SWP and SP debate

[The39thStep]

Couldn't possibly see what would be in it for the SP to merge with the SWP unless they wanted a good year of internal squabbling and then a split.

 

[adc069975]

que pasa hombre? - I have never posted on any WSM forum that I know of...

uhh sorry. please remove your quoting of me

 

[Udo Erasmus]

Having watched the debate, I thought it was good for SP and SWP to discuss in a fraternal manner, but unfortunately the discussion was a little superficial not really getting into the nitty-gritty of the two organisations different styles, philosophies and interpretations of the trotskyist tradition.

I personally feel more affinity with the SWP than the SP, of the two groups, but thought that the SWP took some justifiable hits over the Respect debacle, over Obama, and also accusations of opportunism and lacking a consistent method.

 

[butchersapron]

What are the oBama hits?

 

[Udo Erasmus]

I got a statement from Stop the War Coalition which said that they were delighted over the election of Obama. I personally thought it was inappropriate to be delighted over someone who wants to kill Afghans, maybe invade Iran, fudges the question of pulling troops out of Iraq etc (but maybe I'm ultra-left). I would have preferred a formulation that acknowledged the positives that electors had hammered the Republicans and voted for change (with a massive grassroots swell for that), but didn't pander to any illusions that Obama will represent a fundamental rupture with US policy. But maybe, I'm ultraleft, and STWC is a coalition

From memory:
Hannah Sell criticises the SWP involvement in the STWC statement saying it was a bit contradictory to welcome Obama and then in the same breath mention that he wants to escalate in Afghanistan, she says this is the SWP - emotional and impressionistic responses rather than cool-headed look at the reality and socialist analysis.

Martin Smith replies that he and Hannah agree on fundamentals over Obama, but if McCain had won everyone would have been depressed, millions of Americans voted for change and we should recognise that, first black president, doesn't mean that we have any illusions in obama etc.

 

[butchersapron]

Thank you udo.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

This was the statement in question. where I had minor reservations was the "delighted" and implication that Obama was anti-war and was going to end the occupation of Iraq. My opinion is that he will repackage the occupation rather than end it. I agree with Anthony Arnove's take on Obama on Iraq Admittedly the statement's call for Obama to be held to his commitment does imply that he may not, and it does call for the US Anti-War movement to keep up the pressure.

Obama wins US Presidency

The Stop the War Coalition is delighted that Barack Obama has won the US Presidential elections. His election is a result of the rejection of war and racism on the part of millions of Americans. Obama would not have won the Democratic nomination, never mind the Presidency, without his forthright opposition to the Iraq war and his commitment to withdraw US troops.

He must now be held to that commitment, with a full and complete end of the disastrous occupation. The British government should work with him urgently to that end.

However, other dangers remain.The anti-war movement must remain mobilised since Obama is in favour of strengthening the NATO presence in the failing occupation of Afghanistan and has not ruled out the possibility of attacking Iran.

The Bush doctrine of endless wars has been delivered a blow, but the tendency of the US elite to seek global domination will not be easily reversed. Those who voted for Obama in the US must keep the pressure up against their warmongers and so must we in this country.

 

[butchersapron]

Wow, that first paragraph is bonkers.

 

[articul8]

going back to an earlier point

If I ask what do you mean by "socialism" you would presumably come back with something about democratic ownership, control and planning of the economy. In terms of transitional demands you might talk about nationalising the top 150 companies or whatever. But what is unclear is how a demand for nationalisation under a workers' state ever gets beyond a highly top-down, bureaucratic model of operating. So by "empty cipher" I mean that slogans like "a socialist world is possible" simply cover over a major gap where some form of real strategy should be. People just don't buy the idea that old-style command economies can evolve into some viable post-market economy. Maybe there are other forms of economic ownership or democratic practice under capitalism that could lead to "socialism", but that case has to be made.

Just found this which certainly strikes a chord with me (sorry about the formatting - was like that in original)

The use of the Transitional Program by Trotskyist organisations has led to a total failure. The transitional program is not only false but it offers no practical indication, no help to militants who are not today in a pre-revolutionary situation and are dealing with a reformist working class.
...
One of the main aspects of this bankruptcy is the incapacity to understand the nature and evolution of capitalism—and the basic differences between the capitalist mode of production and socialism. This misunderstanding has certainly been made possible by the weaknesses of the Third International which was itself largely influenced by the dominating conceptions of the Second International : Kautskyism, which conceives socialism only as a rationalization, planning and statification of capitalism. This conception is clearly explained in « The Socialist Programm » of Kautsky which is still today a central book in the theoretical training of LO's militants. In « The road to power » where Kautsky still defends the principle of a revolution (without posing concretely the problem of the armed insurrection and destruction of the State), the revolution appears only as the final crowning of a natural movement of capitalist concentration : one has only to eliminate the owners and share-holders of the main trusts which have become social « parasites », but the economic structure will stay untouched : the division of labour, hierarchy, etc.

[This conception can also be found in numerous texts of Lenin and has anyway never been seriously criticized by Trotskyists. One can say that the Third International did not the time to make a complete balance sheet of the distorsions which the Second International caused to Marxism. But this can't be said about the various Fourth Internationals who have had 80 years to think about it !]

These false social-democrat conceptions of capitalism and socialism have been maintained by the various Fourth Internationals and Trotskyist groups. Trotsky's analysis of Russia which confuses statification of capital with a transitional society towards capitalism has played an important role in the perpetuation of this mystification. Social-democratic conceptions of socialism largely influence Trotskyism.

One has to underline also that Trotsky totally underestimated the possibilities of evolution for capitalism between the two world wars (because he considered that the productive forces had ceased to grow and that capitalism had entered a period of decadence and terminal decay). He was unable to recognize in Italian fascism, German Nazism, Russian Stalinism and the American New Deal the signs of a growing role of the state, a role which would appear clearly during and after the Second World War.

And one had to wait until the beginning of the 1960s to see most Trotskyist groups recognize that capitalism was still developing its productive forces.

One can find Social Democratic conceptions of socialism in all the writings of Ernest Mandel, the only Trotskyist theoretician who tried to analyze the evolution of capitalism and its modern tendencies—and his positions have not been criticized by the other tendencies of the international Trotskyist movement, at least on this point. These positions explain why Trotskyist groups always want more nationalizations than the reformists or the Stalinists : for them, the nationalization of the key sectors of the economy leads to the automatic liquidation of capitalism.

from http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner/roundtable.html the whole thing is worth reading in relation to an analysis of the current British Trotskyist movement in all its guises.