Steve Colborn is
the Socialist Party candidate for the Easington constituency in the May General
Election. These are two recent letters to his local newspaper.
Shields Gazette, Wed
11 Feb.
ACTUALLY, David Ridley (Gazette, Feb 6), governments have no
control over the economics they espouse!
If capitalism is in a boom phase, governments claim success,
and to be the ‘authors’ of this success.
If capitalism is in one of its slump phases, governments
throw up their hands and say ‘Not our fault, guv, it was the world economy what
done it!’
The latter is the cause of the good times and bad, full
stop.
Steve Colborn,
The Socialist Party,
Shields
Gazette, Wed 18th Feb.
I CAN see where you’re going with your letter Mr Wiffin
(‘Stranglehold of Labour’, Gazette, Feb 16) If, as I believe, you are positing
getting UKIP elected, this is no choice either. The cause of the problems will
remain: capitalism.
UKIP, as with all the others – Tory, Labour, LibDem, Green
etc – support this system of insanity!
The idea is not, nor can it be, merely to change the organ
grinders. We have to take possession of the organ into our own hands.
Then, and only then, can we, as the majority, decide what
tunes are played – tunes that will be in the interests of all mankind, not
merely a tiny, select few.
Steve Colborn,
The Socialist Party,
Actually Mr Colborn I think that you will find that a lot of us Greens also oppose the rampant consumerism and vicious profiteering that goes with capitalism. I am proud to call myself an ecosocialist, and certainly don't support the system that you describe.
ReplyDeleteDo you advocate the replacement of the present way Society is organised, with an alternative? Or do you, as many others have done before you, merely advocate tinkering with "aspects" of the way Capitalism is organised?
ReplyDeleteI have seen the rise of many political organisations over the last 35 years, organisations that claim the "labels" radical, or revolutionary but when one has delved beneath the surface, it is done "within" the context of the way present day society is organised!
The production for profit, modus operandi, is still in effect! A mode of operation, that by its very nature, tends to waste and duplication, as competing companies, countries and power blocs, produce the same "products" for the same markets. Where these same, build in deliberately, obsolescence to the products, to continue the cycle of "buying and selling".
Not one of these so-called, radical/revolutionary organisations have "ever" advocated the replacement of the above with a replacement by a "production for use" system. That includes the "Greens". Where the world and everything in and on it, belongs to us all in common. Replacing the present societal organisation of minority ownership, where the competition, far from leading to innovation for the common good, is carried out solely and only, if there is "profit" at the end.
Take the car industry as an example. Many companies, producing cars for the same market. Duplication of effort. Wastefulness of resources and "human energy", when most of these cars will "never" be sold!
Unless one replaces the anarchic, production for profit system, the above will continue, wasting ever scarcer raw materials. Wasting human lives in the process and putting the aggrandisement of an ever wealthier "elite" and the control this engenders, above the well being of the majority and moreover the planet we inhabit.
Finally, the term you use, "ecosocialist" is meaningless. Used as it most assuredly is, within a system, Capitalism, that produces as a by product of its very operation, the problems Party's like the Greens spend so much time railing against.
One might as well shout against the sea, because its tides wash away the "sand castles" built on the beach!
Steve Colborn