tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post2999484149132964578..comments2024-03-27T09:14:27.496+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Nick Clegg: Closet Socialist?Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-8198648149894315742009-09-27T20:47:21.854+01:002009-09-27T20:47:21.854+01:00Phil,
Thanks. I shall be around for a few weeks ...Phil,<br /><br />Thanks. I shall be around for a few weeks now, before finally disappearing. E-mail me about the next TC. It would be nice to have a pint with comrades before I go.Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-85711116461602638252009-09-27T14:26:13.087+01:002009-09-27T14:26:13.087+01:00I agree with you Arthur - Brother S and I often ta...I agree with you Arthur - Brother S and I often talk favourably about the contributions you've made on cooperatives (and your analysis of the recession).Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-20988905444164026742009-09-26T16:07:04.384+01:002009-09-26T16:07:04.384+01:00Sam,
I agree that Co-ops have to grow organically...Sam,<br /><br />I agree that Co-ops have to grow organically. They cannot simply be imposed. But, Marxists do not simply watch history proceed from the sidelines. we actively participate in it, codifying the lessons from previous actions by workers so they do not have to learn those lessons again.<br /><br />A Marxist in an un-unionised workplace doesn't simply wait for a union to develop organically, but fights with all their might to establish it, and to do so on principles we have learned favour the ordinary members. Similarly, workers do not simply develop Co-ops of he form which offer the bis of changing the worekrs real economic and social position automatically. Marxists have to argue, for example, in the case of Vestas, why establishing a Co-op is their best option, and arguing the case for developing a Workers Plan of production for it that is likely to offer the best hope of success. A look at the Co-ops established in Argentina, shows that the most succesful have been those that have been integrated with the communties in which they reside, and which have formed close links with other Co-ops.<br /><br />Marxists have to teach workers those lessons. After all a strong tendency within Capitalism would otherwis be for workers to simply see the Co-op as though it were a partnership. In the same way the Co-op itself shows what happens where the wrong kind of ownership and control structure is established. Consumers have no immediate reason to participate in control, whereas workers as producers have to on a daily basis.<br /><br />I agree that the actual forms of organisation are a matter of experimentation, but we do not have to leave it all to chance.Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-53095777671808345302009-09-25T15:54:05.816+01:002009-09-25T15:54:05.816+01:00But surely Co-ops need to develop organically as a...But surely Co-ops need to develop organically as a desired solution to workers problems and as a superior form of capitalist business, they cannot be forced upon the workers.<br /><br />Only then can the 'superstructure'<br />become a reality.<br /><br />The left's job is to promote this idea.SamGnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-1048438266938545352009-09-25T15:03:29.242+01:002009-09-25T15:03:29.242+01:00When our enemies representatives in the mainstream...When our enemies representatives in the mainstream parties start talking about any idea that workers have considereed, my first reaction is to wonder how they thereby intend to neuter that idea!<br /><br />Its true that many Co-ops begin as single ventures. But that is why they end up as just Capitalist enterprises owned by workers, and why they adopt Capitalist principles. Its also why many of them fail. Co-operation as an idea can only work on the basis that Marx and the First International proposed a) as being an element of class struggle, and b) following from that as part of a national organisation, today we should say international organisation increasingly.Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-91443405967328007692009-09-25T12:38:51.545+01:002009-09-25T12:38:51.545+01:00Centralised government? Wasn’t it New Labour who t...Centralised government? Wasn’t it New Labour who tried to introduce regional government, wasn’t it New Labour who set up the Scottish and Welsh parliaments?<br /><br />Anyway, I take slight issue with Arthur Boughs statement, as I think the fact that mainstream politicians are even talking about worker ownership is a positive sign.<br />The process of worker ownership inevitably starts from individual scattered enterprises eventually forming a 'community' that can be moulded by socialists, and only later do Arthur’s caveats come to the fore. Of course the sooner people on the left are part of this movement the better.<br /><br />The caveat for me would be the devil in the detail of Clegg’s proposals. I don't really take much notice of the Liberal democrats for obvious reasons but this has definitely raised my interest. <br />I will, though, prepare to be disappointed.SamGnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-29715915283860364232009-09-24T17:12:25.573+01:002009-09-24T17:12:25.573+01:00Phil,
Great post. However, as someone who has be...Phil,<br /><br />Great post. However, as someone who has been banging the drum on this idea of positing worker owned and controlled enterprises as a socialist alternative to State Capitalism, let me add one caveat.<br /><br />As I said in my blogs on <a href="http://boffyblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/can-co-operatives-work-part-1.html" rel="nofollow"> Can Co-operatives Work </a>, although as Marx says they resolve the contradiction between Capital and labour positively by making the worker a Capitalist, there is nothing essentially socialist in this.<br /><br />The workers could remain dominated by Capital even as they own Capital. Indeed just as is the Capitalist. And as you point out Capitalist Monopolies exploy planning, so there is nothing essentially socialist in that either. What we are dealing with is potentialities, material foudnations upon which socialism CAN be created.<br /><br />But, the deciding factor here is the extent to which workers use this new set of property relations to transform social relations, to first control, then replace the market, and thereby the manifestation of the law of Value via the dominance of Exchange Value, gradually replacing commodity fetishisation with real human relations.<br /><br />As Marx, and in particular Ernest Jones set out, a requirement is that Co-ops do not operate as individual businesses ( a similar arguemnt to opposition to Socialism in One Country), but that they operate as part of a national/international federation with clearly stated objectives - to push out private Capital. That will mean increasing Co-operation BETWEEN enterprises/and other organisations, increasing monopolisation, and planning. To organise and lead that will require a Workers Party. Moreover, to provide a political response to the inevitable oppsoition of the bouregosiie to these latter developments will require that party to engage in a political war within the forums of bourgeois democracy.Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.com