TANIT

A reply to Jean Lievens’ document

By Themistokles

Jean Lievens’ lead-off in Athens deals with a number of issues that are relevant to the title question.  As I was not present in Athens, I am not in a position to judge whether it served fully the needs of the conference or not.  However, as a definitive document answering that question, should be examined critically and it is in this spirit that the present reply was written.

(more…)

Harry Rattner’s intervention on the question of the transitional programme has in many ways shed new light on what is lacking in the programmatic arsenal of the left. While there is no end to political analyses and propaganda pieces the left has in general failed to provide a credible concrete programme that would show the way out of the capitalist impasse. While such a situation would probably be understandable in times of a booming economy, it is frustrating in today’s world of utter confusion among the ranks of capitalist economic thinkers and vicious austerity measures by disoriented governments, including social democratic ones.

What has gone wrong? If we look at the kind of literature the vast majority of self-styled revolutionary groups have been producing in the last half century, we can hardly find any serious criticism of capitalism. Most of them carry on reproducing classic material which is increasingly irrelevant in today’s fast changing world. The more vulgar manifestation of this kind of intellectual laziness can be seen in the ready answer to any problem arising from the workings of capitalism: ‘only socialism can provide the answer’. Probably true, but inadequate.
(more…)

The world faces three major challenges;-

1. Combating climate change which threatens environmental catastrophe and social breakdown.
2. Poverty and economic crises
3. Religious obscurantism and its result in human unhappiness

(more…)

In Part four, Rob Lyon looks at the developing struggle for workers’ control in Venezuela.

First published on In Defence of Marxism website, Monday, 20 February 2006

Workers’ Control and the Venezuelan Revolution

And this brings us to Venezuela. What does all of this mean for the Bolivarian Revolution and the movement for cogestion? What the events in Venezuela show is that the workers can run industry. The old saying is true: the bosses need the workers, but the workers don’t need the bosses. Of course, technicians, experts and specialists are needed, but they must be placed under workers’ control. The experience of the workers at PDVSA clearly demonstrates this. PDVSA is no small company. In fact it is one of the largest in Latin America and involves incredibly high-tech coordination, involving computers, satellites and so on.

This is one advantage that Venezuela has over Russia in 1917. The development and extension of capitalism since the Second World War has led to the strengthening of the proletariat on a world scale. The workers today are much better educated now than in 1917. They work with complex machines, computers, satellites, etc, and require a relatively high degree of education. PDVSA shows that workers can assume management of industry much more easily than in Russia 1917.

Another important thing to bear in mind is that the idea of cogestion is included in the Venezuelan constitution. Although the form of cogestion is not always clear, and although the language used can appear confused to us and the law not very clear, these things are not decisive. Workers’ control is not what the law makes it, but what the workers make it. As Trotsky explained, “At a certain stage the workers dislocate the framework of the law or break it down, or else simply disregard it altogether. Precisely therein consists the transition to a purely revolutionary situation”.

(more…)

In Part three Rob Lyon looks at so-called workers’ self-management in Yugoslavia, at the time hailed as a genuine alternative to the Soviet model.

First published on In Defence of Marxism website, Friday, 03 February 2006

(more…)

In Part two, Rob Lyon looks at the experience of workers’ control and management in the Russian revolution.

First published on In Defence of Marxism website, Monday, 23 January 2006

(more…)

This is the first of four parts of a lead-off by Rob Lyon at the International Marxist Tendency school in Barcelona in 2005. Hopefully it will serve to initiate an on-going discussion of this vital issue.

First published on the In Defence of Marxism website Friday, 13 January 2006

(more…)

Today, even a child can answer the question ‘What is Socialism?’ If
you would ask a twelve year old what socialism is, the child would run
to the computer and ‘Google it’. If it were an English child, it would
probably panic, not only because of the length and the complicated
nature of the definition, but also because of the many different
versions of it. A Dutch-speaking child would be in more luck. It would
find a very short definition that I here want to translate into
English: “Socialism is a society based on equality, social justice en
solidarity, or the collective term for a variety of political and
ideological currents that strive to that kind of society.” There.
  (more...)

A comment on the comment on the comment of Restating socialism

In his reply to my criticism of his book, Kostas takes up whole number of points. Some touch upon  aspects of my criticism. Some take up completely peripheral things at length (such as two comments that I put within parenthesis). Some have no relevance whatsoever to what I take up. I will therefore summarize my main arguments and what Kostas writes about them.

Kostas wants a society where the shares of all the main companies are distributed to the whole population. He considers that the basis for this is the “roaring reality of the workers’ collective and individual capital property both in capitalism and in post-stalinism”. That is, the working class already has majority ownership over the economy, it just has to realize that and wield it to its own ends. This “roaring reality” he calls socialisation. In my reply I went through all his examples of socialisation and explained that they were either limited or illusionary. So how does Kostas reply to this?

(more…)

In his Comment of 2010XI08 comrade Clyne presents 5 arguments against Restating socialism. These arguments are the following:

1.      The “unfamiliarity” argument

2.      The “unsounded” argument

3.      The “speculation” argument

4.      The “embezzlement” argument

5.      The “deterioration” argument

Also, his Comment contains 4 complementary specific assertions which aim to back-up his main stream arguments. These assertions are the following:

(more…)