Why should we oppose cuts?

[Forli]

I am looking to join a party in the UK but there are certain things stopping me. The main problem I have is that the parties seem to concentrate on opposing the cuts imposed by the Conservative government. Shouldn't the main priority of revolutionary parties be the education of the working class. Shouldn't they be making the case for Marxism and denouncing capitalism as a whole, rather than just advocating reforms of of capitalism.

Surely our goal is to rid the world of capitalism. I mean surely that is why we do what we do.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I am looking to join a party in the UK but there are certain things stopping me. The main problem I have is that the parties seem to concentrate on opposing the cuts imposed by the Conservative government. Shouldn't the main priority of revolutionary parties be the education of the working class. Shouldn't they be making the case for Marxism and denouncing capitalism as a whole, rather than just advocating reforms of of capitalism.

Surely our goal is to rid the world of capitalism. I mean surely that is why we do what we do.

Well I think it's a question of if people are focused on resisting cuts as an end to itself, making the effects of the capitalist crisis less severe for workers (which I think is ultimately a loosing strategy tending towards managing the toll not resisting even on this strategies own limited aims) or if it's a focus on resisting the attacks in order to help organize and strengthen actual working class resistance - even if it's initially limited in aims due to our lack of organization and coordination and general confidence among workers.

A social movement that helps people organize from below to demand this or that helps build popular power; a strike organized with rank and file workers that only wins limited things is more valuable in the long run in my view than a passive campaign run by union officials that results in a bigger refrom or benifit but through no action on the part of workers themselves.

As much as we (and others) can argue ideas on a logical basis, the daily realities of life as a worker will mean that people get sucked back into dealing with the nitty gritty realities. They can take from this daily situation that there can be no resistance and this leads people to become cynical or accomodate to the system; they can be convinced of refomist arguments that if we are patient and work with the bosses or politicians, we can eventually get something like what we want; or they can be convinced of revolutionary possibilities through their own experiences of excercising their own power as workers as well as seeing first-hand which side of the class divide people really stand and the lengths at which the boss or the state will try and prevent people from gaining even a little more control.

The biggest obsticle of the neoliberal era in my view is the sense that there is "no alternative". If people don't think it's possible to effectivly fight back and so they don't have confidence in the idea of collective class struggle. When this is overcome, it brings up many practical political questions of how to organize ourselves and what it is that we really want, not what options the system offers us. In my view, this is when larger radicalization is possible and when revolutionary ideas become more relevant to many workers.

[Tim Cornelis]

If you take the streets with demands that are not even within the vicinity of the horizon of realism, no worker feels the need to commit to you. Workers need to gain something from supporting you in the short-term. We need to organise, educate, and agitate, not just educate. How do you organise if your demand for the abolition of capitalism doesn't appeal to immediate interests of people ("all that about 'ending exploitation' and such utopianism is nice, but I can't pay me rent today")? How do you educate people if you can't have them commit to your cause, what then would allow for a platform for education? All then that's left is agitation, agitation against capitalism with boring sloganeering of ending exploitation and oppression and capitalism that is going to convince no worker, a dead-end.

[Blake's Baby]

I am looking to join a party in the UK ...

Why?

I'm not being flippant, I really do think that knowing what the answer to this is might help.

Is it because you want to 'do something'? If so, what do you want to do?

Is it because you feel you can't effectively do something on your own?

Is it because you feel that in a group people in general will listen to you more?

Is it because you think in a collective setting you'll have more opportunity to develop your understanding of political questions?

There are many possibilities...


...but there are certain things stopping me. The main problem I have is that the parties seem to concentrate on opposing the cuts imposed by the Conservative government...

Yes, that might be true, for the SPEW or the SWP for instance. I'm not in fact saying that this is the case, but I can see why it seems that way.


... Shouldn't the main priority of revolutionary parties be the education of the working class. Shouldn't they be making the case for Marxism and denouncing capitalism as a whole, rather than just advocating reforms of of capitalism...

Actually, there's a bit of a leap from 'opposing the cuts' to 'advocating reforms'. Even those groups that refuse to 'advocate reforms' (for example the SPGB and the Left Communist groups) 'oppose the cuts' in that they recognise that attacking the social wage is an attack on the living standards of the working class; and also, they tend to see the resistance of the working class as being a positive development of self-organisation.

I think there are organisations that advocate the reform of capitalism and I'd say that the Trotskyist groups and all those TUC-coalition things (what's the latest, 'Left Unity'?) fall into that category. I'm sure supporters of the CWI or some such will come along soon to disagree, but that's my analysis anyway.


...Surely our goal is to rid the world of capitalism. I mean surely that is why we do what we do.

I think so. But I don't see involvement in some aspects of campaigns to resist the austerity programmes as being incompatible with that. I wouldn't write to my MP but I'd help set a meeting to get people angry about the bedroom tax together and I'd give practical solidarity to people facing eviction. I think it helps the working class to develop its confidence and combativity, and I see that as being useful.

[Ravachol]

If you take the streets with demands that are not even within the vicinity of the horizon of realism, no worker feels the need to commit to you. Workers need to gain something from supporting you in the short-term. We need to organise, educate, and agitate, not just educate. How do you organise if your demand for the abolition of capitalism doesn't appeal to immediate interests of people ("all that about 'ending exploitation' and such utopianism is nice, but I can't pay me rent today")? How do you educate people if you can't have them commit to your cause, what then would allow for a platform for education? All then that's left is agitation, agitation against capitalism with boring sloganeering of ending exploitation and oppression and capitalism that is going to convince no worker, a dead-end.

And so is the so-called 'realistic' option of appealing to 'every day interests' and a gradualist road of small victories, especially in a day and age where the stable generalization of such victories (that is, if they can be won on any scale at all) is structurally impossible. If the problem of the final death of the labor movement would be the absence of a package 'realistic' sloganeering (to spring the trap of revolutionary politics on them later, after they've bought into our 'see what we can offer you!' shtick first of course!) then all those crumbling institutions who do engage with such issues (such as the trade unions, the so-called workers' parties, etc.) wouldn't be slowly collapsing and utterly impotent in the face of contemporary austerity. The problem today lies in the fact that even the most 'realistic' demands of yesteryear have become as unrealistic as 'revolution now!'.

[o well this is ok I guess]

It's easier to study revolutionary theory if you don't have to worry about day-to-day survival.
Cuts to public services mean the subsumption of time once free towards, say, the demands of rent.

[Tim Cornelis]

And so is the so-called 'realistic' option of appealing to 'every day interests' and a gradualist road of small victories, especially in a day and age where the stable generalization of such victories (that is, if they can be won on any scale at all) is structurally impossible.

What victories and why? Are walking about a 6 hour work day, reintroducing 80% quantile for the highest income, or forcing the boss to pay a former employee his/her withheld salary?

I'm not advocating having small victories until we have socialism for the record (as you seem to imply with "gradualist").


If the problem of the final death of the labor movement would be the absence of a package 'realistic' sloganeering (to spring the trap of revolutionary politics on them later, after they've bought into our 'see what we can offer you!' shtick first of course!)

That tactic, common amongst Trotskyists which I think you have in mind, of populistically demanding "have the rich pay the crisis" or "tax the rich" is not what I'm advocating either. What I advocate is more similar to the Abahlali baseMjondolo, certainly not a collapsing or impotent organisation. (Of course, their model is specific to RSA conditions, or perhaps even East South Africa conditions, so we can't emulate it in that regard).

It's not a matter of what we have to offer to them, in a sense of one way traffic, but us, as communists, giving workers the tools to fight for themselves, a subservient and leading role at teh same time.


then all those crumbling institutions who do engage with such issues (such as the trade unions, the so-called workers' parties, etc.) wouldn't be slowly collapsing and utterly impotent in the face of contemporary austerity. The problem today lies in the fact that even the most 'realistic' demands of yesteryear have become as unrealistic as 'revolution now!'.

Those organisations take on large struggles, for example, to impose a higher tax rate. I'm talking small-scale victories, insignificant and boring even.

Though are so-called "workers' parties" collapsing? If we look at the SWP, yes impotent, no organic relation to the working class, but if we look at the Communist Party of Portugal or the CP of Bohemia and Moravia, it's certainly not collapsing (nor revolutionary, but that's a different discussion).

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I still maintain that Rosa Luxemburg's ideas in The Mass Strike are worth referring to. Particularly the very basic idea that, for such a strike to happen, to achieve revolutionary potential, we need both economic struggles ('oppose cuts', 'defend jobs', 'pay and working conditions') and political struggles ('working class power', 'nationalise industry' etc.) to occur, and for such movements to intertwine and become joined-up. It's pointless dis-owning one because it doesn't conflate with your own worldview on what we should be doing right now. Rather, we need to find a way (And this is where we really have failed the past few years) to merge together the movements fighting for economic and political struggles into one that recognises that only by combining economic and political demands and struggles can the working class win power.

[Ravachol]

What victories and why? Are walking about a 6 hour work day, reintroducing 80% quantile for the highest income, or forcing the boss to pay a former employee his/her withheld salary?


That's fine and sometimes can be done, though such small gains are often rare and far between and can never be generalized to the entire sector lest the competitiveness of national industry vis-a-vis international labor markets takes a serious hit. It is telling you pick the example of withheld salaries as this (and severance pay) is the only area in which semi-regular 'victories' are possible in this era, and often only after long and hard struggles if it involves more than an individual case (as becomes clear from the struggles over severance pay in French factories between 2006 and 2010 (riff-raff.se/texts/en/sic1-how-one-can-still-put-forward-demands-when-no-demands-can-be-satisfied) where threats of burning down the factory or blowing it up were common). None of these struggles, however, establish a lasting reform or stabilizing 'gain', they are all 'victories' in defensive struggles in a downward trajectory. Necessary for the individual proles involved, but it doesn't "build the workers' movement" or have anything to do with revolutionary struggle. It is only when such 'revindicative' struggles run up against their own limits and are confronted with the fact that class struggle itself has become the limit of the current class struggle that they can pose a break.



That tactic, common amongst Trotskyists which I think you have in mind, of populistically demanding "have the rich pay the crisis" or "tax the rich" is not what I'm advocating either. What I advocate is more similar to the Abahlali baseMjondolo, certainly not a collapsing or impotent organisation. (Of course, their model is specific to RSA conditions, or perhaps even East South Africa conditions, so we can't emulate it in that regard).


ABM isn't a collapsing or impotent organisation but that is precisely because it does not function in the same way the labor movement does. ABM is composed of south-african shack-dwellers and largely struggles over the housing question. It struggles for the most basic reproduction of a segment of the proletariat that is largely ejected from the production process and superfluous to capital's needs, which is why it is often faced with tremendous repression and why its 'demands' are usually not demands in the traditional political way but the post-factum formulation of what they're already doing: occupying land and housing people there. Besides, its a very precarious movement that defends what little these proles have, it hardly extends beyond that.

How this relates to the collapse of the labor movement or the death of programmatism I don't see though. Unless you think that you can copy-paste ABM's appearance to workers in France, Germany and the Netherlands (whatever that would look like) and suddenly the 20th century would be revived...

I mean what are you even proposing...



It's not a matter of what we have to offer to them, in a sense of one way traffic, but us, as communists, giving workers the tools to fight for themselves, a subservient and leading role at teh same time.


And we have such tools? Tools workers cannot find by themselves, magical 'success formulas' we pass down like talmudic monks which suddenly open up the way where massive yet collapsing institutes like the trade unions could not? All ridicule aside, I'd like to see practical examples of where such magical communist tools have opened up the way to gains time and again where workers themselves or their reformist institutions have failed....




Those organisations take on large struggles, for example, to impose a higher tax rate. I'm talking small-scale victories, insignificant and boring even.


And what do these (assuming these can be won time and again by the sheer effort of a few hundred militants all over the country, which won't be the case but whatever) have to do with the overthrow of class society?



Though are so-called "workers' parties" collapsing? If we look at the SWP, yes impotent, no organic relation to the working class, but if we look at the Communist Party of Portugal or the CP of Bohemia and Moravia, it's certainly not collapsing (nor revolutionary, but that's a different discussion).

How is the SWP a workers' party? Just take a look at social-democracy and its ability to 'halt austerity' or prevent the 'flexibilization of labor' Europe-wide, take a look at their unions, take a look at the (former) stalinist parties. Most of them are shadows compared to a few decades ago (numerically and influence-wise) and those who still manage to hold on to some of their membership base do so through 'protest votes' or cultural heritage. Neither of which have an impact at all on the class struggle (let alone revolutionary potential).

I used to go to portugal regularly and I know some PCP old timers from the poorest regions of alvor and alentejo. The PCP, like the PCF (about which an old French conservative once said it ought to be preserved for future generations as a harmless cultural institution.) and former PCI are largely cultural institutions. There's entire families who grow up within the party, reading its papers, visiting its youth festivals, going to its cafes, joining its unions, voting for them time and again, etc... There's plenty of towns with mayors from such parties (who in the '70 were at the fore-front of calling in the police and army to repress the autonomous social movements there) governing them like any social democrat would. Their political power, however, cannot be compared to what it was up till the '80s as becomes evident from their unions (after some token strikes and some bargaining) going along with every reform in labor law and their mayors enacting austerity just like anybody else.

[The Idler]

Revolutionaries don't propose reforms (even as a gradual road to socialism), we propose revolution whilst supporting workers self-organising.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

If we do not opose cuts then we are sending the message that we don't care about the workers, that we will not lift a finger for the proletariat unless they make a revolution.

[TheEmancipator]

Do you want to keep a decaying economic system on life support anyway?

[Blake's Baby]

If we do not opose cuts then we are sending the message that we don't care about the workers, that we will not lift a finger for the proletariat unless they make a revolution.

You're falling into the trap of think that opposition to attacks is the same as supporting reforms. That way lies leftist reformism. That's why some of us see the parties of 'reforms' as the left wing of capital.

Workers organising against attacks on the social wage = a good thing. Inter-classist campaigns to get the government to adopt a different policy for the management of capital = a bad thing.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

You're falling into the trap of think that opposition to attacks is the same as supporting reforms. That way lies leftist reformism. That's why some of us see the parties of 'reforms' as the left wing of capital.

Workers organising against attacks on the social wage = a good thing. Inter-classist campaigns to get the government to adopt a different policy for the management of capital = a bad thing.

You cannot hope for a more ignorant person to be able to comprehend our ideologies when they do not seem possible or necessary. It is not a matter of stopping at reformism and forgeting about the revolution, it is a matter of tactics. You support reforms to get support for your movement, at the same time you spread revolutionary theory through those who support you, in times of big crisis, when revolution becomes a necessary, you can have a more radical vocabulary and goals.
If you stand against these tactics, then how do you want do you want to get the support of a large ammount of people?

[Hit The North]

Revolutionaries don't propose reforms (even as a gradual road to socialism), we propose revolution whilst supporting workers self-organising.

Do you support workers who self-organise for reforms?

[The Idler]

If they benefit the class, yes, if they don't benefit the class, no.
Bearing in mind that revolutionaries propose revolution, it would be futile to be proposing reforms like right-to-work, stop-the-war, stop-the-cuts etc.

[Ocean Seal]

I am looking to join a party in the UK but there are certain things stopping me. The main problem I have is that the parties seem to concentrate on opposing the cuts imposed by the Conservative government. Shouldn't the main priority of revolutionary parties be the education of the working class. Shouldn't they be making the case for Marxism and denouncing capitalism as a whole, rather than just advocating reforms of of capitalism.

Surely our goal is to rid the world of capitalism. I mean surely that is why we do what we do.
Yes that is our goal, ignoring capitalism and believing that we are anything near revolution would not only be folly but also dangerous. We care about the working class, and we will fight for them against bourgeois austerity.

[The Idler]

You don't have to "ignore capitalism" or "believe we are near revolution" to propose revolution.

[Lokomotive293]

You don't have to "ignore capitalism" or "believe we are near revolution" to propose revolution.


"Can we oppose the social revolution, the transformation of the existing order, its final goal, to social reforms? Certainly not. The practical daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratic institutions, offers to the Social Democracy the only means of engaging in the proletarian class struggle and working in the direction of the final goal--the conquest of political power and the suppression of wage labor.For Socialist Democracy, there is an indissoluble tie between social reforms and revolution. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its goal."

Stop acting like there is a formal contradiction between reform and revolution. There isn't. It's dialectical, they are both mutually exclusive and mutually dependent at the same time.

[Tim Cornelis]

That's fine and sometimes can be done, though such small gains are often rare and far between and can never be generalized to the entire sector lest the competitiveness of national industry vis-a-vis international labor markets takes a serious hit. It is telling you pick the example of withheld salaries as this (and severance pay) is the only area in which semi-regular 'victories' are possible in this era, and often only after long and hard struggles if it involves more than an individual case (as becomes clear from the struggles over severance pay in French factories between 2006 and 2010 (riff-raff.se/texts/en/sic1-how-one-can-still-put-forward-demands-when-no-demands-can-be-satisfied) where threats of burning down the factory or blowing it up were common). None of these struggles, however, establish a lasting reform or stabilizing 'gain', they are all 'victories' in defensive struggles in a downward trajectory. Necessary for the individual proles involved, but it doesn't "build the workers' movement" or have anything to do with revolutionary struggle. It is only when such 'revindicative' struggles run up against their own limits and are confronted with the fact that class struggle itself has become the limit of the current class struggle that they can pose a break.



ABM isn't a collapsing or impotent organisation but that is precisely because it does not function in the same way the labor movement does. ABM is composed of south-african shack-dwellers and largely struggles over the housing question. It struggles for the most basic reproduction of a segment of the proletariat that is largely ejected from the production process and superfluous to capital's needs, which is why it is often faced with tremendous repression and why its 'demands' are usually not demands in the traditional political way but the post-factum formulation of what they're already doing: occupying land and housing people there. Besides, its a very precarious movement that defends what little these proles have, it hardly extends beyond that.

How this relates to the collapse of the labor movement or the death of programmatism I don't see though. Unless you think that you can copy-paste ABM's appearance to workers in France, Germany and the Netherlands (whatever that would look like) and suddenly the 20th century would be revived...

I mean what are you even proposing...



And we have such tools? Tools workers cannot find by themselves, magical 'success formulas' we pass down like talmudic monks which suddenly open up the way where massive yet collapsing institutes like the trade unions could not? All ridicule aside, I'd like to see practical examples of where such magical communist tools have opened up the way to gains time and again where workers themselves or their reformist institutions have failed....




And what do these (assuming these can be won time and again by the sheer effort of a few hundred militants all over the country, which won't be the case but whatever) have to do with the overthrow of class society?



How is the SWP a workers' party? Just take a look at social-democracy and its ability to 'halt austerity' or prevent the 'flexibilization of labor' Europe-wide, take a look at their unions, take a look at the (former) stalinist parties. Most of them are shadows compared to a few decades ago (numerically and influence-wise) and those who still manage to hold on to some of their membership base do so through 'protest votes' or cultural heritage. Neither of which have an impact at all on the class struggle (let alone revolutionary potential).

I used to go to portugal regularly and I know some PCP old timers from the poorest regions of alvor and alentejo. The PCP, like the PCF (about which an old French conservative once said it ought to be preserved for future generations as a harmless cultural institution.) and former PCI are largely cultural institutions. There's entire families who grow up within the party, reading its papers, visiting its youth festivals, going to its cafes, joining its unions, voting for them time and again, etc... There's plenty of towns with mayors from such parties (who in the '70 were at the fore-front of calling in the police and army to repress the autonomous social movements there) governing them like any social democrat would. Their political power, however, cannot be compared to what it was up till the '80s as becomes evident from their unions (after some token strikes and some bargaining) going along with every reform in labor law and their mayors enacting austerity just like anybody else.

Why is that when I propose a particular strategical approach you assume I think it to be a "magical fix"? The tools are self-organisation, class analysis, and communism.

Revolutionary activity is impossible in non-revolutionary periods. Now, what I propose is the mere preparation for (potentially) revolutionary periods by intervening in particular struggles to facilitate class consciousness and create pockets of workers' power so that under revolutionary conditions the communist party already has organic ties with the working class and is more capable of leading them.

[The Idler]

Stop acting like there is a formal contradiction between reform and revolution. There isn't. It's dialectical, they are both mutually exclusive and mutually dependent at the same time.
Sounds like something a Fabian might say about socialism.

[Hit The North]

If they benefit the class, yes, if they don't benefit the class, no.


So you concede that some reforms can "benefit the class"?


Bearing in mind that revolutionaries propose revolution, it would be futile to be proposing reforms like right-to-work, stop-the-war, stop-the-cuts etc.
So revolutionaries should ignore unemployment, imperialist war and attacks on the living standards of working people? We should ignore the program of attacks on the workers as the capitalists attempt to restore the rate of profit and it should shun those attempts by workers to resist these attacks?


You don't have to "ignore capitalism" or "believe we are near revolution" to propose revolution.
But for our calls for revolution to be taken seriously, surely we have to muck in with the class struggle, fight side by side with those workers who have the consciousness to politically oppose the capitalists and their state?

Why does the SPGB limit itself to publishing propaganda and standing in elections?

[Blake's Baby]

So you concede that some reforms can "benefit the class"?

So revolutionaries should ignore unemployment, imperialist war and attacks on the living standards of working people? We should ignore the program of attacks on the workers as the capitalists attempt to restore the rate of profit and it should shun those attempts by workers to resist these attacks?...

Because the only options are involving ourselves in bourgeois campaigns, or ignoring something. There is literaly nothing else that the working class, or revolutionaries, should or could do. Is that what you're saying?


...
But for our calls for revolution to be taken seriously, surely we have to muck in with the class struggle, fight side by side with those workers who have the consciousness to politically oppose the capitalists and their state?
...

Well I agree with your sentiment there, but joining bourgeois campaigns is mucking in with the class struggle on the wrong side.

[Hit The North]

Because the only options are involving ourselves in bourgeois campaigns, or ignoring something. There is literaly nothing else that the working class, or revolutionaries, should or could do. Is that what you're saying?


No, that's not what I'm saying. But what makes campaigns against unemployment (really an attempt to organise the unemployed), protests against imperialist war and struggles against cuts in working class living standards "bourgeois campaigns"?

Are you suggesting that only revolutionary insurrection is proletarian political activity?

[Ocean Seal]

You don't have to "ignore capitalism" or "believe we are near revolution" to propose revolution.
Again like I said "proposing revolution" doesn't actually help anyone or materialize anything. You can propose magnetic healing, revolution, the second coming of Steve Jobs, or scientology and it would be roughly of equal use. Fighting against cuts is effectively waging the revolution, it is exposing the contradictions of capitalism and exploring the struggle in the minds of the working class. You don't get to a revolution with promises, you get to a revolution with struggle.

[The Idler]

Yes, reforms can benefit the working-class.
No, the SPGB doesn't limit itself to publishing propaganda and standing in elections.
Why campaign for the right-to-work when one of Marx's most famous instructions was explicit
"Instead of the conservative motto: “A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system!""
Unless you're a Naxalite or some militia waging armed struggle, then campaigning is effectively what political groups function as. Whether you campaign for reform or revolution is up to each group but it would be mendacious and disillusioning to fight for reforms as a panacea.

[Ocean Seal]

Yes, reforms can benefit the working-class.
No, the SPGB doesn't limit itself to publishing propaganda and standing in elections.
Why campaign for the right-to-work when one of Marx's most famous instructions was explicit
"Instead of the conservative motto: “A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system!""
Unless you're a Naxalite or some militia waging armed struggle, then campaigning is effectively what political groups function as. Whether you campaign for reform or revolution is up to each group but it would be mendacious and disillusioning to fight for reforms as a panacea.
I would never campaign for the right to work for a slavemaster. I'm also not in the business of campaigning for an ideal as the core of my work. Instead I prefer the idea of organizing around something tangible, with practice comes theory. With organization comes the spread of ideas. Reforms are not a panacea. This much is obvious, reforms are the groundwork for organization as I explained my post.
Abolish the wage system, but don't do it by shouting it, do it by historically proven methods of organizing against it.

[Hit The North]

Why campaign for the right-to-work when one of Marx's most famous instructions was explicit
"Instead of the conservative motto: “A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system!""


You seem to be mistaking the RTW for a reformist demand. But it is made explicitly on the assumption that capitalism would never grant a right to work and attempts to act as an ideological remedy to the constant Tory propaganda that unemployment is somehow the fault of the unemployed. In effect, it is a call for a society which would guarantee the right to work. Meanwhile, as I stated in another post, it is an attempt to organise the unemployed around a critique of capitalism and a socialist politics. It is a political intervention at one of the fault-lines of capitalism. What would be the approach of the SPGB? To approach the unemployed with the slogan for the abolition of the wage system? Any sensible unemployed worker would be within her rights to point out that, for her at least, the wage system has been abolished! Anyone peddling this abstraction to an ordinary person would get nowhere (which kind of explains the size of your membership).

I remember during the Great Miner's strike getting into an argument with a pair of anarchists. They were arguing that support for the Mining communities was a betrayal of revolutionary principles. "You should be organising against wage labour," they proclaimed, "not fighting for its perpetuation." Abstractly, of course, this is correct. Politically, it is a cul de sac. It leads away from participation in the immediate class struggle and isolates the revolutionaries from the layers of workers who have the confidence to put up a fight for their immediate interests.

There's something distastefully patrician about the SPGB's approach: supportive of independent working class action but not wanting to sully itself with the grubby, partial demands of ordinary people. It's as if you want workers to engage in struggle, but for the most politically advanced workers to keep their distance and wave placards calling for a socialist future. How is the gap to be bridged?


Whether you campaign for reform or revolution is up to each group but it would be mendacious and disillusioning to fight for reforms as a panacea.Then it is a good job that no avowedly Marxist party, that I know of, does see reforms as a panacea.

But it is true that the illusions of reformism are damaging to independent working class struggle. But what is reformism? It is the belief that capitalism can be made to work for the working class through the application of correct reforms. It is the notion that workers should only be politically active in terms of electing representatives who will deliver these reforms for them. It is not encouraging the working class to organise in order to resist the austerity program of the Tories; or to publicly voice their anger at imperialist war; or to take to the streets in opposition to racists and reactionaries who want to pit one section of the class against another.

The fact is that there is an entire continent of practical political action between the illusions of reformism, on the one hand, and your abstract calls for "the future now!"

[The Idler]

Clearly, the system of wages has not been abolished for the unemployed person. Marx too, was clear that the society he was seeking was not one guaranteeing the right to work. For a while, even the Labour Party found it acceptable to make a commitment to achieving full employment.

Labour thought it was achievable under capitalism, as I'm sure many other capitalist parties do. In fact, all the guarantee of work would do, would be to shift the stigma from the unemployed to labor unions as happens with right-to-work laws in the states. Unemployment should carry no stigma at all, and we should be aiming for a society of full unemployment, not full employment.

The Miner's Strike is an example of why unions do not cause unemployment, but its also an example of how demoralising and how much of a setback for the class struggle it is, when you call for the right-to-work knowing this will fail under capitalism. It is setting up working-class struggles to fail, its a con-trick.

The sincere approach would be to get in there and challenge those ideas rather than pretend that those ideas are agreed or keep distance between your ideas and theirs. It is based on Lenin's claim that workers are only capable of achieving trade union consciousness. This is thoroughly patrician, just as is "urging workers to resist Tory austerity, voice anger at imperialist war and oppose street racists" thinking that ordinary workers are not capable of socialist understanding or cannot capture political power (including but not limited to using universal suffrage where it exists). Where the SPGB stood in the last election, the SPGB outpolled TUSC. A partial victory maybe, but abstract, certainly not.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I think it can be shown that the basis for cuts is ideological, not economic. It should also be pretty clear that our range of action is definitely not limited to some false dichotomy between "parliamentary cretinism" and agitation without action.

We should oppose cuts because they hurt the working class as a whole as well as individual workers. There's no reason for that to be mutually exclusive with propaganda and education efforts - indeed, I would say that opposition to cuts represents an opportunity to expose the contradictions of capitalism to a wider audience, which should be considered of equal importance to protecting what little is left from being stripped away.

[Hit The North]

The Idler,

Your argument persists around a number of illegitimate conflations.


In fact, all the guarantee of work would do, would be to shift the stigma from the unemployed to labor unions as happens with right-to-work laws in the states.


The right to work legislation in the USA is obviously and deliberately pro-business law, designed to undermine union organisation and miles away from the arguments of the RTWC in the UK, which has morphed into a general anti-cuts campaign group.


The Miner's Strike is an example of why unions do not cause unemployment, but its also an example of how demoralising and how much of a setback for the class struggle it is, when you call for the right-to-work knowing this will fail under capitalism. It is setting up working-class struggles to fail, its a con-trick.Mobilisation of support for the Miner Strike had nothing to do with 'right to work' and was, from the start, much more political than that; and those socialists who poured their energies into the support groups and worked-up solidarity for the NUM in their own union branches were not attempting to hoodwink the working class by propagating a strategy they knew would fail. You have a real nerve making such cynical claims.

Meanwhile, notwithstanding the defeat of the strike it managed to mobilise and radicalise tens of thousands of workers and raised class consciousness to a degree undreamed of by a hundred years of SPGB propaganda. And of course the defeat had bugger all to do with a 'Leninist con-trick' and everything to do with the inertia of the labour movement reformist leadership.


The sincere approach would be to get in there and challenge those ideas rather than pretend that those ideas are agreed or keep distance between your ideas and theirs.You can call it the 'sincere approach', I'd call it the 'abstract propaganda approach', unless of course you have some concrete way of bridging the gap between the current situation of the worker and the end result of the workers revolution. What would it be?


It is based on Lenin's claim that workers are only capable of achieving trade union consciousness. This is thoroughly patrician, just as is "urging workers to resist Tory austerity, voice anger at imperialist war and oppose street racists" thinking that ordinary workers are not capable of socialist understanding or cannot capture political power (including but not limited to using universal suffrage where it exists).It is based on nothing of the sort - and this charge of cartoon Leninism is a fiction of your dogma.

The only way urging and helping to organise a working class fightback against capitalist assault could be seen as patrician is if you don't consider the revolutionaries to be workers themselves. So perhaps it is you, and not Leninism, which poses a division between the class and the revolutionaries?

[The Idler]

The "right to work" is a defense of the wages system, Marx instead called for its abolition (in fact this was one of his central demands). If right to work in the UK is not arguing for a guarantee to work or remains silent on the wages system then the name should be changed.

From the start, the miners strike was certainly much more political for various leaders, for Thatcher it was a chance to break unions and reduce nationalised industry, for Kinnock it was a chance to distance Labour from militancy, for Scargill it was a chance to defend mines and challenge Thatcher.

For the miners themselves, there was widespread feeling that they wanted to keep the mines open and their communities alive. Socialists know that the interests of the working-class cannot be met under capitalism, in fact this is something party members would be expected to be aware of and make others aware. This is raising consciousness.

This wasn't what the approach of parties guided by Lenin was. Consciousness was raised among members within party members meetings and events, but a different line was put out to striking miners. Here is the gap between the understanding of members and workers. Why should workers outside the party be treated any different from workers inside the party?

In fact, Tony Cliff argued to members the 1980s was a period of downturn and did not regard the miners strike as an exception until much later on. He always supported the strike and said this at public meetings. But this gap between the interests of leaders and the workers that put faith in them, meant workers did not acquire socialist understanding and understand the importance of capturing political power to abolish the wages system. Thatcher was re-elected by a landslide at the next general election (Tories were re-elected again after that in 1992) and continued to privatise and close industry. The Labour Party went on to expel Militant tendency (under Kinnock) and drop Clause IV in 1995 (under Blair). Trade union membership has been steadily falling since the miners strike. Marx always argued for the self-emancipation of the working-class not for workers to pick the right leadership least likely to betray them.

[Hit The North]

The "right to work" is a defense of the wages system, Marx instead called for its abolition (in fact this was one of his central demands).

The RTWC is a defence of worker's rights within the wage system, yes. But no one is pretending that the demand is anything but transitional. It will take a full proletarian revolution to abolish the wage system. However, given the stage of consciousness, there can be no immediate leap from resisting unemployment as a mechanism used by capital to help restore the rate of profit to a full-blooded revolution. So the question for any revolutionary socialist organisation looking to recruit is how can we provide a platform through which we can grow an audience for revolutionary ideas.



For the miners themselves, there was widespread feeling that they wanted to keep the mines open and their communities alive. Socialists know that the interests of the working-class cannot be met under capitalism, in fact this is something party members would be expected to be aware of and make others aware. This is raising consciousness.Only "sit on their hands impossibilists" believe that that there can be no progress through class struggle within capitalism. And to bluntly state that the interests of the working-class cannot be met under capitalism and that, therefore, nothing short of revolution can be done, is not consciousness raising in the current period, it is pure defeatism and leads immediately to demoralisation and inertia.


This wasn't what the approach of parties guided by Lenin was. Consciousness was raised among members within party members meetings and events, but a different line was put out to striking miners. Here is the gap between the understanding of members and workers. Why should workers outside the party be treated any different from workers inside the party?
I cannot speak for all these parties, but in the case of the SWP of which I was a member, this is pure fantasy. During the strike, the SWP joined in with the solidarity work of the Miner's Support Groups, gave assistance to picket lines, argued for an escalation of solidarity action in its paper and held regular meetings throughout the country arguing for the need to build a revolutionary party and the necessity for the overthrow of capitalism. There was no soft-pedalling for non-members and, in fact, SW drew criticism for being the first paper to recognise that the strike was heading for defeat.


In fact, Tony Cliff argued to members the 1980s was a period of downturn and did not regard the miners strike as an exception until much later on. He always supported the strike and said this at public meetings.So what? Just because the analysis of the downturn drew pessimistic expectations about the then current level of class struggle, this does not mean that the party should abandon workers when they take action (unlike the SPGB, the SWP are not always looking for an excuse to do nothing).


But this gap between the interests of leaders and the workers that put faith in them, meant workers did not acquire socialist understanding and understand the importance of capturing political power to abolish the wages system. Who were the leaders? Certainly not the likes of Cliff or Grant. The leaders were the trade union bureaucracy and the Labour Party. In spite of our great efforts and good work, the SWP remained peripheral to the movement and certainly didn't wield the decisive influence you are claiming here.


Thatcher was re-elected by a landslide at the next general election (Tories were re-elected again after that in 1992) and continued to privatise and close industry. The Labour Party went on to expel Militant tendency (under Kinnock) and drop Clause IV in 1995 (under Blair). Trade union membership has been steadily falling since the miners strike.
Yes, defeat of the Miners led to demoralisation and the events you list above. Are you suggesting that this means the battle should not have been met?

Meanwhile, you are buying into Tory myths of Thatcherite landslide victories. They never commanded more than a third of the popular vote and the distribution of parliamentary seats had more to do with the SDP splitting the social democratic vote than with the invincibility of Thatcher.

[Luís Henrique]

Because if we don't oppose the cuts, we will be cut?

Or are we so removed from the working class that such cuts won't actually dammage us?

Luís Henrique

[MarxSchmarx]

A lot of posts are about opposing cuts/war/etc... and the like as being training ground for working class movements.

But I think the skepticism other posters express towards this approach and spending our incredibly limited resources "opposing cuts" (mostly from national governments) is warranted.

It is important to have struggles that you can realistically win. You won't win them all, but having a real shot at winning rather than just venting indignition, which let's face is a lot of what the left does, is key to building an effective organization. Strikes in specific jobs or industries, organizing drives, or opposition to a specific, highly local project (e.g. a toxic waste dump or school deinvestment) those kinds of things are winnable. But demonstration after demonstration that just serves as gloriied soapbox oration is at best a propaganda tool, and it's not obvious to me it's the most effective such tool in any event.

By contrast, most of the opposition "movement" have IMO become doomed struggles over issues that leftist groups, even sizable ones like the protests against cuts in school fees or the American anti-war movement, have no control over. I think this was displayed to a large degree in Wisconsin last year and in the impunity with which austerity has been shoved down the throats of the European public.

The ruling class is in many respects more insulated now than they ever were from genuine opposition to the system. With their immense control of public opinion, skilled electioneering, and indoctrinating educational system, the capitalist rulers have powerfully neutralized organized opposition to issues key to their agenda. This is the genius of capitalist liberal democracy, and yet leftists continue to rely on protest methods most effective against authoritarian regimes.

The left needs to pick and choose its battles. If it must spend a lot of time "opposing cuts", it needs to begin with the solid understanding that elected politicians in the capitalist center are pretty immune from austerity as long as they can deliver enough of the goods. The left has almost 150 years of failures to learn from. How one organizes a campaign, knowing full well there is a snowball's chance in hell of success to add to our 'learning from failure' is a risky move and or marginal benefit in light of this historic plethorAs of failures from which leftists should be learning. It drains committed people and is a waste of human energy IMO.

[Hit The North]

A lot of posts are about opposing cuts/war/etc... and the like as being training ground for working class movements.


Perhaps this but also, as Luis points out (it being rather obvious), we oppose the cuts because we are the victims of those cuts. We are compelled to either resist or acquiesce.


But I think the skepticism other posters express towards this approach and spending our incredibly limited resources "opposing cuts" (mostly from national governments) is warranted.

It is important to have struggles that you can realistically win.

But we are not in a position to choose our battles very often. That's part of the deal when you're the subject class under capitalism. Of course, some calculation of which battles are most important or winnable is necessary when resources are scarce but, in general it is capital that chooses the battleground. Regarding resources, as socialist trade unionists it should be part of our activity to put rank and file pressure on the labour bureaucracy to put resources into the political struggle against austerity - otherwise there would be little point in engaging with the wider labour movement.


Strikes in specific jobs or industries, organizing drives, or opposition to a specific, highly local project (e.g. a toxic waste dump or school deinvestment) those kinds of things are winnable. But demonstration after demonstration that just serves as gloriied soapbox oration is at best a propaganda tool, and it's not obvious to me it's the most effective such tool in any event.
But this is how the struggle against austerity cuts is taking place, largely at a local level. Because many of the cuts are being implemented through local government they manifest as local issues. Nevertheless, we would not be doing our job if we didn't link these local battles with the wider political agenda of capital and its state.

The perception that the anti-austerity movement (if 'movement' isn't too grand a title for it) is only a series of high profile marches through London is a false one. Take a look at this page of Socialist Worker (http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/public/searchByCategory/1?searchTitle=News&offset=0&max=10) and you get a taste of the numbers of local campaigns that are on the go right now.

[Luís Henrique]

But I think the skepticism other posters express towards this approach and spending our incredibly limited resources "opposing cuts" (mostly from national governments) is warranted.

It is important to have struggles that you can realistically win.

So, if the government decides to close health facilities in the area I live in, I should consider whether opposing this is a fight I should or should not pick? Even though closing the facilities will probably directly impact my health or the health of those I love?

Or, if the government decides to fire some of its employees, I should consider whether this is a fight I should or should not pick - even if this could mean my job, and consequently my livelyhood?

Seriously?

Luís Henrique

[Ravachol]

Revolutionary activity is impossible in non-revolutionary periods. Now, what I propose is the mere preparation for (potentially) revolutionary periods by intervening in particular struggles to facilitate class consciousness and create pockets of workers' power


Nice sloganeering. What does any of this mean in practice? What is the relation between 'intervening in struggles' (what does that look like? to what effect?) and the development of 'class consciousness' (what does that look like? what is the relation between class consciousness and the unfolding of communism?). And what the hell does "workers' power" look like under the rule of capital?



so that under revolutionary conditions the communist party already has organic ties with the working class and is more capable of leading them.

lol. You sure you're still a member of the Vrije Bond? :rolleyes:

[Geiseric]

Yes, reforms can benefit the working-class.
No, the SPGB doesn't limit itself to publishing propaganda and standing in elections.
Why campaign for the right-to-work when one of Marx's most famous instructions was explicit
"Instead of the conservative motto: “A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system!""
Unless you're a Naxalite or some militia waging armed struggle, then campaigning is effectively what political groups function as. Whether you campaign for reform or revolution is up to each group but it would be mendacious and disillusioning to fight for reforms as a panacea.

That quote has nothing to do with dealing with things like inflation. It has to do with the overall mindset of communists! It's not like he's saying an end all be all program with that snippet; which is as rediculous as claiming Lenin supported SioC with a single quote like Stalinists do.


Because if we don't oppose the cuts, we will be cut?

Or are we so removed from the working class that such cuts won't actually dammage us?

Luís Henrique

This quote is my feelings basically. It's not about communists; class struggle is for the ENTIRE CLASS. Not for what a socialist conscious minority tries to mould the movement into.

[Skyhilist]

I don't really see a problem with opposing cuts in the immediate while demanding socialism in the long run.

Lets just analyze the consequences of integrating opposition of cuts into a party's platform versus not doing so.

First, lets suppose they don't integrate opposition of cuts into their platform. The cuts will face less opposition and be more likely to happen. We will still be living under capitalism; it'll just be worse. Perhaps a few more people might be won over to the socialist ideology, but probably not all that many, as workers struggling to make ends meet probably don't have a whole lot of time or desire to read up on political theory usually. So really, we just get a slightly shittier version of capitalism.

Now, lets assume a party does incorporate opposing cuts into their platform. Given that most workers aren't communists but care about this issue, this will be more effective in winning the support of workers. With party support and political pressure, cuts are at least slightly less likely to occur. Meanwhile, after winning over workers to this cause, they will most likely be easier to introduce to socialism. So as a result, we get lessened chances of an even shittier version of capitalism, and can still simultaneously win people over to socialism.

So although neither option will likely lead results that represent the ultimate goals of socialism, the choice to oppose cuts will at least be more likely to result in a less shitty society or at least a society that is not significantly shittier as a result of cuts.

Yeah, yeah, I know "less shitty society" isn't what we're aiming for. Of course not. But just going on the streets and demanding revolution isn't going to get us any closer to establishing socialism than incorporating opposition to cuts will, as I've outlined about.

So again, I really don't see opposing cuts as a problem as long as it's not like an a final goal or something.

[L1NKS]

It is interesting to look at who actually is in favor of a balanced budget. It is not the unemployed, it is not the homeless, not the middle class shop keeper, and not the janitor. In fact they are all strongly opposed to cuts in social spending, education, health care, and mass transportation. For good reason - it is them who depend on those services to survive in a decent manner, and so it is them who suffer from cuts primarily.

It is those who own state bonds, and who would like to see the state's ability to meet its financial obligations secured, that propose a balanced budget. And if that means ripping apart social security, that is fine by them. This is a means of class war, and they know.

So why oppose cuts?

Well, that just became a rhetorical question.