Letter from Green Anarchist

Dear Subversion,
Thanks for Subversion 21 - keep us on your mailing list.

In response to 'Green' Communism, you still fail to distinguish between technology and tool use. You should know from John Zerzan's definition in the GA you quote from that technology is 'the ensemble of the division of labour'. According to Mumford's Technics & Civilisation, the first technologies were ancient armies and work-gangs, not their weapons and tools. The real issue is how they were organised, not how they were equipped.

Subversion thinks that uttering the magic word 'Capitalism' explains everything but it should be obvious that a society divided heirachically between organisers and the organised can never be equal or free. Mumford's ancient armies and work-gangs preceded capitalism by several thousand years and he also suggests the rise of the clock and the consequent intensification of organisation around it created capitalism. Unlike FC, we aren't reductionists. It's not simply a case that technology is economically determined or vice versa - there's a dialectical relationship between the two.

We're amazed you 'cannot conceive of cities going', as if they weren't as much a product of history as everything else. Cities are technology, a complex process that has to be organised in a way that makes a future free and equal society impossible. You'd be less enthusiastic about Bookchin's 'libertarian' municipalism if you took David Watson's point on board that 'the city as polis created not only politics, but the police.' If you're talking about 'breaking them down into more human size', you're either effectively arguing for an end to cities or not talking about a scale that's really 'human' after all. As to this bit about 'planting trees', we've been around long enough to call it tokenism when Statists do it.

Your comment about 'a return to back-breaking labour' shows you haven't understood the first thing about anarcho-primitivism. Scarcity is a product of Civilisation, the powerful rationing those powerless and dependent on them, to exploit and control them. Nature is abundant as demonstrated by hunter-gatherers who work under 20 hours a week to meet their basic needs. They're in control of that work too - it's unalienated. The more civilised things have got, the harder we've had to work. You surely won't disagree that civilisation has been built on the extraction of surplus value - our ancestors' sweat - but there's more to it than that. We've also had less control over the work we do (and every other aspect of our lives) the more complex, interdependent and organised the economy has become. We have to challenge such organisation itself, not just the organisers, or any new society will otherwise just reproduce the old one. Your comments on appropriate technology for a post-revolutionary society are an inappropriate compromise based upon a fundamental misunderstanding.

Holding a stage view of history, you seem to think communism will come out of capitalism's contradictions but all we can see is a society which is encroaching more and more on us and making us all more and more dependent on it in the name of 'liberation from Nature'. That won't free us from alienation, it's just more separation. We got it right at the start and for the vast majority of human history. People were free, equal and self-determining when primitive communism prevailed, without even the individualist distinction between Self and Other - as Bookchin himself argued in his seminal Ecology of Freedom, Chapter 5, before reformist municipalism addled his brain. Civilisation, whether capitalist or not, won't facilitate our liberation - only its destruction and the end of our dependence on it will. All the truly radical currents in history appreciated this as obvious - you might find Zerzan's Who Killed Nedd Ludd? most instructive here. Your ridiculously misrepresentative caricature of GA's revolutionary strategy is half a decade out of date but even here our emphasis on direct action and breaking dependency comes through.

You do indeed ' have much to learn' from groups like 'Reclaim the Streets' as they have rejected the compromise with Civilisation your presentation of Capitalism as a be-all and end-all implies. Liverpool's significance was not that the dockers took RTS on board - RTS had been doing other revolutionary stuff for years - but that more archaic conservative, workerist currents weren't seen by them as worthy of the same consideration.

Rather than referring readers to the poisonous smears of Bookchin and his partner Janet Biehl, you'd have done better concluding 'Green' Communism by referring them to David Watson's Beyond Bookchin (Black and Red, Autonomedia, 1996) and Bob Black's Anarchy Beyond Leftism (CAL, 1997) to ensure they will have something useful to contribute to the struggle in the future.

Yours, for the destruction of Civilisation.

Oxford GAs.

Letter from JM

Dear Subversion,

I would like to respond to the essay 'Green Communism' printed in your most recent issue.

This essay is so ill-informed and wrong-headed that it really does not make a serious contribution to debate. There are so many basic errors in the essay that it would take an entire essay to address its mistakes! So rather than critique its fundamental flaws, I will just focus on some key points. I cannot - and would not want to - speak on behalf of all individuals involved in the anti-civilisation anarchist current, but as someone participating in this current I want to offer a personal response to the inaccuracies and slurs aimed at what your essay reductively refers to as 'anti-technological anarchists'.

First, your writer could do everyone the favour of taking anti-civilisation ideas seriously, rather than just engaging in uninformed assertion and smear tactics. Anti-civilisation anarchism is not 'militant reformism'. It does not just 'call itself anarchist'. Anti-civilisation anarchists do not merely 'claim to be anarchists' and certainly haven't 'fallen for the lies of capitalism hook, line and sinker'. Part of this is sheer ignorance. (Using Bookchin's Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism as a guide to the anti-civilisation current is like using National Front propaganda as a guide to understanding the lives of Black Britons. Your author's cheap jibe (taken from Bookchin) that at least in the kind of society Zerzan envisages no one would have to read 'the crap he wrote' cuts no ice, as your author clearly hasn't read Zerzan anyway, but just parrots Bookchin!). But part of this consists of outright smears. Your author wants to undermine anti-civilisation anarchists by name-calling: they're not anarchists, they're liberals; they're not revolutionary, they're reformists; and they don't have a sophisticated analysis - they're naive and (of course) capital's dupes. Give anti-civilisation anarchists some credit! Judge the ideas. Look at the primary texts, not Bookchin's second-hand distortions! Know what you're talking about before you publish work on it!

Anti-civilisation currents extend the classical anarchist analysis beyond the traditional emphasis on capital and the state. Of course, capital and the state are important sources of power and need to be abolished through revolution. There's no argument there. But there are other forms of power which preceded both and which need to be abolished along with them, if an anarchist revolution is to succeed. Your author writes "...the destruction of the environment is the result, not of civilisation, not of technology, but of the domination of the planet by capital." But power - including the power to engage in environmental destruction - developed before capital. Capital is just the latest (and deadliest) form assumed by power, and civilisation is the name anti-civilisation anarchists use to characterise the ensemble of social relations and techniques of coercion and control within which capital and the state emerge.

"Capital would like us to think that the problem does not lie in the control of production and the existence of wage labour", writes your author. It's reductive to say that 'the' problem can be located in any one issue. But in one respect your author is right. Production and labour is a crucial problem. But the problem is far deeper than your author seems to suspect. The issue is not merely 'the control' of production, but the abolition of production; not merely the existence of 'wage labour', but the existence of labour in any form. Anti-civilisation anarchists aren't just 'anti-technological anarchists': they want to abolish power in all its forms, including work. To assert a pro-technology anarchist position means envisaging the continuation of labour in an anarchist society. But who is going to force people to labour in a power-free society? Not me! Are you? And will you want to keep on working? I won't!

Anti-civilisation anarchists recognise that work is in itself a primary source of oppression. But your author, appropriating wholesale Marxist analysis, assumes that there are such things as productive forces. These are just the alienated energies of people working for capital. If everyone stops working, the 'productive forces' disappear. And so, incidentally, does technology! Technology, in a sense, is a red herring. Anti-civilisation anarchists oppose it because it is a powerful means of oppression, alienation and environmental destruction. But a more fundamental issue is the destruction of the whole social nexus - i.e. civilisation - that makes its very production and usage possible.

In resistance,
JM.

Subversion Reply:

There are many points raised in these letters. It's probably best to start with the bits we agree with. GA are quite right when they talk about the dialectical relationship between technology and society. For the benefit of the uninitiated, this means that technology and society don't develop independently of one another. Changes in technology lead to changes in the way society is organised, equally changes in social organisation lead to changes in the technology that society uses. The one influences the other and vice versa. Equally important, however, is the effect of class struggle on social development. When our class struggles, social organisation and technology change to meet the threat we pose - which of course means the working class has to respond in a different way. It is our contention that it is this conflict which is the most important. Our article 'Green Communism' tried to explore (in part) how struggles that are labeled as 'green' or 'environmental' are often a part of our class's response to capital's attacks.

Both letters accuse us of holding a stages theory of history. However, GA also seem to do so. They talk about the stage of 'primitive' communism (an expression coined by Marx and Engels), to describe a time in pre-history when people were 'free, equal and self-determining'. We are not in a position to dispute this, neither are we in a position to agree. Civilization came into being when social classes emerged. It represents the domination and exploitation of the many by the few. There have been many examples of 'civilization' - all have represented different forms of class society. We have no problems with JM's assertion that 'other forms of power preceded' capital and state. Different civilizations have used different forms and combinations of domination: patriarchy, democracy, religion, race, brute force and most recently the domination of class by class through mindless toil enslaved to machines.

We do not hold the view that communism only became possible with the creation of modern capitalism, we have had many idle discussions over pints of beer, arguing whether it would have been possible in earlier social epochs. And broadly speaking we think it could have been. But it was idle speculation for one simple reason. We do not live in the era of the Peasants Revolt or of Spartacus. We live in 1997, in a time when the only social system in the world (with maybe one or two insignificant exceptions for a few thousand people), is capitalism. Capitalism uses any form of domination that is useful to its own needs. So patriarchy remains (but watered down), religion remains (but in the back seat), racism remains too, seemingly as strong as ever, but pre-eminent is the domination of people by machine - of living labour dominated by dead labour, working to extract surplus value (profit) for the ruling class. We believe that by destroying that relationship and the state which supports it and hence the domination of the ruling class and its lackeys, that a genuine human society can be created - an end to the 'civilization' that has dominated history for the past thousands of years.

We believe that the result of the struggle against capitalism (the currently existing form of civilization) could end in the creation of communism. GA seem, at a glance, to want the same thing. But on closer examination what they actually appear to want is a return to 'primitive' communism. As far as we can tell this is shared by other primitivists. They believe that the time before civilization was a time of plenty and ease. They approve of the idea of a society 'without even the individualist distinction between Self and Other', an end to cities and in the case of JM 'the abolition of production; not merely the existence of wage-labour, but the existence of labour in any form...including work'

This does not fit into our views for a number of reasons. Firstly, we wonder where all the billions of people in the world are going to live. We wonder where they are going to find food, how they are going to feed themselves. We presume that neither GA nor JM are advocating genocide as a way forward to the new society. That was why our original article accepted that cities would survive in a future society - indeed a view we have heard expressed by RTS activists who are also anarchist communists. Just how things would develop as human history unfolds is, of course, a completely different matter. We have only a limited idea what a communist society would look like at its beginning, let alone after a hundred or two years. We would speculate that abominations like London, Paris, Manchester would disappear.

Secondly, we are not at all against labour. It is our view that making things is fundamental to human being. We are against working for others and being exploited. We are against human labour being dominated by machinery. We want labour to be a creative activity, not a form of drudgery. It's an old expression, but we want to break down the division between work and play. In the context of the modern class struggle we see tendencies towards a 'refusal of (alienated) work' - a refusal to accept domination by bosses and their right to screw more out of us at their will. To some this means struggle at work, sabotage, not exerting themselves, not giving the bosses their creativity. To others it means simply avoiding the labour process altogether. In either case we support them.

Thirdly, we are not sure what GA mean by 'without even the individualist distinction between Self and Other'. We are not herd animals. On one (apparently contradictory) level this is exactly what capital and the state are aiming at for the majority of society - it uses many ideologies which strengthen the 'nation', the 'community', 'democracy' and so on. We would classify these as socially totalitarian ideals. As we said earlier, we have no idea what a communist society would look like after a hundred years or so. However, we can predict that even in its early days the kind of individualist competition prevalent today will die an unlamented death. However, communism will be created by people as they already exist, not by some idealised form of humanity. In that context many of the current limitations of people will carry forward. We debate amongst ourselves just how much people will be individuals and how much they will be social beings. We suspect that they will realise that a free society will allow the free development of all. Individuals will be social beings - not atomised, isolated and uncared for.

We finish by repeating GA's signing off, though we suspect that we mean something fundamentally different.

For the destruction of civilization.

Subversion

Anarcho-Primitivism - A letter from Green Anarchist

Dear Subversion,

Good to see anarcho-primitivism provoked so much debate last issue, although it's a shame to end it now, since so much progress (if you'll forgive the phrase!) is being made. There's more agreement between us than you think. We took it for granted that "social organisation' was pretty much synonymous with class organisation and JM would almost certainly agree with your work I play distinction as it's the same as Bob Black's in Abolition of Work. That's not the same as saying people get to dance round the steel mill after hours, as S from Hastings suggests -- that's leisure, separated from labour and a palliative for it.

From our last letter, you'll know S is wrong to say "a digging stick is technology from an anarcho- primitivist perspective, it's just a tool because it's under the unalienated control of an individual without the mediations of a division of labour. Some apes, beavers, sea otters &C are tool-users. That doesn't make them "technological species" and the fact that our species lived free of technology for the vast majority of its existence shows we re not either As Zerzan argues in The Case Against Ad, technology and culture are intimately interrelated magic being the first technology

We agree with S that communism will make "life ….. richer, more pleasurable, more creative and fulfilling" but the technological means he cites for achieving this show s/he has little idea what communism will be like. We won't "give up recorded music and the cinema", we'll be liberated from them. Even under capitalism, it's possible to participate in creating such artefacts but in future, as now, they basically condemn the majority to being a passive audience separated from the creative process. Taking occasional turns is not the same as full communal participation. This is as much to do with the complex, technical infrastructure involved in such specialist 'creativity' as economic factors in the narrow sense. 'Creativity' will be in the hands of the upper of S's 'two level system of production", the one beyond community control. S knows this is problematic or s/he'd have been upfront enough to include television in this technocultural triumvirate. Although we're arguing over Culture here, the same principles apply across the board to all other 'benefits of Civilisation' usually cited.

What'll really make life richer will be the recreation of unalienated community, Camatte's Gemeinwesen, and that's obviously not the same as reducing humanity to herd animals" or atomised ideology4odder, as in hierarchical society. It's about empathising with others and understanding them as yourself, as part of yourself, not objectifying them as others fit only for domination. It's not a question of "how much people will be individuals and how much they will be social beings" -- there is no distinction in primitive society, the dualism that plagues modern Western minds so doesn't exist for them and didn't exist at the start of human history, and one of the problems we have about it now is our hierarchical mindset and the analytically disabling language derived from it. We should make clear at this point that as it must be reciprocated collectively, this consciousness must be achieved through struggle, not mystical contemplation. Farley Mowat's description of the Ilhumiut's 'law of life' illustrates this doesn't extinguish the individual (little 'i'), in fact it extends this respect to animals and the Earth. Think about primitive attitudes to property. In The Ecology of Freedom, Bookchin has them as usufructary - something belongs to someone when they're using it and to everyone as soon as they're not, and so things go round, usually respectfully, sometimes humorously (the 'theft' South Sea explorers complained so bitterly of, though their selfishness offended the South Sea islanders equally and taking the explorers stuff was their way of expressing their communal disapproval), but always without possessive hoarding, without accumulation. Doesn't this sound like communism to you - of the future as well as the past? Only anoraks totally colonised by Prometheanism could argue gadgets will make life better, freer and more equal than authentic human community! This wholeness and liberation from alienation are what we sacrifice by arguing for 'moderation' and a 'middle way' between communism and technocracy, as S does.

In arguing for this "two level system", S also ignores the extraction of surplus value as the motor of History. S argues mining, building railways and working in steel mills "would only get done if people did find them enjoyable" , but doesn't suggest what would become of the technological infrastructure of this proposed future society if they didn't. The lesson of History is that they would have to be forced to do such unpleasant tasks, leaving those doing the forcing in control of the 'commanding heights of the economy', our technocratic masters. People have to be forced into specialisation because it makes them dependant, Other. Metalworkers were amongst the first specialists -- they were outcasts forced to live separately from 'their' communities, lamed to prevent them fleeing to a more authentic fife elsewhere. The situation is much worse in more recent and complex societies based on an intense division of labour. There, specialist management is necessary to co-ordinate all this, each of us being 'lamed' by lacking all the skills and resources necessary to be self-sufficient at this level of production. We were pleased you agreed there was as dialectical relationship between technology and social organisation because this implies that attacks on technocracy and the mega-machine culture have as much revolutionary potential as more conventionally understood class struggle, and that the class struggle is not revolutionary unless it rejects technology, as S does not.

We were also much encouraged that you agree other forms of power preceded capital and state", that 'different forms and combinations of domination' exist within Civilisation, and that they could have been ended by communism at any point in History. By attacking hierarchical society on any point patriarchy, racism, Prometheanism &C - we must eventually come to attack it at every point if our approach is revolutionary, if it criticises the underlying basis of hierarchy and not just particular 'branches' of that "fatal Tree". This must include anti-capitalist struggle but, by this same argument, it cannot just be anti-capitalist struggle or other forms of domination allied to it will simply assert themselves in post~capitalist society, cheating us of communism. The revolutionary potential of struggles should be judged by their likelihood of achieving Gemeinwesen, which implies a rejection of the principles of moderation, mediation and mass which so handicapped revolutionary politics in the 1980s, and so should encompass (for anti-capitalists) 'peripheral' full-on struggles such as those of militant Greens and animal liberationists as well as work resisters &C. Our struggle should be about actively rejecting Civilisation as a whole, not seeking to seize control of or preserve any part of it in any manner, and it should be about hitting Civilisation where it is weakest now rather than eternally delaying revolutionary action in the hope consciousness will rise where it is strongest through pathetic revolutionary callisthenics' around reformist demands.

A footnote on the 'where would we go?' question. We agree with you that a forager lifestyle is not a majority option given current population densities, even if that's most desirable for achieving Gemeinwesen. Given there's land enough to feed everyone in the world even now, we need rear no 'die off' when Civilisation falls beyond the social dislocation that occurs with any revolution. Then there'll be an end to artificial scarcity, allotment agriculture is more efficient in terms of yield I acre than agree-business (and it's sustainable), and as production will be unalienated, everyone will be doing their bit on the land (which is why cities, that "eat but produce nothing" in Cobalt’s words, will end--don't these people want to be self-determining?!). S is wrong to suggest there should be "trading through barter Systems" - as noted in Green Communism, capitalism, in part, started that way! As anthropologists and colonialists everywhere know, primitives are loath to trade because producing surpluses means more effort and (subject to variables of climate and ecology world-wide) their neighbours will have grown pretty much what they have, for their own use. if you have to trade for something, it means you haven't got it, so the trader can ask whatever they want for it --as Fredy Perlman showed in Against His-Story, empires have been built this way. Given the 'least work' principle discussed above, d/evolution in production would set in, as the more ancient the method of production, the less effort was involved for the same yield (production was intensified by coercion, remember?), so those that could get to a forager lifestyle this way would, as in the celebrated case of the Ranoake settlers (Gone To Croatan, pp.95-98). An anarcho-primitivist revolution is certainly practically achievable -- indeed, we'd argue it's the only one worth achieving.

Of course there is a great deal more to discuss here, particularly on this idea of totality and revolution on the periphery, but the debate can continue in future issues, surely?

Yours, for the destruction of Civilisation,

Oxford GA’s

Steve's Reply to Green Anarchist

Regarding the letter from 'Oxford G.A 's' to Subversion dated 18.8.97

This letter is a very disappointing contribution to what is potentialy a very interesting and useful debate My original letter to Subversion was a serious attempt to initiate discussion amongst anti-capitalists as to how a free and equal communist society coul d organise it's maintenance and it's relationship to the rest of the natural world. G.A. '5 response overemphasises the common ground between themselves and Subversion and at the same time responds to my letter not with reasoned debate but with bad-tempered,dishonest sniping

It probably won't surprise G.A. to learn that I have read Bob Black's 'Abolition of Work' and whole-hear tcdly .eitdorse it. Work,in the sense in which Bob Black calls for it's abolition,is activity performed under duress. My point is that if people can cook ,make clothes ,grow food etc without being coerced into doing so then I don't see why they shouldn't be able to, oc&asionally,opperate a steel plant,for example, without being coerced into it.My letter explicitly states that this activity could be carried out by volunteers.Perhaps G.A. do not understand what this word means - it means that people do things voluntarily,without being coerced,of their own free will

'Primitive' people engage in both productive activity,hunting, gathering,building,gardening etc and celebratory activity,dancing, singing etc.I see no reason why this should not be the case in a communist society whatever it's technological level.I don't suppose G.A. would consider hunting people who dance and sing to be experiencing 'leisure 'after hours'

I am not ' wrong' to say that "a digging stick is technology. . . . " as C.A. state ,I am simply using the word differently rrom them.Many words can be used in a variety of ways by different people to mean very different things - think of the words 'Communism' 'Anarchy' and 'Democracy' for example.So it is as well to be clear about what we mean.Cenerally the word technology is taken to mean advanced industrial activities and their organisation.However,modern industrial technology has not sprung from nowhere it has developed over a long period of time from simple to complex.So I think it is valid to use the word technology to mean all the ways in which people manipulate the world.In prehistoric times people had a simple technology based on wood,stone,plant products,leather etc.As G.A. point out it utilised simple tools which did not require a 'division of labour' to produce. As I use the word this doesnot mean that it was not a technology it means that it was a simple technology

People are ,ofcourse ,quite entitled to use a word like technology in different ways. The technology that G.A. define as being bad is that which involves a 'division of labour' and this is an interesting point.Despite the assertions of many 'primitivists' we simply don't know enough about life in prehistoric times to make a definitive judgement as to what extent ,if any,there was any 'division of labour' .However,many hunting people in modern times use a 'division of labour' in their hunting practices with one group opperating as a line of beaters while another group kill the prey for example.The reason I use this example is that here the 'division of labour'concerns an activity not the production of an artefact - is this o.k. with G.A 7

Anyway why is the 'division of labour' considered to be an absolute evil in all circumstances ? If people are drawn towards certain activities,wish to develop certain skills0 is there something wrong with this ? In my view a genuine human community can only be organised around the principle "from each according to their abilities(and desires) ,to each according to their needs (and desires). "If a community is genuinely commited to the well-being of all its members I can't for the life of me see why people shouldn't choose to do (a variety of) different things and in the process add to the well-being and richness of the community and all its members, The free development of each being the precondition for the free development of all. For some reason C.A. seem to hold as a dogma the view that people can only exist as a genuine community if every individual is capable of performing every activity ever performed by any member of the community

I would also suggest that C.A. might find it interesting to study Chris Knight's book 'Blood Relations' (Yale University Press(New Haven and London - 1991).While I cannot possibly do justice to the scope of this book here part of his argument suggests that what was probably the initial 'division of labour' ,that between men and women,far from being a negative thing was in fact part of the process by which our ancestors became fully human and acquired the possibility of solidarity and communism.Female power organised around the 'home base' and its activities broke the power of the male 'dominance hierarchies' and sexual competition which characterise primate societies and forced (freed) males to collectively take part in the provisioning of the whole group.

Whether or not we accept all of what Knight says at least he offers a materialist account of human origins which challenges capitalist notions of 'human nature' without romanticising some particular moment in our species existence

Incidently G.A. are right the fact that apes,beavers,sea otters etc use tools does not make them technological species it just shows that our technological ability has emerged from the process of biological evolution,which is unsurprising

G.A. should read my letter again I never did cite any technological means that would "make life richer,more pleasurable, more creative and fulfilling".I speculated as to what sort of technology a communist society emerging now might want to use.

G.A. allege th.rt in the sort of society I was speculating about 'creativity' will be in the upper" (G.A. '5 emphasis) of the 'two level system of production'. I honestly don't see why this should be the case.In a communist society creativity will be generalised it will not be 'in the hands' of anyone to the exclusion of anyone else.I don't happen to think that making a film,recording music or helping to organise a telephone system,for example,are more creative than gardening,craft production,woodland management etc they are just different activities.I happen to believe that human beings are capable of organising themselves and their creativity autonomously and without hierarchy in a wide variety of settings.How about you ,G.A. what do you think ?As to your jibe about television actually I don't see any reason why a communist society should not employ video technology.The problem with broadcast television is that it is in the hand' of a tiny minority,controlled by the rich and powerful and deployed against the vast majority.This is because we live in a capitalist society.A communist society would organise things differently.

G.A. say that I have 'little idea what communism will be like' - well, I suppose none of us will know until we get there,if we do.But I think it is G.A. who seem to have a limited idea of what communism could be - they think that Hollywood,Disney,T.V. soaps and The Spice Girls etc mean that people aren't capable of using or developing cinema, video or recording technology in any authentic human way. None of us can possibly have any idea what a communist culture would be like,how can anyone claim in advance that it would not want to use moving images or recorded sound ?

Do members of G.A. really never go to the cinema or listen to recorded music ? I am prepared to be 'upfront' enough to admit that I do and! yes,I even watch T.v. sometimes.Perhaps G,A. would be 'upfront'enough to state clearly and without equivocation what is implicit throughout this letter - that they want everyone in the world to live using only simple tools made from wood,leather,bone and stones which they happen to find lying around on the ground

I agree entirely that what will make life richer in communism is the establishment of a genuine human community.G.A. should read my letter again I never did say that 'gadgets will make life better,freer and more equal than authentic human community' .I was attempting to look seriously at what sort of technology ('gadgets' if you must) a communist society might choose to use.I wasn't aware that I was arguing for 'moderation' or a 'middle way' between anything least of all communism and 'technocracy' It is an example of C. A. 's dishonesty that they use the word 'technocracy' when what they mean is technology - which I think they will find Subversion are no more eager to abolish than I am.It is a shame that C.A. would rather engage in stupid name-calling than genuine debate.I have been called many things in my time but an anorak totally colonised by Prometheanism' takes the biscuit!!

I do not ignore the extraction of surplus value as the motor of History.In fact I would have thought that was one of the things all communists could agree on. I don't really see what that has to do with the following but here we come to another example of G.A. refusing to understand what my letter sa~s.I did argue quite clearly that tasks in the advanced technology sector 'would only get done if people did find then enjoyable' .G.A. accuse me of not suggesting 'what would become of the technological infrastructure if they did not9 .1 would have thought that this was clear enough from what I wrote but obviously not so let me spell it out If there was a revolution which destroyed capitalism and all forms of domination and alienation and led to a situation where people were genuinely in control of their own lives and it was somehow decided that it wasn't worth maintaining any technology beyond the simplest tools of stone and wood then that is what would h appeflj The point is that I think this is ,to put it mildly,highly unlikely

I did not suggest there should be 'trading through barter systems' What I suggested was that that was part of the primitivists vision of the future

Incidently it is quite wrong to suggest that 'Primitives were loath to trade' Trading is very important to many modern 'primitives and there is convincing evidence that extensive exchange of goods took place over hundreds of miles in prehistoric Europe and Australia centuries before the emergence of agriculture/civilisation/class-society. 'Trade' is presumably one of G.A.s swear words but the mere exchange of goods does not imply relations of inequality and dominance as presumably it did not in prehistoric times

Contrary to what G.A seem to think communism is not something which can only exist at some particular level of technology; a very simple level or as they would put it no technology~Communism is a potential which exists within our species as is evidenced by our capacity for empathy ,solidarity, cooperation ,collective struggle etc and its fulfilment would be the conscious unification of our species on a global level~The essence of communism is full human community,the abolition of the conflict of interest between individual and society, 'Gemeinwesen' if you like.Once this has been achieved we are free to organise our lives as we see fit - and because we will be a conscious part of nature it will go without saying that part of that will be not reducing the autonomy and richness of the rest of the natural world. Just because the history of the last 5,000 years,the history of class-society from Ur to the New World Order ,has been a nightmare of exploitation,oppression and alienation that does not mean that that is all that human beings are capable of once we go beyond the hunteri gatherer mode of reproduction.

all the best

Steve

Hastings

"There was stunned disbelief at the Wales TUC organised 'Right to Work' rally in Cardiff on Saturday when an anarchist strolled from the crowd and hurled a custard pie at their deity on the stage - Tony Benn. It was almost worse than Pieing the Pope at the Vatican. So great was the shock of the assembled Lefty hacks, that our comrade was able to deliver a short speech along the lines of 'Fuck the Right to Work' before being personhandled away by stewards. After this and a brief fingerwagging from the Law, he made a hasty exit from the scene of the outrage...which was just as well because by the time the Lefties recovered consciousness, they were looking annoyed. After this brief highlight the pathetic rally droned on, sending everyone to sleep with its 'No return to the 30s...most reactionary Tory government since...' garbage." (Freedom 2 October 1982)

It is now about two months since I ceased my involvement with the "Wales Against the JSA" (WAJSA) group...and two months since the JSA started to come into force. As I write this I still feel anger, disgust and disappointment at the path that WAJSA has chosen to take. I know other activists who dropped out at the same time share many (but not all) of my feelings. 1

The Decline and Fall of Wales Against the JSA

There had been several repeated attempts in the last 18 months or so to establish a anti JSA/unemployed action group in Cardiff. Activists around the local Trades Council had attempted to start a campaign, and the handful of local anarchists and Earth First!ers 2 were planning to try an set up a "Groundswell"3 group. Amongst the Leftist groups in Cardiff, Militant Labour, the Socialist Labour Party, the Alliance for Workers' Liberty and Cymru Goch were all planning their own anti JSA activity. However, due to a crossover of activists/contacts the various initiatives were combined to form 'Wales Against the JSA' 4 during the summer.

At first things appeared to auger well for the new group. Sectarian differences between the competing politicians seemed to have been put aside. For once it seemed that the ideological trenches had been abandoned 5 . Even more hopeful was the apparent acceptance of the concept of direct action that had been brought to the group by the younger activists with experience in the recent anti-roads, anti-fascist and anti-Poll Tax struggles. Over 10 000 leaflets and posters were produced and distributed outside Job Centres; several thousand homes, in the area of Cardiff that several of us lived in, were leafleted door to door.

However once this routine had been established the first cracks in WAJSA's "unity" started to appear. Now that propaganda was being distributed proposals to back up this "promise of opposition" by starting direct action, were made. These suggestions were not (yet) rejected outright. Instead the political specialists of the various Leftist groups showed a reluctance to get involved themselves or to attempt to get information (such as the location of JSA implementation managers' offices) that might have enabled the rest of us to take some form of action despite our lack of numbers. Pickets/disruptions of Conservative MPs' and councillors' surgeries were discussed. When the relative scarcity of Tories in the area raised logistical problems it was suggested that we target Labour MPs and Councillors nearer by - this idea was hastily postponed by the Leftists who were/are still clinging to their ideas of "putting pressure on Labour" (not very much pressure obviously!).

Although still giving the idea of direct action some sort of lip service the Leftists began arguing for caution and deferment and were slipping back into their tried and tested (and failed) methods of protest. Concentrating instead on "building a demo" and winning support from the Trade Unions. Crucially the Leftists saw the CPSA (the Union of many Benefits Agency and Employment Service workers) as the key to success - not us unemployed. At this stage we still hoped to get numbers of unemployed people into the campaign, hoping that such an influx (even a small one) could swing the balance of WAJSA towards a more pro active and less mediated strategy. Therefore, those of us arguing for action compromised for the sake of "unity".

As time progressed, it became clear (to some of us) that WAJSA hadn't. The date of the demo, and of the implementation of the JSA loomed closer. WAJSA were facing a potentially disastrous demonstration. Most of those arguing strongest for the march (as opposed to direct action) seemed to be the least to build it. There was (not surprisingly) little support from the Trade Unions 6 . Given this, it was suggested that because of a very real possibility that a minuscule turnout for what was being built up by WAJSA as an "All Wales/National demonstration" it might be less damaging to the anti-JSA campaign to either cancel the demo or consider alternative plans. A tiny march would be a display of weakness by WAJSA which could result in a total lack of credibility which we desperately needed. However for many of the leftists the demonstration was, in effect, both the culmination/peak of the campaign in some ways and the campaign itself amounted to the demo, and pleas to the "labour movement". As it turned out, around 150 people, mainly members of the various Leftist groups, trudged around Cardiff city centre in a pathetic spectacle, that at best bemused the Saturday shoppers.

CPSA? NO WAY!

By this point, an even greater problem had developed within WAJSA. Myself, and most of the other activists had effectively dropped out in disillusion and frustration.

Efforts to woo local CPSA activists by the leftists had finally paid off and several Union reps turned up for the weekly WAJSA meeting. This was seen as good news by the many who hoped it would herald a new phase for the campaign. BUT it actually caused the effective death of the sickly since birth WAJSA group.

The CPSA reps showed up and almost immediately launched into an unprovoked and hysterical verbal attack on me and other activists. They accused several of us of plotting physical assaults upon their union members and refused to listen to attempts on our part to explain ourselves. It was obvious that they were reacting to circulars they had seen about "Groundswell" and the "3 strikes" policy 7 . WAJSA was technically part of the Groundswell network - although in practice all this meant was that Groundswell mailings were passed around at the start of meetings. The "3 strikes" tactic had never been mentioned in WAJSA before, never mind discussed or actually planned 8 . The CPSA seemed to take little comfort in this. They then responded equally negatively to all prospects for mutually acceptable action. The idea of BA/ES workers refusing to do JSA work was dismissed as "ultra left nonsense" by a CPSA member and ex-SWPie 9 , who then declared that she would rather union members implemented the JSA than scabs. Suggestions to target the (mutual enemy) management, and perhaps occupy their offices, were denounced as "Mickey mouse terrorism" by a Militant member. The CPSA then stated that they would call the police if we leafleted inside the Job Centre. The Leftists who had previously supported the idea of "direct action" backed the CPSA all the way...

In a scenario that reminded me of arguments with 'fluffies' during the anti CJA struggles - it seemed that those preaching unity and tolerance the loudest were those causing the most division and being the most intolerant of other peoples ideas.

I found myself the secretary of a group whose strategy, tactics, (and the ideology behind it) I was becoming increasingly opposed to. WAJSA's near fetishisation of the CPSA and its 'struggle' had placed it in a position that, it could be argued, was open collaboration with people who: on one hand were willing (reluctantly or not) to carry out the latest of the Government's attacks; and on the other hand acting as a bureaucratic block upon militant action (by us and perhaps by workers in the BA/ES). The CPSA has instead embarked upon a series of one day strikes. Such a strategy is near useless as effective resistance - it does however provide a way of making militant workers harmlessly let off steam 10 . These strikes were also not against the JSA but for security screens to protect them from us. At the same time the CPSA were distributing circulars denouncing the Groundswell network, happily playing along with the Government's divide and rule tactics.

It would obviously have been to our advantage to have had good operational links with the BA and ES workers. But abstract calls for "unity" and "solidarity" are futile unless there is something concrete to base that unity on, and mutual actions of solidarity. No matter how many empty gestures of support and platitudes are made, the reality of the antagonistic relationships between claimant and dole worker remains to be overcome.

Effective solidarity between claimants and dole workers may well be possible, and I genuinely hope that this is happening in other anti JSA groups. Such hopes, however, cannot be allowed to confine or define the activities of these groups as they have in Cardiff. Any grounds for building such solidarity here seem to have been sabotaged by the CPSA. The attitude of the CPSA representatives was disgraceful. They showed little or no interest in trying to actually stop (or even disrupt) the JSA. At best they were merely concerned with saving their own skins from justifiably angry and desperate claimants. At worst they got involved in order to neuter the campaign and prevent any sort of militant action. Instead of solidarity they seemed to arrive with a totally hostile attitude to the campaign.

The Leftists in the campaign (with the exception of the younger SLP members) fell in behind the CPSA. This was partly due to their own Party lines of "pressure the Unions" etc., but it was also down to the composition of membership (actual and potential): white collar, public service workers. When it came to the crunch they chose to side with their own kind as opposed to the "lumpenproletariat" unemployed.

One argument used in defence of the CPSA and BA/ES workers is that they should not be held personally responsible (either individually or collectively) because "they are only doing their jobs". "Only doing my job" has never been a justification or an excuse for anti working class behaviour - which implementing the JSA indisputably is. The same Leftists making excuses for BA/ES workers have no hesitation in (rightly) holding scabs, bailiffs etc. responsible for their actions. I realise that BA/ES workers did not choose to implement the JSA when they first took their job. However they should not have been in much doubt as to the repressive nature of their job (although I accept that they were probably not aware of just what degree of repression). I also accept that using this line of argument, it could be claimed that anyone who engages in any economic activity (waged labour, buying, even stealing) may be playing a role in the "reproduction of capital" and therefore acting in a manner which is (ultimately) anti working class. But there are obviously degrees of intent and consciousness of the nature of my particular activity. Scabbing is qualitatively and quantitatively more consciously and explicitly anti proletarian than working for the dole has been. However the comparison between dole worker and scab or bailiff will, and has, been made by claimants who the BA/ES workers by their actions act in a repressive manner toward.

I am not arguing that, because of this, BA/ES workers should bear the full brunt of anti-JSA resistance. Rather, that while I would welcome any BA/ES worker who is genuinely interested in fighting the JSA; the CPSA have no right and are in no position to turn up to anti-JSA meetings and start making demands of the people that they are going to be attacking as their job (and then have the arrogance/ignorance and insensitivity to deny they are doing anything " wrong"). They cannot simply pass the buck to "The Tories". They have to accept responsibility for the position that they are in and the function they will perform i.e. the nature of their work, before there can be any basis upon which to plan meaningful mutual action and solidarity.

Unfortunately in Cardiff such solidarity, as we have seen, has been made near impossible by the stance of the CPSA. WAJSA was left with a choice as to whose side it was really on - it seems to have chosen to act more like a CPSA support group than an anti JSA group.

The Role of the Cardiff Unemployed Workers' Centre

Another point of confusion (but not outright conflict) was the nature of the relationship with the local TUC Unemployed Workers' Centre which was being established simultaneously by several people in WAJSA.

Whilst some WAJSA activists had reservations about the Centre, most of us raised no objections and, indeed, saw the Centre as a potentially good thing and even got involved. It was, however, agreed to keep the Centre and WAJSA strictly separate in a formal sense, despite the overlap in personnel. Unfortunately some people could not keep the two separate - using WAJSA to build the Centre. This caused a problem (as well as general confusion) when it was realised that some of the actions being proposed might jeopardise the centre's desired funding from the TUC and the local Labour council. It was suggested that people involved in the Centre "refrain" from anti JSA activity - when it became clear that people would, if pushed, drop the Centre rather than campaigning this matter was dropped.

Unfortunately the illusions that some involved in the Centre had in the Trade Union movement - to the virtual exclusion of everything else - meant that the dispute within WAJSA was reproduced at the Centre with the result that some of those who had walked out of WAJSA also quit the Centre.

I'm So Bored With the JSA

In addition to these problems the Leftists within WAJSA seemed hell bent on turning campaign activity into a chore. Meetings and activity became boring and lifeless. Suggestions of getting a "pop group" to play at an anti JSA rally were accepted - but the Leftists showed more enthusiasm when they were discussing which politician or bureaucrat they wanted to give a speech. They seemed to be under the impression that a Labour MP would be more of an attraction than the Manic Street Preachers...How can we expect anyone else to get involved in our campaigns if we make our own activities so mind-numbingly boring and banal?

Career Opportunities

"Is it worth the aggravation, to find yourself a job when there's nothing worth working for?" 11

Another potential source of dispute within the anti JSA movement(s) is the issue of work.

Those anti JSA campaigners orientated towards the TUC (and therefore this includes most of the Leftist groups) are campaigning around the slogan of "Jobs Not JSA". This may seem like a reasonable demand to many liberal/Leftist campaigners who are in work. However most unemployed activists realise that (because of the experience of our daily lives) the JSA is designed to give people jobs. One major plank of the JSA is force the unemployed into work. Albeit not the kind of work that the TUC et al would campaign for. Jobs with such poor conditions and low wages that even those who believe in the dignity of labour would see the (pre JSA) dole as a preferable option. In such circumstances to "raise the demand" of "Jobs Not JSA" is both in bad taste and patently absurd.

However, we do not have a scenario of the mass refusal of work. Benefit levels have been pushed so low that living on social security is not something that is commonly done out of choice 12 . Never Work! is not an option - just an unpleasant reality for many who have been left 'on the scrapheap' by capitalist restructuring. More than 20 years of such restructuring has created vast number of enforced unemployed and simultaneously has driven down benefit levels.

It must also be noted that if the current attacks are successful and the experiments in workfare are generalised - then we will be working even when we are on the dole.

Do They Owe Us A Living?

Obviously any campaign/group/movement that hopes to develop a successful strategy to resist the JSA has to have some analysis of the JSA and place it in context. Without this any strategy against the JSA will also be out of context and therefore almost certainly doomed to fail on its own terms.

Unfortunately too many liberals and Leftists involved in WAJSA have made little attempt to place the JSA in context. Some merely see it as an unprovoked attack upon the unemployed/low waged, made because of malice upon the part of "The Tories" and/or as a means of reducing social security spending in order to give pre election tax cuts. No doubt the government will milk as much electoral propaganda as it can out of "cutting spending - cutting taxes" and "clamping down on dole scroungers". But the JSA was not introduced in an attempt to swing a few floating votes - this is merely a bonus.

Others have identified the JSA as the latest in a series of attacks upon the working class. Unfortunately this analysis was not followed through and was left as an almost moralistic view. Only seeing it as an attempt by 'The Tories' to drive down wages and conditions with no explanation as to why...other than painting it in simplistic "Tories and Bosses versus labour movement" battle terms. Viewing it on this level has left the Leftist groups pursuing the usual tortuous arguments about pressurising the Labour/TUC readerships and talk of "anger at the Tories". Given the Labour Party's (and TUC's) current and historical support for measures along the lines of the JSA 13 , the bankruptcy of this strategy and analysis should surely be obvious.

I make no claim to present a complete, or even particularly incisive analysis of the JSA. But, I will make a few observations that will hopefully provide a modest contribution to the debate.

The JSA is only a part of an international trend. Across the world governments are introducing various forms of "austerity measure"; we only have to look at recent struggles in France, Greece, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Canada and Australia (to name but a few) to see how widespread and varied these measures are (and the resistance to them). In the EU these measures are often in the guise of striving to meet the self-imposed conditions for EMU - the reality of this is an attempted crack down on wages, conditions and spending across the EU. The JSA is one part of the British governments' strategy to shift to a lower waged economy with a smaller and more restrictive welfare state.

This international shift by Capital follows the destruction of the post war "Keynesian' compromise. In an attempt to pacify the "revolting" international working class Capital pursued a policy of "full" employment, rising living standards, higher wages etc. However the revolts of the late 60s and early 70s wrecked this policy. Proletarians had TVs, fridges and holidays in the sun but they still weren't happy! The combativity of the working class forced Capital into a crisis. Capital has responded with "long term austerity with the purpose of enforcing work".

"The purpose of the capitalist strategy is to tilt the relationship between unpaid and paid labour, between capital and wage, back to a position that forcibly re establishes the pre eminence of unpaid over paid labour." 14

More work - less money.

Capital launched a massive attack upon wages and conditions coupled with the deliberate creation of mass unemployment. Simultaneously an equally massive attack was launched upon the rapidly increasing levels of benefit.

Given the militant resistance some governments are facing to their austerity measures - and the memory of the way in which working class revolt destroyed the Keynesian compromise before it - the JSA is also useful for the British government in the way that it will divide and weaken the working class. The relationship between some claimants and some dole workers illustrated in this letter is a graphic example of this. The JSA will also, as has been seen by the Left, weaken collective action by workers because of increasing pressure upon the unemployed to take any job, including scabbing, and the increased fear of unemployment for those in work. Such a weakened and scared working class will prove easier to inflict further attacks upon.

It is interesting to note that most of the effective struggles in recent years have been outside (and sometimes against) the traditional cops of the Left/Trade Union leaderships. In Britain the anti-roads, anti-Poll Tax, anti-Live Exports movements, the Liverpool Dockers, Reclaim The Streets, postal service wildcats etc. (and lorry drivers actions EU wide) show hints of a small, but potentially significant shift towards struggle outside the agreed lines of the TU/Left methods of one day strikes and days of action. These trends and the links/generalisations being made between the various struggles could prove an explosive headache for the Government when the next wave of attacks are introduced.

Of course, the current "crisis of representation" does not mean that the Left and the Unions have lost their ability to recuperate struggles - as the example of the Miners in 1992 or the CPSA's current strategy show. Indeed the Unions and the labour movement are capable of a shift "left" if they need to, the Unions seem to be doing this in the current Renault dispute. The launch of the SLP in Britain may possibly provide a left cover for such during a Blair government...then again it may not.

The JSA cannot be looked at in isolation:

"to fight on single issues in isolation is to fall into a carefully prepared trap - we cannot even win the argument." 15

The JSA is part of a generalised attack upon our class. Our response has to be equally generalised.

The conclusion I have drawn from all this is that the implosion of WAJSA (as a campaigning group) was a product of the political poverty of the Left. As such its failure is liable to be reproduced in any similar "united front". Each of the conflicts about tactics, the CPSA, the Labour Party etc. sprang from ignorance of the reality of everyday life in the social factory for large sections of our class who do not work in stable, organised, unionised workplaces ( or who do not work at all) coupled with a failure to place the JSA within the context of an international, generalised and long-term strategical assault upon the working class. The vacuum left by this lack of analysis was filled by the tired ideas of the Leftists that have made many a struggle impotent. The lack of understanding of the intra-class conflicts that the JSA was designed to inflame led to the application of so-called workerist ideas. Unfortunately the only workers the Left seemed to see were the CPSA and their "struggle". WAJSA's tactics were also designed to appeal towards the TUC/Labour Party and those who have illusions in them. Unfortunately decades of pandering to such illusions has left the Left unable to raise themselves above "Trade Union Consciousness". Such a futile strategy has left WAJSA unable to win even its own limited goals - the defence of the status quo...and they wonder why the unemployed and low-waged ignore them.

"there is a certain kind of professional who claims to represent us...the MPs, the Communist Party, the Union leaders, the social workers, the old-old left...All these people presumed to act upon our behalf. All of these people have certain things in common...THEY always sell out...THEY are all afraid of us...THEY'LL preach towards keeping the peace...and we are bored...poor and very tired of keeping the peace...To believe that OUR struggle could be restricted to the channels provided to us by the pigs, WAS THE GREATEST CON. And we started hitting them." 16

Wales Against the JSA is dead, the Left carry on - ever get the feeling you've been conned?

Stuart Bracewell
(ex-Secretary, WAJSA)
December 1996

• 1Of a group that never consisted of more than 20, 7 or 8 of us quit more or less simultaneously, over roughly the same issues. Unfortunately our experience with WAJSA has left us with little enthusiasm or energy to establish any alternative.
  
• 2Unfortunately there were not enough anarchists or EF!ers to re-launch the by now dormant Cardiff EF! group let alone anything else.
• 3"Groundswell" is an autonomous 'national' network of anti - JSA and claimants action groups.
• 4Although the activists were almost exclusively based in Cardiff the couple who weren't and the various groups involved (using their contacts/numbers) hoped to spread WAJSA across Wales (this never really happened, although the group remained in contact with scattered people across South Wales).
  
• 5Possibly to the small sizes of each group and a specious unity in opposition to/competition with the absent SWP and perhaps due to the turns many of these groups are making to woo the "young eco - warriors" to their side. Groups "represented" included: Alliance for Workers Liberty, Anarchist Communist Federation, Cardiff Anarchists, Cymru Goch, Earth First!, Militant Labour (now the "Socialist" Party), Socialist Labour Party, Workers Power and WRP (Workers Press). The rest of the left (CPB, SWP) and the likes of the Labour Party and Plaid Cymru were also approached.
• 6Apart from (as we've seen) the trades council and ironically the MSF branch that some of us who had placed no emphasis on the unions at all belonged to.
  
• 7For example the CPSA's "three strikes and you're out" memo to their ES section in Leeds condemning "various fringe anti - JSA groups around the country operating under the banner of Groundswell".
  
• 8Having said this, I discussed three strikes with some of those who dropped out and the feeling amongst many of us is, maybe we should have advocated three strikes from the start!
• 9Despite the SWP's (relative) strength in the CPSA in Cardiff, they were conspicuous by their absence from WAJSA apart from the usual placards and papers on the demo. They did have a couple of members show up, but only as representatives of the CPSA. One long term SWPer explained to me that their absence was due to the fact that they'd "had enough of meetings and that during the poll tax".
  
• 10I was put on JSA during one of these one day strikes so they are obviously not that effective!
• 11Oasis "Cigarettes and Alcohol", Creation Records.
• 12Currently changes to Housing Benefit are proving equally effective in attacking the unemployed. In my case I can handle the JSA (so far!) but housing benefit changes have effectively cut my giro by around ten pounds a week. It is also interesting to note that these changes follow hot on the heels of the squatting laws in the CJA.
  
• 13Both the Labour Party and the TUC have supported "work camps" for the unemployed in the past.
• 14Midnight Notes, "Midnight Oil" Autonomedia, 1992, p122.
• 15Larry Law, "The Bad Days Will End", Spectacular Times, 1983, p13.
• 16Angry Brigade Communique 7, March 18th 1971.
  

Dear Subversion

In our opinion the articles in issues 19 and 20 on the Job Seekers Allowance were valuable contributions to an understanding of this issue. If we could contribute a few words on the dole workers who are implementing the JSA.

In some ways this appears to refer to the freedom versus determinism debate in philosophy: how much is our behaviour authentically free and how much is it determined by social circumstances?

Some dole workers, and their supporters, appear to be arguing that they have no freedom at all over what do, "I'm only doing what I'm told."

In a situation where trade union reformism is starkly revealed as an ideology and practice where it is seen as perfectly acceptable for one group of workers to progress by oppressing another group, it is worth looking at their arguments systematically. For ease of presentation we have done this in a question and answer format.

Why pick on me? It's not my fault if the Government have brought in the Job Seekers Allowance. I'm only doing what I'm told.

This is the sort of argument that junior civil servants in the Employment and Benefit Agencies use to try to justify their part in enforcing this oppressive measure. The officials behind the counters in local dole offices claim that this is unfair for them to be targeted by their angry clients. They say that they are not personally responsible for the polices which attack the poor. Thus they cannot be held to blame. But this defence does not hold water.

If someone knowingly and willingly does bad things, even if that person was not the originator of the policy, then this is wrong. The fact that those immediately implementing the JSA did not dream it up makes no difference. Unemployed people are being oppressed by 'the system' but implementing the system are people who have names and addresses.

If I don't do it someone else will.

Maybe, but another person acting wrongly is no justification for doing the same thing yourself. Two wrongs don't make a right.

I'm not getting paid much to do it; some dole office workers receive a benefit top-up themselves.

If doing something is bad then it does not matter how much you get paid for doing it. It's still bad if you do it for a lot of money or nothing at all.

I try to give a bit of advice to the people I have to deal with.

This is just self deception. Trying to justify implementing the JSA by saying that you water it down a bit won't wash. You are still enforcing a fundamentally unjust and bad policy. Smiling at the victim just adds insult to injury.

I'm a good trade unionist who's gone on strike to demand my bosses give me adequate protection from angry clients.

All you are worried about is yourself. There is nothing virtuous about taking industrial action in support of a bad cause. Trade union action taken to try to make it easier to implement anti-working class measures is no good. (Benefit workers need screens when the dole offices already have 'hot links' to the police, are covered in closed circuit TV cameras and patrolled by thuggish security guards? It might appear to some that it is the claimants who are being intimidated.)

If I refuse to enforce the JSA I'll lose my job.

This is possible but there are some things more important than having a job: like integrity. Anyway you could try to get a transfer into another part of the Civil Service or move out into another job. Sure, this is not easy with mass unemployment but if you go along with the JSA where will it lead?
Rounding up unemployed people and putting them into work camps? (The already piloted Project Work is a straight slave labour scheme). Deporting those originating from abroad? Where will this creeping fascism end? At the Nuremburg trials the usual defence of those who participated in the Nazi extermination programme was: "I was only doing my job." As a matter of history the Nuremburg court dismissed the, 'I was only obeying orders' defence as illegitimate.

Also, this type of argument is an insult to many people on the dole who have refused to take scab jobs (and been attacked by benefit workers for not doing so). The unemployed workers who have refused to take the jobs of the Liverpool dockers, in an area where unemployment can last a lifetime, should be commended for obeying basic working class principles of solidarity at no little cost to themselves. In an environment where trade unionists routinely cross picket lines such struggles indicate important pockets of resistance to capitalist to capitalist oppression.

But it is not just actual scab jobs. Why should unemployed people be thought of as some kind of sub-humans (Untermenschen) for whom any kind of McJob or dubious work will do? If someone does not want to attack poor and vulnerable people by becoming a debt collector then they should be supported. If someone does not want to attack unemployed people by becoming a Restart 'tutor', a job which entails becoming a part of the propaganda offensive which attempts to blame the unemployed themselves for unemployment rather than the irrational capitalist economic system, then they should be supported. If someone simply does not want to work for trash wages at a pizza outlet then they should be commended not condemned. Lower echelon dole and SS workers have always occupied a contradictory class location. Whilst being subject to oppression and relative low pay themselves they have, nevertheless, exercised an important supervisory role over unemployed working class people. With the implementation of the JSA the role of 'frontline' staff at the dole office has been changed for them from one of administration to much more of a policing role. For example, the Job Seekers Directive. It is ridiculous to imagine that claimants can have unity with dole office staff who can collect a bounty for 'shopping' them. Performance related pay means that the dole workers will have a financial incentive to disallow claims.

Serious anti-JSA groupings need to confront the fact that workers operate in conflict, as well as unity, in order that they can genuinely represent the interests of the unemployed in any intra-class conflictual situation. If people want to try to make themselves all right by abusing others, then they should not be too surprised if those abused sometimes bite back.

Two comrades from Nottingham.

Having had discussions with the rest of the SUBVERSION group it now seems that there is in fact little objection to my article of the previous issue. Certainly the claim of "disagreements of a serious nature" has been found to be illusory.

However, it does seem appropriate that I briefly examine the objections that were originally made to the article and that I elaborate some things which seem not to have been clear.

Key Sectors

There was a lot of problem with this phrase amongst the group. Even though I explained in the original article that all I meant by this phrase was jobs where some level of class conflict seemed to be going on, where this struggle has the potential to further radicalise the workers involved. If people support the struggle of the productive, or toiling, class against the owning class then it makes sense that they get into situations where this struggle is a daily reality, for their own sanity if nothing else!

Obviously moving from one job to another will become more difficult as you get older, which is why I should really have said in the original article that this was an appeal to younger people (under 40 years or so perhaps). But moving jobs is not as difficult as some people make out, unless you don't want to lose the high "middle-class" wages, or comfy little job, that you can currently command!

Under and Over

It was suggested that I "underestimated" the personal and practical dificulties for revolutionaries in targetting certain jobs. However, just because something may be a little difficult that does not make it an invalid thing to do. This kind of objection smacks of guilt! Obviously it will be easier for younger people to make sure they mess up any chance they have of getting a good and "socially worthy" career before it is too late

It was also suggested that I "overestimated" the influence of what would (at this time) be fairly marginal shifts in the work locations of revolutionaries. However, a few revolutionaries in one particular industry can have a big effect, when, in the past, revolutionaries have started to become a presence in workplaces they have usually had an influence seemingly out of proportion to their numbers. In this respect it is useful to look at the influence "rank-and-file" groups (their dodgy union politics aside) have had in the past.

I think it would be good to encourage the building of a culture amongst radicals in which we took jobs for the potential to escalate the class struggle rather than taking jobs for the money or an easy life.

Greed and Gluttony

It was also suggested that I was arguing for the creation of some sort of "super militant" "professional elite" who sacrificed their own needs and desires to the need for "the organisation" to have influence. However, I'm not arguing that any "organisation" should seek to increase its influence in our class in this respect, only that individual revolutionaries should seek to increase their influence - it is only natural that revolutionaries will already be in contact with each other, what would be interesting would be when they start acting in a unified way at their workplaces. At present there is no "organisation of revolutionary workers" to speak of, this will only come about through joint activity and positive intervention in class struggles. As for sacrificing our own needs and desires, this turn of phrase makes it sound like our needs and desires are different to those we espouse in our publications, if our needs and desires are somehow "anti-working class" then we've gone badly wrong somewhere in our life!

The purpose of my article (and the interview with Volker in this issue) was to stir up some thought amongst our readers as to what type of work they are doing or might be considering to do. That's all.

The "March for Social Justice" on April 12th illustrates well the contradictions involved in the struggle of the Liverpool Dockers and the broader movement of which it is part.

There is for instance the title of the march and the "people's charter for social justice" to which it is linked - an attempt to take the struggle down a straightforwardly reformist, i.e. bourgeois democratic path.

However, in this article I want to talk specifically about the violent confrontation (the 'riot', 'mini-riots' whatever people want to call it) between some of the demonstrators and the cops and some of the response to it.

Some people who consider themselves on the said of the working class struggle nonetheless saw fit to condemn those working class people who fought with the cops, accusing them of 'spoiling' what was a 'peaceful event' or words to that effect.

Subversion's position is quite clear. We fully support working class resistance to the police, the state and the ruling class, whatever form that takes, violent or otherwise.

On the other hand, we are well aware of the need for violence to be on our own terms and our own 'turf' - some violence on demos has frankly been stupid from a tactical point of view. (These ideas were well explored in the recent 'Hungry Brigade' leaflet.)

We further recognize that the more the class struggle escalates, the more the ruling class will resort to violent suppression - our class has to be prepared to meet fire with fire.

It is to be expected that all manner of liberals and moderates will raise their voices in outrage whenever the working class uses violent means. This includes a significant part of those false-friends of the class, the left.

The 'cancer of moderation' also exists among some of the dockers themselves, and among a part of Reclaim the Streets, which is a somewhat amorphous group containing a significant liberal element alongside a class-struggle element.

And if the local Liverpool Daily Post is all to be believed, this attitude has been expressed in no uncertain terms by Mike Carden, a leader of the dockers' struggle widely respected among the dockers involved.

It quotes his words as follows:

"Those people who caused the trouble have nothing to do with the dockers. We don't want them on our demonstrations. We're disgusted at the way they behaved.

"It was very sad and it blighted what should have been a peaceful day ...

"We didn't see much of the trouble because we were at the front of the march. But we were surrounded by riot police and kept in the Trafalgar Square area for over an hour. My son was very frightened...

"The first we knew of trouble was when we saw a flare set off in Downing Street, but we still didn't know how far things had gone.

"We've always had good relations with environmental groups. But if we find Reclaim the Streets were involved, we'll sever links with it."

(Daily Post, Monday April 14th, page 13)

It has been suggested that the above comments are a distortion of Mike Carden's views, but it is difficult to see what 'context' could excuse it. Unless it is a straight fabrication by the Daily Post.

Whatever the truth of the above, the dockers' stewards have given their official statement in the
Dockers' Charter #15. In this, although they blame the police and the press (with some justification), they still bemoan the fact that the 'peaceful objectives' of the march were thwarted, and declare their support for 'democratic principles' and 'justice'.

Moderation is a mindset that finds its wellspring in the idea that the state is in some sense NEUTRAL - an impartial arbiter standing above and apart from social conflict. Given the dockers' own experiences at the hands of the police and previous articles in the Dockers' Charter on the role of the police, such 'moderation' on their part is a little surprising to say the least.

Let us state the number one lesson for revolutionaries: THE STATE IS NOT NEUTRAL. It cannot be persuaded. It cannot be reasoned with. It doesn't have our interests at heart - only those of our rulers. It will not hesitate to use whatever violence it sees fit in order to crush opposition.

The ideas of 'Justice', 'Democracy' etc. are just con tricks to keep us poor slaves happy.

THERE IS NO JUSTICE - JUST US!