Consciousness, militancy and the working class

I think the view of dual consciousness as you here quote it from the STO is broadly correct, and has also been articulated by Martin Glaberman in this article in the context of second world war wildcat strikes.

Besides that I would also like to point how the two factors here I think have a sort of mutually influencing, lets call it dialectical, relationship, as for example overt political ideas can be strongly influenced by the struggles one engages in and on the other hand overt political ideas can be an initiator of struggle.

Gril

Good post, R. I disagree with the bit from Chili you quoted. I think in capitalism work generates dissatisfaction pretty predictably but not always, and that dissatisfaction can take a great many forms depending on what people think and what their options are. And all outcomes are built by people in their times and places, none follow automatically from structural positions.

I agree w/ everything you said and want to highlight these bits -

And that book you mentioned sounds interesting.

Yup, just read R.S's posting, interesting. But now I have to read the Occupy article to get a sense of background.

My only comment for now is that nothing is automatic or mechanical.

In the workers movement, you can be for direct action and craft unionism: you can be militant on some issues and reactionary on others: you can be class conscious in large measure but not revolutionary. Militancy does not equal revolutionary understanding of steps beyond. Militancy
can be used for a "better deal", rather than the whole pie. Lots of workers use direct action in a offensive or defensive manner, not strictly in a manner reflective of a push beyond an issue. Direct action oft times comes after become disillusioned with or impatient with a slow process. Direct action is oft used when there is no other form of struggle or reform available. Direct action alone and by itself is not inherently revolutionary...it is self-empowering (or can be) and this is most positive.

EDIT:

It'd be good if you could expand on that.

Also, I think folks do not give as much recognition of "recouperation" by the mainstream left as prolly it deserves...mainly cause of its resources and paid cadre/staff. That from the git-go, the forces of left electoralism and trade unionism were at work...at least it seemed that way from a distant view.

I think a key measure here is the degree of social power, or counter-power, working people have developed in a certain period. I gather this depends on how widespread solidarity is, the strength of the will to avoid things like being conciliatory to employers, rely on politicians and courts or mediators. And the existence of some form of independent organization, formally or informally, which can mobilize people in an independent way, and thus expresses that will to independence. The reason that social power, in this sense, is important is that the sense of what power you have will shape how people think about what course of action they will pursue. If people don't think anything can be done where they work, this may lead to strategies like seeking work elsewhere, which is an individual solution. If people begin to see a many people around them willing to fight and engage in collective actions, this gives them more of a sense of having available a power to change things, and the more extensive the level of solidarity, the more extensive the potential power of the working class on display. A more ambitious agenda for social change (revolutionary change) becomes less irrelevant or "impractical" if there is a high level of solidarity and worker social power being displayed.

It's important not to lose sight of the fact that the extension of solidarity beyond those who work together, who work in a single workplace, company, industry, is very important. A major weakness of the militancy in the USA during the 1967-74 worker insurgency is that, with few exceptions, it was not able to escape the sectoralist logic of post-World War 2 U.S. labor movement. Unlike in previous insurgencies, there were no city wide general strikes for example. And this despite the fact that the level of militancy was often high -- including nation-wide wildcat strikes in trucking, railways, and the post office. Because the fight was often against the unions due to the way they had conceded control of the workplace to employers, this led to a tendency to get sucked into electoral caucuses to elect a different leadership...who often ended up being not so different in terms of how they ran the union.

There is to some extent a kind of "which comes first, chicken or egg" problem here, in that as militancy & social power emerges, it then encourages more to pursue a similar course of action. but how does this get going to begin with? in both the '30s upsurge and the 1915-23 upsurge in the USA, there were thousands of revolutionaries on the scene in workplaces, who had been formed through the work of revolutionary organizations, publications, study circles, various working class cultural institutions, in which anti-capitalist ideas were transmitted. these revolutionaries on the scene could then act as catalysts, organizers, if there was the anger & discontent & a general will to fight.