Discussion:
Ethical socialism, ethical capitalism or apocalypse!
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Steve Wallis
2008-11-17 16:05:46 UTC
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The current edition of the Weekly Worker (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/
worker/745/index.html) is a hoot!

The final paragraph of Dave Vincent's article "PCS opts for talks",
consisting simply of "I despair", sums up the state of Marxism in
Britain and internationally. Elsewhere in the same issue, Peter
Manson's article "Expensive absurdity" reports on the 80-90 strong
conference of Left Alternative, the Socialist Workers Party's (SWP's)
new "electoral front that does not contest elections". Considering
that the SWP has long been the largest Marxist organisation in
England, its troubles during a massive crisis of capitalism are
remarkable!

James Turley, in the article "Obamania and the left", says "by
mid-2007, it was abundantly clear that the Nader movement had all but
wilted. So where had these people gone? To the Barack Obama campaign,
of course: the electrifying orator and prophet of 'hope', 'change' and
a host of other vagaries had poached this grassroots constituency with
impunity." Rather than celebrating Obama's victory, and pointing out
the correctness of Ralph Nader's former supporters in shifting the
Democrats to the left, and they are way to the left of New Labour in
Britain as a cursory look at www.barackobama.com would reveal, Turley
moans about the Democrats being a capitalist party. Surely, as Ted
North reports on "progressive, Keynesian [Gordon] Brown" in "Brown’s
recovery and the global downturn", with Labour easily winning the
Glenrothes by-election and "the Scotish Socialist Party winning 212
and Solidarity a disastrous 87 votes", part of the solution to
achieving socialism in Britain too is participating in a capitalist
party!

So what does the CPGB (Communist Party of Great Britain, publishers of
the Weekly Worker) recommend as a solution? Well, they have been
plugging away with their pet project of a unified 'Marxist Party',
with such monumental success that their guru John Bridge (alias Jack
Conrad) cheerfully reports, in "Future course to be voted on", that
(under their leadership) "the national committee [of the Campaign for
a Marxist Party] unanimously agreed to put a motion to the December 6
AGM to close down the organisation" and instead "establish a committee
in 2009 with the aim of promoting the study of Marxism and the unity
of Marxists as Marxists"!

Surely it's time to face facts - Marxism, as a force capable of
challenging for power, in Western countries anyway, is dead!

But what about the unethical capitalism of George W Bush? Surely the
Obama victory marks the point at which it is mortally wounded too!
Obama's recent remarks about closing Guantanamo Bay are an indication
that this era is coming to an end. Granted, Obama's programme is not
as revolutionary as I proposed in my Ethical Capitalism Network
(www.ethicalcapitalism.net), but the struggle between the more ethical
and less ethical capitalists has surely been won!

But the socialist left in Britain is not dead! The Convention of the
Left at the time of the Labour Party conference in Manchester in
September brought together many hundreds of left-wingers inside and
outside that party to discuss the way forward. That unity is not over
- local meetings (including in Manchester) are taking place and there
is a recall conference, now postponed to Saturday the 24th of January
(also in Manchester - see www.conventionoftheleft.org), which will
hopefully set up some sort of anti-capitalist network. [Incidentally,
an SWP member (Ian Allinson) suggested this when I raised the issue at
a South East Manchester SWP meeting.] In the current economic climate,
a charter of reformist demands (like the SWP's People Before Profit
Charter) or even transitional demands (like those of the Socialist
Party) is inadequate. We need to point out the need to replace the
entire capitalist system, even if we don't use the word "revolution".

I now recognise that the idea of hierarchies of committees based on
workplaces, as proposed by Marxists, should be part of an ethical
socialist society - as long as there are also committees based on
local communities and the government is elected by proportional
representation (preferably by single transferable vote). I now
recommend a fusion of my ideas and those of Marxists and anarchists.
I'd strongly welcome a democratic revolutionary socialist party based
on such a fusion, but a looser and broader anti-capitalist network
(perhaps called the Anti-Capitalist Network) appears to me preferable
in Britain at present.

So what will those nasty unethical capitalists do when they see their
power and wealth slipping away (due to a looming victory of ethical
capitalism or socialism). Well, we should be prepared for them to try
to bring about some sort of apocalypse. As I sang in my song "99 Blue
Balloons" (see http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/poetry.htm), when there
is "nothing left but suicide" they could allow a terrorist attack on a
nuclear power station (like 9/11 was an inside job - watch the BBC
"Conspiracy Files" programme on the third tower, that collapsed
despite not being hit by a plane, at http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=9072062020229593250
or read my review of it at http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk/conspiracy-files.htm).

An alternative apocalypse could come about via artificial bacteria
being released to target people with certain genetic characteristics
(a sort of racial war but it could be based on genetic characteristics
other than race like the colour of people's eyes). This may sound like
science fiction, but J Craig Venter's institute in the USA has
proposed precisely this, supposedly to stop global warming, and they
first decoded the human genome mainly using Venter's DNA. I now see my
most important task being to do more work on my artificial
intelligence/simulation language SDML (I've almost finished making
databases much faster) and working in the field of bioinformatics to
prevent such an apocalypse. In the meantime, you can download and try
out SDML, which is available as open source Smalltalk code (as I
publicised in a message I sent several days ago at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PRsocialism/message/134).

--
Steve Wallis (Manchester, England)
Preferred email address: ***@yahoo.co.uk
Blogs: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/steve-wallis-socialist-blog,
http://blog.myspace.com/galaxiasteve
My socialist website: http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk
My pages at Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1038291480,
MySpace:http://www.myspace.com/galaxiasteve and Bebo:
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Founder, Ethical Capitalism Network: http://www.ethicalcapitalism.net
Founder, Foundation for Proportional Representation-based Socialism:
http://www.PRsocialism.org
Founder, Revolutionary Platform Network: http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net
My revolutionary socialist band, Galaxia:
http://www.galaxiamusic.net,http://www.myspace.com/galaxiamusic,
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Galaxia-a-revolutionary-socialist-band/84310120180,
http://www.bebo.com/galaxiamusic.
My socialist band, Red Day: http://www.red-day.net,
http://www.myspace.com/reddayband,http://www.facebook.com/pages/Red-Day/27468311341
Author, "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist
revolution will never happen?":http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net
For discussion of the credit crunch, go to
http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/forum/index.php?board=156
For discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories, go to
Poison
2008-11-17 19:07:20 UTC
Permalink
Post by Steve Wallis
But what about the unethical capitalism of George W Bush? Surely the
Obama victory marks the point at which it is mortally wounded too!
Obama's recent remarks about closing Guantanamo Bay are an indication
that this era is coming to an end. Granted, Obama's programme is not
as revolutionary as I proposed in my Ethical Capitalism Network
(www.ethicalcapitalism.net), but the struggle between the more ethical
and less ethical capitalists has surely been won!
Interesting, but ethical capitalism is outright impossible. When the
goal is profit, it is inherently unethical by putting personal
interests over collective ones.
Prime Minister of the Kingdom of God
2008-11-17 19:56:36 UTC
Permalink
Capitalism and Communism are the two sides of the Jewish coin
(www.grishenkoff.com)
Docky Wocky
2008-11-17 20:01:35 UTC
Permalink
Oh, this is a good one.

They have pill for this now, don't they?
f***@verizon.net
2008-11-18 15:38:06 UTC
Permalink
Post by Docky Wocky
Oh, this is a good one.
They have pill for this now, don't they?
Yes. For him, I prescribe cyanide.

Susan
Ben Cramer
2008-11-20 09:34:59 UTC
Permalink
Post by f***@verizon.net
Post by Docky Wocky
Oh, this is a good one.
They have pill for this now, don't they?
Yes. For him, I prescribe cyanide.
You sick cunt, cohen.

Prime Minister of the Kingdom of God
2008-11-17 22:42:43 UTC
Permalink
Capitalism and Communism are the two sides of the Jewish coin
(www.grishenkoff.com)
Prime Minister of the Kingdom of God
2008-11-18 15:42:21 UTC
Permalink
It is a pity that I cannot personally execute all Jews
(www.grishenkoff.com)
Herman Rubin
2008-11-17 21:23:23 UTC
Permalink
Post by Poison
Post by Steve Wallis
But what about the unethical capitalism of George W Bush? Surely the
Obama victory marks the point at which it is mortally wounded too!
Obama's recent remarks about closing Guantanamo Bay are an indication
that this era is coming to an end. Granted, Obama's programme is not
as revolutionary as I proposed in my Ethical Capitalism Network
(www.ethicalcapitalism.net), but the struggle between the more ethical
and less ethical capitalists has surely been won!
Interesting, but ethical capitalism is outright impossible. When the
goal is profit, it is inherently unethical by putting personal
interests over collective ones.
Can we have ethical collective goals? Not if one believes
in individual rights. It may be that natural forces, such
as global warming, or overpopulation, or government
controlled schools, would cause individuals to agree to
unite for limited purposes, but "collective rights" can
only lead to disaster. The only collective right to be
considered is survival of the species as thinking beings,
NOT in agreement.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
***@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
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