dd asked this question on another thread. I can't possibly answer it because I think it's a catch all term which means different things to different people. However, various labels have been mentioned, such as communism, socialism and Marxism, I presume as illustrating 'far left' thinking and it set me thinking.
Marxism is a term which interests me because Marx's ideas were at the basis of communism. Marx as a sociologist was briefly covered in my degree course and I thought his analysis of society was interesting. I still do. On the other hand, I think he spent too much time sitting in the Reading Room of the British Museum and failed to take the reality of human nature into account. His theory of 'communism' quite failed to recognise that no two people think alike and that 'man' is not inherently noble and disinterested. We know from history just what happens in Communist countries and it in no way resembled the workers' nirvana that he visualised. It produced a society that was as hierarchical, repressive and unfair as the contemporary societies he analysed.
However, I think his work offers food for thought as to how societies might be better organised.
These are extracts from a review of his work which I think are still relevant today.
So what was it that made Karl Marx so important? At the cornerstone of his thinking is the concept of the class struggle. He was not unique in discovering the existence of classes. Others had done this before him. What Marx did that was new was to recognize that the existence of classes was bound up with particular modes of production or economic structure and that the proletariat, the new working class that Capitalism had created, had a historical potential leading to the abolition of all classes and to the creation of a classless society. He maintained that “the history of all existing society is a history of class struggle”. Each society, whether it was tribal, feudal or capitalist was characterized by the way its individuals produced their means of subsistence, their material means of life, how they went about producing the goods and services they needed to live. Each society created a ruling class and a subordinate class as a result of their mode of production or economy. By their very nature the relationship between these two was antagonistic. Marx referred to this as the relations of production. Their interests were not the same. The feudal economy was characterized by the existence of a small group of lords and barons that later developed into a landed aristocracy and a large group of landless peasants. The capitalist economy that superseded it was characterized by a small group of property owners who owned the means of production i.e. the factories, the mines and the mills and all the machinery within them. This group was also referred to as the bourgeoisie or capitalist class. Alongside them was a large and growing working class. He saw the emergence of this new propertyless working class as the agent of its own self emancipation. It was precisely the working class, created and organized into industrial armies, that would destroy its creator and usher in a new society free from exploitation and oppression. “What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers”.
His analysis of 'class' was pretty sound, the bit in bold is what we know he was mistaken about.
^ With the evolution of modern industry, Marx pointed out that workmen became factory fodder, appendages to machines. Men were crowded into factories with army-like discipline, constantly watched by overseers and at the whim of individual manufacturers. Increasing competition and commercial crises led to fluctuating wages whilst technological improvement led to a livelihood that was increasingly precarious. The result was a growth in the number of battles between individual workmen and individual employers whilst collisions took on more and more “the character of collisions between two classes”.^
why is it that Marx felt that the existence of classes meant that the relationship between them was one of exploitation?
In the course of the working day, Marx reasoned, workers produce more than is actually needed by employers to repay the cost of hiring them. This surplus value, as he called it, is the source of profit, which capitalists were able to put to their own use. For instance, a group of workers in a widget factory might produce a hundred widgets a day. Selling half of them provides enough income for the manufacturer to pay the workers’ wages. income from the sale of the other half is then taken for profit. Marx was struck by the enormous inequalities this system of production created. With the development of modern industry, wealth was created on a scale never before imagined but the workers who produced that wealth had little access to it. They remained relatively poor while the wealth accumulated by the propertied class grew out of all proportion. In addition, the nature of the work became increasingly dull, monotonous and physically wearing to the workforce who became increasingly alienated from both the products they were creating, from their own individuality and from each other as human beings.
Sound familiar?
The political system, the legal system, the family, the press, the education system were all rooted, in the final analysis, to the class nature of society, which in turn was a reflection of the economic base.
*This did not mean that education and teaching was a sinister plot by the ruling class to ensure that it kept its privileges and its domination over the rest of the population. There were no conspirators hatching devious schemes. It simply meant that the institutions of society, like education, were reflections of the world created by human activity and that ideas arose from and reflected the material conditions and circumstances in which they were generated*
...the individuals who make up the ruling class of any age determine the agenda. They rule as thinkers, as producers of ideas that get noticed. They control what goes by the name “common sense”. Ideas that are taken as natural, as part of human nature, as universal concepts are given a veneer of neutrality when, in fact, they are part of the superstructure of a class-ridden society. Marx explained that “each new class which puts itself in the place of the one ruling before it, is compelled, simply in order to achieve its aims, to represent its interest as the common interest of all members of society i.e. ..to give its ideas the form of universality and to represent them as the only rational and universally valid ones”. Ideas become presented as if they are universal, neutral, common sense. However, more subtly, we find concepts such as freedom, democracy, liberty or phrases such as “a fair days work for a fair days pay” being banded around by opinion makers as if they were not contentious. They are, in Marxist terms, ideological constructs, in so far as they are ideas serving as weapons for social interests. They are put forward for people to accept in order to prop up the system.
I think this is fair analysis, too. It is also a very simplified version of a large body of work.
The questions in my mind are:
"How far are people willing to accept that the situation Marx analyses is inevitable and has to be lived with?"
And
"Is it reasonable to be influenced by Marx's analysis as a basis for altering the balance in society to ensure a more equable distribution of resources without actually wanting to overthrow the status quo?"
Except there isn't a £100,000 floor.
The floor is for costs taken by social services, i.e., the government. You can only have this system if you take out a'product', insurance through companies like L&G, which Philip organises.
After the government has taken its cut down to £100,000, the insurance company can take its share.
But May was right! Poorer pensioners would have had to pay less with the £100k floor. Those going into care homes now lose almost everything. A cap means that the better off pay less. Even Dilnot admiited that his plans favoured the wealthiest and meant the poorest would be worse off,but that's what we're going to get now.
What I don't understand is that she had aperfectly valid argument,but botched it so badly.
The same thing happened with NICs. The poorest self-employed would have paid less and the wealthier ones more, before the u-turn.
It's almost as though these car crash interviews are deliberate, so that she can revert to policies which favour wealthierpeople and appease back benchers. They certainly don't show strength and stability.
Yes, it was - I've just watched it. Theresa May seemed to dodge every question and instead rely on repetition of the "strong and stable" leader/economy/country mantra.
May said there had been no u-turn re elderly care costs. Andrew Neil pointed out that Jeremy Hunt had himself, on the day of the launch of the Conservative manifesto, said "We are dropping the cap", but an announcement followed that there would be a cap. May then accused Corbyn of "playing politics" by seeking to alarm older people by making "fake" claims - Neil pointed out that if anyone was playing politics it was her since the terms of the manifesto had clearly been changed because they had proved to alienate people the Conservatives usually rely on to support the party.
Having claimed that the Labour Party had given no - or inaccurate - costings, when questioned by Neil about her own party's costings she gave no firm figures but asserted that the money would become available as a result of "a strong and stable economy". Neil pointed out that the British public had been told that the austerity measures would resolve the financial position by 2015, which was later amended to 2017 and is now set at 2025.
And it was!
Just heard she's going to be on Daily Politics today.
Should be worth watching.
I often feel despairing of the future for the UK and its politics. But then anger takes over. I am angry at the stupidity of the referendum and the stubborn refusal to acknowledge its many flaws, at the failure to recognise that democracy is defined by more than a simple majority. I am very angry at the prime minister’s high-handed right wing attitudes. (See her voting record above) I am angry at Johnson for making fools of us abroad and at T May for giving him that position. I am angry at Tory MPs who are failing to keep her on a tighter rein and step up and tell her she's wrong. Then I think of Damien Green and Phil Hammond's recent performances and see that's why she keeps them there. Yes men.
The whole issue of Brexit is looking more and more like a Tory right wing power grab funded by unscrupulous billionaires and their dark money, for them to exploit the workers of this country to maximise their profits at the expense of employment rights and decent standards of living. Many members of the public have been fooled by the right wing press into falling for it through fear and it's a disgrace. Now she thinks she can get through a whole swathe of social reforms on the strength of votes from Brexiteers seeing her take us out of the EU.
From where I'm standing she's very far right.
Yes indeed re her record - really not a good Home Secretary - and her behaviour during the referendum campaign. As i said on this very forum, she was hiding in the loos while the boys had a fight in the corridor, because she wanted to be Head Girl.
He current odd performance in the campaign reveals that she does not trust her team. Very few of them are allowed to participate. In some cases you can't blame her. She sent Johnson all the way to India and he still upset people by implying that Sikhs were all whisky drinkers while visiting a temple.
Doesn't really look strong does it, that she can't share the campaigning.
And is unable to interact with the public. Looks like the only time she tried it, she was taken to task by a woman who had had her disability benefits cut. So she's not going to try it again. And neither does running scared of a TV debate look strong.
Several political commentators have suggested that May had a pretty abysmal record as Home Secretary.
In July 2016 Jonathan Foreman wrote in the Spectator about the many disasters that occurred under May's watch as Home Secretary, which included:
a relaxation of border checks which resulted in significantly increased numbers of foreign criminals entering the UK; the scandal of sexual and physical abuse of asylum seekers by private contractors at Yarls Wood Detention Centre and May preventing a UN special representative from visiting the centre; her failure to protect Afghan interpreters who had worked for the British forces in Afghanistan; the massive cuts inflicted on the police and the consequent abandonment of neighbourhood policing; an increasing backlog of finding failed asylum seekers; the big reduction in passport office staff (and the cost of redundancy payments) which resulted in a huge backlog and the emergency re-recruitment of staff, costing millions .... etc, etc.
Foreman added:
"More disturbing are the tendencies that have caused her to be nicknamed Teflon Theresa or McCavity May. As well as the buck passing that ensured that blame for all of the Home Office’s failings fell onto junior ministers and civil servants, Mrs May and her staff put tremendous effort into ensuring that she rarely – if ever – faced a Paxman-style grilling...." (That sounds familiar - unless,of course, you count The One Show as a "grilling")
In October 2016, the Independent reported on a recording leaked to The Guardian in which May privately told Goldman Sachs she had concerns about the security and financial status of the UK if the nation were to vote to leave the EU.
However, during the campaign her support for the Remain campaign was extremely muted and one of Cameron's aides suggested that her reserved position assisted her accession to PM in the aftermath of the Leave vote.
It is my view, and the view of several political commentators that May had a deliberate strategy during the EU referendum campaign to "keep her head down" and thus not be publicly linked to either the remain or the leave campaign - leaving her as the most likely candidate to lead the Conservative Party.
Some might suggest that she is continuing in this tradition by giving mixed messages and by leaving some of the key - and more complex - proposals in the Manifesto unclear and lacking in the necessary detail.
May's much more right wing than Thatcher. And much less able.
She was in charge of immigration all that time and failed to extract student numbers from the calculation. Having failed to get anywhere near their daft target she is now setting a much lower one. Tens of thousands, But does not specify how many 10s or when they will achieve this. Or how. Or how the economy will be damage.
ab TM like a pre- Thatcher Tory ???????????? I don't know whether to sob or laugh hysterically
Actually could I continue on the subject of scrapping lucnhes - my DD is well past school age now, but I can't see the 'substitue' free breakfasts being of any use to me - I wouldn't have been able to get her there in time, and in any case I'm sure she wouold have preferred to continue breakfast at home
On top of the scrapping of free infant lunches, a less publicised issue is that since 2010 Meals on Wheels deliveries for elderly, ill and otherwise vulnerable people have decreased by 63% because of savage cuts to council budgets.
Surprised to hear that the WRP are still going. They were always tiny in the days when the Redgraves and a few other showbiz people used to fund them. They then fell apart when the leader died amidst accusations of sexual harassment.
I remember this because a relative was a member. No longer living in the UK, she has not changed her political views, which are based on the writings of Trotsky. She still believes in world revolution, bringing down the system of capitalism. She would view Corbyn as almost right wing and probably would not vote for him.
That is what far-left means to me.
anniebach Did you read the list that durhamjen posted,detailing May's voting history? Here's a taster:
Generally voted against laws to promote equality and human rights
Almost always voted for use of UK military forces in combat operations overseas
Generally voted for reducing housing benefit for social tenants deemed to have excess bedrooms
Generally voted against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability
Generally voted against spending public money to create guaranteed jobs for young people
Generally voted for increasing the rate of VAT
Generally voted against increasing the tax rate applied to income over £150,000
Generally voted against a banker’s bonus tax
Almost always voted against an annual tax on the value of expensive homes (popularly known as a mansion tax)
Generally voted for allowing employees to exchange some employment rights for shares in the company they work for
Generally voted for reducing capital gains tax
Generally voted for reducing the rate of corporation tax
Generally voted against restricting the provision of services to private patients by the NHS
Generally voted for reforming the NHS so GPs buy services on behalf of their patients
Consistently voted for raising England’s undergraduate tuition fee cap to £9,000 per year
Almost always voted for fixed periods between parliamentary elections
Generally voted against measures to prevent climate change
Consistently voted for selling England’s state owned forests
Generally voted against greater regulation of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to extract shale gas
Generally voted against slowing the rise in rail fares
Generally voted for the privatisation of Royal Mail
Generally voted against restrictions on fees charged to tenants by letting agents
I think May's stance on most of these issues is very like that of Thatcher - a champion of privatisation of public services and assets, of measures to protect the wealth of businesses and individuals whilst approving measures to extract money from people of average and below average means, etc. etc.
Thatcher became PM in 1979 , not the sixties .
Who was Cameron compared with?
I think attacks on May claiming she is thatcher is rubbish, both female so May must be like thatcher.
Which previous labour leader is Corbyn compared with?
Which previous leader is Farron compared with ?
Milk snatcher 70-74 = dinner snatcher 2017.
Back to the sixties.
I don't think May is extreme right wing, she reminds me very much of many Tories pre thatcher era
May is extreme enough for Ukip to back her.
No, T May could hardly be described as extreme(right wing) although the Conservative MP's have their share ( just as the LP MP's have their share in extremes, left wing.) Yes a good centre party is what is needed.
They seem to like May, though. Is she not extreme?
Angelab, I do think centre left , Blair centre possibly but Brown definitely to the left, a good pairing and the cabinet was definitely a mix of both centre and left, balance and it worked, far left has never worked , voters don't like extremes
Then if he fell for a cunning plan Tricia he wasn't brave but stupid?
ab I think 'centre' rather than 'centre left' would be better to describe Blair/Brown LP. I would have thought LD might be centre left?
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