Today's Topics:
1. Britain, anarchist communist group ACG: Women Organising at
Work (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. ait russia: BOYOT OF CHILEAN GOODS! Against repression in
Chile [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Britain, wessex solidarity: Looking back and looking
forwards (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Britain, wessex solidarity: ANGRY WORKERS OF THE WORLD -
PRECARIOUS AND UNRULY - LABOUR DEFEAT -
THOUGHTS ON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
The following is a summary of the Women Organising at Work talks and discussion at the ACG dayschool in October. ---- Libertarian Communism
2019 Women Organising at Work ---- The session was led by two women, both very experienced in organising at work. ---- Meena from the Angry
Workers ---- The Angry Workers is interested in promoting collective organization in west London. The strategy includes getting jobs in the
bigger workplaces, building solidarity networks in local areas and producing a newspaper (2000 copies). ---- Meena works in a ready-meal
factory, with up to 4000 workers across four sites in Park Royal, west London. She started three and a half years ago working on the
assembly line but then managed to get a skilled job as a forklift driver, one that is normally done by men. She is now ‘permanent' and a GMB
rep. The workforce consists of 60% women with a wage grading system that sees women largely occupying the ‘unskilled' grade. E.g. all the
women work on the assembly line which is actually the hardest job.
Jenny from the ACG
Jenny has been a union activist since the early 1970s. She was in NUPE which then was the union for public sector employees, now Unison. One
of their first jobs was as a school auxiliary worker. These jobs were all women. There was a dispute and all the women came out (Jeremy
Corbyn was then the full-time official!). Then she worked in the parks department and got involved in the GMB which had no particular
structures for women.
The session focused on three main questions. Each speaker addressed the questions.
1. What are the issues facing women at work that are distinct from men? (Obviously they will have a lot in common but there will be issues
related to the gender division of labour as well as the fact that often they have domestic duties and most likely will be the ones with
childcare etc.)
Meena
Frist we have to understand that it is not so simple to lump all women together because in the types of jobs I've done over the last 6 years
(low waged sector), the two main divisions within the workforce are temp/agency workers, and your migrant status (British born vs. migrants).
In terms of gender though, the main thing you notice is how segregated the labour is - men normally do specific jobs in warehouses and
factories, even though, often, there is no real reason for this, more of a cultural thing. For example, women work on the assembly line and
men do the heavy lifting, drive trucks, operate machinery and do the electrical stuff. Middle and upper management are men and men also do
the surveillance.
The assembly line work is very hard and this creates many problems for women.
More surveillance. There is no chance to move around like in the other jobs because you have to ask permission, even to go to the loo, and
get someone to take your place.
Psychologically you begin to feel quite small, always being told what to do- problem of micromanagement. You have no control over how fast
the line is going.
But this job is classified as unskilled when it comes to pay negotiations.
Other problems women face, not completely related to gender, include the problem of lack of confidence and general bullying. They are
reluctant to put in a grievance, partly related to the fact that the job you do is not respected but the women also worry that their English
is not good enough. Men have all the power - making decisions about holidays, overtime, moving people between departments etc., so you have
to have a good relationship with your manager.
While all women, regardless of their job, may suffer sexual harassment, I would say it is more likely to happen in low waged, low status
jobs and the nature of these jobs (in terms of how the work is organised, what status it has, how much you get paid), does have a worse
impact on:
women's ability to fight back in the moment
their mental and physical resilience in the face of these humiliations and harassments
their confidence in their own position within the labour market
their ability to win against the employer.
I don't want to do some kind of oppression olympics or something, but the fact is that in my workplace, you can really see how the job
itself beats you down and that in turn affects women's ability to see themselves as full members of the working class which in turn affects
their level of engagement in unions or organised work activity.
You can't tackle harassment without changing the work itself - less stress, less hierarchy, more autonomy at work. The question is less,
‘why do men abuse women?' but more, what social and material conditions are required to reduce men's ability to abuse and give more power to
challenge it? It's not just about changing behaviours.
However, the situation is more nuanced; women aren't all just passive robots. There are examples of collectivity e.g. it was women who
organised a big petition against irregular hours at a sandwich factory in Southhall and they all walked out when they weren't given an extra
break during overtime.
You do also get demoralising cases though like the woman weeing herself and nobody intervening when she wasn't allowed to go the loo. Not
only was that manager a woman, she was also supposed to be a GMB rep!
This points to intersectionality limits; actually low paid men and women have more in common than women across class lines.
The other issue that is a distinctive issue for women is the home situation, which will be different from men's. I am talking in a specific
context of low-paid manual labour jobs, often majority migrant labour, so women's lives in these jobs are generally tougher. They have a lot
more on their plate in terms of juggling the normal ‘women' things (childcare and domestic labour) without any recourse to paying their way
out of their problems, as well as additional disadvantages like bad housing, poor English, more gendered expectations from their own
cultures like cooking the dinners. Family is the thing that bridges the gap that money can't. This is a double edged sword - you need your
family, at the same time, it can confine you even more.
Jenny
Women are often not considered to be ‘proper' workers; they are seen to be working for ‘pin money'. This is the case with the school
auxiliary workers. Yet many of the women are single mothers and very much rely on the wage. But the low wages not only make life difficult
but give low self-esteem. The common experience of all working together and experiencing similar issues did make for good solidarity. A lot
of women got angry and took action.
In the Parks Department, gender issues relate to the fact that often there is a refusal to accept that there are women working there and
that there are some differences that need to be taken into account. For example, there are issues with lifting heavy weights. But also, the
protective clothing was all in men's sizes, e.g. gardening gloves. Also the rip cord on the mower was too long so that it can lead to back
injuries. In other words, the organisation of the job assumed it would be a man doing the job and women just had to adapt.
There has also been so many cases of sexual harassment that are never taken up.
2. What obstacles/difficulties do women face when trying to organise? Are men sometimes an obstacle? Are women's needs accommodated for?
General points from speakers and audience
Issue of life outside work for women
Problems with women organising as it can affect the home life. Marriages often break up as women become empowered and question what they
have been putting up with. There is the general problem of women having to deal with all the labour at home and then go to work
There is a lack of time but also, inclination. Your world does become smaller when you have kids. Most militant women in my factory are
older - they have worked at Heathrow and lots of the factories in west London over the last 20 years. They have been in wildcat strikes.
Their kids are grown so they don't have to immediately rush off after work and are a bit more outward looking. The childbearing age women
are the least active in my experience which is not to condemn them or give up on them but that is a structural problem that we're not going
to solve overnight. So women in their 30s and 40s disappear, not going to meetings even if there is a crèche.
Worlds are small: family and kids, temple or church, work. There are few bigger social spaces where these situations can be challenged other
than work at the moment. Historically, it was only when women entered the labour force en masse that they could start to question their
lives and oppressive structures - the question of women's oppression became a social issue in specific historic circumstances. Once women
became more central within the working class, they had the social and material power to question relations between men and women more
fundamentally. (Feminist movement coincided with this period of women entering work on a mass scale - gave a framework for thinking
politically about women's changing lives - and now we don't have that). So workplaces are crucial in the question of women's burgeoning role
in questioning and tackling women's oppression more generally, the point is how does the union facilitate this?
Have tried organising women's meetings, they didn't come. Men came! Not men's fault! I think if women were interested, you would suggest you
bring your kids along or you would say what you needed to help you come. But you have to want to come first. And this is problem when in
most peoples' experiences, unions are pretty male; it's a lot of shouting, megaphones, public speaking, talking to management. Unions have
been pretty bad! Women don't have time to get involved in something for the sake of it. There has to be an immediate and practical benefit.
Catch -22. You need the women to do this!
Women themselves can also be a big barrier; it is not ‘men' per se that are the problem. For example, the GMB organised a protest outside
Elveden for three women who had been moved from one department to another. Very few women came to support them; it was actually mainly men.
Example of me doing the trays and the backlash from the women because they didn't want to be asked to do extra jobs that the men currently do.
Confidence is a problem - they are often the driving force of things but want to remain hidden behind the men (e.g. in the photo at the
protest they all literally hid behind the men). They are not supporting each other. Problems of sticking together against manager bullying -
women feel very alone.
Women are not aware of how much power they have. When they do act there has been success, e.g. Gate Gourmet, in the 1970s, hospital strikes,
Grunwick. It was easier in the days when the unions had a stronger presence at work, e.g. closed shops so that everyone was involved. There
was a tradition of militancy in the 1970s that does not exist today. Young women do not have confidence.
Unions and role of men at work as an obstacle
Unions are also an obstacle, though. It is the way they recruit now- using scare tactics so they join. But this does not translate into
power on the shop floor. People expect the union to do something for them. This is the basis on which they have been recruited.
I feel that hostility and patronising attitudes within the unions make organising really difficult for women.
Male attitude that "recruiting cleaners (care-workers, shop workers etc) is just recruiting problems" and therefore not to be encouraged.
Construction is an example of types of jobs that are almost all male. These are jobs that tend to be better paid than jobs women do such as
in shops or as carers. But it is hard for women to work in this industry. Men are patronising or hostile.
3. What strategies have been adopted? What ideas do we have for ensuring that women are fully represented in the class struggle?
Summary from above.
A key issue are the gendered division of labour in which unequal pay and roles are systemic. This is difficult to challenge due to attitudes
of bosses, managers and male and female workers themselves.
Another key problem is the fact that women tend to have larger roles in the home which makes it difficult for them to participate in
workplace organising. It also means that women of child-bearing age often leave work or work part-time. This links workplace organising to
issues outside the workplace- in the home and community.
Some ideas
Need to have places where women can come together collectively. We need community centres where people can meet outside of work.
Pick up on their specific issues - problems with proving bullying though and culture of fear.
Forcing them to step up, talk to you in public, sign grievances, do collective actions.
Not about trying to get more women leaders as such - you''ll get a certain type of woman. Focus should be more on how to make the union more
relevant, militant, effective, responsive and participatory. Obviously you'll only get so far within the constraints of a union but the idea
would be to get workers to rely on themselves first and foremost.
Education sessions for union members
Organise social and family events
Strategy needs to be practical
Separate women's organisation could have a place, so that men would not dominate. Train women to take up roles, though there is a risk of
them being co-opted just like men are by unions.
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2019/12/23/women-organising-at-work/
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Message: 2
Comrades! ---- Since October 18, 2019, protests have been launched in the Chilean region for a more equitable distribution of wealth.
Speeches began after rising fares for the subway (subway), but later spread, putting forward demands in a wide variety of areas, such as
social security and healthcare. More than two months have passed since the beginning of social protests, which are continuously and brutally
suppressed by the police, and sometimes by the military, taken to the streets during the declared state of emergency, when a number of
constitutional rights were suspended. ---- The result of repression was the death of 24 people; 241 people lost their eyes, two completely
blinded. Cases of sexual abuse have been reported. Thousands of people are injured and arrested. The police have made many allegations of
torture, but the authorities are investigating them superficially and without much success.
The strength of the ruling class of Chile is based on the export of copper, salmon, apples, wine, fresh grapes, avocados and other products.
Therefore, we are convinced that a blow to the pocket would be very important in order to stop the repression raging in this territory.
The interprofessional union calls on the nations of the world to boycott Chilean exports. Do not buy Chilean products .
Require:
- cessation of repression against social protest;
- The dissolution of the Carabinieri Police, the main culprit for human rights violations;
- The immediate trial of President Sebastian Pinera, as responsible for the crimes committed, and his resignation;
- the removal of all government officials and parliamentarians who have approved a violation of human rights.
We make this appeal after the various political parties in the Chilean region agree on a mechanism for drafting a new political constitution
that will allow them to retain power. and then called for an end to the protests, thereby legitimizing, to a greater or lesser extent,
repressions against the people.
As we have already said, the people of Chile continue and will continue to speak, but without international support it will not be possible
to force those in power to stop the killing, bullying and torture against social fighters.
FOR THE INTERNATIONAL ANTINEOLIBERAL CAMPAIGN OF SOLIDARITY WITH A SOCIAL PROTEST IN CHILE!
FOR THE BOYCAST!
Interprofessional Santiago
https://aitrus.info/node/5387
------------------------------
Message: 3
Writing a review of a year that future historians will look back on as being a historic turning point isn't an easy task. The obvious reason
being that events are happening so fast, it's difficult to fully assess the impact of one before the next one barges its way onto the stage
screaming for our attention. So, please regard this piece as a snapshot in time and recognise that whatever conclusions we come to may well
date as the situation evolves. ---- Domestically, 2019 felt like it was dominated by Brexit. A Brexit that for some felt elusive and would
never materialise as departure dates came and went as the EU granted the UK extensions in the hope that it could sort out exactly what it
wanted. Which for much of the year was never going to happen with a minority Tory government beset by division and unable to push the
necessary legislation through to move things forwards. That has only been resolved, for better or worse depending on your point of view,
with the general election on December 12th giving Johnson the majority he wants to push forward with what will most likely be a hard Brexit.
In the future, with the benefit of hindsight, 2019 could well be seen as the year that party politics as we have known it changed
dramatically. The Tory party has lurched towards the right to the point where it has made Farage's Brexit ‘Party' redundant and ominously,
has had the open endorsement of the likes of Britain First, Tommy Robinson and Katie Hopkins. After the election, it's becoming clearer that
the relationship of the Labour party to the working class is becoming ever more tenuous . The election was a disaster for Labour and they
have now descended into bitter infighting and recriminations that will keep them electorally marginalised for years to come. A political
vacuum has been created which judging by the election results, is being partly filled by a Tory nationalist populism.
Amidst the triumphalism from the Tories on the one hand the the blame gaming and soul searching within Labour on the other, we've been
trying to draw attention to the way Parliamentary ‘democracy' as we know it cannot deliver a government that has any serious legitimacy.
While the Tories claim they secured the votes of 43.6% of the electorate that chose to exercise their right to vote, when you set their vote
share within the total electorate that includes those who didn't vote, their vote share drops right down to 29.3%. 32.8% of the electorate
chose not to vote - that's more than voted for the ‘winning' Tory party. Look at it another way, 70% of the electorate did not vote for the
government. To us, that suggests that when things get even tougher, the government will face a crisis of legitimacy which they will only be
able to resolve by increasing authoritarianism.
Johnson's administration will be hitting the ground running, not only pushing Brexit through but also paving the way for a more extreme form
of capitalism that ultimately will start to screw even more people. The government knows it has a short honeymoon period in which to push
its agenda through before the growing number of people being screwed over by the system start to react in ways that, in the political vacuum
there is in the working class, will be hard to predict. A point will be reached where they will have to resort to ever more authoritarian
measures to keep the lid on what could be a volatile situation. Obviously with the aid of their mates in a predominantly right wing media,
they will be pushing the strategy of divide and rule for all it's worth.
2020 is going to be a very challenging and volatile year. Are we as anarchists/radicals ready for it? The honest answer has to be not really
- we face a massive learning curve just to ensure that we can survive as activists, let alone have any significant impact on the situation.
A sizeable section of the left hitched itself to the Corbyn project - they now find themselves exhausted, deflated and undergoing some
serious soul searching. As for the rest of us, our numbers are few, our resources are limited and for those of us operating outside of the
metropolitan activist bubbles, we're having to look over our shoulders more than we would like.
Despite all of this, in the days since the election, we've had some very interesting conversations about practical grassroots solidarity and
mutual aid. We've also read some very insightful articles on how this can be encouraged, supported and spread. Obviously as anarchists, this
has always been the way we've wanted to see radical change come about - from the grassroots upwards. What is heartening is the number of new
people joining in with this conversation as the realisation that party politics and social democracy is not going to deliver the radical
change we want to see.
So, how can we start to re-build the sense of solidarity we need to fight back against this and eventually, build the better world that we
deserve? Start small and start right at the grassroots where you live. A simple act of solidarity is looking out for the neighbours on
either side of you and for them to do the same. In order to get people to know each other a bit better, canvass opinion and organise a
practical activity such as a community clean up. Not only will you see a physical difference after a few hours graft, for a lot of people,
doing something collectively with their neighbours will be an empowering experience. Even if it's just a close or a small street, it's a
start and if people on other parts of the estate see what's been achieved, hopefully they'll be inspired to do the same.
Organising regular cleaning, doing whatever maintenance you feel you can take on, running a community vegetable and fruit garden, a food
bank and/or a school uniform bank will bring people together. Also, picking up the skills needed to undertake these acts as a boost to
people's confidence and self esteem. Not everyone will be able to make an equal contribution because of time pressure or disability - accept
that any contribution is valid and ensure support from those who can't take part is valued. Once a level of cohesion has been built up, work
out ways of making sure that vulnerable people in your community are being checked up and their needs are being met.
Use what's there to help boost community solidarity and morale and also to ensure the needs of the more vulnerable people in your
neighbourhood are being met. As anarchists, we're supposed to reject the church. Well, when a church such as Trinity Methodist Church in
Vange has a community cafe for use by the whole neighbourhood, contribute to food banks, offer support to disabled people, run toddler
groups, offer youth activities to all young people in the community to name just a few, it would be churlish in the extreme to not accept
the help and support they can offer. Essentially, a lot of what they do is not dissimilar to what some more grounded, neighbourhood
anarchist groups abroad who've got their act together undertake! We are where we are so the priority has to be re-building community
solidarity in whatever ways that work.
None of this is going to be plain sailing and one of the more difficult parts will be dealing with the anti-social element in a
neighbourhood. In an ideal world, those chaotic households where there's a risk of members falling into anti-social behaviour or crime would
be getting helped by the surrounding community. We want to get to the point where that can happen and there's less need for outside
intervention. In the interim, once a degree of community solidarity starts to emerge, the people best placed to decide how to deal with
anti-social behaviour are those living in the neighbourhood. They'll have the knowledge of the perpetrators and a shrewd idea of the risks
involved - that will go a long way to enable them to devise a strategy to deal with the situation.
Street protests are all very well and inevitably, some form of action/reaction will be seen on the streets. The point we keep on making is
that any action on the streets aimed at bringing about radical has to have a base and that is formed by mutual aid and solidarity at the
grassroots. Envious eyes have been cast away from these grey isles to locations such as Chile and France that have seen massive street
protests. A cursory examination shows that these movements are backed up by grassroots assemblies and solidarity initiatives that will give
them a chance of eventually prevailing. There are lessons to be learned from this.
As class struggle anarchists, we make no apology for an intensive focus on building mutual aid and solidarity at the grassroots as we move
forward into 2020. However, we are acutely aware of the debate raging around climate change, the rapid rise of Extinction Rebellion (XR) and
the promotion of a so called ‘New Deal For Nature'. We've already made some criticisms of the hierarchical nature of XR and their strategy
and tactics. From what we've seen so far, there are a lot of legitimate criticisms to be made about the ‘New Deal For Nature'. In an ideal
world, there's a lot that could be said about this in a piece looking back at 2019 and forward to 2020. To do this justice, we will be
writing a separate piece on this early in 2020 and publishing it alongside some other material. For the moment, that's about all we want to
reveal about this.
To conclude, we are where we are. 2019 will eventually be seen as a historically pivotal year as will 2020. The point is that 2020 is as
yet, an unknown quantity. We've said this a few times before but this time, it really feels like we're entering a period where we have
everything to play for but also, everything to lose if we don't get it right. If in a year's time we're able to sit here writing a review of
2020 while looking forward to 2021, then that means we've established a base of fire we can advance from.
https://wessexsolidarity.wordpress.com/2019/12/22/looking-back-and-looking-forwards-2/
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Message: 4
The following thoughts on the strategy of democratic socialism forms part of our upcoming book reflecting on six years of working class
inquiry and intervention in west-London... ---- ‘Democratic socialism' is currently the main alternative vision to transforming capitalism,
and as such we need to take it seriously, despite our deep disagreement with it. By democratic socialism we mean the idea that by using the
two legs of the organised labour movement - the trade unions and a socialist party in government - we can walk step-by-step towards
socialism. Socialism is defined as a society dominated by either nationalised or cooperative ownership of the means of production and
workers' representation when it comes to management of these economic units. The general strategy of democratic socialism can be summarised
briefly.
The idea is to campaign for an electoral victory of a socialist party based on an economic program of partial re-nationalisation of a
limited number of key industries and the creation of a wider sector of ‘solidarity economy' formed by cooperative or municipal companies
that can guarantee more de-centralised workers' participation. In tandem with electoral activities, democratic socialists encourage the
support of working class or ‘social movement' organisations outside of parliament, in order to have an economic power-base to put pressure
on both capital and government. Once the party is in power the strategy needs to create a dynamic between a) structural institutional
changes decreed by the government which creates more space for the participation of working class organisations (so-called non-reformist
reforms) and b) pressure from below to defend and extend these spaces. An example could be to enact banking sector reforms, which limits the
scope of financial speculation and tax avoidance and at the same time gives ‘common ownership enterprises' preferential treatment when it
comes to commercial credits. While this happens on the governmental level, trade unions in companies that might try to undermine the reform
by threatening to disinvestment will have to increase the pressure on management. The material improvements of workers' lives and the
strengthening of trade unions are supposed to create greater unification within the working class - a kind of jumping board into socialism.
There are two hearts beating in this project. We see many comrades, fed up with the social isolation of so-called ‘revolutionary politics',
becoming attracted to the practical and strategical debates of the democratic socialist project. They can be intellectually invigorating.
These comrades might have come from classic anarchist or otherwise ‘revolutionary' organisations or they might have been politicised during
the horizontal, but ineffectual and often self-referential ‘social movements' of the anti-globalisation or Occupy era. We understand the
urge of these comrades to ‘make a difference' and to think about short, medium and long-term steps towards social change. We can see many
fellow working class people who feel the limitation of trade union activity and who hope that Labour in government can turn trade unions
into powerful workers' organisations again. We want to fight for the hearts and minds of these comrades. Then there exists the usual
careerist swamp within these organisations, from DSA, Podemos to Corbyn's Labour. The in-fights and power-games.
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The direction of the democratic socialist project in the UK is not primarily determined by its political outlook, but by its class
composition. The new Labour left is composed of three main forces: a segment of ambitious and perhaps precarious professionals who feel that
according to their educated status they should have more say in society. They also want a good life for ‘the working class', but their
approach is technocratic: learned people and progressive experts are supposed to decide how things are run, not the bankers and the
parasitic elite. They form an alliance with the second main force, the union bureaucracy. The union apparatus allows the new professionals
to speak in the name of the workers and the union bosses can extend their power into the political class. The third element are the most
marginalised parts of the working class who've had to suffer from years of benefit cuts and sanctions. Labour under Corbyn gave them hope,
but the party machine will end up instrumentalising their victim status.
We could write a long list of points of disillusionment with Corbynism, which took place even before the election disaster. The second
leader of the party's ‘hard-left'-wing, John McDonnell, felt obliged to publicly whitewash the war-criminal Tony Blair. People who voted
with Blair to invade Iraq are presented and hosted as ‘left candidates', such as the MP David Lammy. Activists at the 2017 party conference
learned that Momentum could be used as a disciplining arm, enforcing that delegates wouldn't vote on contentious issues, such as a Brexit
referendum. Experiences in local party branches are largely dominated by tedious petty power plays and boring formalities.
During the winter 2019/20 it turned out that the only thing that Corbynism has been able to re-nationalise is the fringe left. As we witness
one of the biggest wave of working class protests - from Ecuador, Chile, Sudan to Iran - the left in the UK was completely focused on
whatever Corbyn or Johnson were saying on TV. The national narrow-mindedness would have become worse if Labour had entered government: would
any democratic socialist have supported unruly working class mobilisations, such as the Yellow Vests or the protests in Iran, under a new
and fragile Labour government? We can try to adorn ‘Corbynism' with all kind of radical looking paraphernalia and woke memes, from Acid
Corbynism to ‘luxury or literal communism' - but in the end it's a Party that promises us a minimal minimum wage increase, free broadband
and slightly less austerity. But then our focus here is not to argue about utopian visions, but to point out the internal shortcomings of
this political strategy.
1) This is not a historic phase for social democracy
Historically, social democracy developed during phases of economic upturns, based on a relatively strong national industrial production
capacity. What we face now is an economic crisis and an internationalised production system. This limits both the scope for material
concessions and for national economic policies. Secondly, social democracy primarily became hegemonic in post-revolutionary situations.
Social democracy was based on large organisations within the working class and a ruling class that allowed workers' political representation
in order to avoid revolutionary tensions. Left-communists never get tired of repeating that the establishment of the NHS was not a result of
Labour party reformism, but of Tory Cold War counter-insurgency - to avoid large-scale social discontent after the war. Again, this is not a
situation we find ourselves in today. The main point for us to stress is: we face harsher conditions of struggle than democratic socialism
prepares us for. We can't bypass the day-to-day confrontations with bosses and their violent lackeys. Democratic socialism tends to
overemphasise the autonomy of government politics. In the UK the Labour left portrays the Thatcher government and their ‘wicked policies' as
the source of evil neoliberalism, whereas it was the global crisis in the mid-1970s which forced all governments to attack the working
class. You cannot vote your way out of this.
2) Current democratic socialism ignores the capitalist character of the state
Democratic socialist strategies are based on the assumption that the state stands above ‘capitalism' and could intervene in it as a
politically neutral form. Historically the state emerged as the violent arm to impose and secure class relations, e.g. through enclosures,
vagrancy laws and the military expansion of markets. The state appears as a neutral force that is only there to look after law and order and
the wider organisation of society. But law and order means primarily that the property relations which are the material basis for the
exploitation of the working class are maintained. By making us citizens the state disarms us as a collective class force. State politics
separate the sphere of social production from the sphere of social decision-making - we are supposed to produce the world, but apart from
casting a vote every four years have no say in how the world is run. Materially the state apparatus depends on the continuous exploitation
both through taxation and as an employer.
3) Current democratic socialism misreads the relationship between the market and capitalism
Democratic socialists think switching from private to public (state) ownership will be the antidote to capitalism. They see no contradiction
therefore between a ‘big state' and socialism, despite the fact that state intervention - regardless of where it is on the political
spectrum - has always played the fundamental role in expanding, enforcing and defending the market. The process of industrialisation itself
required state ownership and central economic planning, last but not least in order to enforce order against the emerging industrial working
class. During this phase it didn't matter if the left or the right was in government - large-scale state planning was required by the social
situation and was not a political choice. Furthermore, the idea that cooperatives and national (state) ownership go hand in hand is not
verified by history: the big decline of cooperatives in the UK didn't happen under Thatcher, but during the ascent of national economic
planning and concentration in the manufacturing sector during a 1960s Labour government. The competition between companies - the market form
- or the formation of monopolies is just a surface appearance of the underlying class relations. So it wouldn't be enough to just ‘smash the
monopolies'. A more fundamental change is required. We can see this when class relations are in crisis - when workers organise mass strikes
and hit the streets. The state, no matter if it is left or right, has no problems suspending the ‘free market' in these situations to
repress and maintain class society. For example, after the oil shock in the 1970s it was no contradiction that the Indira Gandhi government
nationalised the mining and banking sector in order to prevent economic collapse, inscribed ‘socialism' into the Indian constitution,
obtained the support of the Communist Party and launched the most brutal attack against striking railway workers and other working class
insurgents during the State of Emergency.
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4) Democratic socialism in practice avoids the structural weakness of the working class and focuses on professionals
The current proponents of democratic socialism know that class struggle is at a low ebb - but instead of focusing on building organised
cores within the class they largely focus on the recruitment of professionals and ‘activists'. While previous revolutionary upheavals like
1968 questioned the role of the ‘intellectual expert', the current generation celebrates it. This is very obvious for parties like Podemos
or Syriza, but also valid for the so-called Labour surge - most of the new party members have a higher education and are living in
metropolitan areas. Materially the new left intelligentsia reproduces itself as the ‘neoliberal self' that they pretend to criticise: hardly
any of them are ‘organic intellectuals' forged in working class existence and struggle, most of them survive by creating a social media and
academic persona whose opinion is valued on the marketplace. Whether you read the "Alternative Models of Ownership" by the Labour party
advisers, Bastani's ‘luxury communism' or Srnicek's ‘Inventing the Future', the prime agent is always the figure of the well-educated and
networked activist. Unfortunately this forces our intellectual democratic socialist comrades to chase their own tails. There is a big blank
space when it comes to the question of how their well-meaning ideas will be enforced and implemented. Who will enforce workers'
participation if workers are seen as people who are only able to engage in political discourse during election times? The absence of a
strategy rooted in the working class then leads to the creation of a trite and kitsch icon of ‘the people' - a mass of honest victims who
need cultural belonging and political leadership.
5) Democratic socialism's understanding of ‘workers' participation' is formal and therefore flawed
We criticise socialist thinkers for seeing state planning as essentially opposed to capitalism, though confronted with history most of them
would hasten to add that nationalisation and planning have to go hand-in-hand with the ‘democratisation of the economy'. The problem is that
their understanding of ‘workers' participation' is largely formal, e.g. proposed in the form of workers' shares in enterprises, union
delegates on company boards or voting rights when it comes to management decisions. The aforementioned class background of many of the new
socialist intelligentsia also contributes to their limited understanding - or actual trajectory - of what workers' control would require.
Their understanding of class is largely economistic - defined by the fact that workers all depend on wages. This understanding of class
doesn't focus on the actual form of the production process and its hierarchical division of labour (intellectual and manual workers,
productive and reproductive work etc.). In their policies, their understanding of ‘ownership' of the means of production and ‘democratic
participation' of workers is formal. Just because workers or trade unions hold 50% or 100% of shares doesn't mean much. If workers are still
forced to do the drudge work the whole day, performing only a limited amount of tasks, this won't allow them to have an understanding of,
and therefore say in, how a company or sector is actually run. You might give them a vote on a company board, but it will be those who have
a greater overview and more time - due to their professional status as intellectuals (engineers, scientists etc.) - who will make the
decisions. The ‘vote' will be reduced to a fetishised process to confirm the experts' monopoly of knowledge. As we have seen in history,
workers survive the worst defeats inflicted by the class enemy. But the deepest and longest-lasting traumas are inflicted when oppression
and exploitation is enacted in their own name - didn't the ‘workers' state' of the Stalinist regime formally belong to the workers, too? A
mere change in government or a shift from private to state property would not touch the core of what defines ‘working class', its' power and
disempowerment.
6) The trade unions and the workers party are not the working class
The democratic socialist perspective relies on the idea of a transmission between the working class and the state through the interaction of
the two main ‘workers' organisations' - the parliamentary party and the trade unions. This perspective relies on an idealistic or
pre-historic view on trade unions as the ‘democratic representation' of the class. Plenty of historical examples (Labour/TUC in the UK in
1926 or the 1970s, CC.OO in Spain after Franco, Solidarnosc in Poland after 1981, PT/CUT in Brazil recently etc.) demonstrate that during
the heat of struggle waves, the trade union/government connection becomes the heaviest blanket on working class initiative. During the last
years that we've been shop-stewards, we've gotten quite a bit of insight into the internal mechanisms of two major trade unions - both loyal
to the Labour party. Democratic socialism's idea that these organisations will be the main force in ‘keeping the government and its enemies
under pressure' is totally illusory. More often than not we can see how the party and the union leadership instrumentalise workers'
struggles for their own ends, e.g. the recent symbolic ‘strikes' at McDonald's in London were called by the union leadership at a time where
it suited the Labour campaign circus, but actually undermined the organising work of the union's own organisers. Many of the proposed
reforms that Labour wanted to bring in, e.g. sectoral collective bargaining and contracts, would facilitate economic planning for the bigger
capitalists and strengthen the central trade union leadership's grip than actually boost workers' independent power. The regional and
sectoral contracts in Germany are the best example.
7) Focus on the ‘political arena' saps energy
The leadership of democratic socialism tends to try and bypass the mundane and laborious problems of power relations between workers and
capital and instead focuses on the electoral leap. But these tend to be leaps forwards and backwards. The governmental politics of 21st
century socialism in Latin America (Chavez, Morales, Lula etc.) and their structural weaknesses have created widespread disillusionment. The
subjugation of the Syriza government in Greece to the system and its representatives has closed down, rather than opened up spaces for the
class movement against austerity. The internal power-fights within Podemos or Momentum has created cynicism and burn-out. By adopting a
‘lesser evil' voting strategy and calling for people to vote for Macron to avoid Le Pen, the left undermined its own position in the
anti-government rebellion of the Yellow Vests. The media hype of Corbynism, the engagement with electoral tactics etc. diverts focus from
daily struggles for working class self-defence. There is also a misunderstanding of parliamentarianism: just because a political party is
composed by workers doesn't make party politics and the parliament a form of working class politics. Parliamentarianism is the exact
opposite of working class politics, as it is based on individual citizenship, not on collective and practical relations. This is true for
national parliamentarism as much as for the ‘parliamentarianism light' in the form of ‘radical municipalism' (campaigning for independent
candidates in local elections) that some activists propose. The best example for the limits of local electoral politics can be found in the
US. The election of militants of the black liberation movement after its decline in the late-1970s meant that in towns like Chicago and
Baltimore, black mayors had to enforce austerity and anti-poor policing measures in the 1980s, which further weakened and divided the
movement while stabilising the system: who better to enforce cuts against black urban poor, but a black mayor? While history provides us
with ample examples, cracks also appear in the present. If we look at Barcelona En Comu, the citizen platform that won the local elections
in Barcelona and provided the new mayor, Colau, we can see various moments of tension between the local working class and the new
‘citizen-friendly' local government, e.g. when the local government acted against the striking airport and metro workers in 2017. Comrades
in Spain also noticed that the ‘redistribution' of local politicians' wages by platforms like Barcelona En Comu did not primarily benefit
rank-and-file organisations, but created a larger number of so-called ‘movement jobs', a new layer of professional activists with all the
contradictions of professionalisation. One outcome of these tensions with the local working class is that Barcelona En Comu tries to channel
some of the discontent into Catalan nationalist waters, as if Catalan independence had much more to offer working people than yet another
dividing line within our class. We will now face the same problem in Scotland.
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8) Parliamentary power and state power are two different things
Let's assume a socialist party manages to get into government. The idea of a parliamentarian road towards socialism neglects the fact that
‘taking over government' and ‘having state power' are two different kettles of fish. There is little analysis of the actual material and
social class structure of the state (administration, public servants, army) and its independence from parliamentary democracy, for example,
despite changes to its outer form the material core and trajectory of the Russian state apparatus (i.e. social strata of people employed in
carrying out state functions) has reproduced itself from the time of the Tsarist regime, through the Bolshevik revolution, Stalinist terror,
Glasnost to Putin. If we want to look closer to home, even the revered Tony Benn had to understand as Secretary of State for Industries in
the mid-1970s that the struggle with the right-wing of the Labour party was child's play compared to the struggle with his ‘own' civil servants.
9) By focusing on the national arena and the state, democratic socialism tends to misjudge the global relation of capital
Let's assume that a socialist party not only manages to get into government, but also manages to dominate the state apparatus. Due to the
fact that the nation state is the core element of the strategy for democratic socialism the project is immediately confronted with the
global nature of capital. Higher levels of taxation and other impositions will result in capital flight amongst global companies. Democratic
socialism accounts for this, by, for example, proposing alliances with smaller enterprises, as a kind of national productive united front
against global corporations and finance. We've seen time and again how this necessary alliance shifts the ideological viewpoint towards
‘left patriotism' and other bullshit. If a Labour government would actually try to increase taxation and redistribute assets, the most
likely outcome is a devaluation of the pound and an increase in inflation due to a trade deficit, which cannot be counteracted easily -
given the composition of agriculture, energy sector, general manufactured goods. The new Labour left leadership - trained in political
activism and speech and aided by their influence amongst the union leadership - will be the best vehicle to tell workers to ‘give our Labour
government some time', to explain that ‘international corporations have allied against us' and that despite inflation workers should keep
calm and carry on; wage struggles will be declared to be excessive or divisive or of narrow-minded economic consciousness. We have seen how,
for example, the Chavez government in Venezuela organised the ‘urban poor' against strikes of teachers who demanded higher wages, denouncing
them as greedy and therefore responsible for other workers' poverty.
10) Class struggle doesn't develop gradually
Democratic socialism's focus on electoral campaigning and official union organising results in a misjudgement of how class struggle
develops. Historically class struggles developed in leaps and bounds - in a much more complex dynamic between ‘organising' and external
forces and factors. The belief that class struggle is based on ‘step-by-step' organising and mobilising often results in leftists putting
stumbling blocks in the way of future waves of struggle. In the short-term getting ‘community leaders' or your local MP involved, or relying
on the trade union or party apparatus in order to mobilise or encourage fellow workers, might seem beneficial. What initially seemed a
stepping stone turns out to be a stumbling block: for example middle-men who get in the way of things or illusions in symbolic forms of
struggle. The challenge is to find ‘step-by-step' forms of struggle which help in the moment, but don't pose problems long-term. In their
need to create a transformation of workers' action (controlled strikes etc.) on the ground into ‘economic pressure' to support state
policies, socialist organisers tend to become scared of the often chaotic and seemingly spontaneous character of struggles. They run the
danger of misunderstanding that these situations of breakdown of normality are precisely the situations where workers have to face up to
their responsibility to re-organise social reproduction. These moments are the necessary learning curves and laboratories where we actually
change things and ourselves. To stifle this means killing workers' participation.
11) Democratic socialism and its fear of uncontrolled class struggle becomes its own gravedigger as it weakens the working class activity
necessary to defend it
The fact that the biggest socialist party in history - the German SPD - first agreed to support the German government in the 1914 war
efforts and oppressed workers' revolutionary upheavals after the war was not a betrayal. It was part and parcel of a long-term strategy to
gain governmental power and to re-shape the national economy - to which workers revolutionary ‘adventures' posed a risk. After having
weakened workers' self-activity the SPD was then confronted with a global crisis in 1929, which limited a national economic strategy. The
combination of these two factors - a working class weakened by government tactics and powerlessness vis-à-vis global capital - resulted in
the SPD opening the door for the most brutal reactionary turn in 1933. Another example is the social democratic government under Allende in
Chile in 1973. It shows us that the relationship between working class movements and left governments is more complicated than the often
mechanistic picture of force (movement) and container/stabiliser (government). We can see that the initial social reforms were introduced by
a right-wing government, which failed to contain class struggle. When Allende took over he had a hard time keeping workers‘ and poor
peoples‘ struggles under control - struggles which might well have been encouraged by the incoming left government. Allende feared that the
local upper-class and international imperialist forces would use the social turmoil as an excuse for intervention. Industrial unrest also
created shortages which threatened to destabilise the government further. International price developments, in particular of mining
products, curbed the scope for material concessions towards striking workers. Allende's policies towards the working class unrest - which
ranged from concessions to military repression - undermined and literally disarmed the working class. When the local military, backed by the
CIA, went in for the kill, the resistance was already weakened. This historical example seems irrelevant for the sitation in the UK or the
US today, but once we look beyond short-term goals of electoral tactics we still face the same fundamental dynamics.
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12) Strategy starts from actual struggles and actual potentials and difficulties imposed by the social production process
We need strategies and we need organisation. We have to start by analysing the real conditions and relationships of our class: how is
production organised today, how is it organised beyond company or national boundaries, how are we as workers divided from intellectual
labour and knowledge and how can these divisions be overcome? How can we make use of the fact that workers cooperate along supply-chains,
often using modern communication technologies in order to develop new forms of transnational organisations of struggle? How does our class
lead its struggles today, where do we use the potentials of modern production and where do we fail to use them in our favour? How do the
struggles in the bigger workplaces and industrial sectors relate to areas or regions where workers are more atomised? We have to create a
dynamic between industrial and workplace power and the inventiveness of working class people to organise their survival, be it in the form
of workers' cooperatives, hack-labs, squats or self-run community projects. Within these struggles we have to develop the organisation and
strategy to imagine a coordinated take-over of the central means of production, their defence and their socialisation beyond national
boundaries. This will not happen on Day X of our choosing - this will happen with the increasing disfunctionality of this system to which
our own struggles for survival contribute. Democratic socialism and its strategies will not be adequate for the vastness, harshness and joy
of what lies ahead for the working class.
We have seen that the strategy of democratic socialism clashes with the two main historical forces in capitalism. Firstly, by focusing on
the national arena it clashes with the global character of capital. And secondly, by reducing the question of exploitation to the question
of whether workers work under private or public command, their strategy clashes with the substantive discontent of the working class. A
socialist government would be forced to weaken its own power base in order to deal with the continuing discontent ("Keep calm and give your
workers' government a bit more time"). In the long run this creates disillusionment and the material basis for a reactionary turn. These are
the historical lessons.
https://angryworkersworld.wordpress.com/2019/12/21/labour-defeat-thoughts-on-democratic-socialism/
https://wessexsolidarity.wordpress.com/
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