The Capitalist Crisis and How to Beat It Dave Packer and Fred Leplat
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How the SWP's Bureaucratic Factionalism Is Wrecking Respect
How the SWP's bureaucratic factionalism is wrecking Respect https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1330 Britain How the SWP's bureaucratic factionalism is wrecking Respect - IV Online magazine - 2007 - IV393 - October 2007 - Publication date: Wednesday 31 October 2007 Copyright © International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine - All rights reserved Copyright © International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine Page 1/4 How the SWP's bureaucratic factionalism is wrecking Respect No one who supports left unity could be anything other than deeply disheartened by the turn of events inside Respect, which has created a crisis that threatens the future of the organisation. The current crisis is unnecessary and the product of the political line and methods of organisation of the Socialist Workers Party. [https://internationalviewpoint.org/IMG/jpg/respect23-2.jpg] Happier days - Respect founding conference The real meaning of the crisis, its roots and underlying dynamics are however being obscured by the SWP's propaganda offensive, an attempt to whip its own members into line and throw up a smokescreen to fool the left in Britain and internationally. How so? The crisis was started by a letter from Respect MP George Galloway to members of the National Council on August 23, a time it should be remembered that a general election seemed a short-term possibility. In his letter Galloway drew attention to organisational weaknesses of Respect, the decline of its membership and political life in general, but also to the (not unrelated) lack of accountability of the National Officers, including the Respect national Secretary John Rees. These criticisms reflected those that had been made for several years by supporters of Socialist Resistance. -
Whatever Happened to Tory Scotland? by Blog Admin February 22, 2013
blo gs.lse.ac.uk http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2013/02/22/book-review-whatever-happened-to-tory-scotland/ Book Review: Whatever Happened To Tory Scotland? by Blog Admin February 22, 2013 To those of a younger generation, it may be a surprise to learn that Scotland was once ‘true- blue’ Tory territory, with widespread support in the first half of the 20th Century. Yet in the second half of that century, as well as the early years of the next, this support dramatically collapsed, with seemingly little likelihood of any revival. Whatever Happened To Tory Scotland? explores this trajectory, unpacking a broad direction of travel through a series of essays from a range of contributors focusing on specific themes. Andrew Crines found much of great interest in the volume, though was surprised by its brevity. Whatever Happened To Tory Scotland? David Torrance. Edinburgh University Press. 2012. Find this book: With just over 50 per cent of the vote and securing 36 of the 72 possible seats up f or grabs in Scotland, the Scottish Conservatives reached their electoral peak of popular support in 1955. It was, arguably, true-blue Tory territory, representing the power of the Conservative Party over Britain at the height of their national popularity. This was a great position to be in, which makes their f all f rom grace to 16.7 per cent and 1 out of 56 possible seats in 2010 seem all the more dramatic. How can this massive determination be accounted f or? What are the causal f actors? And how, if at all, can these be addressed? David Torrance oversees the history of Scottish Conservatism in this collection of essays presented by a range of academics and commentators, each experts in this f ield. -
UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations
UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Unbecoming Silicon Valley: Techno Imaginaries and Materialities in Postsocialist Romania Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0vt9c4bq Author McElroy, Erin Mariel Brownstein Publication Date 2019 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ UNBECOMING SILICON VALLEY: TECHNO IMAGINARIES AND MATERIALITIES IN POSTSOCIALIST ROMANIA A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in FEMINIST STUDIES by Erin Mariel Brownstein McElroy June 2019 The Dissertation of Erin McElroy is approved: ________________________________ Professor Neda Atanasoski, Chair ________________________________ Professor Karen Barad ________________________________ Professor Lisa Rofel ________________________________ Professor Megan Moodie ________________________________ Professor Liviu Chelcea ________________________________ Lori Kletzer Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Erin McElroy 2019 Table of Contents Abstract, iv-v Acknowledgements, vi-xi Introduction: Unbecoming Silicon Valley: Techno Imaginaries and Materialities in Postsocialist Romania, 1-44 Chapter 1: Digital Nomads in Siliconizing Cluj: Material and Allegorical Double Dispossession, 45-90 Chapter 2: Corrupting Techno-normativity in Postsocialist Romania: Queering Code and Computers, 91-127 Chapter 3: The Light Revolution, Blood Gold, and -
Development & Resistance
Development & Resistance to the Empire of Capital John Saul Realizing “developmental socialism” which, as recently as the changes seem equally necessary now – for, as Colin Leys and I 1970s, seemed a prospect worth fighting for has come, to many, have much more recently noted, “the dream of a transformative capi- to seem much less so now. True, the goal still has moral force, this talism in Africa remains just that: a dream.” This is true even if, con- encompassing the judgment that people can resolve economic fronted with an ever more ascendant globalized capitalism, the goal and political tensions and potential contradictions collectively and of a developmental socialism, key to the only genuine “develop- democratically rather than having to build centrally on competi- ment” that is really possible for Africa, seems at least as difficult to tion and the entrepreneurial greed of the few as the ultimate cen- realize as it did when Arrighi and I first wrote. tral keys to the welfare of everybody else. One cannot afford to Of course, the African case may be, globally, the most ex- be naïve, of course. Quite apart from questions of divergent class treme example of capitalist failure. Nonetheless, more generally, interests, it is also true that “human nature,” however much mis- the logic of socialism (but also the extreme difficulty of realizing shaped and distorted it may be within a world of ascendant mar- it) seems clear, at least to those who care to look. For Africa, like ket norms, will, even in the best and most propitious of times, be much of the rest of the underdeveloped world, is now “invited” pulled between the claim of individuality (and family) on the one (in fact, largely forced – by the IMF, World Bank, WTO and the hand and that of humane collectivity on the other. -
1Contents FSC Contents.Qxd
22REVIEWS (Composite)_REVIEWS (Composite).qxd 2/11/2019 11:39 AM Page 123 123 Reviews Latin America Grace Livingstone, Britain and the Dictatorships of Argentina and Chile 19731982, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, 292 pages, ISBN 9783319782911, £16 During the twentieth century, Latin America was the scene of numerous military coups which established oppressive dictatorships notorious for their abuse of democratic and human rights. This book is a detailed study of the policies adopted by Britain towards two of them – in Chile and Argentina. On 11 September 1973, Augusto Pinochet, the head of Chilean armed forces, launched a coup against the democratically elected socialist president, Salvador Allende. He bombed the presidential palace, fired on and arrested thousands of Allende supporters and other leftwingers, and shut down all democratic institutions. In Argentina on 26 March 1976, the widowed third wife of former dictator Juan Peron, Isabella Peron, who had been elected president, was overthrown by the army, which closed down the Congress, banned political parties, dissolved the Supreme Court, and arrested thousands of political activists including former ministers. In the cases of both Chile and Argentina, the British Foreign Office and leading ambassadorial staff – despite theoretical commitments to democracy – recommended recognition of the military juntas established and downplayed reports of human rights infringements. Grace Livingstone attributes this to the class basis of the personnel involved. She states that, in 1950, 83% of Foreign Office recruits attended private schools and the figure was still 68% ten years later. In 1980, 80% of ambassadors and top Foreign Office officials had attended feepaying schools. -
A Critical and Comparative Analysis of Organisational Forms of Selected Marxist Parties, in Theory and in Practice, with Special Reference to the Last Half Century
Rahimi, M. (2009) A critical and comparative analysis of organisational forms of selected Marxist parties, in theory and in practice, with special reference to the last half century. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/688/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] A critical and comparative analysis of organisational forms of selected Marxist parties, in theory and in practice, with special reference to the last half century Mohammad Rahimi, BA, MSc Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD Centre for the Study of Socialist Theory and Movement Faculty of Law, Business and Social Science University of Glasgow September 2008 The diversity of the proletariat during the final two decades of the 20 th century reached a point where traditional socialist and communist parties could not represent all sections of the working class. Moreover, the development of social movements other than the working class after the 1960s further sidelined traditional parties. The anti-capitalist movements in the 1970s and 1980s were looking for new political formations. -
Battle for Workers Rights in Australia by Aggie Mccallum
Socialist Fight Issue No. 5 Winter 2010-11 Price: Concessions: 50p, Waged: £2.00 Only a United Anti-cuts Campaign based on strikes and occupations will defeat the Coalition assault Contents Page 2: Editorial: Only a United Anti-cuts Campaign based on strikes and occupations will defeat the Coalition assault. Page 5: Three days in the life of an Unemployed Workers Centre. Page 6: Ireland on the Rack: Defend the welfare state, de- fend the Republican Prisoners By AJ Byrne. Page 7: After the Irish bailout: The financial wolf pack tar- gets new victims By Nick Beams. Page 8: Ireland: The Creepy Millionaires’ Budget By Michael Taft. Page 9: Jimmy Reid: “It cannae be Lenin — he’s deid” Obitu- ary By Tony Fox. Page 12: The Jerry Hicks Campaign: Good Trot, Bad Trot and Trot in the Middle By Gerry Downing. Page 14: Obama’s America: The Furlough—Intent and Im- pact By Jake Cooper. Page 16: Mumia Abu-Jamal, on Pennsylvania's death row for 29 years By Dave Lindorfff. Page 18: Class Struggle in Zimbabwe by Ady, RIL - FI (Zimbabwe). Page 20: Trotskyist Turn in Nepal? By Rajesh Tyagi (New Wave). Page 20: Comment on the above By Ret Marut. Page 21: Women's Oppression: Two opposing views of the sex industry. Page 24: Letters pages. Page 28: Dubstep rebellion - the British banlieue comes to Millbank By Paul Mason Page 29: The Recession and Theories of Imperialism: It has to be Lenin! By Ret Marut. Page 31: Debating the Thermidor: “Me No Dirty Commie” By Gerry Downing. Page 33: Ark Tribe….Battle for Workers Rights in Australia By Aggie McCallum. -
The Politics of the Militant Tendency
18 August 1982 Marxism Today Witch-hunts are the last thing the Labour Party needs: yet the politics of Militant are a blind alley for the Left. John Callaghan The Politics of the Militant Tendency The recent decision by the Labour Party open debate. If the ideology and political Socialist Fight was replaced by The Militant National Executive Committee to establish practice of the Militant Tendency are char in 1963; but, more fundamentally, from a register of organised groups within the acterised by major shortcomings they will being an integrated group of entrists in ranks of the party is generally acknowledged not be any less significant merely because 1955, the Revolutionary Socialist League to be a move against the Militant Tendency. the Labour Right draws attention to them gradually gave way to the much looser form It is possible that this decision may, by Sep while the Left remains silent. which is today's Militant Tendency. This tember, result in the expulsion of leading consists of a small centralised leadership figures from the group. The Labour Party Origins and nature echelon around Ted Grant, who control and has on many previous occasions taken such of the Militant Tendency1 own The Militant, supported by the bulk of repressive action against dissident — espe The Militant Tendency originated with a the Labour Party Young Socialist organ- cially Marxist — factions within the party tiny group of Trotskyists led by Ted Grant. istion and those who are prepared to sell the and its youth section. But the extraordinary From the mid-50s this group — known as newspaper in the parent organisation. -
Genesis of Pabloism
The Road from the SWP to Trotskyism . .. page 2 The Faces of Economism ... page 24 NUMBER 21 FALL 1972 25 CENTS I Tile SWP tint! tile Fourtll Interntltiontl/, 1946-54: Genesis of Pabloism The American Socialist Workers Party and the European Military Policy" which called for military training under, Pabloists travelled at different rates along different paths to trade union control, implicitly posing the utopian idea that revisionism, to converge in uneasy alliance in the early 1960's U.S. workers could fight German fascism without the in an unprincipled "reunification," which has now broken existence of a workers state in the U.S., through "control down as the American SWP has completed the transition ling" U.S. imperialism's army. British Trotskyist Ted Grant from Pabloist centrism to outright reformism. The "United went even further, in one speech referring to British Secretariat" which issued out of the 1963 "reunification" imperialism's armed forces as "our Eighth Army." The teeters on the edge of an open split; the "anti-revisionist" German IKD returned to outright Menshevism with the "International Committee" fractured last year. The collapse the'ory that fascism had brought about the need for "an of the various competing pretenders to the mantle of the intermediate stage fundamentally equivalent to a democratic Fourth International provides a crucial opportunity for the revolution." ("Three Theses;' 19 October 1941) reemergence of an authentic Trotskyist international tenden The French Trotskyist movement, fragmented during the cy. Key to the task of reconstructing the Fourth Internation course of the war, was the best example of the contradiction. -
Week School on Political Issues from the History of AWL
Week school on political issues from the history of AWL Day One Session: Heterodox, orthodox, and “orthodox Mark 2” 1. Why we started: 1966-8 Trotskyism: http://www.workersliberty.org//taxonomy/term/555 http://www.workersliberty.org/wwaawwmb The AWL's tradition: http://www.workersliberty.org/node/5146 Session: Party and perspectives What happened in 1968 and how the left responded ***************** Why we fused with IS (SWP) Timeline 2. Ireland: 1968-71 1964 July 2: After years of civil rights agitation in USA, Civil Rights http://www.workersliberty.org/node/10010 Act becomes law. October 15: Labour wins general election, after 13 years of Session: The debates in 1969 - “withdraw subsidies”, Tory rule “southern arsenals”, “troops out” before August 1969, “Catholic economism” and transitional demands, “troops out” 1965 in August 1969. January 31: USA starts bombing of North Vietnam. Vietnam war, and movement against it, escalate. Day Two February: SLL, then biggest revolutionary group in Britain, launches its own independent "Young Socialists" as a 3. The Tories and Labour 1970-4 response to limited expulsions by Labour Party after SLL wins majority in Labour youth movement. Session: General strike Our Labour Party debate then: syndicalism, economism, and 1966 politics Summer: Beginning of "Cultural Revolution" in China: a faction of the bureaucracy mobilises gangs to purge rivals 4. Stalinism 1968-75 reinforce autarkic, ultra-statist policy. But many leftists in the West will admire the "Cultural Revolution"; Maoism will Session: Czechoslovakia 1968 be a big force on the revolutionary left from 1968 to the “Soviet dissidents” mid-70s, though less so in Britain than in other European Vietnam and Cambodia 1975 countries. -
Joseph Hansen Papers
http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf78700585 No online items Register of the Joseph Hansen papers Finding aid prepared by Joseph Hansen Hoover Institution Archives 434 Galvez Mall Stanford University Stanford, CA, 94305-6003 (650) 723-3563 [email protected] © 1998, 2006, 2012 Register of the Joseph Hansen 92035 1 papers Title: Joseph Hansen papers Date (inclusive): 1887-1980 Collection Number: 92035 Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Archives Language of Material: English Physical Description: 109 manuscript boxes, 1 oversize box, 3 envelopes, 1 audio cassette(46.2 linear feet) Abstract: Speeches and writings, correspondence, notes, minutes, reports, internal bulletins, resolutions, theses, printed matter, sound recording, and photographs relating to Leon Trotsky, activities of the Socialist Workers Party in the United States, and activities of the Fourth International in Latin America, Western Europe and elsewhere. Physical Location: Hoover Institution Archives Creator: Hansen, Joseph, Access The collection is open for research; materials must be requested at least two business days in advance of intended use. Publication Rights For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Archives. Preferred Citation [Identification of item], Joseph Hansen papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Archives. Acquisition Information Acquired by the Hoover Institution Archives in 1992. Accruals Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. To determine if this has occurred, find the collection in Stanford University's online catalog at http://searchworks.stanford.edu . Materials have been added to the collection if the number of boxes listed in the online catalog is larger than the number of boxes listed in this finding aid. -
Lord Cecil Parkinson 1
Lord Cecil Parkinson 1 Trade minister in Margaret Thatcher's first government in 1979, Cecil Parkinson went on to become Conservative Party chairman. He was instrumental in privatizing Britain's state-owned enterprises, particularly electricity. In this interview, Parkinson discusses the rethink of the British Conservative Party in the 1970s, Margaret Thatcher's leadership in the Falklands War, the coal miners' strike, and the privatization of state-owned industries. Rethinking the Conservative Party, and the Role of Keith Joseph INTERVIEWER: Let's talk about Margaret Thatcher during the '70s. After the defeat of [Prime Minister Ted] Heath, Margaret Thatcher almost goes back to school. She and Keith Joseph go to Ralph Harris [at the Institute for Economic Affairs] and say, "Give us a reading list." What's going on here? What's Margaret really doing? LORD CECIL PARKINSON: I think Margaret was very happy with the Heath manifesto. If you look at the Heath manifesto, it was almost a mirror image of her 1979 manifesto. All the things—cutting back the role of the state, getting rid of the nationalized industries, curbing the train unions, cutting of taxes, controlling public expenditure—it's all there. It's a very, very good manifesto. And I've heard her recently compliment him on the 1970 manifesto, which was a slightly sort of backhanded compliment, really. What troubled her was that we could be bounced out of it. We could be moved from doing the things which we knew were right and doing things which we secretly knew were wrong because of circumstances, and I think instinctively she felt this was wrong, but she didn't have the sort of intellectual backup, she felt, to back up her instincts.