How the left shoots themselves in the foot Insightful blog post

[Mo212]

Note this post was originally a reply to a post made at this blog here, but it is so insightful it warranted it's own thread about how the left alienates normal people

http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2009/08/29/control-is-the-name-of-the-game/comment-page-1/#comment-228


Jurriaan Bendien on 30 Aug 2009 at 11:18 am # (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#comment-194)

Well actually I appreciate your work very much, it’s a real achievement and that is why I wondered why you wrote like this. Are you feeling somber?

Did Marx really fail to foresee just how powerful the modern state and corporation are? I am not so sure. It is true that in his day, the state’s tax take and expenditure represented no more than 5-10% of the national income. But on the other hand, the population to be controlled by the state was vastly smaller, and there were fewer civil rights. Marx was well aware of Thomas Hobbes and of the Prussian state bureaucracy, and he was himself expelled successively from Germany, France and Belgium by the state authorities. If he did not directly attack the state much in his criticism, there was a very good reason for it, since he knew from experience that it could mean that he (and, in England, his family) could be expelled from the country where he lived. In other words, he was a known “dangerous radical” constantly under the watchful eye of the state authorities.

In my experience, many union organisers are sentimentally anti-capitalist, but in practice the main ethical issue in their work (insofar as they are workers’ advocates) is whether you can win a good “compromise” between Labour and Capital, or have to consent to a rotten one. In turn, however, this concern is shaped by perceptions of what can be realistically achieved at the time, and there your criticism has some force, insofar as you may be able to prove, that much more could be achieved with a less conservative outlook.
In the history of capitalism, there have been rather few explicitly anti-capitalist unions, and with few exceptions, their militancy (1) was fired by Left parties of one stripe or another, or what amounted to political parties; or (2)they were driven to anti-capitalist agitation because society was actually disintegrating. In the main, unions have been “defensive” organisations of the workers. There is a gigantic distance between a student launching a hot-air anti-capitalist slogan he learnt from reading a book, and a union organiser negotiating pay & conditions, who is personally responsible for representing many workers about things that matter most to them in their lives. I know this for a fact, because I and a close friend crossed that distance in our lives once. To be a good unionist, you aren’t “anti-capitalist” so much, as “pro-worker”. But in fact most workers aren’t anti-capitalist in normal times, and thus, anti-capitalist rhetorics will only alienate them (well, it depends a bit what you mean). For their part, most “Marxists” I have known hated the working class in practical life.

In my experience, many union organisers are hostile to radical Leftists not because of their ideals, but because these people have no idea about how to relate, how to communicate or what is really at stake, and they vent all kinds of radical ideas at every opportunity without any idea of what the consequences of that are for real people. Moreover these radical Leftists have a consistent habit of calling into question and decrying the sincerity of the motivation of other people, and they play the silliest and dumbest games of “I am more correct and radical than thou”. In addition, the radical Leftists have a really warped idea of the relationship between theory and practice – they believe for example that the task of the party is to propagate Marxism – and in the matter of organising they get even the very simplest, tiniest basics of organisation wrong, with disastrous results. In other words, you are dealing with a large number of people whose radicality grew out of their own social, sexual and cultural maladjustment, but unfortunately the reality is that you cannot build any serious organisation out of socially maladjusted people, you can build it only with people who have a real life of their own and sources of satisfaction independent of politics. But if they have a real life of their own, you also have to have a due regard for it, rather than contemptuously sneering at it as many radical Leftists are prone to do.

We inherited a Leftist hippy and punk culture of struggle from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, but in fact – whatever its merits – much of that culture makes no sense anymore now, and to adhere to it still, is in reality totally conservative – at best it amounts to the preservation of an ideal of struggle, with the belief that if you waft these images of the past at people formed by a different generation, that it will interpellate them. But this misunderstands even the uses of tradition. The main feeling I get about the US Left is that they complain that reality fails to measure up to their ideal, and they feel frustrated about that. But this is a loser’s game, and that is why radicals who aim for success, and aim to do what you need to do to get success, avoid this Leftist culture like the plague, because it only drags you down and embroils you in useless disputes which only waste time, energy and money. If you want sympathy for your cause, best to go to people who can really advance it, rather than “groupies” who really haven’t got a clue and misrepresent their own motivations to themselves.
Correct me if I am wrong.

[Bud Struggle]

In my experience, many union organisers are hostile to radical Leftists not because of their ideals, but because these people have no idea about how to relate, how to communicate or what is really at stake, and they vent all kinds of radical ideas at every opportunity without any idea of what the consequences of that are for real people. Moreover these radical Leftists have a consistent habit of calling into question and decrying the sincerity of the motivation of other people, and they play the silliest and dumbest games of “I am more correct and radical than thou”. In addition, the radical Leftists have a really warped idea of the relationship between theory and practice – they believe for example that the task of the party is to propagate Marxism – and in the matter of organising they get even the very simplest, tiniest basics of organisation wrong, with disastrous results. In other words, you are dealing with a large number of people whose radicality grew out of their own social, sexual and cultural maladjustment, but unfortunately the reality is that you cannot build any serious organisation out of socially maladjusted people, you can build it only with people who have a real life of their own and sources of satisfaction independent of politics. But if they have a real life of their own, you also have to have a due regard for it, rather than contemptuously sneering at it as many radical Leftists are prone to do.


This was a good post.

As someone that interacts with laborers on a daily basis I can see that there is a huge disconnect between Marxist thought and what goes on in the lives of normal workers. Workers in the US are to a large extent socially very conservative compared to the Bourgeoise. In my plant there are "men's jobs" and "woman's jobs" not that I care at all about it--but the workers want it that way. A good number of workers are deeply religious, anti-abortion and also pretty much anti-gay. I could give you 20 other examples of worker conservatism.


And while workers want higher wages the though of tradition unions are frightening because they are pictured as the very seat of corruption. In small to medium businesses I think workers side with managers more than they ever could with some outside union. Unions bring in an unnecessary bureauocracy and complication into the work place--as well as an "us against them" hostility. There "may" be a thing as calss consciousness but it's not something that is anyway understood in the work place. I'm just as much a worker called "Tom" as a forklift driver is a guy called "Bill." We're a couple of workers--we just have different jobs. That may just be a bit of brilliant Capitalists propaganda, but it does seem to work.


I don't think workers have any idea what they could win if they stood together and the last people that would tell them that would be the traditional unions. For the most part they represent themselves as a kind of "business" that for a fee negotiates contracts for employees. They are as well within the Capitalist culture as any stockolder. On the other side the radical unions like the IWW are more marginalized by the traditional unions than the corporations themselves. Anyway, at least here in Florida the IWW doesn't exist. And for that matter the only Communists I've ever run across are here on RevLeft even the IWW members I've met weren't Communists. And on the other hand if you look on in the union section of RevLeft on the "Who's in the Union" thread--very few RevLefters are in any real union. There is a real disconnect here, I think.

I keep wondering how do you get a Revolution out of all of this--compromise? Maybe on both sides.

[RGacky3]

As someone that interacts with laborers on a daily basis I can see that there is a huge disconnect between Marxist thought and what goes on in the lives of normal workers. Workers in the US are to a large extent socially very conservative compared to the Bourgeoise. In my plant there are "men's jobs" and "woman's jobs" not that I care at all about it--but the workers want it that way. A good number of workers are deeply religious, anti-abortion and also pretty much anti-gay. I could give you 20 other examples of worker conservatism.

Almost everyone interacts with laborers on a daily basis because most people are laborers :P.

Workers are no more conservative than the Bourgeoisie, statistically speaking there really is'nt a difference, it has to do with how your raised, so conservatism is not a "workers" thing, and liberalism is not a "Capitalist" thing.


And while workers want higher wages the though of tradition unions are frightening because they are pictured as the very seat of corruption. In small to medium businesses I think workers side with managers more than they ever could with some outside union.

Big point there, but your absolutely wrong, in small to medium buisinesses, most workers do not side with the managers, class conflict is alive and well.

The tradition of unions is sometimes tainted because of the history of mob influence, but thats with the big established unions that have become purposely less democratic (although still more democratic that buisiness, which is'nt at all, and even the state).

However more and more workers are creating their own "unions" which is the way it should be, and the way the IWW does it (the IWW never tells the individual shop unions what to do, they make their own desicions democratically and the IWW helps them). But you Waayyyyy over estimate the whole "nice boss" thing, its not like that, and never will be likes that, the same way the majority of dictators will not be "nice dictators", the fact is there is ALWAYS conflict between a Capitalists need for profit and a workers want for the fruits of his labor, there is always the conflict of control and say.


I don't think workers have any idea what they could win if they stood together and the last people that would tell them that would be the traditional unions. For the most part they represent themselves as a kind of "business" that for a fee negotiates contracts for employees. They are as well within the Capitalist culture as any stockolder. On the other side the radical unions like the IWW are more marginalized by the traditional unions than the corporations themselves. Anyway, at least here in Florida the IWW doesn't exist. And for that matter the only Communists I've ever run across are here on RevLeft even the IWW members I've met weren't Communists. And on the other hand if you look on in the union section of RevLeft on the "Who's in the Union" thread--very few RevLefters are in any real union. There is a real disconnect here, I think.


I agree completely with you on the traditional unions, even though there are many large unions that in my opinion ARE democratic and ARE really interested in giving workers more say over the conditions.

As for the IWW, its growing, even here in europe (in england), and unions like it, that are democratic (I don't like to call them radical, because they arn't democracy is not THAT radical), your right about IWW members most of them arn't "communists," the vast majority of them are just average folk trying to inprove their working lives, the same way most Americans are not "socialist" but most of them have many "socialist (read democratic)" ideals.


I keep wondering how do you get a Revolution out of all of this--compromise? Maybe on both sides.

You get revolution when more people start to realize what you said, which is absolutely 100% true.


I don't think workers have any idea what they could win if they stood together

This is happening more and more, especially when people are getting more and more margenalized and abused.

[jake williams]

Note this post was originally a reply to a post made at this blog here, but it is so insightful it warranted it's own thread about how the left alienates normal people

http://blog.cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2009/08/29/control-is-the-name-of-the-game/comment-page-1/#comment-228


Jurriaan Bendien on 30 Aug 2009 at 11:18 am # (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#comment-194)

Well actually I appreciate your work very much, it’s a real achievement and that is why I wondered why you wrote like this. Are you feeling somber?

Did Marx really fail to foresee just how powerful the modern state and corporation are? I am not so sure. It is true that in his day, the state’s tax take and expenditure represented no more than 5-10% of the national income. But on the other hand, the population to be controlled by the state was vastly smaller, and there were fewer civil rights. Marx was well aware of Thomas Hobbes and of the Prussian state bureaucracy, and he was himself expelled successively from Germany, France and Belgium by the state authorities. If he did not directly attack the state much in his criticism, there was a very good reason for it, since he knew from experience that it could mean that he (and, in England, his family) could be expelled from the country where he lived. In other words, he was a known “dangerous radical” constantly under the watchful eye of the state authorities.

In my experience, many union organisers are sentimentally anti-capitalist, but in practice the main ethical issue in their work (insofar as they are workers’ advocates) is whether you can win a good “compromise” between Labour and Capital, or have to consent to a rotten one. In turn, however, this concern is shaped by perceptions of what can be realistically achieved at the time, and there your criticism has some force, insofar as you may be able to prove, that much more could be achieved with a less conservative outlook.
In the history of capitalism, there have been rather few explicitly anti-capitalist unions, and with few exceptions, their militancy (1) was fired by Left parties of one stripe or another, or what amounted to political parties; or (2)they were driven to anti-capitalist agitation because society was actually disintegrating. In the main, unions have been “defensive” organisations of the workers. There is a gigantic distance between a student launching a hot-air anti-capitalist slogan he learnt from reading a book, and a union organiser negotiating pay & conditions, who is personally responsible for representing many workers about things that matter most to them in their lives. I know this for a fact, because I and a close friend crossed that distance in our lives once. To be a good unionist, you aren’t “anti-capitalist” so much, as “pro-worker”. But in fact most workers aren’t anti-capitalist in normal times, and thus, anti-capitalist rhetorics will only alienate them (well, it depends a bit what you mean). For their part, most “Marxists” I have known hated the working class in practical life.

In my experience, many union organisers are hostile to radical Leftists not because of their ideals, but because these people have no idea about how to relate, how to communicate or what is really at stake, and they vent all kinds of radical ideas at every opportunity without any idea of what the consequences of that are for real people. Moreover these radical Leftists have a consistent habit of calling into question and decrying the sincerity of the motivation of other people, and they play the silliest and dumbest games of “I am more correct and radical than thou”. In addition, the radical Leftists have a really warped idea of the relationship between theory and practice – they believe for example that the task of the party is to propagate Marxism – and in the matter of organising they get even the very simplest, tiniest basics of organisation wrong, with disastrous results. In other words, you are dealing with a large number of people whose radicality grew out of their own social, sexual and cultural maladjustment, but unfortunately the reality is that you cannot build any serious organisation out of socially maladjusted people, you can build it only with people who have a real life of their own and sources of satisfaction independent of politics. But if they have a real life of their own, you also have to have a due regard for it, rather than contemptuously sneering at it as many radical Leftists are prone to do.

We inherited a Leftist hippy and punk culture of struggle from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, but in fact – whatever its merits – much of that culture makes no sense anymore now, and to adhere to it still, is in reality totally conservative – at best it amounts to the preservation of an ideal of struggle, with the belief that if you waft these images of the past at people formed by a different generation, that it will interpellate them. But this misunderstands even the uses of tradition. The main feeling I get about the US Left is that they complain that reality fails to measure up to their ideal, and they feel frustrated about that. But this is a loser’s game, and that is why radicals who aim for success, and aim to do what you need to do to get success, avoid this Leftist culture like the plague, because it only drags you down and embroils you in useless disputes which only waste time, energy and money. If you want sympathy for your cause, best to go to people who can really advance it, rather than “groupies” who really haven’t got a clue and misrepresent their own motivations to themselves.
Correct me if I am wrong.
While I have some reservations and disagreements, broadly, I would quite agree with you.

[Plagueround]

As a member of the working class, I find much of the left I've encountered to be exactly the type of sneering, anti-worker people described in this blog. But I also have yet to find any other political ideology that doesn't openly express it's disdain for the majority of people on the planet. At some point the left lost it's teeth (at least in much of the first world), probably because they were beaten down and persecuted so heavily, and the new movement may have become more about being superior and "prolier than thou", but it doesn't make the ideas any less valid or worth attempting. Certainly a new approach is needed, but discarding the only ideologies that seem invested in promoting the well being of the working class in all countries, or coming up with harebrained schemes to move away aren't the answer.

[RED ARMY FACTION]

What the left needs to stop is attracting these middle class che t shirt wearing smug little wankers who seems to be all over the left movement atm.
Only workers know how degrading capitalism is, and they are the only ones who are worthy of revolution, superior intelligence will not help you in strikes, riots and all of the upheaval the working class will endure on their way to revolution.
Anyone who sniggers at workers is not a communist and is a fucking disgrace, we dont need them and they should fuck off to george galloway or new labour.
Fucking useless bastards

[ZeroNowhere]

I would have social maladjustment if most people were like the author of this piece.


Anyone who sniggers at workers is not a communist and is a fucking disgrace, we dont need them and they should fuck off to george galloway or new labour.I'm sorry, is it impossible for somebody who is a worker to either act like an idiot or have a sense of humour now?

[Bud Struggle]

Almost everyone interacts with laborers on a daily basis because most people are laborers :P. Fair enough, but in my line of work I take the time and ask workers about their conditions and bosses and political beliefs and class conflict--all the while dressed workman's clothes.


Workers are no more conservative than the Bourgeoisie, statistically speaking there really is'nt a difference, it has to do with how your raised, so conservatism is not a "workers" thing, and liberalism is not a "Capitalist" thing. Nope--in the workplace Capitalists are concerned with making money--the workers are concerned with the "dignaty" of what they do and of their workplace.


Big point there, but your absolutely wrong, in small to medium buisinesses, most workers do not side with the managers, class conflict is alive and well. I think you're mistaken here again--a won contract for a small/medium company is something everyone benefits in. The workers/management of most companies pull together as a team to support the business.


However more and more workers are creating their own "unions" which is the way it should be, and the way the IWW does it (the IWW never tells the individual shop unions what to do, they make their own desicions democratically and the IWW helps them). But you Waayyyyy over estimate the whole "nice boss" thing, its not like that, and never will be likes that, the same way the majority of dictators will not be "nice dictators", the fact is there is ALWAYS conflict between a Capitalists need for profit and a workers want for the fruits of his labor, there is always the conflict of control and say. Well yea, if you look at things from a Communist point of view--but of you look at things from the "way they are" point of view--you don't see all of that conflict. It's a matter of perspective. If you see a revolution comming around the corner, fine. I see no such thing.


As for the IWW, its growing, even here in europe (in england), and unions like it, that are democratic (I don't like to call them radical, because they arn't democracy is not THAT radical), your right about IWW members most of them arn't "communists," the vast majority of them are just average folk trying to inprove their working lives, the same way most Americans are not "socialist" but most of them have many "socialist (read democratic)" ideals. Maybe they are growing--but as you know I sang songs with the IWW here where I live--and BELIEVE ME on this, these guys aren't going to organize a phone booth.

[RGacky3]

I'm sorry, is it impossible for somebody who is a worker to either act like an idiot or have a sense of humour now?

He's talking about as a whole, as a class, not individuals.


all the while dressed workman's clothes.

Well arn't you smug.


Fair enough, but in my line of work I take the time and ask workers about their conditions and bosses and political beliefs and class conflict

I can tell you, if my boss came up to me and started asking me questions like that I would have the sense to mince my words.


Nope--in the workplace Capitalists are concerned with making money--the workers are concerned with the "dignaty" of what they do and of their workplace.


Nope, first of all what does htat have to do with being liberal or conservative. Second workers are concerned with their pay and their conditions, the amount of time htey have to work, the nature of their work, as well as dignity, there are many different things, people are people.


I think you're mistaken here again--a won contract for a small/medium company is something everyone benefits in. The workers/management of most companies pull together as a team to support the business.

For the winning of contracts sure, but remember, a workers loyalty to a company is generally as much as the paycheck and conditions, its not like they're a "team", when it comes to who gets what say, and who gets what portion of the pie, its the same in smaller medium companies as it is in larger companies. (I've worked for small companies as well as a major corporation).


Well yea, if you look at things from a Communist point of view--but of you look at things from the "way they are" point of view--you don't see all of that conflict. It's a matter of perspective. If you see a revolution comming around the corner, fine. I see no such thing.


conlfict does not always lead to revolution, most people in many countries are not happy with the conditions, and there are a lot of conflict, but it takes a lot of solidarity and certain conditions ALONG with conflict to make a revolution. The fact is you ask your average worker at the bar or where ever about their work, I guarantee you there is conflict.


Maybe they are growing--but as you know I sang songs with the IWW here where I live--and BELIEVE ME on this, these guys aren't going to organize a phone booth.

No, just Starbucks, and many others.

[Bud Struggle]

Nope, first of all what does htat have to do with being liberal or conservative. Second workers are concerned with their pay and their conditions, the amount of time htey have to work, the nature of their work, as well as dignity, there are many different things, people are people. All I can say is that there's a LOT of anti-gay bias in my workplace. And what those people think of transgendered people I haven't a clue. Lots of pro-Obama, but also lots of anti-Abortion.


For the winning of contracts sure, but remember, a workers loyalty to a company is generally as much as the paycheck and conditions, its not like they're a "team", when it comes to who gets what say, and who gets what portion of the pie, its the same in smaller medium companies as it is in larger companies. (I've worked for small companies as well as a major corporation). Fair enough, but did the worker get the contract? Did the worker build the business? They make their widgets and do their job and get paid accordingly. The guy that sold the contract and built the business gets a better deal. I don't think any reasonable person would complain about that.


conlfict does not always lead to revolution, most people in many countries are not happy with the conditions, and there are a lot of conflict, but it takes a lot of solidarity and certain conditions ALONG with conflict to make a revolution. The fact is you ask your average worker at the bar or where ever about their work, I guarantee you there is conflict. Few if any would consider it class conflict.


No, just Starbucks, and many others. Well dude, yea!