Get jobs, and salt?
Bigger than Seattle
H wrote:
Get jobs, and salt?
I've often thought that this is the most potentially effective strategy, but easier said than done. If we developed a network for co-ordinated and organized salting it could be promising.
I'd volunteer, although once you've been outed as a union organizer enough times it might be difficult to get reference for employment letters. 
By size I meant in shear number of people, by effectiveness I meant how effective it is in frightening the government and physically preventing "business as usual." Perhaps a Seattle like action coupled with a General Strike? (as if a real general strike would ever occur in a Post-Industrial society today.)
By Seattle I thought you were referring to the general strike.
Tell me more about post-industrial society?
Something bigger than the Seattle General Strike? Now that would be impressive!
Post-Industrial societies are simply those societies in which the majority of jobs facilitate consumption instead of producing commodities. Post-Industrial societies are those societies that are alienated and disconnected from production and are defined by a high level technology used for leisure as opposed to labour. I'm sure there are better definitions out there, but that is how I would define it.
Global Dissident wrote:
Something bigger than the Seattle General Strike? Now that would be impressive!Post-Industrial societies are simply those societies in which the majority of jobs facilitate consumption instead of producing commodities. Post-Industrial societies are those societies that are alienated and disconnected from production and are defined by a high level technology used for leisure as opposed to labour. I'm sure there are better definitions out there, but that is how I would define it.
Admin - childish insults removed
And so there is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-industrial_society
Global Dissident wrote:
Ha, realist for my situation. I mean hell, in the city I live the three commodities produced are beer, breakfast cereal and duct tape (that's if the 3M factory is still open, I can't remember.)
awh bless your niave concept of production and commodities.
And since when did your city constitute a 'society'?
Okay, how would you suggest convincing people (meaning a majority of the people) that they need a revolution against Capitalism when they are making $50, 000 a year from the Capitalist system and live in one of the suburbs that makes up 75% of this wasteland? Sure, I could try talking to the group of homeless people who congregate around the McDonalds downtown saving up begged money for a nice, juicy Big Mac, but to what end, they have no workplace to organize.
Wait, are you from Seattle?
If so, you should be aware that Seattle, that working class Utopia, is not only the center of the "high-income" tech industry, but is evidently suffering from an acute shortage of affordable housing:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/309914_affordable02.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003550556_housing01m0.html
Global Dissident wrote:
Something bigger than the Seattle General Strike? Now that would be impressive!Post-Industrial societies are simply those societies in which the majority of jobs facilitate consumption instead of producing commodities. Post-Industrial societies are those societies that are alienated and disconnected from production and are defined by a high level technology used for leisure as opposed to labour. I'm sure there are better definitions out there, but that is how I would define it.
try working a wage-labour job like everyone else... it'll quickly become apparent that a "post-industrial" society does not exist.
Global Dissident wrote:
Okay, how would you suggest convincing people (meaning a majority of the people) that they need a revolution against Capitalism when they are making $50, 000 a year from the Capitalist system and live in one of the suburbs that makes up 75% of this wasteland? Sure, I could try talking to the group of homeless people who congregate around the McDonalds downtown saving up begged money for a nice, juicy Big Mac, but to what end, they have no workplace to organize.
where is this majority of people that are making 50k+ a year???? I live in one of the most expensive cities in north america and the average income is somewhere around 30k.
EdmontonWobbly wrote:
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Get jobs, and salt?If the anarchists in question don't already have jobs, and the reason they are getting one is to further the revolution I think outdoing seattle is the least of our worries.
Well, I was just going to say "get jobs" and leave it at that. I am afraid "outdoing seattle" is the least of our worries.
Between the drop outs, the strictly academics, and bureaucrats, what is left of the, er.... left? .
Revol, if you continue being rude on this thread for no apparent reason then we will ban you for as long as we see fit. So play nice or don't play at all. I mean, for fuck sake, he's basically saying what you said on that video of you in Prague so stop being a prick and acting like you're the unbending conscience of the proletarian movement..
Global Dissident, I really don't have time to respond to you properly but I'd say in terms of stopping business as usual, the Seattle protests did very little. It was pretty spectacular to see American kids rioting but essentially it stopped nothing, capitalism continued because capitalism carries on every day at work, in our communities, in our schools and university campuses and in my left-wing cliches. The Seattle WTO meeting was nothing. I mean, even if the Seattle protests has 'stopped' the WTO meeting that day (which it didn't), you don't think a quick conference call the next day would have sorted shit out?
As for what we do, well, no time for that sorry.. too big. someone else can stick their head in on that though..
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The Seattle WTO meeting was nothing. I mean, even if the Seattle protests has 'stopped' the WTO meeting that day (which it didn't), you don't think a quick conference call the next day would have sorted shit out?
While I agree with you with the main argument of your comment, to the above I must disagree a tiny tiny bit. Seattle really threw a spanner in the works for the WTO and did empower developing countries to demand more concessions and seriosuly fuck up the Doha round and the meetings in Doha and Cancun. This however is an intra-bourgeoisie squabble (with developing countries' bourgeoisies getting support from all kinds of libruls from the developed world), but stopping things like labour and environmental standars as well as investment agreements in the WTO did stop further fucking up of the conditions of the working class in the developing world. Seattle was a small reformist gain at best.
I dunno mate, I'd disagree with you on that. For instance, the stuff on labour standards and the environment was largely being pushed for by the Third World countries coz for them (as the Third World bourgeoisie) the enforcement of labour standards is de facto protectionism for the developed countries. That's why you had the Europeans trying to bring labour issues up coz they've got the best labour standards in the world and would be the first to lose out if companies started deciding to resettle in the Third World. So in that way, I'd agree, it is an intra-bourgeoisie struggle but not one where the working class has anything to gain.
Also, even if the WTO didn't arrange at their meeting, the IMF's structural adjustment programmes still carry on as normal. The World Bank still carries on as normal. Indeed, capitalism in general still carries on as normal. So again, the WTO meeting was an irrelevance to the ongoing machinations of capital..
I also think that the left likes to play up its importance in fucking up the Seattle meeting. In my opinion, its fuck up was more to do with the nature of the WTO's decision making process and the fact that states don't like to compromise their prime national interests..
I do agree with you 99 percent Ed. As far as I remember there were plenty of NGOs and developing countries that were not at all pleased with pushing labour standards into the WTO (well, especially the former as I was part of such a group back then. but my memory might be a bit spotty). With gain for the working class it is in the negative sense, that not worse shit was pushed on them. Kinda the same as fighting against privatizations, or for further cutbacks of the welfare state.
I do think that the pace of capitalist globalization did slow down after Seattle (and when the multilateral agreement on investment was scrapped earlier). The other "gains" with regards to the WB and IMF was that they changed the name of SAPs to Poverty Reduction Strategies. Sounds much nicer and lots of NGO types argued that it was much better than SAPs, when it was basically the same old shite but with a liberal sounding name.
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Revol, if you continue being rude on this thread for no apparent reason then we will ban you for as long as we see fit. So play nice or don't play at all. I mean, for fuck sake, he's basically saying what you said on that video of you in Prague so stop being a prick and acting like you're the unbending conscience of the proletarian movement..
what I was a middle class wee wanker in the video banging on about how everyone on $50k is like bought into the system and how there is no working class because we live in a "post industrial society"? That's strange cos it doesn't sit well with the fact I only pointed out that property damage isn't violence and that the working class built it so it can destroy it.
or are you just being a lying prick?
as for being the unbending conscience of the proletarian movement, what the fuck are you on, I'm simply mocking some middle class chump whose regurgitating trendy superficial nonsense about 'post industrial societies'.
What can Anarchists, Communists and miscellaneous radicals do in the near future that will outshine the Battle of Seattle (or Prague, etc.) in terms of size and effectiveness?