We will see a more vocally conservative foreign policy, although I doubt it will differ hugely from the current one Labour has been running. Ironically, the election of Obama will probably make the deployement of NZ troops abroad more palatable . . .

Either way, we should be a bit careful about bandying around terms like Nazi. There is no real reason to expect anything of that sort.

On the profit thing, I don’t think it’s an issue of morals (greed). Rather it’s a fundamental mechanism of the capitalist economic system. That’s why I think it’s important that we find alternatives to the profit motive if we are to move towards a better system.
Cheers,
John

The other thing I would add is that all of us on the broad real left need to forgive our differences otherwise we are going to get nowhere. Here is the problem: too many small left parties, Trotskyists who will not talk to marxist leninists who will not talk to social democrats who will not talk to Fabians and anarchists who have been left out in the cold. This is not good. All of us on the left need to start talking and put aside what are in the face of what we are up against, relatively small ideological differences.

Maybe this cannot happen at the political party level, but there would be some benefit of a loose coalition of the left in New Zealand.

The struggle (from whatever angle you approach it) is stuffed without solidarity, which is ultimately what we are supposed to be about.

Just my thoughts off the top of my head.

I think that it would be worthwhile researching the in’s and out’s of profit as I see profit like a wine, a little bit is OK, but then it feeds greed and becomes a habit, then it involves all the other deadly sins and becomes very dangerous.

I will check out the other articles as I think that I have veered off the original issue here

While the WP’s original membership came from a range of Marxist backgrounds, from pro-Mao to pro-Trotsky, we found that we could agree on the key issues facing New Zealand in the 21st Century. Part of that meant not harking back to the failed attempts at establishing socialism, most notably, as you note, the USSR and China. While it could be argued that for all their problems both the USSR and China represented improvements on the feudal or semi-feudal states that preceded them, that is clearly not good enough for us in the here and now. What we need is something better than 21st Century advanced capitalism and bourgeois democracy. That’s why we’ve tried to reclaim for the Marxist left, the demand for maximal freedom and democracy for which it was once known, rather than accepting the notion commonly associated with the left of a strong coercive state telling people what to think. We’ve tried to start as we intend to go on, by cultivating an internal culture of openness and an avoidance of dogmatic “Lines” on every issue to which everyone must adhere or leave. So there are many issues on which we agree to differ, where other left groups in the past may have demanded uniformity. I hope that is reassuring.
Cheers,
John

I have read Marx’s ‘Des Capital’ his observation of the capitalist system is absolutely spot on but for me his solution seems to be a bit of a close-ended absulute, like no profit, no ownership etc. The attractive selling point is the idea of a classless society where the proleteriate of a commune is supposed to dictate (after a motion has been voted on) to the party representative and then it is supposed to be acted on either at that level or further up.
How it actually happened in Stalinist Russia was the opposite, an elite was dictating from the top a very narrow and litteral enterpretation of Marx, and those who criticised were labeled ‘revisionist’ and shunted off to Siberia. Some were even supporters of communism.

A question I would like to put to the Workers Party is how literal a Marxist path are you going to take?

I would like to see an end to capitalism but I certainly would not like to live in a Stalinist/Maoist state you know’ Let a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend’ you know being just a cynical hoax.

Yours Respectfully

Paul Drake

I’m not sure how workers getting to vote that the shareholders get no dividend and the CEO gets the same wage as the workers would work under capitalism.
Cheers,
John

I didn’t misquote anyone, least of all myself. There is a clear choice between capitalism and socialism. If you want to call that black and white that’s your prerogative. I prefer to simply call it a choice. I have no doubt that there are differences between the different capitalist parties. But they are still managing capitalism rather than opposing it. Trying to reform capitalism does not threaten its fundamental nature.

Left groups that don’t participate in elections are making their own assessment of what is the best strategy. If it’s part of a plan to call for a vote for capitalist parties like Labour, then I disagree 100% with them. If it’s because they simply don’t agree with engaging in parliamentary politics, as is generally the case with anarchists, then I’ll respectfully disagree.

Capital, as you say, is dependent on profit – so when there’s a choice between profit and social good it’s not hard to guess which wins out. The increasing accumulation of disproportionate profit also results in crisis, as we’ve seen recently. The profit-system is therefore damaging. Constrained by international capitalist markets, it has been difficult for socialist systems to get rid of it completely, but they’ve generally achieved when they’ve lessened their dependency on international flows of capital. Resources and social good should always trump profit, but that’s not achievable when your system is dependant on capital.

This is a very interesting case study, thankyou for providing it. I won’t deny that this looks like a very successful worker-run enterprise that has very generously contributed to the surrounding community. Very impressive, in fact.

In saying that, there are still several basic tenets within the structure of Zanon that are not distinctly socialist in nature. One is that it still operates in a fashion that is designed to make a profit – the difference lying of course in where, and to whom, that profit is directed. Two is that the managerial structure that runs the company is very similar to the pre-worker controlled structure – the difference being that the managers would of course have been elected from within the worker body rather than promoted from above.

I disagree with your contention that Zanon demonstrates that “worker-run workplaces are actually more efficient”. I contend that Zanon is indeed efficient; however, in order to ascertain whether or not it is more efficient than a capitalist organisation you would need to undertake a more thorough economic analysis.

Overall, I think this case study shows that there are indeed flaws in some existing capitalist structures that need to be addressed – namely, the skewed distribution of wealth and the lack of democracy within the workplace – however, I maintain that these questions can be solved without having to resort to the drastic measures of socialization.

Matt.

You’ve just proven my point. When questioning you on whether or not the Workers Party would participate in a form of coalition government, you clearly replied that “the WP would not enter into any capitalist government”. Yet at the same time, the Workers Party is willing to participate in the existing democratic process in order to achieve representation in the very capitalist government that you oppose. This is a good thing, by the way, and i’m not criticising you for it. What I am saying, however, is that <strong> you cannot claim to be a revolutionary socialist party when, to a certain extent, you are willing to sacrifice a portion of your revolutionary nature to participate in the existing process </strong>. This is where the black and white distinction becomes blurred.

Furthermore, speaking of the black and white analogy, you have completely misquoted both myself and yourself on the matter.

Where you claim to have said that “politics is seldom about simple black and white”, you have actually said that “while politics is seldom about black and white choices, <strong> there is a choice to be made between continuing to support capitalism and opposing it </strong>”. THIS is the black and white dichotomy I have been arguing against, and which, by your admission above that the Workers Party does indeed intend to participate in the existing political process to a certain extent, you have proven yourself to fall outside of.

Where I have stated that “[m]ost things can be broken down to a black and white choice”, my full quote came with the addedum that “<strong> [h]owever, this invariably results in oversimplification </strong>”. I was asserting that YOUR black and white choice of socialism versus capitalism is an oversimplified look at what is a complex spectrum of parties, situations, and factors. I went on to exemplify this by discussing the range of different capitalist parties and the role that thw Workers Party saw itself playing in a potential capitalist government.

I could take this a step further and point out the wide range of socialist parties within New Zealand – most of whom, in their self-proclaimed “revolutionary nature”, vehemently oppose any form of participation in the existing political process. Where do THEY stand in your black-and-white question? If, by your simple analogy, they oppose capitalism, they by extension they must also support the Workers Party. As we know for a fact that they do not, the obvious solution is that your “with us or against us” mentality is flawed.

John Edmundson:
”
Matthew:
“Your argument is based upon a frequently used, yet pragmatically impossible, tenet of socialist rhetoric – that the amount of capital available is infinite in a command economy.”

No Matthew, we have never claimed that and I defy you to find any such claim in anything the WP has ever said.
”

I never claimed that the Workers Party has directly stated this point. I was stating that your argument is <strong> based </strong> upon this tenet. The argument in question related to the cinema case study, where you claimed that meeting the original workers’ demand in a socialist system would not result in “the workers losing their jobs” but instead “the capitalist losing the business to the workers”. If you examine my reply you will see that I agreed with you as the industry would be backed by state finance rather than private profit. However, using basic economic principles, I then demonstrated the run-on effect in other areas of the economy that would inevitably occur from one state-funded enterprise perpetually running at a loss. You have yet to address this point.

John Edmundson:
“Matthew we do not advocate a system based on “stagnated growth” and the support of “inefficient industry””

I never claimed that you did. I was merely stating that efficiency and profit are core requirements of any industry regardless of ideology. Profit is a byproduct of efficiency. Your use of the term “need” is simply another word for “demand”, which is again a tenet of efficiency – production to suit the needs of the market in order to ensure profit. As for your desire for “maximum democracy” within the workforce, I agree with you on this point. However, I do not believe that workplace democracy can only be achieved in a socialist system.

Incidentally, your belief that my friend at the cinema complex does not do any work (unlike the workers who are “actually doing the work”), is insulting. My friend works damn hard. He started at the bottom rung of the company, on wages far lower than those of the employees now under his management, and spent years working his way up to the position he now enjoys – whilst undertaking full-time study.

Matt.