Warning: Long, probably unoriginal and intensely self-indulgent post focused on ideological rambling to follow. Ignore if you (perhaps justifiably) suffer a tendency to hurl accusations of pomposity at such posts; it’ll be better for us all.

The State and the Citizen: Or, Why I am a Democratic Socialist, part 1.

We move from first basics; we assume, in general, that people seek what they define as happiness, as Bentham suggests. It’s the only definition of human activity beyond the soul-destroying vagaries of genetic struggle which accommodates the more perverse elements of human behaviour. And it creates few problems; who would deny they want to be happy in life?

This should, for the most part, mean people are left to their own devices; happiness is subjective, and can only be achieved for each individual by those individuals. Anyone who pursues their own happiness and does not infringe upon the attempts of others to do the same only does what seems natural. They have every right to do so.

There are, however, conflicts likely to arise; some citizens will attempt to derive their pleasure at the expense of others. Say, if an individual chooses to steal from another the fruit of their labour; thereby furthering their pleasure at the expense of another. A state is thus necessary, with its primary purpose to balance the interests of citizens. It must seek to create the greatest happiness for the greatest number - in essence, a utilitarian tool.

Clearly, by virtue of universal humanity, we can assume certain freedoms are essential for that pursuit of happiness. The state must seek to safeguard those freedoms if it wishes to create the greatest happiness for the greatest number; and the classical libertarian definition of freedom won’t do, as it allows individuals and corporations to assault individual freedom. The state must, of course, have clear boundaries and be bound by the rule of law - but we must accept an interventionist state is necessary for greater freedom.

Instead of the libertarian definition of freedom, we should consider a doctrine of applied freedom; where theoretical liberty characterised by absence of legal restraint is useless if held back by real-life circumstances. Clearly, people aren’t free if they’re hungry; they cannot focus on the pursuit of happiness as they need to find food first. People aren’t free if a thief breaks down their door and ransacks their home. People aren’t free if they’re freezing - or suffer extreme poverty and have no escape, or lack support in their old age, or are orphaned, or ignorant, or their planet is dying through the negligence of others. They cannot act independently, and so cannot move towards happiness.

The state must guarantee these essential needs and freedoms if it’s to create the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Taxation becomes necessary; those who can afford it should be taxed at a level which won’t seriously impede their ability to seek happiness to allow those who can’t to seek that same happiness. The money raised funds the apparatus of freedom; state education to ensure all have the chance to pursue happiness, a police force to protect that chance and pensions to allow those who can’t work the same chance.

But even that’s not enough. The power of organised capital and corporations can be as damaging to individual freedom and happiness as any level of state power. Consider the relationship between an unskilled worker and a multinational corporation; there are many of the former, and despite the absolute necessity of many of the roles they fill, their sheer numbers ensure that employers can, in effect, screw them over. They need to work to survive, and so will work for virtually any wage - yet their employers don’t need them in particular, so can pay them any wage, no matter how low. The workers can’t refuse that piddling wage, as they’ll lose their jobs; and without those jobs, they’ll find themselves thrown on the mercies of society. In short, a clear example of certain individuals grossly profiting and the expense of others. So, the state must intervene, ensuring all employers pay a minimum wage on which it is possible to survive.

Likewise, if a group of selfish individuals control an essential and universal service, they can wreak havoc on the lives and livelihoods of others; witness the cruel absurdities of healthcare in the USA. Those who control an industry can take control, jack up the prices and so the profits - and if people can’t afford the service, they suffer. Universally necessary services in private hands are conducted to the benefit of those private hands - not the majority who desperately need them.

So, the state must take any essential services for which there is a universal human need, and ensure they’re universally accessible. You cannot be truly free if you’re sick; so a universally accessible national health services is necessary. You cannot be truly free if you’re freezing; so mass energy generation should be nationalised and energy - or the means of generating it at a household level - made accessible to all. This can take place on a partial basis too, if it’s all that’s needed. You can’t be free if you’re homeless but want a roof - so the state should build and control some housing. You can’t be free if you can’t reach your place of work as you don’t own private transport - so the state needs to provide some level of nationalised transport. And so on. The objective is to prevent one group of individuals gaining so much power over others as to make those others’ existence a misery; and the means of delivering this is placing the means by which life might be made into a misery into the hands of a neutral entity which exists for the benefit of all.

To ensure those services are rendered to the benefit of all, those who control the state must be rigorously accountable - and subject to regular elections. The power of the electorate to demolish any government that doesn’t act in the interests of the greatest number ensures that governments will act in the popular interest. Here, we see the superiority of nationalised essential services over the same services when they exist in private hands; democratic elections ensure those services are administered to the benefit of citizens, rather than the owners as they are when privatised.

The state thus exists to benefits citizens - and only to benefit citizens. Regular elections should ensure this; while a codified constitution setting out the fundamental rights of citizens and the barriers of government ensure the same in between elections. If, though, the state breaks that constitution, and so assaults the population’s basic liberty, then citizens have a right to legal redress; the state is as bound by the constitution as citizens are by the rule of law, and so must be answerable. If the state prevents that legal redress from occurring, it ceases entirely to act in the interests of citizens, and so becomes a Tyranny. If a state descends into Tyranny and sheds the essential manacles of democracy, then citizens in turn are no longer obliged to obey that state’s laws.  Why should they sacrifice their happiness and liberty if they receive neither security nor the happiness of others in return? They shouldn’t. They have a right to rebel, throwing off the chains of the state which betrayed them and reclaiming that happiness. This right to insurrection must be written in the constitution; for only then will potential tyrants remember their peril.

(Or: For Solidarity’s sake, comrade, don’t mention Kronstadt)

On a day where the Prime Minister appointed by his party declared himself against a return to the 1970s, a time which the far-left (and perhaps only the far-left) consider with some nostalgia, at least in contrast to the decade which followed who better to see first thing than Tony Benn?

Watching him at Marxism 2008 had a particular joy; in that it was one of the immensely rare occasions during which his audience would leave him substantially to the right. If, even after all these years of attendence, this left him unsettled it did not show an inch. I showed up very mildly late and he was in full swing; clearly in his element while speaker. His speech roamed over a broad number of points and annecdotes, distinctively Bennite in nature, covering everything from his rather surprising advocacy of rationing (the average height of the working class man rose by two inches due to it) to his ethical vegetarianism (his forward-thinking son Hillary told him fifteen years ago that if all the grain fed to animals was fed to people this would end famine).

It was obvious that the SWP presence (heavy) was left bristling by his outright suggestions that Labour was worth struggling to save and although his suggestion that Labour would swing left after a heavy loss to Cameron (something which would effectively require New Labour to end) he did acknowledge that Labour was not socialist but had socialists in it “Just as the Church has Christians in it”.

Speaking of which, he did not adopt an anti-religious tone but was opposed to religious authority. It occured to me later on (as well as the day before, when I was talking about the importance of imams concerning Respect) that Marxism falters when it comes to understanding the power of religious leaders. Its understanding being limited to wealth results in the power of a poor man standing on an upturned box and raving about a being that loves as it condemns being somewhat alien to them. Preachers often lack fortunes but are able to marshall people through belief in matters beyond the material. Although I would challenge the genuine existence of such forces as firmly as would Marxists I fear that their focus upon the tangible leads them to underestimate the might of that which is elsewhere. Even if it is merely steroid-fed speculation it gives copious power to the undeserving.

Regardless, Benn stated that his internet research had led him to the conclusion that all religions taught much the same message; which was that you should treat others as you would expect to be treated. Perhaps a rather simpler formation than the Universal Ethic tirelessly sought by renegade Catholic Hans Kung but the method of his learning struck me as interesting. When he was taken up on this point by an American concerned about the media (worse in his own country than here, he said, but perhaps America is simply more right wing I would suggest) who stated that the internet was inherently “structured” to favour the bourgeois Benn stayed firm, stating that he was sometimes uncertain why he still watched television as he got all the news he wanted from the websites he followed. A man after my own heart, clearly.

(more…)

(Or: SES at Marxism 2008, part 2)

This time around I managed to gather myself from slumbers early enough to show up in time for considerably more sessions than the day before, albeit not nearly as early as the brisk 10.00 start that the meetings began with. I actually underestimated my lateness and ended up ploughing into what I thought was Labour and Alienation soon after starting but which was in fact Historical Materialism about to finish. Consequentially entry was a matter of ease; although in hindsight I probably left a SWP doorperson or two baffled.

I honestly can’t remember a lot about historical materialism, but as far as I can tell there was somehow a conversation about ethics going on, which was topically innappropriate but entertaining all the same, if only for a chap with shoulder-length dirty blonde hair who took to the floor and began talking about Kronsdat.

Now if I was looking for a sharp start to my day here it was: once this world was uttered things seemed to ripple and the effect was as delightful as I had imagined ennounciating such syllables in a room full of Trotskyites would be. Indeed, I merely deemed it a pity that I hadn’t beaten the chap to the bunch.

He was immediately followed by a bleached-blond lass who would later turn out to be somehow important who gave it some typical blather. Safeguarding the Revolution and so on, you know the drill. Never mind that their hero had overseen and executed the crushing of the epitome of the revolution, had to be done to protect a structure that they didn’t even agree with, see? The alternative being a far more popular brand of socialism than the Bolsheviks seeing control of the country and that…Uhm…Anyway…

The room was still left unsettled. The topic moved on and it was about some other stuff, with my recollection failing me over the materialism stuff. What was interesting was that as he was headed out of the room the chap who had asked was verbally hailed by a pair of Marxism “Staff” t-shirt wearers from behind a table, who wanted to give him the Kronsdtat Chat. I stuck around to hear this and the first man was firm and pulled away quickly by duties while the second was softer but spoke to us for longer, accompanying us to the lift and staying with us for a while.

Their arguments seemed to consist of a mixture of emphasising the importance of crushing the Kronsdtat threat, claiming that there were none of the original Kronsdtat sailors left owing to attrition from the revolution(s) against the Csar and the heavy losses of the Civil War (concerning this, as with all other matters of detail, you must consult Douglas or some other historian who is of this field rather than early Medieval as I am) , launching ad hominems (those that bring this up are bourgeois or anarchists aiming to discredit Trotsky rather than achieve anything productive) and talking about how the Bolsheviks agonised over the decision.

They also stated that the Kronsdtat make up was Socialist Revolutionary rather than Bolshevik, and this irked me: even I am aware that when Lenin briefly allowed an experiment in democracy the very reason he rejected the outcome was that the SRs won in a landslide, crushing the Bolsheviks electorally and demonstrating a level of support for the militants of an immensely smaller scale than they liked to presume. This considered, that there were plenty of Kronsdtat sailors Social Revolutionaries is hardly surprising at all.

Unfortunately all Bolshevik apologists dislike you bringing up their almost total absence of mandate about as much as Trots do his authoritarian atrocities. So we didn’t get far but the people we spoke to were perfectly friendly and their response seemed more an earnest attempt to explain their position rather than intimidation or anything of the sort. As ever the SWP seemed like a misguided but ultimately lovely bunch.

As we headed outside I encountered a large number of groups that thought otherwise. This was a set of people who’d cleared off before I arrived yesterday and were in some ways who I was there for. The SWP I’d already heard plenty from and now it was time for The Rest of The Left.

(more…)

The following 36 Labour MPs rebelled against the 42 Days Vote:

Diane Abbott; Richard Burden; Katy Clark; Harry Cohen; Frank Cook; Jeremy Corbyn; Jim Cousins; Andrew Dismore; Frank Dobson; David Drew; Paul Farrelly; Mark Fisher; Paul Flynn; Neil Gerrard; Ian Gibson; Roger Godsiff; John Grogan; Dai Havard; Kate Hoey; Kelvin Hopkins; Glenda Jackson; Lynne Jones; Peter Kilfoyle; Andrew MacKinlay; Bob Marshall-Andrews; John McDonnell; Michael Meacher; Julie Morgan; Chris Mullin; Douglas Naysmith; Gordon Prentice; Linda Riordan; Alan Simpson; Emily Thornberry; David Winnick; Mike Wood.

Note the abscence of one particular figure from this list: Jon Cruddas, erstwhile rising star of the Party left.

That left-wing of the Labour Party needs to wake up and realise how impotent it’s become. Nobody listens to them anymore. Their last tangible achievements were in the 90s with the minimum wage and devolution; since then, nothing. Not on Iraq, not on civil liberties, not on privatisation. They claim they stay in the party because it’s the only way they’ll have influence - but they have no influence in the party.

The government went over their heads today by cutting a deal with the DUP. Those with power in the party would now prefer to deal with a party consisting of conservative nationalists and religious extremists than with secular, socially liberal democratic socialists. And now even their usual allies in the Compass group MPs and Jon Cruddas abandoned them for fear of the whips today.

Shouldn’t that tell the Labour-left something? It has no influence; New Labour stopped listening when it realised how responsive MPs were to threats from the Whips. If it ever wants that power back, there would need to be a grassroots revolution in the party. Activists and constituency parties would need to seize power back from the creaking and undemocratic hierarchy and deselect MPs who voted for measures like this. They’d have to deselect them, find suitable candidates and win the constituency for that new face. And this in the face of great pressure from the national machine that hands out funding and support. Can you imagine how fast that funding would dry up if local activists deselected one of Gordon’s favourite faces and replaced them with a snarling (yet wonderfully bearded) socialist calling for his immediate impeachment for economic heresy? The cash would just go (if, of course, it’s not already gone to pay off the party’s debts…). So - the revolution could happen, but it’d be slow.

The other alternative would be to jump party and head somewhere else. The current fringe socialist parties - the SWP/Left List, RESPECT Renewal, the Socialist Party, blah - are sectarian basket cases who’d destroy those MPs’ careers. The Lib Dems wouldn’t have proper socialists. That leaves joining the Greens - who’d welcome the support and funding and seats. But whether they could persuade their local support bases to come with them is another question.

But the other choice is founding another party. This would be difficult. Every attempt to found a new socialist party since the inception of the Labour party itself has died of Trotskyite infilitration and sectarian squabbles. The SWP might well enter as a bloc and break the new party in the way they did Socialist Alliance. And funding and ground support might prove an issue if local Labour parties didn’t move with the MPs. Not to mention First Past the Post…

That’s why any attempt to set up a new party would need great care. The MPs would have to go to their local parties and make the case for change. Some of the unions would have to go with them - and that’s possible, given the recent discontent from the GMB and other left-leaning groups. And they’d have to go as a concerted group; if they immediately formed a unified parliamentary body when they defected, they’d have a parliamentary record to stand on next election, and would be less vulnerable to sectarian collapse. It’d be difficult, but it could work. Just so long as they keep the SWP out, of course.

The Labour Left has several options. It can find another party, or it can establish its own. Either way, they’d have more of a voice than their current whisper. The government seems more frightened of other parties eating up its votes all round. Just as triangulation against the Tories constantly drove New Labour to the right, perhaps a threat from the left will pull them back again. And they’d have more luck in the Commons judging by recent events; Brown was more willing to deal with another, small party than his own MPs.

The Labour Left has no influence now, and needs to move on. If anyone doubts that, I’ll remind them of the results in the 42 Days debate. For: 315. Against: 306. The difference between those numbers: 9. Number of DUP MPs for: 9.

Number of Labour MPs against: 36.

Get out before it’s too late, rebels.

Much as the groups in question may detest the phrase “There’s no such thing as a free lunch” might go far in describing Love Music Hate Racism. In exchange for the performances on offer you are expected to turn out and vote for anyone other than BNP. Not to much to ask, for sure, but the sort of groups that care more a bout this much more than anything are perhaps not likely to be typical Tories. This was made pretty clear as the moment the Bethnal Green train station a loyal lady of the SWP handing out fliers proclaiming “Stop the BNP” one the hand sided over and “Vote Left List” upon the other.

That she was a loyal SWP member was an assumption of mine, of course, but a fairly safe one and something quickly concerned when I asked her. She admitted {confessed?} to membership but demurred when I asked “So you’re the SWP then…” Apparently the Left List consisted of a majority of non-SWP but curiously when I asked around none of these elusive Left Listed non-Socialist Workers were in attendance.

Given that they had been instrumental in the organisation the last time around their presence was hardly a surprise, but it was surprisingly heavy but rather forlorn given that they weren’t able to call themselves what they were this time around. Why they didn’t just drop the pretence altogether when it became clear that they weren’t going to be able to pretend to be Respect is beyond me.

Irrespective of my dislike of the party as an edifice, though, the trend of every SWP member I meet being immensely nice and totally approachable held true. After warily asking if I was a member of the Galloway faction of Respect in a rather wary fashion and receiving a response in the negative the guard was dropped and she spoke in earnest about her experience of the Tower Hamlets schism of November last year. According to her it was nearly entirely the fault of Galloway and although there were differences caused by the “Electoralism” {the SWP like their “-isms” a lot} of the Galloway faction but it seemed like the two groups were to be reconciled until Gorgeous George fouled everything up repeatedly. This I could entirely believe given Galloway’s diplomatic skills but her absolution of the CC was a tad suspicious, so far as I was concerned.

She sneered at George’s magnificent bus and claimed that he had lost his activist base. Given that by the time I arrived there was nobody around to represent him she most probably had a point there.

This was especially true as the Respect Coalition was amongst seemingly a handfull of parties not represented: most obviously absent was the BNP. Besides this was UKIP and its splinters, the Conservative Party and the LibDems. The last were the most surprising but perhaps they just didn’t have their act together or their eye on the ball.

Besides them, though…Seemingly nobody.

The left was out in force and bunched up together in all its unshifting diversity and shabby splendour. The sheer quantity of groups contained in so small a space was quite something to behold. Besides the aforementioned Socialist Worker Party there was the easily but not oft confused Socialist Party, International Socialist Resistance, the New York newspaper Militant, Revolution and probably a few others I have forgotten. The former group were out there first though and after getting me to sign a petition I decided to engage in a quick talk with one. I considered RL trolling {the aforementioned SWP by the station had been told “Actually I’m pro-fascist” by a bearded man as I passed by} but decided instead to get into their ideology a little. She seemed very passionate and gave a quick list of people appropriate for the SWP. Apparently this included students, which rather surprised me. It seemed that, upon probing, her definition of someone not of the proletariat covered people who went into the city in suits or worked for banks, which certainly less inclusive than I had imagined. Indeed she went so far as to call me a “Working class man” which I found a very pleasing, as well as certainly a first.

She said that she could not see the two sides of Respect ever being reconciled but seemed happy enough, as they all do. The SWP is nothing if not active and despite the high turn-over it has constantly had people out doing things, even if they are mostly non or counter-productive. They were a heavy presence throughout the day, having three tents and a balloon inside the festival proper and numerous stalls in the socialist walkway.

I did my best to speak to all the socialist groups around, all of them offering me a newspaper. ISR I sort of forgot about but Militant was being offered by an elderly man who I found quite charming. For the sake of clarity it should be explained that this was not the Militant who attempted to take over the Labour Party from the inside during Thatcher’s reign, which also had a newspaper called Militant which it used to defend itself from claims of entrism using with the line “Militant? That’s not a faction, it’s an in-party newspaper”, but instead the version which began in New York in the late 1920s and has been published internationally since, with a short intermission in the 1950s when British Stalinists stamped down on all their rivals. This I learnt from the chap selling the things, who was reluctant to describe his ideology, or the paper’s, initially but then said that although some would call them “Communists” he deemed the terms “Marxist” and “Socialist, revolutionary socialist” to be more appropriate. He was opposed to the Stalinites, especially since the aforementioned shut-down performed by a bunch of thugs following their brutal master’s lead. They were also opposed to Maoism although were very much in favour of the Chinese Revolution. The rather strange disconnect between the event and what directly followed was rather curious, but barely distinguishable from the standard Marxist stance on the Russian Revolution. Apparently the paper took a firmly internationalist stance {utterly appropriate for any Marxist group, I would argue} and was connected with a group that operated in support of the remaining Communist countries, such as Cuba. They seemed harmless enough and it was quite impressive that their organ had been running for so long, perhaps having been bolstered by the true “Crisis in capitalism” that followed.

Perhaps that also served as an admission of failure: after making so little headway in creating an American revolution after so long and having witnessed various crises encountered and overcome by capitalism perhaps it should have become clear to the publishers that they were making an error somewhere.

Perhaps that is being unkind, however, they had at least turned up which was more than could be said for George Galloway’s Respect Party. This left two groups that I had an interest in: Revolution and the Socialist Party. Unfortunately I opted for the latter first and thus got swept away to a meeting in the opposite direction to the former. This was an exceptional pity, especially given a rumour that Fenby had told me. The exchange I had planned would run as follows:

Me: I hear from reliable sources that you have orgies. Is this true?

Revolution: Yes. Yes we do.

Me: That’s my sort of socialism, where do I sign?

Instead though I approached the SP, who were packing up shop and heading off for an informal gathering of those interested in the anti-fascist struggle. Or at least that’s how they’d put it. The Socialist Party seem to define themselves in contrast to the SWP, who they dislike considerably. I found that, as is often the case, getting along with this bunch was less a matter of agreeing with everything they said and more a matter of insulting the right people. Jibes about the SWP, honed by reading the blogs from the rest of the Left who are entirely united in their loathing, went down very well and it was considered impressive that I’d read the blog of A Very Public Sociologist. I was packed off to the meeting with a woman named Naomi, who apparently shared my interest in observing far-right groups and was amused at the forum infiltration I staged earlier this year.

We walked across the park and it was revealed that the Socialist Party were in fact Militant renamed and operating autonomously after its failure to ascend to the Labour Party’s head. They clearly considered this a pity and deemed it a consequence of Labour lacking “Internal democracy”. When asked if they were Trotskyites she confessed as much, something which made the clear and obvious division between them and the SWP even more curious. The reason was for suitably esoteric causes, with the Worker Party apparently doing it wrong when it came to Trotsky. They lacked internal democracy, much like Labour, used the term “State capitalism” that the SP consider a contradiction in terms and use method that the Socialists deem ineffective. They also thought that their methods against the BNP {“Smash the BNP” petitions and so on} were ineffectual since they weren’t working with the masses enough. They weren’t keen on Antifa’s approach towards taking on the BNP either, since they focused upon the actions of their own group instead of getting the public involved.

Their approach was more focused around getting people to oppose the far-right to get whistles and arrange themselves to outnumber and scare away the hard-right activist. It struck me as a rather absurd prospect, especially when she told me about how they had had what can only be described as a BNP-drill, but apparently it proved effective and they had managed to get their city head quarters shut down, which rather reminded me of Scientology’s retreat from the efforts of Anonymous in part of Germany. A lot less lulz, though.

The Trotsky connection was interesting, though. Apparently there was even a third Trotskyite party, which I forget the acronym of. They of course felt that only they were pursuing matters in the correct fashion, with their international focus and their masses-focused approach and superior democracy. I still found it rather strange, though, that even those following the same ideological off-shoot of an ideology which is hardly popular as it is could not develop some form of unity. There is presently no comparable party on the left to the British National Party, despite the conditions. At present there is a discontent with the extent of the wealth of a tiny minority in Britain that is far from confined to the usual suspects, indeed it has even spread beyond nationals such as The Independent and stirred the pages of The Times and Daily Mail. This combined with the continuing mess of the Iraq War, a “Crisis within capitalism”, union action and an international trend towards socialism and the left that has touched everywhere from America to Cyprus {although sadly missing Italy} the conditions in Britain are ripe for a strong socialist party to emerge. As it is the largest and most promising party has torn itself into two in a fashion that would have made the National Front wince and the remnants are now squabbling amongst themselves.

Perhaps aware of this but doubtless having felt this way for a while longer the Socialist Party, probably knowing that it isn’t really up to the job, advocates the creation of a “New worker’s party” that includes the unions and can act as an alternative to Labour, which is a goal it shares with various other elements upon the left. The odds of this occurring are minimal and almost certainly doomed to failure while FPTP remains in place. Some may see this as as fine a defence of the system as any but personally I find it a bit of a pity.

The socialist, incidentally, was also from Tower Hamlets; which seems to be something of a Vatican City for leftists. Her take on the Respect affair was not favourable to the SWP, as I’d expected, and her recollection was that the CC’s role in the split had been far more active than SWP activist #1 had claimed.

The meeting was an informal affair that consisted of two SP-ers talking about the BNP and their efforts against it. It seems that in response to LMHR the BNP were organising an effort, reminiscent to the “Rock Against Communism” drive undertaken by Blood & Honour in reaction to RAR, which the Socialists dubbed “Love Music Love Racism”. They intended to picket the event, although were limited in terms of options owing to the event occurring upon private farmland owned by a BNP member. After this they opened the floor to any questions or points, with everything feeling friendly and democratic, all as it should be.

As a supreme irony while this was ongoing Lindsey Graham took to the stage, visible clearly across the field over the vast screens. Her rhetorical style was a lot more harsh and abrasive but she clearly mattered about defeating the BNP, which was enough, really.

Meanwhile the softly spoken Socialists had a blonde man making a point, starting immediately be quoting Trotsky. The point was pretty simple: for every 10 people the fascists put out on the streets there should be 100 communists, if they put 100 out then 1000 communists should present. This piece of Trotsky-tech was met with approval but personally I found the tactic put the entire affair in a new light. I knew that the original Rock Against Racism had been organised by the SWP, at least partially, along with the unions {as was LMHR} but had no idea that this was following explicitly the suggestion of the influential communist revolutionary. Although I doubted many in Victoria Park were aware of this either they had certainly been counted.

The dependence upon the words of wisdom provided by Bolsheviks seemed considerable, though: much of the activity pursued by the Socialist Party was dependent upon it and even though they claimed that their efforts to make it relevant and in context was superior to “Some other socialist groups” {a weak code for “The SWP”} this I found rather peculiar. Not exactly a breach of the authority fallacy but still rather too close for my comfort. It also triggered a recollection of Scientology again, in this instance their dependence upon “LRH” {socialists like acronyms about as much as Scientologists} and his “Tech” for every activity and method. Still, the Socialists of either party seemed a nice enough bunch and frankly the risk of them actually beginning a revolution is about as great as that of them forming a government.

My suggestion for them was something inspired by the aforementioned infiltration: they’d raised the point of the BNP seeking respectability and I suggested that getting a look of the inside, footage and photos, would assist their efforts to unveil this. They were wary of the idea as it would require a volunteer. I certainly wasn’t prepared to shave my head.

After this a Labour member suggested that the party’s opposition to his was not unfounded but rather excessive. They agreed that there were many Labour Party members who pleased them but that the party’s lack of democracy made their presence futile. Their stance on the Greens was more favourable but, like the SWP, said that they should have had a “Class basis” for their party. This raised my other concern with entire affair: woeful liberal that I am I deem people as entirely undefinable by the category which they “Belong” to. This is not the case with these socialists, perhaps mainly due to them all being some form of Marxist. Their opposition to racism seems to be mainly based around the ideological argument that people ought to be defined not by their racial identity but their position in society and wealth. To me this seems to be barely anything of an improvement, and not only because I fear some of the revolutionaries might disagree with SWP lady #2 concerning which class I belong to. If the opposition was purely to bigotry then all would be splendid but as it was it seems that many of the forces arranged against the BNP, especially those organising this affair, were instead suggesting simply switching one prejudice for another.

The unease I felt with the entire affair was compounded by the rather alarmist proclamation of “Don’t vote Nazi” flashing across the screen. Given that we were attending an event named “Love Music Hate Racism” I doubted that most of us would be inclined to vote for the BNP anyway and fear that simply proclaiming them to be national socialists would help. As it happens the BNP does seem to be headed by a surprisingly great number of Nazis, or at least admirers of that grim regime. This obviously indicates them as utterly unsuitable for power {not least because they allege nationalism while harbouring fondness for an expansionist government that intended to make Britain a Germany colony} but it does not reflect upon their membership, which is increasingly growing convinced that the claims are unfounded slurs.

But it is, perhaps, possible to worry too much about politics, especially given that the event is largely one for music and that was what almost everyone was there for. Bearing this in mind I took my leave of the Socialists and went off to enjoy myself.

The stages were divided between the main stage, other stage and dance tent, all of which were devoid of sponsorship thanks to the unions. Unfortunately the planning was a mess since the programs failed to tell you which stage between other and the tent bands were playing in, let along when.

So I’m afraid that I can’t identify one of the bands I saw, although I shall call them The Same because they were utterly indistinguishable from every other identikit indie outfit out there, although I shall forgive them for they had a song which I enjoyed immensely.

I moved on to the dance tent, which featured a massive queue but proven worth it thanks to having Skream and Benga on the decks. It’s strange to consider that since the original RAR, that was filled with roots reggae {rightly castigated by Julie Burchill for rampant homophobia} the amount of black music created has been truly immense. Hip-hop, drum&bass, dubstep and bassline are just the ones I enjoy. For all of these genres it was not exclusively
black artists involved, simply a disproportionate number. Much of the audience are white, however. This leads to youth culture effectively being antithetical to

Skream and Benga are perhaps the epitome of the difficulty the far-right encounter: although both operative as producing DJs in their own right they were today upon the stage together. Skream is a white who with his shaved head could probably pass as a skinny skin. Benga is black and packs a mean ‘fro. Together they make a potent partnership, producing a brutal, murky dubstep wash of depth and rumbling intensity. The heavy noise kept the crowd grinding to the fierce grooves and together they worked to create a vigorous assembly of snaking beats.

Dubstep keeps the bass heavy throughout and beats vicious, although moving at a blazing crawl. This resulted in a swaying, shuffling dance motion from people who were perhaps still a bit uncertain of how to reaction to it, despite giving a hollering response to the strongest tunes. Not being too up on my Dubstep I didn’t recognise much besides the most notorious tunes but in many instances the sound was immediately enjoyable.

They were joined for the last few tracks in the mix by an MC, who filled the gap of the left by the entirely instrumental tracks that they created. This is a common trait of Dubstep {besides Burial} but besides the darkness, beat structure/focus and speed it is nearly the only one. It still very much feels like a genre defining its identity, although the unmistakably joy-inducing melancholy mood is never shifting, and this results in its creators having a type of liberty and license not open to many.

They closed with the aforementioned Burial’s Archangel, a strong contender for the finest single DubStep track ever created, although irksomely quiet and bass-devoid as they were being “Get off-stage” hints for over-running. This was nothing compared to the treatment of who was to follow.

The reaction to hearing that we were to receive a d&b work-out was exuberant, and that it was to be delivered by DJ Hype received even greater joy. To give you some impression of his skill I need only say that while attending the night where Fabric was taken over by Pendulum and filled up with their selected acts their own set was one I missed the {lengthy} DJ section of since I was too stunned by Hype to realise that they were on. This is unremarkable but the interesting thing was I didn’t feel like it was a massive pity.

Easily one of the most respected figures on the d&b scene Hype is not a flamboyant performer, which only serves to emphasise the skills that serves as a solid foundation for his reputation. The shift in mood was palpable and it was highly striking to observe the shift from firm and rocking dance moves to the all out rapid raving that suited the swift break-beats blasted out. The genres are similar in tones but the delivery of the older is far more thrilling on its own level. That one being total absorption into motion. The rippling sub and only occasionally relenting beats of Hype drove the crowd into a thrashing mass, assisting along the process by a strong MC who led the call&response chant of “When I say DJ, you say Hype” that follow the jockey wherever he goes and generally contributed to the crowd’s mood.

A master at his craft Hype often triggered moments where the collective assembled before him staggered reeling from his offensives during lulls and then surged forwards in total rapture, self seeming to fade as the mass leapt ecstatically and the beats struck fast and firm. In-between these motions there was dance-moshing and shoving of a scale and ferocity certainly not seen during the Dubstep display.

Hype continued to work his craft until suddenly the show was abruptly ended. It seemed that the crowd had packed the tent far too lightly and none other than the police had demanded the music cease. There were furtive discussions between the organisers and the MC and Hype, an immensely long pause occurring before finally the MC proclaimed that we would receive more so long as we all took a step back, especially those around the tent flaps. There was a distinct failure to do so, although many within the tent retreated none around it left, so after a few more requests of the same the MC lapsed into silence.

I was not departing until the set was through but the pause dragged onwards, with Hype himself finally taking the mic to explain “It’s not me, it’s them. I’ve got 2 hours lined up.” After another stretch of purgatory most inside the tent had gotten bored and wondered off elsewhere. Only a dedicated cluster remained and finally the MC returned with a beam of “Four minutes” and Hype honouring us with an exclusive set. The screen behind him had ran out of animation to display and gone blank but this was a matter of no consequence.

The crowd’s devotion was total and the tunes superb. After what felt like considerably more than four minutes the show was finally brought to a joyful close and we quickly filed out as the tent was disassembled. Damon Albarn’s new band The Good The Bad and The Queen were playing upon the mainstage, including Paul Simonon who was perhaps the only performer present when the entire affair began. Unfortunately I was rather distracted by the sight of a brightly coloured figure from across the other side of the park. I had a woeful suspicion over who this could be and pelted across the green to find myself sadly correct: Patrick Wolf was just finishing the last lines of Magic Position when I arrived, proclaiming “Love Music, Fuck Racism!” exuberantly as the fiddles struck to a halt.

Irked at Hype again being too skillful and enjoyable for my own satisfaction I headed back to TGTB&TQ. They introduced a horn section while I bought a cornetto, with Albarn once against proving his musical polymath abilities.While they performed rappers joined them and spoke before finally a man I believed might have been from The Specials played us his own arrangement of Ghost Town, which was performed by an urban singer who took far to long to get on with it. This closed the festival and the talented compare urged those of us legally capable into the polling booths on May 1st.

And then it was done, a horde of assorted but mostly young anti-racists heading off through the park and then through Hackney, a mixture of all races {it reminded me of the Underage festival that had occurred in the same green, only adding inner city blacks and asians to the white indie kids} merging and mingling.

Whether the downfall that befell the National Front soon after RAR will be repeated by the BNP after LMHR remains to be seen.
Just as long as we can stop them clawing a foothold now there’s a strong chance they’ll tear themselves apart. Much like their predecessors {or the Republicans, for that matter} only momentum holds them together. We have a strong chance now, perhaps our last. And by “we” I mean everyone, really. Anyone who feels that they are distinguishable instead of defined by their race. You could even vote English Democrats or UKIP and fend off the true threat.

Given that they are dependent upon a tiny turn-out to win any power at all and feed their delusions of representing the “Silent Majority” of Britains a park filled with their opponents gave me hope. They’ve changed their name and to some extent their targets but what’s within remains the same. “As long as our own cadres appreciate the full implications of our struggle there is no need for us to do anything to give the public cause for concern”, said Nick Griffin. So it’s up to us. “We must at all times present them with an image of moderate respectfulness”. But we aren’t fooled, we can tear that open. We’ll beat the bastards yet, just like we did last time around.

Given that I have begun my newly filled profile with a pair of philosophies that I came up with off of the top of my head I consider it appropriate that I define terms and in this series this is exactly what I intend to do. Firstly I shall deal with, as this title suggests, “Pragmatic Socialism”.

On the blog of Catholic wench The Anchoress there is an entire, well filled, category entitled “Socialism doesn’t work”. This struck me as strange and has stayed with me ever since, primarily for the reason that most such phrases do: the obvious lack of validity.

Indeed the only reason that I have been able to embrace socialism is for reasons of the empirical rather than mere ideology. I have no real affection for Marx {his failure to predict the massive ascension of the middle classes and its implications makes him a poor profit} and struggle to consider the rich to be the uniform scum that often inspires ire amongst movement socialists. The only real reason for me accepting socialism is that where it is present it seems to be beneficial to those living under it so long as it is applied correctly.

Indeed my main objection with its present primary challenger, neo-liberalism, is that under it human are sacrificed upon the alter of ideology. They are more concerned with the freedom of markets than sentient beings, an order of priority that I find most unsettling. It seems clear to me that anyone arguing in proposal of “Trickle down economics” or systems similar are effectively staging a denial of reality. The proposal is that if markets are freed then the world will improve for all but it seems obvious to anyone that merely observes the facts that such benefits are only brought as a consequence of exploitation. Some make benefit and the economies improve but there are invariably those who suffer and will not be assisted.

There is a limit to any form of pragmatism. Without an ideal to work from what exactly you opt to do with reality is solely instructed by the outcome which you desire and this is invariably based upon some ideal or other. The reason that I use the term is that I consider socialism to offer results that simply can not be matched in countries that spurn it. Witness the social harmony of the Scandinavians, the vast amounts of death prevented by the nationalisation of Venezuelan oil, the folly of delaying similar treatment to Northern Rock. In these cases, and copious others, there was an alternative but it was not one that was rational, so long as you value human life and happiness. Pragmatic socialism is a term which means nothing more than accepting this as reality and adjusting the policy which you advocate accordingly.

To an extent a pragmatically socialist tendency is present within almost ever British politician: the Conservative Party has accepted an inherently socialist institution, the NHS, and has no plans to abolish it, nor will they in the foreseeable future. In fact they suggest raising its funding and have run firmly on the slogan “Stop Gordon’s NHS tax cuts” in order to attempt to save it. The Liberal Democrats have spurned classical liberalism in doing much the same and are now reliant upon social liberalism to justify what is effectively a concession that socialist policy was correct. In other countries the alternatives make the failings of our system seem next to negligible: when left in the charge of private individuals healthcare reaches those that can afford it rather than those who need it, teenagers die when treatment was both available and advocated by all doctors, those who have a history of cancer and thus are most in need of care of all are denied insurance for that very reason, the rich man striking the poor child in his car is treated firstly and racial riots result. To suggest that this is a superior model to embrace instead of engaging in vigorous reforms of the existing system is to wave aside the tangible in favour of the idealogical imperative.

It is notable that the only reason America does not have levels of AIDS death prevalence comparable to those of Africa is due to a project launched by the UN to distribute retro-virals to all in need. When I confronted an HIV positive defender of privatised healthcare over the issue he used this in defence of the system without failing to recognise the irony of invoking an instance of international socialism, which obtained its funds entirely through taxes upon the contributors.

Here, socialism works.

Neo-liberalism has indeed made great benefits to the economies of the states where it is introduced. However to argue that this makes an open and shut case is to simply disregard reality, once again for the sake of ideological convenience. Firstly the suffering caused to other countries via the exploitation by the globalised market is simply immense. There is certainly an incentive for sweatshop workers to labour for absurdly long hours for a pittance provided by their circumstance but this does not constitute justification for the ruthless exploitation that they have endured, nor does it render the suffering that such working conditions causes them a phantom. The damage done to areas where production jobs has been overstated but remains considerable, thus both on the domestic and international levels such policies cause a considerable degree of harm.

Secondly the error made is to imagine that a towering economy results in a happy populace. It does not and it is clear that neo-liberals have mistaken the anvil for the blacksmith. The reason that economies are valuable is not inherent but in the joy that they bring, yet it seems that the powerhouse economy of England has resulted in people far less happy than the much fiscally weaker Netherlands. So precisely what benefit is created by such policies? Economy to figures, certainly, to the wealthy elite, or at least those not working themselves into an early grave for pure futility. But not to the most, not to the majority. And certainly not ethically. The cheap clothes are from those enduring forced overtime, the cheap chickens and eggs from tight cages. Suffering permeates these conditions and unease reigns. I am not under the impression that ethical qualms leave “Consumers” quaking with remorse, simply that their joy is originated in pain, irrespective of whether they realise and consider this or not.

In a much remarked upon perversion of all that is sane city boys rigged the system to pay less in tax than their cleaners, as if some form of repugnant Randian fantasy had been spat out into reality and come to life.

This creates resentment within society and various varieties of disorder follow. Neo-liberalism brings no joy and only once you accept a free market as an inherent good can this be accepted. The fantasy of free will is often cited by conservatives but, as so often with arguments against socialism, it is based upon false preconceptions, in this instance the notion that people have control over the decisions that they make. In reality choices are formed by who people inherently are and what environment they have lived and developed in, neither of which they have any semblance of control over. Yet somehow the mystical force of true autonomy, for which there is no real evidence for the existence of, is seen as to invalidate the role of the state. This falsehood aside it is clear to those that work from the evidence that socialism improves the rates of crime where it is applied properly, as demonstrated by the distinction between the crime rate of America or Britain as compared to Denmark or Finland.

Unemployment is another issue of note but here, at least, our government made the correct noises. The “New Deal” for the unemployed took glow from Roosevelt, who was amongst most successful progressives of the 20^th century, to try and alter the basic consequences of the present system. It did not receive funding, unlike a vast number of “Private Finance Initiatives”, a euphemism that effectively amounts to the government handing over vast slabs of taxpayer cash to create a hybrid of state and business that works together as well as an Everclear/fairy liquid cocktail. They could, of course, have given the unemployed jobs in the roles that they “Needed” the private sectors help with and paid their wages and training with the money that they would have saved once organisations arranged to maximise profit were removed from the equation but that would have not conformed to the ideology that had partly swallowed, partly birthed. Never mind that it would have made sense.

This aversion towards rational solutions has led to a wariness of the state that resulted in a raising of Hayek over Hegel. Despite the former’s strong allegations of association with reason it has become blatantly apparent that pure liberalism of this sort will not serve as a solution to the problems that confront the vulnerable. It is true that the number of unemployed present within society are too great and must be reduced by merely slicing the conditions under which those suffering from such conditions, as suggested by the Tories, does precisely nothing to create more jobs. This is the primary cause of the problem: those that seek jobs largely either have none available to them as a consequence of scarcity or else lack the credentials required. Without the state’s assistance neither of these are likely to alter.

The second cause of people lacking employ brings us to the point where every western politician save Ron Paul is a pragmatic socialist: education. That the state will have a role in teaching the young is now a crushingly overwhelming consensus that is effectively unchallenged in mainstream politics. It is true that classical liberals such as Mill considered learning to be of immense value but the system as it stands entails the government providing an education equally funded across the country. Amongst the major flaws is that of the religious being permitted to run fiefdoms within the service, bringing the counter-active force of selection into play and preventing a truly comprehensive system existing.

There are here immense reforms that must be made but it is clear that the only way to rationally approach the problem presented is with the state in provision of the service, at least to the firm majority of children. Where American states have attempted to alter this basic rubric with “Vouchers” they have empowered the companies attempting to profit through education and merely subsidised the rich, leaving the poor scrabbling for the cheapest on offer. This system simply seems to be observed to be dismissed as an alternative.

Once again, socialism works. Socialism is all that works.

In this way we can consider collective solutions to the problems confronting our species, those blights of ignorance, disease and raw boredom, can be addressed adequately with socialism and socialism alone. Only in attachment to the methods rather than the ends, a perverse focus if ever there was one, which has resulted in the “Free Market” being considered an ideal in itself rather than a bridge to joy, can have led to the continued attachment to it. Conservatives rely upon irrational attachment to tradition and their urge to protect the familiar has led them to accept the suffering as an inevitable part of society in much the same way that they accept the absurdity of a monarch. I am under no illusions that all pain can be eliminated but it is clear that in both many developing nations, as demonstrated by the benefit given to the Venezuelan people from distribution of the nation’s wealth amongst the people, or in those that have already developed, as demonstrated by the far superior standard of living within within the Scandinavian exceptions to inhabitants of national neo-liberal projects, great progress can be made and a vast amount of unnecessary agony prevented.

Despite many appalling and unacceptable practices this seems true even in the more autocratic of socialist nations: despite an American embargo Cuba retains a state capable of providing a superior standard of living than the United States. The primary reason that this distinction is apparent between these nations and others, such as Zimbabwe, is that their tyranny is coupled with a far superior system of provision for the people.

This does not justify the foul misdeeds of such regimes but it demonstrates further the successes of socialism, which if purged of such totalitarian elements obviously provides durable and tangible benefits for those who encounter it. The point of this is that all of the basic woes that have plagued humanity are resolved well by socialism and in its application no other has accomplished as much. The form which seems to function best is a fusion of markets and management which prevails in the Nordic states but it is notable that even the French seem happy enough, despite their flailing economy. Socialism has also improved the state of Spain and seems to be doing so throughout the tide of nations throughout South America that have embraced leftist populism. Inequality is rife throughout most nations that have not and inequality is simply code for unnecessary suffering. Unless there is to be seen a higher value than maximum global happiness, and there is little rational support for there being one, this demonstrates that socialism is the most reasonable policy to advance.

Purely because it works.