Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 21:26:56 +0100
From: Chris Burford <cburford-AT-gn.apc.org>
Subject: M-G: Consideration, Voting, and Decisions.


I agree that the statements posted from Mew York Transfer on
marxism-transition look serious and progressive. 

I am unhappy about moving speedily to a decision without weighing the pros
and cons. and could see that rapidly we could have marxism-international in
Emory, marxism-thaxis in Utah, marxism-general in New York and
marxism-theory in Finland.

Unless people are happy with this fragmentation we need to double check the
final deadline (surely there are a couple more weeks) and make contingency
plans but weigh up. Not many people on a quick vote may see the merits of
being in proximity with another list. It is a more complex ecological type
argument, involving an estimate of process and not just immediate desires.

We need some discussion of the merits of different sites. 

I find it odd when Hans has resigned from Spoons at this point presumably
in disagreement with the decision to close down marxism-space, and is
putting effort into keeping it alive that his offer is not explored of
continuing marxism-general. At the moment he is the only person with the
technical expertise, the tolerance and the commitment to try to reproduce
marxism-space.

If people do go for the NY Transfer option there is a more major question
of deciding which moderators would have the trust and confidence of the
list. Hans is at least the devil we know, and is committed to a politically
open list in the context of a cluster of lists. I do not think the
moderators necessarily can be decided later. I am of course alarmed at the
suggestion that Rolf should be a co-moderator.

Despite all the superficial arguments against it there is a very
interesting future for a list which does remain open to marxists of a
Trotskyist, Leninist, or libertarian leaning.

That is why *on principle* I would wish to be on a list with Hugh Rodwell
and have the opportunity to challenge him, with my anti-Trotskyist
prejudices, because once you scrape off the very English version of
chutzpah, he can present a very serious marxist argument. And has access to
a world-wide network of sources of practical struggle.  I find Bob much
less penetrating of opposing positions, and more jeering in a Spartacist
style, but I do not think he could be excluded from an uncensored list
provided he observes a collective spirit, and if e-zines were on another
list, and he would accept some limit on numbers of posts. 

The New York Transfer proponents also need to specify their views on that
matter.

On 19th December Rolf posted 16 posts in 1 hour 6 minutes. He only
grudgingly admitted that might be a bit excessive and now he is adamantly
arguing for no volume limit. 

The limit probably can be higher than 1 and might be as high as 3 (provided
the moderator(s) would bring it down to two or one again when it is
necessary to damp down flame wars. Whether the limits are the cost of NY
Transfer, a consideration of the position of third world subsribers, or of
the limits of the short term capacity that Hans will have, this tricky
question of volume must be addressed and it would be unwise if it is caught
up in a momentum of "let us vote yes".

We might as Juan implies end up with two marxism-general lists, one at Utah
and one at NY Transfer, and that might not be a disaster, but without the
willingness to argue through at greater length the not obvious question of
how we keep the lists together, we could easily close the doors on this as
any serious possibility. 



I attach my post to marxism-transition Monday 27th below.


Chris Burford

London.

The call to a vote on m-general's future seems to come from the culture of
Usenet.newsgroups. It runs the danger of a small and unrepresentative
number of people taking the list off without the great majority following,
in practice.

The problem with m-general is that until restrictions on postal numbers
were introduced it was dominated  by two individuals who I can now see were
influenced by usenet culture, and showed little sense of responsibility to
m-general as a collective endeavour, and accepted no self-imposed limits to
the number of posts, the size of the posts, or copying of material from out
of the list all over usenet.

Marxism-general needs to develop again as a forum unmoderated for political
content but that requires self-discipline and a few ground rules.

I will deal with Rolf's slander separately on marxism-general itself,
although the ideological connections with individualism are clear.

The issue as I have posed it above, is wider. 

We need an aim of keeping marxism-space together as much as possible, and
Hans has offered to act as a moderator to marxism space, and presumably to
continue as technical moderator to m-general, and has put in time to come
up with technical solutions that enable this, but also avoid the problem of
political control.

If thaxis is going to Utah, I do not think it is acceptable that the
decision on marxism-general should be taken by a vote of less than 10% of
the general membership. 
We need more consensus, and more collective spirit.


Chris Burford





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