proletarian.
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alanjjohnstone wrote:I suppose the difference for us is that the immediate reason , loss of job and income spurs the action , not the struggle for a new society. We are accused that our support for trade unions is for an organisation that has accommodated itself with capitalism, but wouldn't that be exactly the same with a workers occupied factory that was taken over simply to make it more "economic" within capitalism and save jobs. They'll do exactly as it did before…look for markets…look for cost-cuts.
I agree immediate reasons spur action. However, I think these actions can objectively become socialist during the struggle. As I said about economic struggle turning political. But it's only ever a potential. That doesn't mean I don't think the working class needs organisations though. We have to have workers like all of us here who try and learn lessons from history, theorise, discuss, involve ourselves in struggles etc to help in what little way we can. Eventually a much bigger world wide organisation would surely help and perhaps take on much bigger tasks?In the instance of an occupied factory or any workplace it wouldn't be with the idea of running it as before under capitalist "workers' control". I agree with you that the workplace would face the same pressures as before. My idea is more to encourage other workers' who face the same or similar problems to follow suit. To widen the struggle and potentially gain a better outcome. It breeds confidence and vital experience.
Quote:..So a workers council aspires to do more successfully what a corporate board of directors do, run a successful business. And if it fails, which i think 90% would from past evidence (but that is always arguable and i stand to be corrected) the political factor is the disillusionment may lead to the conclusoon that it is not capitalism at fault but workers are not capable of being in charge…we need the despotism of one man management which Lenin and Trotsky insisted upon for efficiency.I think you might be mixing up a factory or workplace committee with a workers' council? My idea isn't for workers' to run anything along capitalist lines. However, I agree struggles ending in defeat can lead to disillusionment. That's why it is necessary to fight against what perpetually holds back and kills off struggles. Like union bosses calling off strikes even when workers have voted for them.
Quote:As we said about nationalisation if it is done in the name of revolution and socialism , its failings are ascribed to the revoution and socialism.Completely agree. I am not in favour of nationalisation at all. If we are internationalists then we shouldn't have any interest in national boundaries unlike the Trotskyists.
Quote:So yes a bread and butter issue transforms into politics, how can it not? But the effect can be a negative politics as well as a positive one.I think that's something we have to accept and fight against.
Quote:I can't answer for the SPGB, but my present opinion is that the main transmission is 'from political to economic'. That is, propaganda and ideological struggle to develop our class consciousness, so that workers are Communist, is the 'starting point'. Of course, we'd all agree that once the process is up and running, the influences flow both ways to some extent, and that economic struggle can lead to 'lessons learned', but, really, your question is about the origin and main influence.It's my opinion, that the underlying philosophical assumptions behind these positions are:'economic to political': Engels and 'materialism', or 'positivist science'; and'political to economic': Marx and 'idealism-material', or 'theory and practice', or 'praxis'.I'd be very interested to hear opposing arguments to my schema. I don't think 'struggle' necessarily leads to 'consciousness', to put it another way.It probably won't surprise you
that in my opinion it's much more 'economic to political'. The political struggle naturally comes out of the economic. Just ask yourselves why workers' strike? It tends to be only political reasons during heightened struggle and even then it's usually after much economic struggle. Take a firm that is going to make workers' redundant and close down. They occupy the workplace primarily due to economic factors, loss of wages, no future work. It becomes political when they realise their trade union is not only not helping them spread the struggle but actively curtailing it by telling them to leave the factory and do a deal afterwards. The experience and reflection not only after the struggle but during is much more political than at the start. There is an argument of course a strike or occupation is a political act but what does that even mean?ALB wrote:Proletarian, your proposal to elect a single socialist MP as an experiment won't work as it assumes that socialist understanding would express itself in just one constituency whereas it is much more likely that when the movement for socialism takes off it will spread more or less evenly in different areas.So why then does the SPGB put up candidates in elections when there isn't "the movement for socialism"?
That's a very good question Vin. I commented on this aspect of the SPGB case on a Libcom thread.After listening to the first half an hour (Midlands Discussion Forum recording) I have concluded the only way to settle this debate is that various organisations and individuals join in common work to elect a socialist (as opposed to 'Old' Labour 'socialist') MP to test whether they would be corrupted with their true socialism and what effect they would or can have. As long as this whole question is not practiced in the modern day this question will just go in circles and pop up now and again for a very long time. Why not attempt to test the question in practice? The answer I fear would be that it would cost too much money, would be unsuccessful, take too much effort and resources away from everything else.
ALB wrote:The recording of this meeting is now on the internet here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NH97bFQPz7QWhat was a bit disappointing was that the advocates of "workers' councils" harked back to Russia in 1905 and 1917, which meant that the first part of the meeting was spent discussing this rather than the situation of workers today. In the second half they did emerge from their time warp a bit and recognise that, unlike in St Petersburg in those days, most workers today no longer work in huge factories and industrial complexes.I suspect you're right on the numbers world wide but it would be interesting to know how many workers work in a workplace over a certain number. If we look at the so-called developing world there are some of the biggest factories that have ever existed. There are more workers in one workplace in China for instance than there ever were in Russia. Also, I think you're a bit dismissive of historical experience. The SPGB certainly take their lessons from history why would not a discussion primarily about councils not look towards their histoical emergence in Russia.
