Time for Labour and S.P (Joe Higgins) to unite?

[Mr.De-Regulation]

specifically -

- everyone will have a job with a proper wage
- everyone will have a home
- everyone will have enough food to eat, be warm enough in winter, etc.
- everyone will have a health service without profit and without waiting lists
- everyone will be able to avail of a decent education service, with a low pupil-teacher ratio and proper services for students with learning difficulties.
- the boom slump cycle of capitalism will be eliminated and replace by progressive economic growth based on a planned economy.
- companies will be run on a democratic basis with managers, supervisors etc being elected from the workforce
- eliminating a substantial element of the basis for crime, crime will be significantly reduced
- there will be a similar reduction in anti-social behaviour as communities are provided with proper services.
- the fear of not knowing whether a job, or enough to pay bills etc. will be eliminated.

But you dont explain how you are going to do this. As you already know, the "boom slump cycle" comes from our already democratically planned economy. There isnt boom and bust cycles is capitalism.

We are not a cult.

You want to us to give up all our property to you, so can do something with, and you want us to believe you are doing something good with it, based on your strange beliefs.

No doesnt sound like a cult at all!!!

[cactusflower]

And in the next six months - depending on what FF and the GP do - could be greater again - but this does not pose the question of working class power on the agenda.

I disagree - you are clearly overestimating the class consciousness of working class people. The vast majority of people consciously voting for socialist measures would have voted for Joe Higgins in the Euros and we wouldn't even be stupid enough to claim that all 50,000 votes were votes for socialist measures. That is even more applicable on the ground - in the locals it was the record of the Socialist Party and its individual councillors that generated the vote - rather than a widespread vote for socialist measures. This is even more the case with People Before Profit - who consciously downplayed any socialist content in their programme. People voted for the FG and the LP because they wanted to vote against FF and the GP. Despite the growth in support for the LP it is still significantly below where it was in 1992.


First of all I do not see the point in stopping the LP in particular going into a coalition governemnt. The fact that they ahven't imploded like New Labour in Britain has more to do with the fact that they are in opposition to a seriously hated government than any difference in policy to Brown.

And if it was productive - maybe you could suggest how a party who sole motive for existance is to get mercs and perks - could be stopped.

cactus - you seem to be full of the excitement and exhuberance and attitude that exists within the SWP and through them PBP. This is an unrealistic assessment of where the working class movement is at - and an unrealistic assessment of where the LP is at - leading to unrealistic suggestions about left alliances led by the LP and about the potential for a breakthrough by the left.

There may have been some prosepct for what you outline in the mid-1980's - but the mid-1980's are long gone - the LP has undergone a compelte transformation to an openly pro- neo-liberal party - and working class consciousness is significantly weaker than it was 20-25 years ago.

Just a few things:

firstly, I think you are underestimating the nature of this economic crisis. It has been being staved off since the 70s and the head of steam built up is enormous. Every serious economist acknowledges that it is bigger than anything than the Crash and Great Depression of the 1930s. The implications for peoples lives are enormous. One thing that clearly needs to be done is learn from the lessons of that period and why the left was unable to prevent the rise of fascism and World War. The situation is far more advanced than in the 1980s. Our inconvenient state of unreadiness can't alter that.

Society doesn't restrict itself to gentle evolutionary change. There are times in which there is a leap in a few weeks, days or even hours. Have you followed events in Iceland in the last year ? A wealthy, heavily middle class society went from the SUV and capuchino life to breaking into the Parliament building and forcing out the government, and then electing its first left wing coalition, in a period of a few weeks. The level of conciousness that people have is an important factor, but it doesn't determine the course of events when the economic driving forces are in full swing. People are driven by events to spontaneous action. Its the business of the Party to be ready and to understand the driving forces, and how to provide leadership with realistic tactics for achieving social change.

We don't know how things are going to be develop in any detailed way, but we do know for certain that there is going to be intense conflict in the next year over who is going to pay for the billions of euros of Fianna Fail -led financial gluttony and failed policies, and for the impacts of the world economic crisis.

Your view that the swing to the left in the recent elections is accounted for by the good constituency work of individuals is contrary to even right wing analysis. By your argument tbh Fianna Fail would have won. They are incomparable in the pot hole game. People could have voted for FG. FG's vote fell from 2002.

In relation to what should be done in relation to the Labour Party, I quoted from "Left Wing Communism" before: you said it was out of date, but you didn't say why the arguements and principles in the quote below don't apply today.

At present, British Communists very often find it hard even to approach the masses, and even to get a hearing from them. If I come out as a Communist and call upon them to vote for Henderson and against Lloyd George, they will certainly give me a hearing. And I shall be able to explain in a popular manner, not only why the Soviets are better than a parliament and why the dictatorship of the proletariat is better than the dictatorship of Churchill (disguised with the signboard of bourgeois "democracy"), but also that, with my vote, I want to support Henderson in the same way as the rope supports a hanged man—that the impending establishment of a government of the Hendersons will prove that I am right, will bring the masses over to my side, and will hasten the political death of the Hendersons and the Snowdens just as was the case with their kindred spirits in Russia and Germany.

We are agreed that the Labour Party doesn't have any solutions for the economic crisis and will sell out. However, it was the Labour Party that voted against the Bank Guarantee (not Sinn Fein, please note) and the Labour Party still includes many Trade Union members. Imo its the Socialist Party that is impatient, in not being prepared to fully work through and expose the nature of the Labour Party.

I have no knowledge of what the SWP is saying about any of this. I've seen them jump from one front to another over a few years without appearing to build anything of substance. If you wanted to explain and debate their politics on another thread, that would be useful. It think that some of their members appear to be impressive, honest people, as do Socialist Party members.





"Left-Wing" Communism in Great Britian