EuroSoviets
Defence Forces
Founders of the Allied States of EuroIslanders.
Posts: 697
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Post by EuroSoviets on Feb 2, 2006 21:51:46 GMT
I didn't say history would be exactly, event for event, the same; the general trend would be the same and ultimately trends culminate - and thus Marx may have been von Genshler who may have written his works ten years later or thirty years earlier; the decisive influence in history is not simply the masses either. That's not what I said. There are many influences on history - my simple contention is that the individual is negligible.
The NSDAP needed a charismatic individual. It found Hitler. If Hitler had never been born, does it not occur to you that a different charismatic individual could easily have risen to exactly the same peak, propelled by exactly the same forces, forces which would not be changed or altered depending on the presence or absence of one individual. This is indisputable. The exact same is true for Marx. Or Lenin. Or Trotsky.
Science is not based on other tools; science is an all-pervasive ethos, the logic of which forms the basis of all tools of analysis - Marxism included. Equations - Newtons equations of motion for example - are the results of imperfect analysis and may in time be proven incorrect. This does not change the fundamental and overriding correctness of the application of the tool called science. Other tools include things like mysticism. Why does acceleration equal final velocity minus initial velocity all divided by time? Because (God / Nature / the Car / insert anti-logical explanation here) wills it. End of discussion.
The ethos of Marxism is that underpinning society and history are certain fundamentals which can be analysed. Marxist analysis of history is based on 'class' as a determinant of the roles of certain people in society and a guideline as to their political sensibilities. 'Status' - the Weberian alternative - is simply an overlay that does not explain the origins of trends, it just provides a convenient way to sketch them. Marxism is the only viable sociological analysis of history and in several hundred years of the study of history, the representatives of the ruling class and their parasitic intelligentsia have yet to postulate an alternative system of analysis.
The simple reason is that Marxism itself is not just a tool; it is an ethos. Like Science, the discarding of this ethos simply represents an abandonment of logic.
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Post by Jako on Feb 3, 2006 0:38:32 GMT
Oh come on Jako, it doesn't take this long to formulate a reply! Sincere apologies comrade, but I was busy slaying Trots.
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Post by Jako on Feb 3, 2006 1:16:44 GMT
I'm sick and tired of people trying to tell me Marxism is dead. Or that it is dying. Any such implication indicates a misunderstanding of what Marxism is. What Marxism is not is a political ideology. Marxism in the correct usage is an economic analysis, a social analysis and a political analysis all rolled into one. It is a system of analysis that attempts to explain in a very definite way how society evolved from Mycenaean palace cultures to industrialized society. quote] I think you'll find I accepted that Marxist analysis will undoubtedly continue to be used, and rightly so! But it is slightly disingenuous of you to claim that Marxism is not a political ideology. You refuse to accept that someone can be a socialist and not wish to descirbe themselves as a Marxist. "Marxism satisfied my emotional needs. The trouble was I didn't believe it" (some Leftie historian, his name escapes me) Whilst Marxism as an analysis is of course detached, objective, rational - it is scientific in its socialism - I do not think we should deny that emotions have a large part to play in the formation of a person's political views. Why do we consider ourselves to be of the Left? I suspect it is primarily because we are disgusted by the state of the world around us and have decided that inequality is morally repugnant. I know that is certainly how my political consciousness was originally awoken. Did you become a Marxist solely because you were convinced by the dialectics Marx identified? Or was it because you wanted to believe that a better world was possible? Marxism as an analysis provides the intellectual explanation as to how socialism will be achieved, thus providing emotional assurance. While I am a militant atheist I do think that we all need something to believe in. I know it would really piss you off to suggest that Marxism is simply a rational substitute for religious faith, so I'm not going to say it Yes, I think there is truth your argument that "to say that an individual is responsible for history is simply a supreme expression of vanity, brought on by the cult of the individual which we're taught to worship in popular history". Does your Socialist Party really reject the cult of the individual? Why does it feel the need to have pictures of Karl Marx all over the website, and why is there such an emphasis on Marx's writings, especially since so many of his predictions were proved so embarassingly wrong (i.e capitalism did not collapse in 1848, infact from the Socialist Party's point of view it is still going strong today!)? This seems awfully like a cult of the individual to me. If Marxism was not an ideology but rather simply an analysis I would have expected far less devotion to Marx, Lenin et al, and is instead a greater emphasis on contemporary Marxist thought. And by the way, I really do not buy the argument that teachers and the educational system are vehemently anti-Marxist. It reeks of conspiracy theory to me, and politics based on conspiracies usually don't stand up to scrutiny.
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Post by Jako on Feb 3, 2006 1:32:17 GMT
Even considering the United Kingdom, the working class is far from content. Everywhere you go, someone is bitching about the state of Unions, or reality TV or the fact that you can't trust politicians, that pension funds are going bust all over the place, that people are going to have to work longer hours and longer years, that the nature of the capitalist system is uncertainty. No one is talking about revolution - but then no one is even talking about Unions these days. It is cyclical; Unions are not pluralist structures designed to be 'marketed' to employees - they are designed to be the militant expressions of workers' power, and to hell with non-Union workers. Um, middle-class people everywhere complain about politicians, or unions (though perhaps from a different perspective!), or pensions, etc. The revolution will require more than grumpiness. "Trade unions are meant to be militant expressions of workers' power" - do you seriously mean this? Trade unions were established for the purposes of collective bargaining, and more often than not that has meant reaching compromise with the bosses. Trade unions exist for practical reasons, not for the advancement of any one ideological position. In the founding of the Labour Party it was the trade unions that were the forces of conservatism; it took a lot of effort to convince trade unionists that there was a need for independent working-class representation in the political system. On the whole it has to be said that Labour attached itself to socialism because of the influence of middle-class radicals, and for much of the early years of the Labour Party's existence there were often tensions between socialism and labourism over the direction the party should take. Founding a new 'mass' socialist working-class party, i.e trying to destroy the Labour Party, will not succeed in Britain any time soon, and if it did it would abandon the working-class of this country to Conservative rule. In the 1980s Thatcher established a right-wing hegemonic domination and used it to try to destroy trade unionism and socialism. The organised working-class has still not recovered from the damage she was able to do. Allowing a similar process to occur again seems daft, especially to anyone who cares about working people. p.s Why am I a "liberal" now? I used to be a "social-democrat"? Ultimately I would be pleased if a Marxist called me a "left social-democrat", but I understand that might be asking a bit too much.
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EuroSoviets
Defence Forces
Founders of the Allied States of EuroIslanders.
Posts: 697
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Post by EuroSoviets on Feb 3, 2006 12:17:21 GMT
The reason I refuse to accept that someone can be a socialist and not be a Marxist is because I don't believe someone can be a socialist and not be a Marxist. Up to a point Marxist groups have a lot in common with others groups. In Ireland, the Anarchists are one such example. We co-operate in funding anti-fascist poster drives - and in other matters as well. We aim at much the same thing but our societal analysis is totally different; thus ultimately, Anarchists will oppose the revolution. For that reason I don't call them socialist. Similarly left-liberal and social-democratic (in the modern sense) groups are in most cases outrightly pro-capitalistic, therefore certainly not socialist. Similarly the Stalinists who are little better and whose confused analysis can prove an inconsistent lead to the working classes, with disastrous results, e.g. Germany 1923-1933.
Anyway, that's hardly the point of this argument so I'll get back to it.
Jako, how about I invert your argument regarding emotional responses to certain situations. One does not have to understand nor even perceive the beginnings of the Marxist dialectic to see the contradictions inherent in capitalism. This is not an emotional response; it is simply an advanced insight into the workings of the system wherein we live. The natural and logical response is to seek answers. I did not automatically become a Marxist just by knowing that there were problems with the capitalist system. It took a long time, a lot of reading, talking to older and politically active people from a range of viewpoints, including Republicans and Unionists.
Sure, on an emotional level I want passionately to believe that something can change - but it would be an insult to me to insinuate to any degree that my logical faculties are overcome by the 'need to believe' in some alternative. Had analysis shown me that the evolutionists could have succeeded, I would have ended up a Labour supporter. My study of key events in history particularly the events surrounding 1848, 1871, the Russian Revolutions of 1905-1917, the interwar years in Britain, France 1968, Portugal and Spain 1974, and the years before and after the Miners' Strike led me to the conclusion that Labour (and the 'Labour' capital L movement in general), which was never working class to begin with, had totally failed.
My study of Marxism simply gave me a vocabulary with which to express coherently that which I had found to be true.
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My Socialist Party? To be a member of a Party, Jako, is not to be transfer 'nationalism' to a political party in the absence of respect for ones' own nation. In any case, the fact is that the writings of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky are the highest representations of the system of analysis which we support and which we utilize to determine our actions, i.e. that there needs to be a revolutionary vanguard and therein lies the point of the party. Symbols such as the hammer and sickle or the cogwheel or pictures of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky etc are simply convenient ways to pictorially represent our views. It might be handy for you to detach the internet from reality; our Party offices in Belfast for example do not contain even one picture of any of the aforementioned.
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On teachers, anti-Marxism and conspiracy theories, I always enjoy talking about conspiracy theories. Consider all the facts of a situation, the inter-personal links, the conflicting agendas of people or organizations; in the JFK assassination for example. No one knows the answer to several pertinent questions and the way certain events transpired seemed altogether too convenient. The conspiracy theory is simply the imaginations of normal people ticking over and supplying them with answers; some are realistic, some are fantastic. In no way can what I said be painted in those colours.
There is not some great conspiracy to suppress Marxism - frankly there doesn't need to be.
People are inherently suspicious of change; people learn not just from teachers but from their families and from their friends and from every influence which they come into contact with. Deprived of some of the insights which Marxists growing up today might experience, it can be perfectly natural that they do not become Marxist - or even left wing. 'School' is a ridiculous concept where knowledge-in-a-box is taught to kids who have to learn it by rote. Courses on the Russian Revolution teach the most subjective opinions which are then ingrained because of the learn by rote nature of school. Courses on anything at all - history, religion and politics in particular - are very definitely not favourable to anyone with a predisposition not to think too far past what they are reading at the present. The curriculum is set and taught by non-Marxists; they don't see anything morally problematic or even factually incorrect with the data they provide - why does there have to be a conspiracy?
Yet to suggest that in a world controlled by capital, capital and its ideologies do not control the dominant means of influencing opinion is something that itself does not stand up to scrutiny.
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On to your final post.
Of course the revolution will require more than grumpiness - but what you missed was that the little box you quoted was practically right beside where I pointed out that Britain today nor the capitalist system as a whole is currently in the position to generate mass feelings for change. The mass need is there - but it requires a break down for consciousness to assert itself. War or depression could do this for example.
As for trade unions, yes I do mean that. I am not demanding that all trade unions carry a revolutionary banner - what I think is appropriate is that Unions stop getting into bed with the corporations whom they're not supposed to represent. 'Partnership' agreements achieve less for workers than the Union standing up and asserting its position. The first step of any conscientious trade unionist should be to build towards a reversal of the idea of 'partnership' and that means building a militant consciousness amongst workers, to give them the ideological tools necessary for a fight with their employers.
You're damn right; Trade Unions do exist for practical reasons. They aren't fulfilling it and it didn't help that Labour sold them down the river.
On the history of Labour, Labour was never attached to socialism. The Webbs and MacDonald etc were a bunch of Fabians who wanted top down capitalist government with a social face. That's not socialism, it's Labourism. I do not see the distinction you attempt to draw between the two.
A 'new' mass socialist party is not on the cards right now - but what good is Labour? The Conservatives have in times past been more left wing than Labour is now. What difference does it make if Labour or the Conservatives are in charge of the state apparatus? Another Thatcher might be on the cards before a new mass party - but a new Thatcher might well help create the sentiments that could drive a new party. For certain, this three terms of Labour will have disillusioned enough people - and when the conservatives take over, depending on the scale of their victory in the next elections, we'll see just how sentiments begin to change.
As for the terminology I use of you, liberal, social-democrat, all much of a muchness - equals Menshevik sell out to me.
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EuroSoviets
Defence Forces
Founders of the Allied States of EuroIslanders.
Posts: 697
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Post by EuroSoviets on Feb 6, 2006 10:27:16 GMT
*pokes Jako with a stick*
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Post by Jako on Feb 6, 2006 19:01:23 GMT
Ouch! Look, you'll have to stop being so impatient. I'm sure you'll agree that this discussion deserves a considered response. And I'm very busy helping to set up a secular society at uni at the mo. As soon as I have time I'll be back.....
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EuroSoviets
Defence Forces
Founders of the Allied States of EuroIslanders.
Posts: 697
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Post by EuroSoviets on Feb 6, 2006 19:54:25 GMT
What is a secular society exactly?
I wouldn't call it impatient Jako, it's been three days since I posted that reply.
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Post by Jako on Feb 6, 2006 23:48:50 GMT
Firstly, a university secular organisation will be a branch of the National Secular Society (www.secularism.org.uk).
Your understanding of socialism, because it is based entirely on Marxist doctrine, is exclusionist. Anyone who does not share your Marxist beliefs cannot be a socialist, and so must therefore be categorised into some other ideological allegiance. Nothing wrong with that. I take a different view; anyone who wants to see a radical redistribution of wealth, power, and opportunity is entitled to describe their politics as 'socialist'. This is an inclusionist viewpoint. Ok, I admit there are faults with it. My definition is so vague that in reality it can become meaningless. To be honest, I am even happy to work alongside people who do not consider themselves 'socialists', as long as they broadly agree with me on the policies that I support.
Through unity we find strength. It never ceases to amaze me just how many conservatives there are out there. Millions and millions of 'em. Middle-class, working-class, gay, black (ok, admittedly fewer gays and blacks)...I am overwhelmed. Society is so inherently reactionary it seems incredible that any progressive change has ever been achieved at all.
Just as you have claimed to have looked at the history of evolutionary 'socialism' and found nothing to support the notion that it can produce positive benefits, I too cannot find anything especially hopeful in the revolutionary stuff. Whilst the idealism is often sound and inspiring, the realities seem not only morally questionable, but also of little benefit to the well-being of the working-class. Revolutions have only occurred at times of unusual extremeties. For a working-class revolution to occur, the working-class will have to be subjected to such extreme conditions that they will be susceptible to agitating and organising. Since I do not see any possibility of this taking place in the UK anytime soon I, as someone who wants to see change happen here and now, must reject the idea that revolution is necessary for social transformation. I do not deny that it can be conducive to progress, but from my learning of history it is certainly not always the optimal solution.
Do you not want to hold a broad appeal? Do you honestly think that all the dogma, and the rhetoric, and the steadfast loyalty to Marx, Engels, Lenin, is the way to convert people to your political cause? The problem is that such a theoretically-rigid position will always hamper a 'mass' party. Surely a 'mass' party must, by definition, be formed to a certain degree on compromise? Plus by the time you purge all the 'Marxists' who don't agree with you (the Stalinists, the Maoists, the whatnot) you won't be left with a very big vanguard. But that's from my perspective who has gone for the polar oppisite position of letting just about anyone into my tent....
Anyway, that is old ground, trodden many times, and let's not get into an argument about history. Although I would like to find out why you think the Labour Party was never based on the working-class? Can you not admit that the working-class is and was, on the whole, fairly conservative and not intrinsically prone to sympathising with Marxism? Correct me if I'm wrong - but your politics rely on people identifying themselves almost purely on a class basis. In reality, people identify themselves in many ways (by nationality, gender, locality, race, sexual orrientation, etc). At least my inclusionist approach allows for a certain flexibility in trying to convince people that my politics have something to offer them.
A new 'mass' party may well require a Conservative government (indicating that you do not think things are getting worse for the working-class under Labour). But I for one am thankful for every minute that the Tories are kept out of power, and prevented from using the state and the system to screw our people. If Thatcher was not enough to provoke revolution and disillusionment with Labour how much further to the Right do you need a future Conservative government to be?
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EuroSoviets
Defence Forces
Founders of the Allied States of EuroIslanders.
Posts: 697
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Post by EuroSoviets on Feb 11, 2006 0:29:01 GMT
Well that's the greatest heap of shite I've ever read (not your post Jako, but this article from the website you gave me. I don't think it could have aimed at being more one sided Samuel "Kill all non-Europeans/Americans" Huntingdon if it tried. If that's a secular society, I think I'll stick with my 'outdated' Marxism, thanks awfully. If you like, you can split this to a separate thread and we can continue there. My reply to your post on topic is in the post below.
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EuroSoviets
Defence Forces
Founders of the Allied States of EuroIslanders.
Posts: 697
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Post by EuroSoviets on Feb 11, 2006 0:49:03 GMT
Jako, it occurs to me to wonder if you've ever actually considered Marxism as a whole. I'll grant you, the modern literature produced by various groups leave massive amounts to be desired; for those of us with a brain and a keen political eye, being promised mass movements ad nauseam is wearying and after a while, begins to ring false. In much modern Marxist analysis (specifically in party-affiliated literature) there is no nuance.
Of course for me, Marxism explains that. As with everything, social environment is all pervasive. This is why a study of the class history of revolution and general social movement is important. The social environment of today is not sufficiently strained to produce Marxists of the quality of Lenin and Trotsky. This has been the case since the post-WWII economic boom that bought us the Welfare State and the mentalities associated with that.
Countless examples survive from the Russian revolution of the leaflets that were simply printed off and handed out amongst factory workers. Anyone who could operate a printing press printed them. In fact the Kadets printed more than anyone and in far better quality - yet the Kadets leaflets were used for makhorka cigarettes or toilet paper, particularly on the front lines. The Bolshevik leaflets and Menshevik leaflets and SR leaflets and independent leaflets were all kept. Trotsky wasn't originally a Bolshevik - he had a separate group operating - and so did many others. What propelled the Bolsheviks to the head of the revolution was simply that they were the most concentrated expression of the workers' sympathies.
How many of the Russian workers who fought and died for the Bolshevik cause could read at all much less read works as academically advanced as Das Kapital? When you talk about identifying with class as opposed to identifying with nationality, race, gender, sexuality etc, you're considering that everyone has recieved the political education of those on this forum. Most have not. If you asked someone to define class, I would bet a fair amount that even many labourites could not give a concise definition. Yet what does this matter Jako?
The de-politicization of the word 'class' has simply deprived more people than previously of a vocabulary that was once used by workers in certain situations. Since you brought this up, the same is true of your use of the word socialism; because the word is broadened and flattened and stretched by the media (seriously, do a Google for the phrase "American socialism" and you come up with some ridiculous ideas about Hitler as a genuine socialist and the Republicans aiming at a 'socialist' agenda etc). These words are merely that. Their loss of context and meaning outside of academic circles means nothing - they merely described trends and currents in society that are inherent to society.
Just because someone does not identify with a 'class' does not mean that they don't identify with workers - with people like themselves, facing the same difficulties and the same corrupt, inept system. Theory and practice don't always have the same vocabulary. And as I've pointed out a million times, just prior to the Russian revolution, Jews were beaten and crucified and parraded through the streets in Russia - then several were elevated by workers to the leadership of the country. Gay-bashing and nationalism are going to get an awful lot worse before we see a revolution.
The Conservative Party is the purest mainstream political form of ruling class values - Labour is a derivative formed to buy off the working classes. That is why we'll see more openly right wing (i.e a name to match the face rather than the misnomer 'Labour') in the years that precede a revolution.
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EuroSoviets
Defence Forces
Founders of the Allied States of EuroIslanders.
Posts: 697
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Post by EuroSoviets on Feb 16, 2006 18:04:28 GMT
*waves at Jako*
Any chance?
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