Hit The North

There is genuine capitalist democracy in the UK, not socialist democracy. There is no such thing as "democracy" or "human rights" or "morality" in the abstract sense that transcends class differences.

There is indeed complete democracy in the UK, but only for capitalists.

And Marxism is much much more than just the fight for political democracy. It's primarily about the fight for economic equality and economic rights, not political rights, since base determines superstructure. This is why even an un-democratic Stalinist system is closer to socialism than Western capitalism.

Regarding Obs, I have no interest in defending him personally, since I don't know him at all and he isn't even on my friends list. But I object to your critique of computer games, and your association of computer games with "immature political attitudes" and taking drugs. Because for me computer games are a respectful media, no different from films or novels. Your anti-computer game instance is completely ridiculous.

I also object your belief in a kind of "abstract morality" that transcends class differences. Morality is a social construction, not an intrinsic Platonic quality, so while I do not condone the act of violence itself, I must state that a capitalist does not have exactly the same amount of rights as a worker from a Marxist perspective. To talk about morality without class is useless.

Well I don't think India today has a feudal economic base, but it still has certain elements of semi-feudal political superstructure, such as the caste system. The relationship between base and superstructure is complex and dialectical, and not just a simplistic one-to-one type.

I don't think there is a qualitative difference here. Because to be frankly I don't think "UK workers" and "Indian workers" can be treated as singular categories. I don't think one can say that "all Indian workers today are more oppressed than all UK workers today". A white collar worker in the IT industry in India is actually less oppressed than a semi-employed worker in the UK.

I object to your sectarianism of making your personal argument with red cat into a tendency war between Trotskyism and Maoism. I'm a semi-Maoist and I don't agree with red cat that the economic system in India today is still feudal, despite the presence of some semi-feudal superstructures.

Also, your personal critique of Obs is really poor as well. What exactly do you have against computer games, and how is that relevant at all to this discussion?

I don't agree with all of red cat's point, because I won't explicitly condone such an act, but some of your arguments in that Indian worker thread really is quite poor. While I don't follow the simplistic binary of First World vs. Third World, nor do I think India today is still feudal in terms of its economic base, the fact that some workers are much more oppressed than others (like say Victorian-era workers were much more oppressed than most workers in the UK today), and that some forms of capitalism are more reactionary and oppressive than others, like the Indian capitalist system with its lack of genuine democracy and the presence of a caste system is much worse than the capitalist system we have in the UK right now, is simply self-evident.

hey there mate , thanks for the points

Of course! Marx would approve.

"The point is that education comes through agitation and runs into organisation which then runs into agitation. It's a virtuous, self-reinforcing spiral."

Do you want to start a Philosophy thread on this? Only with proper education comes proper agitation (older forms of left sloganeering aren't effective), and organization is derived from proper education and proper agitation.

That's a key problem with the SWP:

"if we are serious, we agitate, educate and we organise"

You have Wilhelm Liebknecht's slogan in the wrong order. He said, "Educate! Agitate! Organize!" Note the priority of education before agitation. This isn't the alleged "gossip and rumour" insults hurled at the WW's criticisms. It's the fact that the SWP has no substantive program.