David Cameron should learn to love Trotskyites
On Workfare:
Mr Cameron criticised critics of the scheme, saying it was time to “stand up against the Trotskyites of the Right to Work campaign”.
But what did Trotsky have to say about compulsory labor? Jamie Kenny points out:
The very principle of compulsory labor service is for the Communist quite unquestionable. “He who works not, neither shall he eat.” And as all must eat, all are obliged to work. Compulsory labor service is sketched in our Constitution and in our Labor Code [...] The only solution of economic difficulties that is correct from the point of view both of principle and of practice is to treat the population of the whole country as the reservoir of the necessary labor power – an almost inexhaustible reservoir – and to introduce strict order into the work of its registration, mobilization, and utilization.
Moderate social democracy or death!
I am not really sure how tongue in cheek this is.
The two situations aren’t analogous. Cameron wants to force people to work in order to produce greater profits (or if you wish to be Marxian, greater surplus value) for someone else’s private gain in a world where there is a determined onslaught against whatever continuing income and resource equality exists in this country.
Trotsky’s single-minded purpose was to force people to work for the public good in conditions where the economy had ceased to function on any basis except force (regardless of whether or not you favoured capitalism or communism or whatever). So, in short, are you joking or was this a dig at Trotskyists (never liked the -ite suffix to any word whatsoever)?
It was tongue in cheek. It just seemed to chime with Cameron claiming the Right to Work campaign were only Trots – before one of their members admitted he actually voted for Cameron in 2010. Is it Trotskyite or Trotskyist – I had the lecture once but I’ve forgotten. One was a Stalinist insult, the other a dignified term.
Trotskyite is a Stalinist insult.
Sacha Ismail
There you go
I think it may be Hal Draper who pointed out that -ist is usually attached by their followers to the most prominent proponent of a particular political position after their death to avoid the adulation thang, -ite is more usually attached by those who disagree, -ian is used as an academic suffix.