Letters
LSA dies a death
Largely because of the clash with the Arts Against Cuts planning weekend in the same building, only 15 comrades actually attended last Sunday’s London Student Assembly. Most were representatives of the far left, including Mark Bergfeld of the Socialist Workers Party/Education Activist Network, Luke Cooper of Workers Power/National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, Sean Rillo Raczka of Birkbeck student union and Communist Students. It was also good to see four comrades from the Socialist Party in England and Wales, who had not been able to attend for a while previously.
Given the numbers present, it was initially suggested that we postpone the meeting and reconvene at the next LSA we had organised for April 3. However, University of London president and Counterfire supporter Clare Solomon seemed fairly keen to put the LSA on the backburner altogether. She argued that numbers were down - possibly because we had scared some people off with sectarian in-fighting. We were all guilty of this, she suggested, and argued that we should look to “other ways of organising”, learning from groups like Arts Against Cuts. She did, however, leave open the question of what we do next.
Luke Cooper was also for dissolving the assembly. Now that the student movement had declined and student actions were less frequent, he said, the key thing now linking up with many of the forthcoming workers’ actions, like the University and College Union strikes on March 22 and 24. I agreed with Luke that the decline in support for the LSA reflected the general downturn in student struggle. However, it would be wrong and hasty to completely dissolve the LSA on the basis of the current situation, I said. After all, we had planned to hold an assembly in the immediate aftermath of the March 26 demonstration and it might be worth having this discussion then, with more activists present. Whilst Luke is right that we are likely to see far more workers’ struggles and as such worker-student solidarity will be a high priority, building such solidarity necessitates the kind of coordination which the LSA could bring. For his part, comrade Bergfeld of the SWP saw little point in handing out flyers for the LSA on the March 26 demo. He opposed the notion that the LSA could be developed into something better over time or that it should be just wound down temporarily. It should be dissolved.
It is rather frustrating that the far left currently has little or no particular interest in actually building such assemblies, across the different campaigns and networks. Just the day before the NCAFC had organised a last-minute planning meeting, but only sent one person to the actual LSA. The EAN has not behaved too dissimilarly either. And, as Sinead Rylance of CS correctly pointed out, surely another reason for the small numbers attending was the fact that we had until recently done very little in terms of publicity. In the end, there was no clear decision taken about what to do next - the Arts Against Cuts activists comrade Solomon had invited the day before then started to turn up wanting to talk about building for March 26. This meant that we had a mere 15 minutes or so to discuss the question and without any clear decision about whether the April 3 LSA meeting would go ahead. It would seem not, which is a shame.
Whilst some comrades clearly want rid of it altogether, it is understandable that the LSA has been dropped for now. Yet we in Communist Students will certainly argue that the LSA does represent an organisational model which can be taken up by every college and campus. For one thing it is a direct challenge to the cosy far-left consensus of contenting ourselves - as comrades Solomon, Cooper and Bergfeld seemed to do - with a plethora of different anti-cuts campaigns ploughing their own furrows, replicating the same work and thus crippling our effectiveness to fight back.
The concept of the LSA and its worth should not be ditched altogether. While the student movement will ebb and flow, there is a need for a more permanent organisation, imbuing longer-term perspectives and creating continuity between different struggles and across these ups and downs.
LSA dies a death
LSA dies a death
30th century
I disagree with Tony Clark’s assertion that “communism was possible at any stage in world history” (Letters, March 10). As Tony himself appears to acknowledge, this view is profoundly unMarxist.
The best definition of Marxism I have heard was Lenin’s, when he described Marxism as the summing up of the working class in its struggle against capitalism and for socialism, and expressed and analysed in a scientific manner. Marxism is a scientific understanding of capitalist society and a scientific guide to revolutionary action, or it is nothing.
A scientific approach and understanding is key here. Class-divided society arose out of conditions of relative scarcity and the need for a division of labour to manage and control access to resources. This gave rise to a ruling class and a state apparatus, to protect the power and privileges of those ruling classes, and to manage society and its resources in the interests of those ruling classes.
However, since around the turn of the 20th century the productive forces have been developed to such a degree as to make an abundance of goods and services possible and capable of meeting the essential needs and indeed desires of every single woman, man and child on this planet for the first time ever in human history. The contradiction between this economic potential and capitalism’s requirement to restrict production to ensure profit and capital accumulation resulted in capitalism entering its period of decay, decadence and destruction, over the course of the 20th century, characterised by permanent high unemployment, war, mass death and destruction, and impending ecological catastrophe.
To coin a phrase, communism is not just a nice idea, but became a vital and urgent necessity. A communist society where the resources of the world are owned and controlled by the vast majority of working people, where production is for use and to meet socially determined need, and not profit for a minority, provides the true scientific basis for a sustainable, harmonious and peaceful human society for the future. And a credible basis for human civilisation extending into and beyond a 30th century, rather than struggling to survive the 21st.
Such a communist society would represent the true beginning of human history and will in time regard the various phases of class-divided society within past human history as an unfortunate but necessary aberration.
Marx was right all along. The economics of any society underpin and determine its true potential. If previous forms of class-divided society did not have the economic potential to deliver abundance, they could not, by scientific definition, have delivered communism.
30th century
30th century
Postpone Pride
Outrage is not supporting the East London Gay Pride march scheduled for April 2, following the revelation of links between some of the organisers and the rightwing English Defence League. I have also withdrawn my personal support. We fear the march will be exploited and hijacked by the far right to create divisions and stir up intolerance against Muslim people.
Outrage opposes both homophobia and anti-Muslim bigotry. All forms of intolerance are wrong. The gay, Muslim, Jewish, Asian and black communities know the pain of prejudice and discrimination. We should stand together, united against hate. Let’s celebrate east London’s multicultural diversity. Don’t let bigotry divide us. Together, we can defeat the hate-mongers.
While defending the right of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and inter-sex (LGBTI) people to protest against homophobia and ‘Gay-free zone’ stickers, it would be best if the march was postponed until a later date and organised by a broad-based grassroots and community coalition, untainted by associations with the EDL. Muslim organisations and speakers should be invited to participate in the rescheduled East London Pride.
Sadly, the East London Mosque and its London Muslim Centre must bear some responsibility for previously stoking homophobia. They have hosted hate preachers such as Abdul Karim Hattin, Muhammad Alshareef, Abdullah Hakim Quick and Bilal Philips. These fundamentalist anti-gay preachers fuel a culture of homophobia that first and foremost intimidates and threatens LGBTI Muslims. We welcome the East London Mosque’s assurance that it will not give a platform to anti-gay speakers in the future. We urge them to establish a regular, permanent dialogue with LGBTI organisations, including Muslim ones, to foster solidarity between the LGBTI and Muslim communities and to combat both homophobia and anti-Muslim prejudice.
The vast majority of British Muslims are not fundamentalist fanatics. They don’t support hate preachers. Although most of them do not approve of homosexuality, they do not discriminate or harm LGBTI people. We must be very careful to distinguish between Muslim people in general and the extremist minority who oppose democracy and human rights and who want to establish a clerical dictatorship.
Postpone Pride
Postpone Pride
Time, comrades
On December 16 (‘We will be back’), Robbie Rix wrote: “Apart from a few technical glitches [the new website] is almost ready for launch.” We’re now well into March. Now, I’m well aware that time is a relative concept or, as Douglas Adams wrote more poetically, “Time is an illusion, teatime doubly so”. But I do ask when the new website will see the light.
On a related note, and I reported this before, there seems to be a bug in the current website. In Firefox all seems fine, but in Google’s Chrome I’m missing a few buttons, such as the link to the previous editions. I’ve no idea what might cause this and, as I’m into the subject of web design myself, I would like an answer as I’m genuinely interested.
My last question is one about study. I’m in a reading group and we’ve also settled on a few works of Jack Conrad. Could such books be put online when the new website (eventually) goes up? The Socialist Party in England and Wales, for example, does the same with its books, so I don’t think that a group which sees itself as educating the rest of the far left on the subject of Marxism could stay behind for too long.
Time, comrades
Time, comrades
Diversity class
In his book After theory, Terry Eagleton observes that, despite all its radical veneer, postmodernist thought has a conservative epistemology, because, like conservatism, it sees all things that are a product of social construction as plastic and hence ephemeral. Imagine my surprise therefore when I find that the supposed vanguard of the working class seem to share such a misapprehension. I refer, of course, to Maciej Zurowski’s article ‘Lady Gaga and the “gay gene”’ (March 3) and Kevin Hind’s letter on class identity (March 10).
Maciej Zurowski uses a Foucaultian account of the rise of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender ‘identities’ - one in which LGBT people are purely passive, with their identity seen as an ideological imposition. Not surprisingly, therefore, Zurowski reaches the same conclusion as queer theorists that the “gay community helps to perpetuate the very same myths that are the source of its oppression”.
I would have thought that, as a supposed Marxist, Zurowski would use a Marxist explanation of the rise of LGBT identities, such as that given by John D’Emilio. While science encourages people to think in deterministic ways about their feelings, the rise of LGBT identities, according to D’Emilio, are more a response to the rise of capitalism. Specifically the rise of the wage labour system and the fragmentation of the traditional family relations in urban areas, which both allowed lasting same-sex relationships and made them necessary for people to survive. The rich and powerful have never needed LGBT identities, as their privileges have allowed them to live parallel lives. LGBT identities are a product of the struggle of working people who have had no choice other than to fight their corner. LGBT identities are therefore no more ‘artificial’ than any other social identities, be they gender, race or class.
More disconcerting is Zurowski’s and Hind’s dichotomisation of LGBT identities and that of the class struggle. Beyond a moan about the apolitical and commercial nature of the gay scene (as if straight pubs and clubs are a hive of political radicalism), no tangible examples are given as to how LGBT identities block the class struggle. What we do have is a Gorkian slur, with LGBT identities being associated with the far right: “Conservative rightwing capitalism finds its expression in the LGBT community,” writes Hind, while for Zurowski, “this tendency has found its most recent, admittedly marginal, expression in the rainbow-flag-waving LGBT ‘division’ of the English Defence League”.
But perhaps the saddest thing about Zurowski’s and Hind’s perspectives is their evidently poor opinion of straight working class people. Apparently the proles are so lumpen that LGBT workers need to climb back into the closet in order to counter the “conservative right, for whom it is a useful device to stir divisions within the working class”.
The working class is diverse. It is made up of men and women, black, Asian, Muslim, Christian, gay, bisexual, straight, disabled, old and young, atheist, transgendered, and so on. We all have a diversity of needs and expectations and we have a range of skills and capabilities. Class unity cannot be achieved by pretending these diversities don’t exist. On the contrary, respecting and utilising this diversity lays at the heart of Marxism. As the slogan goes, ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.’
Diversity class
Diversity class
Proportional
Your article on voting systems is well thought out and logical. It has led me to question my own preference for a 50-50 system with a d’Hondt top-up. I still wonder if localities do have some cross-class interests, but accept that communists may regard them as marginal.
The point I would make is that AV, in its requirement for 50% to win a seat, could likely lead to a less diverse parliament than we have now. The exaggerated swings could also lead to a less proportional one. Looking at Australia, the parliament there does appear to be less proportional than the UK one, with a hung parliament actually being rarer in Australia.
Also I feel the main parties will have less to fear of leftists of various stripes if they know our voters would likely transfer to them in later rounds.
Proportional
Proportional
Allende vote
There was an interesting passage in Peter Manson’s article on the alternative vote: “Working class rule requires the support of a clear, if not overwhelming, majority of the population. Socialism is the act of the working class, carried out by the working class. It cannot be legislated into existence from above - and certainly not by a government that has less than 50% of the popular vote. As soon as a working class government attempted to introduce measures that undermined the power and privileges of the ruling class, it would be paralysed and in the end removed by any means necessary through the bourgeoisie’s control of state institutions, the means of production and, not least, its ‘bodies of armed men’.”
Interesting for its implications, I mean. It would confirm one of the reasons why the Allende administration in Chile that came into office in 1970 was able to be overthrown three years later. In the presidential election, he received only about 36% of the vote (he was elected by congress using AV!) and the parties that supported him never got more than 50% in parliamentary elections. (The other reason his administration failed was that it was unable to make capitalism work for the workers and so left people discontent or indifferent to its fate.)
But does the second part of the passage mean that, even with over 50% of the vote, a socialist electoral victory would not be accepted by the last capitalist government and that this government would still be able to make capitalism function with a majority of the population against it? Wouldn’t all hell break loose (strikes, demonstrations, mutinies, etc), leading to them being overthrown or surrendering anyway, a bit like the collapse of the dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt (and 20 or so years ago in eastern Europe)?
Allende vote
Allende vote
No to AV
Whilst I agree with much of the sentiment in Peter Manson’s article, I am afraid I disagree with him about supporting the alternative vote as a step towards more extreme democracy. On the contrary, I see it as a retrograde step that will help to maintain the exclusion of current minority parties and maintain the dominance of mainstream parties that represent the political status quo.
I agree with the comments relating to the Labour Representation Committee. I recall hearing such sentiments when I was active in the Labour Party in the 1980s. Then the debate was around proportional representation, which was opposed by much of the left for the same reason. Apparently a Labour government with a radical programme was more likely to be elected with ‘first past the post’ and then socialism would be delivered by the passing of a few laws with the aid of the occasional enabling act. The role of the masses in creating socialism was reduced to putting an ‘X’ against Labour on the ballot paper! Incidentally, I agree that the list system would be one of the best systems.
The following hypothetical exchange between comrade X and comrade DP explains in more detail why I think socialists should vote ‘no’. This is especially relevant to those who wish to see a left political alternative to Labour ever being able to get representatives elected.
DP: The problem with AV is that it is a majoritarian system which will make it even more difficult for minority parties to get representation. In this sense it is a retrograde step. What is needed is PR, not AV. For this reason I am opposed to it. If there had been AV instead of PR in the Scottish parliamentary elections both the Scottish Socialist Party and the Greens would never had got any seats.
Comrade X: But the referendum isn’t to replace PR with AV. It’s to replace first-past-the-post with AV. On the example you give, if FPTP had been used for the Scottish parliamentary elections, there wouldn’t have been any SSP or Green reps elected either.
DP: True - but it would be even less likely under AV. Caroline Lucas was elected as the first Green Party MP under FPTP but it is very unlikely the Greens would get an MP elected using AV. Likewise if we have AV in parliamentary elections it will create an even greater barrier to get any socialist or radical candidates elected. I will give a hypothetical scenario of votes: Socialist 40%, Labour 30%, Lib Dem 20%, Tories 10%. Under FPTP the socialist would win the seat. Under AV the Tory would be eliminated and second choice votes would be redistributed. Those votes are likely to go to other mainstream candidates. This may change the results to say: Socialist 41%, Labour 32%, Lib Dem 27%. Then the Lib Dem candidate is eliminated and second and third choice votes redistributed. Say: Socialist 47% and Labour 53%. The result is that Labour is elected.
Comrade X: At least under AV votes can be cast for left parties without voters feeling that that they will let the Tories in.
DP: Yes. If your heart is socialist but you normally vote Labour then you can safely vote socialist first knowing that under AV your vote will revert to Labour once the socialist candidate has been eliminated. So the system under AV will allow more people to vote socialist in a first round, but with the assurance that any minority has the deck stacked against them. It will be near to impossible for a minority to actually get candidates elected under AV. The few communist, Labour Independent, Respect and Green candidates that have been elected in the last 100 years wouldn’t stand a chance. The system would be biased in favour of parties representing the status quo.
Comrade X: Yes, AV is majoritarian but less so than FPTP.
DP: This is a misunderstanding of AV. Votes are eliminated and redistributed to next preferences. The final play-off is between the last two candidates standing, once votes have been redistributed. In theory, you could get 49% of the vote in a first round and still lose so long as the second, third, etc, preferences of the mainstream parties all end up stacked against you. FPTP is less majoritarian than AV. The party that will really gain from AV is any party in the centre of mainstream politics - the Liberal Democrats. The Lib Dems have argued throughout most of their history for PR, but instead they are offering a system which will benefit themselves and heavily discriminate against current political minorities (who will effectively be excluded from office). This is another Lib Dem sell-out. The Lib Dems are currently hated for their part in the vicious coalition cuts. Should they be rewarded by changing the electoral system to one which makes the seats safer for these hated politicians?
Comrade X: Clearly the Lib Dems are unlikely to gain as much from AV as they would from PR.
DP: If I remember rightly, they would gain around 30 or so MPs in most of the elections that have taken place in the last few decades under AV. A lot of Labour and Tory voters will give Lib Dems as second choice. Both Labour and the Tories will tend to be slight losers. Would the Lib Dems gain more from PR? In a sense, no, because they would have greater influence with AV, even if they could theoretically get more seats with PR. Even then I’m not sure whether the arithmetic would give them more under PR anyway. The biggest losers will be minority parties that will be totally excluded.
No to AV
No to AV
Alternative view
This week sees the 140th anniversary of the Paris Commune (March 18-May 28 1871). Marx thought the brutally suppressed insurrection was the first example of the working class exercising power in its own name. Yet, according to Peter Manson, the way in which representatives to the Commune were elected should have made that body incapable of representing the working class (‘Socialism means winning the majority’, March 10).
Peter maintains that only in a factory or an office do workers have sufficient “common interest” to make it “often appropriate that they should elect their own representative to union bodies or, in a situation of much greater class-consciousness, to soviets”. By contrast, “council wards or parliamentary constituencies rarely have common factors that give their inhabitants, or at least the overwhelming majority of them, a common interest based purely on where they reside”.
Peter goes on to explain that the CPGB supports the party list system of proportional representation in which the whole country is treated as a single constituency and electors place a cross against a party rather than a representative. The CPGB also believes that between elections it is the party rather than the electors who should recall representatives elected in this manner.
140 years ago the working class of Paris was perfectly capable of directly electing representatives based on arrondissements (ie, geographic districts) and holding them directly accountable through the right of recall. These were among the features of the Commune, effectively Paris’s local council, that Marx argued gave it a working class character.
No doubt the Parisian working class would have stood a better chance of long-term success if the First International and the ideas of Marx and Engels had exerted more influence on the councillors. But the electoral system made no difference to that outcome.
Now, I do not imagine for a minute that any elections in the immediate future (on May 5, say) are about to open revolutionary opportunities. Nevertheless, the Commune demonstrates the potentially revolutionary content of the simple act of voting.
The working class clearly has the potential of exercising great power in workplaces by asserting the right to vote - whether it is electing an accountable trade union representative, a delegate to a workers’ council or a manager. However, it is also in local communities that workers are capable of challenging bourgeois society. In fact, given that many members of the working class do not work, it is only on a geographic basis that the working class can express the totality of its interests.
It is my contention (see my ‘Electoral reform and communist strategy’, May 27 2010, for a detailed discussion of these issues) that direct election and recall (both now and in the workers’ state of the future) is the democratic principle that has the best chance of releasing the political and social creativity of the working class.
Alternative view
Alternative view