#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #SPAIN #ANARCHISM #News #Journal #Update - (en) #Spain, CNT-AITAnarchosyndicalisme! n°178: Anarchosyndicalist response (ca, de, it, fr, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The publication in Anarchosyndicalisme 177 of the article "Charte d'Amiens"

aroused reactions of astonishment among some readers. Challenging our assertion
that the representative trade union centers have abandoned the struggle to
abolish capitalism, a CGT activist pointed out to us that in the statutes of his
confederation, it is clearly stated that "it acts for a democratic society, free
from capitalist exploitation and other forms of exploitation and domination,
against discrimination of all kinds, racism, xenophobia and all forms of
exclusion" (statutes revised in 2016). ---- Of course, the CGT claims to act for
a democratic society freed from capitalist exploitation, but it is careful not to
set this abolition as its objective. In the same way, the French Republic has
proudly displayed for more than a century on the facade of all its town halls the
motto "Liberty, equality, fraternity" but who would dare to claim that a
republican government has ever done anything to abolish economic inequalities in
real life, aiming for genuine freedom for citizens by abolishing the yoke of
legal obligations that constrain them, or has sought to develop a feeling of
brotherhood among all citizens? The motto is beautiful, but no one is fooled,
these are empty words, said to deceive the naive.

In reality, it cannot be otherwise, the CGT like any other "representative" union
must absolutely go through this: to be admitted to the negotiating table, to be
considered as a partner by the State , he must necessarily accept the rules of
the game (rules fixed beforehand by the State) and this necessarily involves the
abandonment in practice of all radicalism. Just as a competitor before entering
the field must accept the rules of the game and will have to comply with the
decisions of the referee, whatever the cost, so the representative union must
bury its desires to radically transform society. .

It is impossible to demand both the abolition of capitalism, private property,
the state and negotiate reforms with the representatives of the bosses and the
state to soften the condition of employees. Of course, to obtain this conversion,
the State and the bosses have paid a high price: the so-called representative
unions are considered as interlocutors, partners, are in this respect largely
subsidized, have places in all the management bodies of the social organisations,
manage training organisations, etc. Unionism has become a formidable means of
social ascent for its leaders (some have become ministers or executives, heads of
administration or large companies). Capital knows how to both buy and reward
those who serve it! And whether we like it or not, the year 1906, the year in
which the famous Charter of Amiens was signed, is a key moment in this history
which saw the trade unions gradually integrate into the system, become a
indispensable cog in the great social machine.

To the State the sovereign functions, army, police, etc.; to companies, to bosses
the management of the economy and to the trade unions the management of the
social: to manage social crises, to ensure that the great popular anger remains
within limits acceptable by the system and to maintain in the population the hope
that an improvement in working and living conditions can be obtained through
simple negotiations.

In fact, from 1876 and the end - desired by Marx - of the first international,
the cause was heard. Marx's desire to grant absolute primacy to the struggle for
the improvement of working and living conditions as a purely reformist objective,
completely detached from the struggle for the radical transformation of society,
resulted in making the workers' unions of mere cogs in the capitalist machine.
Worse still, having become an end in itself, the struggle for immediate social
improvements has been taken over by Capital, which has made it, associated with
other elements (innovation, productivity), a formidable tool at the service of
the regeneration of the system. , allowing it in particular to break the law of
the downward trend in the rate of profit.

By recovering the workers' struggles to ensure its sustainability until today,
the capitalist system has demonstrated its fantastic capacity for adaptation, but
this was only possible following this enormous strategic error. The thinker Karl
Marx had not imagined that the system was at the same time capable of recovering
workers' struggles and transforming workers' organizations into a watchdog of the
established Order.  Yet it is this flaw, this contradiction between political
strategy and economic analysis, taking into account the hegemony of Marxist
theories in the world working class throughout the twentieth century, that the
capitalists took advantage of to perpetuate capitalism until today.
Michel Bakunin, an anarchist theoretician contemporary to Marx, was much more
lucid since he always refused to set any other goals for the exploited classes
than the abolition of capitalism through social revolution and then the
construction of a libertarian communist society. This simple fact makes any
recovery of labor efforts by the system impossible. The CNT-AIT still defends
Bakunin's conceptions today. It defines itself as anarchosyndicalist and sets
itself the sole objective of destroying the current economic, social and
political system; its militants fight to promote the advent of an anarchist
society, freed from capitalist exploitation and the cult of commodities, and it
is to make this objective understandable by the great mass of the exploited that
we associate ourselves, without reservation, with the struggles of all the
oppressed people in the world who are fighting to improve their living and
working conditions. Through direct action, by refusing any compromise with the
State or the forces of capital, by developing solidarity and mutual aid between
the exploited, we show that it is possible to defeat capital and that a world rid
of capitalist exploitation is possible. Anarchy is our goal, trade unionism our
means.

http://cntaittoulouse.lautre.net/spip.php?article1275
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