Right so a while ago there was a big embarrassing discussion where it came out the WSM endorsed nationalisation of Ireland's oil at conference (anyone got the link?)
However since then it looked like there'd been a turnaround, and dara showed me an article in Workers Solidarity which was critical of it. However I now see that article on anarkismo, with this title and introduction:
The anarchist demand to nationalise the Corrib gas field
In Ireland the WSM is demanding the nationalisation of the Corrib gas field so that the profits can go to education and healthcare rather than Shell Oil. The article explains why they think this is possible.
http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=7198&language=en
But the article contains a number of sensible points, including most importantly this one:
For the WSM, the important point is that if nationalisation were to be won by a large and active movement of working people, that same movement would have the will and confidence to force the government to spend at least some of the extra cash on socially useful projects.
And also stuff like this:
State ownership has nothing to do with socialism. There was a fair bit of state ownership in Britain up to the 1980s (coal, rail, post, car assembly, electricity, health, steel, phones, and much more). Not a lot of equality, workers’ control, or anything we associate with socialism, was to be found..Nationalisation takes us no nearer to socialism than does private capitalist ownership.
But then it says this:
It would be a small reform, and it would not be a secure one. The government and companies like Shell would be quick to look for ways to overturn the decision and privatise the new state company.But it would be a reform, one worth supporting. By bringing together the questions of nationalising oil & gas resources and how the extra money should be spent, we move that little bit closer to asserting working class interests in opposition to the rights of property. And that’s pretty much it.
So what's going on? Is the WSM "demanding" it be nationalised? Or is it just supporting the only sensible aim, that of building the "large and active movement of working people" which would make the demand worthless, as the article points out?
Can comment on articles and discussions
John. when did it look like there had been a turnaround? One member of the WSM, afaik, was critical of supporting nationalisation. It was debated and unanimously endorsed at their most recent conference links to the decisions reached at this were as far as I remember posted on libcom.
They are demanding nationalisation and squirming while they try to justify it is all. Why they feel nationalisation has anything to do with working class interests is beyond me. Okay so the masses force the government to spend 'some' of the money on nice stuff so whats the problem with this?
Well its devoid of any analysis of the role of the state for a start. Okay so say the masses having forced the government to nationalise Corib also force them to spend a fraction of this on the health service, very good, but surely its the same government that has diverted money from social services (including the health service) into the coffers of multinational investors, that takes an increasing role in peace keeping forces across the globe, thats privatised bin collections, followed a racist immigration policy...? Wonder where will the rest of the money go? What sort of relationship will the new state run company have with its employees and to what extent will it be any more acountable in relation to damage done to the environment?
But they aren't gonna to get this at all, the government isn't likely to buck the 'washington consensus'/neo-liberal agenda thats seen its economy rocket from near third world status to one of the richest in the world. What the WSM might get though are a few recruits out of this doomed battle, not from a large mobilised section of the working class, but from an assortment of various leftists and republicans who have raised nationalisation as a demand and amongst whom the WSM are obviously trying to recruit.
The concerns raised by residents and the demand "Shell to Sea" represent a campaign that does not hinge on calling for nationalisation, and no matter how much such a demand gets heads nodding down the pub or on protests it is a demand that should be countered as pie-in-the-sky, ineffectual and wrongheaded. Even the WSM have to admit it is nothing to do with libertarian communism/socialism.
Nationalisation, whether in post-war UK or in Ireland today, is at the very least a distraction from the struggle to encourage and build a movement based on workers control and direct action. It is misdirected short-termism and its at least as contradictory (if potentially more damaging) as supporting a candidate to a fulltime bureaucratic post in a TU election. They have something in common though in that both appear completely opportunist and neither are/were likely to succeed.