Roger Daltrey tells us all that Jeremy Corbyn is a communist and he’d do better to just ‘fess up to that fact. Jezza shouldn’t in fact do so for it’s not true. He’s not got the brain or the commitment to be an actual communist:
THE Who frontman Roger Daltrey has let rip at Jeremy Corbyn – saying the Labour boss is a “communist”.
The singer accused Mr Corbyn of trying to trick voters by posing as a more moderate left-wing figure.
Corbyn’s never shown the slightest sign of being interested in the dictatorship of the proletariat or even of having seriously considered communist theory. He is, rather, a slightly confused and rather dim bloke who is in favour of all things nice. Why shouldn’t we be nice to each other? All this worry about money, it’s more important to know that you can really make jam, isn’t it?
Yes, I jest but only in part. Examining anything Jez says on any subject reveals nothing more than isn’t all this grubbing about for cash beastly and, well, let’s just be cuddly to each other. It’s the traditional English conservatism about all those beastly people in trade, no more.
Fortunately for my own sanity Guido does all the song title puns for us:
This morning’s poll showed The Kids Are Alright, now Corbyn must be worried people of “My Generation” are refusing to get on the Magic Bus. Brexit-backing musical legend Roger Daltrey has told Event magazine that You Better You Bet voters Won’t Get Fooled Again by The Seeker of the keys to Number 10
Good, that’s done then.
Now, McDonnell, he’s another matter. He has read the source texts and absolutely believes:
John McDonnell has promised to pursue the overthrow of capitalism and legislate to force private companies to share profits if he becomes chancellor.
Mr McDonnell, an ally of Jeremy Corbyn, said he wanted to transform society “in a way that radically changes the system”. Asked if his job was the overthrow of capitalism, he replied: “Yes it is. It’s transforming the economy.” Pressed on whether there was a difference between transforming the economy and overthrowing capitalism, he said: “I don’t think there is . . . I want a socialist society.”
Sadly, in common with near all who place themselves anywhere on that socialist to communist spectrum he’s also misunderstood the Ur-Text. Communism is the thing that arrives once we’re all rich. Not the thing which makes us all so.
No, really, that is what Karl Marx said. Stripped of his jargon and in the more modern one, our major economic problem is economic scarcity. We’ve rather fewer of the things we all want than we all want. So, our problem is how to be more productive in making those things we all want.
Marx himself noting that bourgeois capitalism was the most productive economic system ever. And it would continue being so until that economic scarcity was vanquished at which point we can have that communism. We get to that nirvana – his thought, not mine – through capitalism, not by overthrowing it.
True, there was that aberration of scientific socialism which insisted that getting all the people who are dim enough to enter the civil service planning our economy for us will make us richer. Then we tested that on a third of the world for most of a century and found out it wasn’t true. So, that’s one idea down and out.
But Marxism? True communism is something that arrives after capitalism has destroyed economic scarcity. Our best chance of that being when the robots and the algos do all the work. But it is still intensely, properly, Marxist to be insisting that we should remain capitalist until we’ve all got everything.
Unlike the statements of anyone at all who avers that they are in fact Marxist.
I suspect that when you have refined the definition to the point where there was never a commie yet, you are being a stickler for historical accuracy when the world’s definition has moved on.
I would have thought Corbyn could be described as a theoretical communist. But then, they’re all theoretical communists, aren’t they?
I would have thought Corbyn could be described as a theoretical communist. But then, they’re all theoretical communists, aren’t they?
I suspect that when you have refined the definition to the point where there was never a commie yet, you are being a stickler for historical accuracy when the world’s definition has moved on.