Must workers seek political power?

[Nehru]

If they do, a section of the working class will become the new ruling class - and the game will continue with new masters.

So would it be better for workers to restrict revolutionary activities to strikes, walkouts etc. (purely economic rather than political)? That way, workers can fight for their rights without allowing themselves to be used by any party.

[RGacky3]

No, the ruling class is not those in political power, the ruling class is the class that has power over those people, i.e. the capitalist class.


So would it be better for workers to restrict revolutionary activities to strikes, walkouts etc. (purely economic rather than political)? That way, workers can fight for their rights without allowing themselves to be used by any party.

I totally agree with this, strategicly its much better, fight the ruling class directly, economically, rather than fighting their political tools.

[Jimmie Higgins]

If they do, a section of the working class will become the new ruling class - and the game will continue with new masters.
RGacky3 answered this one. The point is to change society so that the class rules and shapes society around its needs. For this reason I think proletarian-democracy (democratic decision-making based out of workplaces and possibly communities with regional or industry-wide bodies of elected reps if needed) is essential following a revolution.


So would it be better for workers to restrict revolutionary activities to strikes, walkouts etc. (purely economic rather than political)? That way, workers can fight for their rights without allowing themselves to be used by any party.Well first, I don't know what you mean by "used by a party". Do you mean some party that puts itself into power in some kind of one-party state? If so, I agree. As far as political parties as a way to organize people with shared goals... this is just a way for people to organize themselves and so it's more a question of if that party is organized well or poorly in it's ability to help the people in that party achieve their goals (and what the goals are). The history of workers movements is chalk full of splits and people leaving and forming new vehicles/parties like the bolsheviks splitting, the Sparticists leaving the SWP, the trotskyists leaving the CPs, the IWW being organized out of left-wing anarchists and socialists etc. People can and do leave these voluntary parties all the time.

I think the activities you speak of are some of the best weapons we have as workers, so no argument there. But I do think that the class struggle is much much more than just economic issues. It's no good to fight for higher wages if women or racial or religious minorities are left out because only a section of the class is helped and the bosses tend to exploit that inequality inside the class to create divisions and weaken the entire class. Imperialist war also strengthens the ruling class (if they win) and makes it harder for workers to make gains. So I think it's important that we see the social and economic struggle as linked.

[mykittyhasaboner]

If they do, a section of the working class will become the new ruling class - and the game will continue with new masters.

How? This is a bold conclusion without much explanaition.



So would it be better for workers to restrict revolutionary activities to strikes, walkouts etc. (purely economic rather than political)? That way, workers can fight for their rights without allowing themselves to be used by any party.

In presence of an unbridled reaction which violently crushes every effort at emancipation on the part of the working men, and pretends to maintain by brute force the distinction of classes and the political domination of the propertied classes resulting from it;


Considering, that against this collective power of the propertied classes the working class cannot act, as a class, except by constituting itself into a political party, distinct from, and opposed to, all old parties formed by the propertied classes;


That this constitution of the working class into a political party is indispensable in order to ensure the triumph of the social revolution and its ultimate end — the abolition of classes;


That the combination of forces which the working class has already effected by its economical struggles ought at the same time to serve as a lever for its struggles against the political power of landlords and capitalists —


The Conference recalls to the members of the International:
That in the militant state of the working class, its economical movement and its political action are indissolubly united.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/09/politics-resolution.htm