When Keir Starmer was a Marxist.

Canvassing in Brighton back in 2017 to support Green Party MP Caroline Lucas’s re-election efforts, I knocked on a door and came across a fellow ex-member of Socialist Self-Management. The numbers involved in the group and in the production of its glossy magazine Socialist Alternatives, I guess, never amounted to more than thirty. We exchanged memories of former associates, and Keir Starmer’s name came up. He was described on the door step as ‘ambitious’. Now elected Labour Party leader, has Keir Starmer’s youth affiliation, in the 1980s, with an obscure Trotskyist splinter group, anything to tell us about his future direction in British politics? Probably not, if I am frank. Origins are no automatic guide to future development. Indeed many of us move through different forms of ideological commitment over a lifetime. Nonetheless, I still feel that Socialist Self-Management was an innovative group and I think it is worth outlining their approach, which might be seen as prefigurative of later developments in British politics.

Socialist Self-Management had an odd dual existence. On the one hand it was a loose libertarian group with little trace of paper selling, democratic centralism or political discipline. Even using the term ‘membership’ was a little misleading. Far from being a homogenous organisation, those of us involved were likely to be in the Labour Party like Keir, but included Greens and the otherwise unaffiliated. There was no getting up at 5.30am to sell copies of Socialist Alternative at the factory gates, however we did get to go to a Bastille Day Celebration and a revolutionary youth camp in the South of France in the summer of 1989.

On the other hand, SSM was essentially a section of the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency. Not only was Keir a Trotskyist, but one of those exotic and rarely seen specimens, a Pabloite. Occasionally, events in memory of Trotsky were promoted, along with copies of Sous le Drapeau du Socialisme, the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency’s journal. I guess Shelley’s dictum that poets are the’ unacknowledged legislatorsof the world’   might be rewritten substituting ‘former Trotskyists’ for writers of verse. There is some evidence that 1980s Trotskyists dominate British politics in 2020. The Brexit Party and Boris Johnson’s policy office are staffed with ex members of the Revolutionary Communist Party. I digress.

The tension between a Fourth International affiliation and a loose libertarian organisation led to some criticism from observers of SSM. There was certainly conflict with the Socialist Society when SSM members were attending meetings. It is worth digging a little deeper to understand the perhaps unusual, but innovative ideological orientation of the Revolutionary Marxist Tendency. Stalin, Tito and the international green movement all played their part.

Michel Pablo was the pseudonym of Michalis N. Raptis. A Greek citizen born in Egypt in 1911, he became a controversial and innovative Marxist leader. By the 1950s he was one of the most prominent leaders of the Fourth International . The Fourth International (FI) had been created as a new global Communist organisation, after Stalin’s rift with Trotsky. Backed by the US Socialist Workers Party, Pablo had played an important role in uniting the International and shaping its strategic direction, but by the early 1950s the new perspective he was advancing for the organisation caused bitter dissent. He argued that the strength of official Communist Parties, the relative weaknesses of the Trotskyists, and the likelihood of World War Three occurring, suggested a new tactic. Supporters of the FI were to secretly join Communist Parties or social democratic parties as a long-term project to exploit the subsequent divisions caused by likely war. While this might be seen as an imaginative way of leveraging power for a relatively small political organisation, it was perceived understandably by many of Pablo’s comrades as scandalous, given that Stalin had had Trotsky murdered. Pablo's politics are discussed in greater detail here.

Fast forward to the 1980s, Pablo had long been expelled from the FI and his Trotskyist international was a tiny organisation. He continued to innovate; anti-colonial struggles had been one intervention. Older members of Socialist Self-Management such as the physicist and former Bristol West Labour Party Parliamentary Candidate John Malos , whom I met, were proud of their role in the Algerian independence struggles of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Challenging bureaucratic forms of socialist planning, Pablo embraced workplace democracy, thus the title Socialist Self-Management reflected the core of his political philosophy. He acted as an economic advisor to Chile’s socialist President Allende before the 1973 coup. Feminism was another passion, the Pabloites were early advocates of what now might be termed intersectionality. Ellen Malos authored The Politics of Housework, published in 1980 along with Housework and the Politics of Women's Liberation.

Ecological politics was another focus. Australian members of the Pabloite International were early advocates of what we might term ecosocialism. My involvement came after reading Alan Roberts’ book The Self-Managing Environment. Like John Malos, Roberts was another Australian physicist. The Self-Managing Environment’s Freudian Marxism linking an alienated workforce to the existence of an ecologically damaging consumer society looks rather dated at first sight, another iteration of Marcuse perhaps. However, in robustly criticising the Malthusianism of 1970s environmentalists like Paul Ehrlich, defending the concept of commons and taking a nuanced view of technology innovation, I think it remains an important book for those of us advocating green politics today. I picked up a copy of the Self-Management Papers in Camden’s radical bookshop Compendium, put together by an Oxford student using the pseudonym Harry Curtis at some point in the mid 1980s. When Socialist Alternatives came out I was a keen reader. Not having seen an issue for a month or two I asked the people behind the counter in my then local radical bookshop Full Marx in Bristol . They told me that one of the production team supported their bookshop, I was introduced to John and Ellen Malos, who whisked me down the M4 for regular meetings in London with ‘Harry Curtis’, Peter Tatchell and, of course, Keir Starmer.

Keir struck me as radical, competent and pragmatic. He and Harry were enthused by reading Laclau and Mouffe’s Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, suggesting strong intellectual engagement with approaches to building a new left. Eventually SSM faded, ‘Harry Curtis’ became a member of the Green Party, the Pabloites internationally re-joined the Fourth International of Ernest Mandal (although Pablo himself wasn’t allowed to join). Keir continued with some radical commitments as a young lawyer, from defending poll tax protesters, to work on the McLibel case. Involved in the Haldane Society of socialist lawyers, he eventually became Director of Public Prosecutions. It will be interesting to see where Keir takes the Labour Party. However, the experience of Trotskyist-turned-establishment politicians, one thinks of Lionel Jospin, French Prime Minister 1997-2002, has not so far been a source of radicalism. However we shall see.

Derek Wall

Vote No Heathrow

Just had this via Roger Hallam of Vote No Heathrow, please spread the word.

Things are rapidly taking off for the campaign now the hunger strikers are entering their 9th day and we get coverage from national press and TV. But we only have a little over a week to build up pressure on MPs to vote against the senseless expansion of Heathrow. Could you help out? These are some of the ways you could support us:

• Join us for a solidarity fast on Saturday, 23rd June, at 12pm in Parliament Square: https://www.facebook.com/events/1541652785938992/
• Write to your MP: https://www.writetothem.com/
• Help our online promotion team on social media!
• Donate to our crowdfund: https://www.gofundme.com/votenoheathrow/
• Invite all your friends to like our page: https://www.facebook.com/votenoheathro/

Doug Ford Jr has a message for Elizabeth May, Caroline Lucas and all the Greens!

Sat at a computer in the library, I am aware that the woman looking at the screen next to me is becoming increasingly agitated.  She gasps and swears, as her annoyance grows; other library users are becoming alarmed.  I glance at her monitor, she is searching for news stories on the recent election in Ontario, Canada and is obviously upset by what she finds.  Last week, Canadians elected Doug Ford, of the Progressive Conservative Party, with a landslide, ending 15 years of Liberal rule.  Ford is the brother of disgraced Rob Ford, former mayor of Toronto, whose crack cocaine habit eventually saw him ousted.  Doug Ford is another right-wing populist, elected on promises to cut taxes, slash regulation and, above all, to end cap and trade policies aimed at reducing climate change.

It is no surprise that some people including the library user next to me have been dismayed, even devastated by Ford’s victory.  Doug Jr may be distasteful to many of us, but he is popular, and his victory should make those of us care about the environment, equality and diversity think deeply.  I would go as far as to say that Doug has a message for Greens.  From UK Green MP Caroline Lucas to Elizabeth May, leader of the party in Canada, Doug has something to say to green politicians.  They may not like his message but, I would argue, if they don’t listen they may be in trouble.

Doug Ford has declared that climate change is less importantthan ‘bread and butter’ issues and has declared that he will abolish theLiberals’ cap and trade scheme which aims to lower emissions.  As the news on climate change becomes more worrying by the day, politicians who either deny that climate change is occurring at all or say that it is a trivial issue that should be ignored, are coasting to victory.  Donald Trump is the most famous example, but mini Trumps are sprouting up like little mushrooms the world over.  In Central and Eastern Europe, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic have all seen Trump-like politicians voted into office in recent times. Indeed the recently re-elected climate denying Czech President Milos Zeman, responded to Friends of the Earth’s attempts to prevent the logging of a national park, by stating he would respond to them in a “good old medieval way: burn them, piss on them and salt them”

Environmental protection is being demolished by Trump. He is opening national parks to oil exploration, has put a climate denier in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency and is making it legal to shoot hibernating grizzly bears.

 Ford seems less gung ho but is hostile to environmental regulation, seeing it as damaging to business.  In Australia, as temperature rises challenge farmers, the right-wing government are increasingly supportive of the coal lobby,  Right wing populists garner support through promoting conspiracies and demonising minorities.  As their efforts to outlaw climate policies accelerate, the damage from climate change will, via extreme weather and rising sea levels, generate more and more migration as communities flee disaster.  Fear of the other, converted into racism, will be used to gain more votes for right wingers.  The reality of climate change is leading to increasing denial by politicians who exploit its effects to gain higher votes.

The message of Ford, Trump and their ilk is that all of us who care about the environment, including Green Party politicians, need to get strategic.  Being for good things and against bad things is not enough, pointing to the absurdities and cruelties of the populist right, which is rising globally, is inadequate in combating their power.

Green politics is the politics of survival, climate change threatens humanity, so greens of all kinds need to think much more deeply.  Green politics has been based on key principles, most famously outlined in the German Green manifesto of 1983, in terms of ecological sustainability, nonviolence, grassroots democracy and social justice.  Principles in practice achieve nothing without strategy.

While Greens may be more focused on condemning Trump-like vandals than on seeking to understand where their power lies, universities abound with academics theorising about political change, for example, social movement scholars, political ecologists, environmental sociologists, radical geographers and others come to mind.  

Academic work is though too often hidden behind obtuse jargon and paywalls that make sure journals are protected from being read by those who might find them useful.  More on the paywall scandal here.

I am reminded when I think of the agitated woman scanning a lurid photo of the victorious Doug Ford Jr., of the words of the great philosopher Spinoza.  Writing in the 17^th century, he argued that condemning tyranny and hatred doesn’t get us very far in combatting it, noting ‘Do not weep. Do not wax indignant. Understand’. 

Greens need to get better at understanding and analysing what stands in the way of protecting the planet.  Analysis is a first step to effective action, and action becomes more and more vital with each day as CO2 emissions rise.

Greens need to think deeply about how change can be achieved, how the right can be challenged and how green policies can be made real.  

Green politicians and green parties, indeed all of us who want an ecological future need to put energy into thinking about how to change society and using some strategic analysis to create practical action.  Morality is empty without means.

And academic work needs to be accessible, both intellectually and economically, the approach of open ecologically engaged researchers is vital, Elinor Ostrom comes to mind here.

Being right is no alternative to achieving political change, and for political change to occur some deep thinking, followed by precise action, is necessary.  

Indignation is not enough!

Spinoza and the Politics of Renaturalization

Hasana Sharp's book 'Spinoza and the Politics of Renaturalization', examines the 17th century Dutch-Jewish philosopher's contribution to animal rights, ecology and practical politics.  Spinoza argued that human beings are part of nature, rejecting supernatural explanations, to point out that we are ruled by the same nature as everything else in the universe.  In turn, by identifying God with nature, he has been praised by deep ecologists, must notably Arne Naess.  Spinoza's radical materialism has also been source for Marx and Engels thought.  In this regard Antonio Negri, the autonomist Marxist, has suggested that he provides a non teleological Marxism, which can be contrasted with Hegal.  There is a large literature arguing that he was variously the first secular Jew, an advocate of religious pluralism and a foundational liberal thinker.  Equally he followed the Jewish theologian Maimonides and was fascinated by the political thought of Machiavelli.

Sharp's book is a well written introduction to all of this exploring the implications of Spinoza's approach both to Marxism, green politics, animal rights and feminism.  It is highly recommended.

As I write in June 2018, the broad political picture is clear.  Climate change is accelerating, other environmental problems are becoming severe and denial is everywhere.  The liberal economic and political consensus is under assault and right wing populism is growing.  Just a few days ago, Doug Ford's Progressive Conservatives were elected in Ontario, Canada.  They defeated the governing Liberals, and the left wing NDP came second.  Ford will roll back policies designed to reduce climate change   The acceleration of climate change with the role back of policies to deal with it, will accelerate migration as communities flee rising sea levels, rising temperatures and extreme weather events.  The migration will be exploited by reactionary populists to cement their electoral support and the cycle will continue.

While the left is also rising, the question of how to effectively challenge capitalism that fuels environmental crisis, along with the populist racist right which is growing, is vital.  Spinoza is interesting for what he says about how we do politics, how ideas gain material forces and shape the future.

It is not as easy to see Spinoza as an advocate of animal rights and ecology as might first be thought.  He rejected the idea of outlawing the eating of meat, he condemned those who romanticised nature and when he speaks of nature, he means everything in the university, thus human beings, kittens, rocks and pieces of machinery all have the same nature.

In terms of understanding political change he might be condemned as a determinist who argues that human agency is a myth.  However in reminding us that we be less free that we might think, Spinoza to my mind is at his most significant.  By celebrating our power we forget our weakness.  By identifying our weakness, we might potentially have more influence over the real material world.

Spinoza, as Sharp reminds us, noted that ideas are not adopted simply because they are true.  Ideas have to gain a power if they are to have influence.  It is, thus, not enough to argue that climate change is a significant problem, instead we have to understand how ideas capture attention and convince, or fail to do so.

Thus Spinoza moves us from the politics of surface appearance and moralism, the politics of 'We are good' and 'You are evil', into both understanding that what we may dislike is a product of particular forces rather than ignorance and evil.  In turn, we understand that our powers are limited, that often we are effects rather than causes.  By understanding this we can begin to think carefully about how we might be freer.  The importance of making ecological politics into a real force, requires the Spinozian understanding that the power of ideas comes not simply from their truth but from how they are mobilised and how they sit within a system of other ideas and influences.

Spinoza thus opens the way for a practical politics of action, while suggesting this is difficult to achieve, rather than a superficial shallow politics of condemning what we dislike.

Thus when it comes to Ford, Trump, Erdogan and Victor Orban, understanding their appeal is a first step to countering it.  Spinoza observed '“I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.” 

At best Spinoza does this indirectly, how ideas have material force and how action can be effective require more precise discussion.  Sharp's book, though, flags up the importance of Spinoza's work in a world where storms are rising and helps us to see that the seemingly irrational is driven by forces that we need to understand so that we can challenge them.  At the same time this involves challenging out own assumptions about our ability to do politics, which takes us back to the understanding that human beings are not, above nature, but shaped by material forces.

Elinor Ostrom’s pragmatism:4:30pm, May 29th, 2018 Bush House North East Wing, Kings College, University of London

‘He was, indeed, in the habit of always comparing what he heard or read with an already familiar canon, and felt his admiration quicken if he could detect no difference.  This state of mind is by no means to be ignored, for applied, to political conversations, to the reading of newspapers, it forms public opinion and thereby makes possible the greatest events in history.’  (Proust 2000: 469)

Proust, M. (2000) In Search of Lost Time: III The Guermantes Way. Vintage Books, London.

 Elinor Ostrom’s pragmatism.

I am speaking at Kings College on 29^th May on Elinor Ostrom.  I am hoping that lots of people come along and we can have a good discussion, I have tried to pick a topic that goes beyond what people may already know about Elinor Ostrom and tried to move things on from what I have written about her before in my intellectual  biography  The Sustainable Economics of Elinor Ostrom and my account of Elinor Ostrom’s Rules for Radicals.

 I will try to situate her approach, to explain a way of understanding where her work comes from and how it relates to the work of other thinkers and traditions.  Elinor Ostrom, as is obvious, to those who have read her work or may have even met her was a complex, diverse and, above all, unusual thinker.  What I am especially concerned to do is to situate her as a pragmatic thinker and to show that while we can never escape ideology and ideological readings of her work are tempting, her pragmatism makes her particularly interesting and important.  Pragmatism, of course, can never be separated from ideology but my point is that if we come to a thinker in the spirit of Proust’s words, looking for confirmation of our pre-existing beliefs and biases, this may be unproductive.

Here I will introduce Elinor Ostrom’s work, if you are already familiar you can probably skip this.  I will suggest that she is a difficult thinker to ‘situate’, she doesn’t quite fit in with an established cannon or tradition, there is always an excess or supplement or contradiction in placing her.

I will go on to look at the fact that ideological readings of her work can be tempting.

I will outline briefly that while viewing her as liberal thinker how Paul Dragos Alligica shows to my mind quite convincingly that she has a strong affinity with the American philosopher John Dewey.

WHO WAS ELINOR OSTROM.

Elinor Ostrom (1933-2012) was the first and so far the only woman to win a Nobel Prize in economics.  Strictly speaking there is no specific economics nobel but the Swedish Royal Bank Prize is by convention described as such!  She was awarded it, sharing with another institutional economist Williamson, for her work on commons.  Commons are collectively owned resources.  In 1968 the biologist Garrett Hardin published The Tragedy of the Commons in the journal Science.  He suggested that common ownership would inevitably lead to the destruction of the environment.  He argued that commons, for example, fields, fisheries or forests, should be privatised or controlled by the state, rather than continuing as collectively community owned property.  Elinor Ostrom while taking Hardin’s thesis seriously argued that commons were not always tragic, she found many examples of commons that had been sustained sometimes over centuries.  Her body of work dealt with researching how commons could be maintained and focussed on locally agreed sets of conservation rules which created ecologically sustainable institutions for resource management.  Her work built strongly on that of her husband Vincent Ostrom.  Intriguingly they took a methodologically individualist approach to social phenomena but worked in a collective manner.  The fact that she dealt with a serious of problems that concerned many on the left but drew most obviously on thinkers normally conceived as on the right, most significantly, James Buchanan, even at this level of brief description brings a pleasing challenge to all who would describe her work with certainty and simplicity.

IDEOLOGY

Ideology is a difficult term.  First like many terms in political science it can be used in a pejorative sense like ‘imperialism’, ‘fascism’ or perhaps ‘statist’.  Equally where it has been used to analyse rather than insult, its complexity makes it difficult to pin down.  I believe the Marxist literary theorist Terry Eagleton wrote that is was the second most diversely defined term in the English language the first being ‘nature’.  Positively and simply it might denote a political or philosophical discourse based on a set of linked concepts.  Socialism, green politics (sometimes termed ecologism), liberalism, conservatism and fascism are all in this sense ideologies.  I am using it here to include this notion of a relatively stable set of ideas that provide a political and, inevitably, a philosophical worldview.  I am also using it in the sense of a group identity, like Proust’s character we seek to read what we already know and to take comfort from such reading!

So those of us, on the left, who are enthused with the commons and angry about its enclosure (which incidentally continues in the 21^st century), have an obvious ideological excitement about Elinor Ostrom’s work.  Yet read most accounts of her and they are full of free market Austrian economists such as Frank Knight, James Buchanan and Hayek.  She certainly can be understood with reference to ‘classic liberalism’.  But, in turn, she subverts so much of what is seen as liberalism including the notion of undiluted self-interest and the primacy of private property.

OSTROM AND DEWEY.

Paul Dragos Aligica, who was a student of the Ostroms, has written extensively on their legacy.  While he stresses the liberal aspect of their work, they rejected state solutions where community action was possible, which he sees as an approach where Hobbesian pessimism (which would call for a strong state) is met with a (Adam) Smithean, and thus classically liberal alternative, Dragos Aligica notes the strong connect between both Ostroms approach and that of the US philosopher John Dewey.  While Aligica does not claim Elinor would have claimed to have been a follower of Dewey, many aspects of his philosophy such as a focus on language, democracy and practical implications of conceptual work, are shared with her.  Aligica and Boettke have previously noted the sophisticated linguistic element of the Ostroms’ work, which they relate to the pragmatists Searle and Pierce.  Thus while sympathetic to direct democracy and popular participation, values of diversity and ecological respect, neither Ostrom sought to set up a system based on fixed and unchanging concepts.

PRAGMATISM

Elinor Ostrom was a pragmatist in a specific sense that she sought to answer a problem or puzzle, rather than dealing with broad prescriptions.  Her approach contrasts strong in this regard with Garrett Hardin.  Ideological approaches to the commons, either condemning or celebrating collective ownership, can be contrasted with a pragmatic view that poses commons as a collective action problem.  This was very much her approach, some resources can not easily be owned privately, they are almost inevitably commons, commons can lead to degradation, so how can we work out ways of making the commons sustainable.

THE LIMITS OF PRAGMATISM

So often we find that self-declared pragmatism is contrasted with the (foolish and dogmatic) ideology of others.  Ideology being used in this way as a pejorative term which is challenged with ‘common sense’.  ‘I am practical, you in contrast are enslaved by dogma.’  This is not a move that Elinor Ostrom made but nonetheless it may be impossible to entirely separate pragmatism from ideology in her work or indeed in that of any thinker.  An emphasis on practical problem solving provides a contrast, broadly, with an ideological approach based on a pre-existing framework which is defended.  However, the kinds of problems which are thought worthy of solving are conditioned perhaps by ideological considerations.

Elinor Ostrom should not be seen, in my opinion, as providing a flag to follow, a symbol to pursue in support of an ideology but instead provides a set of concepts for dealing with socio-ecological problems.

Ideology might be viewed as closed, in contrast, her work and that of Vincent was always open to further reformulation.

SUGGESTED READING

Dragos Aligica, P. (2014) Institutional Diversity and Political Economy: The Ostroms and Beyond. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Ostrom, E.  (1990) Governing the Commons.  Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Dr Derek Wall is an associate lecturer in Political Economy at Goldsmiths College.  His books include The Sustainable Economics of Elinor Ostrom (2014) and Elinor Ostrom's Rules for Radicals (2017)

Solidarity statement with Afrin from Hugo Blanco

Afrin by Hugo Blanco

At the same time as we write and read this, they have cut off the electricity and water in Afrin, Rojava, the area and territory of the Kurdistan Women's Revolution and Democratic Confederalism. At this same time the Sultan Fascist Erdogan intends to complete the genocide in Afrin. He started bombing on January 20, facing the heroic resistance of women and men in defence of collective freedom; of the dignified life.

Today they advance on the capital city of the canton (Afrin) where they have taken refuge civilians who have had to flee the bombs, after mass murders. Erdogan says he will return these lands to their owners, when they have always been inhabited by Kurdish majorities. He is a murderous fascist and is committing a genocidal massacre before the eyes of the world, before our eyes right now.

Here is a text sent to us from Afrin containing the firm, energetic, hurt and anguished words of Bruno Lima Rocha.

While the army of men and women fights and faces a disproportionately superior enemy, the powers of the world, watch in silence. Intentional and cowardly accomplices intend that this uprising for the life of and from the women ends in a bloodbath so that a minority can continue to accumulate and so that the many of us will continue to be subjected and submitted to our resignation, occupation and submission. Right now, the terrifying sound of bombs and shots is advancing on a city that has proclaimed dignity, freedom, life and justice in democracy, matriarchal and woven to the earth.

Here a text sent to us from Afrin and the firm, energetic, hurt, anguished word of Bruno Lima Rocha. Turkey is a murderous state. Erdogan, a fascist sultan. The world, complicit and silent as death advances on Afrin and the women and men of the Kurdish revolution defend us all and are the only protection, in this infamous world, for those girls, children ... for that people who have shouted and built freedom.

No to domination and dispossession. Pueblo in Camino

Hugo Blanco is the historic leader of the indigenous people of Peru.  He publishes Lucha Indigena (where this statement was originally published) This is my rough translation using google!

Original in Spanish

A esta misma hora, mientras escribimos y leemos esto, han cortado la electricidad y el agua en Afrin, Rojava, ámbito y territorio de la Revolución de las Mujeres de Kurdistán y del Confederalismo Democrático. A esta misma hora el Sultán Fascista Erdogan pretende completar el genocidio en Afrin. Empezó a bombardear el 20 de enero enfrentando la heroica resistencia de mujeres y hombres en defensa de la libertad colectiva; de la vida digna. Hoy avanza sobre la ciudad capital del cantón donde se han refugiado civiles que han tenido que huir de las bombas, tras asesinatos masivos. Erdogan asegura que va a devolver estas tierras a sus dueños, cuando siempre han estado habitadas por mayorías kurdas. Es un fascista asesino y está cometiendo una masacre genocida antes los ojos del mundo, ante nuestros ojos ahora mismo. Mientras el ejército de hombres y mujeres lucha y enfrenta a un enemigo desproporcionadamente superior, las potencias del mundo todas, observan en silencio. Cómplices intencionales y cobardes interesadas en que este levantamiento por la vida de y desde las mujeres termine en un baño de sangre para que unos pocos puedan seguir acumulando y para que muchas y muchos, todas y todos, sigamos entre-teniéndonos sometidas y sometidos en nuestra resignación, ocupación y sumisión. Ahora mismo, el sonido aterrador de bombas y disparos avanza sobre una ciudad que ha dicho dignidad, libertad, vida y justicia en democracia, matriarcal y tejida a la tierra. Acá un texto que nos envían desde Afrin y la palabra firme, enérgica, dolida, angustiada de Bruno Lima Rocha. Turquía es un estado asesino. Erdogan, un sultán fascista. El mundo, cómplice y silencioso mientras la muerte avanza sobre Afrin y las mujeres y hombres de la revolución Kurda nos defienden a todas y todos y son la única protección, en este mundo infame, para esas niñas, niños…para ese pueblo que ha gritado y construido Libertad. ¡Así No! Dominación y Despojo. Pueblos en Camino

http://pueblosencamino.org/?p=5451

The System

Image via https://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/capability-systems-centre/research-themes/complexity-measures-systems-engineering


We need to move beyond 'my party is good' and 'your party is evil'. Instead we need to think about systems.  The proposal that Caroline Lucas is good and Jeremy Corbyn less so or vice versa, seems unproductive.  The notion that we have an elite with noxious intentions cannot entirely be dismissed when one thinks of how many innocent people are imprisoned in Britain.  However it is a far from adequate way of understanding what is going on.  A simple moralism is always going to be too simplistic.

  OK having stood as a General Election candidate for the Green Party against Theresa May, she kind of does represent evil for me.  It was instructive to complete a hustings with her (she dodged televised debates but under took a local hustings in Maidenhead).  Her support for arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and her disdain for the Kurds in Syria who fight against ISIS, appalled me.  I could go on, one thinks of those who have died from benefit sanctions in the UK.

However we need to think not only of replacing 'bad' politicians with 'good' politicians or even of policies to make things better.  A society is a system and different elements tend to reinforce each other and to conserve the system.  A particular change of policy or leaders does not alone lead to systematic change.  Again the assumption that we are betrayed by leaders who are corrupted by power is inadequate, a society moves to a particular rhythm and changing this is very difficult indeed.

The assumption that politics is about understanding and changing systems provides a clear break with the usual way of doing things.  Quite radical policies tend to be mobilised to support an existing system.  Systematic change is extremely difficult to achieve, our society is a capitalist society, economics, ideas, politics, etc, etc. broadly reinforce the pursuit of profit.

There are no easy solutions to this, I certainly don't see capitalism as ecologically sustainable.  Introducing a land tax, nationalising major firms or introducing a basic income may or may not be desirable in themselves but each alone whether desirable or not, is not going to change the dynamic.

I tend to be critical of nationalisation and central planning for a variety of reasons.  Nonetheless what ever their virtues we can see how the nationalisation of the 1945 Atlee government, and its introduction of the NHS and welfare state, while bringing benefits did not transform the British system.

I am not proposing a reductionist view, economics may have a lot of weight but culture and a series of other factors are part of any system.  Neither I am a holist in the sense that the system can never be changed, however systems do tend to conserve themselves to a large extent.

Thus with the evolution of the world wide web and social media, we have seen fewer examples of wikipedia and more examples of platform capitalism of various types.  More profit from the sharing economy and less actual sharing, more concentration of power and wealth and less community gain, perhaps.

How we work with the systematic nature of a society to change the system seem to be a better way of framing the question of political action than simply condemning the ruling party as fools and knaves (although having debated with May I know there is something in this thesis!).

Massimo de Angelis's recent book on commons does tackle the issue of systems, the promotion of commons does not transform the economic system, even though commons have many positive features.

The notion of 'overdetermination' seems vital in understanding how causes inter act.  Ecology as a science studies relationships within systems, natural systems are different to social systems, but the systematic approach of ecology is likely to be instructive.  Cybernetics also relates to this.

I was also remind of the importance of a systems approach in my thinking in discussion with Graham Jones, I will be interested to see if his new book for Polity takes up this challenge.

His suggestions for an ecology of political action do look interesting!

Numerous commentators have called for a turn towards an ecology of organisations – Plan C’s theory of the Social Strike, and Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek’s counter hegemonic project in Inventing the Future both rely on this concept. However, an outline of the features of such an ecology, or how it might be built, has yet to be specified. We can combine ideas from social movement studies literature, with those found in the study of ecological resilience and complex adaptive systems, for lessons in how to create a growing, dominant and resilient network of resistance and alternatives. We have to be careful of course, because for all the similarities of dynamics found between social systems and ecologies, they are not one and the same. Social systems are fundamentally maintained through communication of symbols and the capacity for conscious reflection, unlike material ecological systems. But with that proviso in mind, we can nonetheless bring together a series of conceptual tools for some guidance on building counterpower in a network society.

This is from his shock doctrine of the left article which can be found here. 

Politics is about change and change needs to be based on deep thinking about how systems work and specific action to promote transformation.  The necessary change is multi faced.