Localism, workerism, propaganda and the stuff in the middle

Someone ought to do a theory of local organising for the organise section.

Yes, I agree with the attempt to build 'locally', to be rooted in communities and encourage and develop popular struggles in workplaces, on estates, in colleges and town centres, etc. But build what? The 'struggle', political consciousness, organisation?

And building on a local level only really ever made sense to me when/if I knew I had comrades working along the same lines in lots of other towns and cities. The class enemy does not organise on a purely local basis.

This is especially true for those whose 'local' location of struggle is in their workplaces, but where the struggle must be waged at least against the whole company and therefore involve solidarity from other sites that are often geographically distant.

So yeah, from reading the above that where we are. Involved in all sorts of locally based groups, but talking to each other on sites like this.

Barry, of course its true that the ruling class organise on a global level. But the working class as individuals do not exist on a global level. Your locality determines your workplace, your housing, where your kids go to school, the transport you get around on, the shops you shop in etc etc. In other words our relationship to capitalism is largely on a local level.

True, world economics, the policies of the national government and so on will impact upon our lives as well - but once again they only directly affect us in our workplaces and communities.

But all theorising aside, what Catch says is really the best argument for organising locally:

Well exactly!

As Redyred puts it, we have on the one hand

and on the other hand we have

- who of course can not reach beyond their locality.

So, the real question is how do we move beyond being merely the working class as individuals into being a class, (organised at local, national and global levels?)

How do we move beyond this question of what I can do to feel most effective, to what can WE do?

a)If we organise in our localities, how do we then link up? OR:

b)Can we even organise in our localities in the first place without some general view or connection?

Organise locally, but avoid localism.

Demonstrate at big summits once a year?

Hi

No, by entering the parties of the bourgeois social democratic left.

Love

Chris

Good - two of the ways currently on offer to us now appear on this thread- Summit demo's and social democracy - albeit that they get mentioned ironically. And yes, summit demo's have sometimes united diverse struggles, and so has focusing these struggles around left social democratic electoral platforms. But of course, we are aware of the limitations of these (so lets not go into them again here). However I notice that some of the obvious possible alternatives have also also been left blank.

So lets list a few more that history has on offer:

a) The hope that these disparate struggles will spontaneously generate the required class consciousness and organisation.

b) The attempt to consciously link them together through a federation, network or party of class conscious revolutionaries.

c) Or some sort of mixture of a and b.

any additions for this list?

Or use forums like this to co-ordinate solidarity with workers in struggle across Ireland and Britain as has been the case with the Tesco's Temp Defence Committee solidarity actions at 6 on Thursday (see http://libcom.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=65024#65024 and http://libcom.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6043). Or to put out a joint statement on the London Bombings.

Pretty small beginnings but examples of effective solidarity and a coordinated response that goes beyond the local.

Really not an or in relation to Barry's points though. It is pretty much a concious networking that is going on.

edited to add links and correct spelling

Hi

Unite around religion, humantarian causes or animal mascots.

Love

Chris

Eh...let's not forget haircuts.

Hi

1.

Form a giant economically self-sufficient firm that breaks capitalism like a new eagle smashes its shell.

2.

Everyone do acid. Imagine yourself in field of beautiful flowers, but the flowers are the working class, like lots of “Little Weeds” from Bill and Ben. Then, you become a flower too. Watch the present order liquefy, melting away in a single shared human instant of perfect joy.

3.

Kill Whitey/Darky.

All the best

Chris

exactly....

Hi

Develop a programme. Form a self-financing media group to present your programme to the public. The public elects a parliament “friendly” to the programme. Implement the programme through a federation of neighbourhood councils.

Regards

Chris

First thing is that general activity of any kind is all pointless without some sort of ultimate goal in mind, a position, a platform, a vision. Otherwise, you move from one campaign on to the next, each worthy in their own right (Iraq, Anti-Globalisation, Kill The Bill), but in the end, as a whole, all so much sound and fury signifying nothing. Think of headless chickens - lots of noise and activity: but no head, no end result.

That means a vision has to be agreed, and so an end to anarchism without hyphens: primitivists, communists, syndicalists won't all agree, some will be left out. My suggestion: http://afraser.com/beyond_an_ideal.htm

Secondly (this depending on the particular end goals chosen), make tactical alliances to advance those goals. At times that could mean working with and as part of existing states, trade unions, firms - including voting within those entities (see http://afraser.com/vote_anarchist.htm)

With those two agreed, we would then be in a position to know how to act, and on which particular campaigns and issues. But whatever that turned out to be, I expect local activities should be dominant - imagine a 70% local, 30% national/international split in activity effort - and that local community issues should tend to equal or outrank local workplace issues. Publishing and distributing local newspapers and participating in local campaigns will be the way forward - but without the above steps in place, that will all end up as so much wasted hard work in the long term.

Andrew.

Hi

afraser, you're money.

Love

Chris

Hi

afraser, do you think we should push for a programme of reindustrialisation to generate a safe level of economic self sufficiency?

I think it’s vital, but the only mainstream noises along those line are coming from a particular “left wing” current in the Conservative Party, the falangists and the nazis.

I’d like to incorporate something like your economic-democracy style manifesto into an over arching project, along the lines of…

1.

Attain safe level of economic self sufficiency.

2.

afraser (tm) style direct democracy.

3.

Universal citizens' income.

I think there is a lot of public support for reindustrialisation, and it’s necessary to protect us from the effects of capital flight, not to mention the “restructuring of global capital” discussed in…

http://www.libcom.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5113

However, it does raise some interesting conflicts as it is vaguely nationalistic and sort of contends stuff like Scottish succession. Which is just as well, because I need you on my side.

Love

Chris

I think economic self sufficiency is not necessary. If a small area, such as Britain, was to face an economic blockade, like Cuba or until recently Iraq, it would face impoverisation so massive as to make its population wish to reach whatever compromise deal was required with foreign powers to lift the blockade. Attempts at economic self sufficiency, no matter how good, would never allow it to come near to matching the economy of the outside world. Only huge areas, like the EU or the US, might manage to shrug off a blockade - even then more because they could more easily fix up blockade busting bilateral trading deals than because they were self sufficient.

That said, it is vital to have full employment with skilled jobs in high tech and capital intensive industries, even if they are export oriented. That does mean reindustrialisation, although not necessarily in an industrial revolution sense - a lot of high tech industry doesn't look very 'industrial'. Pretty much no one but the global super-rich would disagree with that, but how to achieve it? Methods I can think of are:

1) Beg foreign or domestic multinationals to hire some locals by offering them massive tax breaks and corporate welfare. That's such an obvious mugs game that it's started to go out of fashion even amongst the right.

2) Startup local small/medium firms, maybe by spin offs from universities and military, and pump them full of favourable contracts and state backed loans until they start to approach multinational size. Unlike (1) this at least works for a relatively long while, but the owners of such firms get to become very rich for free and (worse) very powerful, because they can (and normally eventually do) sell up and watch everything moved overseas, because they are the legal owners of the firms.

3) As (2), but only for worker owned businesses. Those will boom just as much (with the same gentle help from banks and governments) but, for obvious reasons, are much less likely to sell up and move overseas. Provided local corporate law prevents them being converted (demutualised) into capitalist entities, and local employment law prevents them from refusing worker-owner rights to any group of their workers, these entities secure industrialisation more or less forever.

4) Set up State owned enterprises. Not I think an anarchist solution, except at municipal level which maybe means not for high tech industry. Historically can suffer from soft budget constraints, and from political interference from way too distant a level of government. There are ways to reduce those problems, but mostly by tending to make them look more like the worker owned businesses of (3).

what reactionary twaddle, you can keep dreaming of turnig the clock back and rediscovering some sort of social democratic golden age that never existed or you can seek to find the frissures and trajectories that are routed in the present yet extend beyond it. There will be no return to self contained national economies and such a move should not be desirable to communists. The globalisation of economies makes internationalism no longer an abstract political position but a neccessity if workers are to succesfully challenge capital.

Hi

Harsh.

First time you've used that word ever.

Love

Chris

Hi revol68

Sorry about the flippancy, thought I'd give you a chuckle. Thanks for your analysis...

How do you counter the charge that orthodox internationalism, along the lines you describe, defers the revolution into some far of never-never when Capitalism becomes perfectly globalised?

Is such a position not similar to the historical predeterminism proffered by the ICC?

If, for one reason or another, the local bourgeoisie reindustrialised for the sake of their own economic strategy, would you oppose it?

Finally, given that, when workers act to protect their income from off-shoring production, do you levy the same charges of “reactionary twaddle” at them?

Still, thanks for challenging me my friend, that’s the closest thing I’ve heard to a viable counter argument on this position for a while.

In solidarity

Chris