What does "workerism" mean?

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I've heard the term "workerist" applied (in a negative fashion) by anarchists against Marxists and also by Marxist-Leninists against Trotskyists. In the latter case the South African CP used it against a Trotskyist faction of the ANC in the 70s/80s, which was expelled.

Anyway, what doers this term mean?

[Ele'ill]

the lack of critical thinking around the concept of work being a facet of this society and likely undesirable in the future society most of us actually want, the concept of being a worker as an identity not really being a good thing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workerism

[Sasha]

It has its roots in Italian autonomism, esp in the more classical Marxist group potere operaio:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potere_Operaio
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workerism

[Zukunftsmusik]

I've heard the term "workerist" applied (in a negative fashion) by anarchists against Marxists and also by Marxist-Leninists against Trotskyists. In the latter case the South African CP used it against a Trotskyist faction of the ANC in the 70s/80s, which was expelled.

I'm pretty sure what is meant by workerism here, is what Mari3L describes, not operaismo. The wiki article Mari3L linked describes the difference between these two uses of the word, though.

[ed miliband]

the lack of critical thinking around the concept of work being a facet of this society and likely undesirable in the future society most of us actually want, the concept of being a worker as an identity not really being a good thing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workerism


It has its roots in Italian autonomism, esp in the more classical Marxist group potere operaio:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potere_Operaio
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workerism

see, this is why it's a confusing term for those unfamiliar with it's usage. the italian workerists were not workerists in the equally valid sense that mari3l uses it, and marxist-leninists / trots don't use it as a slur against anarchists / syndicalists because they think they think they are uncritical of work (lol, imagine leninists having a go at anarchos for that), but because they think they focus on economic struggles in the workplace and ignore political struggles. similarly, some anarchists probably use it because they think marxist focus on the working class ignores other things or something.

basically, workerist means a variety of different things, some positive and some negative. you can self-identify as a workerist whilst still being against what other people would describe as "workerism". i realise i'm not making matters any clearer, but it really is one of those words that means a hundred different things depending on context.

[blake 3:17]

@Lenina -- I think the use you're referring to is related to economism (ie the idea that workers struggles for higher wages will spill over into a struggle for socialism(in brief)) or that socialists must ALWAYS side with workers immediate interests in the struggle for socialism.

Harry Haywood, in his book Black Bolshevik, made some very derisive comments about Trotskyists and their 'pure proletarianism', which puzzled me a great deal as a young idealistic Trotskyist.

I'm curious about the expulsion from the ANC, which by that time was pretty Stalinist thug, but the Trots expelled could've been exemplary class struggle freedom fighters or sectarian nuisances or ???

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I admit I'm not super knowledgeable about this. The forerunner of the organisation I'm affiliated with, the CWI formeda sizable faction of the ANC, the Marxist Workers Tendency. The MWT fought for organizing the working class. This was intensely disliked by the ANC and the SACP and the MWT was expelled in 1985.

http://southafricastrange.blogspot.com/2012/02/democratic-socialist-movement.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist_Workers_Tendency_of_the_ANC

There is a really good polemical pamphlet on this put out by the CWI in the 80s but other than that I haven't found much written on this. Jolly Green Giant seems knowledgeable about South Africa and he/she might know more about this.

A while ago I was trying to research the SACP take on this.The CPB, an ultra Stalinist splinter from the old CPGB seems to have "fraternal relations" with the SACP. Anyhow...one of the leaders, a British academic who claims to have taught Marxism to Jacob Zuma, although he claims that, "the Marxism I taught Jacob was one dimensional and reductionist " (like no shit) called the MWT "workerist". I couldn't find the link.

[Sasha]

I'm pretty sure what is meant by workerism here, is what Mari3L describes, not operaismo. The wiki article Mari3L linked describes the difference between these two uses of the word, though.


see, this is why it's a confusing term for those unfamiliar with it's usage. the italian workerists were not workerists in the equally valid sense that mari3l uses it, and marxist-leninists / trots don't use it as a slur against anarchists / syndicalists because they think they think they are uncritical of work (lol, imagine leninists having a go at anarchos for that), but because they think they focus on economic struggles in the workplace and ignore political struggles. similarly, some anarchists probably use it because they think marxist focus on the working class ignores other things or something.

basically, workerist means a variety of different things, some positive and some negative. you can self-identify as a workerist whilst still being against what other people would describe as "workerism". i realise i'm not making matters any clearer, but it really is one of those words that means a hundred different things depending on context.

Yet I still think that italian workerism is the origin for the term being used as an negative, the Italian autonomist Marxists went directly against the official CP, bypassing the party in organizing the workers, even classifying the CP as part of the enemy.
And so the CP made it an negative slur/charge.
A practice echoed ironically decades later by the SWP when they made first "squadism" an expellebel offence for who would later become the selflabeld workerist RedAction and to this day for people deemed "autonomist".

That or the negative predates the positive and the Italians reapropiated the slur as an good thing.

Anyways, my money is that they are connected.

[blake 3:17]

A few of my comrades knew Neville Alexander

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Alexander

http://www.marxists.org/archive/alexander/index.htm

One of my dearhearts who was representing Canadian trade unionists with COSATU in the 80s was not very generous when she's spoken about them. She'd have held that back, so it might have built up a bit.

[Ele'ill]

Yet I still think that italian workerism is the origin for the term being used as an negative, the Italian autonomist Marxists went directly against the official CP, bypassing the party in organizing the workers, even classifying the CP as part of the enemy.


It might be but then I think the usage I highlighted is completely separate

[blake 3:17]

From the wikipedia entry Mari3L linked to:


More broadly, workerism can imply the idealisation of workers, especially manual workers, working class culture (or an idealised conception of it) and manual labour in general. Socialist realism is an example of a form of expression that would be likely to be accused of workerism in this sense, but this also applies to Liberalism and Fascism, such as Franco's Falangist movement, which often used propaganda showing workers living and working in equitable conditions.[1]
The charge of workerism is often levelled at syndicalists, but this is less justifiable.[citation needed] While governments have used workerism to exploit the working class, whether they are Communist or Liberal governments, Syndicalists owe their very existence to the existence of a working class which they supposedly represent. Traditional communist parties are also thought to be workerist, because of their supposed glorification of manual workers to the exclusion of white-collar workers.

I'd tend to see the ideology most used/abused by intellectuals and managers while often being part of anti-intellectualism, populist rhetoric and authoritarian power structures.

[ed miliband]

Yet I still think that italian workerism is the origin for the term being used as an negative, the Italian autonomist Marxists went directly against the official CP, bypassing the party in organizing the workers, even classifying the CP as part of the enemy.
And so the CP made it an negative slur/charge.
A practice echoed ironically decades later by the SWP when they made first "squadism" an expellebel offence for who would later become the selflabeld workerist RedAction and to this day for people deemed "autonomist".

That or the negative predates the positive and the Italians reapropiated the slur as an good thing.

Anyways, my money is that they are connected.


It might be but then I think the usage I highlighted is completely separate

so gone and done a search on the oed and "workerism" isn't there, but "workerist" is - its first recorded use, entirely unrelated, in the late 50s, and then the word remains unrecorded until the mid-80s when it's applied to tony benn(?!)

but, more interestingly, if you search for it on the marxists internet archive, it only gets repeated use in the late 70s / early - mid 80s... and from i.s. trots! similarly, during the anti-globalisation years, they used "autonomism" as an insult - and, most famously, they did the same during their recent scandal (to put it lightly).

but yes, that still doesn't explain, for e.g. the origin (or even definition) of 'workerism' mari3l used - which is equally valid. see this (v. good imo) text from wildcat for example:

http://prole.info/texts/critiqueofworkerism.html

(which doesn't apply to operaismo, etc)

oh, etymology...

[blake 3:17]

I think in the OP the primary meaning has to do the fetishization of the proletariat or certain parts of the proletariat as the agents of social change.

[The Feral Underclass]

Unions are a good example of workerist institutions.