"Socialism is not bread alone" - Any socialists in the house? Is there any future on England's dreaming?

Screw it! - IN England's dreaming...

I'm a communist, so no.

I suppose I'm a centre-leftist/pragmatist. If the state can provide something for the people, great. If businesses can provide something else, then great also. I do think the UK has swung way too much to the right in the last 30 years, sure. Look at how much privatisation has fucked up the railways, but nobody in mainstream politics will admit this because they're terrified of looking unfashionably socialist.

I still call myself (broadly) a libertarian socialist (maybe w/ distributist tendencies?). But since I'm not prone to fantasies of the coming Revolution, I find that the value of radical ideologies is primarily on a personal (or local) level - how you lead your life, making change where you can - rather than devoting life to grand ideological conflict.

I feel that the Declaration of Labour Policy is missing a crucial "last capitalist hung with the guts of the last bureaucrat" element.

Big Business did not believe in Britain - it believed only in profit. So money went into cinemas, not coal; into luxury flats, not looms for Lancashire; into land speculation, not into agriculture.

plus ca change

lol socialism

Yeah, capitalism's working out just fine.

This is stretching the point a bit too far. Of course businesses are going to value profits over social welfare, but saying there's no money to be made out of the demand for everyday stuff like food and energy is bollox.

xxpost

I find that the value of radical ideologies is primarily on a personal (or local) level - how you lead your life, making change where you can

there's a huge difference between "personal" and "local" though -- it's impossible to be a socialist in isolation, alone, strictly on a personal level

Despite my enormous anarcho-punk collection, I'm more of a socialist than an anarcho-syndicalist/communist. I become more apathetic/fatalist year by year though.

there's a huge difference between "personal" and "local" though -- it's impossible to be a socialist in isolation, alone, strictly on a personal level

But I think that if you view socialism as a set of moral and philosophical implications, rather than simple policy declarations, it is very much a personal 'way to live.'

I kind of have a hard time following what that means, though I've heard it before. Do you just mean things like buying co-op/fair trade, taking the bus rather than driving, etc?

Kind of (though I've driven about 2000 miles in the last two weeks ;_;). But it's also that I see my socialism (or opposition to capitalism, which might be closer to the right language) as a moral issue, rather than particular ideological aims. Catholic Worker-ism without the God stuff.

I think there's a lot of good to be found in Robert Wolff's arguments about moral autonomy here: http://www.ditext.com/wolff/anarchy.html

i'm beginning to think that the source of a lot of my frustration these days is that i'm an anarchist in a sort of denial that social and economic factors seem to justify

Big Business did not believe in Britain - it believed only in profit. So money went into cinemas, not coal

um waht. unless they want autarky, this is some bullshit!

(also as any fule kno money didn't much go into cinemas, hence recurrent credit crises in the industry, on the production side anyway.)

if you view socialism as a set of moral and philosophical implications, rather than simple policy declarations, it is very much a personal 'way to live.'

ok milo, i'm just saying that i disagree with this - in the same way that i think it's impossible to be a "christian" if one doesn't go to church or do anything about it other than read the bible and think good thoughts. part of the "moral and philosophical" implication of socialism - to my mind - is that it's a call to action.

It's impossible to be anything in isolation, alone.

ok that's true in a strict sense - no man is an island - we are all implicated in global exploitation all the time

however it's very easy to consume and work and never connect with anyone else about one's particular role in society - very easy to never discuss or produce any sort of collective consciousness of how one's cohort perpetuates (or doesn't) the economic system we all live under; socialism doesn't exist without this consciousness and collective action based on this consciousness (imo)

And who wouldn't want it! It's 100% natural!

http://www.gjwtitmussshop.co.uk/acatalog/autarky.jpg

And I think they were talking about building cinemas not the making films industry. But I get your point. While not agreeing with it. Now that I've looked up the word 'autarky'.

yeah... the money for building cinemas partly came... from... this new market... for watching films!! it's not like "big business" woke up one day and said i know let's IMPOSE CINEMA ON THE WORKERS and FOOL THEM WITH IMPORTED FILMS. in fact it took until the late 1920s for big business to really get into the cinema, on both sides of the atlantic.

Erm, I don't think that was the point they were trying to make. Weren't they saying that big business knew it could make more money from building cinemas than from coal and that that in the long run would be bad because people need cheaper fuel or something?

in the same way that i think it's impossible to be a "christian" if one doesn't go to church or do anything about it other than read the bible and think good thoughts.

part of the "moral and philosophical" implication of socialism - to my mind - is that it's a call to action.

So what constitutes this 'call to action' - joining socialist parties?

had a great experience today stumbling at random across a Socialist Party office, going in with my friend and having an amazing conversation with a guy in there whose answer to our every question was impressive and who seemed genuinely keyed-in and most importantly NOT embittered

come home and my mum says 'they've photographed you. they'll be tapping our calls. you've let us all down' before saying how she's met loads of really hypocritical socialists and how I used to be so apolitical but now I'm trying to label myself and how I'd better not try and persuade her of anything (like I was going to!)

it's kinda disheartening, y'know

can understand perfectly why self-defining socialists might be embittered tbh

no I said he was NOT embittered, he was very positive and said with glee 'the capitalists are doing half our work for us'

btw dear concerned citizens of ILX I did not say 'fuck you' to my mum

"how I'd better not try and persuade her of anything"

I love this part.

xxp my point was that if you want to interact with socialists, then worrying about embitteredness should not be at the top of your list of concerns. Its the wide-eyed ones you always have to watch out for, they're more likely to be trying to sell you a copy of Socialist Worker.

"he was very positive and said with glee 'the capitalists are doing half our work for us'"

this has been a standard line from the "don't give money to beggars, it postpones the revolution" branch of the left for years. I suppose someday someone will work out what the other half of the job is.

that's awfully...cynical of you

no, cynical is welcoming misery for large numbers of people in the hope that it will advance your political agenda. i'm just pessimistic.

yeah I wouldn't be sure this is what the dude I spoke today believes in? in fact I'd say he really didn't?

well ok, but you said he was saying with "glee" that the capitalists were doing his work for him, and last time i checked they'd been putting people out of work and repossessing their homes. it's a well-worn line of argument that every setback for the poor brings revolution and a workers' paradise closer, and never mind that putting your political strategy at odds with the immediate interests of your political constituency is a recipe for failure. it's insensitive at the very least.

sorry to be a downer, but the guy sounds like a familiar type. happy to be persuaded otherwise.

nono, he meant it in that capitalism is bringing its own house down, not that it was turning the disenchanted towards his party! 'glee' is perhaps a bad way of putting it - he had a twinkle in his eye for sure. but yeah he was in no way saying that poverty is necessary - in fact he was saying that to initiate change you need cash, and indeed donations from members who can afford to donate. obviously it's an enormous simplification. people can witness the obvious flaws in the current system without becoming destitute. in fact his party's reach-out tactics depend on internet participation and live events so to place everyone in abject poverty and deny them the means to access information or travel would be entirely counterintuitive.

i didn't explain myself well upthread but he really, really didn't give off the vibe that this was happening out of desperation. it was a throwaway line and i think it's being done out of genuine ideological zeal and optimism, and he expects it to happen through enlightenment and curiosity rather than homelessness and oppression (although it is clearly a compelling alternative to the way the world is now)

he was far more interested in discussing proposed infrastructure and organisation, and also the idea of a 'gift economy' and a technological industry sector - didn't for a second say that people need to be kept in obeisance - quite the opposite - he's much closer (as is his party) to the American Zeitgeist movement than any fusty trad-English group - internet being a predominant outlet, very informal and friendly, straight-talking, hates communists but thinks anarcho-syndicalists won't change society as a whole, believes in the destruction of prejudice and the better times ahead. basically the kinda chap i ought to be hobnobbing with.

also not a cult. this was an actual party headquarters.

like, as far as he's concerned there's enough iniquity in the world for right-minded people to want a different way of living, outside the restrictive right-left democratic battlefield, without them being unrewarded beggars - although i'd be interested to know which branch of the left DOES think that

not that this is really left-wing or any wing at all - it's dependent on a system with positions of responsibility but no outright leadership

yeah mock me - i'm young and enthusiastic, and this is vvv interesting

look, ok this is the party I visited: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Party_of_Great_Britain

and this is the (MUCH bigger) one you're probably weary of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Party_(England_and_Wales)

but yeah today I rolled with the Small Party of Good Boys :D

can we just have a devoted 'l0u1s jagg3r joins trot sect' thread?

well u really seem to have struck gold here loujag i look forward to it continuing in as successful a manner for many years.

seamus coleman looks like the real answer to lyfe's tough questions, tbh

like, as far as he's concerned there's enough iniquity in the world for right-minded people to want a different way of living, outside the restrictive right-left democratic battlefield, without them being unrewarded beggars - although i'd be interested to know which branch of the left DOES think that

not that this is really left-wing or any wing at all - it's dependent on a system with positions of responsibility but no outright leadership

you sound addled, or will to them. 'not that this is really left-wing'... dude. get a freakin' grip.

idk if i were young and ambitious and had nothing to do and had the right background -- as you do, lj -- i'd get in on the labour party.

the labour party has been receding REALLY damn fast from what I want it to be (lol manifesto upthread)

There is, to be sure, a connection with the autonomy of the individual. By virtue of the
displacement into the domain of the aesthetic, however, the concept of autonomy, which is essentially
moral, is completely changed, and all such distinctions are dissolved. In every romantic, we can find
examples of anarchistic self-confidence as well as an excessive need for sociability. He is just as easily
moved by altruistic feelings, by pity and sympathy, as by presumptuous snobbery.

But all this has nothing to do with either autonomy or heteronomy, and it moves entirely within the
sphere of romantic subjectivity. An emotion that does not transcend the limits of the subjective cannot
be the foundation of a community. The intoxication of sociability is not a basis of a lasting association
Irony and intrigue are not points of social crystallization; and no societal order can be established on the
basis of the need, not to be alone, but rather to be suspended in the dynamic of an animated
conversation....

..........Viewed romantically, injustice is only a dissonance that is aesthetically resolved "in a sacred
music, an endless feeling of the higher life." This is not spoken in a metaphorical sense,
but rather in the only category that is accessible to the experience of the romantic. That is why
there is neither a romantic law nor a romantic ethics, just as it would be confused to speak of a lyrical o
a musical ethics. There is a political romanticism in the same sense that there is a political lyric.

that's cribbed from carl schmitt's 'political romanticism', his attempted diagnosis of a political-affective disposition among ppl he didn't like

he was a terrible person but i think he might have been onto something

most highbrow zing ever :D

also you and I need to talk abt political shiz IRL

not that I'd have anything to teach you :(

just that as one of ilx's most prolific posters, you are seldom seen on the politics threads (i think?)

and judging by yr posts on the nij thread, you have a great reservoir of feeling for injustice etc, maybe a nascent enrapturement w/ ~politics~ itself, preceding any variety thereof, tho obviously trot splinter groups have always done a roaring trade among entrylevs

i dunno enough about politics itself, but i suspect it's deathly as hell, whether the clegg-eichmann adjudants, or the more sepulchral osborne-mugabe types

god i sound pretty fucking sure of myself for someone with none of the answers

wd be up for a chairman mao ilx reading group tho

oh, socialists. they have an answer for everything.

unlike them however, we have the RIGHT answers for everything.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v165/noodle_vague/killer-robot.jpg

we are curious: how is that robot holding the gun? are those tubes vacuum-powered?

xpost to HOOS: right... I'm just saying, the idea of "rejecting by consensus the capitalist ethos", while nice and certainly not implausible, is basically an empty gesture outside the context of a democratic system that specifically attaches value to consensus, which system as it presently exists is so thoroughly intertwined with/compromised by capitalism that I can't really imagine how it would retain its legitimacy and control during the period where such a consensus is emerging -- and if democracy has collapsed by the time everyone finally agrees that capitalism sux, then you're sort of back to square 1

ok nakhchivan maybe my dilettantish charms will invigorate the british politics thread and spur it to yet greater heights of fulminating discontent

bernard snowy I think localised consensus would have to surrogate for a wider global socialism in the early stages, I'm talking people literally together in a barn wondering what the fuck the world is coming to, raising their hands to vote

we could be doing with a bitter LibDem, although the excuse-making LibDem would be even more fun.

I am not entirely opposed to Zizek / Badiou / etc in their particular revolutionary thoughts, besides the fact that they're at heart disgusting fascists, which I'm not very down with. Therefore I resort to the 'we're fucked' line of thinking.

t's basically the idea that capitalism allowed to run wild will tear itself apart and as such that's what 'we' communists/socialists should do

that is, do nothing, tho capitalism will probably right itself for the time being, as acephalic world-devouring colossi are wont to do

srsly tho i've read the blogs on acclrtnsm, and it's a huge improvement on most leftism cuz it's ~avowedly~ fanciful and quietistic

hahaha the group whose HQ I stormed today subscribe to something called 'impossibilism' which is kinda awesomely apt

ok, lol

de leon!! xp

i did not know people still fucked w/dude

xposts to nakh ya that sounds about right. I don't know how much credit we can give to something for being 'interesting' when it's also utterly and dangerously wrong, but hey. I'm pretty lazy, I'm all for things that don't involve any effort.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossibilism

cornerstone of the 100-strong buncha tricksy british dudes whose internationalist movements appeal so

sometimes in moments of difficulty, when the true flame of the dialectic offers no hope, i turn to the sky and ask, 'what would pol pot do?'

so anyway why are you guys still awake.

Socialist Party of Great Britain
Leader none
Founded 1904
Headquarters Clapham, London
Ideology Impossibilism

See also

Possibilism

irl lol

now you see why I like it so much xp also lolling

Socialist Party of Great Britain
Leader noneLJ
Founded 1904
Headquarters Clapham, London
Ideology Impossibilism

even a "localized consensus" against capitalism is only really progressive if it's also a consensus around some concrete positive program or organization... seems less important to me that everyone be on the same page about who the enemy is and why shit is so fucked than that they agree on WHAT IS TO BE DONE, i.e. finding new egalitarian methods to organize a relatively open collective existence outside of the capitalist system

btw the SPGB has made a short film! and here it is (first US stream works): http://socialist-tv.com/

will watch it tomorrow and report back

nakhchivan the idea of a leader is ttly anathema to this crowd!! although maybe they just haven't met the *right* leader yet

that's what i'm saying

like I would gladly let some hippie burnout or obama voter eat some of my vegetables and make me shoes out of hemp -- I just wouldn't trust them with the keys to my tank

r u suggestin that LJ = Stalin 4 the Skins era?

(to nakhchivan)

WHAT IS TO BE DONE, i.e. finding new egalitarian methods to organize a relatively open collective existence outside of the capitalist system

this is pretty much 95% of what this guy discussed - each infrastructural and governing system would be run differently by a committee of field experts I think - gift economy, surplusses offered to other regions, etc etc

military to be reduced and converted to a troubleshooting natural disaster cracksquad

btw <3 for your edited version but if you'd been rly slick it'd have been amended to Charlton, London

srsly how about we get this googleproofed and watch lj's entryist ascendancy within the moribund clapham (pronounced clayfum) socialist scene

careful now I might fail their prohibitive entrance exam

it is unproductive and unrealistic to expect critical thinking skills from prospective recruits. propaganda and coercion are preferable. it is not the quality of recruits, but the quantity that matters.

http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs30/f/2009/251/2/6/MUSE___Resistance_by_DigiQ8.jpg

i really want a "das socialist!" animated gif, but the internet seems to have not produced one yet. sad.

lol nrq

how is the revolution going to manage while you're swanning about in new zealand?

Wait your mum thinks that "they" are going to bother tapping your phone for walking into a SWP office? If that were the case they'd be doing that for half the students in Britain at one point or another.

I once gave directions to a communist and now the police keep following me every night, last time I ever try to be social minded.

NZ is actually more likely to function as a far-left-libertarian breeding-ground than here - for a start, the thriving Maori culture is already highly anti-authoritarian and communal.

That video I linked upthread is awesome btw. Guy's such a superb asshole :D

r u suggestin that LJ = Stalin 4 the Skins era?

― Antoine Bugleboy (Merdeyeux), Saturday, 16 October 2010 03:52 (2 weeks ago)

http://i.imgur.com/wgF0A.jpg

and this is how Cambridge educated ilx poster got recruited by MI6?

erm I forgot to post the link I was reviving the thread for.

http://www.mangalmedia.net/english//is-genocide-denial-anti-imperialist-now-how-tankies-are-taking-over-leftbook-and-the-london-student-scene

Later we all go to The Lexington, there’s a pub quiz where the team with the funniest name wins a bag of Doritos. When the names are handed in, the man with the microphone is astounded that 6 out of 10 are called Crimea River. It’s weird and almost as disappointing as the Doritos being fucking Cool Original.

the least interesting part to quote

drag him neech

what did you think of the article, Mark? Have you encountered many tankies in London?
I've never met one irl and have only seen some due to a certain non-ilxor FB friends wall where he argues with them (you know who I mean)

haven't read it yet, the FB extract didn't look very convincing

Maybe I picked the least interesting part too ;)

Also btw I had no idea LJ used to/still is? a trot

not sure he's into reds, but ruthless amoral pols are definitely his thing:p

Has anyone told him?

No need. He knows.

LJ do you still have the trots?