The capitalisation of youth

[eco-socialist]

Hello comrades;

I live in London and have friends from almost every walk of life in terms of their cultural and economic backgrounds; and out of them I'd say that 95 percent have no intrest whatsoever in even basic politics- let alone in Marxist concepts etc.

As I understand it, throughout history, (or at least industrialised history,) it has always been the youth of society who have initiated social change, pressured governments and fought towards revolution, (for obvious resons.)

And yet the youth of London seem to be so incredibly disconnected from political thinking that they regard it as being entirely separate from them. (I apologise if I sound at all closed minded in the way I keep referring to London as if it is a microcosm of world society- I know that there is active youth and workers across the world and am a strong supporter of internationalism. I am also aware that there are socialist movements in London universities- when i reffer to youth here I am talking predominately of 14-18 year olds.)

Even as little as one or two decades ago there was strong movements and regular demonstrations around London, i.e. the poll tax riots. This cannot be blamed on the level of government corruption or 'power grabbing', as only a few weeks ago it was announced that all records of any phone calls/texts made in the UK- including ones to other countries-would be kept on a database for up to a year with access from 652 public bodies, including the Food Standards Agency, district and county councils and the Gaming Board! This gives the government a worrying amount of power- power that they shouldn't be allowed to have in a representative 'democracy'. And yet when I try to address this with people my own age the responce is either a lack of interest or the idea that 'there's nothing to wrong with it as long as your not breaking the law'.

Political activity has seemed to almost dry up, and I believe that a key reason for this is the way in which youth has been capitalised, (obviously this is not the only cause; and this will not be a permanent change). The majority of youth is far more concerned with their material wealth than with the society they live in.

This seems to me to be one of the most successful barriers established by capitalism to stop progressive social change-as it has taken away an entire generations political concern and idealism.

Whats your opinion?

[Gerald Krasner]

where abouts are you from in London? I come from West London and yet my group of friends at school were all very radical, though in a very inactive form.

If I give my personal opinion i think British society is very repressed. Thatcher smashed the trade unions and ever since that time there has been no cultural expression against this. This, I believe, is because ultimately there is nothing outside the labour movement, and so therefore while this is struggling to recover I think our culture has really suffered, the middle classes are I think relatively left wing (in london anyway) but utterly incapable as a class to express this, to unify and to forge some movement of their own. We must remember that although it feels like a long time (and in one sense it is) it is only 20 years or so since thatcher won. in history this is a short time. The working class i think used to have some sense of unity, independence and their own culture and dignitiy, however the smashing of the labour movement allowed this to disintegrate, as privatisation and the manufacturing industry moved abroad. This has led to enourmous depression in working class culture, and without this the youth of the working and middle classes cannot find any cultural expression, any point of reference, any alternative.

 At the moment there is a massive contradiction between the quality of life in working class communities, and the complete unchallenged domination of society and culture by the bourgoisie. The gaping contradiction between the two is what leads i think to the slightly eerie atmosphere in our society. However, time is running out for the bland culture of consumerism, and i think, both you and i being young londoners, we will see quite amazing changes in our lifetime and get to be a part of them

Dan

[eco-socialist]

Hi comrade;
I live in Bethnal Green-east London, but have friends from all over the place: Finsbury Park; Highbury; Brixton; Crouch End; Bow; Lewisham; Tottenham; Stratford; all over Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Islington and even from Essex. I have friends from almost all continents and from all class backgrounds- from the extremely rich to the extremely poor. (that is in London, as wealth is so relative.)

Some of my friends from around north London are more open to socialism and are fairly radical, but, like you say, still pretty inactive.

I agree with what you've said on class divide in British society, and on the effects of  privatisation and manufacturing being moved abroad. And I've gotta love your opptomism on the life expectancy of consumerism.

Plus, have you heard about the HoV conference on the 24? I've posted a link to it in the 'Demonstrations' and 'Britain & Ireland' sections of the forum-if your interested.

Later comrade.

[Gerald Krasner]

i have heard about it indeed, i am taking 6 friends there from uni. I am a member of the british section of the International Marxist Tendency, Socialist Appeal (www.socialist.net) which you should totally join. What's your real name? Mine's Dan Morley, maybe i could meet you there?

[eco-socialist]

Hi comrade;
sure you could meet me there, my names Abner Wilders. I'm bringing a friend from my colledge as well, he's on this forum under 'isolatedmonkey'.

Have you booked your place,  I'm still working on it. And how will I recognize you?

[eco-socialist]

Hi comrade;
were you at the conference-I didn't see you. Did you stay for any of the workshops and if you did which one?

I'll probably join Socialist Appeal some time in the next few weeks, it seems like a fantastic organisation. I've meet with a representative for it a few times and really respect the ways on which it seems to operate.

[Gerald Krasner]

i remember you asking a question in the Socialism of the XXI Century workshop. however, I did not get time to speak to you cos there was like 8 of us from my uni, and i was concentrating on discussing with them. If you join, i'll obviously meet you soon

[eco-socialist]

Comrade...apparently we were sat opposite each other in the pub :-) I didn't know if u knew that or not.
And I'll join soon...hopefully.
I also wanted to ask you about Socialist Appeals emphasis on the Labour party, and what you think about it. I've posted what I think about it in the Britain and Ireland section...if you wanna discuss it.
Later comrade.

[Gerald Krasner]

what do i think about our policy on labour? well, er, i think it is pretty good!

It is important to realise that our orientation towards the Labour Party itself is not some rigidly imposed principle - as a revolutionary party, it is not our duty to have a policy ready made for everything, rather to properly understand the whole world and british situation for the working class, in this way we are able to focus on the 'sharpest' expressions of the class struggle at each point, in each case where the vanguard of the working class will be. At the moment this is not the Labour Party, but mainly Venezeuela. We do not impose our policies on reality, i.e. we are not generally very active in Labour at the moment because, as the class struggle is most strongly expressed elsewhere, there is not much for us to do there.

But it is a question of how the class struggle will develop in the future. Again, it is important not to impose an idea on the future, but at the same time, as Trotsky said, theory offers us the benefit of foresight over astonishment. On the basis of past struggles, the specific, concrete reality here and now, and where today's contradictions will lead us, we can and must orient ourselves to where we see the class struggle developing. And as far as we are concerned, it is most likely that, for a period at least, one of the main battlefields will be the Labour Party. John McDonnel's campaign was a hint of this. The working class learns not from books, but from experience, and as a class of human beings, they do not opperate in an abstract, intellectual way. For these reasons, in Russia in 1905, many workers could be found in the police unions (i.e. unions set up by the police to control the movement, not unions for policemen), despite these union's obvious counter-revolutionary role. The same applies to Labour. And Lenin et al did not ignore these unions, treating the working class as if they had an immense wealth of theoretical, revolutionary insight, rather they entered these unions. You do not have to agree with an organistion's role or leadership in order to fight within it for influence from the working class.

[General Battery]

we need to have the social degenerates as the capitalist pigs have called them,
rise up and show them what we are. and that is the biggest form of human force in the world.
more people are in labor than are in the big-office-with-a-view cubical jobs that any opposition would be smoldered with little casualties, should there be suffecient preparation and arms.

[gla22]

If you think political apathy is bad in Britain then it is horrible in the United States. Most students i know don't even have a politica opinion regarding anything and when they do it is baseless and what their parents believe in.

[General Battery]

ya well thats the masses blindly
 believing what is spoonfed to them
by the media like laguna beach or the hills

[Universal]

In the world, all youth seems to seem to become more anti-governemt. All exept a few selected groups, and even then they seem to support radical capitalistic movements.
I myself am a radical socialist group here in the US, and what happens over in london seems to happen here as well. I am youth and seem to be surrounded in capitalistic propoganda