Re: [OPE] market - and other kinds of - socialism

Paul this is terrible! You say

"The Irish Republicans had a principled position of not attending the parliament*as it was subject to the monarchy*."

Sinn fein won the 1918 elections. The British government refused to recognise the result of their own elections, constantly manufacturing pro-imperialist sentiment and politics in the north of Ireland, and hunting down the elected represenattives of the Irish people. Abstention, as a principle, then and subsequently, was because of the imperialist division of Ireland of which Connolly had long before warned. An Sinn Fein MP could not actually attend the Westminster chamber without recognising the illigitimate occupation of the North: swearing an oath of allegience to the Queen is not simply objection to monarchy! You evade the issue by using the term 'monarchy', and not imperialism, and so avoiding the issue of the division, and so subordination, of Ireland. Even the British Labour Party was embarassed enough about this never to have oprganised on its own account in the North. The recent loans to the Dublin government arising from the banking farce (and the attendant high rates of interest demanded) confirm British interest in milking the place, monarchy or not.

Paul B

On 05/05/2011 20:43, Paul Cockshott wrote:
> I think one has to distinguish between standing and winning individual elections and attending parliament.
> The Irish Republicans had a principled position of not attending the parliament as it was subject to the monarchy. They one elections but refused to attend.
> It would be possible for a radical democratic party to stand in elections on a similar grounds. They would say that they would abstain from attending until they had a majority at which point they would attend only once to bring in an act that would transfrom the elected parliament into a direct peoples' assembly.
> ________________________________________
> From: ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu [ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu] On Behalf Of B.R.Bapuji [brbapuji@yahoo.com]
> Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2011 5:51 PM
> To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list
> Subject: Re: [OPE] market - and other kinds of - socialism
>
> From: GERALD LEVY<gerald_a_levy@msn.com>
> To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list<ope@lists.csuchico.edu>
> Sent: Thu, May 5, 2011 7:04:39 PM
> Subject: Re: [OPE] market - and other kinds of - socialism
>
>
>
> In, on the other hand, it's a smaller party which is using the elections as
> an educational vehicle for explaining their programme to working people,
> then it certainly makes sense for them to also specify a socialist programme.
> i.e. a vision of how an alternative, socialist society would be organized
> (and, also, explaining the problems associated with the conception of
> 'evolutionary socialism' and how working people will have to eventually surpass
> a parliamentary process of change).
>
> 'Using electionss as an educational vehicle for explaining programme to working people......'This kind of programme which we call in India 'parliamentary path' as opposed to 'revolutionary path'.The past experience showed that once you enter into it, the bourgeois legislature will engulf you and you will become a tail to one of the two major bourgeois 'coalitions'. Instead of participating in elections, a communist group or party can spend all its energies on educating the classes or masses belonging to various sections of the working class through conducting struggles on immediate as well as long term issues.
> In India, this debate has been there among the so called ML [Marxist-Leninist] parties who declare their ideology as MARXISM-LENINISM-MAO'S THOUGHT or Maoism.
> This is for your information from India and not to contest your view point.
>
> The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401
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Received on Thu May 5 18:58:33 2011