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SPEW Recruits Head of Prison Guards' Union
What About the Workers (in uniform)?
By Liam MacCuaid
In the former West Germany members of the Communist Party were banned from a variety of state jobs. The idea was that if you thought the DDR was great then you could clear off there. Now let’s turn the proposition on its head. Should doing some jobs make you ineligible to be a member of a revolutionary Marxist organisation which wants to overthrow the bourgeois state?
It’s not a hypothetical question. Prison Officers Association (POA) general secretary Brian Caton has joined the Socialist Party. Understandably enough the interview with him shines a bright light on his opposition to privatisation of the penal system, the expulsion of BNP members from the union, his socialism, the impossibility of any real rehabilitation in the current system and his disdain for new Labour and Cameron. Anyone who has heard him speak cannot doubt the sincerity of these convictions.
Now I can perfectly agree with comrade Caton that the job you do does not necessarily colour your politics. Not all prison officers are right wing. We can reasonably speculate that the SAS and Special Branch are probably full of people who subscribe to New Internationalist and are planning career changes into social work or charities supporting asylum seekers. It’s even easier to understand how in a strongly unionised trade the pull of social democracy will have led many POA members to join the Labour Party. Labour’s critique of the British state’s repressive machinery always struck me as a bit underdeveloped and joining the party would not have been much of an ideological rupture for many prison officers. In his interview comrade Caton says that he was awarded not one, not two but three gold brooches to acknowledge his success as a Labour recruiter. I would bend the stick to the extent of saying that if a senior union official wanted to join Respect, the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party or whatever emerges from the swamp in the next few months that the job should not be an obstacle.
Things become a bit murkier when a prison officer wants to join one of the many organisations that sees itself as the only real successor of Lenin’s Bolsheviks. Some jobs are just politically unacceptable for members of a Marxist organisation. Bailiffs, cops in armed response units, the sort of News of the World journalist who runs scams to get migrant workers arrested and deported – in the right circumstance the people earning their living in this way might be pretty good union militants but the job that they they do is so directly oppressive and anti-working class that it should preclude them from being in a Marxist organisation. The contradiction between the politics and the personal is as insurmountable for them as it is for jailers, even ones in unions.
http://liammacuaid.wordpress.com/200...rs-in-uniform/
EDIT: And here is an interview of Mr Caton from The Socialist: http://leftwingcriminologist.blogspo...ian-caton.html
Last edited by Random Precision; 30th September 2009 at 01:39.
Prison officers, police officers, judges, lawyers, and armed security are not proletarians.
Dear oh dear...
What? No wall of text? Disappointing JR
But I do think this is the core of the issue: what makes a proletarian? Mike Macnair takes the definition that everyone is part of the working class who is dependent on the wage fund in order to survive: workers, students, the unemployed, the pensioned. I favor this definition because of its simplicity, but it does beg the question: What about those who technically earn a wage but are able to hire and fire (managers)? What about employees that carry out the oppressive task of state rule (bureaucracy, police, army... prison officers)?
History has shown time and again that even these layers can be radicalised through the events of hightened class struggle. During revolution, it is a common sight that the state apparatus gets immobilised because of the many layers of workers that refuse to carry on. As such I think that as revolutionaries we should strive for the maximum of splits in the state apparatus.
But is this the case in SPEW here? I think not. Instead of questioning bourgeois rule, the SPEW only raises economic points (in the interview respectively: privatisation of prisons, "modernisation" schemes, union demographic, the break with Labour, prison officers' wages - all points related to neoliberal policies), never does it raise political points (for example: "why are prisons necessary in our society? what class role do they play? could we do away with (most) of them under socialism?") and Caton's "we can be left too, you know!" is less than convincing.
I think SPEW is on a wrong track here to effectively cheer for the capitalist state and call on strengthening it. I already open a discussion about it in the CWI group, but since that discussion didn't result in much, I'm happy this got opened.
I think, thus I disagree. | Chairperson of a Socialist Party branchMarxist Internet Archive | Communistisch Platform
Working class independence - Internationalism - Democracy
Educate - Agitate - Organise
It's hard ground to say the least, but I don't really see why they should allow him into the organisation just like anyone else.. suffice to say it's entirely possible that this Brian guy is ignorant about what he's in charge of and thinks because he's good, it somehow detracts from the extremely reactionary things that prison officers do (quite simply by virtue of their job - and they are considered worse than low-level police constables with good reason).
Instead of simply just recruiting him, I'd urge the SP to attempt to talk with him and ask of good positions from him, in which he asks prison officers to: A) unremittingly strike B) quit their jobs/mutiny and the highly unlikely.. C) let every undeserving prisoner out of their cells and do both of the above. Completely impossible, of course.
I'm surprised SWP didn't snap him up first. Still, British Trot parties collaborating with representatives of the capitalist state is hardly unheard of. As much as I respect trade unionists, the only workers this man organises are criminals.
So, let me get this straight. We're not going to attempt to win over sections of the state: the police, the military, etc. We're just going to hurl ourselves at their bullets when the revolution comes?
Need I point out once more Chapter 2 of The Class Struggle Revisited?What? No wall of text? Disappointing JR
But I do think this is the core of the issue: what makes a proletarian? Mike Macnair takes the definition that everyone is part of the working class who is dependent on the wage fund in order to survive: workers, students, the unemployed, the pensioned. I favor this definition because of its simplicity, but it does beg the question: What about those who technically earn a wage but are able to hire and fire (managers)? What about employees that carry out the oppressive task of state rule (bureaucracy, police, army... prison officers)?
Mid-level managers form the bulk of the "coordinator class" (from the pareconists Albert and Hahnel): existing within the wage labour system, contributing to the development of society’s labour power and its capabilities, having factual control but no significant-influence ownership over the means of production.
The job occupations I mentioned above are part of "Class #2": existing within the wage labour system but having no functional role in advancing society's labour power or capabilities. In my definition, soldiers can advance such (albeit) due to imperialist activity, and don't have as overtly an internally repressive role as the police (the paramilitary might be a different case). When too much of the ordinary populace is against the regime, the soldiers are the first ones to crack (not the paramilitary, police, or state security services). In other words, I actually classify soldiers as proletarians!
The civil bureaucracy (excluding public teachers, firefighters, and such) is the $64,000 question, but my first solid hunch would be the coordinator class.
Notwithstanding my own class analysis (which is more relevant to working-class audiences in a non-revolutionary period), I agree with you.
Comrade, please remember Kautsky's "circles of awareness." The task is to win over the proletariat proper (manual workers and also clerical and professional workers) first before becoming a "people's party" (while retaining the proletarians-only membership rule). Re. the military, you already have my stuff on "class-strugglist assembly and association."
Last edited by Die Neue Zeit; 30th September 2009 at 02:49.
"A new centrist project does not have to repeat these mistakes. Nobody in this topic is advocating a carbon copy of the Second International (which again was only partly centrist)." (Tjis, class-struggle anarchist)
"A centrist strategy is based on patience, and building a movement or party or party-movement through deploying various instruments, which I think should include: workplace organising, housing struggles [...] and social services [...] and a range of other activities such as sports and culture. These are recruitment and retention tools that allow for a platform for political education." (Tim Cornelis, left-communist)
Are you not going to have police when you right off the counter revolutionary fascists?
im not apologizing for police in general. but there are people "in the system" who are socialists and communists. its a tough thing to understand, but it happens. not everyone is able to change their job willy nilly according to their views. maybe they changed after years of experience. who knows. not all of them are bad.
i always wonder of the one lone riot gear clad cop who is actually sympathetic to the anarchists/anti-capitalists but is afraid to act on their beliefs in fear of punishment.
Some workers can actually be fascists, some cops can be communists.
FKA Vacant
"snook up behind him and took his koran, he said sumthin about burnin the koran. i was like DUDE YOU HAVE NO KORAN and ran off." - Jacob Isom, Amarillo Resident.
Yeah, it's been like... ten... fifteen years since the ISO supported security guard and prison guard strikes. Ancient history, amirite, comrade?
Where is Fred Bergen when you need him?
Is there anything wrong with trying to drive a wedge between the different parts of the state? If it was done in a principled manner (ie. pointing out their role in the bourgeois state), I don't see any problem with it.Yeah, it's been like... ten... fifteen years since the ISO supported security guard and prison guard strikes. Ancient history, amirite, comrade?
Where is Fred Bergen when you need him?
Ancient history or not, that would be way before my time. Can you provide a source? In the meantime I'll try to find out about it from some of the older comrades.Yeah, it's been like... ten... fifteen years since the ISO supported security guard and prison guard strikes. Ancient history, amirite, comrade?
Last edited by Random Precision; 30th September 2009 at 04:49.
Incredibly stupid. Prison guards are not proletarian. For once I agree with Jacob Richter.
Does everyone in a revolutionary Party have to be proletarian? Half the people in revolutionary politics are petit-bourgeois intellectuals or students...
Anyways, I think that if the man is willing to accept the Marxist analysis on the role of prison guards in the capitalist society and help drive a wedge between sections of the capitalist state, then why not have him in the Party?
Because you are supporting them as they beat and abuse prisoners. Perhaps next you would like to have soldiers stationed in Iraq shooting civilians join you?
I want everyone to join me, especially those with guns and who are trained in their use.
Originally Posted by chegitz guevara
You act like I've never had cops beating up on me.
Again I talked about joining the SPEW in a principled manner. If there are individuals in the prison guard system that are actualy willing to join the revolutionary forces we should accept them within our ranks with the aim of driving a wedge between the different sections of the opressive apparatus of the state.
Furthermore us Marxists use generalizations. But you take this method and turn it over its head. Not all prison guards beat and abuse prisoners. Those who disagree with the capitalist establishment should have the ability to fight against it through joining a revolutionary party. Many bolsheviks were soldiers during world war one, some were in the police and others in the Cossaks. It was really helpful to have 2-3 agitators within those units of repression in order to divide the repressive state aparatus and win sections of the police, the cossaks and the army on the side of the revolution.
Last edited by Fight!; 30th September 2009 at 05:04.
"Chegitz" of the Socialist Party USA joins the chorus of the cops' racist campaign to lynch Mumia Abu-Jamal, an innocent man. No wonder he thinks the bosses' professional thugs can be "socialists."
