Official /leftybritpol/ Thread Themehttps://youtu.be/d8Irf1_GhbEDiscuss ongoing happenings in the UK and the wider islands.
Should we nuke the Falklands?
Should Starmer stay out of YOUR childs school?
Discuss this and more….in /leftypol/ UK edition.
The chapter about the working day in Capital Volume 1 is hands down the most boring shit I've ever read
Skipped most of it including the quotes and ever since I've been put off reading the entire book again
>>2801472It's not super essential to capital so as long as you skim through and get a companion book or a video to explain the main point of the chapter to you it should be fine
Any pdfs on the history of British trotskyism?
What are your thoughts on the triple lock?
Given it can rise considerably more than wages do it seems like year-on-year it would be increasingly unsustainable. Predominantly at the expense of workers.
But then I read the following article from the Socialist Party that commits to defending the triple lock.
https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/115633/20-09-2023/pension-triple-lock-under-threat-fight-for-pensions-we-can-live-on/Interesting that the UK has one of the lowest state pensions in Europe (though a quick Google search says it is 13th out of 28).
Do you agree with the Socialist Party article? Are there socialist critical of the triple lock?
>>2801478read tony blairs biography
>>2801503the triple lock is bad for everyone who isn't a pensioner. if all wages were 'triple locked' in a similar way the maybe that would be okay but that's a separate proposal.
pensioners aren't really the problem with the uk but they certainly aren't helping
however, campaigning as socialists on cutting people's pensions is not exactly good politics, we should just advocate for abolishing capitalism
>>2801518>we should just advocate for abolishing capitalismYou'd need more specific policies than that if campaigning
>>2801518and exactly what does "abolishing capitalism" mean electorally? you should try to stand on something more than a vague promise like that, abolishing triple lock pensions and say replacing them with another system appeals to everyone who isn't a pensioner
>>2801508Was blair a militant guy? That’s be really funny if he was
>>2801632>You'd need more specific policies than that if campaigningOkay sure, fine, advocate for all benefits and minimum wage to be 'triple locked' in the same fashion. I wouldn't be writing an article saying 'defend the triple lock pension' though personally.
>>2801637I feel like the public anger against the triple lock is not high enough to openly be like 'fuck pensioners'
>>2801486I'm in the background of the swimming bit somewhere. Great day.
>>2801672this is about as credible as all those freaks who are like 'yeah i used to be a super big atheist, i slayed so much pussy too, but then I found jesus'
>>2801672He wasn’t even part of a student group or militant or a cliffite, just reading trotsky or even agreeing with trotsky doesn’t make you a trot
>>2801703quite an own-goal, lmao, considering that many prominent new atheists were also part of trot youth groups (before they turned neocon as well, like Blair) lmao
>>2801703Its pretty within neocon tradition to have a history of being a student trot. Peter Hitchins was also one afaik.
>>2801714Even if that was true is that some kind of argument against Trotskyists? People can change their mind. In the Eastern bloc there's plenty of rightoids who used to be MLs so I hardly see how they can claim superiority. There's no ex ML politicians in the UK because ML has been for most of a century so fringe and meaningless even by the standards of the socialist left.
Police arrested the three people on the London May Day march from Young Struggle today. possibly the first May Day related arrests since the 1990s.
>>2801718Who are you people and where do you come from? How and why are you people ignorant about the Trot->NeoCon pipeline?
>There's no ex ML politicians in the UK because ML has been for most of a century so fringe and meaningless even by the standards of the socialist left.There are no ex-ML(M) politicians because ML is as a tendency is concisdered to be an existential treat to the point it gets utterly crushed and/or subverted, contrary to Trots, duh.
The real reason though is that trotskyists were and are predominately middle class and/or graduates. The only ones who weren't were Militant (and most of theirs remained active socialists or emigrated like Hatton). MLs on the other hand were almost entirely working class and its adherents either remained in the CPB, remained sympathetic but stopped engaging in activism, or fell into the working class Labour milieu. Trotskyists go to work at think tanks MLs carry on working on the railways.
>>2801799Disillusioned ML who goes to work every day reporting in
>>2801821I ran into one on the way home from the Your Party conference. Glaswegian said "I joined the YCL as a young man, make them two [Corbyn & Sultana] work together so we can finally fix things". I am sorry comrade, I failed you.
Quit pretending to be anything other than Americans
You now remember the 2010 Conservative-Lib Dem coalition
Anyone else here in one of the areas with no votes this week? What are you doing??
>>2801771>Who are you people and where do you come from? How and why are you people ignorant about the Trot->NeoCon pipeline?It's just a lazy thought terminating cliche, 99% of Trots do not go on to become neocons
>There are no ex-ML(M) politicians because ML is as a tendency is concisdered to be an existential treat to the point it gets utterly crushed and/or subverted, contrary to Trots, duh.lol. what crushing. the major socialist forces in the UK that have ended up getting attacked after ww2 are trot groups because they're the ones who actually tried to achieve anything
>>2801799looool complete bullshit. I barely ever even see any british MLs but I see plenty of working class trots, yeah most of them went to uni but so what, half of all young people do nowadays and plenty of people with degrees work on the railways or whatever workerist stereotype you want to bring up
>>2801799This is the actually correct materialist analysis.
>>2801834Do you get proper socialists at those events or is it idpol-centric?
>>2801924>looool complete bullshit. I barely ever even see any british MLs but I see plenty of working class trots, yeah most of them went to uni but so what, half of all young people do nowadays and plenty of people with degrees work on the railways or whatever workerist stereotype you want to bring upThere aren't a lot but the ones that are are predominately, if not entirely working class both culturally and socioeconomically. The only working class trots I have met are old enough to remember Bloody Sunday.
>>2802147Neither comrade: nowadays you get nobody.
Seriously though it was a real mix, but fewer idepollers than you would expect (a lot were doing muslim identity politics instead).
>>2802230cultural capital + economic position
>>2802234Cultural capital is real, a librarian who makes 30k a year but who lives in a house given to them in central London who goes to the opera with his Eton mates is a higher class position than Joe Bricklayer who makes 120k a year but goes to the footy and the pub.
>>2802236Do you actually believe that or are you just trolling? Be honest
>>2802238I genuinely dont know what you find so obscene about this lol, class is real, socialism is for the working class - culture is also real and class gated.
Why do you think Farage spends so much energy trying to LARP as a working class lad down the pub? He knows what cultural capital is, you dont seem to understand.
>>2802239I'm aware of the cultural stereotypes you're referring to but I'm stunned that someone who claims to be a socialist would actually treat them as if they're a real thing instead of just a cudgel used by the media to beat the left with.
>>2802240Describing the way things are isnt an endorsement of them, if given levers of power id be seeking to deconstruct a society that rewards cultural capital
>>2802247I always understood 'middle class' as not something material within the UK, but as a cultural aberration to separate the conservative working class from the left.
>>2802242Why do you think not going to the pub is 'rewarded' in the UK? As you point out all the politicians try to pretend to be men of the people and pretend like they go to pubs. Seems to me like that's a class of society that is more pandered to. I bet a lot more people play videogames in the UK than go to the footy yet again politicians pretend to like football not that they're gamers.
>>2802248Well yes that's exactly what it is, so why should we chastise Trots for not being 'culturally middle class' (read: right wing) again?
>>2802252Ahem, I meant culturally working class obviously
>>28022435 MORE YEARS OF THE TORIES
>>2802251They pander to it because they are the biggest voting bloc, they cannot not pander to them.
In reality though Farage is spending time at Trumps private residence and is jetting around sucking off the upper class. That is his true cultural capital.
>>2802252There are two types of trots, those that dont get power and those that do. Those that get power end up being neo-cons because there anti-communism makes them useful idiots.
>>2801503The irony of the triple lock is that it's actually cheaper than Labour's old system because of inflation measurements. (Basically Labour's was highest of wages or RPI, Tories is highest of wages, CPI, or 2%, RPI is generally higher than CPI)
The triple lock is a bit dumb (there's no reason to lock in a 2% increase no matter what) but ideally one would hike the state pension and fund it by raiding private pensions and unstupiding the tax system (e.g. abolish national insurance and hike income tax to compensate because NI is just regressive income tax with stupid cutouts for landlords and pensioners and such)
>>2802236You can see with someone like Gary's Economics, the painful affection he puts into that London accent. As someone properly socialised into British class society, it does sound dreadful to hear intelligent words mediated by such a stupid sound; reminds me of Will Hunting in that film, where its interminably discordant, and its impossible for me to abide by it, which is my own classism.
It is true in some respect that to speak and write "properly" forces one to shift their tone into a more universal frequency, while what is particular may as well be a foreign accent fit for plebs and peasants. I hear my own regional accent (scouse) in media and it sends shivers up my spine (as I'm sure it does to many people), of nothing more than the fact that its simply misplaced; it doesnt belong. For the same reasons, its really quite impossible to preserve the "working class" essence of a movement without dumbing it down. And I say all this as a pauper who is self-educated.
>>2802236Insofar as cultural capital is real it should be the object of national policy to maximise it. Unlike financial capital, a lack of cultural capital in the internet age in large part reflects badly on you personally. One can be materially poor out of misfortune but it's much harder to make excuses for bad taste (and some of the worst taste is found with some of the richest people.)
>>2802264Yes I agree with the approach, it would be an abundance of culture for everyone and a devaluing of the class barriers put up that prevent proles from accessing culture (think price gouging for gig tickets)
>>2802265What if its natural for there to be high and low culture?
I was talking to my dad the other day and he plainly said to me that he will never read the Bible, despite calling himself a Christian. He watches instagram reels all day instead. Some people cannot be made higher status no matter how much you invest in them.
>>2802266Its always going to be someones choice what culture they engage in, I suppose its just making it so the upper class cant self-segregate themselves and the prole has the option and material means to engage in 'high culture' if they wish to do so, rather than the current status quo where it is materially impossible for them to do so.
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