Economic democracy: the need for a vision

[butchersapron]

The problem isn't reversing the left's trajectory though random, that's gone - it's about starting again and using what useful things they've left. The left is neither here nor there. W/c needs are always here.

 

[Spion]

I have faith in the creativity of the class, Spion.



Now I agree with your points, and would happily get involved in something based on that - but for me the crucial thing is not how we 'apply the principles to what people are concerned about' but rather how activists engage with the general public and from that build up their principles. And it's that which i think still separates the traditional left from what the IWCA is trying to do.

At base I think the left was once of the class, and from the class. Now it has only marginal contract with working class life - making any kind of new start has to be based on reversing this problem and instead make sure that any political formation is instead immersed in working class reality.

Can you define 'the left' as you keep referring to it and I've no idea what you actually mean. I'm thinking what left in what country and when is (s)he talking about? Or give me an example of 'a left' that was 'of the class, and from the class'?

 

[Carousel]

Jobs for all - strike and occupy to stop job losses
Create jobs and decent housing for all with a huge programme of public works to make our towns and cities fit to live in
Create organisations of workers and community control to oversee economic life
How to pay for all this? Tax big business to provide what the mass of people need. If they refuse, bring those businesses into public ownership

Those are the kind of principles I start from. How to 'unite' people around them is a case of taking such principles and applying them to what people are already concerned about

I dunno. The sort of people that hanker after that kind of shit are mostly inept losers and few Christians. If they’re united they’ll just be bad influence on each and spiral into a cycle of self-defeat, like some giant black hole of mediocrity and boredom leaving a cadence of shouty oppositional defiance before disappearing forever.

 

[butchersapron]

That's fair enough, but it still leaves us not really knowing what to focus on, tactically, and not knowing what will get us out of this impasse, strategically. Waiting for working class activity to show the way, I suppose, which is better than trying to tell people that your 100 year old threories are the way to go, which is what the trad left tend to do.

W/c needs, self-expressed base starting point, no need to defer or even relate to any existing formal left groups. W/c people have always organised to meet their own needs on way or another.

 

[Spion]

I dunno. The sort of people that hanker after that kind of shit are mostly inept losers and few Christians. If they’re united they’ll just be bad influence on each and spiral into a cycle of self-defeat, like some giant black hole of mediocrity and boredom leaving a cadence of shouty oppositional defiance before disappearing forever.

Are you practising for stand up? It's not bad. No idea what your RL delivery is like tho

 

[Random]

The problem isn't reversing the left's trajectory though random, that's gone - it's about starting again and using what useful things they've left. The left is neither here nor there. W/c needs are always here.

Starting again, sure - I'm not talking about resuscitating any existing left groups. But it is still true that the kind of people who are interested in the kind of activity that the IWCA is proposing will overwhelmingly come from left wing backgrounds and from networks based on past or current membership in left and anarcho groupings.

 

[Spion]

W/c needs, self-expressed base starting point, no need to defer or even relate to any existing formal left groups.

Except the IWCA?

 

[butchersapron]

Jobs for all - strike and occupy to stop job losses
Create jobs and decent housing for all with a huge programme of public works to make our towns and cities fit to live in
Create organisations of workers and community control to oversee economic life
How to pay for all this? Tax big business to provide what the mass of people need. If they refuse, bring those businesses into public ownership

Those are the kind of principles I start from. How to 'unite' people around them is a case of taking such principles and applying them to what people are already concerned about

Well put some bones on it then. Principles are easy. How different are you if all you've got is this list?

 

[Carousel]

W/c needs, self-expressed base starting point, no need to defer or even relate to any existing formal left groups. W/c people have always organised to meet their own needs on way or another.

True enough. Though that was because the working class produced, and so were able to meet their own needs. What they gonna do now Butch, sell each other insurance?

 

[butchersapron]

Except the IWCA?

Don't you types normally dismiss the IWCA in whinging terms as 'not even socialist'?

 

[revol68]

Well, I'd agree that 'the left' (no idea how you define that tho) has contributed to the present state of affairs. But I'd place 'doctrinaire squabbles' way down the list as a contributory factor, way behind bigger influences such as changes globally with ref to the Stalinist states and the discrediting of 'communism' as well as country specific defeats of organised labour and the right-wing flight of reformist socialism.

What you call 'doctrinaire squabbles' have always taken place and always will. Most people don't know they exist



You don't want much do you?

Jobs for all - strike and occupy to stop job losses
Create jobs and decent housing for all with a huge programme of public works to make our towns and cities fit to live in
Create organisations of workers and community control to oversee economic life
How to pay for all this? Tax big business to provide what the mass of people need. If they refuse, bring those businesses into public ownership

Those are the kind of principles I start from. How to 'unite' people around them is a case of taking such principles and applying them to what people are already concerned about

So your starting point is to dig up the rotting corpse of social democracy and try to fuck it back to life with your limp dick?

 

[butchersapron]

Starting again, sure - I'm not talking about resuscitating any existing left groups. But it is still true that the kind of people who are interested in the kind of activity that the IWCA is proposing will overwhelmingly come from left wing backgrounds and from networks based on past or current membership in left and anarcho groupings.

I really don't think so myself. That's a total black hole that develops from not going directly to the w/c, but through the left first.

 

[Random]

Can you define 'the left' as you keep referring to it and I've no idea what you actually mean. I'm thinking what left in what country and when is (s)he talking about? Or give me an example of 'a left' that was 'of the class, and from the class'?

I'm talking in the broadest sense, but really about my own experience of the European and especially UK anarchist/left. What I mean is that originally a lot of the impetus for creating the classical, mainstream left came from the expressed desires and priorities of working class people. That has now been overwhelmingly lost, as the labour/social democratic parties became more interested in running state machinery and the far left Leninist groupings became more interested in acting out various schemes for world domination/single issue campaigns/lessons from the Book of trotsky/all of the above. The anarchos just became the extremist fringe of the peace and green movements.

 

[Spion]

But it is still true that the kind of people who are interested in the kind of activity that the IWCA is proposing will overwhelmingly come from left wing backgrounds and from networks based on past or current membership in left and anarcho groupings.

I agree. I think Butch just wants the pure ones. Utopian rubbish or a way to end up following all sorts of dodgy crap.

What's left of the left exists. You engage, ignore, work with or otherwise as appropriate, and maintain a principled stance based on your political programme/concrete aims throughout. Looking for some silver bullet solution to sidestep a difficult overall situation and some poeple you don't agree with on the left if just such a lot of wanking around carried out by the clueless, because they're clueless

 

[butchersapron]

True enough. Though that was because the working class produced, and so were able to meet their own needs. What they gonna do now Butch, sell each other insurance?

They didn't procude to meet their own needs. They didn't own them cars at the end of the line.

 

[Random]

I really don't think so myself. That's a total black hole that develops from not going directly to the w/c, but through the left first.

What does that mean though, especially in the context of this kind of strategy document? I mean, right now on u75 here we're benefiting from old left networks just to be saying this to each other.

 

[revol68]

Don't you types normally dismiss the IWCA in whinging terms as 'not even socialist'?

I dismiss them because despite being as small and irrelevant as the rest of the left they like to arrogantly bang on about how they are the future, oh and then there's the small matter of their role in local government.

The Socialist Party have a bigger influence within the working class than the IWCA yet for some reason a lot of pseudo anarchos dismiss them as irrelevant or attack their electoralism and jockeying for position within the Union leadership. However when it comes to the IWCA's electoralism and sub social democratic politics we are told to accept it as a price for being relevant.

 

[Spion]

So your starting point is to dig up the rotting corpse of social democracy and try to fuck it back to life with your limp dick?

Fantastic! This thread is becoming comedy gold.

What do you suggest then, comrade Revol?

 

[butchersapron]

I agree. I think Butch just wants the pure ones. Utopian rubbish or a way to end up following all sorts of dodgy crap.

What's left of the left exists. You engage, ignore, work with or otherwise as appropriate, and maintain a principled stance based on your political programme/concrete aims throughout. Looking for some silver bullet solution to sidestep a difficult overall situation and some poeple you don't agree with on the left if just such a lot of wanking around carried out by the clueless, because they're clueless

I want the impure ones.

Basing a strategy on some nostalgia of a never living left is not helpful. Weird how you can manage to ignore, work with or otherwise as appropriate as principled stance yet you imagine others can't.

 

[Carousel]

I agree with Butchers. If they're the ones who're interested, then you've reproduced the problem.

 

[revol68]

Fantastic! This thread is becoming comedy gold.

What do you suggest then, comrade Revol?

I'd suggest we start with actual struggle where it pops up and that whilst supporting these struggles we atleast be honest about our revolutionary politics and analysis instead of dishonestly pimping empty demands about 'jobs for all'.
That means supporting workers on strike for higher wages, workers on strike against redundancies or workers occupying their workplaces for better redundancy packages, it might also mean supporting any future struggles of those on benefits. That is struggles around actual needs of working class people to maintain or raise their standard of living from where they are rather than making absurd demands about 'full employment' and other things that no national government or even supranational organisation is in a position to meet even if they wanted to.

 

[butchersapron]

What does that mean though, especially in the context of this kind of strategy document? I mean, right now on u75 here we're benefiting from old left networks just to be saying this to each other.

It means doing oxford style work, us talking to each other on here is meaningless beyond some some particular people taking advantge of something. We can benefit all we like!

 

[Carousel]

They didn't procude to meet their own needs. They didn't own them cars at the end of the line.

True enough again. What I meant was the line was actually there. What they gonna do today Butch, sell each other lottery scratchies?

 

[Spion]

Weird how you can manage to ignore, work with or otherwise as appropriate as principled stance yet you imagine others can't.

You said, you chump

no need to . . . even relate to any existing formal left groups.

Sadly, whatever campaign you're involved in, you're going to find them, so you work with them where you can, and argue against them where necessary.

 

[Carousel]

Campaigns. Pah. Victim machines.
http://www.campaignstrategy.org/

 

[butchersapron]

You said, you chump



Sadly, whatever campaign you're involved in, you're going to find them, so you work with them where you can, and argue against them where necessary.

Relate meaning aim at as immediate or direct priority. Or even tell them.

 

[Spion]

I'd suggest we start with actual struggle where it pops up and that whilst supporting these struggles we atleast be honest about our revolutionary politics and analysis instead of dishonestly pimping empty demands about 'jobs for all'.
That means supporting workers on strike for higher wages, workers on strike against redundancies or workers occupying their workplaces for better redundancy packages, it might also mean supporting any future struggles of those on benefits. That is struggles around actual needs of working class people to maintain or raise their standard of living from where they are rather than making absurd demands about 'full employment' and other things that no national government or even supranational organisation is in a position to meet even if they wanted to.

I started reading and I thought, 'Hey this I can agree with and Revol clearly has a big stiff hard on', but I read on to the bit where you base your entire approach on what some imaginary 'national government or even supranational organisation' can provide and I realised your dick was sad and limp and actually about 2 inches long and that you were slapping the rotting corpse of liberalism about the face.

That aside, the resources exist to provide 'jobs for all'. The current social system doesn't allow for it to happen because of its class nature. And I don't see how you get from A to B unless you clearly state your destination

 

[butchersapron]

True enough again. What I meant was the line was actually there. What they gonna do today Butch, sell each other lottery scratchies?

Plenty of existing life-sustaining stuff to do.

 

[revol68]

I started reading and I thought, 'Hey this I can agree with and Revol clearly has a big stiff hard on', but I read on to the bit where you base your entire approach on what some imaginary 'national government or even supranational organisation' can provide and I realised your dick was sad and limp and actually about 2 inches long and that you were slapping the rotting corpse of liberalism about the face.

That aside, the resources exist to provide 'jobs for all'. The current social system doesn't allow for it to happen because of its class nature. And I don't see how you get from A to B unless you clearly state your destination

My point about national governments and the like wasn't "oh we should be realistic in our demands" or some other liberal shit, my point was that if we were get to the stage of being able to impose such demands on states and capitalism it would be depressing if our aims remained something as pathetic as full employment, rather I'd hope we'd be explicit in our demands of abolishing wage labour.

Your last point shows just how confused you are, yes the current social system (capitalism) can't allow full employment for too long because because of it's class nature and like you say we should be clear and honest in saying that we are opposed to it as a totality, not simply this or that facet, however in our aim for a classless society, we make the demand for full employment and jobs for all a nonsense, unless ofcourse you invisage a class less society with employers and jobs.

 

[Spion]

My point about national governments and the like wasn't "oh we should be realistic in our demands" or some other liberal shit, my point was that if we were get to the stage of being able to impose such demands on states and capitalism it would be depressing if our aims remained something as pathetic as full employment, rather I'd hope we'd be explicit in our demands of abolishing wage labour.

Your last point shows just how confused you are, yes the current social system (capitalism) can't allow full employment for too long because because of it's class nature and like you say we should be clear and honest in saying that we are opposed to it as a totality, not simply this or that facet, however in our aim for a classless society, we make the demand for full employment and jobs for all a nonsense, unless ofcourse you invisage a class less society with employers and jobs.

No, I don't. I envisage the work that needs doing for the good of society, as decided on by mass democracy, being shared out as fairly as possible. And the starting point now for that is to protect jobs and to create jobs for tasks the w/c etc consider necessary, and under workers and community control