Queens Market campaign in Newham
Mar 4 2006 23:44
Just found out about this campaign recently, they've got a new website and we've posted some background to the campaign here:
http://libcom.org/news/article.php/queens-market-050306
Looks like a very similar situation to what's been happening with other markets in East London - Spitalfields, Broadway Market. In a way they've tried to do this with Walthamstow Market as well (shopping centre etc.) but they're so bad at it it hasn't fucked it up yet, although they've not managed to get any of the new library/cinema stuff going that was the sweetener for the shittier bits of their regeneration schemes either.
Is there so much effort going into restructuring street/covered markets outside London?
Mar 5 2006 17:53
#2
The Barras is under threat in Glasgow. They're successfully fucking the Glasgow Cross area right nerxt door and seemingly 'The East End Regeneration Route' (the M74 extension's feeder road along which they plan to build an arc of yuppy flats) stops just short of the Barras on the other side so it'll go. Malik has also come out and said it's a shame that they have yto pan it coz he used to get his computer games there as a wean, but hey, they do!
Also under threat will be Govan market when they fuck Govan - the Evening Times a few weeks ago led with a 'Govan to be the new west end' article.
Mar 5 2006 18:04
#3
Catch wrote:
Just found out about this campaign recently, they've got a new website and we've posted some background to the campaign here:http://libcom.org/news/article.php/queens-market-050306
Looks like a very similar situation to what's been happening with other markets in East London - Spitalfields, Broadway Market. In a way they've tried to do this with Walthamstow Market as well (shopping centre etc.) but they're so bad at it it hasn't fucked it up yet, although they've not managed to get any of the new library/cinema stuff going that was the sweetener for the shittier bits of their regeneration schemes either.
Is there so much effort going into restructuring street/covered markets outside London?
Don't know, the market here is failry small and tends to cover the essentials but if the st botolphs regeneration scheme here went ahead a number of key smal traders would lose out to larger shops and i suppose they could make a move on the market at a later date, i've no doubt certain council officers would like to do so.
Mar 5 2006 21:38
#4
cantdocartwheels wrote:
Don't know, the market here is failry small and tends to cover the essentials but if the st botolphs regeneration scheme here went ahead a number of key smal traders would lose out to larger shops and i suppose they could make a move on the market at a later date, i've no doubt certain council officers would like to do so.
Yea, Colchester small traders are a vital part of working class life, and aren´t rip-off merchants in the slightest. 
When the fuck did you get taken in by the fetid stench of the petit-bourgeois? 
Mar 5 2006 21:43
#5
this stuff is just ridiculous, margins of the petite bourgeois as a locus of struggle against capitalism? 
Mar 5 2006 21:44
#6
For the record, my point is a personal attack specific situation in Colchester, and I fully support the struggle in Newham, and think revol is talking balls.
Mar 5 2006 21:48
#7
well i'm not saying i support asda or have a problem with the campaign per se but i'm intrigued to why Catch and others who are so keen to talk about the decline of potential working class power in the workplace are so keen on these rather weak local campaigns for small business owners?
I mean where do they see these struggles going?
Mar 5 2006 22:00
#8
[mistake while using someone else's computer]
Mar 5 2006 22:04
#9
Sorry comrades was using a friend's computer and I hadn't logged the previous user out so I posted from 'ginger' accidentally. [Shhh - don't tell her!]
I wrote the following:-
In London I hear almost all construction workers are now contractors. Is that the rise of the petit-bourgeois, or just casualisation?
Do you seriously think that shopkeepers and small traders and so on constitute a petit-bourgeoisie? Are they - guys that run corners shops and the like - the vestiges of the artisan class boldly standing up for mercantilism?
Everyone has to make ends meet and if your way of going about this is to set up a wee stall and flog pirate DVDs on a Saturday that's hardly as problematical as the true blood proletarian who spends their working life helping to build warships or to screw people over on benefits.
I would also suggest to Revol that "these rather weak local campaigns" are about the most amazing thing that has been happening recently.
Mar 5 2006 22:24
#10
Nick Durie wrote:
Sorry comrades was using a friend's computer and I hadn't logged the previous user out so I posted from 'ginger' accidentally. [Shhh - don't tell her!]I wrote the following:-
In London I hear almost all construction workers are now contractors. Is that the rise of the petit-bourgeois, or just casualisation?
Do you seriously think that shopkeepers and small traders and so on constitute a petit-bourgeoisie? Are they - guys that run corners shops and the like - the vestiges of the artisan class boldly standing up for mercantilism?
Everyone has to make ends meet and if your way of going about this is to set up a wee stall and flog pirate DVDs on a Saturday that's hardly as problematical as the true blood proletarian who spends their working life helping to build warships or to screw people over on benefits.
I would also suggest to Revol that "these rather weak local campaigns" are about the most amazing thing that has been happening recently.
cheers nick you've just shown how much you fail to grasp the centrality of the working class.
as for them being the "most amazing" thing happening recently, I reckon you need to catch a grip mate.
Mar 6 2006 00:14
#11
Nick Durie wrote:
In London I hear almost all construction workers are now contractors. Is that the rise of the petit-bourgeois, or just casualisation?
A mixture, by elevating a few to the petit bourgeoisie you can really screw the others and casualise them.
It depends what you mean by contractors Nick, there are still a lot of big firms out there with their own staff.
Jack's issue was with a specific location, in my experience markets are cheaper and better for fruit and veg than supermarkets.
Supermarkets are not cheap, just do the maths.
And once they have control of an area...
Mar 6 2006 01:15
#12
revol68 wrote:
this stuff is just ridiculous, margins of the petite bourgeois as a locus of struggle against capitalism?
Are call centre workers who by virtue of being 'self-employed' have to rent their own desk space, phone and computer kulaks or muzhik's revol?
From the article posted, which i'm sure you've not bothered to read:
Quote:
No plantain, yam. dill, , guava, paw-paw available at Asda. All available at market and in common use
Asda ---------- Market
1 kg okra £6.80 ---- £3.28
1 kg red sweet potato £3.12 ---- £1.08
1 kg ginger £2.38 ---- £1.30p
1 kg red seedless grapes £2.97 --- £1.30
1 kg red apples £1.48 ---- 55p
1 kg bananas 85p --- 55p
This has got fuck all to do with the employment status of the stallholders (and you forget that many people working on market stalls and in shops are employees of the petit-bourgeios you're so keen to reduce this to). It's about the price of food, the way it's delivered, its variety and freshness, and about the necessity of capital to expand geographically in East London regardless of cost.
As you well know, 12,000 people are not stallholders on that market, nor does it look like this campaign is controlled by stallholders. It's working class people trying to defend a facility which allows them to buy food they need at prices they can afford. Your singular inability to take into account the subjective experience of workers outside work points to a frankly worrying economic determinism and your (hopefuly ironic) obsession with the "petite bourgeios" isn't far off Leninist racialising this past week.
fwiw, the last time I saw one of your other recent obsessions - the ex-proprietor of a certain café in Hackney, he'd just got back from being knocked back by a job interview, was claiming dole, and was far, far from being petit-bourgeios, oh and about £30k in debt from legal fees. If we wanted to be silly we could say he's been thoroughly proletarianised. Only an immiserationist would say that's a good thing or fuck around with the 'centrality of the working class' in this context - who in fuck's name do you think his customer's were? Who shops at Queen's market?
These are campaigns against very real social processes which are being rapidly accelerated via a partnership of private capital and public officials. They aren't "for" small business owners, and very few of the people involved, at least down at no. 34 Broadway Market would say that, regardless of it's usefulness in terms of publicity.
Mar 6 2006 01:30
#13
Oh yeah and some of those homeless guys in the Osaka parks that got cleared owned their own karaoke machines and charged Ko Gyaru and Salarymen to use them on weekends. Should we celebrate this as the triumph of capital's tendency to centralisation and the disciplining education of the factory system over the petty propietors?
Quote:
. And Marxism, the ideology of the proletariat trained by capitalism, has been and is teaching unstable intellectuals to distinguish between the factory as a means of exploitation (discipline based on fear of starvation) and the factory as a means of organisation (discipline based on collective work united by the conditions of a technically highly developed form of production). The discipline and organisation which come so hard to the bourgeois intellectual are very easily acquired by the proletariat just because of this factory "schooling". Mortal fear of this school and utter failure to understand its importance as an organising factor are characteristic of the ways of thinking which reflect the petty-bourgeois mode of life and which give rise to the species of anarchism that the German Social-Democrats call Edelanarchismus, that is, the anarchism of the "noble" gentleman, or aristocratic anarchism, as I would call it. This aristocratic anarchism is particularly characteristic of the Russian nihilist. He thinks of the Party organisation as a monstrous "factory"; he regards the subordination of the part to the whole and of the minority to the majority as "serfdom" (see Axelrod's articles); division of labour under the direction of a centre evokes from him a tragi-comical outcry against transforming people into "cogs and wheels" (to turn editors into contributors being considered a particularly atrocious species of such transformation); mention of the organisational Rules of the Party calls forth a contemptuous grimace and the disdainful remark (intended for the "formalists") that one could very well dispense with Rules altogether.
...
This is where the proletarian who has been through the school of the "factory" can and should teach a lesson to anarchistic individualism. The class-conscious worker has long since emerged from the state of infancy when he used to fight shy of the intellectual as such. The class-conscious worker appreciates the richer store of knowledge and the wider political outlook which he finds among Social-Democratic intellectuals. But as we proceed with the building of a real party, the class-conscious worker must learn to distinguish the mentality of the soldier of the proletarian army from the mentality of the bourgeois intellectual who parades anarchistic phrases; he must learn to insist that the duties of a Party member be fulfilled not only by the rank and file, but by the "people at the top" as well; he must learn to treat tail-ism in matters of organisation with the same contempt as he used, in days gone by, to treat tail-ism in matters of tactics!
Inseparably connected with Girondism and aristocratic anarchism is the last characteristic feature of the new Iskra 's attitude towards matters of organisation, namely, its defence of autonomism as against centralism. This is the meaning in principle (if it has any such meaning[*]) of its outcry against bureaucracy and autocracy, of its regrets about "an undeserved disregard for the non-Iskra-ists" (who defended autonomism at the Congress), of its comical howls about a demand for "unquestioning obedience", of its bitter complaints of "Jack-in-office rule", etc., etc.
Mar 6 2006 01:50
#14
Quote:
cheers nick you've just shown how much you fail to grasp the centrality of the working class.as for them being the "most amazing" thing happening recently, I reckon you need to catch a grip mate.
That's reductionist drivvel. Sometimes it is useful to apply a Marxian class analysis to situations, but the whole fucking point behind it is power - is it in the hands of the people or a fist of rulers. In the workplace the ruling class have power over you because you have to sell your labour to survive, which they require to steal profit from the surplus value created. Yes sure. But the point about the whole proletarian thing is that in this relationship solidarity between proletarians and a collective withdrawal of productive labour is enough to exert power over the bourgeois, to hand power back to citizens.
To reduce all the planes of the class struggle to struggles between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat as if somehow both were the same everywhere, and all workers lived in the same abject conditions and toiled in Hellish factories (in the way that they would in, say, a Mexican maquilladora), is just crapulent. Life is much more complex than that. Your insistence that stall holders be counted as petit-bourgeois (and thus discounted as the class enemy) is so utterly telling of how reductionist your train of thought is. You are not allowing for any complexity. Human interaction and struggles against injustice are not merely the realm of crude economic determinants.
In your appraisal a stall holder selling fruit and vegetables at low cost comes under the same categorisation as a businessman who runs a company which employs a few hundred staff, and is ancillary to the function of a larger business grouping (e.g. a plant which produces one or two specialised components in some common consumer good which is manufactured by a number of transnationals, or perhaps this warehouse the wobblies have just got a shop in in New York). Are these two really comparable? Is Mrs Smith who runs a guest house (which she lives in) near Kyle of Lochalsh the same as the owner of an independent textile factory near York?
Am I missing something here? Have I misappropriated the centrality of the proletarian project?
Here was me thinking that freedom and democracy, liberty and socialism were about people, when in fact they are about the centrality of valorising and acting upon a social model of a given class system drawn up to describe the conditions of parts of Western Europe in the 19th century.
Mar 6 2006 11:23
#15
jaysus, where to start, well perhaps I should do point out my post wasn't meant to be entirely serious, secondly i should point out I was juxtaposing it to your "workplace resistance is increasingly futile" argument.
So yeah maybe I shouldn't have been such a cunt but considering the hard on people are having over incredibly defensive and limited action like the Cafe eviction stuff whilst waxing lyrical about the futility of work place resistance I think it's fair to ask the question, Where can such campaigns go? The simple fact is that by their nature they are rather parochial and by the nature of small businesses, they won't break out of this. I mean workers in struggle find that they must by necessity extend their struggles or face defeat, these local community campaigns just don't offer anything beyond a general immediate gain.
Not saying they should not be supported, and infact I would probably be involved in something similar if it was in my area but the fact remains that for libertarian communists to get so hyped about these campaigns whilst making rather dismissive snirks towards a fucking Postie WildCat is somewhat disconcerting.
As for Nick well to describe these sort of campaigns as the most amazing thing going on at the moment is just ridiculous, as is your insinuation that the centrality of the working class is somesort of moral one, hence your snipey comments about workers in armament factories and civil servants. The reasont the working class even in such jobs is potentially more revolutionary than a bunch of stallholders is because of their relationship to the economy and each other, in that they have nothing to sell but their own labour power.
Mar 6 2006 20:05
#16
revol68 wrote:
making rather dismissive snirks towards a fucking Postie WildCat is somewhat disconcerting.
find one.
Mar 6 2006 22:48
#17
revol68 wrote:
incredibly defensive and limited action like the Cafe eviction stuff whilst waxing lyrical about the futility of work place resistance I think it's fair to ask the question, Where can such campaigns go? The simple fact is that by their nature they are rather parochial and by the nature of small businesses, they won't break out of this. I mean workers in struggle find that they must by necessity extend their struggles or face defeat, these local community campaigns just don't offer anything beyond a general immediate gain.
What you've missed looking at the broadway market campaign from outside is it's a stone's throw away from campaigns against the closure of Haggerston Pool, the shut-down of Laburnum pool, the Learning Trust working towards turning Haggerston School into an Academy, the run-down and academyisation of Kingsland School a mile west and the conversion of Kingsland library into very expensive apartments, the white elephant that was Ocean a mile eastwards, housing stock transfer etc. etc.. Some have had significant resistance (although not necessarily direct action, street parties and the like though), some not, but it's not isolated by any means.
The Broadway Market campaign has already gone a mile or two north to Dalston (not anyone's small business that theatre) although I know far less about what's happening in Dalston. Council asset-stripping is not restricted only to Hackney by any means, and there's plenty of places the struggle could be extended to since it's against property developers, not for small businesses as far as I and many others are concerned. Campaigns against hospital and school closures similarly are happening all over the country and it's essential for these to spread and link up to avoid communities simply being played off against each other for the same resources.
Oh and where people are able to get their food from during a revolution is fucking important, you think "just in time" supermarket deliveries will continue unabated?
Mar 7 2006 00:40
#18
Catch wrote:
The Broadway Market campaign has already gone a mile or two north to Dalston (not anyone's small business that theatre) although I know far less about what's happening in Dalston.
Not saying it's not useful, but hmmm the main people in it seem to be not-so-many-snacks short of a picnic:
From http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/02/334224.html
Quote:
So far in just a couple of days we got many many thank yous and even some tears from the ones without a voice in Hackney. Well it doesn't even matter where we come from and how we look like. What is in it for us they asked? They know we are freezing and worse, even when we have our little Zapatista balaclavas on to give us warmth and strength and to remind us that our noses are too big and that that is the point, that us with the long noses and white skins and gringo accents are the ones that are eating the world...
We are up here alone in the roof so that one day we can be down there with people, because to us this is what being rebels is, to gather enough experience to push to help those that wouldn't or couldn't do at first, to be up here then up there, again?
??? 
Mar 7 2006 01:39
#19
Quote:
Not saying it's not useful, but hmmm the main people in it seem to be not-so-many-snacks short of a picnic:
Yes I noticed that one. The first thing I saw was the 'we are here for the people of hackney', or somesuch other messianic phraseology.
Now I don't mind people trying to relate an anti-war message, and a climate change message to a campaign against gentrification (of course these issues are all inter-related) but there has been no attempt with that banner to link any of these issues - it's just slapped on like a wet turnip; also frankly oil does not 'fuel' war anymore than any other commodity fuels war. Singling out oil (because you've got some mad ecological agenda) as the commodity fueling war is just silly and fetishistic. You might as well say 'tin fuels war', or 'factories fuel war' or even 'workers fuel war'.
Mar 7 2006 01:42
#20
Quote:
Oh and where people are able to get their food from during a revolution is fucking important, you think "just in time" supermarket deliveries will continue unabated?
It's THE most important thing.
Mar 7 2006 01:44
#21
Nick Durie wrote:
Quote:
Oh and where people are able to get their food from during a revolution is fucking important, you think "just in time" supermarket deliveries will continue unabated?It's THE most important thing.
i would imagine anything that effected the distribution networks of supermarkets might affect stall holders as well.
Anyway i'm glad your making links with petite bourgeois, it makes it easier when we seize their produce and suppress private property. 
Mar 7 2006 15:30
#22
revol68 wrote:
i would imagine anything that effected the distribution networks of supermarkets might affect stall holders as well.
asda has a total of around 20 distribution depots in the UK for their whole network. there may well be a strike at them soon. Let's see if my local street market gets affected shall we?
odds?
Mar 7 2006 15:35
#23
John. wrote:
not-so-many-snacks short of a picnic:???
I was trying to ignore that for the purposes of this discussion :mad:. OPEN Dalston (which is a bit legalistic but has got somewhere with it and also seems to be attracting more of a community base) was around for months before this happened as well though.
They got rid of the wood green market a few years ago now it wasn't that great but we have instead: A cinema (shit) a Yates' wine bar, chicago rock cafe, Mc donalds and a nandos (YAY)