LENIN'S TOMB

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Five acts of civil disobedience posted by Richard Seymour

I wrote a piece about civil disobedience for The Guardian, which was published earlier this week:

In each of these examples, the key question is neither violence nor non-violence, neither legality, nor illegality; it is disruption. Popular movements are engaged in civil disobedience whenever they recognise the society's dependence on their co-operation, cease co-operating, and actively disrupt its smooth functioning. This moves politicians to spittle-lathered furore. It is the way in which progress is made.

Oddly, I'm now getting messages, tweets and notifications telling me that Spanish newspapers and television are circulating it, though they don't (grumble grumble) mention the name of the author. The general thrust of it, I think, is that they're jolly miffed that I compared Gordillo, the 'Robin Hood' mayor, to Gandhi. Because they have been trying to depict his supermarket sweep as an atrocious act of violence. I can't stop laughing.

While I'm here, I did get some really satisfying feedback on an article I wrote a while back on the Daily Mail's racist twist on a scientific study, when the study's authors wrote in to back me up and denounce the Mail. That made me laugh for a week.

Labels: civil disobedience, daily mail, media, protests, racism, rebellion, riots, spain, strikes, the guardian

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Salaried bourgeois on "revolt of the salaried bourgeoisie" posted by Richard Seymour

Zizek's latest for the LRB is proof of that old adage that those who attack multiculturalism in the name of class instantly forfeit their probity on both subjects. Actually, that isn't an old adage. I just made it up. But it is nonetheless true. To explain: Zizek has expended a lot of polemical energy attacking a certain kind of poststructuralist and post-marxist politics for its abandonment of class. But this critique was bound up with a simultaneous attack on 'political correctness', 'multiculturalism', and so forth, in the name of a 'leftist plea for Eurocentrism'. Of course, it was possible to appreciate the former critique without subscribing to the latter. (And if you want a serious critique of post-marxist fashion, you must read Ellen Wood's The Retreat from Class.) But it was never very clear what Zizek understood by 'class', apart from a structuring discursive principle: it was always invoked somewhat dogmatically. If one doesn't expect from Zizek a scientific analysis of social classes, one would at least expect him to know what he thinks classes are. It's quite clear from his latest piece, which re-states some of the theses earlier expounded in Living in the End Times, that he either has no idea, or has a novel theory of classes that he has yet to explain.

Rent, surplus value and the "general intellect"

Zizek's main argument is that the current global upheavals comprise a "revolt of the salaried bourgeoisie" in danger of losing its privileges. He begins by making an argument about the source of ruling class wealth in advanced capitalist formations. Taking the example of Bill Gates, he asserts that the latter's wealth derives not from exploiting workers more successfully - "Microsoft pays its intellectual workers a relatively high salary" - but "because Microsoft has imposed itself as an almost universal standard, practically monopolising the field, as one embodiment of what Marx called the ‘general intellect’, by which he meant collective knowledge in all its forms". In other words, Microsoft doesn't extract surplus value but rent, through its monopolistic control of information. This is paradigmatic of "the gradual transformation of the profit generated by the exploitation of labour into rent appropriated through the privatisation of knowledge". The influence of post-operaismo in all this is clear: Zizek accepts and expounds the idea that intellectual labour is "immaterial" labour, which he maintains has a predominant or "hegemonic" role in late capitalism. On this basis, he asserts that orthodox marxist value theory has become problematic, as "immaterial" labour simply cannot be appropriated in the way that "material" labour can.

Before going any further, just note that this whole line of argument is a red herring. Even accepting the narrow focus on Microsoft's "intellectual workers" as a paradigm of 21st century work, their "relatively high salary" has no direct bearing on whether they are efficiently exploited. Or rather, if it indicates anything, it would tend to be that they are likely to be far more efficiently exploited than other workers. Globally, this is the trend: the higher the wages, the higher the rate of exploitation. It is also the trend historically: the famous high wages offered by Ford were possible in part because the techniques of Taylorism allowed the more effective extraction of relative surplus value. (The distinction between relative and absolute surplus value would be a fairly basic one for anyone claiming to operate within a marxisant radius.) This is not to say that all of Microsoft's "intellectual workers" are therefore diamond proletarians. Classes are formed in the context of class struggle, and the extent to which these workers are 'proletarianised' or 'embourgeoised' will depend on how successfully managers have subordinated the labour process, etc. Nor does it strike me as a wholly unreasonable proposition that Gates' main source of added value is monopoly rent - it is arguable, at least. But Zizek's argument in support of this idea is simply a non-sequitur.

Marx, the sock puppet

Zizek goes on to explain how his approach differs from that of orthodox marxism, and much of his argument hinges on how he sets up Marx as a foil. Thus: "The possibility of the privatisation of the general intellect was something Marx never envisaged in his writings about capitalism (largely because he overlooked its social dimension)." Setting aside the curious claim that Marx "overlooked" the "social dimension" of capitalist productive relations, it is worth re-stating what Zizek undoubtedly already knows: the writings on the 'general intellect' are part of an exceptionally brief fragment in the Grundrisse, and would thus be hard pressed to 'envisage' anything; nonetheless, the description of the "general intellect" in the Grundrisse as a "direct force of production" manifest in the "development of fixed capital" assumes that the "general intellect" is already privatized.

What Zizek means, I assume, is that Marx did not anticipate the monopolization of "general social knowledge", and therefore did not anticipate that the major class struggles in an advanced capitalist formation might be over the share of rent rather than over the direct extraction of surplus value. This is clear in the way that he treats the example of oil. For, according to Zizek: "There is a permanent struggle over who gets this rent: citizens of the Third World or Western corporations. It’s ironic that in explaining the difference between labour (which in its use produces surplus value) and other commodities (which consume all their value in their use), Marx gives oil as an example of an ‘ordinary’ commodity. Any attempt now to link the rise and fall in the price of oil to the rise or fall in production costs or the price of exploited labour would be meaningless: production costs are negligible as a proportion of the price we pay for oil, a price which is really the rent the resource’s owners can command thanks to its limited supply." So, this raises two questions: i) did Marx really not anticipate in his theory the possibility that rent extraction would be a source of major class struggles?; and ii) as a corollary, does the example of oil and its absurdly high prices undermine the labour theory of value?

This is fairly straightforward to establish. First of all, the evidence of Marx's writings is that he understood that there could exist a class or fraction of people whose income depended on rent extraction. Marx discussed two main types of rent. These were, differential rent, and absolute ground rent. To explain the first type of rent, it is necessary to specify some implications of the labour theory of value, which Zizek maintains is outmoded. First of all, if the value of goods is determined by the socially necessary labour time invested in them, it would tend to follow that if less labour time is needed to make the goods then over time the exchange value of these goods would decline. But the fact is that producers are in competition with one another for market share, so will tend to invest in labour saving devices so as to reduce their labour costs. And even if, over time, the replication of this tendency throughout the economy - enforced by imperative of competition - the result is to reduce the total profit on the goods, the immediate effect is to enrich whoever temporarily has a more efficient firm as a result. They obtain a differential rent because their investment enables them to obtain a larger share of a diminishing pool of surplus value. The second type of rent, absolute rent, needs no lengthy exposition here, but can be said to be that type of rent that would most naturally arise in monopoly situations. At any rate, it's reasonable to suppose that Bill Gates' wealth must embody some of both types of rent, alongside an unknown quantity of direct surplus labour.

Secondly, Marx's labour theory of value is not rebutted by the fluctuations of oil prices. The theory is not supposed to explain price fluctuations, which respond to supply and demand. The exchange value is an average across the productive chain; there is no mathematically fixed relation between the price of one particular commodity and the exchange value that exists as an average over the whole class of commodities which changes over time. Nor is the theory endangered by the fact that the relation between supply and demand can be manipulated in monopoly situations to drastically increase the actual price of a good. I am well aware that there are valid controversies regarding the labour theory of value. Nor do I imagine that Kliman's heroic work will completely save the orthodox theory from its doubters, many of whom aren't even operating on the same theoretical terrain. But Zizek's challenge is, purely on theoretical grounds, ineffectual. It is a straw man that he dissects to such devastating rhetorical effect in this article. For the sake of concision, I omit other instances in which he travesties Marx, both in this and other articles - we'd be here for a long, tedious time.

The "salaried bourgeoisie"

Zizek uses terms extraordinarily loosely. Take the "salaried bourgeoisie", whose "revolt" apparently motivates this piece. They are said to be leading most of the strikes taking place. Zizek thus presumably includes in this groups like the public sector workers who have struck in most European countries. Yet, he doesn't say what makes them a "salaried bourgeoisie". His useage implies a novel class theory, but the closest he comes to defining this term is where he specifies that he means those who enjoy a 'privilege', being a surplus over the minimum wage. Now, it's not at first clear what he means by the minimum wage. There are, of course, legally enforced minimum wages in a number of advanced capitalist societies, but he doesn't mean that. That would be arbitrary and would tell us nothing directly about productive relations. But mark what he does mean by the 'minimum wage': "an often mythic point of reference whose only real example in today’s global economy is the wage of a sweatshop worker in China or Indonesia". This no less arbitrary, as Zizek himself acknowledges.

Now, while the manner of his exposition implies a critical distance from such concepts, he nonetheless deploys them, arguing that they are themselves constitutive of a politically and discursively constructed division of labour: "The bourgeoisie in the classic sense thus tends to disappear: capitalists reappear as a subset of salaried workers, as managers who are qualified to earn more by virtue of their competence (which is why pseudo-scientific ‘evaluation’ is crucial: it legitimises disparities). Far from being limited to managers, the category of workers earning a surplus wage extends to all sorts of experts, administrators, public servants, doctors, lawyers, journalists, intellectuals and artists. The surplus takes two forms: more money (for managers etc), but also less work and more free time (for – some – intellectuals, but also for state administrators etc). The evaluative procedure used to decide which workers receive a surplus wage is an arbitrary mechanism of power and ideology, with no serious link to actual competence; the surplus wage exists not for economic but for political reasons: to maintain a ‘middle class’ for the purpose of social stability."

In this sense, the "surplus wage" that characterises the exploitation of the proletariat by the "salaried bourgeoisie" is a discursive fiction, unanchored in real productive relations. Still, having thus qualified his terms, it is nonetheless clear that it corresponds to some material processes. After all, if the labour theory of value no longer adequately captures the workings of surplus extraction, and if the 'hegemonic' pattern of accumulation is the extraction of rent, then the 'surplus wage' has some material basis as that which is paid out of a share of the rent (largely extracted by Western corporations from the citizens of the Third World). Further, Zizek goes on to maintain that the efficacy of such 'classes' is not the less real for their being political and discursive. It explains current political behaviour, he says (and here I must quote at length):

"The notion of surplus wage also throws new light on the continuing ‘anti-capitalist’ protests. In times of crisis, the obvious candidates for ‘belt-tightening’ are the lower levels of the salaried bourgeoisie: political protest is their only recourse if they are to avoid joining the proletariat. Although their protests are nominally directed against the brutal logic of the market, they are in effect protesting about the gradual erosion of their (politically) privileged economic place. Ayn Rand has a fantasy in Atlas Shrugged of striking ‘creative’ capitalists, a fantasy that finds its perverted realisation in today’s strikes, most of which are held by a ‘salaried bourgeoisie’ driven by fear of losing their surplus wage. These are not proletarian protests, but protests against the threat of being reduced to proletarians. Who dares strike today, when having a permanent job is itself a privilege? Not low-paid workers in (what remains of) the textile industry etc, but those privileged workers who have guaranteed jobs (teachers, public transport workers, police). This also accounts for the wave of student protests: their main motivation is arguably the fear that higher education will no longer guarantee them a surplus wage in later life."

Zizek goes on to qualify this observation - each protest must be taken on its own merits, we can't dismiss them all, etc. - but is clearly arguing that the general thrust of the strikes and protests is in defense of relative privilege. This is especially true of the "special case" of Greece, where "in the last decades, a new salaried bourgeoisie (especially in the over-extended state administration) was created thanks to EU financial help, and the protests were motivated in large part by the threat of an end to this". So far the only evidence offered for the existence of this 'salaried bourgeoisie' is in its ostensibly discernible, concrete effects in the political behaviour of social layers affected by crisis. Yet this behaviour can be explained far more efficiently by the class interests of fractions of the proletariat who, due in part to superior organisation vis-a-vis their employers, have obtained a degree of job security and in some cases relatively high wages. In which case, the concept is useless.

As is typical with Zizek, each step in his argument is characterised by an astonishing lack of precision, a slipshod and loose useage of terms, straw man attacks, sock puppetry and so on. There are lots of fireworks, but little real theoretical action: all show, no tell, an empty performance of emancipatory politics. And I just thought I'd spell that out because so many people messaged, prodded and otherwise cajoled me into criticising this latest from Zizek. I hope you're satisfied.

Labels: austerity, bourgeoisie, class, class struggle, immaterial labour, imperialism, rent, ruling class, salaried bourgeoisie, strikes, working class, zizek

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

On Democracy Now about Nov 30th posted by Richard Seymour

Labels: austerity, class struggle, public sector workers, strikes, tories, trade unions

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Nov 30th posted by Richard Seymour

My ABC article explaining the background to tomorrow's strike:

The public sector strike on November 30 will be the largest strike in the UK since the general strike of 1926.
Two to three million workers could take part. Unlike our continental counterparts, coordinated strikes of this kind are extremely rare in the British trade union movement. As such, its political importance, if the action is successful, will be much greater than in the continent.
Why has it come to this? In a sense, the answer is obvious. 'Austerity' involves the most serious attempt to restructure the economy, to the detriment of working class living standards, in decades. It involves reducing wages and pensions, diminishing bargaining rights, cutting jobs and reducing the bargaining power of labour. Everywhere that these measures have been introduced, whether in Wisconsin or Greece, there has been resistance.
Yet, there was no guarantee that the British trade union movement would respond in the way that it has. Decades of declining union composition since the serious defeats inflicted on organised labour – notably, on the miners and the print workers – have left unions in a weaker position.
The orthodoxy among trade union leaders since then has been a form of tactical conservatism known as the 'new realism'. This approach involved unions avoiding confrontation in favour of bargaining with the government of the day. Every sign until last year was that the Trade Unions Congress (TUC) would adopt this approach in dealing with the government's cuts, negotiating to mitigate the effects of cutbacks rather than seriously attempting to obstruct them. Indeed, before grumblings from the shop floor scuppered the plan, union leaders had intended to invite prime minister David Cameron to address congress last year. So, what changed?

Labels: austerity, class struggle, cuts, militancy, public opinion, public sector workers, strikes, tories, trade unions

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Angela Davis at Occupy Philly posted by Richard Seymour

"We talked about the importance of building a movement that is inclusive, but recognising that the unity of the 99% must be a complex unity. Movements in the past have primarily appealed to specific communities. Whether workers, students, black communities, Latino communities, women, LGBT communities, indigenous people, or these movements have been organised around specific issues. Like the environment, food, water, war, the prison-industrial complex. Speaking of the prison-industrial complex. This is the movement I have been personally associated with. We have tried to call attention to the inoperable damage prison and the prison-industrial system has inflicted on our community. So we have called for a reduction of the prison population. Decarceration - decarcerate Pennsylvania. And we have called for the eventual abolition of prisons as the dominant mode of punishment. But we have also called for the revitalisation of all our communities. We have called for education, health care, housing, jobs, hope, justice, creativity, equality, freedom! We move from the particular to the general. We have come together as the 99%. There are major responsibilities linked to your decision to assemble here in communities. How can you be together? I evoke once more Audre Lorde. Differences must not be merely tolerated but seen as a fund of polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic. Finally, let me say a few words about my home town, Oakland, California. You have heard about the police assault. Scott Olsen remains in the hospital. Oakland General Assembly met in the renamed park Oscar Grant Park and responded by calling for a general strike on November 2nd. Many unions have already supported the call. I end by sharing the language of the poster: decolonise Oakland. We are the 99%. We stand united. November 2nd, 2011, general strike, no work, no school, occupy everywhere. Occupy everywhere."

Labels: anti-capitalism, capitalism, class struggle, left, occupation, occupy oakland, occupy philly, occupy wall street, protest, socialism, strikes

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

The Class Struggle in Greece posted by Richard Seymour

Labels: austerity, capitalism, capitalist crisis, class struggle, eu, greece, left, militancy, ruling class, socialism, strikes

Thursday, June 30, 2011

#30June posted by Richard Seymour

There is rolling coverage of today's strikes here. For the political background to the trade unions' response to austerity, see Martin Smith's latest in the ISJ. The Guardian, meanwhile, is reporting that the British Medical Association - yes, that bastion of militancy - has voted for a strike ballot by some 87% at their annual conference.

Listen to Mark Serwotka mauling Francis Maude on the BBC this morning.

Labels: #30june, austerity, capitalist crisis, class struggle, neoliberalism, public sector workers, strikes, tories

Monday, June 06, 2011

The Sage of Twickenham Strikes posted by Richard Seymour

Vince Cable threatens the unions, then turns up to speak at one of their rallies:

Labels: class struggle, coalition, democracy, lib dems, liberals, militancy, strikes, trade unions, vince cable

Monday, April 18, 2011

After #26March posted by Richard Seymour

Me in The Guardian on the coming coordinated strike action on 30th June:

"Imagine," said PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka, "what a difference it would make if we didn't only march together but took strike action together." The cheer that resounded from the crowd in Hyde Park spoke for itself. This was 26 March, the day that half a million workers from across Britain turned out for the most significant manifestation of trade union strength in decades – although you may remember it as the day when some windows were broken.
However inspiring 26 March was, though, leaving it at a march from A to B – just in time for local elections – would be a terrible waste. Some union leaders may feel that the best use of this energy is to vote Labour in the May elections. But Labour councils are also pushing through cuts, and it is obvious from local strike ballots that union members aren't putting up with this. The next logical step is, exactly as Serwotka says, co-ordinated strike action. So, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), National Union of Teachers (NUT), University and College Union (UCU) and Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) unions are moving towards balloting their members for a one-day national strike over pensions, job losses and wages.
What sticks out here is the participation of the ATL, which is a professional teaching union not given to militancy. Its last strike action was in 1979. Similarly, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) overwhelmingly passed a motion at its annual conference in Liverpool calling for an indicative ballot of members for national strike action. This is far from typical for the RCN, which, until a change in its policy in 1995, always ruled out industrial action. The "proletarianisation" of professionals in the public sector, with degraded conditions even for usually respected staff, is leading some of the traditionally conservative unions to be more militant than their larger counterparts.
If the strike ballots are approved by the members, this could result in up to 800,000 people taking strike action. If other small unions join the strike, there could be over a million people taking industrial action on that day...

Labels: austerity, class struggle, condem, cuts, liberals, public sector workers, strikes, tories, trade unions, working class

Friday, December 10, 2010

I am the mob posted by Richard Seymour

David Cameron demands that the "mob" must be punished. The Metropolitan police are in trouble with the "party of order", who are aghast, simply aghast, that the royal Daimler has been scuffled by oiks. The Met blames and condemns "the outrageous and increasing levels of violence that some of the protesters are now involved in". Now there is casual talk of using firearms, as if it is only the virtue and "restraint" of armed officers and security officials that prevents those protesters from getting their heads justly blown off. The frenzy has been as relentless as it is familiar. The established players know their lines well. Their royal we-ness maintain a dignified, somewhat bemused silence, while the rottweilers go to work, ostensibly on their behalf. Yes, you have a perfect democratic right to protest, they say with patronising assurance, but violence is intolerable and will not be tolerated. Yes, most people were peaceful, but there were some people determined to restort to destruction. And those who flout the law must be exposed to the full penalty of the law. And, well, under difficult circumstances, some officers may lash out to protect themselves and their colleagues, and someone may be injured or die as a result. And the state will, if anything, err obsessively on the side of probity, subjecting those poor officers to investigation before finding them completely innocent.

We are probably witnessing a move to re-tool the state, the better to cope with civil disobedience and strikes. Police have deployed a strategy of provoking violent confrontations with small bands of protesters. By using pre-emptive kettling, by charging at protesters with mounted police, by staging baton charges, and by lashing out at peaceful protesters with almost lethal force, the police have set up physical confrontations. They have then attempted to use their overwhelming superiority of organisation and force to coerce protesters into retreating into preemptively kettled territory. This would galvanise a small minority who would physically seek to break out, but would be effectively held back. Thus intimidated and physically coerced, they would come to resent the minority isolated as 'professional troublemakers' and wait meekly to go home in the late hours of a chill December evening, resolving never to attend a protest again. This strategy is based on the assumption that protests break down into a well meaning but duped and passive mass, and a nefarious, organised conspiracy of upstarts, and that the police can prise the two apart.

But it didn't actually go down like that. Most of those protesters who did end up in direct combat with the cops are, as Paul Mason points out, working class sixteen and seventeen year olds from Britain's banlieues. They are not the committed anarchists that the law and order mob are braying about, and they were not resented by other protesters. More worryingly for the police, when they did attempt to baton charge, they were often effectively resisted. Using whatever ad hoc instruments were at their disposal, large numbers of protesters physically out-manouevred police on numerous occasions. Sometimes, for example, they used the same crowd control barriers that were intended to pen them to push back ranks of baton-wielding, helmeted and shielded riot police. And when the police attacked people, they often fought back. They were not cowed, despite the physically imposing stature and superior weaponry of the cops, and despite the horrifying record of the Territorial Support Group. So, far from protesters blaming a small minority of troublemakers for the violence, they are almost unanimous in reporting that the police engineered the violence. And because the police didn't get it all their own way, the FT's headline today was: "Police lose control of street protests".

Now the language of the 'mob' is back in vogue, and the prospect of lethal violence against protesters cheerfully bruited. Now the state is worried that the protests have started to be effective, and might become even more effective in future. Now they're worried about what might be unleashed. The technologies of repression and containment need to be updated for an age when it isn't as easy to fabricate a serious division among protesters, between cunning manipulators and a gulled majority. The government is having to play a game of catch-up. It introduced 16% cuts to policing in its spending review, suggesting that it anticipated a relatively easy ride over the cuts, and that it wouldn't need the particular loyalty of police departments. And if these protests were flash-in-the-pan, localised, and self-contained, that calculation might have a modicum of realism to it. But they have proven to be anything but. They have accelerated, and spread, and added new energy and vigour to every anti-cut campaign, every left-wing party and coalition, every meeting and rally in the country. Now a Conservative leadership that hasn't had a serious fight on its hands since the early-to-mid Nineties is having to run to the police for help, and I suspect that means the police are about to get a lot of new powers and perhaps a relief in some of the cuts coming their way.

***

Inevitably, the 'mob' - the subject of official invective - is depicted as an opponent not merely of a policy, but of "democracy". But democracy is not law and order. Democracy is the mob; the mob is democracy. Democracy is supposed to mean popular sovereignty, not the unimpeded rule of a no-mandate government. It is supposed to mean that the will of the majority governs, not the interests of the rich. It is supposed to mean at minimum that people get the policies they vote for, not those they are overwhelmingly hostile to. In liberal democratic theory, the people are sovereign inasmuch as their aspirations and prerogatives are effectively mediated through a pluralist party-political state. They may not get all that they want all of the time, but the decision-making process will be guided by the public mood, which rival parties must compete to capture and express. Yet this system has only ever been effective to the limited extent that it has been when it has been supplemented by militant extra-parliamentary pressure, by the threat of dispruption to stable governance and profit-accumulation. To the extent that the parliamentary system is ever really democratic, it is parasitic on a much more fundamental popular democracy.

Frances Fox Piven (along with her late partner Richard Cloward), has long argued that the electoral-representative system is most democratic when the working class and the poor are deliberately disruptive - when they are organised, but not institutionalised. This distinction is made in a particular way that it's important to get right. By 'institutionalised', Piven means incorporated into the state. Thus, the lesson of the 1930s, she argues, is that the working class was most effective when it withdrew its participation, went on strike, took wildcat action, performed sit-ins, etc. The bosses of the big steel companies and car manufacturers responded, just as the Federal government did, by trying to institutionalise industrial action, turning it into a regulated, far more predictable and manageable occurrence, and incorporating organised labour into a deliberately de-escalating machinery. But there are other examples of being institutionalised in this negative sense - being incorporated into a parliamentarist or electoralist machinery, for example. Or you might add being coopted by conservative NGOs, wherein politics becomes a kind of showmanship, a spectacle where the main thing that counts is media reception and public relations. Whatever happens, you become absorbed into the tacit rules that actually reproduce social power, rather than effectively rebelling against it.

By contrast, what Piven calls 'disruptive power' is that which shuts down processes and events that make capital and the state run efficiently. Closing down a main road with a sit-down protest is an example of this. Occupying a public building, or flash-mobbing a retail outlet, or blockading a nuclear facility, are also examples of disruptive power. Withdrawing one's labour is another, and picketing to obstruct the effective utilisation of the means of production is another. This disruptive power doesn't have to be particularly noisy or violent or attention-grabbing in and of itself. Nor is it necessary that it should be meek, amiable and nonviolent. Any question of noise and street theatre is a secondary tactical question, and any violence is a matter of exigency rather than principle. But what 'disruptive power' exploits is the fact that economic and political power in complex capitalist societies rely on a series of intricate interdependencies and specializations, which distributes the capacity to disrupt the system rather widely. Different agencies will be better placed to exploit this than others, because they are differently endowed with the relevant structural capacities, and each situation involving this capitalist or that state authority will open up different opportunities. And there will always be subjective difficulties in adapting the repertoire of learned methods of resistance to any new situation. But the exercise of this disruptive power has been the hallmark of the 'mob' throughout history, and it has also accompanied every democratic breakthrough.

We are now in a situation where the ruling classes are uneasily realigning their forces, scrutinising their techniques of dominance, restless about their ability to hold the line in the new situation. Meanwhile we are coming out of a generation that has spent many years going through defeats, and only occasional and partial victories, and we are trying to find out what works and what does not. Listening to protesters, you hear people say that the lesson of the last decade is that the tactic of the big march and rally didn't work, even with over a million people and more in attendance. The media spectaculars didn't work either, even with Snoop Dogg in attendance. So now people are trying out occupations, sit-down protests, flash-mobs, and other forms of disruptive protest. They are learning what their legal position is if they do protest, and if they're arrested. They're learning how to handle the press. The question of what kinds of industrial action is most effective looms over us again. The one day general strike? Sustained, indefinite walk-outs by strategically important groups of workers? Recurring strikes of lengthening duration? And what kind of picketing is effective? How to handle the media and the police? What to accept in negotiations? And so on. The mob is re-learning, applying and reinventing the principles of democracy. And the law is having once again to prepare itself to resist the threat of democracy.

Labels: capitalism, cuts, democracy, police, protest, ruling class, strikes, tories, working class

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Spain: a social coup d’etat posted by Richard Seymour

Guest post by Samuel (with translation by Jan)

In the Spanish constitution the role of the army is described by article 8: "to guarantee the sovereignty and independence of Spain, to defend its territorial integrity and the constitutional order'. I always thought that if the Spanish army were to be deployed inside the country, it would be for defending the sacrosanct "territorial unity" - the threat of nationalist secession, in other words. But surprise, surprise, none other than the socialist government invokes this law for the very first time since it was approved, by militarizing the airspace and decreeing a "state of alarm". All of this with the invaluable help of the mass media, of course.

Some context is needed to understand what happened. The previous day, the government had approved a new adjustment package that included the partial privatisation of the national airport and navigation organisation, Aena. It joined new legislation that eliminated the 426 euros of unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed. For the traffic controllers, a decree was issued that annulled all previously earned holidays, sick leave, maternity leave and so on. By doing so, the government violated its own rules, namely the limitations to traffic controllers' working hours, set by a previous decree. Moreover, the choice for publishing the decree on friday the 4th of December was not an innocent one, since the following Monday and Wednesday are bank holidays, and many Spaniards take a long weekend off. Behind it there is a battle of wills between Minister of Public Works José Blanco and the traffic controllers, who had been refused staff increases while waiting for complete privatization. I don't know whether he trusted that the traffic controllers would not dare to leave hundreds of thousands of passengers and their families stranded, or that it was a strategy of provoking a wildfire so that First Deputy Prime Minister Rubalcaba could present himself as the Presidential firefighter.

Whatever the strategy behind it, the result was that the government imposed military discipline to knock down a labour insubordination. The government prefers to force the traffic controllers to go back to work, but it does not discard the use of military personnel to control air traffic. In France - where the traffic controllers went on strike 4 times this year, one because of pension reforms - they have stopped using soldiers as scabs after the plane crash of 5 March 1973, when a DC-9 of Iberia coming from Palma de Mallorca collided in Nantes with a Convai 990 of Spantax coming from Madrid. The investigation showed that the accident was caused by the bad training of the militaries replacing the civilian traffic controllers.

As the economic crisis deepens and European capital takes the offensive, the State is showing its true colours, and Wikileaks has nothing to do with it. We are witnessing a profoundly anti-democratic process that even in its imagery resembles an authentic social coup d'état. Last week we witnessed an important cabinet meeting with representatives of the biggest corporations, warning of new cuts and reforms (of the pension system, for example). Today the sovereign State shows off its exceptional powers, violating its own laws and collective agreements when it is necessary to maintain the existing order and the trust of international creditors.

We should ask ourselves why it is that the decision of a collective to abandon their work post lead to such an exaggerated reaction with strong Thatcherite undertones. The contrast with the government's reaction to the general strike of 29 September is striking - a day, by the way, on which the traffic controllers worked and guaranteed the "minimum service" (sic) of 100%. Several reasons occur: traffic controllers are workers with an enormous responsibility in a strategic sector; the strikers acted within the margin of the nullified right to strike and by doing so they questioned the demands of the market. Those are the terms the Royal Decree 1673/2010 that declares the state of alarm uses: it wants to guarantee the right of free circulation - a right that the very same government denies its immigrant workers, or transnational demonstrators. In the productive metropolis no action is more disturbing than the blockage of the flows of goods, money and (some) people, as the Italian students demonstrated a few days ago when they blocked the Bolonia highway.

The traffic controllers are perfect scapegoats. Are they not spoiled brats, with huge salaries usurping the taxpayers' money, as Aena and Minister José Blanco declared? I have lost count of all the insults the traffic controllers had to suffer from many other workers. Even those that criticize the exceptional measures felt the need to call them "disgraceful", and other such niceties. Softer but no less offensive was the reaction of Izquierda Unida, Spain's communist party. They considered it "a grave and inacceptable precedent to declare the state of alarm to resolve a social conflict" but stressed that they "did not agree with the demands and the methods used by the traffic controllers". Salvador López Arnal, in a strange article published in Rebelión, talks for this reason about a "rightist strike" and refers to the traffic controllers as "a movement of the privileged", with no links to the "class-based trade unions", that had not given signs of "wanting to belong to the Iberian workers movement". "It is not necessary to take sides" he adds. A sad way to rid himself of the proverbial rock in his ideological shoe, that moreover takes an easy stance towards the "users' populism" the government champions.

If we start a demagogical "witch hunt for the privileged" it will never end. If it is not because of the salary, it is because of a permanent contract, social benefits, or nationality: from functionaries that have guaranteed lifelong employment to the unemployed that still receive their benefits, passing through executives, engineers, commercials or professors like López Arnal. All of these positions reproduce within and amongst them differences in status, taxes, benefits, and working conditions, non of them static. All are "privileged" with respect to someone else, with one glaring exception: all are subjected to capital. Neoliberal governance operates on this continuum "crossed by discontinuities, thresholds, divisions, and segments that allow the technologies of security to govern it as a whole" (M. Lazzarato). It does so by on the one hand individuating and on the other hand juxtaposing a series of inequalities against each other, managing fears and petty hatreds that can include police interventions intended to prevent "radicalization".

How much money these traffic controllers may make, it is peanuts compared to what the 37 businessmen, who met the government last week, make. The controllers remain salary men, highly qualified, and yes, they are indeed isolated from other collective organisations, and their trade union's activity indeed centres on the defence of corporative interests - like so many others whose life and existence is under siege. They share the same contradiction between waged work and financial rent that the majority of workers live, albeit multiplied by factor x due to their social position and the particularities of their profession. Despite everything, the traffic controller's action is a forceful response against the privatisation of the airports and the unilateral regulation of the working day - much more so than a general strike. Those that accuse the traffic controllers of a lack of "class conscience" do not shy of using arguments like "that in times of crisis we all have to buck up", or at best, that we should protest but in such a form that is unobtrusive.

At this moment the traffic controllers have been subjected to military hierarchy, accompanied by the applause or silent satisfaction of the majority of the people. This government that, when convenient, never hesitates to opt for right-wing populism while hypocritically denouncing it, has announced disciplinary action and sackings. For the moment, we have learned several things: where we can hurt them, to what lengths they will go to stop us, and how hard solitude can be.

Labels: capitalism, capitalist crisis, fascism, labour, spain, strike, strikes, trade unionism, trade unions, working class

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Firefighters rally against cuts posted by Richard Seymour

The strike may be off, but negotiations are still ongoing. The commissioner has reneged on his commitment to negotiate on the basis of 13 hour night shifts and 11 hour days, instead insisting on 12 hour day shifts and 12 hour nights (click the 'firefighters' tab at the bottom for background). Brian Coleman has tried to use the strike as itself an excuse to introduce cuts, saying that the strike proved that the fire service could work perfectly well without the 27 fire appliances that were removed from service so that Assetco could use them during strike days. He's now instructing the fire authority to look into getting rid of those appliances and, apparently, 500 jobs with them. So, management is recalcitrant, despite the olive branch from the FBU leadership earlier this month. Today, firefighters showed that they aren't cowed, and they aren't backing down. After a packed rally in central London, hundreds of firefighters took to the streets and blockaded Downing Street. They didn't get to occupy, sadly, but I would take this as a sign that any loss of momentum caused by calling off the strike over bonfire night weekend has not dampened the confidence of the firefighters' combativity. Socialist Worker's report is here.

Labels: cuts, fbu, firefighters, militancy, strikes, tories, trade unions, working class

Friday, November 05, 2010

Has Matt Wrack blown his winning edge? posted by Richard Seymour

The anonymous email received by James O'Brien of London's LBC radio station suggested a febrile atmosphere among the bods of what firefighters have come to call "Toad Hall" – an affectionate moniker for City Hall, in honour of fire authority chief Brian Coleman's insult to another assembly member last year. It said fire chiefs had concluded that they had to win the dispute before 5 November. They had instructed their PR company to "unleash the forces of hell" on firefighters.

Labels: cif, fbu, firefighters, strikes, the complete and utter works of richard seymour

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Why they're smearing the firefighters posted by Richard Seymour

First of all, it is not true that this dispute between firefighters and London Fire Brigade management has anything to do with a claim for a £10,000 increase in pay. From listening to some online chatter, it would seem that at one stage, very early on in the negotiations, the union reps mentioned this claim in a negotiating meeting as a joke, in response to some of management's more absurd demands. When the LFB responded "now you're being ridiculous", FBU reps responded "well, you fucking started it". Whether that is true or apocryphal, what is for certain is that there is no claim for a £10,000 pay increase at the centre of this dispute. So when the LFB management publicise such allegations to newspapers and encourage them to claim that firefighters are making an unreasonable pay claim (by some standards - in my opinion, they would be worth every penny), that is a sleazy and dishonest tactic of class war. And it is certainly LFB management and their Westminster overseers who are behind these claims. The editor of Finance Markets confirmed as much in this editorial intervention, where he reveals that a story written up for the online magazine repeating those claims was taken from a "propaganda release" from the Fire Minister Bob Neil. There has also been an embarrassing e-mail leak suggesting that their press department has been instructed to "unleash the forces of hell" on the FBU in the run-up to 5 November strike.

Secondly, it is not true that there is anything scandalous or 'greedy' about firefighters claiming London weighting while living outside of London. Such 'weighting' applies to where you work, not where you live, and the rules are the same for everyone. So, when the LFB management leaks the full home address of every firefighter to the tabloids in order to hound firefighters this is a sleazy, dishonest tactic of class war. Thirdly, it's not acceptable for LFB management to use comments made by firefighters on Facebook groups as grounds for suspension. But that is what has been happening, and it is a sleazy and dishonest tactic of class war. Parenthetically, one firefighters' support group with over 20,000 members disappeared from the social media site after comments made on the page were used by management against members. In addition, a number of individuals who were active on the group had their accounts deleted.

The use of smears, bullying and dirty tricks by LFB management should not surprise anyone that has followed the negotiations. Let's recall how we got here. First of all, there is an important distinction that is apt to be lost in this discussion. The dispute is about shift patterns and the threat of cuts to night-time cover, but the strike was prompted by management's bullying tactics, wherein they used a section 188 notice to threaten all workers with redundancy unless they accepted the new terms. Were it not for this threat, the strike would very probably not have been called, and the outcome would be determined solely by talks. But management pulled out their ace with the section 188, their last resort of coercion, and left the union with no choice but to strike. Such moves are taking place all over the country as part of the government's cuts agenda, as tens of thousands of council workers have been threatened with the same threat of redundancy unless they accept lower pay. This is a tactic of class war. It is designed to undermine the position of organised labour, and bully workers. It is designed, in short, to weaken the bargaining power of labour and restrict the consumption of the working class. In context, it is part of a package of political measures designed to transfer wealth from the working class to the ruling class, the financialised fraction of which stands to gain most in the immediate term. It is also part of a project aimed at fundamentally restructuring the political economy of British capitalism, such that the welfare state, trade unions, and other features of society that buttress labour's position are fundamentally weakened, and the power of the City, of the CBI and of entrenched business interests is fundamentally strengthened.

So, in the last analysis, they're smearing the firefighters as part of a wider project of redistributing class power. However, there is a more immediate reason for the smears. LFB are losing. They are losing big time, so comprehensively that it's almost laughable. The incompetence of the scab replacement firm, Assetco, has become nearly legendary. Destroying vehicles, letting houses burn to the ground, calling out striking firefighters to handle situations which they are just not trained or equipped to handle, are just a few examples of their last display. Assetco workers don't want to cross the picket lines, and Police Silver command are refusing to provide escorts for them. In fact, my understanding is that Assetco have made it plain that they are not in a position to cover the city during the upcoming 47 hour strike, they simply don't have the means or adequately trained staff. LFB management are panicking and, as a result, lashing out by all available means. They are desperate, on the backfoot, and - if the FBU stick to their guns - will have to back down and reach a serious, negotiated settlement with the union. I note that the NUJ are also out on strike on 5th November. Many RMT workers refused to work in unsafe conditions during the last strike, causing a complete shut-down on the Jubilee Line. It is fairly certain that the same will happen next week. Trade unionists from across London are rallying to the fire fighters, and undoubtedly watching the outcome. Whether the Tories hold the line with the FBU and the RMT will communicate something important to other trade unionists about the state of play. This is why it is vital that firefighters are not demoralised by the constant attacks of management and tabloids, nor swayed by the appeals for timidity from the liberal media. They can win, they have every right to win, and those supporting them need them to win.

ps: relatedly, I like Latte Labour's terse, tart and angry responses to David Allen Green on 'the ethics of strike action'. See Latte Labour here and here, and Green here and here.

Labels: austerity, capitalism, cuts, fbu, firefighters, london, militancy, recession, ruling class, strikes, tories, trade unions, working class

Monday, October 25, 2010

Firefighters out for two day strike posted by Richard Seymour

The firefighters aren't taking it, and they aren't backing down - and good on them. They're going out for another strike, this one lasting 47 hours, starting on bonfire night. It's in addition to an eight hour strike already planned for November 1st, and constitutes an escalation of the action against Brian Coleman and the LFB management The last strike, lasting for eight hours, has already hit hard. Assetco, the London Fire Brigade's scabbing company showed that they couldn't put out a cigarette, never mind a blaze (eg). There were, I have heard, many Assetco workers who didn't know they'd be scabbing and who won't want to participate in future operations. They probably don't want to face this kind of mass picketing either:

Labels: austerity, boris johnson, cuts, fbu, firefighters, militancy, public sector workers, strikes, trade unions, working class

Sunday, October 24, 2010

French union leadership raises white flag posted by Richard Seymour

Guest post by Apostate Windbag:

Le Monde carried an article on Saturday bearing the headline ‘At the intersyndicale, hardliners lose ground (A L’intersyndicale, la ligne dure perd du terrain)’, an analytical report direct from the meeting of the various French union centrals by Claire Guelaud. Apart from the interesting journalistic point I could make that such illuminating industrial reportage, once a prestigious ‘beat’ (the Industrial Correspondent), particularly in the UK and latterly almost extinct, is vital for any informed citizenry, the article more importantly shows how far from adhering to the stereotype we have beyond France (and even domestically) that the French are incorrigible ‘greve-ophiles’, ready to descend into the street at the drop of a beret, the movement is heading toward a defeat consciously constructed by a majority of the union leadership, who are petrified at a ‘debordement’, or overflow of the struggle beyond their control.

The unions have called for two further days of action - one of strikes and demonstrations on 28 October, during the week of a parliamentary vote, and a second of ‘mobilisations’ on 6 November, ahead of the promulgation of the law by the president. All of which might on the face of it suggest the union leaders remain committed, and that the movement will continue. Le Monde’s reporter describes how the union leaders are conscious that the persistence and strength of actions since the beginning of the autumn “renders impossible a premature halt to the movement.”

The mobilisations will continue both during the coming week’s All Saints holiday that Sarkozy has hoped would interrupt and drain the energy of the movement - particularly of students and pupils - and afterward. All the ‘reformist’ unions (Le Monde’s term for the more conservative unions, not mine) - the CFDT, the UNSA, the CFTC, and even the ‘tres reservé’ CFE-CGC - have all called on their troops to keep up the pressure.

However, as the journalist accurately notes, “the centre of gravity has shifted and the hardliners have lost ground.”

The FSU and Solidaires union centrals, both of which had wanted earlier days of action, and Force Ouvriere, which continues to call for a general strike, did not win the day. (The latter two did not sign the resulting intersyndicale communiqué, but the FSU did.)

The crucial quote in the article is the one from Marcel Grignard, the ‘number two’ in the CFDT, the union central close to the Socialist Party, which quietly, and not so quietly in the form of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the IMF and frontrunner to be the party’s presidential candidate next time around, has supported the pensions reform.

Grignaud: “Our responsibility as trade unionists is to construct compromises that make sense, and not to threaten the legitimacy of parliament or politics.”

The intersyndicale communiqué reminds that the mobilisations will continue “respecting property and people” and makes no mention of other actions and strikes concurrently underway, making links with other confrontations and thus generalising the movement.

Finally, reading between the lines, the UNSA and CFDT have already signalled their surrender, so long as Sarkozy is able to complete passage of the law, saying in essence that this would end the current level of industrial action.

“We will stay together for as long as the parliamentary debate lasts and the imposition of this reform,” said Jean Grosset of the UNSA.

“For the CFDT, the closure of parliamentary debate and the promulgation of the law will create a new situation,” said Grignard.

The CGT, the union close to the Communist Party, for its part has effectively done the same. In the words of Nadine Prigent, a member of the CGT executive: “We demand the immediate opening of negotiations. We will see what the head of state decides and will proceed step by step.”

The reporter is clear to say that none of this suggests a progressive “atterrisage” or “landing” of the movement: What direction the leadership of the CGT takes to manage the various internal tendencies within the union is crucial in the coming days, such as signs of a “wise prudence” on their part. She notes that the desire on the part of the CGT to maintain a unity of action with the more moderate CFDT weighs heavily: “The CGT knows that the the unitary character of the movement is decisive,” remarked Prigent on Thursday night.

“Given these conditions,” writes the reporter, “6 November could be the last day of mobilisations and demonstrations.”

All of this is less important for what occurs in France as far as this particular law goes than for the rest of Europe in the face of the imposition of austerity. The markets, the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the IMF, and Berlin, the invigilator of EU member-state fiscal policies, are all watching the balance of forces in two member states in particular: France and Greece, where opposition forces are the most organised and politicised.

Last week, the IMF and the Greek government began to tentatively discuss an extension repayment of Greece's €110 billion loan. While Brussels and Berlin immediately rejected the idea out of hand, Costas Lapavitsas, a Greek economist at the University of London, told the EUobserver, the EU affairs online newspaper, that he believes that this opening of the discussion on Greek debt repayment is actually an indication that the Greek government and the IMF are beginning to feel more confident that the austerity shock measures are working.

"This is basically signalling a new phase of the crisis. They believe that they are meeting success in stabilising the deficit. The recession is still unfolding and is pretty serious, but the government believes that this is looking like it will be within what the IMF expects for this year," he said.

He also said that a second crucial factor behind the comments is that the IMF and Greece have managed to push through the programme without stirring massive popular opposition to the extent that was originally feared.

"There has been discontent, to be sure, but not in an organised or decisive fashion that could threaten the political situation."

Elites feel, with some justification, that they have held the line in Greece. Thus it is not even that the failure of the French popular movements to halt Sarkozy’s pension reform will only add to their overall confidence, but that it will send a signal to them that they can push through anything.

The struggle in France is pivotal. The state of the struggle across Europe hinges upon what French grassroots forces beyond the trade union leadership are able to achieve in the republic in the coming hours and days.

***

For additional information and perspective, see the following pieces: "The Revolt Shaking France", and "France: a key moment as unions meet to consider next move".

Labels: austerity, capitalism, capitalist crisis, france, militancy, neoliberalism, pensions, recession, sarkozy, socialism, strikes, trade unions, working class

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

An unacceptable adherence to stereotypes. posted by Richard Seymour

There: French strikes and protests - live updates.

Here: Unions stage polite protest over spending cuts.

Labels: austerity, capitalism, france, militancy, neoliberalism, socialism, strikes, tories, trade unions

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Reasons to be cheerful posted by Richard Seymour

Why The Economist thinks the unions could easily sink the cuts:

To be sure, their power isn’t what it used to be. Membership has declined sharply, from 13m in the early 1980s to just over half that today (see chart). And trade unionism has become concentrated in the public sector, where 57% of employees are members compared with just 15% of privately employed workers. That weakening has been accompanied by a period of unusually serene industrial relations. Official records dating back to 1891 suggest that strikes have never been as infrequent as they are today. Twice as many days were lost to walkouts in 1984 alone as in the two decades since 1990.

Nevertheless, the unions are far from a spent force: the 7m Britons who still carry union cards remain, collectively, an important social movement (by comparison, only around 4m people attend church once a month or more). Concentration in the public sector has helped to preserve their power. Strikes by transport workers can cause chaos if commuters are unable to get to work. A recent two-day walkout by workers on the London Underground, for example, caused widespread disruption in the capital; one estimate, from the London Chamber of Commerce, put the cost to firms at £48m ($75m) a day. A full-blown rail strike would be much worse. A walkout by teachers would require millions of parents to stay at home minding their children; binmen could leave the streets as filthy as some were in the “winter of discontent”; and so on.

Predictably, of course, this is a justification for capital to call for further restrictions on union power, but the palpable sense of panic in the Economist's analysis is too delicious for words.

Labels: militancy, neoliberalism, spending cuts, strikes, the meaning of david cameron, tories, trade unions

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Not ready for it. posted by Richard Seymour

The IMF predicts widespread social unrest if these cuts are forced through: a "social explosion" as they put it. Their new study says that the world economy has to create 45m new jobs a year for the next decade just to tread water, which is an objective that is incompatible with the determination to implement social spending cuts. They detect a decline in the "employment intensity of growth", meaning that much of the growth is resulting from financial speculation, since capital finds it less risky to invest in bubbles than in actual production.

Contrary to the Tories' refrain that private sector growth is required, the state has to provide much of the growth in the coming period, to make up for the feebleness of the private sector, where few are investing, and few lending (even if a new round of debt/speculation-based growth was desirable). Cutting spending at this point, especially to the degree Chancellor Gideon is contemplating, may be like dragging an ailing British capitalism off the life support, humping it out of the hospital, kicking it through the doors and saying "now walk, you bastard". Even Jesus wouldn't be that arrogant.

The political risk to the government, if it insists on pursuing these cuts despite nervous warnings coming from the OECD and IMF, is not negligible. Andrew Rawnsley reports that cabinet members are terrified of what's being imposed on them, which is to be - as was expected - far deeper than anything Thatcher achieved in the 1980s. Of course, there are politically easy cuts, but these are the least effective. Cutting funding for the arts, for example. The Tories can always paint that (wrongly) as money for millionaires. But cutting education, health, pensions, justice, disability benefits... not only will this hammer the working class, it will also, by dint of its effects on the wider economy, yank the rug out from under the feet of Tories' middle class voting base. The coalition's approval ratings are well into the red, and at their lowest level since the elections. The Tories still get the benefit of the doubt from their core vote and a segment of 'swing voters', but if the IMF is right, that political credit will be rapidly withdrawn, and payment demanded with interest in a relatively brief period of time. I suppose, then, the question is whether the Conservative Party is prepared to be a kamikaze squad for capital - because if, as Mervyn King predicted before the election, the austerity programme finishes it off for a generation, it can't very well be the dominant party of capital afterwards.

Now, a spokesman for the Police Superintendents' Association warns that cuts will produce such grave social disorder that the police will struggle to contain it - and look at the hysterical reaction from the Telegraph. The copper's behaving like a trade unionist! The worst thing imaginable! Undoubtedly there's an element of the police trying to protect their turf from the Tories' promised cutbacks, but it's also a realistic intervention. In the 1980s, the police bureaucracy often complained about its forces being used as a shovel to clean up the shit unleashed by social destructive Tory policies. This is not because the coppers are a humanitarian body. But the last thing they want is to be faced with an angry, insubordinate population which their best forces and superior organisation can't deal with. If the Tories are going to turn the country into a social wasteland, they at least want enough men with appropriate powers and weaponry to be able to keep it under control. But the dilemma of austerity is that if they're determined to reduce spending to the extent that they are (while protecting Trident and NATO commitments), they have to seek cuts in all possible areas.

Of course, the risk is not only to the government. Stathis Kouvelakis writes on the attempted imposition of the "shock doctrine" in Greece, which basically involves creating a state of emergency in order to engineer support for a qualitative, lasting change in the social fabric, a "neoliberal purge". His conclusion is that if the Left and the popular forces in Greece are unable to meet this challenge, "they will be swept away by the dislocation of social relations and the rise of despair and, probably, of the most reactionary and regressive tendencies within society". It is not hard to see how similar prospects pose themselves in different ways across Europe, and in the UK. We are waging a difficult firefight with the far right, though their forces are as yet fractious and limited. If we don't effectively resist these cuts, and out of that resistance rebuild some basic grassroots left, with resilient community organisation and a much more democratic and popular trade union movement, then we could be devastated by the oncoming tide.

Those are the stakes we have to prepare for. The government has been preparing for this for more than a year, and it still isn't ready for the consequences.

Labels: capitalism, cops, fascism, militancy, neoliberalism, public spending, socialism, strikes, the meaning of david cameron, tories, trade unions

Monday, September 13, 2010

On getting over the 1980s posted by Richard Seymour

The TUC has voted to support joint strike action and community campaigning at its national conference to resist the Tories' threatened deep and permanent cuts to the public sector. I hate to stoop to cliche, but I'd say this reflects "a mood" among the workers. I'd say they're angry, and that the more they learn the angrier they're becoming. I'd say they're probably preparing themselves for a fight because, no matter what the polls say, no matter what the papers say, they know this is a fight for survival. Communities are going to be wrecked here. Lives are going to be destroyed. You can't tell someone not to react against that because some news corporation poll tells you that such a reaction wouldn't be popular with 45% of people.

Not that this guarantees that a fight will take place, much less that it will be successful. The majority of the trade union bureaucracy, at least in the larger unions, will want to constrain rank and file pressure for industrial action in preference for community campaigning. The disorganising, demobilising, demoralising effect that such organisational inertia and strategic conservatism can have should not be underestimated. Yesterday, Les Bayliss, the assistant general secretary of Unite, claimed that strikes would hurt the people whom the Tories were targeting (specious) and "repeat the mistakes of the 80s" (misleading). Bayliss is a candidate for general secretary of Unite, though he is about as likely to become Unite leader as Andy Burnham is to become Labour leader. But, as Seumas Milne points out, the fact that News of the World gushed all over Bayliss' remarks suggests that the right-wing media is about to redraw those old 'moderate vs militant' battle lines.

Sunny Hundal's sympathetic write-up of Bayliss' argument, though, suggests that there's an aching need for the Left to a) have a meaningful discussion about what really happened in the 1980s, and b) get over it. I don't think Sunny is the only one suffering from this syndrome. The whole recent era of Labour Party history, dominated by the monstrous Blair, would have been impossible without that wounding experience. But the British Left has spent far too long unhealthily labouring in the shadow of the Thatcher era, and has become pale and timid as a result. The constant invocation of the totemic defeat of the miners, dare I say its use as a shibboleth, both devalues the history and obscures the present. We are not living in that era, our dilemmas are not the same, and above all our opponents are not of the same calibre. We can take these Tory scum.

But in lieu of that more detailed and cathartic discussion, here's the question that Sunny and all those who want to fight the cuts with action short of strikes have to contend with: what makes you think anything but strikes will work? We could probably agree, I think, that the Stop the War Coalition circa 2002-3 is a very good example of a mass campaign with deep local roots, widespread support and an excellent media profile. It mobilised record numbers of people, and attracted support from across the political spectrum. Tabloids, celebs, clerics, even Charles Kennedy MP, all wanted a piece of that action. It was a highly successful campaign, and I will take nothing away from it. But I assume we can also agree that parliament demonstrated a remarkable capacity to insulate itself from such pressures. This suggests that even if we could repeat - not imitate, but repeat in an appropriate way - the successes of Stop the War, we could still be sidelined by a political class determined to see its policy through. Certainly, we might limit the scope of their attack, but we would still have permitted the vandalism to take place.

To put it another way: it would be irresponsible, delinquent not to actively disrupt the Tory government's cuts, by supporting a widespread, coordinated, and sustained withdrawal of labour. Actually, since strikes are inevitably going to be provoked by these cuts, since they will indeed be the last line of resistance, our job ought to be to build support for the strikes, not undermine them in advance. We ought to be preparing people to understand why the strikes are necessary, and why they will ultimately be to the benefit of the vast majority of people in this country if they win. It is long past time to stop frightening people with, to speak figuratively, the festering cadaver of Margaret Thatcher.