A Short Note on Liberties, Liberalism and Socialism

2009 marks 150 years since the appearance of On Liberty, John Stuart Mill's classical meditation on individual freedom and its limits. But there's more than just an arbitrary anniversary marker that makes another look at On Liberty timely. It's fair to say liberties and freedoms have been progressively eroded by Conservatives and Labour alike these past 30 years. CCTV, sprawling databases, detention without trial, snooping councils, ID cards - there is no end to the government's appetite for surveillance. And this is peace time in a liberal democracy, remember.

Historically the labour movement has a proud record of defending liberty and fighting for democratic rights in and out of the workplace. But its Marxist wing - despite conceptualising socialism as the democratic self-organisation of the working class - has bequeathed a more ambiguous legacy to the present generation of revolutionary socialists. Too often the revolutionary left has been seen to apologise for anti-democratic movements in the name of anti-imperialism, downplay the importance of "bourgeois" democracy, and erect petty tyrannies in its own organisations. Why would anyone outside our movement take what it has to say about liberty and freedom seriously?

Coupled with the far left's difficulties we shouldn't be too surprised not many have. In civil liberties discourse, "humanitarian" imperialists duke it out with mainstream liberals and right wing libertarians. Independent working class politics don't get a look in, though it is our class and especially the more oppressed and marginalised elements of it that disproportionately suffer the sharp end of the surveillance state. It's about time our voice was heard. But to win hegemony over this contested terrain not only must we constantly check our own political practice, we have to investigate and critique the ideas our opponents draw upon.

Socialism is, among other things, the ideological heir to liberalism. Both are products of class struggles against tyranny and grew to maturity in the fertile climate of Enlightenment thinking. But classical liberalism has settled into being an ideology of the status quo. Like all establishment ideas it has (in its own terms) principled objections and criticisms of the management of capitalist societies. But it shies away from fundamental critique. It is in basic agreement with the conservatives and libertarians to its right; that market economies and market relationships tend to best express individual liberty and freedom better than anything else. But liberalism is guilty of a one-dimensional view of these relationships. Here the freedom to buy and sell is set up as an exchange between equals. In a legal sense, this is true - all are equal before the law. But substantively this is not the case. For socialists the compulsion of propertyless labourers to sell their labour power in return for a wage is no freedom at all. Likewise liberalism may oppose state tyranny, but it has little to say about the tyranny of the workplace. Therefore socialism is, in one sense, consistent liberalism. Whereas the latter limits its attention to politics and the public sphere and regards what happens in the workplace as a "private" matter between employer and employee, socialism stands for extending the political rights and liberties citizens enjoy into economics. In short, where liberty conflicts with private ownership in the means of production, socialism says liberty should win every time.

It's with this in mind I'll be writing about On Liberty over the next few weeks. By no means I'm pretending to a comprehensive study of the essay or delivering a socialist "final verdict" on Mill's arguments. I do believe he did have some things of value to say, even if it was fundamentally compromised by the political tradition to which he belonged, and these are ideas socialists will find of use today.

Edit: All the posts on On Liberty are listed below:

Liberty and Individual Sovereignty
John Stuart Mill's Debating Ethics
John Stuart Mill's Elitism
The Limits of the Individual and Authority
Mill's Applications of On Liberty
Moving Beyond Liberalism

Blogging the G20

There's been plenty of comment about the protests and policing this last week (Jim probably has the definitive protest round-up). But in stark contrast to the demos and police violence there's a paucity in blog commentary about the summit itself. We all now know the IMF will be in receipt of $1.1 trillion that will be used to prop up failing economies - and first in the queue is Eastern Europe. We're also promised more regulation of banking and a tightening up of tax havens. And not before time - according to the OECD, around $11 trillion has been salted away by the tax-dodging super rich.

These measures fall woefully short as far as I'm concerned, but what have blogs been saying about them?

A World to Win reads between the lines and helpfully spells out what the G20's communique really means.

Benjamin Solah reckons the "package" really means business as usual.

Boffy cautions against hyping up the economic crisis along with the media (he argues that in fact the present crisis is a moment within a long wave of growth). By way of contrast, Lenin argues the media, governments and financial institutions are talking up the prospects of recovery.

Molly argues that Keynes offer us no way out of the crisis. The G20 bigwigs might want us to consume more but ultimately the planet can no longer afford it.

Graham over at LEAP says it doesn't really matter how much cash the big powers pump into the IMF, it does nothing to address collapsing house prices and joblessness in the US. And as the world's largest economy spirals down, many other countries will fall with it. Meanwhile, Vino looks at the catch 22 China is caught up in and its motives for its noises over an alternative international reserve currency.

North Briton is a bit more optimistic, pausing to have a bit of a gloat over the Tories' inconsistency on the G20 package.

Rick argues the timidity the G20 has shown toward tax havens means the wealthy have every intent of keeping hold of their loot while lecturing the rest of us on pain and sacrifice. Nigel at the TUC's blog, Touchstone, suggests taking a more measured approach to the G20's outcomes.

The quantity of G20 analysis in the mainstream press has not, however, been matched by mainstream bloggers. Batting for the Tories Letters From a Tory has penned another open missive to Gordon Brown, and true to form he's not altogether fulsome with his praise. John Redwood goes through each of the communique's pledges telling us why it's so much hot air. If one was being charitable it would be impolitic to point out their lack of substantive alternatives. Good job I'm not really.

Does anyone have anything nice to say about the G20? The one place you'd expect to find something supportive of the government would be LabourList. It offers us not one but five different takes. Former Danish PM, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen would like to have seen the agreement go further, but blames Europe's conservatives - principally Sarkozy and Merkel - for obstructing measures that would create jobs. Alastair Campbell concentrates his fire on the conservatives closer to home. He asks if Cameron could have delivered the G20's result? I think you can imagine his answer.

Helen Symons offers what can only be described as a puff piece, with some choice Keynesian proposals thrown in and telling us that we should support Gordon Brown in putting jobs at the heart of Labour's recovery strategy (you mean to say it has one?) Anthony Painter manages to expend a lot of words saying the G20 was a worthwhile thing. Lastly Nesrine Mailk spies potential sources of conflict in our part-tax-payer-owned banking industry, but thinks there's enough openness within Britain's financial institutions for systemic change. That may well be the case, but New Labour's past record implementing progressive measures against finance capital does not inspire one with confidence.

Youth Fight For Jobs March

Protests may have been drowned out by the triumphalist brouhaha in yesterday's media, but a number of actions did take place around London against the G20. Louise has a batch of images and reports here and here.

It was also yesterday that the Socialist Party-backed campaign, Youth Fight For Jobs took to the streets. Unfortunately it appears no reports have appeared on the web yet, save this nine minute film posted on the SP website. Looks like an excellent day was had by all, so well done to all comrades who bust a gut organising this.

It would be remiss to not give a mention to the YFFJ inaugural conference taking place on Saturday 9th May.

Youth Fight for Jobs conference
Saturday 9 May

Cruciform, Lecture Theatre 1, University College London (UCL), London WC1E 6BT. Near Euston and Warren Street tube and rail stations
10-11am - registration
11-12.30pm - opening rally

Speakers include Bob Crow, RMT general secretary; Tracy Edwards, PCS young members network; and activists from the campaign.
12.30-1.30pm - lunch
1.30-3pm - workshops

Topics include: current workplace struggles to save jobs; organising the YFFJ campaign; the politicians' reaction to the crisis; and defending your rights at work.
3-3.30pm - what way forward for the campaign?

Discussion, resolutions & voting.
3:30-4:30pm - closing rally.

Speakers include Sean Figg, Youth Fight for Jobs national organiser, activists from Greece, and more...

G20 Protester Dies

You wouldn't know it if your sole source of news in the mainstream media, but apparently a man died at yesterday's G20 protests. Rumours of a death emerged yesterday evening on the tweetosphere from protesters who were at the event. Redpeppermag tweeted seeing a man unconscious at Cornhill street in the City. The Guardian reports he lost consciousness within the police cordon and a team of paramedics were sent in to retrieve him. A police statement says "The officers took the decision to move him as during this time a number of missiles – believed to be bottles – were being thrown at them", a piece directly challenged by on-the-spot tweets from protesters.

You've got to ask yourself why this is being reported by The Graun, Al-Jazeera, The Australian and ignored by the BBC, Sky, etc. If I was of a conspiratorial mindset I might think they didn't want to embarrass the government with all the great and the good in town.

Even without a death yesterday's policing of the G20 protests was nothing short of disgraceful. The police made it abundantly clear in the lead up to this week that not only were they expecting trouble, they wanted it too. Police violence against protests, including peaceful protests, have become par the course. And it goes unremarked where the political establishment are concerned - probably with good reason. Their silence betrays their connivance in giving the police ever greater powers to trample on our liberties.

The policing on this demonstration demands nothing less than a public inquiry and a rolling of heads. The role their open air mass-arrest and violence had in yesterday's death must be investigated in full public view. If neither are forthcoming, it's more or less guaranteed there will be others like this unnamed man.

Friday update: Turns out the protester was a passerby on his way home from work, but who had happened to get caught up in the police cordon. Good post with relevant press clippings here.

Tommy on the Telly, Again

Words fail me. Is this what has become of "Scotland's most iconic post-war socialist"? What do comrades think about this? Has anyone been consulted with beforehand? Just read the press release from the This Morning website for yourself:

This Morning Welcomes Tommy and Gail

Today, This Morning can confirm Tommy and Gail Sheridan will be taking over the sofa at the start of the next series. They are replacing Fern Britton and Phillip Schofield. Their last show will be broadcast on 17 July, which is Fern's birthday.

"Gail and I are really thrilled to be presenting the show", said Tommy.

"I've been an avid viewer of This Morning for many years. To get a job like this is a dream for us both. We look forward to working with all the crew and the show's regulars."

Tommy and Gail shot to prominence after a successful court case in 2006. More recently firebrand Tommy has been entertaining viewers in the Celebrity Big Brother house.

ITV Director of Factual and Daytime, Alison Sharman, said: "We are very pleased Tommy and Gail are joining us. They are naturals in front of the camera and have just the right bedside manner to smooth over any hairy moments."

ITV Studios' Controller of Daytime and Lifestyle Features, Fiona Keenaghan, said: "It is fantastic news for This Morning. Tommy and Gail are so enthusiastic and can't wait to swing into action."

Class Matters

You don't have to tell socialists class matters. But incredibly, there are some social theorists and philosophers for whom this is heresy. I say to them how can you answer the six questions below without acknowledging the continued relevance of class?

*Distributional location: How are people objectively located in distributions of material inequality?
*Subjectively salient groups: What explains how people, individually and collectively, subjectively locate themselves and others within a structure of inequality?
* Life chances: What explains inequalities in life chances and material standards of living?
* Antagonistic conflicts: What social cleavages systematically shape overt conflicts?
*Historical variation: How should we characterise and explain the variations across history in the social organisation of inequalities?
*Emancipation: What sorts of transformations are needed to eliminate oppression and exploitation within capitalist societies?

(Göran Therborn From Marxism to Post-Marxism? 2008, p.144).

32nd Carnival of Socialism

It's here! The 32nd Carnival of Socialism has arrived on this humble blog. Are you ready for your mammoth roller coaster ride through the very best leftyblogland has to offer?

Key cadres of the ruling class are shortly due in London town for the G20 to think up more ways of getting our class to pay for their crisis. Yesterday we were there in the tens of thousands to serve notice that we know what they're up to. We're still waiting for some reportage to work its way through the ether - but thankfully blogs have been filed from Lenin's Tomb, Penny Red, Liam MacUaid, Harpymarx, and Directionless Bones. Keep an eye out for more!

There's been a lot of comment in the lead up to events over the coming week. Duncan and Lenin (here and here) have got the goods on the police's pre-protest sabre rattling. In response to this provocation Louise says she will be present with her camera to document and dodgy behaviour on the part of the authorities. If the comrade hasn't got a digital camera I fear she'll need a bag full of film. Walton over at the Red Star Coven looks at the utility of Twitter(!) as a means of getting on-the-spot news out about G20 demos. And lastly Derek reports from a Socialist Party stall against unemployment as a means of plugging next week's march against youth joblessness.

Have you noticed how the bosses and political establishment have come in for a lot of flak this week? It must be that left bias in the mainstream media the right keeps telling us about. Quite justifiably Tony McNulty, the despicable Employment Minister has been dragged over the hot coals for dodgy expense claims on a second home ... owned by his parents. Laurie is "incandescently angry" about his money grubbing behaviour and dangerously comes close to the average wage Militant position of old. Be careful comrade, Luke Akehurst will be sharpening his ice axe! Stephen of It's a Rough Trade fame is similarly unimpressed. I don't know, surely McNulty deserves an award for his "I acted entirely within the rules" chutzpah?

Speaking of despicable, the hated Fred "The Shred" Goodwin was in the news this week for some minor damage to his house and motor. I was going to write a piece carefully and patiently explaining why this sort of thing isn't a good idea in true Millie fashion but never got round to it. But still, some people had bloggy fun with it - see Socialist Unity for instance. I Intend to Escape couldn't resist a spot of anarchist gloating either.

Those gentlemen certainly annoyed me this week. But there were another two who irritated me even more. Step forward Matthew Horne and James Corden, stars of the tepidly twee Gavin and Stacey. It's not their forgettable contribution to the sitcom genre that has me riled - it's their "post-ironic" exercise in misogyny and homophobia known as Lesbian Vampire Killers. See how it is expertly and deservedly taken apart by Lesbilicious. Just goes to show women's liberation has a long way to go - a point underlined by Louise. She demonstrates the unwelcome persistence of some dinosaur arguments on the left. Perhaps Adam Spencer, the Labour Briefing comrade in a lather over the self-organisation of uppity women ought to take a look at Redbird's report on women's committees in Venezuela and tell us that's a distraction from the class struggle. This of course isn't to say the feminist movement is perfect and it's the left that's got a problem - as Monica shows, there are still too many (mainly radical) feminists with serious issues against transwomen.

As noted here before it does tend to be socialist women who raise gender issues in leftyblogland. What's up guys? Don't think gender affects you too?

At least some blokes have been socking it to the patriarch par excellence this week. Joseph Ratzinger has once again displayed his peculiar attitude to human suffering by reiterating the Catholic church's opposition to contraception. The comrades over at Shiraz Socialist have much fun with Joanna Bogle, the batshit crazy Catholic fundamentalist who appeared on Channel Four News to claim condoms spread HIV-AIDS. Feministing also supplies some light relief. Stroppy can't help but note the irony of the Pope calling on Africans to reject their superstitions ... for the superstitions he propagates. However, The Bleeding Heart Show reminds us the Vatican's stance on reproductive issues are incredibly damaging.

No digest of socialist commentary would be complete without a foray into the dismal science. Amid discussion of further bailouts and fiscal stimulus Dave looks at Japan's attempts to refloat their economy in the nineties. The results were less than spectacular. Andy plugs a new collection edited by Jon Cruddas that brings together left responses to the crisis and John takes a look at the declining financial markets. Lastly Boffy takes us on a two part trip into the economics of cooperation.

Off to sunnier climes now with a whistle stop tour of Latin American developments. By Any Means Necessary republishes a piece from the Freedom Road Socialist Organisation on the left's victory in the El Salvadorean general election. Pink Scare takes on the political illiteracy of the New York Times over its characterisation of Chavez. Meanwhile Yoani reminds us that life in Cuba is no bed of roses.

Returning back to Blighty there are several pieces about New Labour that caught my eye. With some justification the Conservatives are known as the stupid party, but it looks like some in the Labour party are desperate to steal this crown from them. And why not? It's hardly as if they haven't been ransacking the Tories' wardrobe these last 15 years. Charlie provides some evidence for the prosecution. Dave of Though Cowards Flinch asks why Labour should be expecting the unions to trumpet their "achievements". Finally, Journeyman talks about his parents' resignation from the party.

There's quite a few posts out there that defy my rather arbitrary categorical arrangement for this Carnival. So here's my shout out to them. Jim has a conversation with Chris Goodall, Green PPC for Oxford West and Abingdon. Chris recently caused a shit storm for publicly supporting nuclear power. Strange. While we're on a surreal tip Leftwing Criminologist meets Wales' top copper. He writes "you’re probably wondering what any self respecting Marxist is doing meeting a police chief constable?" Click through to find out why.

Other posts that have caught my eye is Madam Miaow's flaying of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Histomat's retrospective on Engels and the Ragged Trousered Philanthropist's project of reviewing every episode of Dr Who. Lastly POUMISTA looks at the use and abuse of George Orwell - quite timely as a few right wing establishment writers have made the shortlist for the Orwell prize for blogging.

And that's it for this edition of the Carnival of Socialism, and apologies to comrades for it being overwhelmingly Brit-centric. As always the Carnival needs your support so sign your blog up as a future host - details here. The next will be on 12th April and your host then shall be Harpymarx. So until next time, red salute!

Live Blogging Earth Hour

Earth Hour is live!

8:30 pm - Lights are off. Sat in the dark.

9:30 pm - Lights back on.

That's that for another year. I can now ride in 4x4s and jet around the world with a clear conscience.

Sociology Meets Dolly and Guido

It was handbags at noon on Thursday's Daily Politics as two mainstream bloggers took their feud onto our TV screens. In the blue corner sat the corpulent self-styled enfant terrible of the libertarian hard right, Paul "Guido Fawkes" Staines. His pointy-finger opponent in the red was LabourList supremo and new kid on the block, Mr Kate Garraway. The ensuing slap fight did no one any credit and probably left "normal" people outside the blogging world scratching their heads in bemusement. Just see for yourselves:





Epic fail.

But speaking as a sociologist Derek Draper's entry into political blogging and his subsequent feuds with Staines and Iain Dale are very interesting. It serves as a model case study for Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of cultural capital and capital conversion.

Bourdieu argues it is useful to conceptualise social space in terms of fields. A field is much like a game, with its own rules, objectives, strategies, stakes, actors and forms of capital. Think about the economy - firms "play a game" by developing strategies to accumulate capital and turn a profit. Non-economic fields operate in more or less the same way too. This is not to say the economy determines what happens in its non-economic counterparts, but that the interactions and interrelationships animating fields resemble the structures and dynamics of capitalist economies. For instance, take Sociology as a discipline. Whichever way you look at it, my PhD represents a strategy for accumulating the cultural capital specific to that field. My work is an intervention in current debates within social movement research on mobilisation and commitment, and has certain things to say about sociological reflexivity, paying particular attention to the thorny issue of activists studying activists with whom one shares substantial political agreement. The first function my thesis will fulfill (with luck) is achievement of my PhD, which will become my pass into the academic career structure. Depending on how my work is received by the sub-field of social movement research and the wider sociological field, I will accrue greater or lesser amounts of cultural capital, which will then be added to and deployed over the course of my subsequent career in terms of research opportunities, interests, etc.

There are ways in which cultural capital accumulated here can be converted into other forms of capital. One is economic capital - the more successful one's strategy the greater the chance of landing better paid and prestigious academic jobs. There are other ways of converting it into economic capital; securing consultancies of various stripes and writing popular sociology books are two avenues that spring to mind. There's political capital as well - for some on the left a well grounded professional background in the social sciences can give one standing as an 'intellectual'. In the wider political field academia can be married to political capital in terms of expertise. For instance, some MPs had been voicing concerns about the debt-fuelled boom for years, but it is Vince Cable whose reputation as a trained economist has allowed him to hoover up most of the kudos for foreseeing the bust.

What's all this got to do with Derek Draper vs Guido and Iain Dale? If you recall Draper shot to notoriety in the late 90s over the 'lobbygate' cash-for-access scandal. He then disappeared from the New Labour firmament until resurfacing in 2008 as a "campaigns advisor" for the party (as a close associate of Peter Mandelson, it seems Nosferatu's return to favour opened the way for Draper's comeback). Among his brief was the setting up of a rapid rebuttal unit that could respond to the latest mud flung around blogland by the big Tory blogs. Several "new media" breakfasts later Draper midwifed LabourList into the world.

Because Draper is a New Labour insider his activities in putting the blog together attracted high profile attention from the blogging world. Seven posts appeared on Staines' blog about Derek Draper prior to LabourList's launch, variously mocking his efforts and attempting to discredit his psychotherapist credentials. There are even more on Dale's. Using Bourdieu, Draper's move into blogging can be interpreted as an exchange of his political capital for the (subcultural) capital of the blogging field - and that's even before writing a single blog post!

But being a name doesn't necessarily mean big audiences - who really pays attention to June Sarpong's politics blog? Here Draper showed an intuitive understanding of how the blogging scene operates. He made sure there was just enough content on the fledgling site - some of it all right, most of it spin - and then went after the big blogs. Staines was called out over his toleration of the racists and sexists that infest his comments boxes. Dale was upbraided for his soft apologetic for Carol Thatcher's racist outburst. Because their previous actions had invested Draper with a certain amount of blogging 'capital' they had to respond to the provocation - driving audiences LabourList's way and sparking off a secondary layer of commentary on smaller blogs.

Add to this voices critical of the government's record in office and an overall improvement of content, Draper's sacralisation by Dale and Guido has helped LabourList's accumulation of blogging capital become self-sustaining. Like the aforementioned it has become a must-visit destination for anyone who follows the developments in mainstream blogging. However whether the capital the site has built up will translate into economic capital (via advertising) or political capital for the Labour party remains to be seen, but it's certainly done Draper's wider political profile no harm.

By treating political blogging as a field in its own right we can identify the rules of the game and the hierarchy it sustains. It enables a blogger to be conscious of the position they occupy in the blogging scheme of things and can help them understand why certain posts on certain topics pull in the numbers and others do not.

Burn the Witches!

A spectre is haunting New Labour, the spectre of communism! Well, it is at least for one man. Step forward Luke Akehurst: arms companies consultant, Labour chief whip on Hackney council, and self-styled bruiser for all right-thinking (and Right-thinking) party members. Normally Luke's blog contains little of interest to politicos who take their commitment to democracy and socialism seriously (though I will concede him his weekly council by-election updates). But this post stands out. A quite neutral posting by Sunder Katwala on the Fabian Society blog about Militant and the hard Labour right has worked "brother" Luke into a witch-hunting frenzy. Quoting Marx's "those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it" at Sunder, our hammer of the Trots writes:

The Bennite left and its Trotskyist allies have not gone away. I see the evidence of that every time I go to my local Labour GC meeting ... Insurgency from the left has afflicted Labour during every major period in opposition - the 1930s, the 1950s and the 1980s. In every case it has been necessary to wage a long and bitter internal struggle to smash the left and purge entryists who are not democratic socialists in order to make the party electable again. This is not a pleasant task but it is one that has to be done.

Who'd have thought that nice Mr Osler, Luke's fellow CLP'er from Hackney, could be so threatening?

He is no minority of one, unfortunately. Luke's McCarthyite bloodlust has voided a few shits from New Labour's bowels. The repost on Labour List has Julie Davies hallucinating an armada of Trots bearing down on New Labour's emaciated ward and constituency parties. Godfrey Richards adds his voice to the fray, believing his party is in danger of adopting "class war" politics at any moment!

Neither Akehurst or his Dunwoody/Kilfoyle wannabes display the slightest inkling of what they have done to their party. Under the neoliberal Blair-Brown hegemony over 200,000 activists and members have upped sticks. The internal regime owes more to the GDR than the "democratic socialism" Akehurst professes. Entryists - careerist entryists that is - have colonised all levels of the party apparatus and government, and New Labour has successfully triangulated electoral meltdown from all quarters. What has the remnants of the Labour left got on this?

Far be it for me to advise the terminally thick Labour right on the way forward, but may I suggest Akehurst and his ilk address themselves to more pressing matters than a few harmless duffers in Socialist Appeal.