The “Occupy Wall Street� Protests LRP Statement

[RedTrackWorker]

http://lrp-cofi.org/statements/ows_100511.html

October 3, 2011
The “Occupy Wall Street” Protests:
Billions for Bankers, Layoffs for Workers and Youth? HELL NO!

The protests at Wall Street have tapped into the widespread sense of injustice. Through layoffs, foreclosures and cutbacks, working-class and poor people are being made to pay the price for the economic crisis and for Washington’s bailout of banks and corporations. A fightback is long overdue. Wall Street is a fitting target, the home of a dominant sector of the capitalist ruling class that played a criminal role in bringing the world to the edge of another Great Depression.

The initiative of the “Occupy Wall Street” (OWS) protesters in starting the protests, and their courage in keeping up the fight in the face of police repression, have created the potential for an even bigger and more powerful struggle. The first OWS actions certainly had their political problems. For example, the protesters initially refused to raise specific demands on the government and against Wall Street, preferring to take a stand as leftish moral witnesses to the country’s financial corruption. This attitude was largely symptomatic of the fact that those first protesters tended to be better off than most working-class people. They also were overwhelmingly white, even though the most devastating effects of the economic crisis are disproportionately hitting Blacks, Latinos and immigrants.

But all that is beginning to change. There is a growing wave of working-class support for the protests around the country as similar actions spread to other cities. People everywhere want to protest against Wall Street and are glad to see that some are finally doing it!

In particular, the actions have exposed the fact that the people with the power and responsibility to build a mass movement of protest have avoided doing so until now. The Wall Street protests have literally shamed the trade union and community leaders to start mobilizing their members and supporters in struggle. Workers need to take advantage of every step their leaders make toward struggle, pushing for and demanding the greatest possible mobilization.

At the same time, workers and young people need to be aware that the union leaders have so far sabotaged every attempt to fightback against the capitalist bosses’ and politicians’ efforts to make the working class pay for the economic crisis. They prefer to channel struggles into deal-making with political “friends” in the halls of power – resulting in deals which leave the working class betrayed every time. It would be a tragedy if the potential of this protest movement were allowed to be similarly ruined. Fighting for the biggest possible ongoing mobilizations of protest, with clear demands in defense of all working-class, poor and young people against layoffs and cutbacks, is essential.

Beware of the Democratic Party
It hardly needs to be pointed out that President Obama joined Bush in supporting the multi-trillion dollar bailouts while abandoning the true victims who were losing their jobs and homes. Now Congress and the president are upping the attacks, adopting an unprecedented ten-year plan of massive cutbacks in a whole range of vital services. In New York, Democratic Governor Cuomo is also imposing major cutbacks and layoffs. For all their squabbling, the Democrats agree with the Republicans that the workers, youth and poor should pay for the crisis.

Although Obama supports the idea of heavy cutbacks, he is now actively in election mode, trying to disguise his pro-austerity policies with rhetoric about taxing the rich and reducing joblessness. He even has the nerve to posture as a “class warrior for the working class” against the Republicans. While Obama is at best a moderate, some more liberal Democratic politicians often opportunistically latch onto protest movements in order to ultimately collect votes for the party machine. Such Democrats have a long and treacherous history of involvement in popular movements, from anti-war movements to civil rights struggles to union campaigns, to keep them in a passive electoral mode and prevent them from challenging the capitalist system.

The Role of the Union Leaders
Richard Trumka, president of the nation's largest union federation, the AFL-CIO, exemplifies the union leaders’ commitment to the Democratic Party. He feigns support for mass action: “I think being in the streets and calling attention to issues is sometime the only recourse you have because ... you can go to the Hill, and you can talk to a lot of people and see nothing ever happen.” Actually, history proves that taking to the streets and the picket lines is always the recourse working-class people have if they don’t want to get screwed. Just recall the powerful protest movement against Republican union-busting in Wisconsin earlier this year. It raised the possibility of a general strike – only to see Trumka and his fellow union leaders call off the protests, occupations and pickets and instead concentrate on a Democratic Party electoral strategy that led straight to defeat.

In the face of the recent state and municipal budget cuts and Washington’s huge deficit and cutback plans, union leaders have refused to wage a class-wide battle that could unite public-sector workers and the working-class public who use and rely on public services. They also ignore the racist nature of the service cuts and fail to draw attention to the disproportionate amount of pain imposed on Black and Latino people.

The Occupy Wall Street protesters especially welcomed the support of Transport Workers Union Local 100, and the media gave it a lot of play. The subway and bus workers’ union has shown its power to shut down the financial capital of the world, and its majority Black and Latino membership reflects the working class of New York City. Its support is important, but as the League for the Revolutionary Party’s supporters among transit workers have documented in their Revolutionary Transit Worker newsletter, Local 100’s leadership has played the same games as the rest of the union bureaucrats in limiting struggles.

Where Is the Struggle Headed?
The Wall Street action could be an opportunity to bring more working-class people into struggle. A strong working-class movement is needed, one that can attract everyone who is facing the crisis of the capitalist system. Let’s not allow the union officials just to offer paper support and a few more marchers. Let’s demand that the unions, and other organizations that claim to represent workers and oppressed people, mobilize a mass Solidarity Day in New York, including a serious reach-out to non-union workers. That could bring out hundreds of thousands.

In this era of crisis, we will win only if working-class and young people unite to fight on the broadest possible basis: union and non-union, employed and unemployed, documented and undocumented. Militant struggles can win important victories in beating back the worst capitalist attacks for a time. But the crisis affects the whole society, and only a society-wide solution can work. This means making demands on government, especially Washington. We need, for example, a massive program of public works to provide jobs for all – not just tax incentives for the corporations to hire a fraction of the millions of workers they’ve laid off, as in Obama’s American Jobs Act.

Fighting for such demands, we believe, will help convince many that the only way to ensure a decent life with jobs, health care, and all the other necessities for all people is to take the power to run society out of the hands of the capitalist bosses and their politicians. Working-class and poor people are finally starting to fight back. The revolutionary uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, where workers’ strikes played decisive roles in toppling dictators there, are significant signs that in response to the bosses’ attacks there will be a surge in uprisings around the world.

The most politically conscious workers and youth will come to see, by way of struggles today as well as the study of Marxism and the history of past struggles, that the working class can stop the capitalist economy and the capitalists’ profiteering. It is workers who make society run. More will begin to see the need to overthrow capitalist rule and seize power ourselves. But workers need a new political leadership – a revolutionary working-class party – that fights for building the best possible defense today while aiming to convince our fellow workers of the need to overthrow the capitalists. That means replacing their rule with a working-class state power dedicated to building a society of abundance, freedom and justice for all.

The League for the Revolutionary Party is a working-class revolutionary socialist organization that includes transit workers, CUNY workers and students and others. We fight for united struggle against the capitalist attacks while working to convince fellow workers and youth of revolutionary goals. We defend and develop Marxist theory as a guide to action – a scientific analysis of this society and its crisis shows that socialist revolution is the only solution to our problems. We believe that to get to that revolution and to lead our struggles today, we need to build a revolutionary party based on the working class. We hope that revolutionary-minded workers and youth will join us in this and look forward to discussing these ideas as we fight for a better life for all.

Billions for Bankers – Layoffs, Foreclosures and Cutbacks for Workers and Youth? Hell No!
Stop Racist and Anti-Immigrant Attacks! End Police Brutality!
For a Massive Public Works Program – Jobs for All!
Democrats and Republicans: Two Parties of War, Racism and Anti-Worker Attacks!
Socialist Revolution is the Only Solution!
Build the Revolutionary Party of the Working Class!

[Jose Gracchus]

Do you think it is a plausible demand to raise in the face of the bourgeois state of "massive public works" and "jobs for all"?

[RED DAVE]

Do you think it is a plausible demand to raise in the face of the bourgeois state of "massive public works" and "jobs for all"?Yes, as a transitional demand, of course.

By the way, this document can be used as the ginning of a good discussion on program and/or strategy (or as the beginning of a flame war).

RED DAVE

[DaringMehring]

Do you think it is a plausible demand to raise in the face of the bourgeois state of "massive public works" and "jobs for all"?

It doesn't matter whether the demand is plausible, as long as it is necessary for the well-being of the workers. If they can't provide it, and are forced to admit that, all the better.

It's bad enough to put demands on your enemy (the bourgeois state), but it would be even worse to limit the demands to "the realm of the possible." That would mean, virtually becoming a Democrat.

[RED DAVE]

Do you think it is a plausible demand to raise in the face of the bourgeois state of "massive public works" and "jobs for all"?
It doesn't matter whether the demand is plausible, as long as it is necessary for the well-being of the workers. If they can't provide it, and are forced to admit that, all the better.

It's bad enough to put demands on your enemy (the bourgeois state), but it would be even worse to limit the demands to "the realm of the possible." That would mean, virtually becoming a Democrat.This is the essence of the transitional method.

RED DAVE

[RedTrackWorker]

Do you think it is a plausible demand to raise in the face of the bourgeois state of "massive public works" and "jobs for all"?

It would be wrong to tell people "the bourgeois state will provide you jobs". I like the formulation--that I can't find the original reference to just now--that goes something like:


I think to win what we need--jobs and everything else--it is necessary to overthrow the capitalist state and build a workers' state. You are not convinced, so I propose that we fight together for the things we agree are necessary and learn from life itself if it is necessary to overthrow their state.

This even applies to many workers who are convinced the system is broken and a revolution is needed but aren't committed to working for a revolution because they don't see how it is possible. I work with many workers like this and part of the transitional method is showing those workers how a revolution is possible despite the beliefs of workers who are not convinced of and even opposed to revolution.

But Jose Gracchus's point is why the LRP doesn't raise demands like "Jobs for all" at all time and in all places, especially when there is no movement or potential for a movement, because the point of placing such a demand on the state is for the workers to learn through struggle. When there isn't such a potential for movement and therefor for learning from the struggle, to agitate for such demands as most Trotskyist groups do creates the impression that one believes the capitalist state can grant those demands. This conception is explained further in http://lrp-cofi.org/PR/TPSV8.html, which focuses on the "workers' government" demand but deals with the method behind the transitional program.

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

We may have our differences, but this is a solid analysis and a good jumping off point for discussions about demands for OWS. Is this being distributed at the protests? I know a friend (non-ISO) here in Atlanta has been writing a document called "From Occupation to Transitional Government" as a way to start a discussion about what the Occupy movement means, what real transitional demands are, and what our vision for victory is. I think the Occupy movement and the response of the broad left to it has shown how we can work together on the basics of building a mass movement and fighting for a transitional programme. Hopefully, this unified analysis of the movement and the issue of demands will help push it forward.

[RedTrackWorker]

We may have our differences, but this is a solid analysis and a good jumping off point for discussions about demands for OWS. Is this being distributed at the protests?

Thank you. Any points of improvement or criticism? Definitely being distributed at the protests there, at the mass march Wednesday I would guess we gave out close to a thousand copies but haven't heard a full report yet from everyone so not sure [edit: about 2,000]. I think people liked the headline (which we also had on placards and started chants with) and so would come up to get the statement, in addition to us handing it out to those around us.

Speaking of placards, not to get too off topic, but my favorite placards of ours:
http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/9017/31093754188281589256101.jpg

It was in Arabic on one side and English on the other:

What Mohamed Bouazizi Started,
the Workers of the World
Can Finish --

Socialist Revolution
Can Win Freedom
and Justice for All!

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

Thank you. Any points of improvement or criticism?

I'd have to look it over and think about it a bit more, but I'm at work right now. But, first read, it looks pretty solid. I maybe would have added another demand or two, but the contrast that is made between the demand that is put forward and the way Obama has approached this is necessary and a great way to make the break with the Democratic Party real for many of the people there.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

As expected, I don't see any concrete proposals here other than vague calls for socialism, demands aimed at the ruling class (which are unachievable at any rate - you can't have police without brutality), and the requisite recruitment pitch.

I think one of the best things about this action is that many participants have rejected "demands" (which they see as being nothing more than requests of the powers that be) in favor of "goals" - actual, achievable plans to transform society.

I really don't think the leftist groups get that.

My hope is that the left groups, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois vultures, cranks, sects and other groups that are trying to harness this will be left out in the cold, as this advances. The danger of course is that the opposite happens, and one or more takes control of this. The former will create openings for something more. The latter will spell its death.

[Lucretia]

As expected, I don't see any concrete proposals here other than vague calls for socialism, demands aimed at the ruling class (which are unachievable at any rate - you can't have police without brutality), and the requisite recruitment pitch.

I think one of the best things about this action is that many participants have rejected "demands" (which they see as being nothing more than requests of the powers that be) in favor of "goals" - actual, achievable plans to transform society.

I really don't think the leftist groups get that.

My hope is that the left groups, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois vultures, cranks, sects and other groups that are trying to harness this will be left out in the cold, as this advances. The danger of course is that the opposite happens, and one or more takes control of this. The former will create openings for something more. The latter will spell its death.

Either this amorphous, heterogeneous group is co-opted by the capitalist establishment, represented by the two parties, or it will transform into a more structured, grassroots left group with specific demands. Hopefully, if the latter happens, it will be a broadly Marxist and socialist type group or organization with transitional demands/goals (sorry, but I think your distinction here between goals and demands is not clearly worked out enough). Spontaneity works up to a point, but has a certain shelf life before it is institutionalized in some way.

[RedTrackWorker]

As expected, I don't see any concrete proposals here


Let’s not allow the union officials just to offer paper support and a few more marchers. Let’s demand that the unions, and other organizations that claim to represent workers and oppressed people, mobilize a mass Solidarity Day in New York, including a serious reach-out to non-union workers.

I would think that's an attempt at a concrete proposal. I also think it's hard to be concrete about such things when the workers' movement overall is at a low ebb in the country (with a few signs of potential revival to be sure, but still low) and this "occupy everything", even if now considered a "movement", is a very, very mixed one and whose class base and direction is very mixed as well.

But perhaps we're just not being creative enough or are missing something--what are some good concrete proposals to offer?


demands aimed at the ruling class (which are unachievable at any rate - you can't have police without brutality

So what is your proposal? Just say "Fight for socialism to get jobs" or what? If the unions built a serious march to demand the government provide jobs, you would just tell them that's a bad idea and won't work?


I think one of the best things about this action is that many participants have rejected "demands" (which they see as being nothing more than requests of the powers that be) in favor of "goals" - actual, achievable plans to transform society.

I'm in favor of achievable plans to transform society, but I've seen more such "goals" that point in a capitalist direction (like "end the fed", anti-corruption stuff) than anything of a working-class character, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here. (Actually, I didn't see any signs at the march that pointed to a working class goal. Where are references to these "achievable" plans being put forward?)


My hope is that the left groups, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois vultures, cranks, sects and other groups that are trying to harness this will be left out in the cold, as this advances.

I thought you were all about the central role of the working class in transforming society? What is the perspective for this "occupy together" movement to move in a working class direction without the conscious intervention of working class-based political organization? I don't understand this coming from you NHIA.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I would think that's an attempt at a concrete proposal. Think again. It's the same old general sloganeering that's been coming from Trotsky's followers since they first sprung up as a separate entity. Call it the curse of the Transitional Program.

Let's place demands on the union tops? That's not a goal, that's nothing something to set out and achieve. That's saying "let's go beg these union bureaucrats -- who sit above the workers they supposedly represent in privileged positions, who are firmly tied to the Democrats, who oppose and derail every bit of militant proletarian activity they can get their hands on -- to do something they can't do, something they won't do, something that wouldn't change anything even if they did do it."

Very vague, very bland, very worthless. Exactly what you'd expect when a tiny group of leftists that is stuck in the past draws up "official statements" from boards, committees, etc., in advance, outside of the movement, then shows up and says: "here it is!"


So what is your proposal? Just say "Fight for socialism to get jobs" or what? I think it's better to tell the truth than to persist in delusions. I think people are better able to change the world when they understand it.

I don't think that mass unemployment is a result of some decision made by the ruling class to create a huge jobless army. I don't think it's something that can be overturned by administrative fiat. I think it's a result of the functions of the profit system, of overproduction, of changes in the organic makeup of capital, of increases in the efficiency of the means of production, of a fundamentally inability of capitalism to continue reproducing itself at historic rates...

And if it's a result of the normal workings of capitalism, if it's a feature of the capitalist system, then that means the only real solution is the abolition of capitalism.

So if that's the case, we should be talking about how this burgeoning movement can achieve its goals, even if those tasks won't be achieved now. If people are talking about ending unemployment, we should do our best to explain the source of unemployment. We should explain how the productive forces are coming into conflict with the relations of production.... how technology has advanced to the point where a little labor can satisfy the wants and needs of all of humanity, but is prevented from doing that by private ownership -- by a capitalist minority concerned only with profits, that has no need for the millions and millions of unemployed and underemployed people.

I don't think things will go back to how they were, with huge factories everywhere, employing everyone who comes out of high school. Even if they could, I don't think our role would be to fight for that.

Yeah, the development of things means the capitalists don't need to employ as many people anymore. But this leads to crisis for us and them. The positive resolution of this crisis, which would involve taking these advanced means of production under public control, would allow us to divide up the socially necessary work among the total population. With the high levels of technology we've reached, that would mean that everyone would be given both a huge productive role and a huge increase in free time in which they can flourish as real human beings.

If people are talking about foreclosures, we should explain what the basis of that is, and how they can be brought to an end once and for all: taking all vacant housing under public control and redistributing it according to need.

Inroads against capital and required to solve these kinds of issues.

If nothing more, we should help people clarify things to the extent we are able.

"The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement.... But they never cease, for a single instant, to instill into the working class the clearest possible recognition of the hostile antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat.... In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time."

Remember?


If the unions built a serious march to demand the government provide jobs, you would just tell them that's a bad idea and won't work? I think you're stuck in the past man. FDR isn't president. There won't be any massive public works projects. The ruling class is cutting back on infrastructure maintenance, letting anything non-essential deteriorate underfoot, not creating new infrastructure. There are no big dams being constructed. For fucks sake, major bridges are collapsing into rivers! The government isn't supporting unionization drives. Unionization is not increasing. The union leadership isn't militant. There are no such marches taking place.

You know what the unions build today? Obama's election coffers... and this kind of pro-Democrat, nationalist hog shit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Nation_Working_Together_rally


Where are references to these "achievable" plans being put forward? They're not. And that's the point.

Militants that are participating in this should at least be suggesting them. The last thing that's needed are more official statements and recruitment spiels.


I thought you were all about the central role of the working class in transforming society? What is the perspective for this "occupy together" movement to move in a working class direction without the conscious intervention of working class-based political organization? I don't understand this coming from you NHIA. Sorry, but your tiny sect does not equal the working class.

I'm for the self-emancipation of the working class, not the promotion of grouplets. I've written enough here, if you are really interested in my positions you can see http://www.revleft.com/vb/sclerosis-organized-pro-t160423/index.html?p=2219376#post2219376

[RedTrackWorker]

To NHIA:
I will respond to your general points about the party in the thread you linked.

For the rest of your post, I would say I agree with the Marx quote (clipped for brevity here):

The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; [snip] But they never cease, for a single instant, to instill into the working class the clearest possible recognition of the hostile antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat.

But I don't understand why you think it backs up your position since you spent the whole post justifying not raising any fight for "immediate demands" or "momentary interests". In what way do you propose the working class fight for such interests? All I see is stuff that comes after the "but".

Further, how do you think the leaflet could've raised the issue of class antagonism better, because we did raise the issue? Explaining stuff like the capitalist crisis and unemployment being a part of the normal workings of capitalism is pretty central to the work of the LRP and has been a prominent part of many issues of our magazine, is a big part of our book, along with articles in our bulletin for transit workers--but it doesn't fit in a one-page leaflet other than to assert it. If you have ideas for how we could do it better, please share.

As for the issue of placing demands on the union leaders, I can only refer to the argument of Lenin's Left-wing Communism (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/) to point out that it's well and good you and I understand the treacherous role of the union leaders but workers will learn that through struggle better than through passive lectures. And workers who are cynical about union leaders and don't expect anything from them isn't a counterexample to my point, because that attitude doesn't do anything to combat the treacherous influence of the union leaders in society.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I don't really believe you're interested in or capable of having an actual discussion about the questions at hand. You're like a sectarian robot that just repeats the party line ad nauseum. Sorry, but I'm not really interested in hearing or reading it.

[Lucretia]

I don't really believe you're interested in or capable of having an actual discussion about the questions at hand. You're like a sectarian robot that just repeats the party line ad nauseum. Sorry, but I'm not really interested in hearing or reading it.

I dont really have a dog in this fight, though I am sympathetic with organization over pure spontaneity. I will say, though, that I think it is blatantly false to claim that rtw is being sectarian in any way.

Also, I fail to see how your suggestions of explaining the culpability of capitalism for the issues raised by the protestors is in any way a concrete goal. Please show me where I am wrong about this.

[RedTrackWorker]

I don't really believe you're interested in or capable of having an actual discussion about the questions at hand. You're like a sectarian robot that just repeats the party line ad nauseum. Sorry, but I'm not really interested in hearing or reading it.

This is an internet forum, not my personal message board, so I fail to see how your evaluation of my robot-status matters in determining whether or not to discuss the ideas at hand. Are these ideas being discussed somewhere else on the forum? Are you explaining concretely what you're proposing somewhere else on the forum? If so, please link because I have not seen it. There's been a scattering of talk about how to talk the "occupy" stuff forward in the various thread, but just scattered talk is all I've seen, and I haven't seen your point of view developed at all.

Otherwise, I think one can assume that your "I'll take my ball and go home" "sectarian!!!" insult is just an excuse not to defend your ideas.

[Threetune]

Yes, as a transitional demand, of course.

By the way, this document can be used as the ginning of a good discussion on program and/or strategy (or as the beginning of a flame war).

RED DAVE

How can you make demands without power? You can't do anything without power.

Correction: you can dream I suppose.

[R_P_A_S]

What about the list of demands? I've seen like 3 different kinds around the web? Is there an official one? I also noticed that every city seems to have their own? Should this be consolidated?

And do you guys think the movement is "barking up" the right tree? or does every demand need to turn pressure onto a particular sector of the government?

Who do we want to respond? The president? a CEO? I'm just trying to grasp this thing...

[Threetune]

We want the working class to “respond”, by demanding an end to capitalist criminality and war.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

This is an internet forum, not my personal message board, so I fail to see how your evaluation of my robot-status matters in determining whether or not to discuss the ideas at hand. Are these ideas being discussed somewhere else on the forum? Are you explaining concretely what you're proposing somewhere else on the forum? If so, please link because I have not seen it. There's been a scattering of talk about how to talk the "occupy" stuff forward in the various thread, but just scattered talk is all I've seen, and I haven't seen your point of view developed at all.

Otherwise, I think one can assume that your "I'll take my ball and go home" "sectarian!!!" insult is just an excuse not to defend your ideas.

I criticized your lack of concrete goals, your wrongheaded calls on the union bureaucrats to do anything, your disconnect from what's actually going on, your vulture "show up and take up away (members)" style of activity, etc.

I talked about the need to explain what's actually going on, what the cause of all the problems the occupation seeks to address, concrete steps to address these problems (eg. an end to foreclosures, homelessness, etc., would require all vacant housing to be brought under public control and redistributed according to need; gainful employment for all would require the means of production to be taken under public control and used to satisfy human wants and needs; an end to police brutality would require the abolition of the police, etc.); and how such concrete steps would be massive inroads against capital, requiring its revolutionary overthrow to succeed.

You responded with rhetorical questions and a link to Lenin's hackneyed old pamphlet from 1920.

You didn't address a single real issue that I brought up.

Since I've already made my criticisms, and since you're unable or unwilling to actually engage them, I'm done here. Now you have more free time to hand out leaflets to people who won't read them at events that no one knows about. Have fun.

[S.Artesian]

Let’s not allow the union officials just to offer paper support and a few more marchers. Let’s demand that the unions, and other organizations that claim to represent workers and oppressed people, mobilize a mass Solidarity Day in New York, including a serious reach-out to non-union workers. That could bring out hundreds of thousands.

Here's what's wrong with that: First premise, demands have to fit to the type of organization that is needed; second premise, they type of organization that is needed has to be able to measure up to what's at stake in the struggle.

The current struggle is not a collective bargaining issue. It is not a bargaining issue period. The bourgeoisie know that. It's way past time that we understand that. Unions are for bargaining. You want to a new contract? Go right ahead and demand that the union leadership do something.

But this isn't about new contracts. So the demands, issues that need to be articulated have to focus on the fact that the classification of workers as union/non-union, public/private, industrial/service, even employed/unemployed is simply a reflection of capital's separation of labor from its own activity, from its own products.

The way to articulate that is to not demand that the union leadership call a "general assembly" but that the workers themselves break through that fractionalization and establish direct worker to worker contact, open meetings, assemblies etc explicitly beyond the limits of those various classifications.

The path of "demanding" x, y, Z, from unions is based in large part on the expectation that the unions will fail to do that and the FAILURE will galvanize the working class. False expectation. The fact of the failure which becomes a collective failure, a failure of the class to act, will overwhelm any advances in consciousness.



I talked about the need to explain what's actually going on, what the cause of all the problems the occupation seeks to address, concrete steps to address these problems (eg. an end to foreclosures, homelessness, etc., would require all vacant housing to be brought under public control and redistributed according to need; gainful employment for all would require the means of production to be taken under public control and used to satisfy human wants and needs; an end to police brutality would require the abolition of the police, etc.); and how such concrete steps would be massive inroads against capital, requiring its revolutionary overthrow to succeed.

This ^^ is exactly correct.

[Threetune]

The situation in the USA

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/spotlight/occupywallstreet/ (http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/spotlight/occupywallstreet/)

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/spotlight/occupywallstreet/2011/10/201110317294664881.html (http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/spotlight/occupywallstreet/2011/10/201110317294664881.html)

[Lucretia]

I criticized your lack of concrete goals, your wrongheaded calls on the union bureaucrats to do anything, your disconnect from what's actually going on, your vulture "show up and take up away (members)" style of activity, etc.

I talked about the need to explain what's actually going on, what the cause of all the problems the occupation seeks to address, concrete steps to address these problems (eg. an end to foreclosures, homelessness, etc., would require all vacant housing to be brought under public control and redistributed according to need; gainful employment for all would require the means of production to be taken under public control and used to satisfy human wants and needs; an end to police brutality would require the abolition of the police, etc.); and how such concrete steps would be massive inroads against capital, requiring its revolutionary overthrow to succeed.

You responded with rhetorical questions and a link to Lenin's hackneyed old pamphlet from 1920.

You didn't address a single real issue that I brought up.

Since I've already made my criticisms, and since you're unable or unwilling to actually engage them, I'm done here. Now you have more free time to hand out leaflets to people who won't read them at events that no one knows about. Have fun.

Whatever nits you have to pick with RTW aside, I still think it's rich you're criticizing him for lack of concreteness in objectives, when your suggestions basically amounted to explaining and clarifying things to protestors from a Marxist perspective when asked about those things by them.

[RedTrackWorker]

Whatever nits you have to pick with RTW aside, I still think it's rich you're criticizing him for lack of concreteness in objectives, when your suggestions basically amounted to explaining and clarifying things to protestors from a Marxist perspective when asked about those things by them.

NHIA has explained himself much better now by drafting his own leaftlet (or leaflet-like writing) and posted it here:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/occupy-wall-street-t162341/index.html (my comment on it (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2256605&postcount=4)). I would guess he means something different by "concrete" because my summary of his leaflet as a concrete suggestion would be "read Das Kapital"--and while I don't think that's a bad concrete suggestion at all for a protest that is not clear about class, the key question, to leave it at that I don't think will convince more than a few, as most people learn through struggle, not books, and that's what the LRP leaflet at least attempts to do and his leaflet does not even attempt to do.

But on this particular point, I ask him (and now S. Artesian as well since he agreed with the point), how could the LRP leaflet better raise the need for overthrowing capitalism, as it does at least attempt to do that?

[RedTrackWorker]

Here's what's wrong with that: First premise, demands have to fit to the type of organization that is needed; second premise, they type of organization that is needed has to be able to measure up to what's at stake in the struggle.

The current struggle is not a collective bargaining issue. [snip]

The way to articulate that is to not demand that the union leadership call a "general assembly" but that the workers themselves break through that fractionalization and establish direct worker to worker contact, open meetings, assemblies etc explicitly beyond the limits of those various classifications.

The path of "demanding" x, y, Z, from unions is based in large part on the expectation that the unions will fail to do that and the FAILURE will galvanize the working class.

The full response to this is complex but the short response is simple, and it's that your premise is based on what kind of organization should we want for this but the problem is that it is not the kind of organization that we actually have. The unions exist, right now, and they are the only mass organizations of workers that exist in this country. We want to transcend them, but that will not happen by ignoring them, if only because the labor bureaucracy that rests on them is a real social force in this country and has to be politically fought (i.e. workers need a conscious understanding of the labor bureaucracy's role in society) and I think that workers (organized and unorganized) will in the main only learn that through struggle, part of which means raising demands on the "unions". But much more should be said and this is making me realize this political method is scattered through various LRP publications and I don't know if there's one in particular that draws it together.

Now, in terms of this:

The way to articulate that is to not demand that the union leadership call a "general assembly" but that the workers themselves break through that fractionalization and establish direct worker to worker contact, open meetings, assemblies etc explicitly beyond the limits of those various classifications.

I agree with the need for this but have two problems:
1. In particular with this movement, due to its confused class character, I'm not sure how much sense it makes to be demanding "worker-to-worker contact", etc. We want it to go in that direction but given the state the "occupy together" stuff is in, is this really were things are at? I'm doubtful.
2. In general, while I agree with you about wanting new forms of broader based class-for-itself organization, other than noting that need, I'm not sure what we can do. I don't think "demanding" it really does anything (though it could've been "demanded"--i.e. put forward as an actionable-goal--at key points in the Wisconsin struggle).

[fionntan]

Dublin Ireland join the protest.
From facebook


Dame St in now under occupation!!! I got here at approx 3pm this afternoon. Around 200 people showed up, the crowd is fluctuating up and down. Spirits are high and the comradery is good. People have been busy erectiing tents, organising food and selecting various groups, sub groups etc... There are ongoing debates between small groups, but larger debates will no doubt happen. What is important at this stage is that we are now here and the Central Bank of Ireland is under occupation by the ordinary people of Ireland. I appeal to everyone who can make it down to the camp to come and show your support. We need to save our country from unbridled corporate capitalist greed..... If there was ever a time to get up off your ass and act, it's now!!!!

[S.Artesian]

The full response to this is complex but the short response is simple, and it's that your premise is based on what kind of organization should we want for this but the problem is that it is not the kind of organization that we actually have. The unions exist, right now, and they are the only mass organizations of workers that exist in this country. We want to transcend them, but that will not happen by ignoring them, if only because the labor bureaucracy that rests on them is a real social force in this country and has to be politically fought (i.e. workers need a conscious understanding of the labor bureaucracy's role in society) and I think that workers (organized and unorganized) will in the main only learn that through struggle, part of which means raising demands on the "unions". But much more should be said and this is making me realize this political method is scattered through various LRP publications and I don't know if there's one in particular that draws it together.

Nope, read what I said again. The issue isn't what organization we have now, or should have, but what type of organization is required for the class to act "for itself." That's an issue of historical materialism, whereas the LRP approach is based on an ideological commitment so that no matter what is at stake, what are the actual conditions we get the "let's make the unions do this, this, and that."


1. In particular with this movement, due to its confused class character, I'm not sure how much sense it makes to be demanding "worker-to-worker contact", etc. We want it to go in that direction but given the state the "occupy together" stuff is in, is this really were things are at? I'm doubtful.
2. In general, while I agree with you about wanting new forms of broader based class-for-itself organization, other than noting that need, I'm not sure what we can do. I don't think "demanding" it really does anything (though it could've been "demanded"--i.e. put forward as an actionable-goal--at key points in the Wisconsin struggle).

Here's the whole issue--- You "agree" but, in a nutshell, you don't know what to do so you fall back on your ideological position.

[RedTrackWorker]

The issue is [snip] what type of organization is required for the class to act "for itself." [snip] whereas the LRP approach is based on an ideological commitment so that no matter what is at stake, what are the actual conditions we get the "let's make the unions do this, this, and that."

OK, so you just re-asserted your claim a different way without engaging my actual argument. You claim it's just an "ideological commitment" whereas twice in this thread I've attempted to explain how I see it as part of how workers will come to class consciousness (which to me, doesn't reduce itself to "worker versus capitalist" but includes understanding things like the labor bureaucracy and their social role in supporting capitalism) through struggle, not lectures. If you just restate your position, you're not helping to clarify anything.


Here's the whole issue--- You "agree" but, in a nutshell, you don't know what to do so you fall back on your ideological position.

I said I don't know if anything other than noting the need for class-wide organizations can be done. You just repeat that. If you do know, share. Point me to where you think it's been done successfully.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Whatever nits you have to pick with RTW aside, I still think it's rich you're criticizing him for lack of concreteness in objectives, when your suggestions basically amounted to explaining and clarifying things to protestors from a Marxist perspective when asked about those things by them.


I would guess he means something different by "concrete" because my summary of his leaflet as a concrete suggestion would be "read Das Kapital"--and while I don't think that's a bad concrete suggestion at all for a protest that is not clear about class, the key question, to leave it at that I don't think will convince more than a few, as most people learn through struggle, not books, and that's what the LRP leaflet at least attempts to do and his leaflet does not even attempt to do.

Really? How clear do I have to make it? I know you're capable of reading, so is there something else getting in the way?

I'll make as simple as possible, by addressing the biggest sentiments of the folks taking part in this:

We're against foreclosures/evictions/homelessness.
Seize all vacant housing and redistribute it according to need!

We're against corporate control of the media.
Seize the media and open it up for public use!

We're against corporate greed.
Abolish corporations!

We're against unemployment.
Seize the means of production and utilize them to satisfy human wants and needs!

We're against cuts in education and tuition hikes.
Abolition private schools and transform education into a real process of learning based in real life!

We're against police brutality.
Abolish the police!

Lofty goals? Yes, but they are the only way to resolve the problems that these folks are demonstrating against. Can they succeed? Only if the balance of forces becomes favorable, only if one and each combine as a part of the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.

No reformism, no begging rulers (even with harsh rhetoric), no impossible half-way measures that can't and won't exist, no demoralization, no recruitment pitches.

Militants should tell the truth. Militants should point out the relation of capital to all of this, and the need to make inroads against it and move beyond it. Militants should meet folks where they are and try their damnedest to help them advance. It's better to fight for what you want and fail than fight for what you don't want and succeed.

That's about as much time as I want to waste on this. Both approaches are now in the thread, readers can contrast and compare themselves.

[S.Artesian]

OK, so you just re-asserted your claim a different way without engaging my actual argument. You claim it's just an "ideological commitment" whereas twice in this thread I've attempted to explain how I see it as part of how workers will come to class consciousness (which to me, doesn't reduce itself to "worker versus capitalist" but includes understanding things like the labor bureaucracy and their social role in supporting capitalism) through struggle, not lectures. If you just restate your position, you're not helping to clarify anything.

So you say, but what you've actually done is fall back to the "lowest common denominator" argument of "what organizations the workers have right now." The refusal to clarify, to actually engage, is all yours, as you basically admit when you say "well the simple answer to this complex question...." which is a way of dismissing the question and never having to return to deal with the actual complexity.

No matter how you dress it up, you are appealing to workers who are divided, separated, and immobilized more than less by certain organizations to make those organizations be something other than they are-- structures designed to divide, separate, discipline, immobilize the working class.

The only person lecturing anyone around here is you... you do it with your statements about "what organizations really exist, etc."




I said I don't know if anything other than noting the need for class-wide organizations can be done. You just repeat that. If you do know, share. Point me to where you think it's been done successfully.

Yeah, that's what you say, while your activity, your "struggle" is within the very organizations that oppose that need. You never step outside of that and say what's need are organizations of workers beyond unions, outside unions, embracing all workers, undertaking struggles for more than wages, working conditions, benefits, but struggling for the needs of all people. It makes me think, you are indeed a league for a revolutionary party, and that's as far as it goes.

[ZeroNowhere]

But this isn't about new contracts. So the demands, issues that need to be articulated have to focus on the fact that the classification of workers as union/non-union, public/private, industrial/service, even employed/unemployed is simply a reflection of capital's separation of labor from its own activity, from its own products.
Weren't you accusing the ICT of doing this a month or so ago?

[black magick hustla]

Anyone who speaks about drafting a set of demands with their revolutionary nerd friends, a "Transitional program" is pissing to the wind. those demands will be completely artificial, left atavitic sects are not the vox populi and their brilliant demands aren't either. the task of a militant today is show that everything is rotten, down to the smallest atom of our social reality. it is not to raise demands. it is to encourage thinking, and to encourage people to ask questions. i don't fucking know what are the solutions of the world ills, but i have eyes. programmatic concerns are not an issue now, and a program is an artificial fiction unless it springs organically from the class.

[S.Artesian]

Weren't you accusing the ICT of doing this a month or so ago?

Accuse who of doing what? Where?

[Lucretia]

Really? How clear do I have to make it? I know you're capable of reading, so is there something else getting in the way?

I'll make as simple as possible, by addressing the biggest sentiments of the folks taking part in this:

We're against foreclosures/evictions/homelessness.
Seize all vacant housing and redistribute it according to need!

We're against corporate control of the media.
Seize the media and open it up for public use!

We're against corporate greed.
Abolish corporations!

We're against unemployment.
Seize the means of production and utilize them to satisfy human wants and needs!

We're against cuts in education and tuition hikes.
Abolition private schools and transform education into a real process of learning based in real life!

We're against police brutality.
Abolish the police!

Lofty goals? Yes, but they are the only way to resolve the problems that these folks are demonstrating against. Can they succeed? Only if the balance of forces becomes favorable, only if one and each combine as a part of the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.

No reformism, no begging rulers (even with harsh rhetoric), no impossible half-way measures that can't and won't exist, no demoralization, no recruitment pitches.

Militants should tell the truth. Militants should point out the relation of capital to all of this, and the need to make inroads against it and move beyond it. Militants should meet folks where they are and try their damnedest to help them advance. It's better to fight for what you want and fail than fight for what you don't want and succeed.

That's about as much time as I want to waste on this. Both approaches are now in the thread, readers can contrast and compare themselves.

A concrete goal is one that is not abstract, but is able of being accomplished in the present with a determinate straegy and existing resources (including activists), so yes, I read what you said earlier with a clear understanding of your proposals. It's just that I think you fail to understand what I mean when I use the word "concrete." Shouting "abolish capitalism! abolish the state! abolish oppression! abolish bad things I hate!" at the top of your lungs in front of protestors might make you feel better about yourself as a radical, but it won't advance the actual movement much. Because it's the opposite of a concrete proposal. The first thing even receptive people will ask you once you're done bellowing is, "OK - great. Now how do we abolish the state and capitalism? What concrete proposals do you have?"

[RedTrackWorker]

To Nothing Human Is Alien:

I don't think it's concrete to tell people to "seize the means of production" or "abolish the police." I don't know what you mean by "concrete" if this is it.

You talk about "fighting for what you want"--how do people fight to "seize the MOP"? If I go to work and tell them, "seize the media!"...well, you can try it if you like but I'd prefer not to do it myself. I will and have argued that workers should take over stuff like that and much more and run it themselves, but to pose it as a "concrete" demand I think would make me look out of touch with reality.

I still think my point stands that most people learn through experience, not just leaflets or explanations. In your conception, I don't see a path for workers learning other than by listening to you. Where is the development?

I don't know if you think 1917 in Russia was a worthless experience, but there's all kinds of experiences of this by the Bolsheviks, not the least "land, bread and peace"--a set of concrete demands workers and peasants could place on the government so they could see for themselves that the provisional bourgeois government that so many had hopes in was not going to meet their needs. Then in July when some workers and soldiers want an insurrection, Lenin had to say, "We want an insurrection for soviet power, but the peasants and soldiers and many workers are not convinced yet--we need more time for them to learn from experience." They even demanded other parties take power (when the Mensheviks and SR were in the majority of the soviets, "all power to the soviets" meant power to them not to the Bolsheviks, and they also raised the demand for them to take over the provisional bourgeois government with the demand "down with the ten capitalist ministers").

Whatever else you think of 1917, it does seem to be the case that by October, the majority of workers and soldiers had thought and decided for themselves that the soviets must take power if the workers were to get what they wanted--that the Bolsheviks were the party to do that. Do you think that the Bolsheviks raising all these demands and tactics that you seem to claim are verboten was an obstacle to something that happened anyway or just didn't affect the experience or what? I'd find it hard to imagine how such an argument could be made but I'd be interested to see it.

How will workers learn and think about how to change society in your conception? Where is the development?


Militants should point out the relation of capital to all of this, and the need to make inroads against it and move beyond it.

Again I ask, how could the leaflet do that better, as it and virtually all our publications attempt to do that, yet you keep mentioning this as if it's a criticism of our leaflet or what I'm arguing?

[RED DAVE]

Anyone who speaks about drafting a set of demands with their revolutionary nerd friends, a "Transitional program" is pissing to the wind.Did it ever occur to you that there might be, actually, either some workers involved or some people who've spent many years actually inside the working class?


those demands will be completely artificialSure they'll be if theiy're copied from the "Transitional Program" ca. 1940.


left atavitic sects are not the vox populiUnless they're Maoists, they don't claim to be.


and their brilliant demands aren't either.Nor do they claim they are, unless the group is a bunch of sectarians.


the task of a militant today isI'm holding my breath to list closely to find out what my "task" is going to be.


show that everything is rotten, down to the smallest atom of our social reality.Well, you can do that. But the question is: is anyone going to listen to you?


it is not to raise demands.You haven't established that. You're only asserting it.


it is to encourage thinkingWho can argue with that?


and to encourage people to ask questions.And suppose the question is: What do I do at my next union meeting?


i don't fucking know what are the solutions of the world illsTry penicillin.


but i have eyes.But do you see with them?


programmatic concerns are not an issue nowSo you say, and you might be right. But what about tomorrow or the day after? It would be cool to stay a little ahead of the curse.

By the way, what group do you belong to or tendency do you identify with?


and a program is an artificial fiction unless it springs organically from the class.True. But the question becomes, where does the experience come from to write such a program? And where do we begin?

A program is a weapon. And in the beginning, it's frequently a blunt one and pointed somewhat in the wrong direction. The crucial elements of theory and practice are for, among other things, creating, program.

RED DAVE

[tir1944]

This whole "movement" seems to be devoid of any real class character,and the participants seem to be lacking class counsciousness.
It's not a proletarian movement,but more of a petit-bourgeois one.

[RED DAVE]

This whole "movement" seems to be devoid of any real class character,and the participants seem to be lacking class counsciousness. It's not a proletarian movement,but more of a petit-bourgeois one.And?

Wachou gonna do about it?

RED DAVE

[tir1944]

Wachou gonna do about it?
Dunno,what about you?

[RedTrackWorker]

To S. Artesian:

First, on the issue of raising demands, see my reply just above to NHIA on the Bolsheviks and "transitional demands" in 1917. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2257379&postcount=36)

Finally, S. Artesian said:

You never step outside of that and say what's need are organizations of workers beyond unions

This quote did help me remember that key part of explaining our approach: we think that new organizations (or struggle for more rank-and-file control--'democracy'--in old organizations) come from a struggle and its needs, not a literary announcement. If we had been on the ground in Wisconsin, it would've been a mistake not to work for new kinds of some kind of worker organization, like committees of action. Similarly, we call for workers' councils in Tunisia and Egypt.

Given the state of and composition of the "occupy" movement, I don't see how it makes sense to do so for it--again, if you could explain to me why you think otherwise, I'd be interested to hear it. Similarly, for my workplace, I don't see how it would make sense for me to go around right now demanding that we form a class-wide organization.

As for "struggling for the needs of all people"...I am right now "going around demanding" that we as organized workers in Local 100 can only hope to defend our standard of living by standing up for the interests of all workers and poor in a united struggle, as argued in our most recent issue of Revolutionary Transit Worker (http://lrp-cofi.org/TWU100/RTW/rtw53.html#battles). If you think that argument could be made better or have other critiques, I hope you start a new thread to argue that.

[S.Artesian]

To S. Artesian:



Given the state of and composition of the "occupy" movement, I don't see how it makes sense to do so for it--again, if you could explain to me why you think otherwise, I'd be interested to hear it. Similarly, for my workplace, I don't see how it would make sense for me to go around right now demanding that we form a class-wide organization.

Let's see, Wednesday [Oct 5] was a joint rally and march bringing together thousands of workers [mobilized by their unions], and you don't see the point of suggesting, proposing, some new form of organization; of articulating that some new organization is need because this is not a struggle over a contract, over work rules, over wages, but against the class rule of the bourgeoisie, who have to drive more and more into greater and greater poverty in order to protect their death grip on society?

You don't see the point of bringing that up when union after union has been defeated, and over 30 or so years?

[black magick hustla]

Did it ever occur to you that there might be, actually, either some workers involved or some people who've spent many years actually inside the working class?


i never denied that most leftists are working class. so are most people actually. however just because video gamers are working class, doesn't mean most workers like video games. you see what i mean?






Well, you can do that. But the question is: is anyone going to listen to you?

sometimes they do. sometimes they don't. to quote bordiga "i am happy in my isolation".





And suppose the question is: What do I do at my next union meeting?
i am not in a union and most people i know aren't. so i am sorry if i don't have input about that.



So you say, and you might be right. But what about tomorrow or the day after? It would be cool to stay a little ahead of the curse.
:shrugs:, maybe. i keep my mind open. as someone who came from a tendency that worries too much with program (communist left) and then broke with it, i am suspicious of all those who talk about the program.




By the way, what group do you belong to or tendency do you identify with?

i came from the communist left. now i identify broadly as "ultra-left" or "ultra-gauche" (not as maoists and trotskyists use it as an insult but as some communists use it as self-identification, especially in france and britain)




A program is a weapon. And in the beginning, it's frequently a blunt one and pointed somewhat in the wrong direction. The crucial elements of theory and practice are for, among other things, creating, program.

i think there are certain basic principles that guide "communism", so in a sense that might be a "program", but i believe communism is self immanent to the proletariat, and it will be awfully evident when the vanguards of the class coalesce and start formalizing their initial impulses into a program. certainly, "occupy wall street" is not the place.

[Threetune]

[QUOTE=Nothing Human Is Alien;2255998]

You didn't address a single real issue that I brought up.

QUOTE]

Ha, what hypocrisy your statement is when you have avoided answering any of this:


Well, this is livelier than the dreary dry academic pretend revolutionary ‘programs’ (transitional or otherwise) that are being punted around by the ‘lefts’ and I suspect the author is far more capable of understanding any criticisms and responding to them than has been the case with the ‘lefts’ who admit that there ‘demands’ are “inadequate” but insist on making them anyway.


So what are the problems with this speech?

Firstly, it can’t be an accident that there is no reference to the ‘working class’ but instead just two mentions of “working people”. In fact this whole speech is an appeal to “each individual” and not a class at all. Having begun correctly with a criticism of the “unofficial de facto” website www.occupywallst.org (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.occupywallst.org), which states:

“The participation of every person, and every organization, that has an interest in returning the US back into the hands of it's individual citizens is required.”

The author ends his speech with “…and creation of a new, higher form of social organization, based on the participation of each individual in the process of running things can allow us to advance out of the muck and mire of this rotten society.”

The only real difference, on this question, is that the Park People look back to a nonexistent ‘individual as primary’ history, while the author looks forward to a nonexistent ‘individual as primary’ future.


All this will be very comforting to our ruling class who also never tire of talking about “working people” and not the working class, they also constantly bang on about “public control”, “public access” and even “public seizure” of vacant property etc as the author does. And the reason is, it is all just opportunist popularism and of no threat to the power of the state and capitalist class interests.


“…Nothing short of the abolition of the police, which itself would require moving beyond a society where armed forces are needed to defend the haves against the have-nots, can eliminate police brutality.”

Not a word about how we “.. move beyond a society where armed forces are needed…”



But wait, what’s this?


“… Nothing short of the abolition of the capitalist state, public seizure of the means of producing and providing, and creation of a new, higher form of social organization, based on the participation of each individual in the process of running things can allow us to advance out of the muck and mire of this rotten society.”

Still no answer to how this might be accomplished. Oh, hang on………..


“…The answer to any one of these goals is the answer to all of them: the abolition of capital, of capitalism and of the capitalist state. The end of national and class division, which serve only to pit us against ourselves to the benefit of the parasites. The unleashing of true human potential, the development of genuine human beings and the foundation of a real human community worthy of us all.”

Fine words, but how do you propos it be done without a working class state?
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2256029&postcount=11 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2256029&postcount=11)

The capitalist state agents responsible for policing the latest round of protest will be delighted at the resurrection of this old anarchist ‘program’ which pretends it can “abolish” the capitalist state by fantasising about “peoples” consensus without working class state power.

[RED DAVE]

i think there are certain basic principles that guide "communism", so in a sense that might be a "program"Principles are not program. Principles, plus practice are what are used to build a program.


but i believe communism is self immanent to the proletariatThat, Comrade, is a little weird.


and it will be awfully evident when the vanguards of the class coalesce and start formalizing their initial impulses into a program.And around what is the vanguard built? Aournd self-immanent communism? So how do they get there? Mediate?


certainly, "occupy wall street" is not the place.Then by all means stay home and enjoy your video games or whatever.

RED DAVE

[RedTrackWorker]

Let's see, Wednesday [Oct 5] was a joint rally and march bringing together thousands of workers [mobilized by their unions], and you don't see the point of suggesting, proposing, some new form of organization; of articulating that some new organization is need because this is not a struggle over a contract, over work rules, over wages, but against the class rule of the bourgeoisie, who have to drive more and more into greater and greater poverty in order to protect their death grip on society?

You don't see the point of bringing that up when union after union has been defeated, and over 30 or so years?

Oy,

while I agree with you about wanting new forms of broader based class-for-itself organization, other than noting that need, I'm not sure what we can do. I don't think "demanding" it really does anything (though it could've been "demanded"--i.e. put forward as an actionable-goal--at key points in the Wisconsin struggle).

We have a difference here--you say "suggesting, proposing." I don't want to quibble, but I don't mind "suggesting" (as I said in the quote). I could be convinced we should mention that point more in our leaflets--it's part of our overall political perspective but maybe it should be mentioned more frequently in more kinds of publications.

Another discussion is this "proposing" business...I don't think it's real to actually propose to create it now in NYC. In Wisconsin, one could propose, "Let's take this rally [for example] to this location [perhaps a high school auditorium] and form a workers' assembly to discuss and decide on things right now". Given the difference in momentum (workers were coming out day-after-day in Wisconsin, some were on strike, it was clearly a movement of workers and youth, etc.) between there and then and here and now, I don't see how to "propose" something like that happening here. And so for the fourth (?) time I ask: if you have an idea how to concretely propose to workers in these "occupy" events how to create new class-wide organizations, please share.

[S.Artesian]

Another discussion is this "proposing" business...I don't think it's real to actually propose to create it now in NYC. In Wisconsin, one could propose, "Let's take this rally [for example] to this location [perhaps a high school auditorium] and form a workers' assembly to discuss and decide on things right now". Given the difference in momentum (workers were coming out day-after-day in Wisconsin, some were on strike, it was clearly a movement of workers and youth, etc.) between there and then and here and now, I don't see how to "propose" something like that happening here. And so for the fourth (?) time I ask: if you have an idea how to concretely propose to workers in these "occupy" events how to create new class-wide organizations, please share.

One way is the exact same way you concretely propose to "make the unions" do anything... simply by saying it.

Another way is...........[can you bear the suspense?] get a location and actually promote it as a place where at a certain time such an attempt will be initiated.

It's not too complicated is it? Requires a bit of initiative. I always find it hilarious/pathetic when an organization claiming to recognize the "need for a vanguard party" demurs when it comes to exercising a bit od initiative, leadership when it comes to moving outside the framework of organizations that administer of the discipline of capital upon the workers.

Hilarious/pathetic, but not surprising. Bottom line is-- what do we have to lose? Really? Do you have some big organization inside the working class that is going to lose face, be laughed at if you do such a thing? And if you do have that organization, why not use it now, to move outside the framework established to control the workers?

Instead, you pretend to be asking "concrete questions" and asking them "repeatedly" as if you hadn't received the answer the first time around.

[RedTrackWorker]

One way is the exact same way you concretely propose to "make the unions" do anything... simply by saying it.

Another way is...........[can you bear the suspense?] get a location and actually promote it as a place where at a certain time such an attempt will be initiated.

I guess we have a different evaluation of these events. As I said, if we had been in Wisconsin, we would've tried to name a time and place for an attempt. In Cincinnati, we argued for the idea (http://lrp-cofi.org/PR/CincinnatiPR63.html) (see "Organized Mass Community Struggles" section) but coming in from the outside with basically no resources could not name a time and place ourselves.

But for this particular event, I just don't see the case for it forming a new workers' organization right now. The "occupy" people have their "organization" (the anti-accountable "tyranny of structurelessness" model), which I would not want to tell workers at that march to join. But at the same time, why would they get a leaflet from us to form a "new workers' organization" that's not part of the thing they have some idea that already exists? It makes no sense to me and this isn't a pragmatist "I don't think it would work so why try?" but an analysis that "I don't think it made sense to try at this particular event". I think it will have to bring out a combination of larger numbers of workers and have more sustained active worker involvement for the struggle for a new workers' organization to have a material basis.

[S.Artesian]

I guess we have a different evaluation of these events. As I said, if we had been in Wisconsin, we would've tried to name a time and place for an attempt. In Cincinnati, we argued for the idea (http://lrp-cofi.org/PR/CincinnatiPR63.html) (see "Organized Mass Community Struggles" section) but coming in from the outside with basically no resources could not name a time and place ourselves.

But for this particular event, I just don't see the case for it forming a new workers' organization right now. The "occupy" people have their "organization" (the anti-accountable "tyranny of structurelessness" model), which I would not want to tell workers at that march to join. But at the same time, why would they get a leaflet from us to form a "new workers' organization" that's not part of the thing they have some idea that already exists? It makes no sense to me and this isn't a pragmatist "I don't think it would work so why try?" but an analysis that "I don't think it made sense to try at this particular event". I think it will have to bring out a combination of larger numbers of workers and have more sustained active worker involvement for the struggle for a new workers' organization to have a material basis.

You wouldn't want to tell the workers to join the OWS organization? That's not the issue, and never was. The issue is how the struggle develops and what those engaging in the struggle need to do to advance the struggle and their role in it.

OK, you don't think it makes sense at this particular event. So it isn't that the alternatives haven't been proposed "concretely," have no basis in the struggle, it's just that you disagree about the timing.

You think you have to bring out larger numbers of workers and a more sustained involvement before moving to that stage. Well, all I can say is that stage-ism is the bane of revolution, both in the objective analysis of capitalism, and in the subject-- in the proletariat.

What counts are the mediations, the transitions, the methods and organization that are created by the class to move from here to there. Arguing to make the "unions do..." doesn't amount to a means of making that move.

[Jose Gracchus]

Did it ever occur to you that there might be, actually, either some workers involved or some people who've spent many years actually inside the working class?

A handful of Trot militants, inside or outside a union, inside or outside the working-class (however you define that on an individual membership basis, which I don't even want to approach) does not make a vanguard, does not make a program any less absurd than DNZ proposing it. Sorry.

[black magick hustla]

Then by all means stay home and enjoy your video games or whatever.

RED DAVE

nuhu ill be in occupy calgary

[syndicat]

numbers are critically important. the occupy movement in new york has been pushed into a park, not allowed to use amplification, arrested on the brooklyn bridge...because they lack numbers. there were 50,000 people in Tahrir Square...and they were able to fight the hated police to maintain the occupation.

but large numbers are not going to come out around "socialist revolution" at this point, which they are likely to not see as feasible or even understand what that would be.

the occupy movement has listed a number of grievances. this is an acceptable starting point. they can have discussions and decide what aims to work for. they see the injustice of the present corporate capitalist system and the corruption and unaccountability of the political leaders. that's surely a good starting point. it will take time and struggle for vision and understanding to sharpen. patience is called for.

if you look at many of the grievances, there are appropriate sorts of demands that will seem acceptable to large numbers of people. education for all should be free at all levels. that being the case, it would be appropriate to call for a debt moratorium on student debt.

much of the anger is related to continuous demands by the elite and their paid politicians for ever more austerity to continue to shovel money into the pockets of the banks, corps & capitalist elite. it's appropriate to justify the sense that this is wrong and has to be fought, through things like demanding increases on the taxes paid by corps & wealthy, to sustain quality public services. for example there's an already existing movement for extending medicare to cover everyone, which would help to reduce upward pressure on health care costs, and at least recognize the principle of universal access, and kick out the blood-sucking private insurance companies.

the occupy movement's dissent needs also to move into workplaces, because there workers have some potential power, by bringing production to a halt.

i think it's appropriate to point out that in any society there is an obligation to ensure that everyone who can work have the real opportunity to make a decent living. there are a number of ways to work at that. one would be to revive a shorter hours movement, to demand a reduction in standard workweek to 30 hours at the same pay, to require employers to hire more people.

and i'm sure that there are other aims that will seem to large numbers to be achievable or at least aims they agree with. to what degree such aims could be forced on the system through a large and powerful mass movement, short of revolution, I don't know. what i do know is that revolution becomes feasible only when the working class learns, develops its solidarity and commitment, and builds a movement that has the potential power to upend the class system. how does that come about unless through growing participation in struggle?

[RED DAVE]

numbers are critically important.

...

the occupy movement's dissent needs also to move into workplaces, because there workers have some potential power, by bringing production to a halt.These are the two critical issues, in my opinion: building the occupations themselves and spreading them to the workplaces.

Union involvement is, I believe, crucial to both. Unions can and will swell the ranks. But also the potential of students has scarcely been tapped. Students have to be encouraged to "occupy" their schools and also to join the occupations in their cities.

Unions are, I believe, the only way to spread the dissent (good formulation) to the workplaces.

RED DAVE

[RedTrackWorker]

A handful of Trot militants, inside or outside a union, inside or outside the working-class (however you define that on an individual membership basis, which I don't even want to approach) does not make a vanguard, does not make a program any less absurd than DNZ proposing it. Sorry.

For some reason--I guess because most Trotskyists talk about it this way--most see the program as a list of demands or something. I prefer Trotsky's definition that it's "the common understanding of the events", a "scientific explanation of society" (Discussions with Trotsky on the transitional program (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/tpdiscuss.htm)). I'd like to think that the LRP makes an honorable effort at contributing to the scientific understanding of today's society and has something to offer in that area, despite us being a handful at best.

As for the more narrow sense, the demands for these events, I think that demands play a role in being able to bring broader numbers of people into struggle. Leaving aside stuff about placing demands on the government or whatever, the three most immediately relevant slogans we proposed were:

Billions for Bankers – Layoffs, Foreclosures and Cutbacks for Workers and Youth? Hell No!
Stop Racist and Anti-Immigrant Attacks! End Police Brutality!
For a Massive Public Works Program – Jobs for All!

One could generalize this to be:
* Something expressing the general outrage and a call for defense against the attacks coming from the economic crisis
* Taking a stance on racism and anti-immigrant attacks, a necessary step for building a strong, united movement especially in this country
* Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs.

Does it not make sense that those three things are key to getting and keeping the attention of ever broader layers and numbers of this society that we want to see in the struggle? This event struck a cord because it opposed Wall St. and then they stuck with it in the face of police repression. It attracted a lot of attention and sentiment from that. But how will it go further? I don't see how it can go further on its own steam without clarifying what will draw broader layers and numbers in.