4 ms·

They weren't essentially communists, that is taking the Tory press talking point. They were further left than any other recent popular politicians. Left in the

by jemmyw 4y ago

They weren't essentially communists, that is taking the Tory press talking point. They were further left than any other recent popular politicians. Left in the form of worker rights, unionism that sort of thing, not communism. Given how far we've gone into a low wage and poor rights economy I don't think a hard left leadership would have been that bad, especially as it would have been tempered by the rest anyway. However, I don't like Corbyn's extreme passivism.

mytailorisrich 4y ago
Not at all. They even wrote it in their manifesto. What do you call nationalising companies and handing control to the workers? (It's in the 2019 manifesto) That's my point: people, especially the young, don't even recognise it when described under a microscopically thin veneer. That's very worrying. They didn't hide it, either. McDonnell did say clearly that he was a Marxist [1] and Corbyn is a socialist in the very Soviet sense. [1] https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/05/how-john-mcdonnell-leading-surprise-rebirth-british-marxism https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/05/how-john-mcdon...
- jemmyw 4y ago
  I guess I'm communist then. I want the railways to be nationalised.
- notahacker 4y ago
  I'm the first person to criticise McDonnell and Corbyn's radical postures, but the idea that Labour's manifesto proposal to renationalise the railways, Royal Mail and some utilities is communism is utterly laughable. Somehow we managed state owned railways and utilities for basically the entire Cold War without ever once feeling tempted to join the Warsaw Pact, and the Royal Mail was a government agency for nearly 400 years...
  - mytailorisrich 4y ago
    Nationalisation with control handed to the workers. And of course there's also the little thing about McDonnell and Corbyn being Marxist and socialist. Again, too many people still seem not to be willing to see what's not even hidden. History should really be compulsory over the whole of secondary school. Edit: they had hinted it very strongly but did not mention it in the 2017 manifesto apart from calling to promote coops. But in the 2019 manifesto it is explicitly written that nationalised utilities would be "run by service-users and workers". McDonnell is a Marxist and so, obviously, he wanted a Marxist economic policy in which nationalisation does not mean state capitalism but really indeed workers in charge of the means of production.
    - notahacker 4y ago
      I'm not sure the italicised bit conveys quite the sinister undertones you intended. Consider the following: if you consider communism to be a bad thing which people should be vigilant against, arguments to the effect that the defining feature of communism is having rail decisions made by employees of a state railway company rather than the boards of Abellio and Arriva[1] probably aren't going to help. Firstly because there's a wee bit more to communism than that, and secondly because the consensus of British rail users is that decision making concerning our railways is currently crap. There are plenty of decent arguments that Labour's 2019 nationalisation plans wouldn't solve the fundamental problems of those services, but the idea that it's basically Marxist-Leninism isn't one of them. [1]incidentally entities which are wholly owned by governments, just not the British one
      - mytailorisrich 4y ago
        OK, if you refuse to acknowledge the plain and obvious. Politics should not turn into bigotry.
    - gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
      You are missing a few things here. Firstly that involving workers in the ownership and running of a company is a successful model that is working in German for example. Focus on short term shareholder value is not good for employees or the company. You are posting on a site that has a large percentage of people working in start-ups. Comments like your kind of goes completely against the audience. Secondary, I've heard McDonnell describe himself as a Marxist. but he is also a politician. Unlike Corbyn he was the one to (incorrectly in my view) seek compromise and common ground with people who were seeking to undermine him. He was the key player in getting Labour to adopt a policy of second referendum, something that an ideological Marxist would certainly not go anywhere near, let alone drive. There's no actual Marxist I know that would go anywhere near the EU.
- gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
  > What do you call nationalising companies and handing control to the workers? (It's in the manifesto) There is a confusion here between the situation we have and how we address it. My water supply - water being that thing that falls from the sky on to the top of my house, and humans die if we don't have any within 3 days - is owned by a Hong Kong investment fund that is incorporated in the Cayman Islands. If you asked the person on the street then they would say that this ownership model is radical, and public ownership of water is conservative. However, if you instead ask them to comment on taking water ownership from a private company into the public domain , they'd say that was radical. The issue is that we've moved so far in terms of financialisation of nearly every aspect of our lives, that any attempt to address that will be seen as radical.

by jemmyw 4y ago

mytailorisrich 4y ago

Not at all. They even wrote it in their manifesto. What do you call nationalising companies and handing control to the workers? (It's in the 2019 manifesto) That's my point: people, especially the young, don't even recognise it when described under a microscopically thin veneer. That's very worrying. They didn't hide it, either. McDonnell did say clearly that he was a Marxist [1] and Corbyn is a socialist in the very Soviet sense. [1] https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/05/how-john-mcdonnell-leading-surprise-rebirth-british-marxism https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/05/how-john-mcdon...

jemmyw 4y ago
I guess I'm communist then. I want the railways to be nationalised.
notahacker 4y ago
I'm the first person to criticise McDonnell and Corbyn's radical postures, but the idea that Labour's manifesto proposal to renationalise the railways, Royal Mail and some utilities is communism is utterly laughable. Somehow we managed state owned railways and utilities for basically the entire Cold War without ever once feeling tempted to join the Warsaw Pact, and the Royal Mail was a government agency for nearly 400 years...
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  Nationalisation with control handed to the workers. And of course there's also the little thing about McDonnell and Corbyn being Marxist and socialist. Again, too many people still seem not to be willing to see what's not even hidden. History should really be compulsory over the whole of secondary school. Edit: they had hinted it very strongly but did not mention it in the 2017 manifesto apart from calling to promote coops. But in the 2019 manifesto it is explicitly written that nationalised utilities would be "run by service-users and workers". McDonnell is a Marxist and so, obviously, he wanted a Marxist economic policy in which nationalisation does not mean state capitalism but really indeed workers in charge of the means of production.
  - notahacker 4y ago
    I'm not sure the italicised bit conveys quite the sinister undertones you intended. Consider the following: if you consider communism to be a bad thing which people should be vigilant against, arguments to the effect that the defining feature of communism is having rail decisions made by employees of a state railway company rather than the boards of Abellio and Arriva[1] probably aren't going to help. Firstly because there's a wee bit more to communism than that, and secondly because the consensus of British rail users is that decision making concerning our railways is currently crap. There are plenty of decent arguments that Labour's 2019 nationalisation plans wouldn't solve the fundamental problems of those services, but the idea that it's basically Marxist-Leninism isn't one of them. [1]incidentally entities which are wholly owned by governments, just not the British one
    - mytailorisrich 4y ago
      OK, if you refuse to acknowledge the plain and obvious. Politics should not turn into bigotry.
  - gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
    You are missing a few things here. Firstly that involving workers in the ownership and running of a company is a successful model that is working in German for example. Focus on short term shareholder value is not good for employees or the company. You are posting on a site that has a large percentage of people working in start-ups. Comments like your kind of goes completely against the audience. Secondary, I've heard McDonnell describe himself as a Marxist. but he is also a politician. Unlike Corbyn he was the one to (incorrectly in my view) seek compromise and common ground with people who were seeking to undermine him. He was the key player in getting Labour to adopt a policy of second referendum, something that an ideological Marxist would certainly not go anywhere near, let alone drive. There's no actual Marxist I know that would go anywhere near the EU.
gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
> What do you call nationalising companies and handing control to the workers? (It's in the manifesto) There is a confusion here between the situation we have and how we address it. My water supply - water being that thing that falls from the sky on to the top of my house, and humans die if we don't have any within 3 days - is owned by a Hong Kong investment fund that is incorporated in the Cayman Islands. If you asked the person on the street then they would say that this ownership model is radical, and public ownership of water is conservative. However, if you instead ask them to comment on taking water ownership from a private company into the public domain , they'd say that was radical. The issue is that we've moved so far in terms of financialisation of nearly every aspect of our lives, that any attempt to address that will be seen as radical.