World Socialist Movement

What are peoples thoughts on the World Socialist Movement (WSM)?
Is anyone here involved with them? Been involved with them?

I'm listening to a "Marxist critique of anarchism" which is quite good.

WSM

Their main section is the British SPGB, whose sectarianism is so notorious that even back in the 1930s Trotsky used them as a prime of sectarianism. They believe the Russian revolution was premature and they do not support Bolshevism. I don't know much more than that about them, but then again, I doubt that anyone does - as far as I know, they're hardly ever seen or heard.

They believe in the myth of the perfect revolution. They did make the video Capitalism & Other Kids' Stuff

The SPGB are a weird anomaly, formed within 2nd International orthodox Marxism and pretty much unchanged ever since. However, the wiki article claims that they represent the impossibilist tradition which revolted against 2nd International orthodoxy over the issue of participation in bourgeois parliaments: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossibilism

Despite boasting this in their Object and Declarations: They never intervene in the political or economic struggles of the working class. They have no central leadership and neither agitate nor organise - although they do propagandise through their practically unknown and unread journal, Socialist Standard.

I've been active around the left for a good two decades and I've yet to come across a member of this shy and timid organisation.

They seem to be the only group who support a moneyless society.
There is more on how they are different to other groups on their page.

You should've informed me of this term for my CSR work. :(

The world is a "global village". Each region may have its own particular and distinct customs, but they are part of a greater system of society that is world-wide. This system of society is capitalism and every region and nation operates within this system of society in one way or another. Socialism is not a cooperative island in the middle of capitalism, but a global system of society that will replace capitalism.

[...]

"Common Ownership"?

Common ownership means that society as a whole owns the means and instruments for distributing wealth. It also implies the democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, for if everyone owns, then everyone must have equal right to control the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth.

Common ownership is not state ownership. State ownership is merely the ownership by the capitalist class as a whole, instead of by individual capitalists, and the government then runs the state enterprises to serve the capitalist class. In the self-proclaimed "communist" states the state enterprises serve those who control the party/state apparatus. The working class does not own or control. It produces for a privileged minority.

[...]

Working class emancipation necessarily excludes the role of political leadership.

[...]

The real revolution is for workers to stop following leaders, to start understanding why society functions as it does and to start thinking for themselves.

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/gbodop.html

I say the WSM is correct about these positions:

* a socialist program must have no incremental objectives. It must have this goal only -- abruptly establish a classless society. Any gradual reform proposals appearing in a document purported to describe "the path to socialism", etc., are distractions. The leftist assertion that the working class has to be be "mobilized" by "action", including striving for changes which imply the continuation of capitalism, and that these can increments would accumulate into motion "in the direction of" socialism, is a false approach.

* that socialism is only possible after the working class majority use the political process to take control of the legislatures, army and police away from the ruling class, eliminating the major power of ruling class reaction. Anarchosyndicalists, who suggest that that the state can be allowed to remain under the control of the capitalist class, while the workers seize the means of production, fail to realize that their suggestion would result in the workers being massacred and repressed.

* that patriotism is always unproductive. The goal of a global administration without national boundaries has to be kept clear.

-------------------------------------

I say the WSM is incorrect about these positions:

* their insistence that no workplace organization is required before the day of revolution. They fail to realize that the workers at each workplace must prepare the deparments and committees that will be put into place as the new management system. Without doing so, chaos would cause severe shortages.

* their belief in an idealized interpretation of the "stateless" character of the future classless society. They simply assume that there will be no need for a law against murder or assault, or an enforcement procedure, because not one person in the whole world would ever think of doing such a bad thing. They don't realize that they are making an untestable "human nature" argument, which is what they accuse conservatives of doing, merely changing the conservatives' claim that "human nature is evil" into its opposite, that "human nature is good."

* their position that "to each according his needs" is a strict requirement for a society without any currency or labor credit system, where labor will be unpaid and voluntary, and goods distributed for free. They call this the principle of "free access to all that is produced." Without any possibility of verification at this time, they simply assume that volunteerism won't drop to critical levels, and that consumerism won't rise to critical levels. Here too they fail to realize that they are making an untestable "human nature" argument, which is the accusation they make of those with the opposite viewpoint, merely inverting the conservative belief that human nature is greedy and lazy into its equally unverifiable opposite, that in human nature there are no greedy or lazy tendencies whatsoever.

The SPGB is the oldest left wing organisation in the UK having been founded in 1904. They have a view that socialism can be brought about democratically by workers electing a socialist government, and it installing socialism.
Devrim

I met a few of them on Speaker's Corner in London. Brilliant people, gave great speeches. I knew them already from their DVD and online vid Capitalism and Other Kids Stuff. I took one of their leaflets home..
it's true
they make the ICC look like advocates of a united front o0

Mike,

Do you have a link to the statements from the worldsocialism.org website that you're responding to?

I agree with your statements, with one minor point to add:



The gray area here -- and there *is* a gray area, because of the dialectical relationship of the status quo to the intended future -- is that of worker militancy.

A militant factory occupation would seem radical and revolutionary to most, but it could also be argued that it is too liberal, because the workers -- or more likely, the trade union bureaucracy -- could simply turn around and use the action as a bargaining chip in talks with company management, which would simply continue the capitalist ownership of the factory (means of mass production).

At the same time I think all socialists would wholeheartedly support a militant factory occupation by the rank-and-file, with the proviso that it would continue leftward, to spread militancy and factory occupations to like companies in the same industry, and to the workers of those companies' suppliers, wholesalers, and vendors.

In my political spectrum illustration I have this situation depicted schematically:


Ideologies & Operations
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Chris





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This is completely the wrong strategy. Institutions such as the police force are components of the bourgeois state apparatus. This state exists to protect the interests of the bourgeoisie who account for a small minority in comparison to the superior numerical strength of the proletariat and other sections of the working masses, who are exploited under capitalism and excluded from the political process, and consequently the bourgeois state is based on a specific structure reflecting the balance of class forces - armed bodies of men which are separated from the rest of the population. The proletarian state follows a similar objective of protecting the ruling class, but because this state is based on the rule of the majority, it is not structured in the same way as the bourgeois state - instead of separated bodies, state power is exercised by the whole of the working population through a system of workers militias based in factories and other economic units, with the dispensation of justice organized on a popular and democratic basis. What this means is that the institutions of the bourgeois state cannot be peacefully subject to the rule of the workers, and the structure of the bourgeois state cannot be maintained after capitalism has been overthrown, instead the bourgeois state must be smashed through the armed struggles of the working class and replaced with a genuinely proletarian state which reflects the position and demands of the workers.

The position advocated by the WSM is actually similar to the entryist strategy adopted by Militant Tendency during the 1970s in the UK. Militant Tendency hoped to gain control of the Labour Party and once they had secured a majority in parliament pass an enabling act which would allow them to pass a series of radical measures designed to transform the economy and establish socialism. Militant Tendency failed to acknowledge that socialism can never be created through parliamentary decree because parliament is a body removed from the control of ordinary people and based on a false division between economics and politics - only proletarian struggle in workplaces and ultimately against the bourgeois state apparatus can create socialism.

This is totally inappropriate for a non-revolutionary situation. When the vast majority of workers accept the ideology of the capitalist system and reject the possibility of transforming society through revolutionary struggle, socialists need to recognize the importance of fighting for reforms within the framework of the capitalist system. By demanding reforms, socialists can ensure that workers are protected against the worst effects of the capitalist system and also reverse the oppression of subordinate social groups (for example, by winning legal access to abortion) and if the state is unable to grant these reforms because they conflict with the interests of the employers, socialists can expose the inability of capitalism to meet the demands of the workers and so raise the political level of the working class in preparation for the seizure of power. Abandoning reforms and relegating all social problems to the revolution is synonymous with refusing to engage with the workers and will prevent the party from forming political links with the mass working class.

Socialists as individuals may support many proposals if they consider them helpful in any way. I'm sure everyone here unanimously supports workers' direct economic actions. But I believe that job actions and political reforms should not be listed in a statement with such a title as the program for implementing socialism, the way to achieve socialism, the road to socialism, etc. Such statements should include only the steps that directly enact the implementation of socialism, and should exclude activities which we support because they are expected to be conducive to raising our consciousness, awakening us from our slumber, etc.

I didn't refer to a link. My info about the WSM is from reading their literature and having discussions with them since the late 1960s. But worldsocialism.org has tons of documents, and the people in their yahoo discuss the same subjects consistently.

I disagree with some of the specifics that you mention there, but I will skip to the one point that needs realized the most. Your observations are simply unconnected to my assertion, and not really an answer to it. The relevant thing is that (using the U.S. designations that I'm familiar with) the mayor who commands the city police, the governor who commands the state police, and the president who commands the army, are all publicly elected offices. The working class is presented with this choice between two options: capitalist political candidate: vote for me and I pledge that I WILL suppress the workers; socialist political candidate: vote for me and I pledge that I WON'T suppress the workers. That's all we need to know to make the optimum choice at once.

That's the approach that socialists *have been* attempting since the 1840s. Is there any sign that the working class is getting the message?

Why can't socialists engage with the workers to tell them the truth? Why is it necessary to engage with them to lie to them?

This is the truth: Socialists can't achieve anything whatsoever, not only a revolution, but even the smallest reform, until they acquire majority support. But if they do achieve majority support, then a fundamental transformation of society can be performed at once. So there can be no occasion for socialists to acquire that majority support but then to squander it by retaining capitalism in a modified form.

This is the lie: Who are we socialists? The answer is -- we're the people who will get you unemployment insurance and health insurance. [A poke of the elbow and a whisper to the other party insiders] Geez, if we told them the truth, and said that we want a revolution, they would be so repulsed. Let's just tell them whatever we need to say to keep them from walking away from us. After they make us the "leaders", we will find some way to break the truth to them gently.

Why do you consider the advocacy of reforms "lying"?

Here's another scenario you haven't considered: if you were to have things your way, those revolutionary socialists wanting reforms would have to either set up a FRONT group or practice "entryism" in order to advocate a minimum program. Since the 32-hour workweek is of utmost importance to me and to the rest of us, I might as well, if you were to have things your way, join the timid Work Less Party.

[Sorry for sounding a bit overheated there.]

Heck, Trotskyists would have to do the same thing in order to advocate both a minimum program and the usual "Transitional Programme."

Case in point: the Campaign for a New Workers' Party in the UK (a CWI front), and the entryism-obsessed International Grantist (ahem: "Marxist") Tendency.



P.S. - This thread may be of interest to you: http://www.revleft.com/vb/begin-rede...683/index.html

They reject political activity and demonstrations. Possibly the worst thing about them.

It isn't lying if that's what your goal really is. But is it? Is "Marxist" defined as a person whose goal is a society that has a capitalist economy and a 32-hour work week?

This point is always clearer when we look at past societies instead of our own. What did the people in the 1700s-1800s who wanted to abolish slavery say? Did they propose a transitional step in which the right of slave owners to retain and whip their slaves would be recognized and reaffirmed as valid, but now limited and regulated by a reform? No, they demanded it all, the complete abolition of slavery. If you were to be transported back to their time, which of these would you call for?

The goal is socialism. Whether this can be achieved peacefully is still an open question. Whether this will depend upon the democratic political leadership of the workers' representatives or the mass movement of militant workers themselves seizing the means of production and dismantling the coercive forces of capital is not open to question. It will depend upon the latter.

How can the party of socialist/communist workers contribute to this movement? Certainly not by abstaining from the day to day struggles of the working class! As Bobkindles argues, we need to be the most fervent advocates of fighting for reforms. However, any socialist who says that reforms can be enacted by mere election or that the reforms will be safe and the capitalists won't try to wrest them back, bit by bit, stealthily or openly, is lying to the working class. Any socialist who is honest and clear that these are temporary and imperfect gains and that the interests of workers can never be truly secured under capitalism is telling the truth.

Apart from an unhealthily assumed division between "socialist" and "worker" in that statement, it's not enough to tell the truth it has to be proved in practice.