be lazy and incompetent in order to need such discipline. So draw your own conclusions! I do not hold any essentialist notion of workers as enlightened angels but as someone who passionately opposes the the Leninist claptrap about vangaurdism and the pernicious elitism that goes with it and someone who firmly believes in the idea that workers must emancipate themselves, I look at what logically follows from that. Likie I said, the establishment of a socialist society by workers themselves presupposes that they want and understand it and therefore in no need of your "Enlightened Committee" , Glorious Vanguard Party or whatever else you want to call yourselves to impose discipline on them



So what extraparliamentary struggle does the SPGB participate in as a party? I mean, alright, there might be individual SPGB members in these struggles, but that is not enough. There are probably more Labour party members than SPGB members in those struggles, but that doesn't mean Labour is an important part of them.


The SPGB exists solely to advance the cause of socialism. I have my criticisms of the SPGB but people like you who completely fail to understand where the SPGB is coming from, think that if the SPGB as a political Party has not got a finger in every single pie going - that is not actively involved as a politcal party in each and every struggle that is going - it is somehow failing in its function as a socialist political party. For you , the political party has to be everything, the organisational entity under whose umbrella every conceviable struggle must be waged. This is a recipe for spreading yourself so thin as an organisation as to completely lose sight of the socialist objective altogether. I might add that many of these struggles are often at the expense of each other. The opportunity cost of backing one struggle is forego support for another.

But, as a matter of fact, SPGB members that I know of are engaged in all sorts of extra-parliamentary struggles - from trade unions to PTAs to Housing Associations to Claimants Unions . But they engage in these struggles not as SPGBers but as workers even if they might approach these struggles with their SPGB spectacles on. Unlike you, I think it is actually a wise decision for the SPGB NOT to get engaged in an organisational sense in the day to day struggles i.e. as a political organisation. That does not mean it does not think day to day struggles are not important as some ignorant critics of ther SPGB like yourself believe. It means simply that it does not believe it is appropriate that it, as a political organisation, should be engaged in such struggles. So it supports militant trade unionism in principle but does not get practically involved in trade union matters. That is actually a very sound policy. Intervening politically as an organisation would if anything weaken those struggles for the reason that in order to be effective such struggles have to unite as many workers as possible notwithstanding their widely divergent political views. You cant effectively unite workers to fight against a wage cut by constantly trying to push your own Party political programme down their throats. Opportunist left wing sects who habitually and parasitically prey upon workers struggles on the pretext that they are somehow advancing these struggles (when what they really want is to recruit more members), are a huge turnoff for most workers and rightly so. Little wonder the Left has become politically irrelevant when it constantly insists on shooting itself in the foot in this way



It's not that I've tied myself into knots, but I appear to be in a knot from your distorted perspective. Struggling for reforms is necessary - first, to improve the condition of the proletariat momentarily, and second, to attract people to a revolutionary standpoint by explaining the connection between their immediate demands and the maximum programme of the revolution. Like the SI social-democrats, you seem to think the minimum and the maximum programmes apply to two different worlds and have nothing in common. But the minimum programme merely gives the working class a real chance at attaining the maximum programme. And without the socialist revolution, the accomplishments of the struggles connected to the minimum programme will be eroded. That is the real tragedy of the reformists - they can't even provide lasting reforms.


To change the metaphor from knots to holes you've only succeed here in digging yourself into an even deeper one. The Second International social democrats argued exactly like you that you need to have both a mimumum and a maximum programme - precisely in order to attract workers to the Party and the socialist cause. What happened? Well, we know what happened. The Maximum programme disappeared like the Cheshire Cats grin and without exception, all the Social Democratic Parties in Europe become full blown capitalist parties. The minimum programme doesnt actually give workers a "real chance at attaining the maximum programme as you ludicrously claim. Quite the contrary, it ensures that the maximum programme is sidelined for good eventually to disappear down a black hole, The minimum programme inevitably encourages in workers the illusion that capitalism can be made to operate in their interest when it simply cannot. Once you start advocating reforms you might just as well kiss goodbye to any revolutionary pretensions you ever had

The biggest irony of all is that classical reformism has been on the retreat for decades, In today' world the name of the game is retrenchment, cost cutting and privatisation. Not only has reformism diverted attention away from the need for a revolutionary transformation of society but it has proved to be an abject failure in historical terms given that a large chunk of the refoms passed in early decades have been effectively dismantled or quietly abandoned. And yet here you are advocating reformism as the answer. Truly, the mind boggles!




Given that Bolshevik "reformism" succeeded in building a workers' state, this is simply hot air.


I think the only hot air around consists in the assertion that the Bolsheviks created some kind of "workers state", This was the state that crushed the factory committees, emasculated the trade unions, imposed one man management on industry, subjected workers to a ruthless militarisation of labour programme to curb absenteeism and strikes, banned all oppostion internally and externally and above all, allowed a tiny class of economic parasites - the Nomenklatura or Red Cats - to assume a position of unparalleled power and privilege at the expense of the working class. Some "workers state"! What a joke!



It really is the height of absurdity to call voting for the SPGB a "political struggle". Where is the SPGB when real political struggle happens? It is nowhere to be found. Take, for example, the struggle for free abortion on demand - does the SPGB even have a position on that? Earlier, the Idler simply dismissed the democratic struggle against racism and misogyny, and given that the SPGB doesn't even acknowledge these struggles in their propaganda, their position seems to be common in the party.


Voting per se is only a small part of the political struggle. The political struggle is about changing minds and hearts which is what the SPGB is primarily about. Struggling for the vote itself - the franchise - as well as other democratic albeit limited rights is also part of that struggle and which the SPGB rightly endorses.

I have no idea what you mean (nor do I suspect do you) when you say SPGB does not even acknowlege the struggle against racism and misogyny in their progaganda. These are views that stand directly in the way of socialist understanding and are constantly combated in SPGB circles. They have published pamphets and numerous articles attacking such views . Right now there is a vigorous debate going on in their forum with someone who appears to hold racist views
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/government-launches-immigrants-go-home-campaign?page=12


So again I have to ask - what on earth are you gabbling on about?



Ha, good luck with the spontaneous movements of workers with no revolutionary leadership. I mean, they've managed to accomplish nothing or worse, but perhaps this time you'll be lucky?

There is an apt expression " Only sheep need leaders - to fleece them!". To be quite blunt, I would sooner prefer achieve nothing than be the means by which yet another parasitic ruling class came to power on the spurious pretext that its "revolutionary leadership" was indispensable to the emancipation of the working class which according to them - and apparently you as well - is incapable of emancipating itself

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Apologies for responding late.


Look, there is nothing inherent in the mere words "socialism" or "communism" that says they must be considered synonyms or indeed be treated as having different meanings for that matter. I am simply stating a bald fact that in traditional Marxist usage they were regarded as synonyms. That was the convention then . End of story.

So why would the SPGB devote much of their propaganda, written in the 20th and 21st century, to historical linguistic conventions? You're being disingenuous. Or should I expect the next SPGB pamphlet to open with an extended discussion of the "ye/the" confusion and its origin in early printing conventions?


There is no intrinsic reason to do with the labels themselves that they must be regarded as synonyms and therefore your request to "demonstrate the utlity" of treating them as such is just not sensible. Where does "utility" come into it? What you are asking for is a meaningless request. If you want to go ahead and call socialism an economy in which the means of production are nationalised (i.e., state capitalism) go ahead and do so but dont expect to get away with claiming that is what traditional Marxists thought.

There is no intrinsic connection between the sounds or letters that make up a word and the concept it signifies, and to that extent meanings are entirely conventional. But that does not mean that the choice of convention is not constrained by the material circumstances. Obviously not all conventions are equal - some are more useful in making sense of the world, some less useful. Others are entirely useless. That is why, while rabbits are conventionally designated by a wide variety of names, the right side of a rabbit is not designated by a special term in any language that I am familiar with.

Consider, for example, the work of M. Shachtman. Now, Shachtman insisted on the difference between property-form and mode of production, two terms that orthodox Trotskyist thought does not draw a sharp boundary between. And obviously, it wouldn't have been persuasive if he had simply said "alright, this is my convention and that is how I'm going to speak and write". He had to argue that this convention was useful in making sense of society.


The possibillity of strict production for need already exists and indeed has long existed in case you weren't aware. It is capitalism that is the obstacle or barrier to producing enough - primarily, but not solely, through the massive and steadily growing diversion of resources away from socially useful ends i.e. those ends concerned directly with the satisfaction of human needs. Communism immediately releases this huge amount of human labour and materials for socially useful production. Of course that does not mean that with a wave of magic wand everything will be hunky dory. Nobody is claiming that. There may will be a need for some form of rationing and Ive suggesed one model - the compensation model - that might be applied in the earlier stages of communist/socialist society ( see the "Opting out of Communism thread in OI learning). However, there will undoubtedly be a dramatic improvement in the situation in all sorts of ways more or less immediately. To take just one example there are currently 6 million empty homes in Spain (if you include also second homes and not only those unsold on the market). Communism will immediately makes available homes to people who are currently homelesss or living in substandard accommodation and why not?

The point is that the capitalist mode of production is currently constraining the further development of the means of production. Whether the MoP have developed to the extent that strict production for use is possible is an open question - I think both you and the SPGB underestimate the needs of the current population.

As for the period after the revolution, I think the expectation of immediate improvement is far too optimistic. The revolution might take years if not decades to win on the global scale, and this, together with the resistance of the bourgeoisie and the remnants of the old society, will probably mean the existence of a military-administrative economy for much of this period. Those empty houses might be given to the homeless - or they might be used as munitions depots or blown up, as the situation requires.

Second, even after the global victory of the revolution, developing the means of production in underdeveloped regions will presumably take up much of the material and human resources of the present imperial metropole.

Finally, constructing the planned economy will also take time, from the training of red experts to developing the methods of accounting, prediction etc. Labour discipline will also take time to develop, as will the rationalisation of work methods etc. etc.


"As far as you can tell" suggests you havent really read the pamphlet at all. Read chapters 6 and 7 for example

No, I have read the pamphlet, and chapters 6 and 7, again, compare the capitalist mode of production to (implicitly) a communist society in the higher stages, without addressing the issue communist construction at all.


If the conditions in which workers find themselves create an understandable aversion to work, as you put it, that is because those conditions are part and parcel of capitalist society which will have ceased to exist.

Sure. But, first of all, work will not automatically become less onerous. It will become less onerous in the long run, but in the meantime, production can't cease. And second, consciousness does not respond to changes in the material conditions instantly.


Unlike you with your vangaurdist and elitist obsession with the need to to impose "discipline" on us workers - the untermenschen in your worldview -

Friendly advice: stop with the melodramatic denunciations, particularly when you have no real understanding of the subject matter.


I take the view that the emancipation of our class can only be done by the class itself - not some vanguard or central committee or political party. A working class that consciously wants and understands what a socialist society entails and then moves en masse to create it does not need to be "disciplined" into ensuring that such a society functions properly. Socialism is about as far removed from the world of Scientific Taylorism and Leninist one-man and top-down management as it can possibly be.

The fact that you can even invoke the example of the history of the "labour movement" of all things in support of your argument demonstrates to me that you are thinking in terms of "us" and "them" - the vanguard and the workers who need to be disciplined and cajoled by the vanguard into producing. The labour movement exists in the context of capitalism as an organised body of workers to resist the downward pressure on wages and conditions exerted by capital. Your citing of the labour movement in support of your argument implies that you see something similar happening in socialism - no doubt with those who operate this "disciplined, centralised economic machine" of yours that throws you into such a fit of ecstasy just thinking about it, being the enforcers of such "discipline"

Again, you simply have no idea what you're talking about. I warmly recommend that you read some Lenin - that should disabuse you of the notion that the proletarian vanguard is somehow separate from the working class. Of course, if you think the proletariat is one political bloc, then the notion of a more advanced section of the proletariat might seem elitist. But it's obvious that the proletariat is not a bloc, that it has sections and strata that range from the fully communist to extremely backward.


Well you are the one that is arguing that the workers need "discipline" and that they must therefore be lazy and incompetent in order to need such discipline.

Or generally averse to work due to the material conditions under capitalism, as I said.


So draw your own conclusions! I do not hold any essentialist notion of workers as enlightened angels but as someone who passionately opposes the the Leninist claptrap about vangaurdism and the pernicious elitism that goes with it and someone who firmly believes in the idea that workers must emancipate themselves, I look at what logically follows from that. Likie I said, the establishment of a socialist society by workers themselves presupposes that they want and understand it and therefore in no need of your "Enlightened Committee" , Glorious Vanguard Party or whatever else you want to call yourselves to impose discipline on them

In case you failed to notice, the term "Our Enlightened Committee" was meant to be sarcastic - and note that it was taken from the anarchists Bakunin and Nechayev, who were solidly opposed to "vanguardism".


The SPGB exists solely to advance the cause of socialism. I have my criticisms of the SPGB but people like you who completely fail to understand where the SPGB is coming from, think that if the SPGB as a political Party has not got a finger in every single pie going - that is not actively involved as a politcal party in each and every struggle that is going - it is somehow failing in its function as a socialist political party. For you , the political party has to be everything, the organisational entity under whose umbrella every conceviable struggle must be waged. This is a recipe for spreading yourself so thin as an organisation as to completely lose sight of the socialist objective altogether. I might add that many of these struggles are often at the expense of each other. The opportunity cost of backing one struggle is forego support for another.

Of course there are issues of size and material resources involved, but of course the SPGB categorically refuses to involve itself in these struggles, they don't even mention them in their propaganda.


But, as a matter of fact, SPGB members that I know of are engaged in all sorts of extra-parliamentary struggles - from trade unions to PTAs to Housing Associations to Claimants Unions . But they engage in these struggles not as SPGBers but as workers even if they might approach these struggles with their SPGB spectacles on. Unlike you, I think it is actually a wise decision for the SPGB NOT to get engaged in an organisational sense in the day to day struggles i.e. as a political organisation. That does not mean it does not think day to day struggles are not important as some ignorant critics of ther SPGB like yourself believe. It means simply that it does not believe it is appropriate that it, as a political organisation, should be engaged in such struggles. So it supports militant trade unionism in principle but does not get practically involved in trade union matters. That is actually a very sound policy. Intervening politically as an organisation would if anything weaken those struggles for the reason that in order to be effective such struggles have to unite as many workers as possible notwithstanding their widely divergent political views.

Unite under what programme? For what purpose? It's really amusing that you place such emphasis on parliamentary tactics - the opposition between what you term "reformism" and impossibilism in the manner of SPGB - and then act as if these extraparliamentary struggles do not require correct tactics and a consistent political line. You want workers to unite under reformist leadership, apparently, because that's all that abstentionism leads to.


You cant effectively unite workers to fight against a wage cut by constantly trying to push your own Party political programme down their throats. Opportunist left wing sects who habitually and parasitically prey upon workers struggles on the pretext that they are somehow advancing these struggles (when what they really want is to recruit more members), are a huge turnoff for most workers and rightly so. Little wonder the Left has become politically irrelevant when it constantly insists on shooting itself in the foot in this way

Ha, talk about people in glass houses throwing bricks. The thing is, leaving the struggles of workers and the oppressed to the reformist leadership or to "spontaneity" has accomplished nothing.


To change the metaphor from knots to holes you've only succeed here in digging yourself into an even deeper one. The Second International social democrats argued exactly like you that you need to have both a mimumum and a maximum programme - precisely in order to attract workers to the Party and the socialist cause. What happened? Well, we know what happened. The Maximum programme disappeared like the Cheshire Cats grin and without exception, all the Social Democratic Parties in Europe become full blown capitalist parties. The minimum programme doesnt actually give workers a "real chance at attaining the maximum programme as you ludicrously claim. Quite the contrary, it ensures that the maximum programme is sidelined for good eventually to disappear down a black hole, The minimum programme inevitably encourages in workers the illusion that capitalism can be made to operate in their interest when it simply cannot. Once you start advocating reforms you might just as well kiss goodbye to any revolutionary pretensions you ever had

Actually, you gloss over quite a few parties - from the Bolsheviks (of course, the Mensheviks that your SPGB loves so did become bourgeois and worse), to the Narrow Socialists in Bulgaria, to the Italian and American Socialists etc. The problem with other parties is not that they had a minimum programme but that they did not emphasise how the minimal programme leads to the maximum programme - which the Bolsheviks, for example, did, which is why they did not degenerate at that point.


I think the only hot air around consists in the assertion that the Bolsheviks created some kind of "workers state", This was the state that crushed the factory committees, emasculated the trade unions, imposed one man management on industry, subjected workers to a ruthless militarisation of labour programme to curb absenteeism and strikes, banned all oppostion internally and externally and above all, allowed a tiny class of economic parasites - the Nomenklatura or Red Cats - to assume a position of unparalleled power and privilege at the expense of the working class. Some "workers state"! What a joke!

So what kind of class were the "Red Cats"? That is the real, Marxist question. Everything else is impressionist hot air. If they were bourgeois, they were quite unlike anything else that has been called bourgeois, and we might as well scrap most Marxist theory. If not, then this impressionistic and quite hypocritical (given the figures the SPGB supports) weeping over the factory committees is besides the point.


Voting per se is only a small part of the political struggle. The political struggle is about changing minds and hearts which is what the SPGB is primarily about. Struggling for the vote itself - the franchise - as well as other democratic albeit limited rights is also part of that struggle and which the SPGB rightly endorses.

You haven't answered my direct question - what is the SPGB position on abortion? Where is the SPGB propaganda calling for free abortion on demand and exposing the bourgeois roots of misogyny and "pro-life" attitudes?


I have no idea what you mean (nor do I suspect do you) when you say SPGB does not even acknowlege the struggle against racism and misogyny in their progaganda. These are views that stand directly in the way of socialist understanding and are constantly combated in SPGB circles. They have published pamphets and numerous articles attacking such views . Right now there is a vigorous debate going on in their forum with someone who appears to hold racist views
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/government-launches-immigrants-go-home-campaign?page=12

If they have published pamphlets, produce them. Otherwise, talking to some Nazi on an internet forum means nothing. The point is to assess the SPGB as a political party, not as a Society of People with Good Beliefs.


There is an apt expression " Only sheep need leaders - to fleece them!". To be quite blunt, I would sooner prefer achieve nothing than be the means by which yet another parasitic ruling class came to power on the spurious pretext that its "revolutionary leadership" was indispensable to the emancipation of the working class which according to them - and apparently you as well - is incapable of emancipating itself

Well, that's good, because you will achieve nothing. As for leaders, of course leaders are necessary, unless you think everyone has the same level of consciousness, skills and affinities etc. etc.

[The Idler]

If they have published pamphlets, produce them. Otherwise, talking to some Nazi on an internet forum means nothing. The point is to assess the SPGB as a political party, not as a Society of People with Good Beliefs.


http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/racism

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/racial-problem-socialist-analysis

One called The Problem of Racism.