Anti-Capitalist Unity [Archive]

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Agnapostate

5th October 2010, 08:00

As I've made it known in the various threads on leftist/socialist "unity" that occur, I believe that the only basis for collaboration is in anti-capitalism, with a wider sphere of progressive activism being able to encompass the likes of people who would support same-sex marriage, oppose unjust wars, and the like.

Tendency wars are relevant where their results actually have impact, in periods of revolutionary upheaval where different factions might have different opportunities to take power in different circumstances. This has no apparent effect in the United States and other first-world countries, given the paradigm of limited opportunities for meaningful social change that exist. The oft-mentioned manufacturing to service economy transition and introduction of many occupational safety and regulatory measures, as well as more general safety net measures such as welfare state policies, have led to a necessary decline in labor militancy, in my view. That reduces the possibility of armed working-class insurrection against the ruling capitalist government, already made unlikely by a "stability of civil society" that is unseen in many developing countries.

I see all tendencies at the same generically progressive rallies and events in favor of immigrant rights, same-sex marriage, ending imperialist wars, etc. I could envision the same unification of tendencies involved in anti-capitalist organization. The inevitability of crises in the capitalist economy means that there will be millions upon millions of willing recipients of anti-capitalist campaigns in even politically developed countries. I could envision such an alliance raising awareness at events such as the mass gathering outside the Los Angeles Convention Center (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/09/thousands-line-up-at-laconvention-center-for-chance-to-avoid-foreclosure.html) that occurred a few days ago as 30,000 homeowners sought assistance from the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America to restructure their mortgages and avoid foreclosure. Now I see allegations that this gathering may have been futile (http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/economy/foreclosure-prevention-program/). But what if an explicitly anti-capitalist organization had been coordinating such an event, and had created networks of mutual credit that could have more effectively aided at-risk homeowners?

When pressed for what the alternative would be, if capitalism is so flawed, a prospective unity coalition would point out that the variant ideologies of their members allow for whatever actions the democratic majority of people elect to take, that there are many potential roads forward, and that it is the choice of informed people to analyze the merits and demerits of each and determine what they would personally favor. But in terms of actions such as campaigning for a certain vote on local and statewide referendums, organizing forms of direct action such as boycotts, strikes, and walkouts, all tendencies that devote themselves at present to some kind of "reformist" strategy such as electioneering can contribute. I've previously presented this anti-capitalist publication of the RCP (http://revcom.us/a/151/system-en.html), sans the explicitly Maoist platform, as an example of a good piece. So why not? What's wrong with this idea?

Widerstand

5th October 2010, 10:32

If I get it right, you are suggesting to grow an anti-capitalist movement out of the currently waged struggles?

If so, focusing on the intensifying anti-austerity struggles is not only a possibility, but also our best shot at reaching the mainstream public currently.

I have little faith in most other struggles though. The anti-corporate, anti-globalization movement more or less degenerated and died after 9/11; the anti-war movement has failed to carry the anti-capitalist connotations it may have had in the 70s even during it's recent height during the Iraq war; the environmentalist movement seems to be not only full of shit, but also vastly chaotic and reactionary; and the equality struggles (gay rights, immigrant rights, etc.) have since ages been the domain of peace-loving, neo-hippy reformist social democrat types.

Agnapostate

5th October 2010, 21:42

The anti-war, environmentalist, and equality movements are not related to anti-capitalist organization per se. While I expect the vast majority of anti-capitalists to be involved with those progressive causes, the converse may not be true, as many ordinary liberals and pseudo-libertarians will be involved with those causes also, as you said. I do expect anti-corporatism and anti-globalization to be facets of a generally anti-poverty and anti-unemployment organized opposition to capitalism in first-world countries.

Widerstand

5th October 2010, 21:59

I do expect anti-corporatism and anti-globalization to be facets of a generally anti-poverty and anti-unemployment organized opposition to capitalism in first-world countries.

Or at least they could easily evolve into that. However, they really almost vanished from the political landscape around the millennium turn (as I said, I suspect this to be because 9/11 pushed other struggles in the spotlight). Which is terribly sad, the Battle Of Seattle was such an inspiring event.

Zanthorus

5th October 2010, 23:03

I think there is an inherent problem with the way the question of 'unity' is usually presented, which is evident in this thread, in that it is always presented as a question of unity of the 'left', 'anti-capitalist left' or of 'progressives'. It seems that most people on here still can't seem to quite comprehend the fact that Communism requires first and foremost the formation of the working-class into a class, which organises as a class and fights for it's interests on the political and economic fields. Class unity is infinitely more important than unity between various 'progressives' trying to flog their various brands of identity politics (Including 'workerist' forms of identity politics). Far be it from me to have to make such a choice, but if I was tied to a chair and threatened on pain of listening to James Blunt wether I would prefer a broad 'left' party, or a broad 'labour' party, it would probably be a tie between an hour of Back to Bedlam and the labour party.

Besides which, I agree with Marx and Engels that sacrificing a superior political program for a sham 'unity' or for a temporary increase in political support would be a retrograde move. It is not 'winning the masses', 'democracy' that leads to correct program, it is program that, given the correct objective circumstances, leads to 'winning the masses'.

To quote the International Communist Party:

The existence of the party does not depend on the will of great chiefs, but rather on the scrupulous and keen conservation of its fundamental features carried on by countless militants, who also enforce them in all their practical consequences; the party's strength depends instead on the development of social contradictions. For this reason, in some historical moments the party is confined to a small number of resolute militants, in other moments the party develops, increases its membership, becomes a social force that can determine the outcome of the final clash with capital's regime.

These characteristics of the party rule out the possibility that it can get back at the head of the fighting masses, as in the glorious period of 1917-1926, by means of tactical expedients, diplomatic devices, unacceptable associations with other left-wing political groups, or innovations of unfathomable meaning in the field of the complex entwining of the party/class relationship.

They also exclude any membership growth obtained by means of fostering senseless formal discipline, which always comes with the enhancement of democratic practices, which are forever banned by our organization, as well as from "State and society". Petty subterfuges, that kill the party as a class organ, even should its membership rise. Low tricks betraying the yearning of chiefs and semi-chiefs to "break through", in the false hope that the party may abandon the ghetto in which it is confined by distorting its tasks and nature; a ghetto in which the party is forced to stay not by its own will, but by the pressure of the counterrevolution, victorious on a world scale for three quarters of a century.

The best evidence of the uselessness of such maneuvering, better than from the critique of ideas, comes from the historical experience. Force relationships among social classes have not changed at all, although Trotskyists of all tendencies and left wingers of a thousand colors have preached everywhere that the party must adapt to situations, i.e., a "realistic" politics, which consists of a continuous change of direction.

Agnapostate

6th October 2010, 00:03

I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I am aware that organizations of various tendencies have adopted certain reformist platforms applicable to first-world politics. Here are some examples:

Socialist Party USA (http://socialistparty-usa.org/platform/labor.html)

1. We support the right of any number of interested workers in a workplace to form a union with no limits on the subjects upon which employees and unions may bargain with employers.

2. We support the right of public sector workers to strike.

3. We call for recognizing a union based on cards signed.

4. We call for the democratic control of all unions by their membership, and independent of employer domination and influence.

5. We support the right of all workers to engage in collective action and self-representation regardless of union status.

6. We support militant, united labor action including hot cargo agreements, and boycotts, factory committees, secondary and sympathy strikes, sit-down strikes, general strikes, and ultimately the expropriation of workplaces.

7. We support the right of workers to hold shop meetings on company premises, elect their immediate supervisors, and administer health and safety programs through the formation of shop councils.

8. We call for the repeal of the Hatch Act and the Taft-Hartley Act, the "hot cargo" provision of the Landrum-Griffin Act, and all so-called "right-to-work" laws.

9. We call for the same benefits for part-time workers as for full-time workers.

10. We call for increased health and safety regulation of business, and for increasing the size and enforcement power of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

11. We support the creation of a fund for workers which would pay a worker’s full wages and health insurance as well as necessary educational and/or retraining costs if that worker loses a job due to environmental transition, down-sizing, corporate dismantlement, or capital flight.

12. We call for a 30 hour work week at no loss of pay, with six weeks annual paid vacation.

13. We call for unions to stop using union funds for electing candidates from the Democratic and Republican parties.

Communist Party USA (http://cpusa.org/party-program/#3)

The class struggle starts with the fight for wages, hours, benefits, working conditions, job security, and jobs. But it also includes an endless variety of other forms for fighting specific battles: resisting speed-up, picketing, contract negotiations, strikes, demonstrations, lobbying for pro-labor legislation, elections, and even general strikes. When workers struggle against the capitalist class or any part of it on any issue with the aim of improving or defending their lives, it is part of the class struggle.

There is no limit to the range of issues that are part of the class struggle: peace, democratic liberties, for full equality and against racism, health care, decent schools, public housing, social security, environmental protection, and more. The class struggle takes on more conscious forms in strike struggles, which are expressions of trade union consciousness. The class struggle reaches full class and socialist consciousness only when the alliance of class and social forces is built under working-class leadership in order to win power and construct socialism. The activity of the Communist Party is based on building full class consciousness, which includes socialist consciousness.

Party for Socialism and Liberation (http://www.pslweb.org/site/PageServer?pagename=labor):

We fully support every workers' struggle for better wages, benefits, and working conditions. The overall condition of the working class is in large part determined by the strength of the labor unions, which despite their weakened state and their constant misleadership, are the only protection for workers against the ruthlessness of capitalism.

Democratic Socialists of America (http://www.dsausa.org/pdf/Toward%20an%20Economic%20Bill%20of%20Rights.pdf)

Economic well-being means more than a living wage job. Equally important is the confidence that, in periods of unemployment, or in our retirement, or if we are or become disabled, there will be assurance of income sufficient to live in dignity...The free choice to form and join a union is essential to gaining and safeguarding all other economic rights. Community organizing is key to effective democratic participation in social and political life. But without the right to freely organize, bargain and engage in political and mass actions collectively, workers and others are powerless against employers, corporations and government bodies that are hostile to their interests.

So why not synthesize these commonly held anti-capitalist aims while acknowledging that visions of socialism may vary to an extent that some tendencies deny the socialist and communist nature of others, and permit working class people to choose for themselves, once it has been established that capitalism is the wrong choice?

LETSFIGHTBACK

8th October 2010, 11:57

Conscript

8th October 2010, 13:08

Those are all excerpts of the respective programs saying something similar. Don't be so quick to judge