The "conclave" launched by the Prime Minister placed the review of the
pension law promulgated in 2023 on its agenda; the secretary of the CGT
(General Confederation of Labour) announced a new "mobilization" on
pension reform. Beyond current events, this text attempts to assess the
failure of the previous mobilization in 2023 and to get to the root of
the problem. (January 25, 2025) ---- RETIREMENT MUST BE CONSIDERED IN
RELATION TO EMPLOYMENT, THAT IS TO SAY, WITH EXPLOITATION ---- The
calculation of the retirement pension refers to the years of employment
("working life"), that is, to the exploitation of men, women, and
nature, with the accumulation of damage (particularly to the human body
and psyche) and to the relationship between humanity and the non-human
world. The roots of wage labor and pensions lie in the dispossession of
the production of living conditions and in subordination to capital.
By separating retirement from the concrete conditions of wage labor, by
too often confining it to the legal and/or technical, or even economic,
sphere, the movement has not produced a historical class consciousness
antagonistic to capitalism in the world. This consciousness allows us to
grasp the genesis of the current state of affairs and its possible
abolition. What is a life worth living?
Like other defensive struggles, this struggle has come to defend the
status quo. THE DEAD END OF THE 2023 MOVEMENT
The defeat of the pension reform protest movement did not stem from the
promulgation of the law (a default vote under Article 49-3 of the 1958
French Constitution). Its real defeat-despite significant social
"mobilization"-resulted from the fact that this movement was conceived
with capital in mind: labor, salary, retirement, balance of accounts,
hardship, and years of contributions, not to mention the famous,
overlooked "discount," which over-penalizes the lack of years of
contributions to reach the "full rate."
In other words, the movement did not challenge wage labor, the division
of labor, or the hierarchy of wages and pensions (is there a hierarchy
of needs according to class and "social categories"?)
The movement did not reflect on working conditions and their impact on
health, life expectancy and quality of life, on the uselessness of
certain productions or the dangerousness of others, or on productions
resulting from extreme conditions for the supply of raw materials (for
example, the case of the digital industry, which uses Africa for raw
materials, with particularly dangerous working conditions and the use of
child labor).
Nor did the movement establish the necessary rotation in the performance
of certain tasks that could prove irreducible.
DEFENSE OF ACHIEVEMENTS AND FORDIST COMPROMISE
The defense of "achievements" line ignores the analysis of the
conditions under which certain statuses or "social advantages" were
obtained. For example, this concerns the hidden role of the integration
of a segment of the proletariat into the capitalist system through
state-capital strategies at a given moment in history, particularly
during the Liberation (nationalizations). This was the period during
which the CGT and the PCF urged the proletariat to "roll up its sleeves"
and "win the battle of production."
But we must go back a few years. As early as 1914, the labor movement
was already massively committed to the war. Capital and state are
closely intertwined for war, for its production in all its dimensions.
After the Second World War, the Fordist compromise strengthened the
State-Capital machine; it limited the role of unionism to demands for
wages and rights for workers. Questions about the content of production
and, more generally, work and its purpose were left to the State-Capital
machine.
In this compromise, capital imposed the intensification of working
conditions: the development of the category of Specialized Workers (OS);
it was in this category that immigrant workers and women workers were
massively employed. This was the era of shantytowns and emergency
housing projects, which lasted, and of shelters. The oil sector imposed
its road transport policy with the development of the automobile
industry. The dominant ideology calls this period, also rich in colonial
wars, the "thirty glorious years."
At the same time, since the 1960s, what some call the managerial class
or the salaried middle class has developed. This class receives a
premium wage for being tied to capital; its task is to organize
exploitative social relations. This class refuses to question the
purpose of production, or that of labor in general. It is this class
that generally imposes its choices in the inter-class struggles of
recent years.
CAPITAL AND THE WORLD SYSTEM
In the trade union milieu, the state has not been analyzed in its
intertwining with capital, which is trans-state (global). The French
state has taken multiple measures to make it attractive to invest or
establish multinationals on French territory: coercive policies
regarding job seekers, and generally speaking, social legislation
unfavorable to employees (disciplining the workforce), not to mention
tax measures and other arrangements for investors.
The French state cannot be separated from the world system with its
hierarchy, with the domination exercised by the USA since the end of the
Second World War - the Bretton Woods Agreement (1944) creating the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the Marshall Plan (1947)
- and exercised unilaterally by the USA in the world since the collapse
of the USSR, not to mention the multiple US interventions in the world
since 1945.
US domination has already been challenged at various times, particularly
by the Non-Aligned Movement in Bandung in 1955), by the Tricontinental
Conference (Solidarity Conference of the Peoples of Asia, Africa, and
Latin America) in 1966, in Havana,
Currently, the maintenance of NATO, the US instrument of the "fight
against communism," and its expansion to Eastern Europe, along with US
domination through the dollar (among other things), have led to the
formation of the BRICKS. The founders-Brazil, Russia, India, China, and
the Union of South Africa-advocate for a multipolar world.
What role will class struggle play?
Lucien
For further reading
Bruno Astarian, Robert Ferro
The ménage à trois of class struggle
Wage-earning middle class, proletariat, and capital
(L'Asymétrie 2019)
Maurizio Lazzarato
Capital hates everyone. Fascism or revolution
Amsterdam Editions (2019)
Intolerable of the present. The Urgency of Revolution
Minorities and Class
Eterotopia (2022)
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4389
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
pension law promulgated in 2023 on its agenda; the secretary of the CGT
(General Confederation of Labour) announced a new "mobilization" on
pension reform. Beyond current events, this text attempts to assess the
failure of the previous mobilization in 2023 and to get to the root of
the problem. (January 25, 2025) ---- RETIREMENT MUST BE CONSIDERED IN
RELATION TO EMPLOYMENT, THAT IS TO SAY, WITH EXPLOITATION ---- The
calculation of the retirement pension refers to the years of employment
("working life"), that is, to the exploitation of men, women, and
nature, with the accumulation of damage (particularly to the human body
and psyche) and to the relationship between humanity and the non-human
world. The roots of wage labor and pensions lie in the dispossession of
the production of living conditions and in subordination to capital.
By separating retirement from the concrete conditions of wage labor, by
too often confining it to the legal and/or technical, or even economic,
sphere, the movement has not produced a historical class consciousness
antagonistic to capitalism in the world. This consciousness allows us to
grasp the genesis of the current state of affairs and its possible
abolition. What is a life worth living?
Like other defensive struggles, this struggle has come to defend the
status quo. THE DEAD END OF THE 2023 MOVEMENT
The defeat of the pension reform protest movement did not stem from the
promulgation of the law (a default vote under Article 49-3 of the 1958
French Constitution). Its real defeat-despite significant social
"mobilization"-resulted from the fact that this movement was conceived
with capital in mind: labor, salary, retirement, balance of accounts,
hardship, and years of contributions, not to mention the famous,
overlooked "discount," which over-penalizes the lack of years of
contributions to reach the "full rate."
In other words, the movement did not challenge wage labor, the division
of labor, or the hierarchy of wages and pensions (is there a hierarchy
of needs according to class and "social categories"?)
The movement did not reflect on working conditions and their impact on
health, life expectancy and quality of life, on the uselessness of
certain productions or the dangerousness of others, or on productions
resulting from extreme conditions for the supply of raw materials (for
example, the case of the digital industry, which uses Africa for raw
materials, with particularly dangerous working conditions and the use of
child labor).
Nor did the movement establish the necessary rotation in the performance
of certain tasks that could prove irreducible.
DEFENSE OF ACHIEVEMENTS AND FORDIST COMPROMISE
The defense of "achievements" line ignores the analysis of the
conditions under which certain statuses or "social advantages" were
obtained. For example, this concerns the hidden role of the integration
of a segment of the proletariat into the capitalist system through
state-capital strategies at a given moment in history, particularly
during the Liberation (nationalizations). This was the period during
which the CGT and the PCF urged the proletariat to "roll up its sleeves"
and "win the battle of production."
But we must go back a few years. As early as 1914, the labor movement
was already massively committed to the war. Capital and state are
closely intertwined for war, for its production in all its dimensions.
After the Second World War, the Fordist compromise strengthened the
State-Capital machine; it limited the role of unionism to demands for
wages and rights for workers. Questions about the content of production
and, more generally, work and its purpose were left to the State-Capital
machine.
In this compromise, capital imposed the intensification of working
conditions: the development of the category of Specialized Workers (OS);
it was in this category that immigrant workers and women workers were
massively employed. This was the era of shantytowns and emergency
housing projects, which lasted, and of shelters. The oil sector imposed
its road transport policy with the development of the automobile
industry. The dominant ideology calls this period, also rich in colonial
wars, the "thirty glorious years."
At the same time, since the 1960s, what some call the managerial class
or the salaried middle class has developed. This class receives a
premium wage for being tied to capital; its task is to organize
exploitative social relations. This class refuses to question the
purpose of production, or that of labor in general. It is this class
that generally imposes its choices in the inter-class struggles of
recent years.
CAPITAL AND THE WORLD SYSTEM
In the trade union milieu, the state has not been analyzed in its
intertwining with capital, which is trans-state (global). The French
state has taken multiple measures to make it attractive to invest or
establish multinationals on French territory: coercive policies
regarding job seekers, and generally speaking, social legislation
unfavorable to employees (disciplining the workforce), not to mention
tax measures and other arrangements for investors.
The French state cannot be separated from the world system with its
hierarchy, with the domination exercised by the USA since the end of the
Second World War - the Bretton Woods Agreement (1944) creating the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the Marshall Plan (1947)
- and exercised unilaterally by the USA in the world since the collapse
of the USSR, not to mention the multiple US interventions in the world
since 1945.
US domination has already been challenged at various times, particularly
by the Non-Aligned Movement in Bandung in 1955), by the Tricontinental
Conference (Solidarity Conference of the Peoples of Asia, Africa, and
Latin America) in 1966, in Havana,
Currently, the maintenance of NATO, the US instrument of the "fight
against communism," and its expansion to Eastern Europe, along with US
domination through the dollar (among other things), have led to the
formation of the BRICKS. The founders-Brazil, Russia, India, China, and
the Union of South Africa-advocate for a multipolar world.
What role will class struggle play?
Lucien
For further reading
Bruno Astarian, Robert Ferro
The ménage à trois of class struggle
Wage-earning middle class, proletariat, and capital
(L'Asymétrie 2019)
Maurizio Lazzarato
Capital hates everyone. Fascism or revolution
Amsterdam Editions (2019)
Intolerable of the present. The Urgency of Revolution
Minorities and Class
Eterotopia (2022)
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4389
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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