Why do some leftist groups view police as petty-bourgeois?

[Chris]

This is something I have difficulty understanding. Why define policemen as petty-bourgeois, when they pretty clearly sell their labour for a wage? Hell, most working class people here also view policemen as part of the working class, so why do some leftist groups claim they aren't?

[ed miliband]

Indeed, I think lumpenproletariat is more fitting but that is offensive to my lumpen friends.

[punisa]

This is something I have difficulty understanding. Why define policemen as petty-bourgeois, when they pretty clearly sell their labour for a wage? Hell, most working class people here also view policemen as part of the working class, so why do some leftist groups claim they aren't?

Simply because they engaged in one or more protests where they got pretty beat up by the police.
And/or watched these things happening on youtube.

I strongly reject classification of the police as petty-bourgeois or the class enemy.
It's their job to beat you up if you protest. Its same as the shopping clerk's job to take your money once you made a purchase at a local grocery store.
Its the same job as the bank's employee to evict you from your home once you can't manage to pay your bills.
Should we wage wars against all of these people?

Our enemy are the capitalist elite who control everything below - everyone else is the proletariat despite the fact that some of the jobs they are doing are dirty.
But what job isn't?!
Proletariat is forced to work against proletariat and blaming each other makes no sense and contributes nothing to our struggle.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Anyone with an understanding of class, which is defined by relation to the means of production, recognizes that the cops are not members of the proletariat. Their role is to defend and serve capital against the lower classes.

Here's an old thread on this question, which covers all this: Are cops and security guards working class? (http://www.revleft.com/vb/cops-and-security-t63126/index.html?t=63126&highlight=security+guards)

"In countries where modern civilisation has become fully developed, a new class of petty bourgeois has been formed, fluctuating between proletariat and bourgeoisie, and ever renewing itself as a supplementary part of bourgeois society. The individual members of this class, however, are being constantly hurled down into the proletariat by the action of competition, and, as modern industry develops, they even see the moment approaching when they will completely disappear as an independent section of modern society, to be replaced in manufactures, agriculture and commerce, by overlookers, bailiffs and shopmen." - The Communist Manifesto

"(1) synonymous with “modern working class”, (2) proletarians have no means of support other than selling their labour power, (3) their position makes them dependent upon capital, (4) it is the expansion of capital, as opposed to servicing the personal or administrative needs of capitalists, which is the defining role of the proletariat, (4) proletarians sell themselves as opposed to selling products like the petty-bourgeoisie and capitalists, (5) they sell themselves “piecemeal” as opposed to slaves who may be sold as a whole and become the property of someone else, (6) although the term “labourers” carries the connotation of manual labour, elsewhere Marx makes it clear that the labourer with the head is as much a proletarian as the labourer with the hand, and finally (7) the proletariat is a class." - Marxist Internet Archive Encyclopedia

If you need more evidence, try going on strike sometime.

[graymouser]

Leon Trotsky, in his pamphlet Fascism: What It Is and How To Fight It, wrote: "The worker who becomes a policeman in the service of the capitalist state, is a bourgeois cop, not a worker."

I've always agreed with Trotsky on this. In effect, a cop is not simply a worker - not even a "worker in uniform" - but the mailed fist of the bourgeois state. They stand on the front lines of oppression, and in a revolution the police will usually be the most loyal to the ancien régime of the whole state apparatus. I disagree with the label "petty bourgeois" because it's not accurate; they are a detached stratum of wage-earners, organically bound to the bourgeoisie through the state mechanism that they serve.

There can be some differences - some cops of oppressed groups (races, nationalities etc) can be somewhat progressive. Groups of Black cops have earned the respect of one of my comrades who's been deeply involved in work against police brutality. But on the whole? We can't treat them as "fellow workers."

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

The fact that they earn a wage for their work means little. FBI agents, military officers, spies, politicians, CEOs, and heads of capitalist states all earn wages too.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

There can be some differences - some cops of oppressed groups (races, nationalities etc) can be somewhat progressive. Groups of Black cops have earned the respect of one of my comrades who's been deeply involved in work against police brutality. But on the whole? We can't treat them as "fellow workers."

The Pittsburgh Police had the highest percentage of "Black cops" in the United States.

Meanwhile:

"In 1996, after the deaths of two African-American men in Police custody, the ACLU and the NAACP filed a class action lawsuit against the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, alleging a pattern of civil rights abuses. After an investigation, the US Justice Department joined the suit in January 1997, stating 'that there is a pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police that deprives persons of rights, privileges, and immunities secured and protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States.'

"After a brief court challenge, the City entered into a consent decree with the Federal Government in April 1997 that outlined the steps that it would take to improve its conduct. The decree was lifted from the Police Bureau in 2001, and from the Office of Municipal Investigation in 2002.

"Further, community activists in Pittsburgh successfully used a referendum to create an independent review board in 1997.

"Despite these measures, tensions remain between the Police Bureau and African-Americans in Pittsburgh. A study commissioned by the US Department Of Justice in 2001 found that 70% of Pittsburgh's African-American residents believe it either 'very common' or 'somewhat common' for 'police officers in Pittsburgh to use excessive force' and that only 48% feel that the Police are doing a 'very good' or 'somewhat good' 'job of fighting crime, while 77% of white residents responded so." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_Police#Civil_Rights_Abuses_and_the_1997 _Consent_Decree

[graymouser]

NHIA:

I don't dispute that in any way, and I am fully aware that Black cops active against police brutality are a small minority. But there are groups in Trenton and Philadelphia that have earned the grudging respect of anti-brutality activists and Black nationalists by taking up the fight. I'm as much against treating cops as part of the workers' movement as anybody else, but there are instances where things aren't as straightforward as we'd like them to be.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

They are straightforward though. The police are a part of the armed forces of the capitalist state. It matters little what's in the heads of individual cops. It's their social role that counts.

[punisa]

"In countries where modern civilisation has become fully developed, a new class of petty bourgeois has been formed, fluctuating between proletariat and bourgeoisie, and ever renewing itself as a supplementary part of bourgeois society. The individual members of this class, however, are being constantly hurled down into the proletariat by the action of competition, and, as modern industry develops, they even see the moment approaching when they will completely disappear as an independent section of modern society, to be replaced in manufactures, agriculture and commerce, by overlookers, bailiffs and shopmen." - The Communist Manifesto

This quote relates to the process of downwards mobility and here Marx mainly referes to the real petty-bourgeois such as the small enterprenuers, shop-owners and such.
Eventually they all vanish and become proletariat themselves cause in 99% you need to be born a capitalist in order to be one.

Still, I don't see what this has to do with the police. Yes, the police produce nothing, but nor do the marketing experts.

Back to my example.
If you fill your shopping cart with stuff and refuse to pay, employee of the store will probably force you to or call assistance or... police.
If he says "that's ok fella, just take what you wont" he'll be fired momentarily.
Same goes for a cop that would not arrest you or beat you up if he is getting paid for that.

In most countries in the world being a cop is much easier then let's say being a clerk in a store.
Your pay is more secure as well as your job.
Future proletariat tends to like security of their job and hence many young people after school will decide to become policemen or policewomen.

Sure some people will go into police force just to bully others, but also some people will become teachers so they can bully kids. It's the same situation.

The whole idea of the left being so damn concentrated against police has always seemed immature to me. Is it that hard to figure out that the whole "working class against police" idea will eventually bring us nowhere?

I've been in a dozen of protests over the years and only 2 or 3 had such a good organization that it managed to get the message across while not causing a damn riot.
I'm sick and tired of individuals who provoke a violent reaction just so they could whine about police brutality later on.
This is the reason why many working class people don't even bother to protest anymore.
Thus the protest crowd is getting younger by the year, soon we'll have only elementary school kids charging the streets.
Sad and stupid.

[Raúl Duke]

It's their social role that counts.

QFT

Anyone with a sense of history can see that the police have almost always sided with the status quo; more so than members of the military which have at times defected (although this may have to do with the nature of the military, made up of conscripts, draftees, and those who are forced to enlist due to poverty) and played major roles in revolutions.


This is the reason why many working class people don't even bother to protest anymore.
Thus the protest crowd is getting younger by the year, soon we'll have only elementary school kids charging the streets.

That's the problem of the activist scene and its current nature, it still doesn't change the fact of the social role of police as a societal institution.

I'm not saying that there aren't some "good cops" who are good people if I knew them personally and that maybe some will join the side of the revolution; just that we should be clear about the social role of the police instead pretending that the police, as a group, is a part of the proletariat (at least in so far the proletariat is the "revolutionary class") all because they get a wage. I mean, as NHIA has mentioned CEOs and politicians get wages.

[graymouser]

They are straightforward though. The police are a part of the armed forces of the capitalist state. It matters little what's in the heads of individual cops. It's their social role that counts.
And there are contradictions in the social role of certain specific cops - acting as the oppressive force against their own people - that create the only real people for whom the wall of police "solidarity" breaks down. That's all I'm trying to point out.

[Tablo]

Wtf you guys. Based on Marxist class analysis cops ARE proletariat. They just work as class traitors. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean you can group it with the bourgeoisie.

[scarletghoul]

People should be restricted for supporting the police.:lol:

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Wtf you guys. Based on Marxist class analysis cops ARE proletariat. They just work as class traitors. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean you can group it with the bourgeoisie.

What "Marxist class analysis" are your referring to?

What is their relation to the means of production? Do they work them in return for a part of the product they create? Or do they protect the private ownership of them, and their owners, against the lower classes?

This is at least one thing that a substantial part of the left gets right. I can literally quote from dozens of "anarchist," "communist," "Trotskyist," "Marxist-Leninist," "Maoist," etc., groups to the effect that cops aren't workers.

[punisa]

I'm not saying that there aren't some "good cops" who are good people if I knew them personally and that maybe some will join the side of the revolution; just that we should be clear about the social role of the police instead pretending that the police, as a group, is a part of the proletariat (at least in so far the proletariat is the "revolutionary class") all because they get a wage. I mean, as NHIA has mentioned CEOs and politicians get wages.

I understand. But wouldn't it be more precise to say that we have a revolutionary and the status quo proletariat?
Obviously there are many workers that enjoy the system as it is and would not endorse the revolution, still the revolutionary part of the working class is always larger and that's what matters.

Maybe I'm just being over idealistic, but if the whole exploited part of the working class could realize their role and decides to march together - there simply wouldn't be enough cops to stop that.
Police are the capitalist's defense against the premature revolutions.


People should be restricted for supporting the police.:lol:
Defining what is proletariat and what is bourgeoisie is not giving anybody the support, but putting people in the class where they belong.
Don't make it sound as this is the place where you get restricted for NOT bashing the police.

[Raúl Duke]

Based on Marxist class analysis cops ARE proletariat. They just work as class traitors. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean you can group it with the bourgeoisie.I never called them bourgeoisie. Also, NHIA didn't either; only labeling them as "petit-bourgeoisie" based on a strict interpretation of the communist manifesto itself (in other words, what could be called an orthodox Marxist analysis).

Also, it's not a requirement of this board or to be a leftist to hold a strict and dogmatic attachment to Marxism (or more specifically, Marxism as it has been usually interpreted).


I understand. But wouldn't it be more precise to say that we have a revolutionary and the status quo proletariat?
Obviously there are many workers that enjoy the system as it is and would not endorse the revolution, still the revolutionary part of the working class is always larger and that's what matters.

Exactly, but it would be kinda awkward. See, if police were to join the side of the revolution they cease to be police in a way more so than workers cease being workers. The police as a social group has a specific reactionary role (protection of status quo). Most other workers, on the other hand, do not have this group quality assign to them. The reason why a distinction should be made is so to not hold illusions that police aren't potentially dangerous to us. We should always be weary of police, not exactly hate them or whatever but just be weary that they could in theory present a threat as long as they act according to the way prescribed to their social group.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

When these threads come up there are always tons of "revolutionaries" coming out of the woodwork to try and squeeze and contort reality in order to portray cops as some sort of abused workers that we need to stand by.

I often wonder if many of them have cops as family and friends or what. I also wonder who exactly they think the working class has to go up against in revolutionary battles. Do they imagine 99% of the population walking into the G-20 to deliver a pink slip letting the handful of folks there know they "are no longer needed" or what?

If you haven't been around any working class struggles or abused by the cops yourself, at least take a look at history and see what exactly it is the police do in society.

[scarletghoul]

Marxism is not some structuralist theory of sorting people into classes based on how they get their money. Marxism is the ideology of the revolutionary masses, it is above all a practical tool, and any analysis that seeks to classify anyone in an abstract way divorced from this practice can not call itself Marxist.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

This quote relates to the process of downwards mobility and here Marx mainly referes to the real petty-bourgeois such as the small enterprenuers, shop-owners and such.
Eventually they all vanish and become proletariat themselves cause in 99% you need to be born a capitalist in order to be one.

Actually, it's talking about the shift in the layer fluctuating between the proletariat and the capitalist class. Scared to death to join the proletariat, displaced members of the traditional petty-bourgeoisie take up positions administering, managing and policing on behalf of the bourgeoisie, which has increasingly less to do with the day to day managing of the means of production and state apparatuses.


Still, I don't see what this has to do with the police. Yes, the police produce nothing, but nor do the marketing experts.

Who are these "marketing experts" and how are they a part of the proletariat?


Back to my example.
If you fill your shopping cart with stuff and refuse to pay, employee of the store will probably force you to or call assistance or... police.

This sort of argument was covered in the thread I linked to. Did you even look at it?

Policing is not the main role of retail employees. A factory worker may call the police if he notices someone stealing materials from the plant he works at. And that's the key. Both in this example and in yours, the police are called. Because it's their job to serve and defend capital.


In most countries in the world being a cop is much easier then let's say being a clerk in a store.
Your pay is more secure as well as your job.
Future proletariat tends to like security of their job and hence many young people after school will decide to become policemen or policewomen.

It's much easier to be a general, CEO, politician, etc. So what? What does that have to do with anything? Andrew Carnegie was once a factory worker. It didn't stop him from living off the labor of workers or drowning strikes in blood later in life when he became a big capitalist.


The whole idea of the left being so damn concentrated against police has always seemed immature to me. Is it that hard to figure out that the whole "working class against police" idea will eventually bring us nowhere?

You're right. Next time when they're escorting scabs across a picket line or smashing our brains in we should just invite them to our next meeting.


This is the reason why many working class people don't even bother to protest anymore.

Either that or because they don't want to get their brains bashed in, or they realize nothing will get accomplished, or....

[punisa]

When these threads come up there are always tons of "revolutionaries" coming out of the woodwork to try and squeeze and contort reality in order to portray cops as some sort of abused workers that we need to stand by.

I often wonder if many of them have cops as family and friends or what. I also wonder who exactly they think the working class has to go up against in revolutionary battles. Do they imagine 99% of the population walking into the G-20 to deliver a pink slip letting the handful of folks there know they "are no longer needed" or what?

If you haven't been around any working class struggles or abused by the cops yourself, at least take a look at history and see what exactly it is the police do in society.

There is probably not the man alive who hasn't dealt with the police in one way or the other during their lifetime.
The things you are trying to point is the wrong direction.
I try to debate the topic only from an objective standpoint. My personal experiences with the police have been 100% negative, but that is not enough to blur my theory that the people who sign up for the police do not do that in order to become a class enemy.

Also there is no need to mock the revolutionary ideology. Nobody is naive enough to think that we can walk in anywhere.
In the end revolutionary struggle must be waged violently against the oppressors.
if the police will stand in our way then they will suffer too as a tragic consequence, but that should never become a focus of our fight.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Marxism is not some structuralist theory of sorting people into classes based on how they get their money. Marxism is the ideology of the revolutionary masses, it is above all a practical tool, and any analysis that seeks to classify anyone in an abstract way divorced from this practice can not call itself Marxist.

I don't call myself Marxist. Then again, neither did Marx.

This sort of abstract crap is what you often hear from the same "socialists" that support bureaucratic dictatorships that rule on the backs of the working class wherever they spring up. It's moralist and idealist. All that matters is "political line" or "program." The class struggle is disappeared. Thus the bourgeoisie can even overthrow itself if it just convinced of how much better the proposed social order is.

This is what dominates on the left.

[La Comédie Noire]

I've met nice cops and am even related to a state trooper, although not by blood, and even I can say cops are the enemy. My dad even worked as a security guard part time at a hospital, but he left it because he couldn't stand being in that role.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

but that is not enough to blur my theory that the people who sign up for the police do not do that in order to become a class enemy.

It doesn't matter why they sign up. Do you think strikers who get their brains bashed in by cops give a fuck what their motivation was for joining the force? We're talking about the social role of the police. What do they do? Who do they serve?


if the police will stand in our way then they will suffer too as a tragic consequence, but that should never become a focus of our fight.

It's a question of if, but when. The cops know that. Too bad you don't. You may not want to "focus on them," but you'd better believe they are focused on you.

[syndicat]

Petty bourgoisie are self-employed and small business people. This is not a correct way of understanding the police. On the other hand, they're not part of the working class either.

Not everyone who must rent out their time to an employer for their living is part of the working class. Our bosses hire themselves out to the companies. Lawyers, industrial engineers, and other high end professionals who work with management to control us also are hired. But these people are part of a dominating class, the bureaucratic class. Workers are subordinate to them.

To be a part of the working class, one must not only sell one's time to employers, you must also must be subordinate to the bosses, and not dominate other workers.

the police are like the supervisors or managers of the streets. a key role they play is protecting the property of the capitalists and intimidating and bullying the lower class. think of their role in protests, strikes, evictions.

like supervisors and other bosses, police are part of the bureaucratic class.

[Tablo]

Petty bourgoisie are self-employed and small business people. This is not a correct way of understanding the police. On the other hand, they're not part of the working class either.

Not everyone who must rent out their time to an employer for their living is part of the working class. Our bosses hire themselves out to the companies. Lawyers, industrial engineers, and other high end professionals who work with management to control us also are hired. But these people are part of a dominating class, the bureaucratic class. Workers are subordinate to them.

To be a part of the working class, one must not only sell one's time to employers, you must also must be subordinate to the bosses, and not dominate other workers.

the police are like the supervisors or managers of the streets. a key role they play is protecting the property of the capitalists and intimidating and bullying the lower class. think of their role in protests, strikes, evictions.

like supervisors and other bosses, police are part of the bureaucratic class.
The police have their own bosses too that they are subordinate to.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

So do military officers, FBI agents, political operatives, etc.

[Tablo]

So do military officers, FBI agents, political operatives, etc.
Exactly. They are all members of the working class that sell their labor, but their labor is to sell out and fight against their own class. They are class traitors.

[syndicat]

The police have their own bosses too that they are subordinate to.

yes. and your point is? what you say here is generally true of the bureaucratic class within capitalism. in private companies they are subordinate ultimately to the owners, the capitalists. and the managerial systems are organized as chain of command hierarchies, so bosses at the base level are subordinate to bosses above them and so on.

only in the bureaucratic mode of production that existed in the socalled "Communist" countries are the bureaucratic class the top or ruling class. within capitalism they are a "middle class".

very often the lower reaches of the "middle class" -- such as supervisors and cops -- are in fact recruited from the working class. within each generation a certain percentage of the children of the working class rise up in the class hierarchy, and generally this means into the "middle classes", such as small business owners, people in middle management, etc.

[punisa]

Actually, it's talking about the shift in the layer fluctuating between the proletariat and the capitalist class. Scared to death to join the proletariat, displaced members of the traditional petty-bourgeoisie take up positions administering, managing and policing on behalf of the bourgeoisie, which has increasingly less to do with the day to day managing of the means of production and state apparatuses.

That is true, but I don't see the police as a part of the ex pettit bourgeoisie.



Who are these "marketing experts" and how are they a part of the proletariat?

I was asking myself the very damn question :lol:
Still, there is no need to create new classes. They are.. let's say - highly paid apparently-non-revolutionary proletariat.



This sort of argument was covered in the thread I linked to. Did you even look at it?

no :o



Policing is not the main role of retail employees. A factory worker may call the police if he notices someone stealing materials from the plant he works at. And that's the key. Both in this example and in yours, the police are called. Because it's their job to serve and defend capital.

So... as you put it its's the employee's job in the factory to serve and defend the capital as well, but unlike the cops they produce it?
Let's stop following that logic or we'll end up erasing the proletariat all together :lol:




It's much easier to be a general, CEO, politician, etc. So what? What does that have to do with anything? Andrew Carnegie was once a factory worker. It didn't stop him from living off the labor of workers or drowning strikes in blood later in life when he became a big capitalist.

Andrew who?
Anyway it's much easier to become a cop then a CEO, you know that too.



You're right. Next time when they're escorting scabs across a picket line or smashing our brains in we should just invite them to our next meeting.

Yes, and make them sing the USSR anthem with us :rolleyes:
I think you may be running out of arguments, which would be a shame cause its a really good debate so far.



Either that or because they don't want to get their brains bashed in, or they realize nothing will get accomplished, or....

Well yes, not many folk are very pro-bash-m'-brain-in last time I checked.
If the action ends with a brain bashing then someone (if his brain is still not bashed) should do a really good review on the strategy and why it ended that way.
Ok, before you go on to call me some non-violent Utopian let me say what I mean by that.
I think that small protests have no real accomplishments, the time and energy should be devoted to creating a massive movement so when it comes to brain bashing session it will be mostly theirs, not ours.
Cops will still be a problem, but a smaller one.

[Tablo]

yes. and your point is? what you say here is generally true of the bureaucratic class within capitalism. in private companies they are subordinate ultimately to the owners, the capitalists. and the managerial systems are organized as chain of command hierarchies, so bosses at the base level are subordinate to bosses above them and so on.

only in the bureaucratic mode of production that existed in the socalled "Communist" countries are the bureaucratic class the top or ruling class. within capitalism they are a "middle class".
The bureaucratic class is subordinate to the interests of the capitalist class so I disagree they are "middle class". The "middle class" hasn't been around since feudalism. You can still be a worker with others below you and above you.

[La Comédie Noire]

I think empathy is a human trait and we feel for even the worst of the worst. However, that shouldn't get people off of the hook or excuse their actions. Zizek brings up an excellent point, it has become fashionable for historians to emphasize the human aspects of historical figures such as the Nazis. "Oh Goebbels had a wife and six lovely children whom he was reverently devoted to." Yes he was a family man and yes he probably even took his pants off one leg at a time like the rest of us, but he was still an official in a brutal dictatorship.

I see that argument a lot in regards to the police, people feel we are unjustly othering them and turning them into strawmen which we can abuse without reservation. I know it would be ridiculous to totally deny circumstance, as though they were 100% rational agents, but there comes a point where people have to be held responsible.

These people are the class enemy and even if they are convinced they are just "helping people" they still would kill any of us here if ordered to do so.

[graymouser]

Petty bourgoisie are self-employed and small business people. This is not a correct way of understanding the police. On the other hand, they're not part of the working class either.

Not everyone who must rent out their time to an employer for their living is part of the working class. Our bosses hire themselves out to the companies. Lawyers, industrial engineers, and other high end professionals who work with management to control us also are hired. But these people are part of a dominating class, the bureaucratic class. Workers are subordinate to them.

To be a part of the working class, one must not only sell one's time to employers, you must also must be subordinate to the bosses, and not dominate other workers.

the police are like the supervisors or managers of the streets. a key role they play is protecting the property of the capitalists and intimidating and bullying the lower class. think of their role in protests, strikes, evictions.

like supervisors and other bosses, police are part of the bureaucratic class.
... and the "bureaucratic class" basically winds up consisting of everybody you do not like, despite the fact that they are not welded together by common self-interest, but by a common servility to the ruling class. Attempting to say "cops are managers in uniform" really devastates the picture of class you attempt to draw.

[syndicat]

The bureaucratic class is subordinate to the interests of the capitalist class so I disagree they are "middle class". The "middle class" hasn't been around since feudalism. You can still be a worker with others below you and above you.

nope. but that's a nice ideology to have if you want to create a form of "socialism" where workers are still subordinate to bosses....fake socialism.

and your first sentence is self-contradictory. if the bureaucratic class is subordinate to the capitalists but workers are subordinate to them, then, by definition, they are a "class in between".

[Chris]

So, anyone working against revolution is not part of the proletariat? Does that include non-unionised workers and workers who do no active part in class struggle?
While my experiences with the police is mostly negative, saying they aren't proletarian because of that seems... childish. At least here, the Police Union (their trade union) are one of the most progressive ones, along with the Electricians' Trade Union. In 2009, the Police Union (about 100% of policeofficers in Norway are unionised) had a 90 minute strike and a huge demonstration in the capital (protesting longer working hours and wage cuts). That is more or less the most progressive union action this decade in Norway, especially considering it is illegal for the police to strike.

Striking ain't illegal here, so the police don't show up on strikes. They do turn up to demonstrations and such, but they mostly keep an eye on the "anarchist" crowd (the ones more worried about picking a fight... and not alway even knowing what the hell the demo is about).

It just seems like the arguments that police somehow is unproletarian all also seems to separate wast numbers of others outside the working class. They don't produce anything... so service industry workers are not workers either? They have often played a counterrevolutionary role... so workers who do not support revolution are not workers either?

The people I know who wants to be cops (2) are both fairly progressive, and don't want to join the police force due to some kind of powerlust or wanting to protect the cappies.

If one starts defining police as petty-bourgeois, wouldn't one then follow through with that analysis and exclude every worker who opposes socialist revolution from the working class? At that point, the working class is no longer a majority of the population, which is ridicilous.

[Tablo]

nope. but that's a nice ideology to have if you want to create a form of "socialism" where workers are still subordinate to bosses....fake socialism.

and your first sentence is self-contradictory. if the bureaucratic class is subordinate to the capitalists but workers are subordinate to them, then, by definition, they are a "class in between".
How is that a class between a class? Corporations are huge pyramid structured hierarchies.Does that mean every level is another social class? Also, I'm an Anarchist so I don't know why anyone would want to create some fake socialism. I'm fully aware the bureaucrats became the bourgeoisie in the Soviet Union. The bureaucrats in our capitalist society lack the position of their own special class just as in the Soviet Union they lacked their own class as they were the capitalist class in that situation.

[punisa]

Zizek brings up an excellent point, it has become fashionable for historians to emphasize the human aspects of historical figures such as the Nazis. "Oh Goebbels had a wife and six lovely children whom he was reverently devoted to." Yes he was a family man and yes he probably even took his pants off one leg at a time like the rest of us, but he was still an official in a brutal dictatorship.

Aaahhh Žižek, reminds why I love that guy :)
And he is 100% on this one.
I'm not saying that we should start ignoring their role or letting the off the hook or have some sympathy when the time comes for the freedom from oppression.
I'm just saying that its nonsense to pay too much time to cops when there are much more urgent things to be done.

Some radical left organizations have that as the ONLY agenda.
It reminds me of sports hooligans who fight each other just for the thrill.
You have a whole organizational structure that devotes its time to plot against the cops, for what?
Hungry and unemployed are growing in numbers and these delinquent kids are eager to provoke cops and have their first orgasms when they hear that the police is monitoring them.
I say f... that.

[syndicat]

How is that a class between a class?

follow the logic:

class A dominates class B
class B dominates class C.

this means class B is in between classes A and C.

A -> B -> C

not every level in the corporate hierarchy is a distinct class.

the basis of class domination in capitalism is twofold:
1. relative concentration of ownership of means of production and capital assets in the hands of a few...basis of the capitalist class
2. relative concentration of decision-making authority and expertise related to decision-making in the hands of a relative few...basis of the bureaucratic class.

The dominating classes are all internallly hierarchical in that there are variations in power internal to each class. Some smaller capitals are dominated by larger capitals. Some bosses are subordinate to bosses higher up in the hierarchy.

[syndicat]

there are police unions in the USA also. the big push for police unions happened in the '60s/70s period. it was a reaction to all the push for civilian review boards and civilian control of the police, in the wake of ghetto riots, police murders of black people, police infiltration of legal social movements, etc. police unions in the USA mainly exist to protect rogue & violent cops against discipline, that is, they defend impunity of the police, and they force the bosses of the police to back them up on this. the constant collusion with police management on this illustrates how the police unions aren't really authentic labor organizations.


It just seems like the arguments that police somehow is unproletarian all also seems to separate wast numbers of others outside the working class. They don't produce anything... so service industry workers are not workers either? They have often played a counterrevolutionary role... so workers who do not support revolution are not workers either?


police do produce something....they produce protection and security for the capitalists and state leaders, for the system.

It's not their "counter-revolutionary" ideology that is relevant but their day to day power over working class people, the function they play in defense of the interests of the dominating classes and the capitalist system.

Many police here in the USA also join the police force initially out of a motive of doing something to help the community. But that isn't what the key role of the police is.

EDIT: by the way, i'd highly recommend the book "Our Enemies in Blue".

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

So, anyone working against revolution is not part of the proletariat? Does that include non-unionised workers and workers who do no active part in class struggle?
While my experiences with the police is mostly negative, saying they aren't proletarian because of that seems... childish.

Not a single person has made that argument. Have you read the thread, or are you just going to create an imaginary position and hoist it up on a stick to destroy?

To repeat: Class is determined by relation to the means of production. The police are the guardians of capital against the lower classes. They do not participate in the expansion of capital. They serve and protect capital. They do not work the means of production in return for a portion of the product. They defend the private ownership of the means of production and the rule of those who own it.

On what real basis could they possibly be a part of the proletariat?


Striking ain't illegal here, so the police don't show up on strikes.

It ain't illegal here either. But when they're needed to break a strike; to escort scabs across picket lines; to protect the people, things and routes used to keep production going; they're there.


It just seems like the arguments that police somehow is unproletarian all also seems to separate wast numbers of others outside the working class. They don't produce anything... so service industry workers are not workers either?

Their social role puts them outside of, and against, the proletariat.

Service workers produce .... a service. If a capitalist owns a chain of coffee shops; spends $1,000,000,000 a year on rent, advertisement, coffee beans, cups, etc.; spends $1,000,000 a year paying the workers; but ends up with $2,000,000,000, he has made a profit. That profit is the unpaid portion of the product (the service of making and serving coffee in a cafe setting) the workers created.

Cops don't produce anything. They don't expand capital. They are paid out of the surplus created by the proletariat to serve the interests of capital.


They have often played a counterrevolutionary role... so workers who do not support revolution are not workers either?

How many service workers break strikes by force, round up proletarian militant, bash peoples brains in when they challenge their bosses, etc.?

Is that the job description of any grocery store cashiers or fry cooks you know?


The people I know who wants to be cops (2) are both fairly progressive, and don't want to join the police force due to some kind of powerlust or wanting to protect the cappies.

Once again, it matters not what is in their heads, what their motivation for joining is, or what they think they're doing. All that matters is their relation to the means of production and corresponding social role.

[punisa]

Service workers produce .... a service.
Cops don't produce anything.

Nominally at least, cops serve the whole population and thus produce the same service.
In case you've been attacked, mugged, raped or had a traffic incident you're probably gonna call the police.
Sure the response is not always the way it should be, but you can't say that the police exists solely to defend the capitalist class.
They produce a certain service that benefits the capitalists, but so do all the workers to some degree.

Is the worker who produces police batons our class enemy?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

You extracted one part of it and missed the larger point.

First of all, I was talking about producing surplus value. Cops do not produce surplus value. They are in fact paid out of the surplus extracted from the proletariat to serve and protect capital.


Is the worker who produces police batons our class enemy?

Obviously not. The owner of the police baton factory exploits them for surplus value. They work privately owned means of production and receive only a portion of the product of their work in return. Their social role is to expand capital.

[Chris]

But no public workers produce surplus value. If police aren't proletarian since they don't produce surplus value, no public worker would be proletarian.

[Triple A]

But no public workers produce surplus value. If police aren't proletarian since they don't produce surplus value, no public worker would be proletarian.


I think some leftists oppose the police because they say police protects the burgoisie.

For example if we organise a demo against the government there will be police restraining the protesters.

Not that I agree with the most radical ACAB'ers.

[Magón]

Because I've never met a cop or any other sort of law enforcer, who's history I could say I liked. Whether job or not, cops often have bad histories, and becoming a cop to enforce laws that shouldn't even be in place because they're obviously only there to keep the majority down, doesn't make them any better.

And if you haven't noticed, the majority of cops have some sort of godly ego, where they think they know better than you, but really, they're just idiots with a badge.

[psgchisolm]

wouldn't there be a police in a post-revolution communist country? Would they also be considered "class traitors" since they are also doing their job in a communist society? police are called in for protests to make sure there's law and order and to make sure no one gets hurt. I would assume in a communist society they would do the same if protests were to ever occur then as well, and chances are there's going be a protest at some time.

[Catmatic Leftist]

Police also have been known to be connected to racist anti-semitic organizations such as the KKK and neo-nazi and fascist groups.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

wouldn't there be a police in a post-revolution communist country?

The communism that is a genuine expression of the proletarian struggle to liberate itself cannot exist in one country. Nor will classes exist in it. With no classes, there is no need for a state. With no state, there are no police.

[the last donut of the night]

The police are not part of the proletariat, because their relationship to the means of the production isn't one of a wage slave. They are part of the capitalist state and only answer to the bourgeoisie.

[psgchisolm]

The communism that is a genuine expression of the proletarian struggle to liberate itself cannot exist in one country. Nor will classes exist in it. With no classes, there is no need for a state. With no state, there are no police.
so who will stop crime.

[southernmissfan]

When these threads come up there are always tons of "revolutionaries" coming out of the woodwork to try and squeeze and contort reality in order to portray cops as some sort of abused workers that we need to stand by.

I often wonder if many of them have cops as family and friends or what. I also wonder who exactly they think the working class has to go up against in revolutionary battles. Do they imagine 99% of the population walking into the G-20 to deliver a pink slip letting the handful of folks there know they "are no longer needed" or what?

If you haven't been around any working class struggles or abused by the cops yourself, at least take a look at history and see what exactly it is the police do in society.

That's why I love these threads. Closet liberals and reactionaries expose themselves for what they are.

[Rusty Shackleford]

If cops, en masse, move to help the proletariat then they may be friendly. but more often than not, their first instinct is to defend bourgeois law and should be viewed that way first.

security forces are the physical arm of any state be it proletarian or bourgeois. their role in society is to defend the state.

if they are bourgeois police officers, they are a class antagonist first and foremost. sure they get a wage(a pretty hefty one at that). their relation to the productive forces in bourgeois society is that of being in defense of capital and its governmental institutions. their class character is bourgeois. no contest.

it is unlikely, but not implausible, for police to side with the proletariat though. FIRST AND FOREMOST THEY ARE ANTAGONISTIC TO THE PROLETARIAT IN A CAPITALIST SOCIETY

[Amphictyonis]

Because the police are the bourgeoisie's enforcers. A socialist cop? I've never seen one unless he/she is a agent provocateur. Fuck cops.

[Rusty Shackleford]

a socialist cop as in the Militsiya in the SU, or say the police in Cuba, or the militias in spain.

[Amphictyonis]

a socialist cop as in the Militsiya in the SU, or say the police in Cuba, or the militias in spain.

USA. Sorry I a tad bias from a decade of abuse by these asshats. The US police are not my comrades. Never will be. They're sadistic meat heads. Poo poo faces :)

[punisa]

USA. Sorry I a tad bias from a decade of abuse by these asshats. The US police are not my comrades. Never will be. They're sadistic meat heads. Poo poo faces :)

You know what I noticed whenever a "cop thread" surfaces here? That the strongest anti-police stance have the comrades from USA, this is surely not a coincidence.
Although functioning in a similar manner I'd say that the police in USA are far more brutal and authoritative then what we used to see in certain European countries.
This in some respect is the source why these debates always become very heated.

When we talk about oppression here we usually consider the political/capitalist elite - nobody worries about police too much (except for kids I mentioned before).
USA on the other hand differs because police brutality is institutionalized and rarely gets prosecuted especially when its targeted towards racial minorities.

This is also on the rise since 9.11. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-12-17-copmisconduct_n.htm)

I never lived in the USA, but people who had told me that the police are much more bullish then what we see in Europe.
Perhaps if I were a US citizen my arguments would differ greatly, I recognize that fact and admit that I view this debate from a biased European standpoint.


That's why I love these threads. Closet liberals and reactionaries expose themselves for what they are.

And those who lack fundamental debating skills are exposed as well.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

so who will stop crime.

What crime? When the wants and needs of all are satisfied, the basis for the majority of crime (theft) will have seized to exist. New relations will exist between people too, which will eliminate a number of other (social) crimes.

The prison system will be dismantled too. The aim will be to help folks deal with any problems them have. Recovery, not retribution. If absolutely necessary, I imagine there will be facilities to separate certain people from society, but on a humane basis, replicating as much as possible the normal society we should aim to reintegrate them into.

Surely there will be some folks who train in things like investigation and forensics. And those folks will work with others. When crime does exist, they will gather the evidence needed, others will present it, etc.

The armed populace will carry out any necessary enforcement.

There won't be any standing army or police. Those things only exist when one class rules over another. Our goal is the elimination of classes.

[Thirsty Crow]

But no public workers produce surplus value. If police aren't proletarian since they don't produce surplus value, no public worker would be proletarian.
Not that I disagree with the emphasis on the social role of cops as a service agency of the capitalist class, but could someone comment on this?
How does an accountant in a state agency produce surplus? And following the logic of surplus production (which is appropriated by the capitalist), wouldn't that effectively mean that certain strata of public workers are not proletarias as well?
And if cops are judged not to be proletarian on this same basis, would we have to rule out those workers as well?

[ZeroNowhere]

I'm not sure why everybody thinks that it is fundamental to this topic how much they dislike cops, especially given that most probably wouldn't greatly dislike Friedrich Engels.

[syndicat]

so who will stop crime.

police don't "stop crime." that's not their role. they are called in only once the crime has been committed, to maybe track down the perp.

[psgchisolm]

What crime? When the wants and needs of all are satisfied, the basis for the majority of crime (theft) will have seized to exist. New relations will exist between people too, which will eliminate a number of other (social) crimes.

The prison system will be dismantled too. The aim will be to help folks deal with any problems them have. Recovery, not retribution. If absolutely necessary, I imagine there will be facilities to separate certain people from society, but on a humane basis, replicating as much as possible the normal society we should aim to reintegrate them into.

Surely there will be some folks who train in things like investigation and forensics. And those folks will work with others. When crime does exist, they will gather the evidence needed, others will present it, etc.

The armed populace will carry out any necessary enforcement.

There won't be any standing army or police. Those things only exist when one class rules over another. Our goal is the elimination of classes.

:sneaky: Please don't give me the bull about how there won't be any crime and so on and so forth. Until we have a communist society we won't know how things will turn out. Assuming there won't be any crime because you took the main reason for it away doesn't mean it will go away. Does it mean it will substantially drop the number of reportings. Probably. Until the time I see this I'll be skeptical about the majority of being abolished. But maybe you can see into the future.:laugh:

police don't "stop crime." that's not their role. they are called in only once the crime has been committed, to maybe track down the perp.
Well then there must be a specialized force dedicated to catching such criminals, I highly doubt an armed populace would be efficient enough to catch said criminals.

[Chris]

Odd. Here the police have generally been one of the founding blocks of the labour movement (the Police Union was founded in 1894). Most of the time police have refused to lock down strikes. They do show up on demos and such (I was in one today), the only problem I have had so far is the crap from the mounted police's horses.
Hell, in the last years the Police Union have been one of the most militant. Despite it being illegal for cops to strike, they called for a 1.5 hour strike in 2009. 4000 cops (1/3 of the police force) showed up outside parliament to protest.

You can also see something like this in Tunisia, where the police have joined the demonstrators.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/01/2011122133816146515.html
They also demand a legal trade union. It seems like they pretty much react as class conscious workers, no?

[punisa]

Tunisian police join protesters
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12259349

i hope this will serve as a good argument for some statements I made earlier.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Aight - so in a strict sense, police are "proletarian" - they work for a wage, and their labour is necessary for the reproduction capital (a clerk doesn't directly produce anything either, but no one would dispute their prole-ness, I'm sure). Of course, sorting people into classes doesn't actually tell us anything about them as revolutionary subjects - that police are worthy of the utmost contempt (or a half-brick to the face) is obvious to anyone who's been meaningfully engaged in struggle against the existing order. What's necessary though is to expand that to include the whole of the apparatus that reproduces capitalism and the state: as long as anybody does their job and follows orders, they're working to fill the cracks that we're trying to explode into ruptures. The difference, of course, is that many, many, many people are looking for a way out, and don't follow orders (how many of us have been assisted in shoplifting by a sympathetic cashier, or given a free ride by a sympathetic bus driver?) - police exist to prevent these people from stepping out of line, and therefore constitute an immediately relevant target.

[syndicat]

Aight - so in a strict sense, police are "proletarian" - they work for a wage, and their labour is necessary for the reproduction capital (a clerk doesn't directly produce anything either, but no one would dispute their prole-ness, I'm sure).

nope. receiving pay as a hired employee doesn't make you working class.

supervisors, divisional directors, corporate officers, high end professionals like lawyers and industrial engineers (who do the bidding of management in defining our jobs and working up schemes of control of labor), judges, military officers are all hired employees who receive a wage.

if you believe they're working class, then you're probably okay with fake "socialism" where this bureaucratic class become the dominant exploiters.

the working class are those hired employees who don't dominate or manage other workers, who do not participate in management of the enterprise or state agency.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

nope. receiving pay as a hired employee doesn't make you working class.

supervisors, divisional directors, corporate officers, high end professionals like lawyers and industrial engineers (who do the bidding of management in defining our jobs and working up schemes of control of labor), judges, military officers are all hired employees who receive a wage.

if you believe they're working class, then you're probably okay with fake "socialism" where this bureaucratic class become the dominant exploiters.

the working class are those hired employees who don't dominate or manage other workers, who do not participate in management of the enterprise or state agency.

Everyone in the working class dominates and manages other workers - this is precisely why The Proletarian Revolution hasn't come. Power in (post-/)industrial capitalist societies is diffuse, and has no centre - white workers dominate workers of colour, cis-male workers dominate women and transfolk; snitching is endemic and well-rewarded.
For example, you insist that cops are not working-class, but what about security guards? They don't participate in management of the enterprise or state agency, and they don't "dominate and manage other workers" in a way that is distinct from, say, any other worker in a grocery store (if they're doing their job "properly"), but, at the same time, it's obvious that they are simply the private-sector version of the police.
My point, if this wasn't obvious, is that simply defining who is/isn't working class doesn't actually tell us much about who our enemies are. This is the basis on which I oppose "fake "socialism"" - the liquidation of the bourgeoisie and their replacement by bureaucratic management, regardless of class-composition, is no more desirable than the existent, since it fails to qualitatively change our way of life (hierarchical mass-industrial shit).
Further, one could lob a similar accusation at you: that you're likely perfectly OK with fake "anarchy" where we collectively police ourselves, and carry out the despotic tasks of management "horizontally".

[syndicat]

Everyone in the working class dominates and manages other workers

don'[t be absurd. the structure of capitalist industry makes workers basically powerless. to the degree they develop power, it is a counter-power that develops outside the structures of control, through things like informal solidarity, on the job union organization, collective actions.

not all forms of oppression have an oppressor. to the extent that some groups are unequal or are mistreated, such as discriminated against, this is a systemic form of inequality.

self-management of workplaces isn't "despotic." A despotism exists where there is a hierarchy, that is, a relative concentration of decison-making power and expertise into the hands of a few.

[#FF0000]

This thread is incredibly disheartening.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

don'[t be absurd. the structure of capitalist industry makes workers basically powerless. to the degree they develop power, it is a counter-power that develops outside the structures of control, through things like informal solidarity, on the job union organization, collective actions.

not all forms of oppression have an oppressor. to the extent that some groups are unequal or are mistreated, such as discriminated against, this is a systemic form of inequality.

self-management of workplaces isn't "despotic." A despotism exists where there is a hierarchy, that is, a relative concentration of decison-making power and expertise into the hands of a few.

1. Management and domination are not the same thing as oppression.
2. Workers are not "basically powerless" - have you ever been in a workplace? The ability of a sycophant or snitch to get you fired (or charged) for grabbing a sandwich, or $5 from the till, is a manifestation of power. The ability of a homophobe to hound you from a workplace for being queer is a manifestation of power. The workers who exercise this power are my enemies - class aside.
3. There is no oppression without its concrete putting into practice, by oppressors. People aren't mistreated by abstract systemic forms - those forms have concrete reality.
3. Self-management is despotic when it replicates the imperatives and assumptions of capitalist business. If I can't take the afternoon off because it's sunny, it's still shit.

[syndicat]

1. Management and domination are not the same thing as oppression.

Domination is in fact what oppression is. that is, some systemic way in which the negative and positive liberty of groups are restricted or trampled.

Class domination in late capitalism is based on two structures:

1. a relative concentration of ownership of means of production into the hands of a few
2. a relative concentration of decision-making authority and expertise related to the exercise of decision-making authority into the hands of a few.

the first is the basis of the capitalist class and the second is the basis of the bureaucratic class. each is an aspect of class domination in the present society. the relative concentration of decision-making authority & expertise into the hands of the few is the basis of the domination of management and high-end professionals who work with management over the workers. so in fact management power is the power of a dominating class.



2. Workers are not "basically powerless" - have you ever been in a workplace? The ability of a sycophant or snitch to get you fired (or charged) for grabbing a sandwich, or $5 from the till, is a manifestation of power. The ability of a homophobe to hound you from a workplace for being queer is a manifestation of power. The workers who exercise this power are my enemies - class aside.

You confuse power with structures of oppression. Not the same thing. A structure of oppression is systemic.

When a snitch or sycophant gets someone fired, that is an expression of the power of the bosses over workers. It is not worker power, looking at it in terms of the structure of oppression.

Stealing money or time or other forms of individual resistance does not provide much actual power of workers. These are forms of resistance. But it is the collective forms of resistence, actual insurencies, where workers exercise social power, as distinct from individual activity, and that is where it becomes possible to bendg the will of management. stealing and other petty individual forms of resistance are expected by management and they plan for that.

The ability of males in some workplaces to drive women out thru harassing behavior or the example you give of homophobia are instances of systemic domination over groups, women or gays as the case may be. this is different than the class structure because the latter is institutionalized in the power of management and owners.

and it is the latter that is relevant when looking at the question of class position.



3. There is no oppression without its concrete putting into practice, by oppressors. People aren't mistreated by abstract systemic forms - those forms have concrete reality.

I'm not so sure about that. If we were to take that literally, it's hard to see how a working class movement for liberation would be possible. that presupposes the possibility of an internal alliance among the various oppressed groups who make up the working class. how is that possible if one part of the working class are "oppressors" of another part?

this ignores the way in which the non-class forms of oppression intersect with class. it's not particularly productive to say that men in the abstract are the "oppressors" of women. and if it's the behavior of individuals, then you're not talking about a structure of oppression. there can be oppressive behavior, such as racist or homophobic behavior, but this is not the same as a structure of oppression.

the structural inequality of women within capitalism was rooted historically in their exclusion from wage-labor, destruction of the markets for self-employed female labor by capital, and the lack of social systems of support for care, such as raising children. when these burdens are put on couples, and women have their work interrupted by pregnancy, there is a tendency for the male to have an economically more advantaged position, and this weakens the position of women, leading to things like unequal sharing of caring work, housework. when women have fewer actual options in society it leaves them more vulnerable to exploitative marriages and other forms of disadvantage in relations with males. but this is a systemic fact, about the position of women in society.

this is not quite the same as the subordination of workers in general to the boss classes. in that case there is a fundamental structure interest of the boss classes to retain their position of domination and exploitation. but class liberation requires an alliance between all the oppressed to work, and this means accepting the kinds of objectives that would aim at equalization between the sexes.

the problem with your empiricist Foucaultian bit about power is that it is too vague and obscures disinctions between different kinds of power structures or forms of oppression in society.



3. Self-management is despotic when it replicates the imperatives and assumptions of capitalist business. If I can't take the afternoon off because it's sunny, it's still shit.

that's a purely individualist outlook. "despotic" has its meaning in terms of hierarchical forms of authority, such as managerial or statist hierarchies.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

"In countries where modern civilisation has become fully developed, a new class of petty bourgeois has been formed, fluctuating between proletariat and bourgeoisie, and ever renewing itself as a supplementary part of bourgeois society. The individual members of this class, however, are being constantly hurled down into the proletariat by the action of competition, and, as modern industry develops, they even see the moment approaching when they will completely disappear as an independent section of modern society, to be replaced in manufactures, agriculture and commerce, by overlookers, bailiffs and shopmen."

Your interpretation of this quote is incorrect. Marx is referring to the replacement of the former social functions of the bourgeoisie, directly managing and administering enterprises, with paid employees, concurrent with the development of modern industry. In this context a Bailiff is, like overlookers and shopmen, a manager, in this case of a farm.

The second quote, "it is the expansion of capital, as opposed to servicing the personal or administrative needs of capitalists, which is the defining role of the proletariat" is also useless considering the huge chunk of the proletariat to which it applies, unless you want to take up the struggle against clerks, cashiers, public school teachers...

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

You can also see something like this in Tunisia, where the police have joined the demonstrators.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/af...816146515.html (http://www.anonym.to/?http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/01/2011122133816146515.html)

From today's news:

"Demonstrators covered their faces with Tunisian flags to protect themselves from the acrid clouds. They shattered the windows of police cars, sending shards of glass into the empty cars and onto the ground."

I guess they know something that you don't.


But no public workers produce surplus value. If police aren't proletarian since they don't produce surplus value, no public worker would be proletarian.

It depends on the "public service." States even strive to be profitable now, whether or not they're always successful.

Roads are built to allow capital to be invested (in new areas, build new stores, factories, etc.). The state can actively pursue development projects because it knows that such development will increase the tax base, and thus it's income. The workers were paid less than the amount their work enabled the state to take in.

I'll talk about public school teachers below.

The same can be said about a number of areas of "public service."

On the other hand, there are sectors like police, prison guards, marshals, etc., who do not belong to the working class.


Your interpretation of this quote is incorrect. Marx is referring to the replacement of the former social functions of the bourgeoisie, directly managing and administering enterprises, with paid employees, concurrent with the development of modern industry. In this context a Bailiff is, like overlookers and shopmen, a manager, in this case of a farm.

Their point was that the traditional petty-bourgeoisie, as an independent class, was disappearing; and that rather that join the proletariat, individual members of the class were taking up new positions as managers of the means of production and state apparatus (as bureaucrats, managers, administers, private security guards--like pinkertons, cops, etc).

Of course as a supporter of a party headed by a millionaire CEO I wouldn't expect you to have the proper understanding of class and it's role. Unless you think David North is gonna overthrow himself...


The second quote, "it is the expansion of capital, as opposed to servicing the personal or administrative needs of capitalists, which is the defining role of the proletariat" is also useless considering the huge chunk of the proletariat to which it applies, unless you want to take up the struggle against clerks, cashiers, public school teachers...

Retail businesses are profitable. Where do you think that profit comes from? Surplus extracted from the labor of retail workers who unload shipments, stock the shelves, assist customers and run the cash registers.

Public school teachers are necessary for the reproduction of the working class. Public school is an investment the capitalist class makes in the labor force, to produce the kinds of workers it needs at the time. They get back a return on their investment when those educated workers start their jobs and begin to be exploited.

"Clerks" can have any number of meanings. Retail clerks have already been covered. Law clerks don't belong to the proletariat. When dealing with office clerks it depends on specifics.

[syndicat]

I generally agree with Nothing Human's post here.


Their point was that the traditional petty-bourgeoisie, as an independent class, was disappearing; and that rather that join the proletariat, individual members of the class were taking up new positions as managers of the means of production and state apparatus (as bureaucrats, managers, administers, private security guards--like pinkertons, cops, etc).



a number of Marxist and radical writers since World War 2 refer to this as the distinction between the "old" and "new" middle classes.

at the same time changes in capitalist organization of production have created or expanded a new layer of the "upper" or skilled working class -- school teachers, social workers, librarians, programmers, techical illustrators, etc. this is in addition to the older part of the "upper" working class...the blue collar "skilled trades."

tendencies in this direction were only in their very infancy in Marx's time, and thus Marx did not have a lot to say about it.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Domination is in fact what oppression is. that is, some systemic way in which the negative and positive liberty of groups are restricted or trampled.

Domination and oppression are in fact not the same - domination is temporal and specific. For example, a poor queer black man can dominate a white capitalist if he's got a knife, and they're alone on a street at night - a group of anarchists can dominate a cop if they've got him surrounded and outnumbered - but neither of these things is oppression. Oppression is systematic and systemic. Racism/class rule/hetrocentricity/whatever are oppressive, but don't mean domination everywhere and always.


Class domination in late capitalism is based on two structures:

1. a relative concentration of ownership of means of production into the hands of a few
2. a relative concentration of decision-making authority and expertise related to the exercise of decision-making authority into the hands of a few.

the first is the basis of the capitalist class and the second is the basis of the bureaucratic class. each is an aspect of class domination in the present society. the relative concentration of decision-making authority & expertise into the hands of the few is the basis of the domination of management and high-end professionals who work with management over the workers. so in fact management power is the power of a dominating class.

Reductionist, much?


You confuse power with structures of oppression. Not the same thing. A structure of oppression is systemic.

Agreed - power expresses itself in many ways - not necessarily in the context of oppression.


When a snitch or sycophant gets someone fired, that is an expression of the power of the bosses over workers. It is not worker power, looking at it in terms of the structure of oppression.

On the contrary, it is an expression of the worker's power, but it is also an expression of the bosses' oppressive relationship with workers-in-general.


The ability of males in some workplaces to drive women out thru harassing behavior or the example you give of homophobia are instances of systemic domination over groups, women or gays as the case may be. this is different than the class structure because the latter is institutionalized in the power of management and owners.

Yes, they're different than "class" but they are oppression none the less. For example, men's putting-into-practice of patriarchy oppresses women.


how is that possible if one part of the working class are "oppressors" of another part?

Well, maybe not every problem in the world is reducible to class relationships, and maybe there's no magic bullet for ending oppression. Duh.



this ignores the way in which the non-class forms of oppression intersect with class.

Jesus fuck, please go read something on intersectionality. The point is exactly that - oppressions intersect, rather than being reducible to any one. Augh.


It's not particularly productive to say that men in the abstract are the "oppressors" of women. and if it's the behavior of individuals, then you're not talking about a structure of oppression. there can be oppressive behavior, such as racist or homophobic behavior, but this is not the same as a structure of oppression.

But men, as a socially contingent category do oppress women - and it's the concrete (oppressive) behaviour of individual men that manifests gender-as-such. Similarly, "whiteness" or "straightness" only exist insofar as they are put-into-practice - the oppressive putting-into-practice makes them real. White workers do oppress people of colour - through concrete behaviour that makes the dichotomy real.


the structural inequality of women within capitalism was rooted historically in their exclusion from wage-labor, destruction of the markets for self-employed female labor by capital, and the lack of social systems of support for care, such as raising children. when these burdens are put on couples, and women have their work interrupted by pregnancy, there is a tendency for the male to have an economically more advantaged position, and this weakens the position of women, leading to things like unequal sharing of caring work, housework. when women have fewer actual options in society it leaves them more vulnerable to exploitative marriages and other forms of disadvantage in relations with males. but this is a systemic fact, about the position of women in society.

See, this a great example of missing the point of intersectionality - you've outlined how patriarchy intersects with class (very nicely, good job) - but failed to see that this isn't the whole of patriarchy. Rape culture, for example, isn't reducible to relative economic standing.


this is not quite the same as the subordination of workers in general to the boss classes. in that case there is a fundamental structure interest of the boss classes to retain their position of domination and exploitation. but class liberation requires an alliance between all the oppressed to work, and this means accepting the kinds of objectives that would aim at equalization between the sexes.

True! But at the same time, this is not the same as the subordination of women to men more generally!


the problem with your empiricist Foucaultian bit about power is that it is too vague and obscures disinctions between different kinds of power structures or forms of oppression in society.

Sorry, too vague? Obscures distinctions between kinds of power structures? You're trying to reduce the whole of this society to a single "primary contridiction" and you're saying that I'm obscuring distinctions? For fuck's sake . . .


that's a purely individualist outlook. "despotic" has its meaning in terms of hierarchical forms of authority, such as managerial or statist hierarchies.

Or, say, hierarchies that privilage certain types of ("productive") activity? Like:


In this case, able bodied are forced by their brothers and sisters, the self-organized classless society, to contribute to social production.

[Amphictyonis]

The Police Union in the USA is a prime example of the mentality that plagues the working class in general. Fight for better wages but support capitalism with your life. And besides, only public sector unions have any pull because tax payers foot the bill and not individual capitalists.

At the end of the day we're all going to have to keep on keepin on trying to spread class awareness until this system implodes on itself. If a crisis of tsunami magnitude hit now fascism would probably take hold. The next couple years will be good to gauge how much potential we have for the next crisis.

[syndicat]

me:


Class domination in late capitalism is based on two structures:

1. a relative concentration of ownership of means of production into the hands of a few
2. a relative concentration of decision-making authority and expertise related to the exercise of decision-making authority into the hands of a few.

the first is the basis of the capitalist class and the second is the basis of the bureaucratic class. each is an aspect of class domination in the present society. the relative concentration of decision-making authority & expertise into the hands of the few is the basis of the domination of management and high-end professionals who work with management over the workers. so in fact management power is the power of a dominating class.

you:
Reductionist, much?


bullshit. what is being "reduced" to what? Can you even define what "reductionism" is? Usually people talk about "class reductionism" which is allegedly the attempt to reduce all the various oppressions to class. I've not done that. What I've done here is say what tthe class structure is.

this is relevant because, in case you didn't notice, this thread is about the class position of the police in capitalist society.


Well, maybe not every problem in the world is reducible to class relationships, and maybe there's no magic bullet for ending oppression. Duh.


yeah, i thought this was all some argument for a pessimistic conclusion. that's where pomo leads.


But men, as a socially contingent category do oppress women - and it's the concrete (oppressive) behaviour of individual men that manifests gender-as-such.

men are living beings, not a "socially contingent category" and all beings that exist are contingent so you've said nothing.

you earlier distinguished domination from oppression. oppression is systemic. the oppression of women doesn't require men to be overbearing or dominate women. i explained why this is so very briefly. it has to do with things like the lack of social support for child rearing and other forms of caring work, so that this is placed on couples who are trying to survive.

with women coming in and out of the work force, they tend to be a disadvantage in the labor market so it is rational...or has been in the past...for couples to focus on the labor income of men. in the last three decades there has been some re-negotiation of the "deal" betwen men and women in couples because to some extent opportunities for women have improved while opportunities for men are disappearing. right now unemployment is much higher among men than women. women have an overall weaker position in the framework of the social economy. this may lead to women being dominated by individual men but doesn't have to. it's a systemic form of inequality.


See, this a great example of missing the point of intersectionality - you've outlined how patriarchy intersects with class (very nicely, good job) - but failed to see that this isn't the whole of patriarchy. Rape culture, for example, isn't reducible to relative economic standing.


i didn't say it was the whole thing. i was giving a brief, very schematic partial account. a complete account would require a book.

me:
this is not quite the same as the subordination of workers in general to the boss classes. in that case there is a fundamental structure interest of the boss classes to retain their position of domination and exploitation. but class liberation requires an alliance between all the oppressed to work, and this means accepting the kinds of objectives that would aim at equalization between the sexes.

you:
But at the same time, this is not the same as the subordination of women to men more generally!


meaning what? this thread, in case you didn't notice, is about class. so it's relevant to point out the relationship of other oppressions to class liberation.


Obscures distinctions between kinds of power structures? You're trying to reduce the whole of this society to a single "primary contridiction" and you're saying that I'm obscuring distinctions?

bullshit. where have i tried to do that? what i've noticed is that people with your type of viewpoint, as soon as class and class struggle is mentioned at all, they start screaming "class reductionism."

you quote me:


In this case, able bodied are forced by their brothers and sisters, the self-organized classless society, to contribute to social production.

then say that this implies
hierarchies that privilage certain types of ("productive") activity?

in a self-organized classless society, created by a movement that aims to eliminate the various systems of oppression, there are no "hierarchies" in which some dominate, exploit others in social production or they are in the process of being eliminated. if you think that requiring the able bodied to engage in work effort requires hierarchies of privilege, you need to provide an argument. assertion proves nothing. on the contrary, the point to re-organizing work to integrate the physical doing of tasks with the more empowering, planning, skilled tasks is precisely to do away with any such hierarchies.

if you say that people can just choose to do whatever they like, what in fact will happen is that those who inherit advantages from the previous society, such as superior education and skills, will gravitate to continuing to do just those activities...and then indeed you will have "hierarchies"...you'll have a bureaucratic class regime.

this is why the working class mass movement that creates the social transformation will have to have a program, and organize, to explicitly re-organize work so that the physical, onerous, drudge, unpleasant tasks are distributed in all the various jobs, that is, among the workforce, along with a distribution of the more empowering tasks, skills, expertise, decision-making etc as well. this is what Kropotkin called the "integration of labor."

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

yeah, i thought this was all some argument for a pessimistic conclusion. that's where pomo leads.

If either of us is reaching pessimistic conclusions, I'd say yr world of mandatory enforced labour in a society premised on the organization of industry and work is the less hopeful of our outlooks.


men are living beings, not a "socially contingent category" and all beings that exist are contingent so you've said nothing.

My point, which you seem to have missed entirely, is that man/woman as categories are premised on patriarchy. Men as living beings aren't socially contingent (I'd be a living being in any society) - living beings as men are.


you earlier distinguished domination from oppression. oppression is systemic. the oppression of women doesn't require men to be overbearing or dominate women. i explained why this is so very briefly. it has to do with things like the lack of social support for child rearing and other forms of caring work, so that this is placed on couples who are trying to survive.

The abolition of capitalism (in yr narrow economic sense), however, won't end patriarchy, because rape-culture, and other forms by which men dominate women (being "overbearing" or whatever) are systemic and systematic at a level that transcends economic relations (witch burnings preceded capitalism).


in a self-organized classless society, created by a movement that aims to eliminate the various systems of oppression, there are no "hierarchies" in which some dominate, exploit others in social production or they are in the process of being eliminated. if you think that requiring the able bodied to engage in work effort requires hierarchies of privilege, you need to provide an argument. assertion proves nothing. on the contrary, the point to re-organizing work to integrate the physical doing of tasks with the more empowering, planning, skilled tasks is precisely to do away with any such hierarchies.

if you say that people can just choose to do whatever they like, what in fact will happen is that those who inherit advantages from the previous society, such as superior education and skills, will gravitate to continuing to do just those activities...and then indeed you will have "hierarchies"...you'll have a bureaucratic class regime.

This all seems premised on the belief that a free society ought to continue to do basically the same things as as a capitalist society, only on a horizontal basis. Honestly, I don't want to live in a world with mines, nuclear power plants, chemical pesticides, and plastics - I suspect I'm not alone in this, and I'm skeptical as to whether or not such a world could be maintained, given this, without a tremendous quantity of hierarchically organized coercive force. I certainly don't expect any of those things to disappear overnight, but I do expect so-called "progress" to die along with the forms of organization that created it.


[I'm in love with an anarchism that peaked in 1936.]

Good for you.


Back to the topic at hand:

Leftists define cops as "not workers" because they don't want to admit that their society of workers requires police . . .
If we're authentically aiming for communism (a post-worker society), we can admit that there are a lot of workers who are our enemies . . .

[syndicat]

If either of us is reaching pessimistic conclusions, I'd say yr world of mandatory enforced labour in a society premised on the organization of industry and work is the less hopeful of our outlooks.


Pomo is pessimistic about the possibility of revolutionary transformation of society because doing that requires a massive, united working class movement to eliminate capitalism.

Pomo commits a fallacy of overgeneralization. they look at the decline of traditional working class militancy and bureaucratization of unionism and fragmentation of protest and struggles in the decades after World War 2 and then extrapolate this as the only thing that will exist.


My point, which you seem to have missed entirely, is that man/woman as categories are premised on patriarchy. Men as living beings aren't socially contingent (I'd be a living being in any society) - living beings as men are.


the existence of men and women does not depend on the existence of patriarchy. and "men as living beings" are socially contingent since it is quite possible for our species to cease to exist. average life of a species is about 200,000 to 150,000 years. global warming or nuclear weapons could potentially wipe out our species. to say something is "contingent" means that it is possible to occur/exist and possible to not occur/exist.


The abolition of capitalism (in yr narrow economic sense), however, won't end patriarchy, because rape-culture, and other forms by which men dominate women (being "overbearing" or whatever) are systemic and systematic at a level that transcends economic relations (witch burnings preceded capitalism).


you're not paying attention. I said that capitalism can't be eliminated unless there comes to exist a massive social movement based on an internal alliance among all the oppressed groups who make up the working class. that's becuase if injuries to one group are ignored then it isn't a real alliance. the movement has to take up, and fight against, the injuries of the various forms of oppression. this is a key way that a possible revolutionary mass consciousness in the future will differ from the earlier revolutionary era between 1900 and 1940.


This all seems premised on the belief that a free society ought to continue to do basically the same things as as a capitalist society, only on a horizontal basis. Honestly, I don't want to live in a world with mines, nuclear power plants, chemical pesticides, and plastics - I suspect I'm not alone in this, and I'm skeptical as to whether or not such a world could be maintained, given this, without a tremendous quantity of hierarchically organized coercive force. I certainly don't expect any of those things to disappear overnight, but I do expect so-called "progress" to die along with the forms of organization that created it.


bullshit. why do things like pesticides and industrial agriculture exist? among the reasons it exists is that a way that profits can be made are thru cost-shifting. shifting costs onto workers (such as by poisoning them with pesticides or other toxins) and onto communities that are affected by things like aquifer depletion, dead zones at the mouths of rivers, pesticides in water and the air. this happens because the communities in those areas don't have direct control over the environmental commons, which can thus be used as a sewer, a channel of cost-shifting. a point to directly democratic governance systems of people who live in areas is so that they can ban pollutants or require compensation. and thus force production organizations to internalize their costs, give them a motivation to do things differently, by not polluting.

but of course you have no solution. that's because a solution requires a grand overall change in the economic structure of the society. enviro destruction is, as Bookchin correctly says, a product of human domination. domination of workers and of communities who are polluted, displaced from resources so that capital can extract them.

thus a libertarian socialist economy will provide a different set of controls and motivations and this is why it will be an ecological society.


in love with an anarchism that peaked in 1936

you've said nothing. dissing isn't an argument. and you're stuck in your fallacious overgeneralization from the half century after World War 2.


Leftists define cops as "not workers" because they don't want to admit that their society of workers requires police . . .
If we're authentically aiming for communism (a post-worker society), we can admit that there are a lot of workers who are our enemies . . .

I gave an explanation of what the class structure is. within the context of that understanding, cops are part of the bureaucratic class. you'll need to provide some argument as to what's wrong with the exposition i gave of the actual class structure.

your last sentence i translate into meaning that your middle class outlook finds workers boring or icky.

any possible revolutionary transformation of human society that does away with the class system is going to initially have a sizeable minority who opposed the shift or people who are amoral individualists who lack a sense of social solidarity, are willing to try to game the system. and any possible human society is likely to have some level of criminality, even if less than what exists under late capitalism.

you on the other hand hold a pessimistic viewpoint that has no plausible conception of how your "communism" (talk about obsolete 19th century jargon) is going to come to be.

[Summerspeaker]

Thus the protest crowd is getting younger by the year, soon we'll have only elementary school kids charging the streets.

Where I live the opposite is true. Only aging liberals/radicals come out to anti-war events. I'm typically the youngest person present, and I'm far from young. I'd like to see some elementary kids on the street.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Pomo is pessimistic about the possibility of revolutionary transformation of society because doing that requires a massive, united working class movement to eliminate capitalism.

There's a difference between being pessimistic generally, and being pessimistic about a "massive, united working class movement to eliminate capitalism". I'd say you're pessimistic about the possibility of spontaneous insurrectionary upheaval, and about autonomous experiments in immediate communization, etc. I'm pessimistic about the outcomes of any "revolution" that clings to old bourgeois and leninist notions about what a revolution looks like (if such a thing were even still possible), certainly, but I am engaged in concrete projects toward something immediately obtainable.



Pomo commits a fallacy of overgeneralization. [T]hey . . .

*total facepalm*


look at the decline of traditional working class militancy and bureaucratization of unionism and fragmentation of protest and struggles in the decades after World War 2 and then extrapolate this as the only thing that will exist.

Looking at the dead end of the existing workers' movements hardly assumes that it is the only thing that will ever exist. Rather, it demands we understand the new terrain on which we're fighting, and find forms (logistics, tactics, strategy, to be old fashioned about it) that are useful to our ends, instead of following our glorious dead into the camps/prisons/bureaucracies/moribund formal organizations/etc.


the existence of men and women does not depend on the existence of patriarchy.

Yr gender analysis is weak.


and "men as living beings" are socially contingent since it is quite possible for our species to cease to exist. average life of a species is about 200,000 to 150,000 years. global warming or nuclear weapons could potentially wipe out our species. to say something is "contingent" means that it is possible to occur/exist and possible to not occur/exist.

This really isn't even worth talking about, but . . . socially contingent relates to society. If a living being is, say, alone in the woods (that is, without a social life) it is still a living being. Yes, life generally is environmentally contingent - but you're not saying anything remotely interesting there.


why do things like pesticides and industrial agriculture exist? among the reasons it exists is that a way that profits can be made are thru cost-shifting. shifting costs onto workers (such as by poisoning them with pesticides or other toxins) and onto communities that are affected by things like aquifer depletion, dead zones at the mouths of rivers, pesticides in water and the air. this happens because the communities in those areas don't have direct control over the environmental commons, which can thus be used as a sewer, a channel of cost-shifting. a point to directly democratic governance systems of people who live in areas is so that they can ban pollutants or require compensation. and thus force production organizations to internalize their costs, give them a motivation to do things differently, by not polluting.

Certainly, what you described are among the reasons - however, its also arguable that industrial agriculture (which requires pesticides, and so on), for example, is necessitated by industrial society more generally. So, really, what you're proposing is either (a) people will accept the destruction of their ecosystems for "compensation" (paid in what way? what does compensation even mean in the context of an anarchist economy?) or (b) they won't accept compensation, will defend their ecosystems, and we'll have to go without, say, aluminium, or various rare metals used in computers. Since the former makes essentially no sense, the conclusion one must draw is that if we want to live in an anarchist society, we'll be living in a society that will have steadily less and less high technology (as things get stripped of parts, energy sources run out, etc.).


I gave an explanation of what the class structure is. within the context of that understanding, cops are part of the bureaucratic class. you'll need to provide some argument as to what's wrong with the exposition i gave of the actual class structure.

The issue is that cops don't fit into yr definition of bureaucrats any more particularly than many workers in a contemporary context. The upper ranks of the police, certainly, but a beat-pig doesn't have "a relative concentration of decision-making authority" or "expertise related to the exercise of decision-making authority".
THIS DOESN'T MEAN THEY'RE NOT OUR ENEMIES.
SAME AS WORKING CLASS RAPISTS.
OR WORKING CLASS SNITCHES.
OR WORKERS BUILDING PRISONS.
OR . . .


your last sentence i translate into meaning that your middle class outlook finds workers boring or icky.

This I translate into willful (and ideological) misunderstanding, or having never engaged with the question of a classless society in any meaningful way. In "I'm afraid of the 21st century!" language, what I'm saying is: If there is an historical task of the working class, it is to end the reproduction of the working class as such.


any possible revolutionary transformation of human society that does away with the class system is going to initially have a sizeable minority who opposed the shift or people who are amoral individualists who lack a sense of social solidarity, are willing to try to game the system. and any possible human society is likely to have some level of criminality, even if less than what exists under late capitalism.

Wait, you bash "pomo" but refer to "late capitalism"?
*total facepalm round 2*
Also, "criminality"? What does "criminality" mean to an anarchist?
Also . . .

Never mind. I give up.

[Hoplite]

This is something I have difficulty understanding. Why define policemen as petty-bourgeois, when they pretty clearly sell their labour for a wage? Hell, most working class people here also view policemen as part of the working class, so why do some leftist groups claim they aren't?
I think because police are the most visceral and ubiquitous example of our current state; they are the arm that our society deploys to preserve the status quo. Additionally, many police officers tend to share a similar culture and cultural mentality and that often is in favor (more or less) of the current situation. They often support ideas that we probably do not.

I agree that the police should not be treated as enemies of any potential movement by the people. Police ARE people, as much as they may crack you over the head at a rally, that's what they've been told to do and I dont think the vast majority of them are so ingrained that they cannot be peacefully persuaded to see the situation for what it is; that they are being used by an oppressive minority as protection.

[syndicat]

There's a difference between being pessimistic generally, and being pessimistic about a "massive, united working class movement to eliminate capitalism".

without the latter there can be no liberation from capitalism, which is an economic system in which the working class is dominated and exploited. building a replacement non-oppressive social arrangement requires an organized movement that has developed programmatic ideas about a replacement based on self-management, and organizes itself in a horizontal, self-managing way.if we're to have a libertarian outcome to a revolution,


I'd say you're pessimistic about the possibility of spontaneous insurrectionary upheaval

there can be spontaneous revolts. but by itself this can never lead beyond a class based social arrangment, and oppression will thus continue in some form. a protracted process of development is needed in the mindset and organizational capacity of the working class.



and about autonomous experiments in immediate communization, etc.

family production in the houshold tends to be communistic. but it is controlled, shaped, exploited by capitalism. and your little "experiments" can't get us beyond capitalism...any more than the family can.



I'm pessimistic about the outcomes of any "revolution" that clings to old bourgeois and leninist notions about what a revolution looks like (if such a thing were even still possible), certainly, but I am engaged in concrete projects toward something immediately obtainable.

I'm a libertarian socialist, an anarcho-syndicalist, not a Leninist, so your comment is irrelevant. you're trying to run a false dichotomy.
Me:
posts look at the decline of traditional working class militancy and bureaucratization of unionism and fragmentation of protest and struggles in the decades after World War 2 and then extrapolate this as the only thing that will exist.
you:

Looking at the dead end of the existing workers' movements hardly assumes that it is the only thing that will ever exist. Rather, it demands we understand the new terrain on which we're fighting, and find forms (logistics, tactics, strategy, to be old fashioned about it) that are useful to our ends, instead of following our glorious dead into the camps/prisons/bureaucracies/moribund formal organizations/etc.


you haven't said anything. I would agree that a future mass self-managed workers movement could only exist if it incorporates an alliance among the various oppressed groups who make up the working class. a movement that is not only a working class movement but antiracist, antisexist, antiheterosexist.



Yr gender analysis is weak.

prove it.


This really isn't even worth talking about, but . . . socially contingent relates to society. If a living being is, say, alone in the woods (that is, without a social life) it is still a living being. Yes, life generally is environmentally contingent - but you're not saying anything remotely interesting there.


neither are you.

re: pesticides et all


what you described are among the reasons - however, its also arguable that industrial agriculture (which requires pesticides, and so on), for example, is necessitated by industrial society more generally.


nope. you want to claim that, prove it. you don't even define what "industrial" means. An industry, i'd say, is a set of production organizations that generate a certain product for the benefit of others.



So, really, what you're proposing is either (a) people will accept the destruction of their ecosystems for "compensation" (paid in what way? what does compensation even mean in the context of an anarchist economy?)

communities can specify how much they want a certain pollutant reduced. for example, a certain power plant is producing certain air polluants. there doesn't yet exist the technology to completely get rid of using that method of producing electricity. so the regional society, through its organizaations rooted in the community assemblies, demands a 10 percent reduction. there is then an investigation into what that would cost, in terms of loss of production of other things people want due to shifting resources to changing the electric production system. people may not be willing to pay that cost, so this may persuade them to reduce their demand to a 7 percent reduction.

thru this sort of interactive process of negotiation we can put a price on the damange being done by the pollutant, by measuring how much people are willing to give up to get that reduction.

an economy that doesn't have an ability to measure social opportunity costs and benefits isn't going to be an effective economy for people. so a price system is necessary.

an economy is "anarchist" if it is based on generalized self-manaagement, rooted in the face to face direct democracy of assemblies in workplaces and communities, an arrangement where there is no longer a dominating, exploiting class, and other forms of oppression are being disappeared.

this does not require not having a price system and in fact would not be feasible without a prices system.



(b) they won't accept compensation, will defend their ecosystems, and we'll have to go without, say, aluminium, or various rare metals used in computers. Since the former makes essentially no sense, the conclusion one must draw is that if we want to live in an anarchist society, we'll be living in a society that will have steadily less and less high technology (as things get stripped of parts, energy sources run out, etc.).

not likely since all communities will want things that would be produced by people in other communities. and coming into a classless social arrangment from capitalism we start with the technology and production capacity we have. and people want things that are produced by the production system...building fixtures, appliances,furniture, clothes, food.




concentration of decision-making authority does in fact apply to the police. the police are a bureaucratic hierarchy with a militaristic chain of command structure. as with supervisors and middle managers, being under the people at the top doesn't mean they do not dominate those below them, which implies a "concentration of decisiion-making authority."

Cops exercise day to day authority like supervisors do, engaging in monitoring of people...such as professional drivers such as cabbies or truckers, they make decisions about who to hassle, who to stop on the street, who to arrest, etc. Racist patterns within the exercise of authority by police contribute to the high numbers of men of color in prison & the criminal justice system.

[quote]
DOESN'T MEAN THEY'RE NOT OUR ENEMIES.
SAME AS WORKING CLASS RAPISTS.
OR WORKING CLASS SNITCHES.
OR WORKERS BUILDING PRISONS.
OR . . .


Working class rapists are a different story because they don't exercise authority in a public bureaucratic system, a class structure.

Workers building prisons are not our enemies. You don't understand the working class condition. It is a situation where we are forced to take the jobs on offer from the employers.



This I translate into willful (and ideological) misunderstanding, or having never engaged with the question of a classless society in any meaningful way. In "I'm afraid of the 21st century!" language, what I'm saying is: If there is an historical task of the working class, it is to end the reproduction of the working class as such.


yes, and you don't appear to have given much thought about how the working class might bring that about.


Originally Posted by syndicat http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2005057#post2005057)
any possible revolutionary transformation of human society that does away with the class system is going to initially have a sizeable minority who opposed the shift or people who are amoral individualists who lack a sense of social solidarity, are willing to try to game the system. and any possible human society is likely to have some level of criminality, even if less than what exists under late capitalism.
Wait, you bash "pomo" but refer to "late capitalism"?
*total facepalm round 2*
Also, "criminality"? What does "criminality" mean to an anarchist?


People who engage in immoral behaviors that harm others such as rape or murder. And in a libertarian socialist framework these things would be illegal, as it would be illegal to try to re-introduce wage-slavery, to get people to be your wage-slaves.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

You imagine a "libertarian" society with a price-based economy and laws (to prevent "immoral behaviors") . . . this illustrates the problem with a discussion about cops - there are people in our midst with no more imagination than the police.

[griffjam]

A common argument is that the police, as our fellow workers, are also exploited members of the proletariat, and should therefore be our allies. Unfortunately, there is a vast gap between “should” and “is.” The police exist to enforce the will of the powerful; anyone who has not had a bad experience with them is likely either privileged or submissive. Today’s police officers, at least in North America, know exactly what they’re getting into when they join the force; people in uniform don’t just get cats out of trees in this country. Yes, most take the job because of what they feel to be economic necessity, but needing a paycheck is no excuse for obeying orders to evict families, harass young men of color, or pepper spray demonstrators; those whose consciences can be bought are everyone else’s enemies, not potential allies.

This argument could be more persuasive if it was couched in strategic terms, rather than Marxist abstractions: for example, “Every revolution succeeds at the moment the armed forces refuse to make war on their fellows; therefore we should focus on seducing the police to our side of the barricades.” But again, the police are not just any workers; they are the ones who have most deliberately chosen to base their livelihoods and value systems upon the prevailing order, and thus are the least likely to be sympathetic to those who struggle against hierarchy. This being the case, it makes sense to focus on opposing the police as such, not on seeking solidarity with them. So long as they serve their masters, they cannot be our allies; by publicly deriding the police as an institution, we encourage individual police officers to seek other employment, so we can find common cause with them.

[syndicat]

You imagine a "libertarian" society with a price-based economy and laws (to prevent "immoral behaviors") . . . this illustrates the problem with a discussion about cops - there are people in our midst with no more imagination than the police.


another ad hominem. your powers of argument are deficient.