Class struggle in the current economic crisis

I think we need to offer an accessible analysis of what's happening which also points towards effective forms of struggle, and connects them to struggles elsewhere (e.g. South America). It's important to show how the problems are a systemic feature of capitalism - right now most people will think that they are just the result of cock-ups by a few greedy people at the top of the financial world. A lot of people will also have illusions that the state will protect them, but this is an opportunity to show that the state is the tool of the rich.

The aim shouldn't be to convert individuals to a revolutionary perspective but to point towards concrete forms of struggle. For this we need to work out how acute things will be. What will happen if the global financial system goes into melt-down? Will there be a long period of mass-unemployment like during the Great Depression? Will it affect more privileged middle class strata? Will it be a situation like in Argentina 2001, with spontaneous taking over of factories, with alternative forms of exchange like bartering, local currencies etc. springing up? I also think we should not just look towards industrial struggle but encourage support networks that can help people in concrete ways when they lose their job or their house is repossessed.

I'm hoping that the fall-out from the current crisis will destroy the mind-numbing, soul-crushing culture of consumer capitalism, which I think is the main obstacle inhibiting politicisation and wide-spread struggle.

agreed... Tea Break was a (limited) attempt at this. distrubution poses certain problems though, although the year before handing out Dispatch to striking posties at was well-received.

also a good point, as the financial crisis ripples out into the 'real economy' we're likely to see a rise in home repossessions and unemployment, increasing the potential for and importance of non-workplace struggles. Some of the anti-poll tax resistance (particularly anti-eviction mobilisations) might be an interesting precedent, but it would require repossessions/evictions on a massive scale to make it clear that it's an attack on us as a class rather than a private problem of highly geared individuals.

but i disagree with this. i mean, at the very least it's chicken-and-egg. i mean i spend a large part of my non-working life involved in "mind-numbing" consumer activities (drink/drugs/clubs/clothes...), and i don't think they make me less likely to struggle over material conditions etc. I don't really see what's wrong with them per se either, but that's probably another discussion.

So far, most of us posting on this thread seem to agree, to a greater or lesser extent, that the open appearance of the economic crisis, in today’s conditions, is some kind of stimulus to both reflection and action within the working class.

Most seem to agree that it will provoke (and has already provoked) further, initially defensive struggles of the class on a global scale. No one is saying – at least I’m not – that the outcome of these struggles is guaranteed to produce revolutionary consciousness and action.

The question for me is: what considerations allow us to think that such a revolutionary situation is a possibility (as opposed to a necessity which may not be realised); to draw a certain strength from the fact that we’re not just pissing in the wind?

Django points out an apparent absence of perspective within the proletariat and I agree this is not to be under-estimated. Part of the problem here is that the task facing workers seems so enormous – so outlandish – that the very thought of a revolutionary solution is constantly suppressed (as well as being rubbished by bourgeois ideology). Mankind doesn’t throw away a tool until it’s been proven absolutely useless; the workers seem to throw their enemy to the ground, only to shrink away from a final confrontation, as Marx put it in different words.

Which is why the evolution of the crisis is so important. The open admission that the ‘masters of the universe’ in fact control very little; that they can’t even manage their own affairs; that their own economy is ultimately beyond their control – all these things increasingly point towards the necessity for a radical solution even if at present few people want to admit it. That and the increased unemployment, inflation, greater exploitation, etc, which the open crisis engenders, globally and simultaneously.

Lenin, Libcom’s favourite pin-up, said that a revolutionary situation boiled down to two things: when the ruling class can no longer go on governing as before, and when the exploited refused to be governed as before. I agree we’re quite some way from the latter. With the panic over the economy in general and the financial sector in particular, we’re getting important glimpses of the former.

Proletarian consciousness develops, on the one hand by its disengagement from the grip of the dominant ideology and, on the other, ‘positively’ through the affirmation of the class’s autonomy, unity, self-organisation and solidarity – through the struggle and reflection on it.

The evolution of reality – of the crisis - is favouring the ‘disengagement’ process. The question that prompted this as a separate strand really concerned the aspect of workers’ struggles. Like the crisis itself, they too have a history and just as the development of class consciousness isn’t a linear, chronological process, neither is the relationship between crisis and class struggle.

For example, the crisis was at a far lower level in the early 60s, yet its reappearance (accompanied by tendencies towards speed-ups and growing unemployment) sparked massive struggles across the world (France 68, Italy 69, South America, Britain, Poland, etc etc). Today, the crisis is far deeper. It’s been unfolding, in reality, for almost 40 years. Shouldn’t we expect the level of class struggle across the world to match it, if not blow for blow, then at least in a demonstrably progressive manner?

I don’t think it works quite like that. The conditions of struggle are far more difficult today: it’s obvious that there’s far more at stake. The ruling class is much better prepared, with its laws, lies, media, unions, repression, than it was in the late 60s and 70s. And workers have been obliged to reflect on the fact that all their struggles so far, all the temporary ‘gains’ they’ve made, haven’t halted the deterioration of their existence.

Which makes those struggles that do erupt – in recent times in Bangladesh, in Egypt, in Argentina, in Germany, Spain or France, for example – all the more important and significant. In Britain, over the summer, there was a great deal of anger at pay and job cuts while price rises, service cuts and inflation ate away at living standards: it’s just that this discontent wasn’t able to manifest itself in an effective, massive ‘demonstrable’ way. Which is not to say it didn’t exist: it did and it still does.

I’m not saying that the working class can remain at the present level forever: there isn’t all the time in the world. But neither do I believe that it has turned away from trying to defend itself, that the prospect of major clashes between the classes - and within that, a massive deepening and extension of consciousness - has disappeared. I see no convincing evidence that the working class, globally and historically speaking, has been dragooned behind major bourgeois mystifications, even if it has yet to overtly put forward its own, revolutionary perspective. (Though I believe it - the revolutionary perspective - was quite widely mentioned in 68 and its aftermath, and we're still talking about it, aren't we, and we're part of the movement, even if a minority).

There’s little point in discussing what to say to fellow workers if you don't believe that this combativity and potential are still intact: you can’t be convincing if you yourself aren’t convinced!

Even blind men can recognise objects when they bump into them. This current moment has blown away all those (some of them on these forums) who took superficial appearances for underlying reality and declared capitalism didn’t suffer from intrinsic, insoluble crises; that state capitalism was a nonsense, that all we were witnessing was a transition from US economic hegemony to Chinese ascendency. Let’s not make the same mistake vis-a-vis the class struggle.

PS: I agree with Joseph K’s last post – hope that’s not too much of an embarrassment to him
PPS: Re Syndicalist: isn’t this place called Libcom, Libertarian Communist?

Maybe it's worth a closer look at Argentina for an example of what can happen in a developed country when the economy collapses - though I doubt there'd be a crisis here on anything like that scale. Anyway here's a Loren Goldner article on Argentina from a couple of years ago - http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner/clausewitz.html

Why don't you try linking up with the national organisations when you do these? As they're national and already have established freesheets I'm sure they could distribute a lot if they were involved.

iirc we emailed all the groups of both national feds and the IWW, as well as other class-oriented anarchist groups. to my knowledge only the solfed local of which i'm a member distributed any - but this could be down to a lack of organization on our part, it was all a bit rushed. it certainly seems like the kind of project that would benefit and benefit from co-operation with existing national networks of libertarian communists. perhaps there's also the problem all our inboxes are full of appeals from lists to do this or that, whereas direct communication between interested comrades could have got things moving better, there's no substitute for real-world contacts. maybe the lesson is we should get on the phone next time and try and find out who's interested in helping, and they can then mobilise their respective groups. certainly distro (compared to content or design) has been the biggest weakness of Tea Break/Dispatch so far.

i love barcelona

JH wrote:

I agree that Argentina 2001 holds important lessons. IMO they illustrate – in a negative fashion - the central role of the proletariat developing its consciousness and its activity to lead the rest of society out of the impasse into which decaying capitalism is leading it.

Without speculating whether the crisis “here” (presumably Europe or the US) will reach proportions seen in Argentina (Germany 1923?; US 29-35?) what is certain is that the future will see massive revolts against penury everywhere. They’re already happening. The struggle of the exploited to survive will take on, out of necessity, all kinds of radical forms, including factory occupations, the requisitioning of food, ‘citizens militias’, etc.

The question posed by events in Argentina 2001 is whether the proletariat is capable of putting itself at the head of such a movement, of developing its struggle not just against the effects of the crisis but at the root of the crisis – the capitalist mode of production, capitalist social relations – or whether it will be drowned in a popular revolt which aims at coping with what is, not replacing it with a different form of society, something which can never be accomplished on the level of just one country, or even a whole continent.

I found the following a useful critique:
http://en.internationalism.org/ir/109_argentina.html

not that i'm aware of - i read about it in Danny Burns' 'Poll Tax Rebellion' - not sure how widespread it was but there were apparently phone trees that mobilised people to evictions to confront bailiffs with baseball bats etc, with the local kids acting as spotters/slashing the tires of bailiffs vehicles etc.

ok, i see where you're coming from. i'm not sure people are convinced it makes them happy though, mostly just distracted. 'i was happy in the haze of a drunken hour...'

no, actually. i missed his other one too.

I'm not trying to be antagonistic but what do you mean by 'historical examples of successful struggles'? I can't really think of anything that would contribute towards the present culture in terms of offering hope. I'm sure you don't mean this, but talking about the Paris Commune or the Anarchists in Spain won't offer anything to people concerned about present struggles.

I think capitalism maintains itself (not solely obviously) through self mockery in the media. Terms like credit-crunch are used, which through linguistical standards kind of gives the impression that it's just a blip on the radar, nothing to worry about. Capitalism manages to maintain its image of being 'cool' or historically adept, so we are shown adverts for useless commodities between news reports on how fucked the economy is (even the BBC is guilty of this). In essence we are given information that capitalism is still working and life is still going on as usual. When it does actually have an effect on people's pockets we come home to see an advert on how Tesco is making things cheaper so we can survive. This wealth of information is too much for people to believe that a change must occur. Even if a change is brought about it's usually through voting for a 'giant douche' or a 'turd sandwich' (to borrow the phrase from Southpark). I don't know how to get the message across to people that something can be done when they think the answers lie elsewhere. I've become a bit pessimistic about it.

Edit: My post crossed the JosephKs, I was also replying to Tree.

I'm not so sure. Firstly, if you work in the banking or finance sector you'll almost certainly be dealing directly with the current crisis or, at the very least, being affected by it. I doubt the 40,000 that are going to be laid off by Lloyds-HBOS are going to care much about cheaper food from Tesco's because it's unlikely they'll be able to afford it anyway. As the crisis spreads, the immediacy of it will impinge more and more on people's everyday consciousness.

The advantage of this situation is that this isn't simply a "recession". It's becoming clearer, even to casual observers, that something systemic is happening even if, for the moment, it's seen as "greedy bankers" fucking it up for the rest of us. Nonetheless, the fact that this ideology is being pushed shows that the bourgeoisie can't avoid including a class perspective, however distorted this may be.

In my view, communist propaganda needs to attack the question at a number of levels. Firstly, we need to show the historic origins of the crisis - this isn't just a blip but part of a process that's been underway since the 70s. We need to draw out a clear perspective of why such a crisis was inevitable and why getting rid of capitalism is the only way to prevent such disasters happening again. I think decadence is a key concept here, but even without it the point still stands.

We also need to remind the working class of its own revolutionary history - and that does mean Russia 1905, 1917, Germany 1918, etc. But it also means the more recent struggles, the CPE in France, the recent big movements in Germany, Vigo in Spain, etc. Again we need to demonstrate that not only are these forms of struggle the most effective in terms of immediate defence against the demands of capital but also that they contain the seeds of a revolutionary form that will end the demands of capital forever. In other words, we must show the "red thread" between the Kiel Mutiny in 1918 and the mass assemblies in Vigo a year or so ago.

Revolutionaries, class conscious minorities, whatever you want to call them, have a crucial role here.

it's true that identifying as 'working class' is very out of fashion, however certainly in my experience people have no problem seeing the blatant us and them at work when bosses are paying themselves large bonuses whilst denying us pay rises on the grounds that times are hard.

i mean talking about marx or 1905 in a situation where there's no collective struggle at all will probably come off as mental, but talking about the actual content of marx (i.e. how they want us to work more for less etc) and talking about more obviously relevant/recent examples requires a lot fewer leaps of abstraction.

My understanding of the factory occupation/self-management 'movement' in Argentina is that it was one of many forces that helped to restart the economy.