Instant Muscle - Workfare racketeers - gone gone gone

It's been made clear that the sentiment was that those who enforce the punitive aspects of workfare on the unemployed were the ones we're glad to see face the dole. And that the demise of such companies has some good aspect for the working class generally. You still apparently refuse to accept that these workers are deserving of any criticism. Now they'll be "some doleys", as you so sympathetically put it.

You seem to doubt that the circumstances and impulses that create such anti-social problems won't very likely be drastically reduced as a result of a revolution in social relations - it shows a lack of confidence in the ability of people to change very much at all - and so makes me wonder why you want a revolution at all. Maybe you want to be an anarcho-cop? I don't say there will be no behavioural problems post-rev - but that is not automatically proof of necessity of a police force. And why is a police force automatically the best solution? Asking for - or claiming to possess - an absolute definite answer now is foolish. Any prescriptions can only be more or less interesting speculation - until circumstances created by a certain level of struggles give us some opportunity to practically deal with such problems and their roots. Bearing in mind that struggles should change social relationships/behaviour for the better.

Way to confuse the argument with false analogies/out of context... no, it doesn't mean that necessarily/always, but in particular circumstances and context, as prev. described, it does mean that.

?! So "petit bourgeois landlord, shopkeeper, businessman" are "virtually non-existent, powerless or largely proletarianised in Britain"? Total nonsense. And not significant as "a specific class"? My relationship with, eg, my landlord, certainly is a class relationship in which he wields considerable power over me. Ffs, do I really need to spell that out?

Wrong - I use it to categorise groups of individuals - ie classes. And part of class relationships is dealing with real individuals - you think individual encounters occur outside of class relations? 'We're all individuals, maaan...'

Firstly no part of the article says that it simply draws a blanket statement about the IM branch. Secondly you shouldn't say your glad to see anybody face the dole, are you honestly under the impression that most working class people reading that are ging to think '''oh yeah damn those IM workers, they sound like right bastards they deserve to be on the dole''?

Well yeah i do, people will still commit murder and rape, you will still get sociopaths and psychopaths and paedophiles, these people need to be caught and imprisoned, Thus you need laws, forensic services and a police force, Also people will speed and committ motoring offences. they will drink drive, they will get into fights. On a lighter note people will do milder anti-social things on a night out, i know i do, i mean do you imagine that you could have a nightclub with no security? Personally I find the idea that we'll be fuzzy little angels under communism rather unnapealing and dull aswell as being extremely naive liberal nonsense. You can make the argument for less crime and a smaller police force, but argueing that we;ll have no prisons, no crime and no police is just hippy nonsense in my opinion.

Your arguement was that those middle class types are a different class because they don;t mix with us good honest proles (ok may be paraphrasing you a little there ), and i pointed out that plenty of subsections of the working class don;t mix, because most people tend to socialise mainly with people they work with. I don';t socialise with many squaddies any more, or teachers, or nurses, or cleaners, this isn;t because they are a different class to me, its because i work a different type of job.

People don't write about shopkeepers because no-one cares about them because they have no collective power, its not the 80's any more. I mean theirs no party in local or national government that could honestly claim to ''represent the small businessman', thatcherism was the last party that could have claimed such a moniker buts its consequences mean that no party or political agency would be able to today, just look at the way housing policy is tilted towards agencies and registered social landlords or the way develoment of high streets is organised.

I defended my statements rather than the article.

So if some MI6 agents get made redundant - you know, those (in your theory) 'fellow workers' - who spy on people like us; we shouldn't have a laugh or be pleased over that at all - because the office cleaners will lose their jobs too? It's you with your 2-class inclusiveness that has the difficulty making the distinction between having different attitudes/sympathies to the two different types of worker - it's a problem of your theory.

And what "most working class people ...think" is not sacred or unchallengeable. And, yes, those working class people ("some doleys" to you) who've had to suffer the workfare enforcers will know (as shown by the littlebrother quote above) that they're right bastards and will enjoy the irony of them becoming "some doleys". And if we "shouldn't" be "glad to see anybody face the dole" it's partly because they're liable to have to deal with bastards like that. Amazing that I have to spell it out.

Every party claims to promote and champion entrepeneurialism and the service economy - and landlords/property speculators of various sizes have grown massively - to the point where buy-to-lets have clogged up the market - and RSLs are still landlords. Hardly "insignificant". Regardless, they're all largely small capitalists (or trying to be) and often employers, so hardly "proletarianised" at all. And neither are they ruling class - so as I said, a 'theory' claiming there are only 2 classes can't even account for the existence of this class . A basic and blindingly obvious flaw.

So the fact that there are vast variations historically and even now - linked to varying social conditions - in the existence of different criminal and/or anti-social behaviours is irrelevant when speculating on a future society where people would have revolutionised their social relationships and so be living in very different communities? Yet we'll all supposedly be still more or less as anti-social to each other as ever and absolutely certainly need to be policed by an external force. Can't see why it's worth wanting a revolution, never mind fighting one, if you believe that - unless you wanna be an 'anti-statist anarcho-'cop'. It's a fatalistic ahistorical 'it's just irresolvable human nature' line more commonly found among law'n'order Tories or 'firm but fair' liberals.

To pretend that the police or prisons are neutral forms that can be used by radicals is just like the leftists who claim the State is a neutral form. Why not money too perhaps. Why not landlords? It's essential there can be no specialists in 'maintaining order' in a revolutionary situation: the task of suppressing miserable counter-revolutionary acts will be the self-defensive task of the whole of the revolutionary community (from each according to their abilities etc) and no-one who is part of this community can be passive towards such acts, can have the attitude of 'leave it to the experts'. After all, attacking counter-revolutionary acts, like rape, is a fundamental aspect of a revolutionary situation. In South Africa during the 80s there was one township (I think Alexandra) which dealt with rapes directly, through mass meetings and collectively-decided punishments. Though there may be some temporary delegation of certain tasks, any person whose role becomes a specialist in maintaining order will inevitably have their own interests and concerns - and not just if their means of survival depend on it, but because power (separate power, hierarchical power, that is) is a high, a buzz and thrill and inevitably corrupts: the community as a whole has to act to defend itself against such miserable acts. It is a part of the definition of "revolutionary". If a revolution is not this actual remaking of social relations collectively then it's not worth the name and the specialists in wielding power will remain dominant. But of course all anarchists/communists already know the dangers of hierarchical specialist power - don't they...?

Cantdocartwheels perhaps sees himself as a moral priest above such potential corruption - his incomprehension of class anger towards individuals representing class interests sometimes comes over as a moral argument, tut-tutting us for our lack of humanitarian feeling (yet it's not an obligation he expects of the workfare enforcers). But then moralism has often been a motivation for becoming a cop, people who think how good they are being in protecting the vulnerable from the evil inhuman ones. But such protection has to be everyone's concern, it's a mutual protection. Sure, there may be some need for certain expertise (forensics, maybe) but only in the context of a radical community control, as an exercise of collective interests.

Not paraphrasing - just incomprehension. You only repeat the same point that I already pointed out doesn't refute what I said. Whatever...

One can only laugh (or weep) when trying to place workplace bosses/management within the 2-class 'theory'; presumably they are either fellow workers/comrade proletarians and so there can be no class conflict in the workplace(!) - or they are members of the ruling class(!). And that is what you call "a communist class analysis", our "tool to transcend class society"? Dream on.

So if it can't be reduced to individual relationships, then to me this roles out a national campaign of naming and shaming individual dole workers as a response to government policy, no?

When I worked at a sixth form college, nearly every student there was on Educational Maintenance Allowance. It's £30/week, if you're late to a lesson, or miss one, you lose your £30. Doesn't seem much different to me. TBH this was part of the reason I got the fuck out of teaching (again ) when I was thinking about doing ESOL, however I don't think a three strikes policy against teachers who mark their students late on their registers would be such a great idea.

Freaky but "good", assuming it made them think twice before misbehaving.

If it was targetting job centre staff who were deliberately harrassing claimants, above and beyond the requirements of their job, then I'd be all for it, just as I'd be all for intimidating people who scabbed on a strike.

Class unity is an aim, not something that exists just because we want it to. There are real, material divisions within the working class, and when that leads to one group of workers oppressing another, that has to be confronted.