Workers at Suzuki plant in India kill HR manager, set executive offices on fire

[Terminator X]

...and pretty much just cause mayhem in general. :cool:

http://www.rt.com/news/india-suzuki-plant-clashes-567/


Up to 100 people have been arrested for attacking managers and executives at India's top carmaker - Maruti Suzuki plant. The chaos left one dead and many injured, forcing the plant to suspend its operations.

A burned body had been recovered from the plant's main conference room after clashes between workers and executives erupted late on Wednesday. The body was identified as a General Manager in the Human Resource department of the company.

Ninety nine workers have been already arrested following the violence, which charges ranging from murder, attempted murder, infliction of grievous bodily harm and rioting. Police say more arrests are likely to come over the next 48 hours – most of those accused are union leaders and workers.

The rampage in which up to 95 people were injured, including nine police officers, was reportedly sparked by a conflict between a shop floor employee and a supervisor. But eyewitnesses say there had been tension at the plant since 6 pm Wednesday over ongoing talks on wage revision.

[erupt]

I saw that this happened while I was watching BBC World News today on the BBCAmerica television channel. Hopefully the demands are met, but a discussion I had with someone I know brought up a good point...

Suzuki is only going to slash wages in order to make up lost time and to rebuild the factory. Of course, we all know it's punishment for the workers, but at least they sent a message.

[Yugo45]

I saw that this happened while I was watching BBC World News today on the BBCAmerica television channel. Hopefully the demands are met, but a discussion I had with someone I know brought up a good point...

Suzuki is only going to slash wages in order to make up lost time and to rebuild the factory. Of course, we all know it's punishment for the workers, but at least they sent a message.

Well, 100 workers were arrested so I don't really think their demands were met.

I'd be gladly proven wrong though.

[Book O'Dead]

If it was really workers who set fire to that plant then I think they should be ashamed.

Workers must not destroy the machinery of production as the Luddites did in the 19th Century!

[ed miliband]

If it was really workers who set fire to that plant then I think they should be ashamed.

Workers must not destroy the machinery of production as the Luddites did in the 19th Century!

you're like those conservatives, left and right, who saw the destruction of shops and businesses during the london riots and cried "why are they destroying their own communities?!"

"ashamed" - who the fuck are you to tell people to feel shame?

[Rafiq]

If it was really workers who set fire to that plant then I think they should be ashamed.

Workers must not destroy the machinery of production as the Luddites did in the 19th Century!

And why might that be? The only thing the workers should be ashamed of, is if they didn't kill all the capitalists whom they planned to.

[Terminator X]

If it was really workers who set fire to that plant then I think they should be ashamed.

Workers must not destroy the machinery of production as the Luddites did in the 19th Century!

The article says that the production lines weren't damaged.

But regardless, fuck the machines.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

One third of the country of India is under the workers state control, the Naxalites. It seems to me to be really only a matter of time until the workers overthrow the bourgeois state with constant occurrences such as this happening in Indian factories. Within the next ten years, the internal contradictions of capitalism will make it suffer heavy international defeats. World Revolution!

[Book O'Dead]

you're like those conservatives, left and right, who saw the destruction of shops and businesses during the london riots and cried "why are they destroying their own communities?!"

"ashamed" - who the fuck are you to tell people to feel shame?

This is an awful reaction!

When locked in a fight such as ours me must at all times reach for the higher ground, both ethically and in practical terms.

It serves no one any useful purpose, other than to satisfy a lust for blood-revenge and wanton destruction, to set fire to a factory and kill a manager who may or may not have been a conscious part of the crimes against the aggrieved workers.

I, as an honest man, as a Marxist, as a humanitarian, cannot in any way condone the destruction of that which by rights is ours or the killing of another person without due process.

[Book O'Dead]

And why might that be? The only thing the workers should be ashamed of, is if they didn't kill all the capitalists whom they planned to.

I see. Are for or against the death penalty?

[citizen of industry]

This is an awful reaction!

When locked in a fight such as ours me must at all times reach for the higher ground, both ethically and in practical terms.

It serves no one any useful purpose, other than to satisfy a lust for blood-revenge and wanton destruction, to set fire to a factory and kill a manager who may or may not have been a conscious part of the crimes against the aggrieved workers.

I, as an honest man, as a Marxist, as a humanitarian, cannot in any way condone the destruction of that which by rights is ours or the killing of another person without due process.

That is a very un-Marxist position.


Marx
Far from opposing so-called excesses, instances of popular revenge against hated individuals or public buildings that are associated only with hateful recollections, such instances must not only be tolerated but the leadership of them taken in hand.


Marx

The bourgeoisie of the whole world, which looks complacently upon the wholesale massacre after the battle, is convulsed by horror at the desecration of brick and mortar!

[Book O'Dead]

That is a very un-Marxist position.

You know what's "un-Marxist"? Your use of out-of-context quotes to prop up the falsehood that Marx endorsed violence and murder.

[Ocean Seal]

This is an awful reaction!

When locked in a fight such as ours me must at all times reach for the higher ground, both ethically and in practical terms.

It serves no one any useful purpose, other than to satisfy a lust for blood-revenge and wanton destruction, to set fire to a factory and kill a manager who may or may not have been a conscious part of the crimes against the aggrieved workers.

I, as an honest man, as a Marxist, as a humanitarian, cannot in any way condone the destruction of that which by rights is ours or the killing of another person without due process.

You don't have rights. The workers of the world also don't need your permission to engage in violence. I don't understand why you believe it is important for us to maintain the private property of the bourgeoisie. Whatevs #internetleftistproblems

[Sea]

Calm the hell down, folks!

Workers at Suzuki plant in India kill HR manager, set executive offices on fire

What part of executive offices do you not understand? They burnt the vulture's nest to save the forest!

This is, literally, class warfare, and dammit I hope it spreads!


You know what's "un-Marxist"? Your use of out-of-context quotes to prop up the falsehood that Marx endorsed violence and murder.If we lived in a world where we could just sit down for tea with the upper class and chit chat about how they should stop this whole oppression thing and have them agree then I reckon I'd agree with you. But we don't, and I don't, and they call us revolutionaries and not diplomats for a reason.

[Ostrinski]

This is an awful reaction!

When locked in a fight such as ours me must at all times reach for the higher ground, both ethically and in practical terms.

It serves no one any useful purpose, other than to satisfy a lust for blood-revenge and wanton destruction, to set fire to a factory and kill a manager who may or may not have been a conscious part of the crimes against the aggrieved workers.

I, as an honest man, as a Marxist, as a humanitarian, cannot in any way condone the destruction of that which by rights is ours or the killing of another person without due process.hey, shut the fuck up

[bcbm]

Workers at Suzuki plant in India kill HR manager, set executive offices on fire

What part of executive offices do you not understand? They burnt the vulture's nest to save the forest!

i wouldnt have cared if theyd burnt their workplace down

[TheGodlessUtopian]

The article says that the production lines weren't damaged.

But regardless, fuck the machines.

Yeah, fuck the machines which enable creation of devices which improve peoples lives and enable transportation; after all, the Mode of Production and the working conditions are just for pushovers and surely has no place in this equation. :rolleyes:

[Yuppie Grinder]

This is an awful reaction!

When locked in a fight such as ours me must at all times reach for the higher ground, both ethically and in practical terms.

It serves no one any useful purpose, other than to satisfy a lust for blood-revenge and wanton destruction, to set fire to a factory and kill a manager who may or may not have been a conscious part of the crimes against the aggrieved workers.

I, as an honest man, as a Marxist, as a humanitarian, cannot in any way condone the destruction of that which by rights is ours or the killing of another person without due process.

I've never heard someone call themselves humanitarian who was a genuine Marxist.

[#FF0000]

Yeah, fuck the machines which enable creation of devices which improve peoples lives and enable transportation; after all, the Mode of Production and the working conditions are just for pushovers and surely has no place in this equation. :rolleyes:

So is sabotage not a valid tactic or

[Yugo45]

Machines can be repaired and remade. I don't see why is it a big problem to some people. If a few machines have to be broken in the revolution, so be it. It's not like they're setting whole farms and factories on fire or anything.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Yeah, fuck the machines which enable creation of devices which improve peoples lives and enable transportation; after all, the Mode of Production and the working conditions are just for pushovers and surely has no place in this equation. :rolleyes:

They lit executive offices on fire, not any of the stuff they themselves use.
Are you seriously suggesting sabotage is not a legitimate tactic, though? In the past, since the very first rebellions against capital by industrial workers to the struggle against Nazism by work camp laborers, it has been one of the most important and immediately effective tactics used by leftist movements.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

lol... oh no, I responded to your opinion because I thought it was more Primitivist sympathizing crap. If workers want to attack executive offices and pigs more power to them.

[citizen of industry]

You know what's "un-Marxist"? Your use of out-of-context quotes to prop up the falsehood that Marx endorsed violence and murder.

Please do put my quotes in the proper context and explain how Marx didn't advocate violence. Over the past year literally millions have been striking in India. There has been a lot of state repression and imprisonment. Suzuki in particular has been strike breaking and there have been protests against Suzuki HQ in Tokyo. I'd like to hear your version of Marx where he lectures the workers on not destroying the factories they are being locked out of and not harming the bosses who are murdering and imprisoning them.

[La Guaneña]

They only burned the executive offices, so I can't get why there are people complaining. This is what class warfare looks like, not an industrial version of #occupy.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

If it was really workers who set fire to that plant then I think they should be ashamed.

Workers must not destroy the machinery of production as the Luddites did in the 19th Century!
Deontological ethics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontology) are not appreciated in Marxism, except in the late politics of the Second International. You might do well to remember that. Please leave Kant at home next time.

[ВАЛТЕР]

I'm all for revolutionary blood-lust and causing a shitstorm. Kill every member of the ruling class if they get in our way. You let them wiggle their way out and they'll be back later to screw us.

[Book O'Dead]

I've never heard someone call themselves humanitarian who was a genuine Marxist.

Then either you're deaf or you don't get around much.

I am also a humanist.

[Zannarchy]

Death is death, regardless. murder is a last resort

[cynicles]

America should start outsourcing it's class warfare to Indian and Chinese workers who clearly know what they're doing better and have the balls to do it.

[islandmilitia]

Yeah, fuck the machines which enable creation of devices which improve peoples lives and enable transportation; after all, the Mode of Production and the working conditions are just for pushovers and surely has no place in this equation

Come the revolution, we should pull down all the factories anyway, and probably most residential spaces as well, because those spaces bear the imprint of incredibly alienated forms of existence. If you want to make work something that can be potentially liberating rather than an experience of alienation you obviously can't retain workplaces which are physically designed to separate workers from each other or to maximize the ability of management to keep workers under surveillance. For now, we should support all forms of spontaneous resistance against capitalist domination, because we stand on the side of the oppressed, and recognize their fundamental right to determine their own forms of resistance, without the White Western left telling them what to do.

[Commiekirby]

Either way in the hypothetical situation of the workplace being burnt or completely fine, that must've been the worst day ever for the HR Manager. Though I'm confused as to why the Supervisor would survive but of all people to die it would be HR.

Hopefully this action isn't just a blind act of violence without meaning and it will become a symbol for revolution in India, I kinda get nervous around these kind of things when declaring them proud actions for the Left and not just because people are angry in general.

[erupt]

Anyone actually from India that can elaborate?

For all we know, it's a mixture of class warfare and a person-to-person grudge. Or, maybe one of the workers really had it out for the HR manager and that worker used this bizarre situation to kill the manager.

To many unknowns for me, still.

[Ravachol]

lol... oh no, I responded to your opinion because I thought it was more Primitivist sympathizing crap. If workers want to attack executive offices and pigs more power to them.

What if workers want to dismantle the factory system, ie. they refuse to stand next to conveyor belts, huff noxious fumes or make the same series of motions all day? What if they simply torch those places instead of taking them over because they simply don't want to spend their lives in those places, whether under the control of the bourgeoisie or under "workers' control"?

[Book O'Dead]

What if workers want to dismantle the factory system, ie. they refuse to stand next to conveyor belts, huff noxious fumes or make the same series of motions all day? What if they simply torch those places instead of taking them over because they simply don't want to spend their lives in those places, whether under the control of the bourgeoisie or under "workers' control"?

Then they've gone mad.

For one thing industrial fires (as do most large-scale industrial accidents) produce an awful lot of environmental contamination.

Also, you don't seem to realize that once workers are in democratic control of the industries they can decide which ones to keep operating and which ones to close down.

Also, because they won't be restrained by private capital cost consideration, they'll be able to implement all of the necessary changes to turn their workplaces into safe, enjoyable zones to spend a few hours producing goods and services while earning a satisfying income.

I believe we can do it. All we have to do is learn how best to occupy our workplaces.

[Art Vandelay]

Then they've gone mad.

For one thing industrial fires (as do most large-scale industrial accidents) produce an awful lot of environmental contamination.

Also, you don't seem to realize that once workers are in democratic control of the industries they can decide which ones to keep operating and which ones to close down.

Also, because they won't be restrained by private capital cost consideration, they'll be able to implement all of the necessary changes to turn their workplaces into safe, enjoyable zones to spend a few hours producing goods and services while earning a satisfying income.

I believe we can do it. All we have to do is learn how best to occupy our workplaces.

You seem like a bleeding hearted liberal who doesn't realize that class war isn't at neat and nice as in your fantasy land.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I don't really feel comfortable being all like "YEAH, FUCK YEAH, BURN IT ALL! BUUUUUUURN! KILL EVERYBODY AND SET FIRE TO THE FIELDS!!!" because I feel kind of weird doing that as I'm sitting peacefully by my computer, but I do definitely support what these people did.

[Book O'Dead]

You seem like a bleeding hearted liberal who doesn't realize that class war isn't at neat and nice as in your fantasy land.

You sound angry and bitter as well as arrogant and callous. You seem ignorant of the truth, as well.

That's not the attitude a revolutionary should allow themselves to take.

A true revolutionary must be positive and always rely on the truth:

"To address the workingman without a strictly scientific idea and a positive doctrine amounts to playing an empty and dishonest preaching game in which it is assumed, on the one hand, an inspired prophet and on the other nothing but asses listening to him with gaping mouths. Ignorance never once helped anyone!"--Karl Marx

[Art Vandelay]

You sound angry and bitter as well as arrogant and callous. You seem ignorant of the truth, as well.

That's not the attitude a revolutionary should allow themselves to take.

A true revolutionary must be positive and always rely on the truth:

"To address the workingman without a strictly scientific idea and a positive doctrine amounts to playing an empty and dishonest preaching game in which it is assumed, on the one hand, an inspired prophet and on the other nothing but asses listening to him with gaping mouths. Ignorance never once helped anyone!"--Karl Marx

Only on revleft could I find "Marxists" condemning workers who torched their bosses office and lined one of em up against the wall. :rolleyes:

[Ele'ill]

I don't really feel comfortable being all like "YEAH, FUCK YEAH, BURN IT ALL! BUUUUUUURN! KILL EVERYBODY AND SET FIRE TO THE FIELDS!!!" because I feel kind of weird doing that as I'm sitting peacefully by my computer, but I do definitely support what these people did.

I don't think having a computer or comfortable space to do whatever means you can't collectively act against those spaces that do you harm.

[Book O'Dead]

Only on revleft could I find "Marxists" condemning workers who torched their bosses office and lined one of em up against the wall. :rolleyes:

In that case, Viva Revleft!

[Os Cangaceiros]

I don't think having a computer or comfortable space to do whatever means you can't collectively act against those spaces that do you harm.

It just makes me feel too much like an internet hardman living vicariously through the violence of others...

[Leftsolidarity]

hey, shut the fuck up

I think this ^ needs to be said again.

And I am pretty much on the same page with Os Cangaceiros. I think that's awesome and whatnot but I also feel strange talking like I'm about to do the same. I'm not. Kudos to those workers, though.

[Ravachol]

Then they've gone mad.

For one thing industrial fires (as do most large-scale industrial accidents) produce an awful lot of environmental contamination.


Sigh you know what I meant when I said torching, it was more of a general sentiment :rolleyes:



Also, you don't seem to realize that once workers are in democratic control of the industries they can decide which ones to keep operating and which ones to close down.


I don't know, any 'revolution' that has as it's premise the unquestioning capture of the means of production without an integral underlying critique of these means of productions as a product of class society themselves is bound the end up reproducing those particular relations.



Also, because they won't be restrained by private capital cost consideration, they'll be able to implement all of the necessary changes to turn their workplaces into safe, enjoyable zones to spend a few hours producing goods and services while earning a satisfying income.


There'll be wage labor in communism?



I believe we can do it. All we have to do is learn how best to occupy our workplaces.

I don't think it's that simple, our workplaces are fragmented, segmented spheres of production which are the result of a specific mode of production itself. Even their bare application as 'realizing use-value' does not step outside of the boundaries of the structure of capital because use-value is under capital's real subsumption too to a large degree. Just the fact that particular networks of public transport have the 'use-value' to quickly transport large droves of people from the suburbs (where the sphere of living is isolated from the rest of society) to the productive core of the city (where the sphere of production is isolated) only makes sense within the context of an economic system that requires large masses of people to be circulated around all day to designated zones specifically designed for the particular technical tasks arising from the capitalist mode of production. For example: marketing call centers produce nothing with any use-value outside of capitalism, what is there to seize?

I'm not attacking you or whatever just pointing out that you can't just free use-value from the 'contamination of exchange-value' in the same way that you can't free industrial capital from the 'contamination of financial capital' or national capital from the 'contamination of international/globalized capital'.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Book O'Dead, if an insurrection broke out at your work place that turned violent what would you do? Suggest that you and your co-workers try bargaining with your employers one more time? Maybe a discussion about fairness with your boss accompanied by some nice hot coco?
What you fail to realize that events like these happen because they have to. Nobody risks their life and livelihood like this without having to.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

What if workers want to dismantle the factory system, ie. they refuse to stand next to conveyor belts, huff noxious fumes or make the same series of motions all day? What if they simply torch those places instead of taking them over because they simply don't want to spend their lives in those places, whether under the control of the bourgeoisie or under "workers' control"?

If you mean they wish to build new factories which are worker friendly than they may do as they wish. If they wanted they could dismantle their civilization but if they so choose than they would be morons; there is a fine line between making the workplace healthy for workers and destroying what enables the modern world to function. Get rid of technology and you have a problem (at least if your goal is to advance science, create modern medicine, and improve peoples living standards).

[bcbm]

wow lots of primmie baiting lately:rolleyes:

[Art Vandelay]

"It is we the workers who built these palaces and cities here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers, can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world here, in our hearts."
— Buenaventura Durruti

[Book O'Dead]

[...]

There'll be wage labor in communism?

[...].

No.

By seizing the useful industries that make up the capitalist economy and placing them under democratic control, workers will abolish the wages system.

As you know, wages are the fraction that workers are allowed to keep under capitalism, surplus value being the other portion that capitalist retain to extract profits.

Remove the capitalist and all of his property rights over the means of production and abolish his system of expropriation over the workers and you've effectively abolished the arbitrary division of labor's product.

In its place will be put a system of exchange wherein workers will receive the full value [of] their labor minus the necessary deductions required to capitalize other equally important, "non-productive" enterprises such as schools, hospitals, etc.

Since the capitalist, the expropriator, will no longer figure as an equation in the economic activity of society, the share of the value received by each worker for their labor will be much, much larger.

[Ravachol]

If you mean they wish to build new factories which are worker friendly than they may do as they wish.


Not that I'm advocating that position, but what if they don't? They cannot do as they wish? They must be kept in line by the party?



there is a fine line between making the workplace healthy for workers and destroying what enables the modern world to function.


In your vision of 'communism', will there still be workers? If so, I think you're not really clear as to what communism entails. As long as there are workers, there can be no communism.



Get rid of technology and you have a problem (at least if your goal is to advance science, create modern medicine, and improve peoples living standards).

I'm not advocating ditching technology as a general principle but if you can't see what's wrong people spending their whole lives in mines to dig up the raw materials for all the hardware in this or that iPad or folks making the same gesture for hours and hours a day next to the assembly line, then I don't really want anything to do with that particular conception of 'communism'. Some people seem so desperately fixated on 'development' that technology has become a total crutch.

'Advancing science' is in itself nothing positive or negative. Science is not a neutral terrain but a particular tract of technical development guided by Capital. The jubilant progressivist view of history that applauds every white labcoat holding penicillin in his left hand and Hiroshima in his right is a farce. Do not mistake my position for one that rejects technology categorically but anyone who, in the name of the idealist notion of 'development' (what does that even mean?), seeks to herd workers back into their factories is clearly on the other side of the barricade.

I'm sure people will be willing to contribute to the production and development of adequate medical healthcare under Communism, but the social relations that will form the basis of communism will transform society and our habits to such a degree that 'medicine' as we know it will no longer exist.

What i'm not so sure is if we can find anyone who willingly spends most of his or her life on tasks in order to ensure a stable flow of new bullshit gadgets every year or whatever. If that means no iPads, so be it. If that means breaking Moore's law, so be it.

[Ravachol]

No.

By seizing the useful industries that make up the capitalist economy and placing them under democratic control, workers will abolish the wages system.


If you mean that this act is a precondition to the abolition of the wages system, I agree. If you mean there is a deterministic relationship between the seizure of the means of production and the abolition of the wage system (ie. the former is the same as the latter or always leads to it), I disagree. It's perfectly possible to self-manage capitalism (something which will degenerate into the production of a new form of exploitation and the emergence of a new ruling class).



In its place will be put a system of exchange wherein workers will receive the full value [of] their labor minus the necessary deductions required to capitalize other equally important, "non-productive" enterprises such as schools, hospitals, etc.


How is the 'value' of their labor determined? Also, what do you mean with 'capitalizing' (the word should give off an omnious vibe) the reproductive sphere? You are aware that a system of renumeration, observation, accountancy and discipline is the wage system under another name and another form of management, but the wage system nonetheless?

Related:

http://libcom.org/library/participatory-society-or-libertarian-communism
http://libcom.org/blog/workers-critique-parecon-11042012

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Not that I'm advocating that position, but what if they don't? They cannot do as they wish? They must be kept in line by the party?

If you are not advocating it than there isn't much to say. The workers will be under the power of whatever means brought them to be head of state: whether it is a vanguard party (unlikely since such a party should dissolve after establishing a proletarian dictatorship) or a spontaneous uprising (unlikely to happen considering the state of the revolutionary movement in India) is thrown to the wind.

(Also it is strange you assume that the vanguard would go against them when it could very easily choose their side)


In your vision of 'communism', will there still be workers? If so, I think you're not really clear as to what communism entails. As long as there are workers, there can be no communism.This really comes down to semantics in phases. I would say that there would be no workers in communism as such a title would be useless in a society where everybody chipped in their labor-power towards the common-good. But it is not as if we know what communism will be like when we have never reached said phase (though I am sure we all have some good ideas as to what it will entail-no classes, war, discrimination, and "free" housing, food, entertainment, etc).


What i'm not so sure is if we can find anyone who willingly spends most of his or her life on tasks in order to ensure a stable flow of new bullshit gadgets every year or whatever. If that means no iPads, so be it. If that means breaking Moore's law, so be it.A interesting problem posed: how to maintain technology and information exchange on a mass, and personal scale, without depleting the world of its resources and condemning laborers to a horrible life and death? A complete restructing of society, I believe, is needed.

[Book O'Dead]

If you mean that this act is a precondition to the abolition of the wages system, I agree. If you mean there is a deterministic relationship between the seizure of the means of production and the abolition of the wage system (ie. the former is the same as the latter or always leads to it), I disagree. It's perfectly possible to self-manage capitalism (something which will degenerate into the production of a new form of exploitation and the emergence of a new ruling class).

I understand what you're saying and I agree with your objections. However, what you are alluding to, worker self-management schemes, has already been tried and found wanting. In fact, it's been a catastrophe.

Since at least the 1960's in the US, American corporations have introduced, as part of their "liberal" agenda, programs to enlist popular support in worker self-management schemes that turned out to be precisely that, schemes. Such programs lasted well into the 1990's and ended, once and for all, with the collapse of ENRON, etc.

To dissuade workers from corporatist ideas all we have to do is point out all of the corporatist reforms and experiments capitalism implemented during its tenure; schemes ostensibly intended to smooth over the ruffles of the class struggle while in reality skinning the worker to the bone at the point of production.



How is the 'value' of their labor determined? Also, what do you mean with 'capitalizing' (the word should give off an omnious vibe) the reproductive sphere? You are aware that a system of renumeration, observation, accountancy and discipline is the wage system under another name and another form of management, but the wage system nonetheless?

Related:

http://libcom.org/library/participatory-society-or-libertarian-communism
http://libcom.org/blog/workers-critique-parecon-11042012


The word capitalize should frighten no one. In fact, the word "capitalism" should never be used to frighten little children; they'll laugh at you when they grow up.

Seriously, in this context capitalization means that resources will be granted on a credit basis to many institutions that don't always produce immediate, tangible results for their work.

For example, schools, hospitals, research and higher study institutions, scientific research, theoretical and applied, etc.

Left to themselves, and without the beneficence of their capitalist philanthropist these important institutions would collapse because the work they do and the services they provide often run at enormous deficits; work whose individual and social payoff takes years to realize.

So, in that context is that I use the word (let's hear an eerie, 'whoooooeooo'!) capitalization.

[Ravachol]

Seriously, in this context capitalization means that resources will be granted on a credit basis to many institutions that don't always produce immediate, tangible results for their work.


So you mean resource-allocation, ok, that's clear.



Left to themselves, and without the beneficence of their capitalist philanthropist these important institutions would collapse because the work they do and the services they provide often run at enormous deficits; work whose individual and social payoff takes years to realize.


Deficits of what?



For example, schools, hospitals, research and higher study institutions, scientific research, theoretical and applied, etc.

I find it highly troubling how many people talk about communism whilst referring to institutions (schools, universities, etc.) which arose out of the particular conditions of class society. One would think communism would involve abolishing doing and learning as separate spheres of life, that it would do away with the classical institutional teacher/student paradigm.

The institutions that make up the reproductive sphere of capitalism (the family, schools, universities, etc.) are disciplinary institutions which are shaped in such a way to reproduce the proletariat as the proletariat. While they incorporate tasks which are no doubt relevant under communism (the acquisition of skills and knowledge) they way this happens and the fashion in which this is organized, along with the social relations that animate this framework (ie. the institution) would be abolished with the abolition of capitalism.

So I don't think you can speak of institutions which we take over one-on-one (albeit with small reforms) which have a delayed social pay-off under Capitalism. They serve the reproduction of capitalist social relations.



Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?
(..)
The whole apparatus of social control from the outsourcing of “training” from private enterprise to state education, to ceaseless “welfare” interference, to continuous regulation of industrial relations, all prove that the capitalist social relation finds it extremely difficult to reproduce itself when relying on the working class”s “instincts of selfpreservation and of propagation”.

In fact, the intervention of the state in ensuring reproduction of labour power suggests that the working class does not reproduce labour power at all. It seems they cannot be relied upon, they tend to drift from their role. On the contrary, the working class constantly prepares for its “return” to species being, it is perpetually packing its cases and getting ready to depart the scene entirely, but you know, the phone keeps ringing, somebody is knocking at the door, there is constant interruption of this reverting.

The working class does not reproduce itself by itself. In fact it continually reproduces its readiness not to be the working class. Social organisation at present is based upon the abandonment of the cycle of reproduction by both industry and proletariat, and has been taken on by the reforming impulse of the bourgeois state.

[islandmilitia]

I don't think it's that simple, our workplaces are fragmented, segmented spheres of production which are the result of a specific mode of production itself. Even their bare application as 'realizing use-value' does not step outside of the boundaries of the structure of capital because use-value is under capital's real subsumption too to a large degree.

Just to expand on this crucial point, Marx himself was by no means blind to the ways in which the logics of capitalism penetrate every sphere of our existence and the implications this has for the transformation of society. In particular, it is not surprising that one of the demands posed in the Manifesto is the dissolution of the distinction between town and country. Embodied in this demand is the incipient recognition that the formation of urban spaces under capitalism is very much determined by the political and economic requirements of capitalist reproduction, as opposed to the presumption that cities in their current form are part of the natural organization of human societies. The most obvious example of this process is the reconstruction of Paris under Haussmann, and especially the formation of large boulevards in place of narrow and winding streets, as those boulevards were built largely in order to make the construction of barricades more difficult and to make it easier for the state to dispatch its armed bodies of men in response to any form of unrest. It is overall worth recognizing that as revolutionaries we want to transform everything - we want to smash the old world, and that means rooting up all those discourse, institutions and physical forms that we tend to think of as natural and given. In fact, the tendency to present those phenomena as given is precisely part of the operation of capitalist ideology and a major limit on the possibility of transformation.


I understand what you're saying and I agree with your objections. However, what you are alluding to, worker self-management schemes, has already been tried and found wanting. In fact, it's been a catastrophe.

It's not just about state-mandated schemes, even in those instances where self-management means workers occupying factories and restarting them under their own control, those instances are also vulnerable to incorporation and assimilation, and there is nothing inherently anti-capitalist about them.

[Ravachol]

Very much so, this reminds me of a text by Amadeo Bordiga:

http://libcom.org/library/human-species-earths-crust-amadeo-bordiga

And one of my favorite quotes of his:



The place of the worst barbarism is that modern forest that makes use of us, this forest of chimneys and bayonets, machines and weapons, of strange inanimate beasts that feed on human flesh

[Grenzer]

I find it highly troubling how many people talk about communism whilst referring to institutions (schools, universities, etc.) which arose out of the particular conditions of class society. One would think communism would involve abolishing doing and learning as separate spheres of life, that it would do away with the classical institutional teacher/student paradigm.

First of all, this is wrong. Schools did not arise out of class society, they arose out of necessity since people cannot be born with knowledge; it must be acquired. Communism does not need to abolish the teacher student paradigm at all, as it's really quite unrelated to class.



The institutions that make up the reproductive sphere of capitalism (the family, schools, universities, etc.) are disciplinary institutions which are shaped in such a way to reproduce the proletariat as the proletariat. While they incorporate tasks which are no doubt relevant under communism (the acquisition of skills and knowledge) they way this happens and the fashion in which this is organized, along with the social relations that animate this framework (ie. the institution) would be abolished with the abolition of capitalism.

Again, these institutions are not necessarily "part of the reproductive sphere of capitalism", these institutions change and adapt to reinforce the existing order. All of these institutions existed before capitalism, therefore they do not exist exclusively to reinforce capitalism, which is what you are rather ridiculously trying to claim.

What you are really trying to do is equate hierarchy with capitalism; and it's not really working that well. Hierarchy is indispensable to capitalism, true; but the reality is that class and hierarchy and mutually exclusive to some degree. If there there are class distinctions, there is hierarchy; but this does not necessarily mean that if there are hierarchy that there must also be class. Hierarchy predates the existence of humanity, and is certainly not exclusive to humans; or are you now going to start going on about why it is necessary to try to abolish hierarchy among animals so we can have inter-species communism?



So I don't think you can speak of institutions which we take over one-on-one (albeit with small reforms) which have a delayed social pay-off under Capitalism. They serve the reproduction of capitalist social relations.

You can certainly speak of institutions. The institutions that exist today serve to reinforce capitalism, but that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. The real argument to be had is how they will be repurposed: organically, or as part of conscious policy decisions.

What you've been going on about is anarchism, not communism. The destruction of hierarchy is not, and never has been, a fundamental of communism. Your fascination with hierarchy really stems from idealist and utopian notions of equality, liberty, and such things; not from an actual materialist understanding of society.

[Book O'Dead]

First of all, this is wrong. Schools did not arise out of class society, they arose out of necessity since people cannot be born with knowledge; it must be acquired. Communism does not need to abolish the teacher student paradigm at all, as it's really quite unrelated to class.
[...]
Again, these institutions are not necessarily "part of the reproductive sphere of capitalism", these institutions change and adapt to reinforce the existing order. All of these institutions existed before capitalism, therefore they do not exist exclusively to reinforce capitalism, which is what you are rather ridiculously trying to claim.
[...]
What you are really trying to do is equate hierarchy with capitalism; and it's not really working that well. Hierarchy is indispensable to capitalism, true; but the reality is that class and hierarchy and mutually exclusive to some degree. If there there are class distinctions, there is hierarchy; but this does not necessarily mean that if there are hierarchy that there must also be class. Hierarchy predates the existence of humanity, and is certainly not exclusive to humans; or are you now going to start going on about why it is necessary to try to abolish hierarchy among animals so we can have inter-species communism?
[...]
You can certainly speak of institutions. The institutions that exist today serve to reinforce capitalism, but that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. The real argument to be had is how they will be repurposed: organically, or as part of conscious policy decisions.
[...]
What you've been going on about is anarchism, not communism. The destruction of hierarchy is not, and never has been, a fundamental of communism. Your fascination with hierarchy really stems from idealist and utopian notions of equality, liberty, and such things; not from an actual materialist understanding of society.

And I would add that the concept of hierarchy need not be used in an exclusively pejorative sense.

[bcbm]

First of all, this is wrong. Schools did not arise out of class society, they arose out of necessity since people cannot be born with knowledge; it must be acquired.

thats not much of a materialist analysis... obviously they arose out of class society, there was no need for them prior. you also assume schools exist solely to pass on knowledge, which isn't the whole story by any means. modern schools exist as a form of conditioning for children to get them used to obeying orders and sitting in one place being bored out of their mind for hours on end. the quote previously posted in this thread about the resemblance between schools, factories and prisons is apt- these are all tools of class society, specifically capitalist society, with a purpose beyond their stated function.


Again, these institutions are not necessarily "part of the reproductive sphere of capitalism", these institutions change and adapt to reinforce the existing order.

which would make them... part of the reproductive sphere of capitalism.


All of these institutions existed before capitalism, therefore they do not exist exclusively to reinforce capitalism, which is what you are rather ridiculously trying to claim.

all are a product of class society if not capitalism and their existence serves this function. the family is a mechanism for controlling female sexuality and reproduction and passing on property, the university for making education exclusionary and preparing technocrats, schools for the above mentioned reasons, etc. whether or not they 'exclusively' reinforce capitalism, it is their current role and their structures exist to facilitate this goal. in a communist society it is clear that all of these things would undergo a massive transformation and it is unlikely they would resemble the institutions bearing these names today, as the divide between work and pleasure, city and country, family and society etc would be dissolved.


What you are really trying to do is equate hierarchy with capitalism; and it's not really working that well.

i think you are missing the mark by quite a bit here.


If there there are class distinctions, there is hierarchy; but this does not necessarily mean that if there are hierarchy that there must also be class. Hierarchy predates the existence of humanity, and is certainly not exclusive to humans; or are you now going to start going on about why it is necessary to try to abolish hierarchy among animals so we can have inter-species communism?

'animals do it so it is not a problem,' stunning argument.


You can certainly speak of institutions. The institutions that exist today serve to reinforce capitalism, but that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. The real argument to be had is how they will be repurposed: organically, or as part of conscious policy decisions.

they can't simply be repurposed though because the very separations that define them will be destroyed.


What you've been going on about is anarchism, not communism. The destruction of hierarchy is not, and never has been, a fundamental of communism. Your fascination with hierarchy really stems from idealist and utopian notions of equality, liberty, and such things; not from an actual materialist understanding of society.

hierarchy is not the issue though, the reproduction of society and the form it takes is the issue.

[Raúl Duke]

The working class can always rebuild what they have made, perhaps even better suited to their own purposes so if they have to blow up some workplaces to get to their goal it really is no biggie to cry over the buildings and machines.

I believe Durruti said something regarding property destruction:


We have always lived in slums and holes in the wall. We will know how to accommodate ourselves for a while. For you must not forget that we can also build. It is we who built these palaces and cities, here in Spain and America (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States) and everywhere. We, the workers. We can build others to take their place. And better ones. We are not in the least afraid of ruins.