Is the workers movement dead? Are the problems of the present too great to overcome?

That's a good question but also one that makes me sad. When I left school just under 40 years ago, there was still a basic level of class consciousness and cohesion, workers generally knew what a picket line was for and strikes were at a massive high. The down side was the chronic racism, sexism, homophobia... and the Black and White Minstrel Show and Miss World was still on telly.

These days, it's a case of 'what workers' movement and what's the hell's a picket line?' Individualism and atomisation are at an all time high. We've still got the racism, sexism and homophobia as well, but it's a bit more nuanced. Telly's worse than ever, if people bother to unhook themselves from their smartphones to watch it.

We're fighting a rearguard action - possibly starting from scratch. It's not even as if I can point to anywhere else in the world where the revolutionary class struggle grass is greener either. So I'm not optimistic but will keep hanging on there. After all, who knows what's around the corner and what could start to unify elements of the class. But we are at the level of class consciousness oases in a capitalist desert rather than any mass movement. And that's if we're lucky.

I would love to be wrong.

I agree with Serge's post. Basically the working class is completely disorientated and has lost even the most basic understanding of its self and its traditions of struggle etc. However it is becoming clearer and clearer that working class unity and revolution is the only hope for humanity. It looks like it is going to go down to the wire in terms of whether or not there will be a revolution and the establishment of communism or the collapse/destruction of humanity/civilization. (this century is definitely going to be a hugely important and eventful one either way).

Perhaps it will be a blessing in disguise in that when the workers finally do get there act together they will have dropped the baggage of past struggles and failures and will be able to reassess and re-evaluate the tasks at hand in a fresher way.....maybe. My feeling is that the workers will only do this when it is absolutely shown that we can't carry on living under capitalism.

It's a fools hope really but still it's the only hope we've got.

If the workers' movement is dead...deceased and other such synonyms from the Python's dead parrot sketch... and not merely dormant then what do you suggest we all do since our raison d'etre for being on this forum is to assist in our small ways the revival of the workers' movement?

If it is dead and not just inactive, our attempts to breathe life back into it is simply self-delusion and we should all direct our energies to other matters. What are those other choices for people to take up.

I personally do not dismiss the workers' movement as dead but merely off on the wrong direction. Our political role is to put up sign-posts indicating the correct path.

Naturally, some of us argue that the others here on Libcom have the wrong map and the wrong destination and are using sign-posts that point the wrong way into side-tracks and dead-ends. But part of Libcom's purpose is to set an agreed course for us all to take.

I suggest for starters that we begin to share our compass in a comradely manner.

Not sure about breathing life back into it as that's not really our job. A revolutionary movement can only develop out of a politicised working class. The class is currently not politicised but is massively de-politicised. So what I reckon should be our job is to keep on fighting, involve ourselves in resistance as and when it arises and to develop and put forward revolutionary ideas rooted in social and economic reality while maintaining the proverbial 'thin red line'.

'Worker' is an identity that doesn't fully encompass humanity, and identifying as one through class solidarity only represents a portion of our being. I mean, we don't want to be workers in the first place, everyone hates work. That is universally recognized. So it's no wonder that people don't want to organize around this identification, they want to escape from it. As long as there is always capital and labor people will stress under the weight of its system, whatever form it happens to take. Doesn't mean they'll revolt... but humans are very complex animals... we all dream of freedom.

If capitalism collapses, and it is slowly but surely collapsing into its decomposition, then the working class along with the rest of humanity is probably doomed. I don't think that we are anywhere near that situation. I think that the idea of a previous proletarian "culture" and socialised proletarian communities existing 30 or 40 years ago is overblown. I was involved in a few strikes at that time and they were going precisely nowhere, certainly nowhere in a revolutionary direction or a direction of revolt. And the tight-knit mining communities (just like the steel communities before it) turned out to be a major disadvantage in the strike of 84, where the corporatism and federalism of the NUM and the miners' "identity" was allowed to do its dirty work.

I agree with Jaycee on the present significant disorientation of the working class and I agree with Serge's second post about the maintenance of the "red thread". The 1905 reference from el psy is interesting because one moment workers in Russia were marching behind Father Gapon and appealing to their benevolent Tsar and the next moment the greatest independent workers' organisations were created by the same people but this time class conscious. Similar with the nationalist fervour that gripped youth everywhere just before WW1. A few years later and the greatest proletarian movement in history.

The bourgeoisie are very strong. There's no doubt about that. But the working class are still there, still running everything, still producing everything. It's that position that gives it a chance of producing a mass movement that can generate consciousness. Serge's red thread is vital to maintain.

I like that some are attempting to find the silver lining to our current situation. If, as Serge says, we can maintain the thin red line and as jaycee mentioned, be in a position where the divisive elements such as racism and homophobia are eliminated, it certainly would put us in a stonger position. That said, I'm always reminded of the quote that we aren't weak because we are divided; we are divided because we are weak.

I'm also interested in the concept that people have rejected organizing as workers due to their hatred of their role as workers. I don't think the idea can be simply dismissed, but I also do wonder if this isn't a hindsight perspective, kind of justifying our losses?

I posted this in the Presidential thread earlier today before I saw this thread, but it is equally pertinent here.

I don't think it's very controversial to say that the Democratic/Labor Party version of neoliberalism is the most brutally effective class weapon in the history of the Labor vs. Capital battle. Now we are faced with the prospect of a divided,
weak, and nearly defeated worldwide workers' movement attempting a last stand against a global far right xenophobic authoritarian nationalist movement. If we're incapable of turning back the tide, we will be looking down the barrel of the "New Gig Economy," and an impending ecological disaster. This in turn will almost certainly create so-called Climate Migrants and--when placed in conjunction with the tide of xenophobia-- the very real prospect of genocide on a previously unimaginable scale.

I think, given it's level of importance to a future class movement, we haven't really discussed the gig economy nearly enough. I wrote something very similar in the discussion under Chili's blog on the gig economy, but I think a lot of it bears repeating here.

I can't help wonder --

1) if social democracy represented concessions to a militant working class movement in an effort to stave off revolution and
2) neo-liberalism simultaneously represented the ruling class' fight-back against those concessions as well as their effort to destroy the workers' movement itself, then
3) does the gig economy--once fully implemented--represent Capital's victory lap, the ultimate crushing of the vestiges of the working class movement? And is it possible that this ultimate victory would eventually eliminate the proletariat as an agent of revolution?

In the US, classifying workers as independent contractors is an ingenious, if despicable, way of eliminating pretty much every 20th century labor law (except perhaps the abolition against child labor). The Gig Economy turns the clock backwards by dialing it forward with automation and other technological advances, and the resultant prospective future is defintionally dystopian. (Even if, as many have suggested, the very worst excesses of this future were somewhat mitigated by introducing some form of UBI.)

The already precarious position of organizing on the job under normal employment circumstances becomes nearly impossible in a contract employment situation, as one no longer needs to fear termination; instead the employer simply stops scheduling troublesome staff. Things like the NLRB and local labor administrations are traditionally not particularly reliable for protecting on the job organizing, but they do tend to somewhat tame the worst union busting tactics. If one is labeled an Independent Contractor, those paper-thin protections cease to exist.

With no paid time off, no health insurance (or sometimes even no on-the-job accidental insurance) or any other benefits traditionally associated with employment, amongst many other things, the gig economy completely shifts all of the costs of reproduction of labor onto the individual worker.

Additionally, in the US many of our social programs are funded by a combination of worker and employer payroll deductions, but independent contractors are responsible for both portions. As there is no automatic tax withholding for contracted workers, the burden of saving back and paying these taxes is soley the individuals' responsibility. This is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for those making subsistence 'wages'. As a result, social programs, like in this example, Social Security will be starved of resources and whither away much more quickly than many of the current, already dire, projections.

Now that Trump's victory gives us a definitive answer on the global rise of the far right, fighting this battle will almost certainly be a more difficult prospect. The Deliveroo organizing campaign is a small ray of hope that organizing as workers in the gig economy isn't an entirely impossible prospect yet, but it is a very small glimmer of hope in comparison to our weak status as a whole.

I'm really interested to hear what others think. Does Trumpism represent Capital's attempt to break the proletariat's neck, once and for all, in an effort to preemptively beat back the possibility for opposition to the new economy? Are social programs funded in a similar fashion in the UK and Europe? At this point, I haven't seen much written about how the gig economy has the potential to completely destroy the social safety net, but I think we'll begin hearing about this aspect before too much longer.

Edited to fix an incorrect attribution.

Hey, so I think that this a really important discussion and its def something I've been mulling over in my head recently (and I'm sure I'm not the only one). In response to the question as to the slow response: I think it's a sign of how serious the question is that answers feel difficult to give..

To start with your second question: there definitely are a lot of problems! I mean, the international swing towards chauvinistic nationalism, the general tendency for increasingly authoritarian forms of govt mixed with different shades of neo-liberalism, the biggest displacement of human beings since WW2 (or ever?), climate change, automation, the gig economy etc etc.. at this point it is really difficult to see how things could get better and even if they do, imo things are still prob going to get worse first..

That apocalyptic sentiment does still need putting in historical context though: when people say 'all tyrants/tyrannies fall' (whether from internal problems, some fuck up or another, or the leader holding it together dying), it's true.

Same is true for the gig economy: I'm not sure it represents anything except for a new way of using technology to maximise profits and undermine pay and conditions (and also workers' organisation, though I think this is more a side-effect rather than explicit aim as there wasn't a whole lot of organisation to start with). I don't have the Beverly Silver's Forces of Labor to hand, but I think in that she talks about 'technological fixes' have happened historically: like, the mechanised loom was supposed to undermine the strength of textile artisans but then textile factory workers became the bedrock of labour movements across the world (and still are in some places). Same with Fordism: it was billed as being able to kill off workers' organisation and in the end provided the basis for it. Postwar consumer society was supposed to have killed off the Western working class.. and then 1968 happened. I think it could potentially be similar with the gig economy; it could give rise to a form of worker organisation that we just can't see yet.

Basically, I think jesuit's concern that the gig economy "eliminates the proletariat as an agent of revolution" is justified but not necessarily the case. More serious on that front is automation as a world which doesn't depend on our work doesn't seem like it can be affected by our struggles. But even here, it's not clear how an economy could function if most people are unemployed and excluded from consumption. So again, maybe after a horrific experiment of mass unemployment, riots, militarised gated communities etc, there might be a move towards Universal Basic Income, which itself could become a focus for social struggle.. which kind of answers the first question: is the workers' movement dead? So I'd say, in part, yes, but only as we've known it..

If I'm being honest tho, I'm not actually sure where I stand on all this: viewed historically, I'm kind of buoyed by the fact that similar things were thought to be fatal blows in the past. But equally, the current situation does look really bleak and like it's gonna get worse (much worse, on all fronts) before it gets better.. that said (you see how changeable I am!), just five years ago it was 2011 and it looked like a new wave of working-class militancy was taking hold of the world. Feels like 50 years now but it just goes to show how fast things can change.

So really all we can do is keep plugging away: if we can't improve conditions, at least defend them. If we can't defend them, at least slow down their worsening. If it wasn't for workers fighting back, it would just be like Clausewitz's 'Absolute War'.. and there have been a few examples of it recently: migrant workers, Durham TAs, Crossrail electricians.. it's no 1968 (or 1936) but they are small rays of hope in this bleak political landscape..

Something I think is currently a big question mark is what happens when all the 'non-political' actors get drawn into the fray.

For a long time 'Politics' has been something that only the directly engaged have been involved in. It has been perfectly acceptable to say 'I don't do politics', and the majority have done. To live their lives as if politics and the political world was somehow separate from their daily existence.

Anecdotally, among my friends and acquaintances, I've seen something of a collapse in this cosy division. There is a growing realisation that not only is all this politics intruding on their lives, but a growing feeling that they may actually need to do something. They don't know what, due to lack of experience and knowledge, but that impetus to act seems to be growing. If conditions keep worsening, it will only grow more.

All our current projections are based on what will happen if the current politics continues, but really that is a politics that has been built, on both the left and right, by only a tiny portion of the most engaged people. I still think it's a wildcard as to what will happen when the bulk of the population are suddenly forced to make political choices. I think that the 'rightwing surge' is partly due to the fact that they have been the first to see one of these demographic awakenings. I hold out hope that there may be a similar rising on the left - but as with all these things, I don't think it's something we can know or predict.

In the end, it comes down to the same thing others have said. You just keep your head down, keep pushing and keep the faith.

Thanks for those posts Ed & Auto. I've done a fairly decent job of avoiding despair over the past month, but obviously it's tough to keep it at bay sometimes. And I agree with both posts--historically each new development brings it's own counter wave, and I've also seen an increase in engagement from regular non political people over the past month.

I think that in the past there was no concept either.

The gig economy is a return to the past as well, it's not necessarily something that has gone away, look at the casual workers stood outside of places selling building supplies, for example. In the past that's how you worked if you weren't an artisan or tied to a particular job, often on the land.

We are in a difficult position, when I hear about strikes in the past where workplaces would send delegations and strikes would radiate out I feel seriously disheartened, because I can't even imagine doing that. Except that the other day we had a delegation from a nearby striking workplace. We didn't strike, it wasn't even on the table, but still, it is possible. And when we think about the strength in the thirties or afterwards we also have to think of the people who built that in the years before it.

I've been inactive for a fair while now, in part because I don't feel like we can win. But actually there is a possibility and to be honest the future is pretty bleak if we don't. Looks like I've just talked myself into doing something.

This looks like a very interesting thread - I'll have a closer read later. In the meantime, I have a question: Are we closer than ever to Anarcho-Capitalism? I think the lack of class consciousness and elevated political apathy are representative of this. In the Gig Economy we are all independent, private entities whose only way of identifying ourselves is through level of income.

I think what Zizek was saying about Bernie Sanders was correct: that we have gone so far into Capitalism that now even Social Democracy seems "radical".

elraval2

This looks like a very interesting thread - I'll have a closer read later. In the meantime, I have a question: Are we closer than ever to Anarcho-Capitalism? I think the lack of class consciousness and elevated political apathy are representative of this. In the Gig Economy we are all independent, private entities whose only way of identifying ourselves is through level of income.

I think what Zizek was saying about Bernie Sanders was correct: that we have gone so far into Capitalism that now even Social Democracy seems "radical".

That's an interesting question. More than a few of the wealthy, powerful silicon valley supporters of the 'new economy' are simultaneously ancaps, supporters of Trump, and self-described supporters of the so-called Dark Enlightenment/Neo-Reactionary movement. We haven't really spent much time discussing this element of the resurgent far-right. I don't think it represents, numerically, the same amount of support as say, what most think of as the alt-right (though the neo reactionaries are usually placed within this movement). That said, given it's access to vast wealth and influence, they will likely punch above their weight over the next few years.

I’m an optimistic pessimist. As long as capitalism delivered the prospect of material advantages now or in the future, expecting the working class to take a chance on a successful revolution, was a dialogue with the wilfully deaf. Today it is apparent that the existing economic model is destroying the environment, and as the gap widens between the super-rich and the working class the dream of continuing material self-improvement fades. Through advancing technology the professional ‘middle class’ workers face the same fate as blue collar skilled workers met twenty years ago. The rise of the right is symptomatic of workers twisting and turning to find ‘recognisable’ alternatives.

I do not think it is all doom and gloom. People are better educated and it is possible to be better informed than ever before. Conservative instincts like protecting our loved ones, and the things we care about, now challenge us to attempt a social and political metamorphoses. Things will get worse, as capitalism cannot cure itself – and this fact will become clearer with each grotesque manoeuvre of the ruling class. As others have written the task is to continue the struggle until at last the penny drops.

While I agree that all we can do is continue the struggle until at last the penny drops, I don't have any great faith that it's going to drop soon. We've seen the grotesqueries of capitalism develop of the last century and more, from the industrialisation of warfare still fought mostly between armies to the mass destruction of civilian targets as a matter of policy, ecological catastrophes exacerbated by capitalism's failure to protect people or their environment, the creation of the potential for a world of plenty in the midst of economic degradation for the majority of the planet - and the penny hasn't yet dropped. What more will it take?

Sometimes I think, 'the working class has failed'. Well, obviously that's true; it failed to successfully prosecute world revolution in 1917-27. It failed to reach the same level of failure in 1968-89. It failed to even reach that level of failure in 2006-12 or thereabouts. The responses of the working class to the toxic development (one might even say obsolescence or decadence) of capitalism over the last century (and a half?) have been insufficient to change the course of human development. So, yes, the working class has failed. So far.

But have we failed too? It's all very well for communists to say 'there is no working class movement, nothing to be done, we need to wait for the working class to fight, we're not substitutionists', but if the 'objective conditions' as Trotsky liked to call them are developed (or even, 'over-developed') then what is missing is the 'subjective' - class consciousness. And where does that come from?

I'd argue that the development of class consciousness is primarily a consequence of workers trying to learn lessons from struggles. If there are large-scale struggles then many people will be trying to learn the lessons. If there are only a few/small-scale struggles, few people will be trying to learn the lessons. I take it as axiomatic that that's who we are - the left-over politicised minorities from previous waves (or even ripples) of struggle

Which brings us back to the low level of class struggle, and the idea that communists can only show the working class what it's fighting for, if it is actually fighting. And at the moment it isn't.

We have two options I think. One is continuing to talk to ourselves/each other, until the working class catches up, and the other is to carry on trying to show the working class what it would be fighting for, were it fighting, in the hope (and not more realistically) that somehow, somewhere, a spark might take hold.

I'm really heartened that jef costello works somewhere that just received a delegation of striking workers - that is a little ray of sunshine in the gloom. Maybe the next time workers at jef's workplace are thinking about their grievances over pay, conditions, management harassment or whatever, people will remember that, and take more militant action than they might have done otherwise.

But what role can we play, as (pro-)revolutionaries, politicised elements, militants, whatever term you want to use, to try and spread the lessons? What effect can we have as tiny, unco-ordinated groups, on the general consciousness of the working class?

Any suggestions gratefully received.

the task is to continue the struggle until at last the penny drops.

Exactly, I don't see the penny dropping anytime soon, I think it highly unlikely that it will in my lifetime but that's no reason to not bother trying. I mean, even forgetting the fact there there are material benefits in the present to be had by continuing the struggle there is a responsibility on those that have the information and the understanding to donig what they can to further the chances of the revolution that has to come.

Anarchism is freedom. It's a door to the infinity of freedom and the well being of humanity

Just to work toward such a beautiful idea as that has enormous personal benefits regardless of whether you live to see its manifestation.

el psy

this is my first thread so go easy. ...

I wonder if the slow response so far is due to a total unwillingness to approach the question, perhaps from a perceived "lack of good faith" in the once-mighty proletariat?

If you want people to "go easy" it’s probably better not to start quickly making blanket negative assumptions about posters.

How would you respond to the idea that the working class will not unify and gain collective consciousness until after capitalism collapses?

I’d say – based on what assumptions? I.e. why would it be more likely after a collapse if it had remained passive throughout one? And why would it choose that outcome rather than less desirable ones? Isn’t it at least as likely that an (undefined) unchallenged collapse would fragment people further? And if capitalism can always make the working class pay for its crises why would it ever collapse? Does your question display a “lack of good faith” in the proletariat to act until after it’s been stomped into the dust?

After 30 years of retreat and defeat in class struggle in the west it’s an immense question and, yes, one that questions the basic desires and goals of those who need an end to class society. Serge describes accurately the high-point years of post-war struggles and some of its contradictions. Those contradictions expressed the strengths and limits; eg, ‘the power of unions’ was often actually the unruliness of its members and their wildcat tendencies with leaderships playing catch-up/tailending struggles – but also that workers never fully broke with the union form. And, within a high level of struggle, gender & racial etc divisions could remain and limit advances; and struggles to challenge them could be recuperated into leftist bureaucratic reformism and careerism.

Now the very concepts of collective struggle, of social change achieved through it, never mind revolution (which, even if more often conceived negatively - Citizen Smith on the telly! - was then a much more common concept) are alien or bewildering to most, seem more alien and unlikely than winning the lottery or gaining control of the weather.

But this discussion has been totally from a Western point of view so far; while in the west proles have been under retreat for decades meanwhile there have been some very militant struggles in recent years among the factory proletariat of the east, eg. ; https://libcom.org/library/tailoring-needs-garment-worker-struggles-bangladesh
And, eg, in recent weeks; https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/09/29/hyun-s29.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/11/26/labo-n26.html

Is the workers movement dead?

Do you mean its official representation or the working class self-activity that often clashed with that representation? Some of the communisationists confusingly write as if there were never any difference between them or complexity in their relationship. The old working class and its forms of struggle may be dead, but its representation/mediation remains – unions, labour parties etc – as a reserve army-in-waiting to usher down the reformist path any upsurge in struggles (in the meantime they sell insurance & holidays to union members and Corbynista t-shirts & mugs).

Are the problems of the present (democracy, patriarchy and rape culture, nationalism and racism, the economic crises, the environmental crises, the general degenerate tendency of many aspects of society, along with great centralisation of power and the state apparatus)great to overcome?

Those problems are always with us, since the birth of class society (at least), I doubt they’d be resolved in any sustainable way outside a revolutionary movement. Will they act as obstacles to such a movement or as an inspiration for one? Who knows, maybe both?

Auldbod

I do not think it is all doom and gloom. People are better educated and it is possible to be better informed than ever before.

Possible, yes; and if you’d told the politicos of 20-30 yrs ago that, instead of leaving a few copies of pamphlets/papers in obscure bookshops and handing out scrappy leaflets at demos/picket lines, they could have whole slick websites online accessible to billions – then many would’ve assumed a massive impact would follow, rather than the increased isolation and obscurity that actually has. But if the rapid ascent of politicians with crude snake oil propaganda is any measure information is a two-edged sword. Some call this the “post-truth age” and certainly when arguing with anti-immigrant/Islamophobe types, militant brexiteers etc I quickly realised you can’t change their minds with facts that refute the myths they spout; the rational truth is not important to them, what’s important is to have a convenient comforting scapegoat and external excuse for the problems of their lives – once adopted, there is no more necessity to deal with inconvenient ‘facts’. They’d rather keep linking to Daily Mail articles on FB. The internet, the biggest free info library ever; and people mostly keep to their little online corner of it where existing views are mutually reinforced and applauded.

I think it helps to consider that the characteristics of the workers' movement are/were, to an extent, shaped by working conditions themselves. As in the following quote about the rise of the Chartist movement:

the wool combers... received O'Connor's gospel with enthusiasm. Unlike the more taciturn hand-loom weavers they worked in batches, and the discussion of the affairs of the nation, so far from hindering their work, deprived it of its monotony... the combing shops rang with wild denunciations of wrongdoers, or of fervid admiration of the champion of democracy. In the depression years of 1837-40, the wool-combers could earn no more than six to eight shillings a week.

W. Cudworth, Rambles Around Horton, quoted in 1839: The Chartist Insurrection, D Black & C Ford

The wool combers worked together in a quiet environment while the hand-loom weavers worked alone in a noisy environment -- that affected their level of radicalisation. When industrial production was organised on a hierarchical, mass scale, we had hierchical, mass unions with mass meetings and mass stikes to affect mass collective bargaining agreements. Now most workplaces have individualised wage agreements and workers don't work collectively hence the need to encourage 'teamworking' etc. It that situation a far higher degree of radicalisation is required to understand the raison d'etre of supporting a union. Without collective agreements, a union has less relevance to furthering a worker's everyday material needs. I know the worker's movement isn't all about unions but they are pretty fundamental at the mass scale.

So the mass workers' movement is dead mainly because the productive practices that it was part of are dead. The big change being the end of the demand for a mass commitment of labour to production. Now we have the gig economy and the reliance, and thus vulnerability, of capital to the commitment of a large proportion of workers has diminished. There probably needs to be a shift of emphasis away from the dispossessed majority being, for the most part, regarded as productive workers essential to the reproduction of capitalism to just being the dispossessed with a marginal role in capitalism. That's obviously not a welcome development as the 'easy option' of escalating industrial disputes into more general attacks on capitalism has gone away (in post-industrial countries). However, in human terms, the dispossessed were never mainly productive workers. Women, for instance, often either maintained households and/or worked precariously in domestic service. The mass workers' movement had it's own downsides in terms of venerating productive work and the role of the worker.

If we're moving (in the post-industrial world) to a precarious economy based around the Basic Income (BI) -- look the Green Party support it and they lead the way in survival strategies for the bourgeosie -- then we come back the issues of interpersonal communication and organisation. Back in the 1970s, we had Claimant's Union where non-workers started to organise along union lines. If the majority move onto BI then there will be again a mass-aspect to most people's material needs. Although BI hugely unfair - doesn't address differing levels of need, will become poverty level, excludes those from other countries etc. Isn't that an opportunity to take the lessons, and history, of the worker's movement and apply them to building a movement that functions within the changed ecomomic conditions?

Good thread.

Re: organizing around the identity of workers.

Yes, everyone hates work or at least certain aspects of their job, but in my experience, I find people still very much base a large percentage of their identity around the work they do. In my experience, this is actually a big barrier, as the over-identification with the job inhibits people from taking risks and certainly colors participant's perceptions of struggles when they do break out.

Tying in B Reasonable's point about a Basic Income being a potential mass-aspect to struggles and Ed's about how each change in production created it's own unique counter movement, I'm reminded of the studies I've read on UBI trials.

On the whole, those with a Basic Income were more active, rather than less. When they no longer had to worry about thier basic needs, people tended to pursue meaningful activities--educational, artistic, etc. While this is in no way a suggestion that we should be pushing for a UBI, I wonder if, in a fully automated, mass unemployment future with a UBI, people wouldn't have more time and be willing and able to pursue political projects? Especially given that time/childcare and things of that nature are often some of the biggest barriers and largest cause of burnout, and when combined with people being less afraid of getting fired for on-the job organizing, knowing their basic needs are covered, this could be a glimmer of hope for a future movement.

I think most of those problems are things we can do something about. Ok so things like racism, rape culture, patriarchy and nationalism are terrible and unfortunately still pervasive and I don't want to downplay that fact, but still they are things we can challenge in the present and ultimately have the potential as human beings to overcome.

The environmental crisis is terrifying and I am not sure if we've lost the window of opportunity to prevent the worst of climate change yet. The UN's climate scenarios assume that in the future humans will invent technology to suck carbon out of the atmosphere, and I hope we do, but in the meantime we should at least dramatically reduce carbon emissions. That's not going to happen through the capitalist state though and I hope with a climate sceptic as president of the United States environmentalists will finally wake up to that fact and become a lot more radical and a lot more anti-statist as well as anti-capitalist.

The state has always been highly centralised and weaponized, sure today its on a much greater scale, but its not exactly a new problem. Riots and protests and radical uprisings have happened in the past and will continue to do so, no matter how centralised and weaponized the state becomes because its human nature to challenge unjust authority and oppression.

My point is that although incredibly difficult these problems at least aren't impossible to overcome, so there is no point in giving up in that respect neither can we giving the catastrophic consequences of those problems.

Where the problem really is is inaction, all we really have is a philosophy and sure its a beautiful one, but I don't think most people are interested in that sort of thing when they've got work, or no work, paying bills and raising kids to deal with, and sure we do do things to try and improve our conditions through direct action and protest but that's not enough. We need to build the forms of organisation that an anarchist society would take here and now so that people can see in practical terms what anarchism is and how to achieve it. So we can challenge existing statist institutions and so people develop mass disloyalty to them. So people have an alternative to those institutions, ones in which they feel empowered, liberated and confident enough to overthrow capitalism and the state. Otherwise people are going to continue to be atomised, scared shitless and look to authoritarian leaders and the state for action since they don't know what to do themselves, and too scared to govern and take action for themselves.

Yeah this is a good discussion.

A lot of what I would want to say has already been said by other people, but I could add a couple of things.

Ed made reference to Forces of Labour by Beverly Silver. I think this is essential reading on this subject. It's in the library here: https://libcom.org/library/forces-labor-beverly-j-silver

Like Ed says, in the past technological and economic changes led some radicals to think that the working class would be destroyed as an organised force. However each time the class managed to recompose and reassert itself.

And potentially given that we now have the possibility for mass, self-organised and instant communication from a grassroots level, there is the possibility that we could organise ourselves more effectively than ever before - the London Deliveroo drivers being an example of this (of course there is also the equally likely possibility that the far right could do the same).

I wrote a slightly tongue in cheek article on this topic a little while ago, basically arguing that while things seem bleak I think in the long term there is cause for optimism: http://libcom.org/blog/10-reasons-communism-will-win-15072013

On the gig economy, I don't think this marks anything particularly significant. Every few years politicos seem to like to pick something which sounds new and say that it has changed everything.

For example everything people are saying about the gig economy now, people said about zero hours contracts five years ago, "precarity" 10 years ago, about "casualisation" 20 years ago or about contract or lump working 40 years ago. And even that was nothing new then. If you read about working conditions in England in the late 19th century (like on the docks) for example you realise that casualisation has been a normal state of affairs for large chunks of the working class since the beginning of capitalism.

And somewhere like the US almost the whole population is effectively casualised, with no-fault dismissal.

The gig economy is just zero hours contracts or temp work with apps. In some ways it is better for workers than older types of casual work as it gives more flexibility to employees to choose their own hours etc. And on a technological level algorithms in the apps like Uber/Deliveroo are interesting because they could serve as a model for voluntary, real-time allocation of necessary workers and resources in a communist society (although that's another discussion…).

So is it the final victory of the employers? In short, no, no more than any of those other equivalent schemes were. Apart from anything else in many jobs you need to give employees at least some sense of stability in order to get decent quality work out of them, particularly for any kind of skilled or creative job.

Let's not cause this thread to be diverted onto a discussion of the proposals for a 'Universal Basic Income' favoured by some from both left-wing and right-wing campaigners. There is a long thread here: http://libcom.org/forums/theory/basic-income-good-step-stage-revolutionary-socialism-11052014 That thread also includes three more links to similar mostly useful discussions helping to debunk the bollocks talked by it's left-wing proponents.

Steven, great points on the "gig economy". In some respects it's basically the putting-out system, which dates back to the 17th century.

I wish I could feel as hopeful as Steven. et al, and much like automation yes, the algorithms hold promise for re-use in a communist society. But I really don't think the notion that the new economy is more-or-less the same as casualization really appreciates the sinister undermining of the social contract that will occur if we are unable to fight back.

Of course it holds many things in common because it falls within the continuum of a line of attack on the working class. With casualization, in the US anyway, temp staff still maintain the minimal, basic protections labor law provides. Sure, you can be fired without cause in temp work. As Steven says, that's the case for most jobs in many states in the US anyway. However, if you were fired for an unlawful reason, you still have the ability to use the NLRB or local labor jurisdiction in order to punish the employer for breaking labor law. But in a gig contract, you have none of those protections because you literally are not an employee.

As myself and others have said, it is a jump back in time, before labor laws were in place. So perhaps we can make the argument that we've been here before, but in doing so, we also have to ackowledge that we essentially will have to refight many of the battles of the late 19th and early 20 th centuries just to maintain a status quo.

Furthermore, as I mentioned above I don't think we appreciate just how much the social contract will be gutted due to the disappearing tax-base for social programs. There is no analog to this in casualization.

Finally, the principles behind the gig economy mirrors the silicon valley mantra of 'disruption'. Much has already been written on the 'disruption' of businesses like airbnb on entire neighborhoods if not whole cities, accelerating gentrification, driving up property values, and making rent unaffordable over night. The basic model most of these tech styled companies use, across industries--is to come in to an industry, completely run rough-shod over legal obligations and industry traditions, fully understanding that the ensuing settlement will both a) break opposition/competition and b) save them massive amounts of money.

I've personally seen my potential earnings literally decimated as a result of the largest tech giant deciding that 100+ years of industry standards no longer apply because . . .new media. And no one--not even the massive organizations whose sole purpose for 100 years has been enforcing these standards against really big foes--can possibly afford to do a proper legal battle because even in a class action, you'd be buried in legal fees for a minimum of a decade.

Now add to all of the above that the primary proponents of the new economy hold an extremely regressive worldview. People like Peter Thiel have practically unlimited resources, and have clearly shown a willingness to use those resources to implement their philosophy, and were early passengers on the Trump train. With all of this in mind a picture emerges of a unique and highly motivated class enemy with designs on not just undoing labor laws, but more broadly undermining the larger pretext upon which the western world was built by turning back the clock to a pre-enlightenment age.

I think there are lessons to be learned from casualization and zero hours contracts, but I think comparing them side by side as if comparing apples to apples really down-plays the challenges we will be facing in the very near future.

(PS spikymike--I clearly stated I am not a supporter of UBI so I trust your "left wing proponents" comment wasn't directed at me.)

El psy's "a revolutionary movement based on a now extinct indentity that no-one wanted in the first place anyway" is a clear rejection as one could get of marx, marxism and the workers' movement. I think that optimism and pessimism are two sides of the same useless coin as far as the class struggle is concerned. Contrary to el psy dismissal, the working class and its struggle has not been aware of its "extinct identity" and has for many decades struggled against the odds, made enormous sacrifices and deserves the confidence, not blind faith, that revolutionaries should have in their class. Whatever the difficulties it is presently going through - and can anyone name a period when the class and its struggle hasn't gone through the greatest difficulties - the main factions of the bourgeoisie are acutely aware of the threat that the working class still poses for them and their rule and that has been one of the main developments of the whole of the twentieth century.

There are posts above and general positions that say because the working class is being hammered it is too weak to respond (the "gig" economy for example). I don't understand this position. When was it that, one way or another, the working class wasn't being hammered by economic crisis, division and war? Is there an idea that possible incremental steps to greater well being end up in a rose-petalled path to revolution? That is that "things" gradually get better. This is just another excuse for reformism. Time is not on the side of the proletariat but more than ever before there is the possibility of the illusions being swept away. As the moth-eaten velvet gloves on the iron fist of capitalist dictatorship are being removed its reforms and its reformism are shown to be an empty sham. Based on its self-organisation, the development of the economic crisis, the refusal of its youth to fight for nationalism, the way remains open for the possibility of revolution or at least some very significant class confrontations. There are differences of course, but it's the same old working class with the same old capitalism and the same old contradictions between them.

Just to re-emphasise the point about the intelligence and strength of the bourgeoisie in relation to the working class, because it has learnt the lessons of the twentieth century. Coming to the end of World War II, the ruling class was clearly conscious of avoiding the danger of the previous world war which the proletariat had brought an end to with its revolutionary wave (I'd agree with Slothjabber, 1917-26). To this end they pulverised working class areas beyond all excess and democracy de facto worked with the Gestapo in Italy in order to crush any working class resistance. And amid reports of post-war uprisings of women, children and old men against the remnants of the Nazis in Germany, the west held onto around five million German and Italian prisoners-of-war for years sensing that to return them could spark something that would get out of control. After the massacres and genocides of democracy it then turned to its expansion of the social wage (including the NHS) in order to quell any hint of rebellion. This "social peace" lasted until the economic crisis came back with force in what's known as "1968", a short-hand for the return of the proletariat to its history and becoming. Whatever the weaknesses of this movement, and there are plenty particularly of the petty-bourgeois nature, then this was undeniably a return to a global movement of the working class. The highest point of this movement came in Poland and particularly with the wave of strikes in 1980, where the self-organisation of the class constructed the potentially revolutionary inter-factory strike committees, subsequently emasculated by Solidarnosc and its western backers.

jesuithitsquad

I wish I could feel as hopeful as Steven. et al, and much like automation yes, the algorithms hold promise for re-use in a communist society. But I really don't think the notion that the new economy is more-or-less the same as casualization really appreciates the sinister undermining of the social contract that will occur if we are unable to fight back.

Don't get me wrong I didn't say I was hopeful. Nor did I say there wasn't a danger of casualisation (of any sort) undermining working conditions.

But I do stand by my central point which was that I don't think the "gig economy" represents anything new or unique.

For example, look at South Korea. They had a very well-organised, militant working class. But after the IMF got called in in the 1980s, workers got hammered, and now you have a big majority of the workforce who are all casual, on a fraction of the pay and conditions of their permanent colleagues. This did not need any apps. And standard casual work is much more useful for South Korean employers than "gig economy" work because they need factory and office workers to do long hours. They can't have people choosing their hours or doing shifts (the ability to choose your own hours is a pretty standard legal component to self-employment, at least in Europe).

Of course it holds many things in common because it falls within the continuum of a line of attack on the working class. With casualization, in the US anyway, temp staff still maintain the minimal, basic protections labor law provides. Sure, you can be fired without cause in temp work. As Steven says, that's the case for most jobs in many states in the US anyway. However, if you were fired for an unlawful reason, you still have the ability to use the NLRB or local labor jurisdiction in order to punish the employer for breaking labor law. But in a gig contract, you have none of those protections because you literally are not an employee.

Sorry, but any legal protections for casual workers are not worth the paper they are written on. Hundreds of thousands of casual workers are terminated all the time, and the number who get any legal victory as a result are literally a handful (I'm only aware of one disabled worker who won compensation). In reality the only way you could win such a case is if an employer said "I'm sacking you because you are black (or gay etc)". And if an employer said this to a self-employed person, they could still sue.

I'm sure that legal protections for casual/agency workers in the US aren't any better than the UK (if anything they're probably worse).

As myself and others have said, it is a jump back in time, before labor laws were in place. So perhaps we can make the argument that we've been here before, but in doing so, we also have to ackowledge that we essentially will have to refight many of the battles of the late 19th and early 20 th centuries just to maintain a status quo.

Again, this is always been the case. Reforms are never permanent. Sadly for the time being it's not even a matter of fighting to maintain the status quo, it's fighting to slow the rate of deterioration.

Furthermore, as I mentioned above I don't think we appreciate just how much the social contract will be gutted due to the disappearing tax-base for social programs. There is no analog to this in casualization.

As a general point on this, as a communist I have no interest in how the state generates tax revenue. I don't know about the US but in the UK you pay tax based on your earnings, so self-employed people pay taxes, like employees (albeit in a different way). If anything, the gig economy increases tax revenues to the state as everything is electronic and auditable. Previously work like couriers (Deliveroo) and minicabs (Uber) were largely cash in hand, so people wouldn't pay tax.

I've personally seen my potential earnings literally decimated as a result of the largest tech giant deciding that 100+ years of industry standards no longer apply because . . .new media. And no one--not even the massive organizations whose sole purpose for 100 years has been enforcing these standards against really big foes--can possibly afford to do a proper legal battle because even in a class action, you'd be buried in legal fees for a minimum of a decade.

Not sure what specific example you're talking of here, as I don't know what your industry is. But unfortunately new technology can always completely overhaul industry standards. For example mechanisation and automation destroyed the pay and conditions of many skilled manufacturing workers.

So far the new elements of the "gig economy" are mostly affecting areas which were dominated by ultra-casual self-employment anyway, like taxis and deliveries.

Other industries have been heavily dominated in this way for ages, but with a different label: for example construction (in the UK), truck driving and large parts of the tech sector.

And while in the UK the numbers of self-employed people has been going up (driven partly by the gig economy but perhaps more just by lack of traditional employment), in the US it's been falling for 20 years.

baboon take a swipe at Elpsy's comments regarding 'worker identity' but it struck me that there was some inconsistency regarding baboon's own use of this term as between his post no9 with it's reference to the '84 coal miner's strike and the relationship between 'worker identity' the NUM and corporatist identification and his later post no31? It 's possible to distinguish awareness of our working class existence and common interests and identification with our specific role as miners, steel workers, teachers, commuter operators, train drivers etc etc. So that changes in workers technical composition over time may be relevant to workers political composition and the strength of collective class struggle. Does that make sense?

Steven- -Thanks for your engagement on this. You make some interesting points, and I'll definitely take some time to mull over what you're saying. I suspect though that there are either some fundamental differences in the way this will impact the US vs UK and Europe or that we just aren't going to agree on this.

Like I said in my first post on this, my primary concern about the new economy is the question as to whether a combination of automation and extreme atomization reduces the revolutionary potential of the proletariat. It's going to be very tough to organize on the job if we don't have jobs or don't have co workers, and if capital no longer requires our labor our threat of withdrawing has the potential of losing it's importance. Others have given reasons to be less pessimistic, which I'm thankful for. I'm excited to read the Beverly Silver link. That said I think the 'there's nothing new about the new economy' approach is a misunderstanding of what we are facing, and I don't think it's going to match actual experiences.

As for the statistics you used, those numbers don't match what I've seen. This is a couple months old but was the last I've seen on it, saying 30% of US workforce engaged in contract work, with similar numbers in Europe.

The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) estimates that the independent workforce is some 162 million people, up to 30% of the working-age population in the United States and most of Europe. Official UK figures bear this out, with almost five million people in the UK employed in this way.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37605643?ocid=socialflow_twitter
Steven

As a general point on this, as a communist I have no interest in how the state generates tax revenue. I don't know about the US but in the UK you pay tax based on your earnings, so self-employed people pay taxes, like employees (albeit in a different way). If anything, the gig economy increases tax revenues to the state as everything is electronic and auditable. Previously work like couriers (Deliveroo) and minicabs (Uber) were largely cash in hand, so people wouldn't pay tax.

So there must be a fundamental difference on the way the state collects taxes in the US. The reason this is important isn't because I care about the tax code or other minutia of the sort. It's because, at least in the US, the growth of this economy will either a) completely starve programs like Social Security and Medicare or b) represent a massive tax increase on working people.

A few posts back I laid out the way payroll taxes are collected in the US, and asked if the UK-Europe is similar. The employee pays a 7.5% payroll FICA tax and the employer pays a matching 7.5%. (FICA funds Medicare and Social Security). When one is classified as a contractor, he or she becomes responsible for both portions of the tax. Meaning, the contracting employer is completely off the hook for this contribution. Additionally, as a contractor, there are no automatic withholdings, and it is again the individual's responsibility to essentially save back the taxes they will owe annually. When one is on subsidence 'wages,' this becomes very difficult, if not impossible. Additionally, for hourly employees doing one's taxes at the end of the year is pretty simple. Contractor taxes are far more complicated and difficult.

Like I said in my first post on this, the tax situation is one more way in which the gig economy transfers the costs of labor reproduction away from employers and towards the individual, and this is not the case for temp employees. It seems fairly reasonable to assume that there will be far fewer taxes collected this way, representing a further attack on the social wage.

I take Steven's point on board that the changes brought on by the gig economy are part of the - what did Marx say? - the manner in which capitalism constantly revolutionizes the mean of production. But, while casualization or precarity removed worker protections, job security, and organization on the job it wasn't a fundamental re-classification of the employment status of a huge percentage of the working class. The gig economy seems like it has the potential to fundamentally re-define the terrains of class conflict unseen in the better part of century.

If I wanted to be a techno-optimist - just pretend I'm Paul Mason circa 2011 - I'd point out the way that gig economy workers have used things like WhatsApp to link up and organize struggles. But barring a massive wave of class activity, I think the dangers far outweight the potential.

Want to respond a bit more fully but only got a minute.

Chilli Sauce

I take Steven's point on board that the changes brought on by the gig economy are part of the - what did Marx say? - the manner in which capitalism constantly revolutionizes the mean of production. But, while casualization or precarity removed worker protections, job security, and organization on the job it wasn't a fundamental re-classification of the employment status of a huge percentage of the working class. The gig economy seems like it has the potential to fundamentally re-define the terrains of class conflict unseen in the better part of century.

Do you really think so?

I mean do you really think that employers will be able to have a large chunk of the workforce choosing our own hours and working when we please?

Employers were unable to casualise more than a pretty small minority of the workforce in Europe, using agency/casual/zero hours work, even though that gives them much more control than gig work. So what makes you think something which is even more flexible (for workers) would end up being more widespread?

That's even ignoring the legal issues. Because I mean on a legal front it's possible the gig economy could end up undermining bogus self-employment. Previously you had hundreds of minicab firms, all with bogusly self-employed drivers - which could never be challenged in the courts because it would mean thousands of drivers taking hundreds of different employers to court. Ditto with food delivery riders. But now companies like Uber and Deliveroo are essentially replacing loads of tiny employers with a couple of big ones, which can both potentially be challenged in court (and if they are will probably lose, as it's clear their workers are not self-employed). Not to mention that there is much greater potential to organise against one massive employer than hundreds of tiny ones.

Anyway will respond properly tomorrow hopefully.

Hey Steven-- just to say this is a really good point.

That's even ignoring the legal issues. Because I mean on a legal front it's possible the gig economy could end up undermining bogus self-employment. Previously you had hundreds of minicab firms, all with bogusly self-employed drivers - which could never be challenged in the courts because it would mean thousands of drivers taking hundreds of different employers to court. Ditto with food delivery riders. But now companies like Uber and Deliveroo are essentially replacing loads of tiny employers with a couple of big ones, which can both potentially be challenged in court (and if they are will probably lose, as it's clear their workers are not self-employed). Not to mention that there is much greater potential to organise against one massive employer than hundreds of tiny ones.

"Is the workers’ movement dead? Are the problems of the present too great to overcome?"

For the West I think the consensus is that the workers’ movement is dead – therefore we have the critique of ‘programmatism’ by such as Theorie Communiste (see their explanation: https://libcom.org/library/who-are-we ) and Endnotes. However, as Steven and Serge Forward indicate, perhaps we should really not presume anything. On the other hand – maybe the question could be: was the workers’ movement any good in the first place?... particularly if, as Serge Forward notes, the telly is ‘worse than ever’!

As for ‘the problems of the present [perhaps being] too great to overcome’ I would mention a couple or three things. Firstly, what exactly are these problems (I know you, el psy congroo, list them but…) and when and how have these problems or problems like them been overcome before? I presume, though, by this second question you actually mean: is a ‘revolution’ possible? But this too needs qualification. Yes, a revolution is possible, Russia had one a century ago. Slavoj Zizek would like to lead one in the manner of Che Guevara in the near future. But these revolutions, and characters such as Guevara, have ultimately been recognised as ‘Stalinist’. So, no, as you (el psy congroo) indicate, there is no basis, no historical precedent, for the belief that a ‘true’ revolution is possible. (I will come to your question about ‘unity’ and ‘collective consciousness’ later.)

Marx himself, despite his assumed scientism, never said on what basis people would enter into free association with each other in communism – and we are left with only the moral imperative that it is the right thing to do. And this is, ultimately, no different to any other religious or moral solution to the human predicament in civilisation. And we have to remember that ‘our’ previous attempts at ‘revolution’ did not turn out very well.

I never could quite reconcile the twin tendencies within anarchism that indicate on the one hand that everyone should think and do for themselves, and on the other that people need to be enlightened, or have their consciousness raised. Do we believe that people must have their consciousness raised in order to be able to ‘do the right thing’? Does this consciousness-raising come about through individual and social experience or simply through being exposed to different ideas – or is it a combination of both? If revolutionaries think that peoples’ ideas change more through their experience then should those revolutionaries be trying to create and exacerbate situations in which people are exposed to ‘beneficial’ experiences – such as industrial or community disputes, riots, uprisings, war, poverty, misery, rising wealth, etc? If we wanted to create a similar situation to that of the sixties and seventies in Europe we might want to encourage greater wealth amongst the proletariat. If we wanted to recreate the situation that led to the European upheavals at the end of the first world war then we might encourage a world war, but we would probably have to build up a syndicalist union movement first. Should we all become left-accelerationists?

However, you also posit the idea that ‘communism’ may only be possible in the wake of a collapse of capitalism brought about by forces beyond the control of anyone. This line of thinking is often condemned by ‘revolutionaries’ on the basis that it might encourage people to give up doing anything and stay indoors. But you might also be thinking that ‘revolutionaries’ need to be ‘ready’ for this eventuality in order to make sure things don’t go ‘wrong’. If this is the case, then should ‘revolutionaries’ be trying to gather as many people to their cause as possible so that there are heaps of people around at the moment of the collapse of capitalism to guide the masses in the right direction? If this is the plan, then it’s not much different to plan A – which is to draw as many people to the cause as possible in order to help create the situation of revolutionary upheaval. Build The Party?

But perhaps more importantly, what are the consequences for ‘revolutionaries’ when they insist, however weakly, that one must not lose hope? How does such a pronouncement situate them socially and historically?

Maybe there is no ‘what is to be done’, maybe all we have available to us is an endless exploration of what doesn’t work or goes wrong, that is, what must, on reflection, not be done. Nothing does what it says it does on the tin. Everything, including ourselves, is always doing something else.

More on this theme:
http://luftschloesserverlag.tumblr.com/post/63120978567

Steven.

The gig economy is just zero hours contracts or temp work with apps. In some ways it is better for workers than older types of casual work as it gives more flexibility to employees to choose their own hours etc.

I've only been formally self employed once, but I definitely didn't have any flexibility to choose my own hours. I worked the hours I was given same as in any other job. The only difference between that and normal employee working was that I was responsible for my own taxes.

Steven.

So is it the final victory of the employers? In short, no, no more than any of those other equivalent schemes were. Apart from anything else in many jobs you need to give employees at least some sense of stability in order to get decent quality work out of them, particularly for any kind of skilled or creative job.

Well, this is one of the things that employers are demanding, and often successfully, that people work with a high level of commitment and do loads of unpaid overtime, but are not given that stability. That's how zero hours contracts work in teaching. We have all the same responsibilities as teachers on permanent contracts, but with much less security and half the pay.

I don't think the issue comparing zero hours contracts and gig economy has to be 'they are exactly the same/they are completely different' does it? Surely they are on a continuum, with some similarities and some differences. Also jobs and conditions vary hugely within these types of employment, being a zero hours teacher has its problems, but it's very different from being a zero hours worker in a warehouse or supermarket.

El psy congroo asks:

Is the workers’ movement dead? Are the problems of the present too great to overcome?

And

How would you respond to the idea that the working class will not unify and gain collective consciousness until after capitalism collapses?

And

Also, who's to say the lack of "traditional" structures in the working class is a step backwards, given their history of the betrayal of the proletariat and communist project?

And

So the question I pose is this; once again, in a "collapse" scenario, can we seriously expect the proletariat to have any kind of a better chance at communism? If so, what are the possible mechanisms?

And states:

It's pretty clear to me any amount of cleverness or optimism will not pull us from the situation we're in.

And, in possible contradiction (?):

It's seriously time to get more creative.

If we follow Marx in his turning of Hegel back on his feet by affirming that the dialectical process in history is a (scientific) materialist one rather than, as Hegel had it, an idealist one led by ideas, then we see the progress of capitalism as the fruit of a class struggle whereby capitalism is further and further developed until a tipping point is reached in the homogenisation of labour that negates the capitalist appropriation of labour.

First there was the capitalist appropriation of the private labour found within feudalism (the first negation of property), and then, because capitalism requires the socialisation of labour, there is to be the negation of this negation through the socialisation of labour that enables labour to wrest the means of production from the hands of the few capitalists and return it to everyone, but no longer on the level of private property, this time on the level of everything being owned by everyone, within a structure of free association and communal decision-making. (The proletariat will/should come to recognise that capitalism has put everything in place for the establishment of a free communist society - with or without a transitional programme - and that all they have to lose in seizing the moment are their chains.)

The negation of the negation is the concept Marx took from Hegel to explain capitalism and the possibility of communism created by capitalism and, indeed, history itself, in materialist terms. Revolutionaries reveal that they follow this materialist conception of history when they argue that they only have a limited influence on events and that the main influence on how people will react in situations is due to the state of the class struggle within society. In this it would be argued that the main reason for an escalation of class struggle, for example, would be due to material factors, not the (non-)influence of radicals. Serge Forward makes a similar point in post #6. Although this might be in contradiction to what he says in post #2: “We're fighting a rearguard action - possibly starting from scratch” – since with this statement one is left to wonder if events create consciousness or people who claim to be in the vanguard of ideas create consciousness. The first conception is materialist and the second one is idealist. Or perhaps it is clearer to say: idea-ist. The first endorses the progressive materialist conception of history, the second endorses Hegel’s progressive dialectic of ideas and spirit. Is there a confusion here? What is it that we think revolutionaries are capable of? And do we think that revolutionaries are able to stand outside of their time in order to guide the masses out of their false consciousness?

The materialist conception of history would state that the ideas we have are bound to be universal within a particular mode of production – a theory that cannot be simply devolved to the maxim: the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class. Thus, it is to be expected that revolutionaries and others share the same observations and make similar commentaries, though different sections of society, for example the radical left and establishment economists, may stumble upon these observations at different, though proximal times.

Therefore, we have the current writing of the political scientist, economist, sociologist, and previous adviser to the German government, Wolfgang Streeck, who at least since 2014 has been postulating that capitalism is undergoing a slow agony of death similar to the long demise of the Roman Empire.

This is how Guardian journalist, Aditya Chakrabortty sums up Streeck’s view of the end of capitalism:

This isn’t the violent overthrow envisaged by Marx and Engels. In the Communist Manifesto they argued that capitalism’s “gravediggers” would be the proletariat. Nearly 170 years later, Streeck is predicting that the capitalists will be their own gravediggers, through having destroyed the workers and dissidents they needed to maintain the system.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/09/wolfgang-streeck-the-german-economist-calling-time-on-capitalism

Chakrabortty continues:

Not for the first time, the sandwich board-wearers are declaring the end of capitalism – but today Streeck believes they are right. In its deepest crises, he says, modern capitalism has relied on its enemies to wade in with the lifebelt of reform. During the Great Depression of the 1930’s it was FDR’s Democrats who rolled out the New Deal, while Britain’s trade unionists allied with Keynes.

Compare that with now. Over 40 years, neoliberal capitalism has destroyed its opposition. When Margaret Thatcher was asked to give her greatest achievement, she nominated “Tony Blair and New Labour. We forced our opponents to change their minds.” The Prime Minister who declared “There is no alternative”’ then did her damnedest to extirpate any such alternative. The result? The unions are withered, the independent tenants’ associations have disappeared along with the stock of council housing, the BBC is forever on the back foot [my edit: the telly is worse than ever!!], and local, regional and national newspapers are now the regular subjects of obituaries. A similar story can be told across the rich world.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/09/wolfgang-streeck-the-german-economist-calling-time-on-capitalism

To remind ourselves of the distinction between Hegel and Marx mentioned earlier we could ask: was it really Thatcher and her gang that changed the minds of people? Was it Thatcher who changed the world or was Thatcher a product of the world? If the events of history are decided on the plane of a ‘battle of ideas’ where does that leave the notion of historical materialism? Is the class struggle subdued (or perhaps, rather, temporarily won by one side or the other) because people develop different ideas, similar ideas to their supposed opponents, or because of material events within society? Do events follow ideas or ideas follow events? Why is that the only solutions to social problems that have eventuated in the last 200 years or so (for example the Russian Revolution, or the Cuban Revolution) have been capitalist solutions, that is, solutions that have actually accelerated capitalism and extended its empire through the intensification of the exploitation of workers and resources?

So, the gloomy Streeck bemoans the fact that the ‘opposition’ within capitalism (the left and the working class) has been neutralised and that this will lead to the downfall of capitalism because, as he insists, capitalism will now suffer “from an overdose of itself”.

But maybe it is wrong to say that all the reforms of capitalism won in the heat of class struggle have contributed to the further expansion of capitalism? Maybe the neoliberal turn was always on the cards and it is this development, as Streeck insists, that heralds the collapse of capitalism? That is, for the first time in history class conflict would be transcended by the neoliberalism made possible by the class conflict within capitalism. But wasn’t it the establishment of communism that was supposed to do this??!

And if this is the case then we have left behind dialectical materialism, the theory that the conflict of forces within society produces higher levels of existence. The essential notion of aufheben, or sublation, or the negation of the negation, is that society and material forces are in constant movement and conflict (history [not ‘pre-history’] is the history of class struggle) and that the ever-evolving claimed ‘future’ is a mixture of things preserved, abandoned, and transcended.

And if there is no dialectic happening (no class struggle) then history has indeed been halted in Marxist terms, that is, Marxism is no longer relevant as an historical or sociological method.

What I mean is, if revolutionaries and State-sponsored economists are coming to the same conclusion: that capitalism is going to collapse in a horrible mess (more horrible than the continuing horrible mess) - then how is it that they (I mean we) are coming to this conclusion? Are events and daily existence shaping our ideas, or have some of the economists been listening to the ideas of the revolutionaries, or some of the revolutionaries been listening to the economists?

Anyway, Streeck has recently written a book, but you can get the gist of his thesis in shortened form here:

https://newleftreview.org/II/87/wolfgang-streeck-how-will-capitalism-end

And you can read an opposing view from the Financial Times here:

https://www.ft.com/content/7496e08a-9f7a-11e6-891e-abe238dee8e2

And another review of his thoughts here:

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/government/2016/11/14/how-will-capitalism-end/

I am a bit stymied by these last comments, as in I am not sure where to go from them. I am not sure what you are getting at. What do you mean, for example, by “aufheben – please no”?

Is to lose hope (“There’s no point anymore anyway, right?”) a decision that ‘revolutionaries’ might make, or is it an attitude that is determined by the social environment and their relations with other ‘revolutionaries’ and those they seek to enlighten? Who are the ‘revolutionaries’ in places like the UK or the US who seemingly stick to their guns their whole life and largely refuse to present their doubts (since doing so might harm their presumed ability to enlighten others)? What do they do?

What does “struggles forge consciousness” mean? Sustained consciousness? Momentary consciousness? I presume, by-the-way, that you mean ‘class consciousness’? If ‘struggles forge consciousness’ then there should be a sustained incremental increase of consciousness amongst the masses occurring throughout history – since there are struggles happening everywhere all the time. Even if they aren’t happening in show-stopping fashion. But even when they happen in show-stopping fashion do they really ‘forge consciousness’? Did May 1968 in Paris forge French proletarian consciousness – or did it ultimately, in terms of ‘resistance’, only contribute to the development of leftist political theory and the careers of a whole slew of academics?

If we think that ‘struggles forge consciousness’ then maybe we are misreading what is happening in reality? Maybe we are belittling the intelligence of ‘the masses’? Maybe it’s not about ‘consciousness’ – maybe it would be truer to say, since this is what history shows in more detail, that the effects of the defeat of struggles, or the neutralisation of struggles, or even the ‘winning’ of struggles, is the key ‘lesson’ revolutionaries could learn? Since it is the return to daily existence that is most influential in the way we perceive the world. We have not overcome our 'survival sickness' as Vaneigem once hoped we would. People adapt to their situation in order to survive – are they stupid to do this? They are of course trapped, and I would suggest they know it, even if they don’t articulate it, and they usually ultimately refuse to follow the idealists down an immediately suicidal path. It would be pointless to judge people on what they do to survive (I’m not saying you are doing this here).

I am also not sure what you mean by:
“How do we overcome the paradox of fetishism? The paradox being that value relations are a result of social being.”
The recent discussions of ‘value-form’ are, in my opinion, fatally limited from the start because before one can truly discuss the relations of value in a Marxist or post-Marxist sense, one must really come to grips with the ontology of human labour as expressed by Marx. The insistence that the ‘revolutionary project’ is now to abolish value and labour is perhaps not quite so clear cut… but that is for another discussion.
But perhaps you are referring to ‘false consciousness’?

Also I am not sure that it is judicious to demean ‘the workers’ with sweeping statements about what they think, or want, or who they are. Is the world really full of idiots who need re-educating by visionaries such as ourselves? Lenin and Stalin certainly thought so.

Thus you say: “Workers don't want to fight capitalism, they want to improve their financial situation. They aren't against value relations, and they weren't during the Russian Revolution. They think money works for them.”

Well, I don’t want to fight capitalism either, I wish it would just go away, or that I lived on a different planet, with The Clangers. And I am not sure that I have ever actually fought capitalism in the first place. I am also not effectively ‘against value-relations’, and yes, I wish I could win the fucking lottery (although I don’t even buy a ticket) …

Lastly, for accounts of show-stopping by anarchists, the events in Spain in the first half of the 20th century are worth consideration, as well as reading Peter Arshinov’s beautiful account of The History of the Makhnovist Movement 1918-1921.

I don't think that el psy's rejection of the workers' movemen has elements of an adequate response to what is a very major question. The Paris Commune, 1905 and the workers' councils, the world-wide revolutionary wave of 1917-26 (inadequately dismissed as "a Bolshevik history"), the rearguard action of the proletariat during the Second World War (when it hardly existed), the global "re-awakening" of 1968. These struggles and these sacrifices can't be easily dismissed as el psy seems to do. They have a great deal of worth to bring to future struggles.

I agree with the point made in one of the posts above about the importance of the struggles in China in the last decade or so. These are a significant expression of workers' combativity and the international nature of class struggle. Certainly these struggles straight away come up against the state and the immediate identification by the workers of the trade unions with the state makes the former less of a useful buffer than the more mystified unions of the west. Nevertheless, tens of thousands of workers have joined wildcat strikes and there have have been clear expressions of class autonomy which is no mean feat faced with a regime that spends more on internal security than anything else and whose repression is swift and brutal.

I still think that Europe is going to be pivotal for the future given the strength of democracy, reformism and the unions, illusions which are gradually being stripped away by the development of the crisis.

EPC, I can't figure out what the meaning of your post #46. Can you explain?

Hmmm, of course, in the eyes of the majority we are the idiots - spending our time, often part of what little money we have, and equally importantly the space in our head that could be spent on pleasurable thought, pursuing a dream that even if it eventually materialises, will almost certainly not be experienced by ourselves. Spending our time looking closely at human suffering, filthy corrruption and god knows what other horrors. I often ask myself why I bother but I guess I find the same answer to that question as you. Are we idiots? Well I don't think so but to label everyone that isn't an active communist as one is surely unhelpful and most of all, inaccurate. Being a human being involves way more than our political beliefs or lack of them. There are many types of idiocy - selfishness, being judgemental, making assumptions, etc etc etc. We're all guilty of some of these things some of the time but that shouldn't mean we should be totally condemned. I do understand what you're saying and in my most frustrated moments I probably think the same thoughts as you've expressed but to write off my friends, family and everyone else is mean spirited, depressing and really just plain daft.

El psy congroo writes:

There is no evidence humans have ever been able to consider the impact of their consumption more than two or three generations down the line maximum.

So, it seems that your questions here are generated not so much by an analysis of the broad phenomenon of class conflict or society but by a sweeping misanthropy you appear to have developed on account of your experience in ‘politics’ or whatever is meant by ‘struggle’. I wouldn’t blame you for adopting such a view, but it would perhaps have been better if you had stated this more clearly at the start.

I would like to make a couple of comments though.

For ‘evidence’ of a generational management of the landscape by humans it is worth reading Bill Gammage’s book The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia.

It is also interesting to investigate other ways humans have interacted with their environment, in order to perhaps help lift oneself out of the terms of consumption and production that dominate our current umwelt.

For example, as recorded by Claude Lévi-Strauss in The Story of the Lynx, 1996, James Teit notes the relationship of Indigenous ‘Canadian British Columbian’ hunters to their prey, wild goats, over a hundred years ago:

“When you kill [wild] goats, treat their bodies respectfully, for they are people. Do not shoot the female goats, for they are your wives and will bear your children. Do not kill kids, for they may be your offspring. Only shoot your brothers-in-law, the male goats. Do not be sorry when you kill them, for they do not die but return home. The flesh and skin (the goat part) remain in your possession; but their real selves (the human part) lives just as before, when it was covered with goat’s flesh and skin.”

When I used the word ‘aufheben’ I was referring to the concept not the group/journal. Your response “please no” is surely, therefore, because my use of the word was clear, flippant.

I would also like to mention the danger of prioritising one’s own particular experiences in situations of discussion. While it is natural and unavoidable to mention ones own interpretations of one’s own specific experiences, these must be kept within context and only become useful when they are used in a very limited fashion to make more general observations. To rely heavily on one’s own experience closes down discussion rather than opening it up. It is more useful to engage in discussion from the basis that we all have a range of experiences, but none of us is the expert on any aspect of the world we see around us. The philosopher, Gilles Deleuze, said this well:

“Arguments from one’s own privileged experience are bad and reactionary arguments.”

When you say “I am a proletarian” I do not know what you mean by this, and you present this information as if it gives you some kind of special position within this discussion.

Hi el psy congroo,

Yes, the views people have in support of what effectively oppresses them and their families are indeed frustrating - this is part of the point of this thread surely? The questions being: how much does this matter; how might these views change; how should 'revolutionaries' engage with these frustrating ideas? This is what we have been discussing.

Something else to consider is that there is a lot of 'disbelief' across the classes in the mission statements of modern society. And as you may have implied, it is 'the ruling class' that believes in everything less than any other section of society. In my experience (!) I have met managers who believe far less in the mission of a company than the workers under them, but they know how to talk the talk, etc.

The Wal-Mart worker story (which I can't remember hearing) is interesting because it doesn't support your argument - surely, most people, from any class, would think that doing such a thing was indeed foolish and silly (unless the person had a mental illness and they refused to judge it in those terms).

I'm probably the most pessimistic I've ever been.

I think the defeat of the last century still plays a massive role in propaganda terms and existentially. The availability of credit I think is also a big factor. And the fear of if you even attempt to struggle it could get so much worse (and of course it's not so bad cos there are people living on a dollar a day etc). I've been working for just over a year after a long period of doing fuck all and my co workers are absolutely clueless. They are all low paid but think the company is doing them a massive favour by letting them work there, they think their interest lies in making the company (owner) more money. They are mostly in sales but not on commission, yet still have this mindset. These are mostly subjective factors but in combination with the lack of industrial centers and mass work places these days I think there is little to no hope at least in backward Britain and probably the West as a whole. There is more hope in the East, yet the trend is barbarism not struggle. The middle east is on fire and the US is surrounding China with bases, missiles and battleships.

El psy congroo writes:

I think it matters a lot [establishment of a communist consciousness] if we want an serious chance of a worldwide society of freely associated people. I'd argue we all need communist consciousness before we can have communism.

I think this is the key to your argument – and it is this very point that I have questioned in my previous posts. I think that this is the position you have and so your question is – how does this consciousness come about?

Therefore, I have suggested that there two ways it could come about.

The first is that revolutionaries think they must engage in a battle of ideas (like Frank Furedi, for example, is doing) in which they try to draw as many people to ‘the cause’ as possible. This is the ‘Build the Party’, or build the ‘Vanguard of Ideas’, option. It is what any group that recruits members to its ranks is participating in, even if at different levels of authoritarianism and discipline.

The second is the one whereby revolutionaries think consciousness can only come through actual experience. Therefore, in this belief, revolutionaries must wait for the situation to change before they can intervene and sound like sensible folk. When the consciousness of ‘ordinary folk’ has been raised to a certain level through their engagement in ‘struggle’ revolutionaries will be able to be heard and will be able to guide and direct ‘the masses’.

Within anarchism and the far left these options have formed the basis of a split in strategy.

Some people have insisted that there needs to be a formal organisation to draw more and more people to their ideas and to ‘keep the flame alive’.

Some see this option as a misunderstanding of how things change and are wary of the dangers of forming organisations as they seem to always ossify or become the opposite of what they were intended to be. What I mean is that some see a danger in organisations because they become more concerned with the perpetuation and survival of the organisation than the constructive free flow of ideas, and they also become, very quickly, a hierarchy with a core and a periphery in the membership, no matter how libertarian they profess to be. This is not due to the personal ‘failings’ of people, it is just, if we look at history, how organisations evolve.

This then, is where the discussion begins, as it were (it is where I have begun from in my posts). Starting the discussion from here will lead to investigations of how organisations and far left political parties work; it will lead to an examination of what the notion of ‘raising consciousness’ means in reality; it will lead to a questioning of the belief in communism and how those beliefs previously have worked out in history. These are, of course difficult questions, to which there may be no answer. They are explored in the book ‘Nihilist Communism: A Critique of Optimism – the religious dogma that states there will be an ultimate triumph of good over evil – In the Far Left’ (http://littleblackcart.com/books/communism/nihilist-communism/)

So, instead of dwelling on one’s ‘pessimism’, and falling back into old ‘solutions’ (particularly since there is a constant flow of people through radical politics who enter and leave, either with disillusionment or a career as a manager) I think one should explore how to use that pessimism. This was what I suggested at the end of my first post (#38):

Maybe there is no ‘what is to be done’, maybe all we have available to us is an endless exploration of what doesn’t work or goes wrong, that is, what must, on reflection, not be done. Nothing does what it says it does on the tin. Everything, including ourselves, is always doing something else.

The nihilist communists were onto pessimism as a tool fifteen years ago, I notice that pessimism is now the new cool way, according to some Self-Help Manuals (see, for example: Oliver Burkeman’s The Antidote: Happiness for people who can’t stand positive thinking), to achieve ‘balance’ in life. It’s no coincidence, our thinking rides the waves of daily existence. No one decides what to think as if they were in a vacuum.

PS
el psy congroo, this is not important or worth replying to, but how did you get this:

Disbelief of what? The Mayan apocalypse?

From this:

Something else to consider is that there is a lot of 'disbelief' across the classes in the mission statements of modern society.

Although I do agree with you that it is what people do that is the most important thing, not what they say they are going to do, or what they say they think - for example, I say I disagree with just about everything but my actual daily existence effectively, and actually, supports everything. But my point was set within the context of your appeal as to how to change peoples’ minds through ideas. This is, of course, another facet of the discussion of determinism, the materialist dialectic, and idealism.

Tom you are certainly more patient than your fellow travellers. I appreciate your long and thoughtful comments but can't help to think you've been setting a trap by guiding the discussion towards class consciousness. A topic we know you have some interest in ( to say the least).

It's part of the discussion but I'm not sure the term is used in the same way by everyone. Part of your critique as I read it here and elsewhere feels quite focused on the word and it's origins. Perhaps you need to establish more precisely what you mean by the word. Your comments above touch on it but I still feel you could be talking past each other.

My thoughts are that regardless of how the changes come about it can always go in multiple directions. The tools and ideas available will determine the course. 'Revolutionaries' would in my view do well to ensure libertarian tools and ideas are available.

Cooked,
Setting traps? Ffs. I was trying to get to the bottom of what el psy congroo was asking. Wasn't this (class/revolutionary consciousness) where I started here anyway? So not much more need for explanation. And isn't it reasonable that I have tried to devolve this discussion down to its essentials because there has indeed been much talking past each other? For the record I found the topic really interesting partly because it does involve, from the start, the strategy/concept of 'consciousness-raising' and partly because it examines, from the start, the usefulness or otherwise of optimism and/or pessimism. My ultimate point being that pessimism can be a tool for useful critique and useful engagement. Your final paragraph here probably sums up a general and/or final view for the discussion, succinctly put, and that's fine, but I am not sure that it says much - apart from 'carry on as we were' of course (and this is exactly the strategy el psy congroo was questioning), and perhaps, as you imply, substituting passion for simply making ourselves available. Which is also fine.

I feel revolutionaries have more, or less always asked themselves this question. At the end of the day a full scale social revolution that completely over-turns the capitalist order has yet to be seen (obviously) so there is always room for doubt, thoughts like "Is all this really even gonna happen?". My answer is this; I have no clue. I honestly have no idea weather, or not we will succeed. I don't think anyone knows, nor has anyone ever known, and anyone who says they do is majorly deluding themselves. Weather it's possible is a different question. To be a revolutionary is ultimately to answer yes to this question. Revolutionaries are always profoundly and fundamentally optimistic as we fundamentally believe that society can be changed for the better. If you asked me "why" I think that I would say that human beings have not lived in one form of society for the whole history of their existence. We have profoundly re-organized and reconstituted society many times in human history. Capitalism itself was created through the radical re-organization of society by the under-classes. For me it will never be a matter "if" we can do it. It's a matter of how.

Is the working class movement dead? What is the role of pro-revolutionaries in the current social, political and economic climate?

Pre-discussion comments by an AF member to a libertarian socialist discussion meeting in Leicester, 25 January 2017. NB: this is not verbatim but more the speaker’s somewhat sketchy notes re-assembled into a more readable format.

Just to say that this discussion lead-in mainly deals with the situation here in the UK, reflecting my own knowledge and experience. I accept that there will be similar elements which apply to the situation in other countries, as well as differences.

So, is the workers’ movement dead? In short: no. But it is on life support. Since the early 1980s there has been a marked decline in class consciousness, class cohesion, solidarity and such like. Now we have a working class that is de-educated, de-politicised, atomised and individualised. In terms of class struggle politics, it is as if we are starting from scratch.

The 1970s was the post-war high point in class struggle and the organised working class which featured significant struggles with miners and other industries, events such as the battle of Saltley Gate, the fall of the Heath government and culminating in the “winter of discontent”. On the continent, such mass wildcat strikes were known as “the British disease” which seems hard to believe when we look at how things are now. Prior to this meeting, I received a document from the CWO (Communist Workers Organisation) which quoted statistics from the UK Office of National Statistics which noted that in 1979, 2.95 million working days were lost to strike action. I’ll repeat that figure so we can all just take it in: that’s 2.95 - almost 3 million days - lost because of strike action.

Forward closer to the present and the same Office of National Statistics gives the figures for 2015 as 170,000 strike days – a tiny fraction. What that figure doesn’t tell you either is the quality of the action taken. I am assuming that the majority of those days would be official actions, one day strikes, often token and with limited effectiveness. What stands for a working class movement has retreated into reformism and identity politics - world where Corbynism and the Labour left even seems comparatively radical. Meanwhile, sites of genuine class resistance are now like virtual oases in the vast capitalist desert.

That said, it’s possible I’m offering a somewhat rose-tinted view of the past. After all, while the 1970s saw inspiring acts of working class activity, it was also a period of chronic racism at all levels of society, where sexist attitudes were endemic and violent homophobia more or less the norm. Over the years, such reactionary views became increasingly unacceptable – although, more recently, it looks as if there’s something of a backlash with racist, xenophobic and conservative attitudes apparently on the increase.

As for the mass industrial action and wider class consciousness of the 70s, yes it was often militant and often wildcat in nature, but it was also solidly tied to labourism or the CP, reformism and orthodox trade unionism. It was also followed by Thatcherism. And let’s not forget the open collusion of the trade unions themselves in the collapse of the organised workers’ movement over the last 30-odd years – yet another failure of social democracy.

So if it’s all so dire, is it worth reviving? Yes, because class struggle is fundamental, the ONLY way to ever abolish capitalism. This is because, ultimately, capitalism can only be abolished by the workers of the world seizing the means of production – however unlikely it may seem in the here and now.

So what should be the role of pro-revolutionaries? All those years ago, the First International declared that the emancipation of the working class was the task of the workers themselves, and this holds true today – however far away the notion of the working class emancipating itself may currently seem. Nevertheless, there are no short cuts to this – well no short cuts that won’t end in disaster in one way or another.

That means no substitutionism – in other words, substituting your particular group, party or political movement for the working class. Likewise, no Jacobinism, Marxist-Leninism, or so-called insurrectionism (whether anarchist, Maoist or some other Marxist-Leninist variant) either. All of these, in their own particular way, aim to act for (or in the name of) the working class rather than the working class acting for itself. They are all every bit as much a dead end as the reformism of those who have opted to throw in their lot with Corbynism and Momentum.

The alternatives to all that may not be very exciting but they are essential. Those of us who advocate a revolution to establish a society based on the principle from each according to ability to each according to need, whether we call ourselves anarchists, communists, socialists or whatever, need to maintain a revolutionary intransigence, serving as a class memory – the “thin red line” so to speak.

But also, we need to be practically engaged in struggles as and when they arise - involved, whether active within or supportive externally to those “oases” of class struggle I mentioned earlier. This also means being proactive in things such as residents’ groups, claimants’ organisations, autonomous workplace activity… or by establishing or re-establishing such organisations but without repeating past mistakes. I’m also aware that these days, such types of organisation are few and far between. Nevertheless, where we are active, whether actively participating within or offering solidarity from outside, we need to engage with action that is meaningful. I’m minded of the quote from the old group, Solidarity:

Meaningful action, for revolutionaries, is whatever increases the confidence, the autonomy, the initiative, the participation, the solidarity, the equalitarian tendencies and the self-activity of the masses and whatever assists in their demystification. Sterile and harmful action is whatever reinforces the passivity of the masses, their apathy, their cynicism, their differentiation through hierarchy, their alienation, their reliance on others to do things for them and the degree to which they can therefore be manipulated by others - even by those allegedly acting on their behalf.

Wait, I thought your whole position rejected the idea of "oases" of class struggle? Confused now

Not sure where you get that from??? Maybe I came across clearer in the meeting.

It's referencing another thread where Artesian and others are arguing that no islands of communism is possible. Seems like the poster confuses that with class struggle. FWIW, while I think the first is impossible, the class struggle will have its oases. After all, class struggle won't be global immediately.

Ah. I'd agree. You can't have islands of communism in a capitalist ocean but there are definitely islands of resistance and class struggle/greater levels of class consciousness.

They were revolutionary moments with high levels of class consciousness. They all ultimately failed. Had such revolutions spread, then we'd probably be living in a very different sort of world.

You're possibly reading into it a bit too much there fella and I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at. I measure class consciousness in terms of the degree to which the working class appears to be becoming "a class for itself" (whatever ideological label is used). How would you measure class consciousness?

To me post #67 is just plainly suggesting the brands of ideology favored by the poster. The poster wants us all to realise that their particular ideology is now much more popular than those of a century ago. And that it should be more popular. In fact the only way to communism is to make that particular ideology the official ideology of the revolution. In other words, el psy congroo and almost every communisation-influenced individual and group I've encountered, with few notable exceptions, attempt to "measure" "the level of class consciousness" - or their alternative conception of revolutionary momentum - by judging how close it is to their specific political principles.

This has all gotten a bit weird.

Surely class consciousness is just the awareness that workers have a shared, collective interest with each other and in opposition to that of their bosses - and that they're willing to act and organize to further the interests that they share as a class.

While a lot of communist language may be alienating (a reflection of the level of class consciousness and not the other way around) and, of course, action often precedes consciousness, there's no need to be pedantic.

EPC, have you read Fighting For Ourselves? I think it at the very least challenges the notion that most anarchists seek to "attempt to "measure" "the level of class consciousness" by judging how close it is to their specific political principles."

el psy congroo

What is class consciousness anyway? Is it communist consciousness? Is it a self-described workers identity? Is it the basic awareness that your boss rips you off and your company steals all the profits? There are levels to it aren't there?

fundamental questions. i have a colleague, i've discussed with him a few times. he has a perfect understanding of his/our place as an employee/s against the people who issue the contracts. yet he doesn't believe that we, corporately as a faculty, ought to act about anything having to do with our work conditions. talk yes, but not act. today he forwarded an email to the entire faculty to call paul ryan's office to surprise ryan with a deluge of calls supporting ACA. ("Paul Ryan’s office is conducting a phone poll, hoping to hear overwhelming opposition to the Affordable Care Act.") the ACA is under threat and has provided health care to millions who wouldn't otherwise have it ... to the profit of the insurance companies and the burden of those who can't afford to pay the penalty for non-participation. this colleague is 50 years (no joke) at the school, and must be pulling in something like 200K, yet used a work email address to call attention that the indigent are under the gun.

he's got class awareness. does he have class consciousness? by what rubric? (as el psy is asking.) are the people in kansas wrong to vote against their material self-interest if they satisfy their emotional self-interest? is "kansas" a legitimate category? (i'm referring to the book title.) there's more to say.

I think I've come to the wrong place. Can anyone recommend somewhere to discuss communisation?

You can discuss that here just fine. A lot of libcom's politics is partly informed by communization theory. I don't think anyone here have a fundamental disagreement with communization theory's critique of programmatism, for example. But I suggest that you be just a bit more upfront that that is what you want to discuss. FWIW, I think commuization theory has a lot to offer; I especially think their stuff on surplus population, gender and race is really exciting, as is their move towards identifying circulation as a terrain of struggle.

What are examples like the Paris and Shanghai communes, then? Or the ones in the Russian or Spanish revolutions? "Islands of communism" or "islands of resistance and class struggle" with "greater levels of class consciousness"?

Paris and Shanghai, I'd say would belong to the "islands of resistance and class struggle" with "greater levels of class consciousness" whereas Russia and Spain where "islands of communism" that proved islands of communism cannot exist since, you know, they were defeated. But sure, they could all be placed in the islands of communism coz Paris and Shanghai were definitively more than what the tiny islands of class struggle we see in certain times and places were/are today. But the point is not really to categorise things in this way; it's more what can we learn from such examples.

epc

Hi Red Marriott. I understand where you are coming from in re-posting that and changing the context, except I would argue against ideology in general. Wouldn't you? The thing is "the ideology" you refer to (mine) has never been popular. My "ideology" didn't produce Kautsky, Stalin, Mao, etc. My "ideology" didn't make "communism" synonymous with state capitalism.

Nor did Serge’s or other libcom users, so I don’t get why that strawman made an appearance. Though your communisation theory is just as heavily influenced by marxisms(s), including apparently the stalinist Althusser – the determinism being one symptom; http://libcom.org/library/notes-endnotes

I’ve seen enough rapid conversions to the Ultimate Truth of messianic communisation theory to know that ideology is functioning alive and well – including among those who pay theoretical lip-service to the difference between theory & ideology.

My "ideology" didn't produce Kautsky, Stalin, Mao, etc. My "ideology" didn't make "communism" synonymous with state capitalism.

No ideology “produced” such figures – to think they were produced by ideology is an idealism that seems to contradict the Marx quote you used and its materialist concepts of “conscious existence” and “physical life-process”. Like other communisationists you portray human agency as largely submissive to some disembodied external force such as History or Ideology.

...