Re: [Marxism] New Labour Leader Heads Back to Britai n’s Center
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The common sense that the British media has manufactured is no doubt very powerful and I have also little doubt that Ed the Red Milliband will follow the script that dictates neo-liberalism's offensive against the working class must be maintained. Cockburn's little anecdote about 'Is your hate pure?' that Lou posted on his blog is very well taken. Ed Milliband hates no one it seems, with the possible exception of his late father. He is then Britain's Obama in waiting. Least ways that is his ambition. But I think he will miss his Obama moment. The class anger and hatred that the cuts will produce will sweep this slimy little opportunist away. He may try of course to reinvent himself as a defender of the working class. But I think this Obama wannabe has come to late to the feast. The original Obama himself is floundering around now trying to find the change that anyone at all can believe in. comradely Gary Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] New Labour Leader Heads Back to Britai n’s Center
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == NY Times October 2, 2010 New Labour Leader Heads Back to Britain’s Center By JOHN F. BURNS LONDON — Out of power for barely five months, Britain’s Labour Party set an ambitious goal as it concluded its annual conference last week: fulfilling the pledge of Ed Miliband, the party’s new, 40-year-old leader, an intellectual leftist strongly favored by Britain’s powerful labor unions, to make the governing coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats led by Prime Minister David Cameron “a one-term government.” On its face, the goal of an early Labour return to 10 Downing Street may not be an impossible reach, despite the deep popular disaffection for the party after 13 years in power and its crashing defeat in the May election. The Cameron government has committed itself, and Britain, to a huge gamble: that it can cut public spending brutally, at an average of 25 percent for most departments, and that the cuts will not only save an economy that remains at threat from one of the highest levels of government debt in Europe but also generate new economic momentum before the next election, most likely in May 2015. But there is another possibility, one Labour is betting on as its route back to power. In this version the cuts, the largest in Britain in a generation, will stifle Britain’s stumbling climb out of recession, currently yielding an anemic growth rate not far above 1 percent. On this, Labour politicians like to quote President Obama. Reluctant to undertake budget cuts of his own before the American recovery gains pace, he has warned Britain and other European nations embarked on ambitious deficit-reduction plans that they risk plunging themselves, and much of the developed world, back into a double-dip recession. But before Labour can hope to benefit from economic turmoil in Britain, the new leader will have to recast his own profile, as he emerged from the leadership battle, and convince Britain’s voters that he is more than a callow “old-style North London lefty,” as he was described in a commentary in the right-wing Daily Mail. Mr. Miliband was tagged “Red Ed” by Britain’s right-wing tabloids after a leadership campaign that was nakedly pitched for labor union support, including harsh criticism of the Cameron budget cuts. That stand yielded him victory when union votes gave him the smallest of margins to squeeze past his older brother, David Miliband, the former foreign minister and longtime front-runner for the position. David Miliband quickly bowed out of frontline politics, saying he wanted to end the “soap opera” the fraternal rivalry had become. During the Labour conference, the older Miliband, who is 45, was joined in the defection to the parliamentary backbenches by other heavy-hitters from the reformist “New Labour” movement that carried the party to three successive election victories after 1997 under Tony Blair. They included Alistair Darling, Jack Straw and Bob Ainsworth, three of Labour’s highest-ranking ministers in the troubled government of Gordon Brown, who resigned as Labour’s leader after the May defeat. Also gone, with them, was much of the party’s experience, leaving some critics to portray the “new” party of 2010 as sorely lacking in political heft. After his victory, Mr. Miliband seemed at haste to reposition himself toward the center ground where British elections are won. On the economy, he seemed to rebuke left-wingers who acclaimed his victory as having “buried” New Labour, made a pariah of Mr. Blair and set the party back on a path to its traditionalist, class-warfare, union-bound roots. One of these, Neil Kinnock, whose term as Labour’s leader ended after two defeats by the Conservatives, in 1987 and 1992, said that with Mr. Miliband’s defeat of his brother, “We’ve got our party back.” Another Brown-era cabinet member, Hazel Blears, described the New Labour years as “wicked and malicious.” Not so, Mr. Miliband seemed to be saying, as he outlined approaches to budget cuts and strikes much closer to Mr. Cameron’s position — and his brother David’s — than anything he said in the leadership race. “There will be cuts and there would have been if we had been in government,” he said. As for the unions, which have been threatening strikes on a scale Britain has not seen since Margaret Thatcher came to power more than 30 years ago, he had a warning, drawn from Labour’s wilderness years before 1997. “We need to win the public to our cause, and what we must avoid at all costs is alienating them and adding to the book of historic union failures,” he said. “That is why I have no truck, and you should have no truck, with overblown rhetoric about waves of irresponsible strikes.” But Mr. Miliband appears keen
Re: [Marxism] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Richard it's not pedantic. You, I and anyone else that reads Milliband and Panitch on the Labour Party knows that the whole point is dissuade socialists from working with or supporting the Labour Party. That you are still trying to twist their argument to the contrary is quite something. Your claim that the idea of "Labour, as a sort of massive con designed to lock the working class into an alliance with capitalism, has nothing to do with marxism. It is a sectarian, theological disposition, not an analysis." contradicts your claim that you agree with the Millibandian critique of Labourism. You are in fact arguing directly against Milliband and Panitch. Why not just admit it? Brad Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Obtuse me just wants to know if in fact the argument is that Marxists should organize, advocate, agitate for, and support, a Liberal-Labor coalition government in the UK? - Original Message - From: "Einde O'Callaghan" Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Einde O'Callaghan: > Just to clarify: The affiliated trade unions have 50% > (i.e., half) of the delegates at Labour Party Conferences. > How these are selected varies from union to union, but > most British trade unions do have some semblance of > democracy. On a local level affiliated trade unions are I don't know what the situation is with the British trade union movement democracy, but I would just like to comment the "some semblance of democracy" stuff I think I saw in another message here as well. Based on my experience in the Finnish Metal Workers Union (MWU), it is wishful thinking to pretend that the membership doesn't participate because there is no "real" democracy. No doubt participation could be easier, but somehow I'm a bit tired of this rhetoric that the workers would participate if only the leaders were not pissing them in the eye all the time and doing their best to hold the workers down or something. Forgive me for putting it as sharply as this, it's just to make the point.. An example: a few years ago the MWU leadership (social democrats, or SDs) was pushing for a massive merger, where the 165 000 member MWU was to be abolished and merged with several other unions to form a union of 300 000 members. The SDs didn't have the 3/4 majority in the MWU council to abolish the union (a precondition for the merger), so they agreed to a membership vote - after all, why not: The hoped-for positive outcome for the leadership's initiative was their only way to pressure the left-wingers to accept the merger. If they lose the vote, it doesn't matter, they would've lost anyway, but if they win it, then they have a weapon against the lefts. The leftwingers seized the moment because they've (we've) always wanted a membership vote, mostly on collective agreements, and now there was one on offer. So of course. Last spring the vote was implemented. Every member got mailed a letter with the ticket, and they had to check one of the boxes, do you support MWU participation in the new industrial union, yes or no. With the ticket there was a pre-paid return envelope, so you just had to put the checked ticket in it and put it in the mailbox. Absolutely no cost for you. That's all. Whatever you might say about how the question was formulated (e.g. nothing on abolishing the MWU), in my very humble opinion taking part in the vote was not a question of unnecessary hurdles put in the way, or other difficulties. How much more easier can it be? The participation rate was a pathetic 25% (normally in union elections the rate is around 50%), and of them a bit over half supported the leadership. The leftwingers had counted on member participation based on their healthy suspicion of what the leadership is up to.. but they miscalculated. In the decisive council meeting the leftwingers voted against the merger despite having originally agreed to respect the membership vote (because they had thought that of course they'd vote against the leadership now that they get the chance). It's beside the point that the leftwingers still did the right in voting against the merger; the point is they had counted on membership activity, and it failed. MWU council members are workers from the bench (= no union functionaries). Everybody votes with the party of course, but they have to face the heat from the shop floor for what they vote for - in case the shop floor is interested, that is. I'm afraid they're not so interested as we often hope, and the SDs don't need so many dirty tricks to keep the membership down.. You don't need to hold down a person who's not trying to go anywhere. I think the picture the "they don't participate because there's no real democracy" formulation paints is a bit too rosy.. Joonas Laine MWU branch 49 -- jjonas @ nic.fi Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 11.05.10 02:37, Ron Cohen wrote: > == > Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > == > > > > In what way those are organic connections? membership? representation in > party conferences? participation in branches activities? there are > almost none of those. membership dropped to record low, branches are > empty, conferences are PR events with very little, if at all, working > class participation. the only "organic" connection, if you may call it > that, are TU donations, which are also bitterly opposed by the members - > e.g. the royal mail members of the CWU. > Just to clarify: The affiliated trade unions have 50% (i.e., half) of the delegates at Labour Party Conferences. How these are selected varies from union to union, but most British trade unions do have some semblance of democracy. On a local level affiliated trade unions are represented on the General Management Committees that run the constituency parties. This structure does mean that there are differences between the British Labour Party and the US Democratic Party - even if the ideology adopted by the party leaderships has similarities. Recognising the links between the Labour party and the unions isn't to say that entering the Labour Party is the way forward for the British Left - indeed the experience of recent decades is that when revolutionaries join the Labour Party the Labour Party changes them far more than they change the Labour Party. Einde O'Callaghan Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 11/05/2010 01:37, Ron Cohen wrote: > In what way those are organic connections? membership? representation in > party conferences? participation in branches activities? there are > almost none of those. membership dropped to record low, branches are > empty, conferences are PR events with very little, if at all, working > class participation. the only "organic" connection, if you may call it > that, are TU donations, which are also bitterly opposed by the members - > e.g. the royal mail members of the CWU. > Ron, the biggest trade unions are affiliated to the Labour Party on the assent of their members; they are represented at Labour conferences where they have a block vote; they have a third of the vote in leadership contests, alongside members and MPs; the trade unions specifically sponsor a number of Labour MPs; they have representation on the NEC; and the fact is that if the members of the CWU or any other union wish to disaffiliate from the Labour Party and stop donating their money, all they have to do is vote for a resolution at conference to that effect. In 2008, eg, the CWU did debate disaffiliaton and democratising the political fund, and both resolutions were defeated. I have said in another message that there are long-term tendencies which are gradually undermining such organic connections. The FBU no longer affiliates to Labour due in large part to Labour's role in betraying the 2002-3 firefighters' strike; the PCS never did affiliate, and its political fund set up in 2005 is specifically not earmarked for Labour; and the RMT was booted out of Labour in 2004. But these are among the smaller unions. Unite, Unison, GMB, Aslef and a total of 15 of the largest unions still affiliate to Labour. The majority of the organised working class is still evidently persuaded that the link with Labour is worth preserving, even when the Labour government is consistently at war with the unions. To refuse to recognise this is to bury your head in the sand. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 11/05/2010 01:39, brad wrote: > Everyone should read for themselves either the full article or my > quotes below, which unlike Richards don't seek to completely distort > the whole argument of the article (fucking wow, Richard). > > The trouble with your quotes is that a) I don't disagree with them, and b) they don't contradict what I said. The Labour Party is a party of the working class, a part of the labour movement, and as such is profoundly affected by any class struggle that takes place. This is what I claimed, and this is what Panitch claimed. I am fully in agreement with the Milibandian critique of the Labour Party, but if you think that it says that Labour is not a party of the working class in the sense that I've just outlined, then you just haven't been reading closely. Even your own cited articles underline the point again and again. This is how Panitch discusses the Labour Party in the 1988 article you cite: "...a social democratic working-class party like Labour...". In the Ralph Miliband article from 1976 which you cite, 'Moving On', he repeatedly affirms that Labour is indeed "the party of the working class" (using the definite article where I would not). The basis of his objection to Labourism is above all that it is not *socialist*, not that Labour is not a working class party. Indeed, the Milibandian critique of Labourism nowhere objects to the basic sociological description of the Labour Party as a party of the working class, but consistently reaffirms it, and your own preferred sources prove it. Now can you please engage with the arguments and cease with this boring pedantry? -- *Richard Seymour* Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Rather than have me go on about it...there is a lot of good stuff at the Socialist Register website (I had forgotten how influenced by this stuff I am). Here is more detail, but the same conclusion from Panitch: http://socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/5921 Milliband here is also good: http://socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/5397 Milliband waffles a bit but not even to the point that Richard claims, or is, here: http://socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/5493 Brad Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == In what way those are organic connections? membership? representation in party conferences? participation in branches activities? there are almost none of those. membership dropped to record low, branches are empty, conferences are PR events with very little, if at all, working class participation. the only "organic" connection, if you may call it that, are TU donations, which are also bitterly opposed by the members - e.g. the royal mail members of the CWU. Richard Seymour wrote: "in the *last analysis* the relationship between the Labour Party constitutes an organic connection between party and class." Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] New Labour
==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==
Bhaskar, mera dost, what on earth are you talking about ?
"despite New Labour's best efforts Labour remains a
party of the working class and not a social liberal party like the
Democratic Party in the US."
Labour IS precisely a "social liberal" party. Have you not been paying
attention to Tony Blair's policies over the last 15 years ?
Have you not HEARD Tony explicitly say that he rejected any kind of "State
regulation" and wanted to promote
a new model, where the free flow of investment is encouraged, and where Britain
will rely on it's position in the
global economy, on its "competitiveness", on its ability to provide
high-quality financial services ?
Have you not witnessed Labour happily pursue, and intensify, Thatcher's assault
on the welfare state ?
All this nonsense about Labour being an expression of working class Britain
seems to belong to 1910 not 2010.
Is this what happens every time there is a major parliamentarian election ?
Socialists deluding themselves into thinking such and
such a party is "better" than a competing, so-called "reactionary" party ?
Socialists trying to figure out why the hell they should vote
for X and finding the most ludicrous reasons for doing do ("it's the lesser of
two evils") ?
Parlementarian elections are a great hindrance to working class emancipation.
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Re: [Marxism] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I'd like to hear Brad's (and I guess, Milliband and Panitch's) version of reality... despite New Labour's best efforts Labour remains a party of the working class and not a social liberal party like the Democratic Party in the US. The core voting base of the party remains the urban working class (and their activists are rooted in the working class). The same for their finances: though after 1997 they had the financial backing of some segments of capital-- particularly finance capital--- Labour is still dependent on trade unions to stay afloat. The "bourgeois workers party" is riddled with contradictions and I suppose its easier to just dismiss all of them with sweeping statements and proclamations of revolutionary purity: "all parties that seek to manage the capitalist state are parties of capital." On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 2:29 PM, brad wrote: > > Richard wrote: >>in the *last analysis* the relationship > between the Labour Party constitutes an organic connection between party > and class. That this is subject to secular deterioration and may > finally result in a complete severance doesn't alter the fact that in > the present Labour is a party /of /the working class, based /in/ the > working class. > - > I thought this sort of fantasy was displaced long ago by Milliband and > Panitch. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 10/05/2010 19:29, brad wrote: > I thought this sort of fantasy was displaced long ago by Milliband and > Panitch. > > If you really think that, I'd suggest that you actually read Miliband and Panitch. This is Panitch in 1979: "Precisely because the Labour Party is /part of the labour movement/, this means that the development of class struggle is bound to affect it considerably from within ... The 'class harmony' ideology which has dominated the thinking of the leadership since the founding conventions rejected the concept of class struggle, is consistently challenged not merely by external events and by socialist currents in the Party, but by /the direct expression of working-class struggle within the Party/, above all on those occasions when the trade union acts as immediate agencies of working-class defence against the actions of Labour Governments." (L Panitch, 'Socialists and the Labour Party: A Reappraisal', 1979, emphases added). You can't have read the Milibandian critique that you cite, or if you did, then you can't have read it very closely. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The "organic link" between the TUC (Trade Union Congress) and the Labour Party (also known as "article 4") just means that delegates from the TUC get to attend the Labour Party Congresses every four years. The delegates from the TUC are a tiny minority compared with the delegates from the local branches of the Labour Party Organization and their aspiring politicians. During the last party congress, some TUC delegates demanded an end to the war in Irak and an increase in the minimum wage and were easily voted down by the delegates from the constituencies. Old folklore from bygone days that the leaders of the Labour Party are keen to see fade away. The only thing Labour likes about the TUC is the money that the TUC invariably contributes, following long established tradition, to the party. To imply that the TUC has anything to do with formulating Labour policy is, once again, a bizarre statement ... Are we in 21st century Britain (you know, England, Cymri/Wales, Alba/Scotland and the 6 counties/NI) or are we floating down Alice's rabbit hole ? Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Richard wrote: >in the *last analysis* the relationship between the Labour Party constitutes an organic connection between party and class. That this is subject to secular deterioration and may finally result in a complete severance doesn't alter the fact that in the present Labour is a party /of /the working class, based /in/ the working class. - I thought this sort of fantasy was displaced long ago by Milliband and Panitch. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == i'm looking for a reason behind the disconnect between the organic connection of the working class to the labour party and the labour party's anti-labour policies. if the disconnect isn't situated between the working class and the union bureaucracy then it must be within the working class ourselves (we don't know what's good for us) or between the union bureaucracy and the politicians. unions aren't as democratic as they might be; and union bureaucrats aren't as accountable as they might be although admittedly somewhat more accountable than Management. union bureaucrats seem to hang forever whatever benefits they may or may not bring to the membership. richard seymour wrote: At any rate, and somewhat more to the point, I wasn't solely talking about the union bureaucracy. Union members decide, ultimately, how their political fund is used; they also ultimately decide how unions vote within Labour on particular policies, leaders, etc. They have a collaborative input, from the shop floor to the conference. Of course there is room for all sorts of backroom deals, manoeuvering and sell-outs, and I certainly don't want to exaggerate the real level of democracy in trade unions, but in the *last analysis* the relationship between the Labour Party constitutes an organic connection between party and class. That this is subject to secular deterioration and may finally result in a complete severance doesn't alter the fact that in the present Labour is a party /of /the working class, based /in/ the working class. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/wrstphns%40yahoo.ca Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 10/05/2010 18:27, Bill Stephens wrote: > is the bureaucracy of the trade union movement in britain working class? > aren't they > middle class, part of the managerial class? > > I think this is better as an analogy than as a literal description. Union leaders have middle class incomes and a certain amount of status and social power, but they're not middle class in the usual sense - they don't exert social power over workers without also being subject to workers power themselves. The managerial middle class is in *no way* accountable to the working class, subject to democratic elections, vulnerable to no confidence motions, etc. Their decisions don't have to be ratified, and their power is derived exclusively from the capitalist class. This isn't true of union leaders and for that reason I would hesitate to classify them simply as part of the managerial middle class. At any rate, and somewhat more to the point, I wasn't solely talking about the union bureaucracy. Union members decide, ultimately, how their political fund is used; they also ultimately decide how unions vote within Labour on particular policies, leaders, etc. They have a collaborative input, from the shop floor to the conference. Of course there is room for all sorts of backroom deals, manoeuvering and sell-outs, and I certainly don't want to exaggerate the real level of democracy in trade unions, but in the *last analysis* the relationship between the Labour Party constitutes an organic connection between party and class. That this is subject to secular deterioration and may finally result in a complete severance doesn't alter the fact that in the present Labour is a party /of /the working class, based /in/ the working class. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == From: Richard Seymour To: wrstp...@yahoo.ca Sent: Mon, May 10, 2010 10:15:30 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] New Labour == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == is the bureaucracy of the trade union movement in britain working class? aren't they middle class, part of the managerial class? richard seymour wrote: And when you say that big business financed all of Labour's election campaigns, that's not entirely true. Big business donated lots of money to Labour when it was winning: they like to back a winner, the better to gain influence. Truth be told, they've always done this - capital rallied behind the Labour Party before Blair was leader and before New Labour had even been heard of. But the biggest donors remain the unions, and in the 2010 election, Labour could not have mobilised over 8 million - overwhelmingly working class - votes if it were not for the decisive donations of Unite, Unison, et al. Contrary to the wishes of the Blairites, the union link hasn't been broken, and New Labour has never been able to become a party of the liberal wing of the capitalist class modelled on the Democrats. If you really want to understand New Labour's tortuous relationship with organised labour, and the gymnastics it has had to engage in to keep the unions on board, I recommend David Coates' "Prolonged Labour" (2005), which is by far the best analysis of the New Labour project in government. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/wrstphns%40yahoo.ca Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 10/05/2010 17:55, Dan wrote: > I am reminded of "Alice in > Wonderland" when I read such comments as "the Labour party is a party of > the working class whereas the Lib Dems is a party of the Middle Class". > Labour a party of the working class ? What a bizarre statement ... > NOBODY in England, in the streets at least, would ever make the claim > that New Labour is a "party of the working class". It is just "one of > the two parties competing for our votes". > The trouble with this assertion is that it is not based in any way whatsoever on an objective analysis of the structure, membership and voting base of the Labour Party. It's just an extravagant claim. That, not its policies at any given moment, was always the basis for the determination that it was a "capitalist workers' party". And if you think that nobody in England (or Scotland and Wales, presumably), would claim that Labour is a party of the working class, then you simply haven't been paying attention to the fact that working class people in their millions still vote for Labour, and that trade unions still affiliate to it, and that trade unionists still go on the stump for Labour. And when you say that big business financed all of Labour's election campaigns, that's not entirely true. Big business donated lots of money to Labour when it was winning: they like to back a winner, the better to gain influence. Truth be told, they've always done this - capital rallied behind the Labour Party before Blair was leader and before New Labour had even been heard of. But the biggest donors remain the unions, and in the 2010 election, Labour could not have mobilised over 8 million - overwhelmingly working class - votes if it were not for the decisive donations of Unite, Unison, et al. Contrary to the wishes of the Blairites, the union link hasn't been broken, and New Labour has never been able to become a party of the liberal wing of the capitalist class modelled on the Democrats. If you really want to understand New Labour's tortuous relationship with organised labour, and the gymnastics it has had to engage in to keep the unions on board, I recommend David Coates' "Prolonged Labour" (2005), which is by far the best analysis of the New Labour project in government. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
