[Help] loosing hope in the workplace struggle

[StoneFrog]

I don't want to, i just am loosing my hope that a workplace based struggle will work. I'm starting to feel that the workplace environment, that encouraged with in developed countries, aren't environments that can create a strong worker struggle. Before i turn to a form of Blanquism, hoping you guys can convert me back, i mean i dont want to; just doesn't seem to be making sense anymore.

[EvilRedGuy]

I can't really tell you anything more than: Hope, hope is the only thing we have but why surrender? If someone toke your wallet wouldn't you be fighting for it? I asked the same question and good the same answer. But it does seem dark these days we're living in so i dont really know. :(

[Thirsty Crow]

I don't want to, i just am loosing my hope that a workplace based struggle will work. I'm starting to feel that the workplace environment, that encouraged with in developed countries, aren't environments that can create a strong worker struggle. Before i turn to a form of Blanquism, hoping you guys can convert me back, i mean i dont want to; just doesn't seem to be making sense anymore.

Consider this: Blanquism, in all its possible forms, is a dead end. Completely illogical and non-viable in the long run.
It's ok to lose hope at some point. However, consider also this: hope is a matter of performance within the boundaries of class struggle, or in other words - if we don't struggle, if we don't give them hell, there latent potential will remain latent and there could be no basis for hope.

[AK]

What on earth is blanquism?

[bricolage]

What on earth is blanquism?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanquism

[AK]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanquism
Wow that is the single stupidest thing I have ever heard of.

[bricolage]

Wow that is the single stupidest thing I have ever heard of.
It was relatively popular (although most Blanquists wouldn't have know who the other ones were!) and despite Blanqui himself being in jail his followers played a semi-large role in the Paris Commune, especially in the police department and the execution of hostages.
But yes it is a silly idea, especially seeing as Blanqui was never even clear about what his socialism would look like, it was just all about insurrection and the conquest of state power, what happened then who knows...

[revolution inaction]

I don't want to, i just am loosing my hope that a workplace based struggle will work. I'm starting to feel that the workplace environment, that encouraged with in developed countries, aren't environments that can create a strong worker struggle. Before i turn to a form of Blanquism, hoping you guys can convert me back, i mean i dont want to; just doesn't seem to be making sense anymore.

you have to remember that creating an anarchist/communist movement is some takes a really long time, like decades, and at first it will seem that we have little or no progress, so you shouldn't be giving up now because things look bad.

another thing i think is important is that we shouldn't focus all our effort on workplace stuff. the workplace is vary important, but community struggles matter to as well as various struggles against oppression, what is important is creating a culture of resistance so that when people encounter problems they will organise amongst themselves and fight back.

this isnt to reject workplace struggle in any way, just to recognise that anything that increases the working classes understanding of it self as a class, and its organisation can have revolutionary potential.

[RED DAVE]

I don't want to, i just am loosing my hope that a workplace based struggle will work. I'm starting to feel that the workplace environment, that encouraged with in developed countries, aren't environments that can create a strong worker struggle. Before i turn to a form of Blanquism, hoping you guys can convert me back, i mean i dont want to; just doesn't seem to be making sense anymore.The class struggle ebbs and flows. This is disheartening, yes. The cycles seem to run about 20 years or more. We are just coming out of a period of protracted working class quiescence in the US, which has lasted 30 years (probably extended by the election of 2000 and 9/11).

Let me give you the words of Debs who, after a lifetime of labor and socialist struggle, was about to go to jail for opposing WWI. A little religious for our modern taste, but his heart was true.


When the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for relief from his weary watch, he turns his eyes toward the southern cross, burning luridly above the tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches, the southern cross begins to bend, the whirling worlds change their places, and with starry finger-points the Almighty marks the passage of time upon the dial of the universe, and though no bell may beat the glad tidings, the lookout knows that the midnight is passing and that relief and rest are close at hand. Let the people everywhere take heart of hope, for the cross is bending, the midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.RED DAVE

[StoneFrog]

For me its less a thing of becoming disheartened with the movement, its more that we are basing our workplace struggles on old models. I really think that a new movement has to arise, the cappies have had centuries to find ways to combat us. I also feel that there is a lack of encouragement to move in a new direction, and people are just falling back on theories of the old. I'm not saying they don't have any relevance, just its given the chance for the bourgeoisie to create ways to combat our tactics. With Blanquism, it removes the element that the bourgeoisie can anticipate what the moves are. By going out of the workplace it gives the chance that you aren't confined by the constant fear of becoming unemployed and limited by strike laws etc..
Unions at the moment create more distrust for workplace movements than anything else, i have seen corrupt unions ruin worker moral and create an atmosphere of no hope. Only in it for the paycheck, style of unions.

I have expressed, other ideas which weren't to the extent of Blanquism to combat what i've said but always faced resistance. Maybe i should keep working on those ideas and not Blanquism; since Blanquism isn't the best solution imo but im finding it hard to see another. I use to focus on the role of the community struggle to combat the new era of workplace oppression, but people always put that to the back burners; when i felt it was the most important role in modern struggles.

[Zanthorus]

What on earth is blanquism?

Basically, everything that anarchists and Council Communists criticise Lenin for believing, Blanqui did believe.

[The Douche]

Read "The Wandering of Humanity" by Camatte, the workplace is not a place of hope, its not odd to feel sensations of hopelessness when being in/thinking about work, its downright normal.

[AK]

For me its less a thing of becoming disheartened with the movement, its more that we are basing our workplace struggles on old models. I really think that a new movement has to arise, the cappies have had centuries to find ways to combat us. I also feel that there is a lack of encouragement to move in a new direction, and people are just falling back on theories of the old. I'm not saying they don't have any relevance, just its given the chance for the bourgeoisie to create ways to combat our tactics. With Blanquism, it removes the element that the bourgeoisie can anticipate what the moves are. By going out of the workplace it gives the chance that you aren't confined by the constant fear of becoming unemployed and limited by strike laws etc..
Unions at the moment create more distrust for workplace movements than anything else, i have seen corrupt unions ruin worker moral and create an atmosphere of no hope. Only in it for the paycheck, style of unions.

I have expressed, other ideas which weren't to the extent of Blanquism to combat what i've said but always faced resistance. Maybe i should keep working on those ideas and not Blanquism; since Blanquism isn't the best solution imo but im finding it hard to see another. I use to focus on the role of the community struggle to combat the new era of workplace oppression, but people always put that to the back burners; when i felt it was the most important role in modern struggles.
Well, to cut it short: blanquism can never lead to socialism. Don't even try it. There's a reason we argue for working class self-emancipation - and the reason is that only the working class can emancipate itself.

[StoneFrog]

Well, to cut it short: blanquism can never lead to socialism. Don't even try it. There's a reason we argue for working class self-emancipation - and the reason is that only the working class can emancipate itself.

But do it have to be based on workplace struggles?

[AK]

But do it have to be based on workplace struggles?
Workplace and economic struggles are an integral part of every communist tradition. Blanquists are not communists. They are assholes. Don't become one.

[The Douche]

Workplace and economic struggles are an integral part of every communist tradition. Blanquists are not communists. They are assholes. Don't become one.

I think the broadness of this statement makes it untrue.

[AK]

I think the broadness of this statement makes it untrue.
How exactly?

[The Douche]

How exactly?

Because I don't consider "workplace struggle" to be integral to the communist project.

What does it really mean? Better wages?

Hell, I would say its more accurate to say struggle against the workplace is integral to the communist project.

[Friedrich]

Blanquism seems to be a last resort way of trying to introduce communism, and until we are living under Authoritarianism rule, I don't suggest resorting to it.

[Paulappaul]

I don't want to, i just am loosing my hope that a workplace based struggle will work. I'm starting to feel that the workplace environment, that encouraged with in developed countries, aren't environments that can create a strong worker struggle. Before i turn to a form of Blanquism, hoping you guys can convert me back, i mean i dont want to; just doesn't seem to be making sense anymore.

Council Communism and Libertarian Marxism by extension doesn't just focus on the Workplace environment. While the Workplace is important because we spend most of our day besides sleeping in it or having to do with it. Ignoring the place where people are most alienated and most enslaved isn't a good approach. The biggest problem with the movement right now is that we've moved away from organizing in the workplace, towards organizing in schools and in the ballot box.

While Capital exploits vertically through the state and the Workplace, it also exploits through markets and everyday life, towards an ever expanding world of alienation. Through the massive consumption of commodities, which tell us where to go, what to do and when to do it. I would suggest watching the "Society of Spectacles" and reading some Situtationist works as they develop better then me these ideas of consumerist exploitation.

Its important for us to organize against these forces as well.

Popular assemblies in the form of Workers' Councils or Communes are some of first steps towards turning the tide against Capitalism. Councils because they organise Politically and Economically against Capital in all its forms.


For me its less a thing of becoming disheartened with the movement, its more that we are basing our workplace struggles on old models.

True Workplace Struggles are never based on "old models". Every organization based on old models have failed. Labor Organizations are formed to certain conditions pertaining to nature of the world at large. There is no single model to a Workers' Councils, on the contrary, such would be antithetical to their concept. There is no fixed notion to how a council should form, when it should form or what it should look like. Workers' Councils are spontaneous means of association and there for there is no perquisite idea to them.


I also feel that there is a lack of encouragement to move in a new direction, and people are just falling back on theories of the old

True that.


Unions at the moment create more distrust for workplace movements than anything else, i have seen corrupt unions ruin worker moral and create an atmosphere of no hope.

You've outlined why Unions don't work. Because they create Distrust in the Workplace and are therefor not proletarian. They work against their interests. Unions are Conservative to Capitalism, not revolutionary. Geniune Unions are managed by the Workers themselves.

[StoneFrog]

ty all, i was just being stupid. Being too much in my head and stopped thinking thoroughly. Got me back on the right track =]

[AK]

Because I don't consider "workplace struggle" to be integral to the communist project.

What does it really mean? Better wages?

Hell, I would say its more accurate to say struggle against the workplace is integral to the communist project.
Wouldn't you gather support for the struggle against the workplace in the workplace? And what about the struggle in the workplace against the management?

[The Douche]

Wouldn't you gather support for the struggle against the workplace in the workplace?

No? If we approach the situation, confining ourselves to the modes of existence that oppress us then we're not going to make any progress.


And what about the struggle in the workplace against the management?

Again, what "struggle in the workplace", the struggle to not blow my brains out due to boredom? Against the management? No thanks dog, how about against working?

[Paulappaul]

No? If we approach the situation, confining ourselves to the modes of existence that oppress us then we're not going to make any progress.

What? You didn't disprove anything AK said. You should have just said No, cause it would have had as much value. Care to express why the Workplace i.e the "modes of existence" will not give us any progress?


how about against working?

Doesn't sound to bad, but a part of that struggle is against management. In the end, the best place to struggle against working and against alienation is organizing right where it takes place. You don't organize against a particular senator from say, Nevada, in South Africa do you? No you organize in Nevada cause that's where the people are most effected by that senator.

[Tomhet]

I don't want to, i just am loosing my hope that a workplace based struggle will work. I'm starting to feel that the workplace environment, that encouraged with in developed countries, aren't environments that can create a strong worker struggle. Before i turn to a form of Blanquism, hoping you guys can convert me back, i mean i dont want to; just doesn't seem to be making sense anymore.
I'll use my own occupation as an example, construction work in Atlantic Canada, specifically Newfoundland (St John's).. The workforce here are hardworking men, we're tough, and we don't like inequality..
The amount of force the construction industry has, if harnessed to a specific collective goal, is immense.. Just saying..
"Death before defeat".