Prom and Prejudice
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
A paper of Marxist polemic and Marxist unity Assessing Adolph Reed: American n Letters and debate n Israel-UAE deal left’s foremost anti-identitarian n Labour Left Alliance is also a social democrat n How can workers rule? No 1313 September 3 2020 Towards a mass Communist Party £1/€1.10 PROM AND PREJUDICE WW1313-18.00h.indd 1 03/09/2020 19:43:13 weekly 2 September 3 2020 1313 worker LETTERS in higher education it is “simply a Letters may have been - yes - towards each other, but also kind of ‘anti-capitalism’ it seeks to fellow, but then so is Biden. The shortened because of had an orientation towards the rest of achieve, because not all of it is good pointless exercise” (Letters, July 23). Democrats do have a few rumblings space. Some names population. or legitimate. As we have seen, the He welcomes responses on the question, from below that may bear fruit (one may have been changed John Masters bourgeois right has often appealed “Is it time to lay equal opportunities to day?). Milton Keynes to the part of the left (‘new school’, rest in the graveyard of ideas?” Some have no doubt. The ‘new left’) that harbours phobias Equality of opportunity is not the Financial Times opines on the two Treat Trojan horse about ‘centralisation’, ‘regulation’, case put by socialists for socialism, conventions: “It is hard to imagine Can I start off by congratulating the In a letter to the Weekly Worker, one elections and even democracy in which is the emancipation of the a starker contrast” (August 29). CPGB (PCC) and their co-thinkers in Oliver Healey boldly challenged order to wean them from working working class and the end of class Trump’s speech was “littered with Labour Party Marxists for being able the readers to question one of the class politics to the programme of society. This is more far-reaching. character attacks”, while Biden’s to hold a Communist University in “shibboleths” of Marxism: namely free-market capitalism. This is done Notable introductory texts on this message was “focussed on his middle the current pandemic situation, and the proposition that, in order to by making a reactionary utopia out of would be Principles of communism class credentials”. Politics? Well, hope that they can in future perhaps overcome capitalism, the first step for economic decentralisation, appealing and socialism: utopian and scientific “Mr Biden urgently needs to find an reach a wider audience by evolving the working class towards socialism to petty bourgeois illusions about by Friedrich Engels. opportunity to imprint on voters his the event to one that exists both in must be the forcible expropriation of small business and appropriating As for Healy’s letter (August commitment to law and order”. This physical and cyber space in years to capitalist property and its conversion Marxist critiques of monopoly 13) condemning private banking as ‘imprinting’ sounds a bit like what come - I’m sure it saves Lars T Lih into public property (August 13). capitalism for demagogic opposition creating new money, if it were true, the police are already doing with their and other international participants a Healey’s challenge should be to everything ‘big’ (big business, as then I would set up my own bank boots. long flight for starters! Whilst I wasn’t welcomed, as the question of a well as ‘big’ labour). In other words, and issue unlimited loans to myself. Meanwhile, who will put able to join in, the chance to watch the nationalised economy and central the free-market right seeks to win the But it is not true and economic crises unemployed Americans back to sessions on YouTube was a treat! planning are often neglected by left to an anti-capitalism that opposes were just as regular, if not worse, work? Neither of them. Who will try However, one session from Jack leftwing groups. Such reluctance to all of those aspects - concentration prior to fiat money. Socialists are and protect their fellow countryfolk Conrad on the origin of the CPGB thoroughly address the concrete need of capital, growth of planning - that familiar with Hayek and Friedman, from climate disaster? Neither of threw up a contradiction that I rather for an economy based on publicly Marxism argues is progressive and Healy should familiarise himself them. Who will start a new war? hope will see further debate - not owned means of production and about capitalism, as it lays down the with economic criticisms of the free Either of them. around 1920, but 2020! Leading central planning betrays a general infrastructure of a socialised economy. market and its proponents. Professor No doubt Sir Keir has been members of the PCC came up with tendency of the left away from In fairness to Healey, there is a David Harvey is the most popular watching with interest: New Labour the following three points. Firstly, socialism to reactionary utopias about kernel of truth to what he says, and and modern writer and speaker on the has always been keen on what the Peter Manson voiced a rejection of small ownership, localised industry, that is that there can be no fundamental subject. Democrats are pioneering - what with the idea that the CPGB (PCC) become decentralised co-ops, ‘full ownership transition away from capitalism Jon D White ‘triangulation’, crime, prison building a recruiting organisation, as that path of the product of labour’, etc. No without the expropriation of the email and neoliberalism. So, don’t worry apparently leads to becoming a sect doubt such sentiments have stemmed banks and some sort of democratic about rail renationalisation - or any - surely there is more to being a sect from the long-time abandonment of control over banking and monetary Anyone but other nationalisation. Don’t worry, the than a desire to grow? Secondly Mike the socialist project for a nationalised policy. The leading role of finance US can have the NHS and if Trump, Macnair bemoaned the organisation economy - itself a result both of capital in the modern economy is Trump? or Biden, wants to invade somewhere not having the forces to intervene the pitfalls of bureaucratic central one of the basic theories in Lenin’s Readers will no doubt already be we’ll be along ‘shoulder to shoulder’. more on the left, and finally Jack planning, as well as the ideological Imperialism. But here again we must aware of the excitement generated Maybe at the ‘virtual conference’ Conrad made the point that the aim assault on anything ‘collectivist’ that distinguish exactly what we mean by by the Democrat and Republican (sorry, ‘event’) he can get Tony Blair and orientation of the Weekly Worker proliferated in the late cold war. democracy. Without doubt, the kind of conventions in the US. There has and a few generals along; perhaps is to win the vanguard. Healey openly identifies as a ‘democracy’ that the paleo-libertarian been much comment in the British even Bill Clinton! Whatever he does Between these three points I can’t paleo-libertarian - a political trend Healey advocates will be of the ‘above as well as the American media, not though, I’m sure he’ll stand for no help but see that there is an elephant in free-market fundamentalism class’ kind - perhaps an economic least online. Much of the mainstream trifling with Rule! Britannia on the in the room - doesn’t winning that synthesises the cultural and house of representatives, open media, while rightly viewing the closing afternoon. the vanguard entail winning new racial chauvinism of the rightwing ‘equally’ to workers and capitalists. Trumpfest as a horror show, also Jim Nelson members to that vanguard? And in ‘paleoconservative’ movement with Lenin advocated that the unions of largely confine themselves to Trump- email fact having an orientation to both the ultra-libertarian, free-market proletarian (and semi-proletarian) horror clickbait, with the clear the existing vanguard and recruiting solution to the social question bank employees should take over the message of ‘Anyone but Trump!’ Abandon ship! potential members of it would be a promoted by Murray Rothbard. banks and operate them under the Patrick Cockburn summed up the Robert Clough of the Revolutionary much more successful field to plough. Readers of the Weekly Worker are guidance of the Soviet Republic. But I reality: “The Republican convention Communist Group argues: “The Delivering hopefully extra forces to likely to be a little perplexed to find a doubt Healey will want to appropriate was a nauseating performance even thesis that Labour can become deploy in the campaign for the party, paleo-libertarian polemic on an openly this part of Lenin’s solution! by the cess-pit standards of the Trump a vehicle for socialism or social interventions in the Labour Party and communist forum. But for those who And, if Healey is so opposed administration” (Counterpunch progress is as reactionary now as so on, with comrades coming into the are familiar with the curious political to nationalisation of the means of August 31). it ever has been. Maintaining this vanguard with a partyist position - trajectory of Rothbard, Healey’s production, we can likely expect that it This leaves some, but not much, position as the crisis deepens will imagine the potential that would have. appeal to the far left will make sense. will not be a democracy that penetrates interest in the bizarre line-up of inevitably force its adherents to cross We are very much at the moment One of the foremost representatives into the ‘forbidden’ zone of relations speakers at the Biden-Harris-fest. class lines” (Letters, August 13). How under the leadership across the sects of the market-fundamentalist Austrian of production.