Socialist Party Australia - The politics of the web

A socialist perspective on web page politics. From upcoming issue of The Socialist. By Stephen Jolly

The politics of the Web
Since April 2003 the Socialist Party has put more time into its web page (socialistpartyaustralia.org). The site has three main assets:
1) Its role as an on-line library of Marxist classics and articles analysing the world today from a socialist perspective. Books are expensive in Australia and only our Melbourne and Perth branches have a socialist library.
2) It allows for the rapid dissemination of information about rallies, actions and meetings as well as rapid comment on current affairs.
3) It unifies a national Party operating on massive continent and is especially useful for comrades in more distant areas. The site is divided into 14 topics such as "SP news and activities", "Marxism and Socialism", "Australian Politics" and so on. There are plenty of surveys on the site with the most popular being the one on the jailing of Hanson.
Visitors can vote and comment on articles, as well as submit articles. The work Melbourne City branch comrade Andrew Edwards has undertaken to set up this marvellous site needs to be acknowledged. The improvement in the web site has lead to rise in 'hits' from 1000-odd in April (69 unique visitors), to 7000 in May (57), 17,000 in July (340) and 22,000 in August (584). 170 megabytes of information was downloaded from the site in August, up from 58 mbs in July, 28 mbs in June, 7mbs in May and 1mb in April.
The increase of visitors to the site corresponds with the rise in people subscribing to the SP Open (email) list which includes a weekly newsletter and regular updates on workers' movement events.

The limitations of the internet for activists
The internet, however, cannot replace our newspaper, The Socialist, let alone party activity. It is a useful - a very useful - auxilliary to our work, nothing more.
The paper requires a massive effort of combined writing, editing and production as well as fund raising which, as Lenin explained, acts as the skeleton of a revolutionary organisation. The personal/direct selling of the paper - not done with a web page - turns the party members outwards to workers and young people, forcing them to put the arguments and hear the views of ordinary people.
In any event, even in the advanced capitalist world internet access is skewed towards the rich. Income levels are still a strong governing factor in whether people are able to log on or not.
A recent survey by the British Government's Office for National Statistics (ONS) said: "Income levels are still a strong governing factor in whether people are able to log on or not...Access was low in all four of the lowest income groups, at around 3% to 6%. Splitting household income into 10 different groups, the report shows that from the fifth group onwards levels increased rapidly with income, to 48% for households in the highest group."
In the neo-colonial world the situation is even worse with hundreds of millions of people living on less than $1 a week. A socialist web page, while it can play a role in the rapid spread of information about workers' actions, mainly plays the role of commentary and analysis of events.
Bosses ripping off casual workers, for example, may or may not be peeved off at an article on our web page criticising their behaviour, but they definitely will be forced to respond to the UNITE campaign's direct action on the issue (see back page article).
Help improve the socialist web site by contributing articles, voting on the surveys, accessing the treasure trove of Marxist texts and analysis - but get out from in front of your screens too and get active in the struggle for socialism!