What is Anarcho-Syndicalism? Strenghts/Weaknesses

[W1N5T0N]

I am interested in the theory of An-Syndicalism. Could somebody explain to me how this system is supposed to work and what it's strengths and weaknesses are? How would such a system/society be brought about?

Thanks in advance :)

[Renno]

Try this one; www.anarcho-syndicalisme.nl. The site of our little union, ASB
Sorry that i do not have the time to answer your question properly. Try to pm Ravachol, he is our theoretical wonder

[W1N5T0N]

bedankt! :)

[syndicat]

the basic idea is that only the working class can liberate itself, so it needs a mass grassroots workers movement, a movement that workers themselves control, so that they will in charge of the process of re-organization of production and society. the aim of the grassroots union federation is to take over the means of production and create an organization in the workplaces through which workers will self-manage their own work and the production process.

but also the creation of assembly-based organizations in the neighborhoods and throughout society so that people who are affected by decisions will be able to control them, and thus be self-managing.

[W1N5T0N]

Thanks :) In reference to the latter part, could we speak of a form of AS in the Puerta del sol in madrid atm?

[syndicat]

the movement of encampments and desobedience in Madrid and other cities has gained the strong support of the anarchosyndicalists in Spain (CNT & CGT). they see the rejection of politicians and the decisions by assemblies and so on as consistent with an AS viewpoint. it's not yet fully there tho because there is no formal ongoing organization nor has it spilled over, i think, into workplaces very much, tho i could be wrong.

[Die Rote Fahne]

Big Weakness:

They do not advocate, or want to use a DOTP.

[Paulappaul]

the basic idea is that only the working class can liberate itself, so it needs a mass grassroots workers movement, a movement that workers themselves control, so that they will in charge of the process of re-organization of production and society. the aim of the grassroots union federation is to take over the means of production and create an organization in the workplaces through which workers will self-manage their own work and the production process.

but also the creation of assembly-based organizations in the neighborhoods and throughout society so that people who are affected by decisions will be able to control them, and thus be self-managing.

This Anarcho - Syndicalism seems more in line with 21st Century Anarcho - Syndicalism rather then Classical Anarcho - Syndicalism. It has alot of elements of Councilism in it. I like it, but is it authentically Anarchist - Syndicalism??

[Obs]

Big Weakness:

They do not advocate, or want to use a DOTP.

That could also be seen as a strength, and I'm sure most anarcho-syndicalists do see it that way.

Here's the thing - a revolutionary tendency is not like a fucking pokémon. You don't weigh the strengths and weaknesses before picking it, you either consider it the best and most realistic way to achieve socialism, or you don't, and choose to act in accordance with another.

You don't just "pick" a tendency. You independently form ideas, and then you find out which movements those ideas are most compatible with. You then act in accordance with your own ideas and feelings, within the framework of your movement (be that democratic centralist or... whatever y'all libertarians do). This is one reason I hate those "where do I fit?" threads that ask more experienced posters to place the OP into some kind of ideological box. It's lazy thinking, and it breeds people that aren't much good in an actual movement.

[the Leftâ„¢]

Sigged that pokemon statement haha loved it.

[W1N5T0N]

Follow your heart, you mean! :star:

[Coggeh]

Here's the thing - a revolutionary tendency is not like a fucking pokémon. You don't weigh the strengths and weaknesses before picking it, you either consider it the best and most realistic way to achieve socialism, or you don't, and choose to act in accordance with another.



Thats possibly the best thing to have ever been said on this site....

[W1N5T0N]

Thats possibly the best thing to have ever been said on this site....

100 percent agree.

[Q]

the basic idea is that only the working class can liberate itself...

This is hardly a position unique to anarchosyndicalism.

The difference with for example Marxists lies in the strategy of how the working class can effectively liberate itself. The difference, simply put, of general or mass strikism versus partyism.

Strikism proposes as a strategy that the working merely has to fight, strike. These strikes should be widened to a national scale to start a permanent general strike. Because society still has to run (it is unacceptable for example that hospitals cease to function), this implies a power question: who rules society? It is then proposed that this will lead to workers councils taking over the daily running of society, which de facto means that workers have liberated themselves from capitalism.

There are some problems however with this conception (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004317). To quote from that link:

So the problem is that even a mass strike wave poses the question of government: it poses the question of decision-making on a national scale and, indeed, on an international scale.

This implies political education on the part of the working masses. And while revolutionary periods do have a big impact in political education, like we see in Egypt at the present time, it is also obvious that this is still in its infancy and the Egyptian masses are still far away from taking over power.

The Marxist partyist strategy tries to solve this problem by committing itself to the long term task of building mass structures that strive to organise the whole class as a class, not only in an explicit political party, but also in a politicised movement of alternative culture institutions. The point is to educate the working class in politics, provide the infrastructure for self-initiative, maintain a body of collective knowledge and experience, everything that aides us in forming ourselves as a future ruling class.

I do repeat however: This is an explanation on a strategic level for the purpose of making the contrast clear. It is not said that Marxists oppose general strikes or that anarchosyndicalists oppose mass structures.

[Paulappaul]

So the problem is that even a mass strike wave poses the question of government: it poses the question of decision-making on a national scale and, indeed, on an international scale. This implies political education on the part of the working masses.

The working class regardless of Alternative structures or Political Education via means of a political party has always taken power despite would their would be leaders would expect or intend. In Hungary 56 or say Iran 79 it is clear the working class had taken over, the question feel to revolutionaries as how to maintain the system of Workers' Councils.


The point is to educate the working class in politics, provide the infrastructure for self-initiative, maintain a body of collective knowledge and experience, everything that aides us in forming ourselves as a future ruling class.

Except that the Parties premonitions are always different then the Self - Initiative and revolutionary consciousness of the working class.

[Q]

The working class regardless of Alternative structures or Political Education via means of a political party has always taken power despite would their would be leaders would expect or intend. In Hungary 56 or say Iran 79 it is clear the working class had taken over, the question feel to revolutionaries as how to maintain the system of Workers' Councils.
Actually, Iran 79 is a good example to underline my point: The workers formed their own councils but as the revolutionary upsurge continued, the political question became more and more explicit. "Ok, the Shah is gone, now what?" In this vacuum it was the Islamic fundamentalists around Khomeini that took the initiative and couped the movement and surpressed it ruthlessly as soon as it could.


Except that the Parties premonitions are always different then the Self - Initiative and revolutionary consciousness of the working class.
In the case of sectlets, I completely agree. I'm however talking as a "party" in the sense of the organised workers movement itself, a mass movement.

[Rowan Duffy]

The Marxist partyist strategy tries to solve this problem by committing itself to the long term task of building mass structures that strive to organise the whole class as a class, not only in an explicit political party, but also in a politicised movement of alternative culture institutions. The point is to educate the working class in politics, provide the infrastructure for self-initiative, maintain a body of collective knowledge and experience, everything that aides us in forming ourselves as a future ruling class.

I do repeat however: This is an explanation on a strategic level for the purpose of making the contrast clear. It is not said that Marxists oppose general strikes or that anarchosyndicalists oppose mass structures.

I don't think that this schema can be used to delineate between the two personally. Anarcho-syndicalism in Spain was very much a politicised movement of alternative institutions. The CNT made transitional demands and supported those alternative institutions. The anarcho-syndicalists in Spain had: mass education, mass organisations of the community, cooperatives, clandestine organisations, unemployed workers unions, rent strike organs and proposed a strategic programme for the removal of capitalism and its replacement with libertarian communism.

The real dichotomy in the theory and activity is more subtle and mostly comes down to Marxism versus not Marxism.

I find it somewhat amusing how much the mass-party Marxists and Anarcho-syndicalists always seem to want to stress the totally incompatible nature of their approach while theorising such a similar approach.

[bricolage]

yeah I think Q is confusing anarcho-syndicalism (or at least traditional anarcho-syndicalism, I find groups today - such as SolFed in the UK - aren't exactly in this neat pattern) with some kind of councilism, anarcho-syndicalists are bang on create mass organisations (and interestingly they were doing alternative culture long before the SPD and whoever else the kautsky fan boys here are hot on lately jumped on it) and the whole 'new world in the shell of the old' malarky. unlike say councilism or other strands of anarchism the general strike strategy within anarcho-syndicalism is accompanied by the existence of a revolutionary union (which I agree with Rowan is often phrased in very similar ways to the Marxist parties they rail against) and I don't know but I imagine there is perceived some link between councils formed within revolutionary periods and said union, might be wrong though.

[Die Rote Fahne]

That could also be seen as a strength, and I'm sure most anarcho-syndicalists do see it that way.

Here's the thing - a revolutionary tendency is not like a fucking pokémon. You don't weigh the strengths and weaknesses before picking it, you either consider it the best and most realistic way to achieve socialism, or you don't, and choose to act in accordance with another.

You don't just "pick" a tendency. You independently form ideas, and then you find out which movements those ideas are most compatible with. You then act in accordance with your own ideas and feelings, within the framework of your movement (be that democratic centralist or... whatever y'all libertarians do). This is one reason I hate those "where do I fit?" threads that ask more experienced posters to place the OP into some kind of ideological box. It's lazy thinking, and it breeds people that aren't much good in an actual movement.

Well, reformists see reform as a strength, doesn't make it so.

A fascist may see totalitarianism as a strength... Etc.

My point is that it is a weakness from a Marxist point of view. You're right to say that people choose what suites them, doesn't make it right.

Pokemon? With the pokey and the man and the enh enh enh.

[syndicat]

The Marxist partyist strategy tries to solve this problem by committing itself to the long term task of building mass structures that strive to organise the whole class as a class, not only in an explicit political party, but also in a politicised movement of alternative culture institutions.

by a party is by definition not an organizattion of the class, since it doesn't arise as the means of the workers in production to come together for an organized struggle with the dominating classes. parties are defined by some ideology or program. a party is a group built to context for state power. in the anarcho-syndicaliist view, this will inevitably lead to a bureaucratic structure dominating over the working class.

the structure of governance for the whole society, in the AS, view has to be built from below out of the mass organizations/mass miovements of the working class.

a "dictatorship of the proletariat" means a dictatorship of a party over society, and thus the continued existence of a state...a hierarchical, burewaucratic apparatus that can't be wielded by the working class itself through its own mass organizations. this is how anarcho-syndicaliism sees it. so from an AS point of view, not advocating a DOTP is a strenggth.

but opposition to a partyist strategy doesn't mean opposition to political organizations that can engage in things like education and organizing. it's a question of the dominance of the mass movement, not of a party. thus some anarcho-syndicalists have been dual organizationalists, like the Turin Libertarian Group in the shop assembly movement in Turin in 1919-20, or the FAI in the Spanish revolution. dual organizational in the sense of seeing a role for both a political organization and the mass organizations. but the AS idea is that the mass movement needs to be self-governing and thus autonomous, not subordinate to a party.

[Rowan Duffy]

by a party is by definition not an organizattion of the class, since it doesn't arise as the means of the workers in production to come together for an organized struggle with the dominating classes. parties are defined by some ideology or program. a party is a group built to context for state power. in the anarcho-syndicaliist view, this will inevitably lead to a bureaucratic structure dominating over the working class.

Is a syndicate an organisation of the class? It might not have everyone in it. It might not be geographically or demographically universal. Does this mean that it is a group seeking domination? I think that would hardly be fair, and it would hardly be fair to claim that parties are universally formations of this type. Indeed, you belong to a party (albeit an anti-electoralist party).


the structure of governance for the whole society, in the AS, view has to be built from below out of the mass organizations/mass miovements of the working class.

This is also true of any number of other council communist groups and even some Trotskyist groups. It's certainly true of many mass partyist types.



a "dictatorship of the proletariat" means a dictatorship of a party over society, and thus the continued existence of a state...a hierarchical, burewaucratic apparatus that can't be wielded by the working class itself through its own mass organizations. this is how anarcho-syndicaliism sees it. so from an AS point of view, not advocating a DOTP is a strenggth.

It only means the domination over if you take "partyists" to be automatically substitutionists. Most communist I know do not take it this way, but rather see the DOTP as realised in some political formations that facilitate that the bourgeois class, which currently dominates, is subordinated to the proletariate. Amongst a very many of current "partyists" some form of radical democracy is the formation that is considered most appropriate - generally some form of mass assembly or councils. If taken this way, most AS are in favour of the DOTP.

I think the DOTP is most problematic because "dictatorship" sounds like authoritarianism - which is both bad propaganda and a slippery excuse for authoritarian substitutionists.



but opposition to a partyist strategy doesn't mean opposition to political organizations that can engage in things like education and organizing. it's a question of the dominance of the mass movement, not of a party. thus some anarcho-syndicalists have been dual organizationalists, like the Turin Libertarian Group in the shop assembly movement in Turin in 1919-20, or the FAI in the Spanish revolution. dual organizational in the sense of seeing a role for both a political organization and the mass organizations. but the AS idea is that the mass movement needs to be self-governing and thus autonomous, not subordinate to a party.

Syndicates as a formation have complications related to how political they can become. The possibilities are limited by the peculiarities of the shape (geographical and organisational) and demographics of the workplace as well as the current level of politicisation of the class. The syndicate needs to have most workers in a workplace, so the political level tends to be diluted - unless there is some other organisation which tries to continually argue politics in the organisation. Parties are more amenable to broader demographics - while still having the capacity to be dual-organisationalist.

In the end, substitutionist approaches could also be taken by syndicates. A bureaucracy could form, which was either formal or informal. It could then use that increased control of information to lead the organisation in particular directions.

A syndicate could also use its dominant organisational strength to dictate the formation of the politico-economic regime. If the organisation was a rather significant fraction of the organised proletariat and the idea was both communist and popular and involved a democratic reorganisation of society, I would probably even support such substitutionism.

[syndicat]

i thoroughly disagree with you. but I'm moving at the moment, so i'll have to come back to your points in a few days.

[AntifaArnhem]

Actually, Iran 79 is a good example to underline my point: The workers formed their own councils but as the revolutionary upsurge continued, the political question became more and more explicit. "Ok, the Shah is gone, now what?" In this vacuum it was the Islamic fundamentalists around Khomeini that took the initiative and couped the movement and surpressed it ruthlessly as soon as it could.


In the case of sectlets, I completely agree. I'm however talking as a "party" in the sense of the organised workers movement itself, a mass movement.

The same can be said of Kronstadt or the Spanish civil war. Not to point any fingers but it's just what mainly happens after a revolution. One party gets the upper hand and then opresses the others, unfortunatly.

[W1N5T0N]

Whats DOTP? keeps popping up :(

[hatzel]

Whats DOTP? keeps popping up :(

Dictatorship of the proletariat :) Clearly that's too long to type out in full! :lol:

[Forward Union]

Might be worth explaining the difference between Anarcho Syndicalism, and Syndicalism.

Anarcho Syndicalism, unlike vanilla Syndicalism, belives in some level of exclusivity. Meaning, to be a member of an Anarcho Syndicalist Union, you have to have at least some tacit approval of incredibly complicated Anarchist philosophy. It isn't just a Union based on Anarchist organisational principals - it's an explicitly political union, for political workers. The only times such Frankenstein formations have grown to any interesting scale has been when they fundementally dropped this political requirement (such as with the CNT) Political Unions, compete for membership with other Unions, rather than cooperate and move toward building a grand Industrial Union in the way Syndicalist organisations like the IWW do.

The two largest Unions in the Red and Black coordination, the SAC in Sweden, and the CGT (far bigger an more significant than the now tiny CNT) in Spain, have both dropped the "Anarcho" bit from their approaches, as it appears to act as little more than dogmatic baggage.

[W1N5T0N]

Damn! It was right in front of me all the time... :lol:

[black magick hustla]

rather than cooperate and move toward building a grand Industrial Union in the way Syndicalist organisations like the IWW do.


1) iww is not a real union
2) you are kidding yourself there will be a grand industrial union and through that we are going to destroy the wage system. they tried, they failed.
3) economies are so decadent that the union model is going down the drain. unions are constantly being destroyed because the union was formed in an industry where there existed a culture where something like unionization was feasable (large workplaces, shopfloor culture, etc). these type of workplaces still exist but they house in the west a very small percentage of the proletariat. syndicalism is completely irrelevant for the vast majority of these wage slaves.
4) cgt is an ordinary union
5) communists shouldnt worry about creating revolutionary, mass permanent organizations because this is an impossibility today.

[black magick hustla]

rather than cooperate and move toward building a grand Industrial Union in the way Syndicalist organisations like the IWW do.


1) iww is not a real union
2) you are kidding yourself there will be a grand industrial union and through that we are going to destroy the wage system. they tried, they failed.
3) economies are so decadent that the union model is going down the drain. unions are constantly being destroyed because the union was formed in an industry where there existed a culture where something like unionization was feasable (large workplaces, shopfloor culture, etc). these type of workplaces still exist but they house in the west a very small percentage of the proletariat. syndicalism is completely irrelevant for the vast majority of these wage slaves.
4) cgt is an ordinary union
5) communists shouldnt worry about creating revolutionary, mass permanent organizations because this is an impossibility today.

[Savage]

a "dictatorship of the proletariat" means a dictatorship of a party over society, and thus the continued existence of a state...a hierarchical, burewaucratic apparatus that can't be wielded by the working class itself through its own mass organizations. this is how anarcho-syndicaliism sees it. so from an AS point of view, not advocating a DOTP is a strenggth.

You seem to be unaware of people that advocate the Dictatorship of the Proletariat that don't consider this class dictatorship to be a statist organ, and who don't consider 'the party' to be some intellectual clique. Ignorance never yet helped anybody. If you advocate the transformation of society by the proletariat as a whole then you are advocating the class dictatorship, from a Marxist point of view. The point is, don't let semantics take such a fundamental hold over your politics, you can use whatever terminology you want, just don't let this get in the way of realizing who your comrades are.

[Forward Union]

1) iww is not a real union

Do you mean legally? Because it is a legally registered and certified union. However, I was referring to ideas behind the historical IWW.


2) you are kidding yourself there will be a grand industrial union and through that we are going to destroy the wage system. they tried, they failed.

Well, given that we are here having this debate, whatever strategy you advocate must also have failed. But lets not dance on this needle point. I don't necessarily think a grand industrial union can bring down capitalism. But I do think that rebuilding the basic organs of class power, Unions, Community and residents associations, Tenants associations, on broad, economic (not political) lines, should be the key goal of any Socialist today. Rather than building their faction up in a vacuum.


3) economies are so decadent that the union model is going down the drain. unions are constantly being destroyed because the union was formed in an industry where there existed a culture where something like unionization was feasable (large workplaces, shopfloor culture, etc). these type of workplaces still exist but they house in the west a very small percentage of the proletariat. syndicalism is completely irrelevant for the vast majority of these wage slaves.

Depends on which country you are talking about. Germany for example, is a highly industrialised country, fourth largest in the world, and the worlds second highest exporter. Norway and Scotland have huge access to the north sea, industrial fishing, gas mining, not to mention Oil. All we need to do is Unionise Energy, Transport, and Weapons production, three core industries that can't be off shored and we have the national bourgeoisie in our hands.


4) cgt is an ordinary union

I know?

[Q]

5) communists shouldnt worry about creating revolutionary, mass permanent organizations because this is an impossibility today.
This position is built on the idea that we can't possibly change the ideas of the working class, that education is therefore impossible, without breaking with the objective dynamics of capitalism. This then leads to the position that we cannot built our party outside revolutionary periods when the movement is in mass direct action. The left-communist position is therefore to just wait for this mass struggle to come along and in the mean time remain "pure".

The counter-argument the left-communists often use against those opposing this position is that we can't build mass communist parties simply through an "act of willpower" or, as they call it, "voluntarism". This is obviously true: You cannot build a mass party merely by recruiting ad infinitum for your own group. This is the sectarian way of operation.

However, while we are subjected to objective conditions, I don't think we are enslaved by it. Marx and Engels' initial solution to overcome sectism was to unite all kinds of different strains of thought within one organisation on the basis of a minimal agreed basis of aims and programme, which became the first international.

The idea was that if the working class is organised in this manner, politisation could happen on the basis of open debates and votes. In this way all kinds of demands which are spontaniously raised by the movement could be debated and, through this, the class could develop itself politically and form into a class for itself.

Now, today this political space - that of broad workers movements - is occupied by the social-democratic and official communist parties. In this situation we cannot build broad parties, but we can form an oppositional force to these parties by offering a positive alternative the politics of these parties of bureaucratism, nationalism and class collaboration. Such an oppositional party could still operate on a minimal basis, that being: radical democracy, class solidarity & power and an internationalist position of class unity across borders.


But I do think that rebuilding the basic organs of class power, Unions, Community and residents associations, Tenants associations, on broad, economic (not political) lines, should be the key goal of any Socialist today.
It is exactly such an economist position that is such an obstacle today on the far left. The idea that we can politically educate our class merely by economic struggle is not only an illusion, it is also one of the important reasons why we are so marginal. After all, where is the need for building a party if all we need to do is argue for strikes, etc.? Economic struggle is not an act of willpower, but a natural development within capitalism. It is exactly the task of socialists to educate our class for the need to go beyond such struggles and move onto the political plane.


Rather than building their faction up in a vacuum.
I agree and I've said it already: recruiting ad infinitum is not going to work out. Actually, the idea that we need to build "our" party and ignore all other groups is actually more hurting the movement than anything. Competing sects will not only cause a great deal of disillusionment and waste of energy, it is actually not transcending the capitalist dynamics at all. If we would be talking about companies, we'd be talking about competition and market shares, etc. What is the point of gaining more "market share" for a communist though? It is a stupid premise. Our goal ought to be to organise the whole class, in all its diversity, beginning with uniting the most advanced elements of the class, the communists and class struggle anarchists.


Depends on which country you are talking about. Germany for example, is a highly industrialised country, fourth largest in the world, and the worlds second highest exporter. Norway and Scotland have huge access to the north sea, industrial fishing, gas mining, not to mention Oil. All we need to do is Unionise Energy, Transport, and Weapons production, three core industries that can't be off shored and we have the national bourgeoisie in our hands.
But there are no positive solutions to capitalism on a national scale. We ought to work on a transnational, regional scale, at the very least. So, in Europe we should fight for genuine European unification in order to bring together the working class in one common movement against capitalist power and seize power on this scale.

[Zanthorus]

Marx and Engels' initial solution to overcome sectism was to unite all kinds of different strains of thought within one organisation on the basis of a minimal agreed basis of aims and programme, which became the first international.

This is a complete falsification of history. Marx and Engels' did not have any preformulated organisational 'solution' to overcoming sectarianism, they believed that sect organisations were the result of people seeing the degradation promoted by capitalism in a period when the working-class was still largely passive and had not begun any kind of large scale fightback, and that they would be rendered irrelevant when the working-class began to move of it's own accord. Since they did not have the 'solution' to sectarianism that you claim they did this idea could not possibly have led to the formation of the IWMA, however even if they did have this supposed 'solution', the IWMA was created by meetings of French and British workers' originally intended to provide solidarity with Poland. At those meetings the issue of the emancipation of labour was brought and those discussions were what led to the formation of the International. Marx was dragged into the proceedings during it's formation and became one of it's leading theoretical proponents but the fact still remains that organisationally the IWMA was the spontaneous product of the working-class movement at the time.

A couple of quotes from Marx for you to mull over:

Just as the economists are the scientific representatives of the bourgeois class, so the Socialists and Communists are the theoreticians of the proletarian class. So long as the proletariat is not yet sufficiently developed to constitute itself as a class, and consequently so long as the struggle itself of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie has not yet assumed a political character, and the productive forces are not yet sufficiently developed in the bosom of the bourgeoisie itself to enable us to catch a glimpse of the material conditions necessary for the emancipation of the proletariat and for the formation of a new society, these theoreticians are merely utopians who, to meet the wants of the oppressed classes, improvise systems and go in search of a regenerating science. But in the measure that history moves forward, and with it the struggle of the proletariat assumes clearer outlines, they no longer need to seek science in their minds; they have only to take note of what is happening before their eyes and to become its mouthpiece. So long as they look for science and merely make systems, so long as they are at the beginning of the struggle, they see in poverty nothing but poverty, without seeing in it the revolutionary, subversive side, which will overthrow the old society. From this moment, science, which is a product of the historical movement, has associated itself consciously with it, has ceased to be doctrinaire and has become revolutionary.- The Poverty of Philosophy (Emphasis added)

Socialists have shown the general universal struggle between capital and labor – The Cosmopolitan Chapter in one word – and consequently tried to bring about an understanding between the workmen in the different countries, which became more necessary as the capitalists became more cosmopolitan in hiring labor, pitting foreign against native labor not only in America, but in England, France, and Germany. International relations sprang up at once between workingmen in the three different countries, showing that socialism was not merely a local, but an international problem, to be solved by the international action of workmen. The working classes move spontaneously, without knowing what the ends of the movement will be. The socialists invent no movement, but merely tell the workmen what its character and its ends will be.- Marx in an Interview with the Chicago Tribune in response to the question of what socialism had done so far (Emphasis added)

[Rowan Duffy]

but the fact still remains that organisationally the IWMA was the spontaneous product of the working-class movement at the time.

If by spontaneously you mean a bunch of people spent a lot of time, energy and scarce resources trying to gather together a group to talk about their common experiences and the way forward - yeah, it was spontaneous.

As an explanatory theory of anything spontanaeity is completely worthless. It's essentially equivalent to saying that god did it.

If it was merely worthless at being explanatory or predictive it would be one thing. But it actually takes a value judgment on activity. And that makes it worse than worthless as an ideology for the working class.

Mass movements require a lot of motive force, and it is unusual for that to acquire that motive force by subjectivity in the main part. However, subjectivity factors into the problem - hence you have fads which come in an out that have very little to do with material factors.

It's also incredibly hard to predict when a mass movement will gain force, just as it is hard to predict when some fad will find root. Collective action problems are tricky.

However, if a "spontaneist" ideology became widespread, we'd all be assured of the need to sit on our hands, and with pretty much any objective condition, we'd be almost certainly confined to total inaction.

[Zanthorus]

Spontaneous as in produced by the real contradictions of capitalist society, by the conflict between the forces and relations of production, by the necessity imposed on the working-class by the development of capitalism, rather than by the propaganda of the sects/rackets trying to promote their own brands on the political marketplace. As for your final statement about what would happen if we all adhered to 'spontaneist' ideology, you seem to have failed to realise that the point about 'spontaneism' is that ideas are irrelevant.

[Q]

As for your final statement about what would happen if we all adhered to 'spontaneist' ideology, you seem to have failed to realise that the point about 'spontaneism' is that ideas are irrelevant.

I have already tackled this somewhat in my previous post, but I'll add this: Ideas are not irrelevant. It is of course true that objective circumstances are primary, however ideas obviously have an effect on the real world too. It would be more correct to see a dialectical relationship here.

[Rowan Duffy]

you seem to have failed to realise that the point about 'spontaneism' is that ideas are irrelevant.

While this is obviously untrue in the general case (engineering could not exist otherwise) I certainly wish it were true in your particular case.

[Forward Union]

It is exactly such an economist position that is such an obstacle today on the far left. The idea that we can politically educate our class merely by economic struggle is not only an illusion, it is also one of the important reasons why we are so marginal.

Union density is 12% and falling in the UK and I don't know any left wing organisations that are dedicated to rebuilding them. So I don't know what you base these statements on. The Socialist Party recently turned the NSSN into a political campaign when it could have been used to rebuild unions, the SWP has its own version, etc ect.



After all, where is the need for building a party if all we need to do is argue for strikes, etc.? Economic struggle is not an act of willpower, but a natural development within capitalism. It is exactly the task of socialists to educate our class for the need to go beyond such struggles and move onto the political plane.


This argument made sense a few decades ago. Now we need to go back a step and build "trade union conciousness" before talking about directing it.



I agree and I've said it already: recruiting ad infinitum is not going to work out. Actually, the idea that we need to build "our" party and ignore all other groups is actually more hurting the movement than anything. Competing sects will not only cause a great deal of disillusionment and waste of energy, it is actually not transcending the capitalist dynamics at all. If we would be talking about companies, we'd be talking about competition and market shares, etc. What is the point of gaining more "market share" for a communist though? It is a stupid premise. Our goal ought to be to organise the whole class, in all its diversity, beginning with uniting the most advanced elements of the class, the communists and class struggle anarchists.


Agree apart from the last part. We need to rebuild the basic organs of class power, not naval gase.
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