March 9th, 2009
In the midst of a splendid takedown of David Hare’s onemanshow on Berlin, Alex Harrowell articulates his disdain of the phrase “to call for”:
There is a broader issue here; the phrase “to call for” repels me more and more. Its function is to get you out of responsibility for your opinions. I didn’t want war – I merely called for solidarity with the US in fighting terrorism. It also acts as a way of escaping the healthy discipline of detail. It is telling that it is fashionable with the neoconservatives, the Decents, and the hard left all at once – all the retailers of the goods dream-hungry youth demand, according to Leszek Kolakowski.
I call for action on Darfur! But I say nothing of the mountainous problems of projecting force into the roadless and railless interior of western Sudan, nothing of whose infantry are to actually go and get killed there, nothing of who exactly they are meant to kill or threaten effectively to kill, or for what aims. I just called for. Let’s decommission this phrase, like a worn-out nuclear power station – switch it off gracefully, sever the lines and fill the damn thing with concrete, and watch it carefully for a hundred years to see nothing leaks out.
One minor quibble is that by and large the socalled “hard left” (which in any case usually sems to mean whomever is to the left of the speaker) isn’t the main offender in this. Socialists, anarchists, communists all have a healthy, historically validated distrust of relying on the state to further their projects. Social democrats and liberals on the other hand have a history of enthusiasitc support for state intervention. If Iraq and Afghanistan are too obvious, take a look at who the main cheerleaders for intervention in Yugoslavia were.
UPDATE: Interesting discussion of Alex’s post over at Aaronovitch Watch in which ejh takes exception to Alex’s thesis:
The problem comes not when people without power express principle, provided they don’t do so ungenerously: it’s when people do have power and piss about. This is why it’s problematic (though not necesarily entirely wrong) to suggest that Macmillan should have called for an uprising against the bulding of a Berlin Wall, because it would quite likely have been writing a cheque he couldn’t cash*. Geroge Bush Sr wrote a cheque in Iraq 1991 that he probably could have cashed, but then didn’t: that was worse still. But to be honest, in just saying “Stop Apartheid Now” (“Now”? What does that mean, “now?”) more than half my life ago, I wasn’t writing any cheques or taking any risks.
Except the risk of becoming Andrew Anthony. Well, yeah, I’ve met a few. But there’s an opposite but equal risk, that many have also fallen victim to, that people who want to concentrate on practicals to the exclusion of ideals turn into New Labour. That’s what that particular movement in politics was and is all about. Lots of the Anti-Apartheid people ended up like that – and I don’t think I’d err in detecting a large crossover between the people who were most keen to follow the ANC line in toto in the Eighties, and those who were the keenest Blairites ten and twenty years later. I think there are as many ill consequences in going one way as in another.
Categories: politics, socialism
Tags: it's all semantics, socialism
July 25th, 2008
There has been a resurgence of interest in Marxist theory recently in the socialist blogosphere, specifically in the teaching thereof. Few people after all become socialist by thoroughly examining and comparing political ideologies, but rather through a short of gut feeling that socialism is right; I know I did. The root ideas of socialism are dead simple and can be understood by anybody. They haven’t changed since Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto, which is still the best thing to read if you want to get to know those ideas quickly. Following on from that, Hal Draper’s The Two Souls of Socialism describes the existential struggle within socialism in how to realise its goals: through reform or revolution, top-down or bottom-up?
If you read those two pamphlets I feel you have a good idea of the essence of socialism, but what if you want to dig deeper into Marxist theory? There’s always been the Marxists Internet Archive in which all the great and not so great theorists of every concievable socialist tendency are available in perfect brotherhood, but it’s a daunting challenge to pick out the bits relevant to your interests. You could of course also read Marx’s own book of theory Das Kapital, but it’s hardly the sort of work you speed through in a day’s beach reading.
But have no fear, help is available if you do want to read it. Via The Soul of Man Under Capitalism, comes David Harvey’s lectures on Capital, in both video and audio form. There’s also an accompanying discussion space, Reading Capital.
More interested in a general overview of Marxism? Louis Proyect has put together a series of articles on his blog to form a introduction to Marxism, examining and discussing various classic Marxist works and subjects. There’s also a mailing list.
Want to focus on Marxism in an economic context? Marxist Economics is the place for you, set up by the International Socialist Tendency, which also runs the In defence of Marxism site.
Know more interesting Marxist or socialist theory sites we should be aware of? Bung em up in the comments.
Categories: socialism
Tags: Marist theory, Marxism, socialism
June 3rd, 2008
Over at Lenny’s Tomb, Roobin set the cat amongst the pidgeons with his post on “the just-about-Gramscian theory of successful rioting” last Saturday, with both Louis Proyect and Andy Newman ridiculing it for sections like the one below:
The good news is, given preparation (the opportunity for which, of course, is normally denied), the average citizen can match a police officer blow for blow. A police officer has access to hand arms, in particular clubs, but the ordinary citizen can get and/or easily improvise these. The same is true of body armour and self-defence. The police have roadblocks, the people barricades. The police can use sturdy, powerful vehicles, so can the public. The police can use tools such as water cannons to disperse a crowd but a resourceful crowd can use similar devices to reverse effect. The police can use small firearms. Even in Britain it is not impossible for a member of the public to get hold of some. Any weapons won from the police in battle can immediately be used against them.
At first glance it does sound bad, the worst sort of pseudo-anarchist posturing, or “squadist juvenilia, as Andy called it. Louis Proyect was equally scathing, dismissing it as “complete idiocy”. And they would be right to do so, if it were not for one tiny detail: Roobin isn’t actually calling for fighting the police on their own terms, as the next paragraphs of his post makes clear:
he point is the police rely upon superior organisation and centralised control, not firepower. There are relatively few police officers in any country, never enough to deal with a general movement of people. This is one of the reasons why movements should be as numerous and broad as possible, to reduce the harm to life and limb to a minimum. When 2 million people are intent on using Hyde Park for a demonstration there is nothing the state can do to stop them (without seriously upping the ante).
When 125,000 miners go on strike (in albeit heightened circumstances), and are hung out to dry by union bureaucracy, the state is able to shift thousands of officers to mining areas to attack pickets and lay siege to villages, concentrating its all its power on its scattered, isolated
opponent.
In context it all sounds a lot less silly, doesn’t it? Roobin is making a quite uncontroversial, even obvious point here, which is the opposite of what Andy or Louis accuse him off. He’s actually arguing that you can’t use socalled black bloc
tactics against the police or the state, as they are better organised, better trained and have a greater legitimacy in using violence; instead socialists should organise en masse. Granted, the point could’ve been argued better, but I don’t think Roobin deserves this scolding from Andy and Louis, the more so because they seem to respond more to what they want to read, than what Roobin has actually written.
Categories: Activism, British left, socialism
Tags: online silliness, socialism
June 8th, 2006
It’s an even year, so as always the English socialist is put in an awkward position: who to support for the Worldcup? Supporting England is out of the question, because, as Snowball puts it:
As if the corporate takeover isn’t bad enough (many firms have produced ‘I love England’ badges for their employees), then the political consequences don’t bear worth thinking about. All of the main three capitalist political parties are doubtless gearing up already to associate themselves with supporting England – and it is likely that Blair will try to use a good Cup run and the associating ‘feel good factor’ to hang onto power – though one suspects the hapless croquet playing fuckwit Prescott will not be used in too many New Labour photoshoots playing football.
This sort of feeling is quite widespread amongst English socialists, but I’ve never seen its like in other countries. Certainly Dutch socialists are content enough to support the Dutch team, rather than coming up with convoluted reasons to not support it. That is not to say the Engerland-haters don’t have a point: the Worldcup is commercialised, politicised and will be used by quite disgusting people to bask in its reflected glory. But I still think you’re making a category error if you take your disgust about
the circus surrounding the cup as a reason to not support England. Your support of Trinibad and Tobago instead of Engerland will not stop the abuse, only boycotting the Worldcup might do it.
Even worse is being anti-England out of a misplaced sense of anti-imperialism: Blair’s policies will not change because the SWP does not support England! It just seems like yet another form of identify politics, a way to show how socialist you are without, you know, doing anything about it. As the Dead Kennedys said quite a while back “Play ethnicky jazz to parade your snazz On your five grand stereo / Braggin that you know how the niggers feel cold And the slums got so much soul“.
Categories: Football, socialism
Tags: Football, socialism, worldcup
October 18th, 2005
More evidence socialism in science fiction was present long before Ken MacLeod and China Miéville:
MICHELISM (“MISH-el-ism”) At the Third Eastern in October 1937, Don Wollheim read a speech written by John Michel, which denounced the “Gernsback Delusion” and declared that stf had made idealists and dreamers of fans, since it is the best form of escape literature ever invented. Since we cannot escape from the world, science-fiction has failed in not facing the realities being fought out in Madrid and Shanghai [and later in other locations we'll leave you to fill in as events unprogress] and in the battles between reaction and progressive forces at home and abroad. “THEREFORE: Be it moved that this, the Third Eastern Science Fiction Convention, shall place itself on record as opposing all forces leading to barbarism, the advancement of pseudo-sciences and militaristic ideologies [referring to the racist notions of Naziism], and shall further resolve that science-fiction should by nature stand for all forces working for a more unified world, a more Utopian existence, the application of science to human happiness, and a saner outlook on life.” Hot debate followed and the motion was defeated 12 to 8 (the 8 being the Futurians, voting en bloc).
From Fancyclopedia II, first published in 1959, a large encyclopedia of science fiction fandom and fanspeak. You’ll have to scroll down a bit to find this, as there are no links to the individual entries. Found thanks to mr rasfw, James Nicoll.
Categories: science fiction, socialism
Tags: Michelism, science fiction, socialism
