The IWW is hardly the first organization to attempt to take on the terrible conditions that rule today in the food and retail industry in North America. In the heyday of industrial unionism, restaurants were frequently organized as part of larger drives by unions to organize basic industry. In some places, like Detroit, workers wanted to organize and unions were so effective in organizing food and retail industries that large union federations had competing food and retail affiliates that routinely raided each others memberships. Imagining such a high level of union density in contemporary food and retail industries seems preposterous today. But even in the current moment of anti-worker legislation and dwindling union membership, other unions and left organizations have attempted to organize in this important sector of the service economy.
In late 2003, organizers with the Trotskyist political group Socialist Alternative initiated a campaign amongst Pizza Hut workers in western Washington state. Their organizing began at a franchise that initially had 61 stores. The record of their organizing, their approach and their analysis of the industry is contained on their website as a pamphlet “Manifesto of the Fast Food Worker.” Along with that text, the analysis below comes from a few articles posted on Socialist Alternative’s website relating to the drive and an interview with one of the authors of the “Manifesto”. The campaign collapsed after a vicious anti-union response from management but the organizer I spoke with suggests that the pamphlet represents the most complete picture of the drive. Reading the “Manifesto” and the various news pieces from the campaign’s “underground newspaper” shows a picture of a drive with many similarities with IWW organizing in the fast food industry and but also points towards some key differences.
An important feature of the “Manifesto” is a long section detailing the economic conditions which have brought the rise of fast food and its prevailing low-wage, no-benefits trend. This analysis discusses the ways in which fast food owners as a whole, Pizza Hut and even specifically the franchise where they campaign was undertaken, have structured work in a way that gives the in-shop employees and drivers few options. The authors also do an excellent job critiquing the way the industry has consistently lobbied for a lowering of the minimum wage and against any attempts to raise it. The “Manifesto” itself also raises important ideas about how surplus value is extracted from workers during the production process and explains it in easy language that applies directly to the food production and service industry. They also mention the importance of organizing all pizza shops so as to bring industrial strength to the campaign. As a piece of educational material, the “Manifesto” shows that the authors were deeply committed to connecting their struggle with an industrial outlook and a socialist analysis.
The authors also provide important ideas on how to organize at the workplace for interested workers. Some of their advice, like organizing a committee and staying low-key until the time is right to strike, is classic labor organizing advice and speaks of their ability to organize effectively. The pamphlet also touches directly on the question of labor law, encouraging workers to avoid the NLRB election process and instead to rely on voluntary recognition from the employer. This approach is interesting because it highlights the important weaknesses of the NLRB election approach. It does not explain how exactly one would achieve voluntary recognition, other than through sheer numbers, a situation which is much easier to imagine than create. The “Manifesto” also suggests that interested fast food workers should organize and then affiliate with a left-leaning union in their area, pointing to the ILWU in the case of workers in western Washington. The organizer told me that the campaign was initially organized with a union that claims jurisdiction over fast food workers but that organizers felt the ILWU would have served the drive more effectively.
The pamphlet’s organizing advice seems mostly useful, but it is interesting to see a lack of emphasis on direct action. The tone of the piece is quite militant and promotes a rank-and-file approach to organizing, yet the main focus seems to be on slow building and going public in a large way with overwhelming support and then immediately demanding recognition. Experience has shown many IWW organizers that direct action taken on the shopfloor before going public is an important way for union members to build their confidence and up their dedication to the organization, as well as bringing about concrete gains before publicly attempting to negotiate with the boss. By encouraging coworkers to walk through struggle before standing openly to the world as union members, our organizers have often found success in building workers’ experiences over time. The campaign organizer I spoke to mentioned that the campaign was not able to go public on its own terms, but was discovered by management after they got ahold of the underground news bulletin. In new articles associated with the campaign, a member mentions that the campaign only had support in 15 out of 61 franchise stores and the organizer I spoke with stated that there were only a handful of stores with lead organizers. While this is certainly no small number, it brings up questions of capacity and the need to build underground in a way that engages workers for as long as possible before going public on our own terms.
Fast food is an important sector of the food and retail industry as along with sweatshop production facilities it sets the lowest bar against which employers can measure conditions. As Wobblies working in food and retail, we should familiarize ourselves with other campaigns to organize workers in our industry and see what kind of approaches have been successful and where campaigns have fought hard but encountered roadblocks they have been unable to get past. If conditions will ever change in our economy, those of us who struggle at the bottom of the economy will have to be those who organize the most effectively.
Sources: http://www.socialistalternative.org/publications/fastfood/
http://socialistalternative.org/news/article22.php?id=299
http://www.socialistalternative.org/news/article14.php?id=1304
http://www.socialistalternative.org/news/article14.php?id=229
http://socialistalternative.org/news/article14.php?id=230
Author interview with T.W., organizer with Tacoma Socialist Alternative (1/27/12)
Showing posts with label class. Show all posts
Showing posts with label class. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Outside the House of Labor
I've been thinking recently about the way that the labor movement sees itself and talks about itself. Labor movement activists often talk about labor as a kind of community, a place where individuals can reach across differences and speak to each other based on a shared connection to their unions and unionism more generally. There are big, well-funded internal publications that the large unions produce which help move this discourse. But there are also independent voices which participate in this discourse. I can think of Labor Notes as an example that I'm most familiar with.
Labor Notes and magazines, blogs, or other publications like it have this particular way of speaking about the labor movement and the changes that it needs to implement that I've always had a lot of trouble connecting with. I like Labor Notes, I think its a useful piece that praises rank-and-file struggles and shows how the bosses and the business unions are strong and powerful but also have weaknesses. It's the kind of publication that shows that working people can have independent publications that highlight our stories of success and explain why and when we fail with a good analysis (usually).
But I've always had trouble connecting with the language that LN and similar publications use to talk about the labor movement. There's a positioning of "inside and against" that I've always been unable to connect with. The discourse often goes "we are the labor movement, we need to do better, we need to get better leadership and democratize our unions, we need to organize the unorganized." I like all the reclaiming of the labor movement narrative, that's a great step I think. Saying that "we," being rank-and-file workers, are the labor movement and that unions are not just the union leaders, is really important. But to me as an IWW organizer, I've never felt part of some community of labor.
I think this could be partially because we're a union so influenced by the left but I don't think that's all of it. I think its also because our shops don't have stable contracts that allow us to engage in fights against a bureaucratic leadership. Most of us don't have good union jobs and therefore some allegiance to the successes of the movement and a desire for it to change. We have crappy jobs that we are trying to organize because we need to and believe in a better life for ourselves on a very direct basis. We don't feel the pressures of the capitalists trying to use the unorganized to undermine our higher wages, because we work in the unorganized section of the class and spend all our time trying to organize it.
In short, and I'm not sure if I'm making much sense with this, I feel like there's a disconnect in how we as the IWW articulate our membership in the labor movement. Other unionists are able to engage in a critique of the labor movement by testifying to their presence as part of that movement and therefore their investment in it. I can't do that because I always feel like any time we're in the room with other labor unionists they treat us variously like idiots, children, or opponents to be watched behind crocodile smiles. It's far easier to identify with the left's critique of labor as something that's outside me then the union movement's critique from this perspective. And not because I agree with the left's positioning; I'm a labor organizer goddammit! It's just that through the state of my lived experience and that of my fellow organizers, we often do not have much in common with those unionists who seek to reform their unions and get a better contract. I just want some bread and roses and a revolution.
Labor Notes and magazines, blogs, or other publications like it have this particular way of speaking about the labor movement and the changes that it needs to implement that I've always had a lot of trouble connecting with. I like Labor Notes, I think its a useful piece that praises rank-and-file struggles and shows how the bosses and the business unions are strong and powerful but also have weaknesses. It's the kind of publication that shows that working people can have independent publications that highlight our stories of success and explain why and when we fail with a good analysis (usually).
But I've always had trouble connecting with the language that LN and similar publications use to talk about the labor movement. There's a positioning of "inside and against" that I've always been unable to connect with. The discourse often goes "we are the labor movement, we need to do better, we need to get better leadership and democratize our unions, we need to organize the unorganized." I like all the reclaiming of the labor movement narrative, that's a great step I think. Saying that "we," being rank-and-file workers, are the labor movement and that unions are not just the union leaders, is really important. But to me as an IWW organizer, I've never felt part of some community of labor.
I think this could be partially because we're a union so influenced by the left but I don't think that's all of it. I think its also because our shops don't have stable contracts that allow us to engage in fights against a bureaucratic leadership. Most of us don't have good union jobs and therefore some allegiance to the successes of the movement and a desire for it to change. We have crappy jobs that we are trying to organize because we need to and believe in a better life for ourselves on a very direct basis. We don't feel the pressures of the capitalists trying to use the unorganized to undermine our higher wages, because we work in the unorganized section of the class and spend all our time trying to organize it.
In short, and I'm not sure if I'm making much sense with this, I feel like there's a disconnect in how we as the IWW articulate our membership in the labor movement. Other unionists are able to engage in a critique of the labor movement by testifying to their presence as part of that movement and therefore their investment in it. I can't do that because I always feel like any time we're in the room with other labor unionists they treat us variously like idiots, children, or opponents to be watched behind crocodile smiles. It's far easier to identify with the left's critique of labor as something that's outside me then the union movement's critique from this perspective. And not because I agree with the left's positioning; I'm a labor organizer goddammit! It's just that through the state of my lived experience and that of my fellow organizers, we often do not have much in common with those unionists who seek to reform their unions and get a better contract. I just want some bread and roses and a revolution.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
The O Word
A Wordle of the last draft of my senior capstone. I'll repost it when I submit my final version next week. (This idea was stolen from ED who did the same with his dissertation.) Details will be posted about the talk I'm going to give based on my research as soon as I set it up.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Sidenote
A question for you all, loyal readers:
So I was surprised and angered that one of my favorite bands from when I was growing up has a new record that is complete crap and terrible and a host of other negative adjectives. This triggered a frenzied rush to drink enough beer to forget the garbage I'd just heard and listen to older records by the band to remember why I loved them so. This led me to listen to one of their songs that prompts this question:
What not-explicitly-political songs do you love that express great class politics? I think there's a lot of these, of varying levels of popularity and meaningfulness (if that's a word). I know a classic submission is the Stones sweet Street Fighting Man, but that song never really resonated strongly with me, I suspect because of its remote place to me in time.
My nomination is a song by the band in question, my now-no-longer-beloved Big D and the Kids' Table, a Boston third-wave ska group, with their track L.A.X. If you've never listened to it, and you don't totally hate ska (which I would understand, but I have a historic personal affinity for it) you should immediately check it out.
Any other suggestions?
So I was surprised and angered that one of my favorite bands from when I was growing up has a new record that is complete crap and terrible and a host of other negative adjectives. This triggered a frenzied rush to drink enough beer to forget the garbage I'd just heard and listen to older records by the band to remember why I loved them so. This led me to listen to one of their songs that prompts this question:
What not-explicitly-political songs do you love that express great class politics? I think there's a lot of these, of varying levels of popularity and meaningfulness (if that's a word). I know a classic submission is the Stones sweet Street Fighting Man, but that song never really resonated strongly with me, I suspect because of its remote place to me in time.
My nomination is a song by the band in question, my now-no-longer-beloved Big D and the Kids' Table, a Boston third-wave ska group, with their track L.A.X. If you've never listened to it, and you don't totally hate ska (which I would understand, but I have a historic personal affinity for it) you should immediately check it out.
Any other suggestions?
Monday, July 14, 2008
White Bicycles
Just finished Richard Kempton's really cool Provo: Amsterdam's Anarchist Revolt. Fascinating. I'd only heard about the Provo's in passing, mostly in Rosemont and Radcliffe's fucking sweet Dancin' In The Streets!: Anarchists, IWWs, Surrealists, Situationists & Provos In The 1960's. (Despite the title, the Provos are mentioned in only one short piece.)
Important observations about the role of creativity and joy in movements. I continue to read about these fantastic creative protests in the '60s, and I can't help but wonder where are their contemporaries today? The Provos and their allies threatened the power of the Dutch state while engaging in absurd antics. Today, absurdity is dismissed as being "out of touch". Instead, radicals seem to try to emulate the bourgeois "professionalism" of the politicians or fulfill media stereotypes of subcultural ghettos haunted by the déclassé.
Anyone have any ideas? Where is the socially conscious avante-garde? Where are the working class poets? 'Cause inspired as I am by the joyful resistance of the Provos and their contemporaries, I can't find their traces present in our movement these days.
Bonus point: In a true anarcho-fanboy moment, I emailed David Graeber a question today and I'm excited to hear back from him. I've gotta start realizing that our movement is too small for me to be nervous reaching out to people who've written good books.
Important observations about the role of creativity and joy in movements. I continue to read about these fantastic creative protests in the '60s, and I can't help but wonder where are their contemporaries today? The Provos and their allies threatened the power of the Dutch state while engaging in absurd antics. Today, absurdity is dismissed as being "out of touch". Instead, radicals seem to try to emulate the bourgeois "professionalism" of the politicians or fulfill media stereotypes of subcultural ghettos haunted by the déclassé.
Anyone have any ideas? Where is the socially conscious avante-garde? Where are the working class poets? 'Cause inspired as I am by the joyful resistance of the Provos and their contemporaries, I can't find their traces present in our movement these days.
Bonus point: In a true anarcho-fanboy moment, I emailed David Graeber a question today and I'm excited to hear back from him. I've gotta start realizing that our movement is too small for me to be nervous reaching out to people who've written good books.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Present, Future, and Past
1. The Marxist's answer to Bob Black: "May the ruling powers call us fools because we risk the break with their irrational compulsory system! We have nothing to lose but the prospect of a catastrophe that humanity is currently heading for with the executives of the prevailing order at the helm. We can win a world beyond labour...Workers of all countries, call it a day!"
-Gruppe Krisis, Manifesto Against Labour (From Letters Journal)
2. Only the cities can save us. Check out the Vertical Farm Project, and let's get sustainable!
3. I've been listening to David Harvey's lectures on Capital. I just finished the first one, and am about to move on. Just find something mindless to do while you listen. They're pretty fascinating, I think I'm learning a lot. I've always said that I'd read Capital if I could do it in a class (I missed an EXCO class doing just that, sadly) because it's just too thick for me to tackle alone. I've never been able to sit down and chew through big texts without someone helping me out. So thanks, David Harvey!
I finally finished my paper, so I no longer have any homework for the rest of the summer. Expect way more updates and analysis. I'm planning on checking out some recent journals this afternoon and breaking them down here.
-Gruppe Krisis, Manifesto Against Labour (From Letters Journal)
2. Only the cities can save us. Check out the Vertical Farm Project, and let's get sustainable!
3. I've been listening to David Harvey's lectures on Capital. I just finished the first one, and am about to move on. Just find something mindless to do while you listen. They're pretty fascinating, I think I'm learning a lot. I've always said that I'd read Capital if I could do it in a class (I missed an EXCO class doing just that, sadly) because it's just too thick for me to tackle alone. I've never been able to sit down and chew through big texts without someone helping me out. So thanks, David Harvey!
I finally finished my paper, so I no longer have any homework for the rest of the summer. Expect way more updates and analysis. I'm planning on checking out some recent journals this afternoon and breaking them down here.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Yuck
So I'm listening to a podcast from a member of the Workers World Party (our good friends who founded FIST) about the Chinese earthquake and the response to it.
It basically amounts to a confused love letter to the Chinese government. I don't know if you can sit through the whole 45 minutes (I didn't), because it's really horrible, but the speaker loves the Chinese response to the disaster (yay China!) but hates the fact that China has a lot of capitalists (boo China!) but points out that the private companies in China produce half of China's GDP, even though they employ way less than half the workers (yay capitalism!) But the Chinese revolution was a worker's revolution (yay China!)
Ugh. I can't stand these people. They are not only confused, but they are just not on our side.
It basically amounts to a confused love letter to the Chinese government. I don't know if you can sit through the whole 45 minutes (I didn't), because it's really horrible, but the speaker loves the Chinese response to the disaster (yay China!) but hates the fact that China has a lot of capitalists (boo China!) but points out that the private companies in China produce half of China's GDP, even though they employ way less than half the workers (yay capitalism!) But the Chinese revolution was a worker's revolution (yay China!)
Ugh. I can't stand these people. They are not only confused, but they are just not on our side.
Monday, June 16, 2008
The Day in Work (while avoiding work)
Round-up from my attempts to read magazines and escape from writing my research paper:
1. The Nation reports on the rise of militancy in the white-collar communications trades. Interesting article, particularly because it highlights the mobility of skilled temp workers. Precarity isn't only a condition for the educated bohemians or the unskilled marginals, but Republicans too!
All kidding aside, I'd like to know more about the organizing drives that WashTech, a CWA subsidiary, undertakes. Apparently they have a lot of at-large members. Which makes me wonder: what do these at-large members do? Are they ideological unionists in hostile workplaces, or perhaps activists salting in disparate areas? Or, more encouragingly, are they the mobile-yet-militant high-tech hobos that I dream about when I hear folks talking about "organizing the worker before the workplace," organic organizers from within the industry?
Either way, this whole sector should be something that Wobblies should think more seriously about trying to enter into. Obviously red-baiting would be more of a problem than with our organizing drives with immigrant and/or youth workers. But our ability to think outside of the NLRB box could give us a leg up with these deregularized workers.
2. Fascinating, but problematic, perspectives from the pseudo-Trot journal New Politics. The first, an article explaining Latin America's Third Left, a concept I like very much. While the article says nothing new, it helps make clear the fissures and relationships between this (our) Third Left and the other Lefts, particularly the old Communist Party-style organizations.
Embodying these dangerous liaisons, the article repeats the very disconcerting idea that the way forward for this Third Left is to try and manage the state apparatus. Odd, since the authors point out how the neoliberal state in Latin America makes control of the state less important than its ever been before. Manage it? Why not continue what they've been doing, trying to stay as far away from it as possible?
The second article, a really interesting interview with a leading dissident Chavista unionist breaks open a little more ground in the fertile territory that I've been calling "Chavismo sin Chávez." The scary labels show up again: the interviewee, Orlando Chirino, describes himself as a Trotskyist, he is struggling for reform within the party, etc. He kind of struck me at first like the leftists who suggest that we should jump on to Obama's train until it runs off the tracks, then pick up the pieces. The similarities to the two men are pretty striking: populist "outsiders" who mobilize in non-traditional political constituencies. But the clear difference is that Chávez is actually some weird kind of socialist, sort of a Eurocommunist actually, where Obama is obviously nowhere near that position.
I think that left-Chavismo (which unfortunately refers to a variety of tendencies, so I prefer my term) has a palpably better strategy than the left-Obamaites, because Chávez has already illustrated his inability to inspire an authentic revolutionary alternative to capitalism. (Not like this surprises my fellow anarchists in the crowd, of course.)
What's most interesting about this article is the strong language in which Chirino denounces Chávez: "But if this [expropriation] doesn't happen we will not be moving towards socialism, but only towards some kind of state capitalism with a developmentalist perspective." Between the lines, Chirino is basically calling el Presidente a counter-revolutionary. Again, nothing new for anarchists, but for Latin American leftists from within his own party to be engaging in this type of name-calling is an example of the gulf between official Chavismo and Chavista workers. While Chirino is ultimately a labor bureaucrat, albeit one with a good analysis, the people he represents may yet turn against the rising behemoth of the party's state capitalism.
3. This summer's issue of New Labor Forum has a bunch of cool-looking articles, which I will delve into (and maybe critique?) in the coming days.
4. Remembering a conversation with an FW, I had a brief conversation with a coworker and SDSer today about the role of coffeeshops in the reproduction and speed-up of labor. Particularly interesting was what my friend suggested about how corporate coffee, with its regular practices, is perfectly adapted for this speed-up process. I'm sure my brothers and sisters in the Sbux Union have spent a lot of time considering this during the morning rush. I can attest that at the coffeeshop in my hometown, independent and quaint as it was, regularity was increasingly stressed during the course of my year and a half there. We served mostly commuters to the Twin Cities from our bedroom community. Obviously, things move slower to rural areas, so this process of speeding-up no doubt occured earlier in other places.
But it gets me thinking about reproducing labor. What other services industries have changed as they become monopolized by corporate chains? Obviously, the whole price/wage issue, but I mean more qualitatively. How has the service industry adapted to serve the needs of an increasingly speed-up workforce? Fast food and restaurants stick out as a great example, but they're old-school. What industries are changing as we speak?
5. From the people who brought you Processed World, comes Nowtopia, which is a badass book I've been reading recently. It records the struggles of workers outside of work, creating non-capitalist means of communication. Obviously, it doesn't represent everyone (notably absent so far are anyone who is not a white person or white-collar worker) but it doesn't aim to. It highlights the resistances of a specific section of the population and places them in a really great analytic context. Also, it makes me wanna learn way more about permaculture, which sounds so awesome. I love gardens and hate capitalism, so it seems like a good combination. The book will be in the Macalester Infoshop in the fall, or is available now by contacting me, caretaker of the Infoshop-in-Exile in my basement.
1. The Nation reports on the rise of militancy in the white-collar communications trades. Interesting article, particularly because it highlights the mobility of skilled temp workers. Precarity isn't only a condition for the educated bohemians or the unskilled marginals, but Republicans too!
All kidding aside, I'd like to know more about the organizing drives that WashTech, a CWA subsidiary, undertakes. Apparently they have a lot of at-large members. Which makes me wonder: what do these at-large members do? Are they ideological unionists in hostile workplaces, or perhaps activists salting in disparate areas? Or, more encouragingly, are they the mobile-yet-militant high-tech hobos that I dream about when I hear folks talking about "organizing the worker before the workplace," organic organizers from within the industry?
Either way, this whole sector should be something that Wobblies should think more seriously about trying to enter into. Obviously red-baiting would be more of a problem than with our organizing drives with immigrant and/or youth workers. But our ability to think outside of the NLRB box could give us a leg up with these deregularized workers.
2. Fascinating, but problematic, perspectives from the pseudo-Trot journal New Politics. The first, an article explaining Latin America's Third Left, a concept I like very much. While the article says nothing new, it helps make clear the fissures and relationships between this (our) Third Left and the other Lefts, particularly the old Communist Party-style organizations.
Embodying these dangerous liaisons, the article repeats the very disconcerting idea that the way forward for this Third Left is to try and manage the state apparatus. Odd, since the authors point out how the neoliberal state in Latin America makes control of the state less important than its ever been before. Manage it? Why not continue what they've been doing, trying to stay as far away from it as possible?
The second article, a really interesting interview with a leading dissident Chavista unionist breaks open a little more ground in the fertile territory that I've been calling "Chavismo sin Chávez." The scary labels show up again: the interviewee, Orlando Chirino, describes himself as a Trotskyist, he is struggling for reform within the party, etc. He kind of struck me at first like the leftists who suggest that we should jump on to Obama's train until it runs off the tracks, then pick up the pieces. The similarities to the two men are pretty striking: populist "outsiders" who mobilize in non-traditional political constituencies. But the clear difference is that Chávez is actually some weird kind of socialist, sort of a Eurocommunist actually, where Obama is obviously nowhere near that position.
I think that left-Chavismo (which unfortunately refers to a variety of tendencies, so I prefer my term) has a palpably better strategy than the left-Obamaites, because Chávez has already illustrated his inability to inspire an authentic revolutionary alternative to capitalism. (Not like this surprises my fellow anarchists in the crowd, of course.)
What's most interesting about this article is the strong language in which Chirino denounces Chávez: "But if this [expropriation] doesn't happen we will not be moving towards socialism, but only towards some kind of state capitalism with a developmentalist perspective." Between the lines, Chirino is basically calling el Presidente a counter-revolutionary. Again, nothing new for anarchists, but for Latin American leftists from within his own party to be engaging in this type of name-calling is an example of the gulf between official Chavismo and Chavista workers. While Chirino is ultimately a labor bureaucrat, albeit one with a good analysis, the people he represents may yet turn against the rising behemoth of the party's state capitalism.
3. This summer's issue of New Labor Forum has a bunch of cool-looking articles, which I will delve into (and maybe critique?) in the coming days.
4. Remembering a conversation with an FW, I had a brief conversation with a coworker and SDSer today about the role of coffeeshops in the reproduction and speed-up of labor. Particularly interesting was what my friend suggested about how corporate coffee, with its regular practices, is perfectly adapted for this speed-up process. I'm sure my brothers and sisters in the Sbux Union have spent a lot of time considering this during the morning rush. I can attest that at the coffeeshop in my hometown, independent and quaint as it was, regularity was increasingly stressed during the course of my year and a half there. We served mostly commuters to the Twin Cities from our bedroom community. Obviously, things move slower to rural areas, so this process of speeding-up no doubt occured earlier in other places.
But it gets me thinking about reproducing labor. What other services industries have changed as they become monopolized by corporate chains? Obviously, the whole price/wage issue, but I mean more qualitatively. How has the service industry adapted to serve the needs of an increasingly speed-up workforce? Fast food and restaurants stick out as a great example, but they're old-school. What industries are changing as we speak?
5. From the people who brought you Processed World, comes Nowtopia, which is a badass book I've been reading recently. It records the struggles of workers outside of work, creating non-capitalist means of communication. Obviously, it doesn't represent everyone (notably absent so far are anyone who is not a white person or white-collar worker) but it doesn't aim to. It highlights the resistances of a specific section of the population and places them in a really great analytic context. Also, it makes me wanna learn way more about permaculture, which sounds so awesome. I love gardens and hate capitalism, so it seems like a good combination. The book will be in the Macalester Infoshop in the fall, or is available now by contacting me, caretaker of the Infoshop-in-Exile in my basement.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Last on my List
Okay, last post before I dig in for finals. A round-up of things I am considering:
1. Congratulations to the newest bourgeois revolution in the world: Nepal! Thanks to the Maoists, Nepal can finally move beyond the backwards monarchy and into industrial capitalism.
Oh I'm sorry, what did you say? "Communism"? No, we wouldn't want that. The Maoists have encourage foreign investment and want to work with the other bourgeois politicians. It's like that great prole.info pamphlet said: the best way for a third-world country to reach capitalism is to have a Communist Party takeover.
2. Props to CrimethInc on the clever detournment of Elle magazine's article about Anna, the FBI snitch. Great work, ya'll. Now, with all your clever graphic design knowledge and seemingly bottomless budget, could you go out and, ya know, get better politics?
3. Must. Use. College. Funds. To. Buy.
4. "We refute the reality of a communist movement because we require a purer form of communism, and that in itself seeks to retrieve the idea of such a movement but now preserved from its more obvious and embarrassing absurdities. Nothing of what we have achieved is as negative as the behavior and opinions of those who say yes to the world we live in, those who accept it without question and shove as much of it as they can down their gob without a thought about it – that's true nihilism. And we are very pale imitators by contrast."
-"FD", considering an article from '39 by a long-lost council communist. His original piece. I can't decide if this new "nihilist communism" thing is the cynical other side of the autonomist's coin or just masturbation. Either way, it's enjoyable.
Discovered through this awesome journal, Letters, that I hope comes out with a second issue soon.
Alright, that's the short list for right now. See you when the struggle gets hot. Err, or when I finish all my papers.
1. Congratulations to the newest bourgeois revolution in the world: Nepal! Thanks to the Maoists, Nepal can finally move beyond the backwards monarchy and into industrial capitalism.
Oh I'm sorry, what did you say? "Communism"? No, we wouldn't want that. The Maoists have encourage foreign investment and want to work with the other bourgeois politicians. It's like that great prole.info pamphlet said: the best way for a third-world country to reach capitalism is to have a Communist Party takeover.
2. Props to CrimethInc on the clever detournment of Elle magazine's article about Anna, the FBI snitch. Great work, ya'll. Now, with all your clever graphic design knowledge and seemingly bottomless budget, could you go out and, ya know, get better politics?
3. Must. Use. College. Funds. To. Buy.
4. "We refute the reality of a communist movement because we require a purer form of communism, and that in itself seeks to retrieve the idea of such a movement but now preserved from its more obvious and embarrassing absurdities. Nothing of what we have achieved is as negative as the behavior and opinions of those who say yes to the world we live in, those who accept it without question and shove as much of it as they can down their gob without a thought about it – that's true nihilism. And we are very pale imitators by contrast."
-"FD", considering an article from '39 by a long-lost council communist. His original piece. I can't decide if this new "nihilist communism" thing is the cynical other side of the autonomist's coin or just masturbation. Either way, it's enjoyable.
Discovered through this awesome journal, Letters, that I hope comes out with a second issue soon.
Alright, that's the short list for right now. See you when the struggle gets hot. Err, or when I finish all my papers.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Welcome to the Terrordome
Via Al Jazeera:
"Food riots have erupted in Haiti, Egypt, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Madagascar, the Philippines and Haiti in the past month. In Pakistan and Thailand, army troops have been deployed to avoid food being seized from fields and warehouses"
Wake up, First World, the global South is knocking at the door. And it's got a bone to pick with you.
"Food riots have erupted in Haiti, Egypt, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Madagascar, the Philippines and Haiti in the past month. In Pakistan and Thailand, army troops have been deployed to avoid food being seized from fields and warehouses"
Wake up, First World, the global South is knocking at the door. And it's got a bone to pick with you.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Reproletarianization and Consciousness
I was reading a collection of documents from the Love and Rage Federation the other day and came across a brilliant theory piece discussing the role of white youth in revolutionary struggle. It pointed out that white working class youth are "reproles," insofar as they are they children of a generation of workers that sold out to the capitalist state. Today, the white working class has been thrust back into the working world, the promises of their alliance with the capitalist class turned sour. (This isn't to argue against a white privilege analysis of racism, which is one I stand by. White privilege is still a powerful system, but the welfare state and its attendant ideologies have failed the white working class's attempt to escape from capitalist oppression. This also isn't to diminish the continuing struggles of white working class people who were never allowed into the "middle class." They never escaped and continue to fight capitalist exploitation.)
This concept of reproletarianization really grabbed me. It describes so perfectly what I have seen in my own life and in the lives of my friends and age cohort out of high school. Many of my close friends and classmates have become reproles. Their parents were raised to aspire to middle class ambitions and raised them to do the same, but the changing economy has not allowed them to take the same routes. This isn't to ignore the agency involved in these decisions. Many folks I know have left college, the traditional path to skilled worker positions, because they couldn't stand it any more. (This is something worthy of way more analysis, perhaps by someone with a stronger psychoanalytic knowledge than myself.)
My interest is how these reproles have proven so difficult to organize with. While I help out in the IWW, my role as a student means that I only have so much energy to spend on that project. But I have taken my training as a Wob and applied it. I routinely offer workplace advice to my friends and high school classmates. Nearly everyone I know gets screwed at work, inevitably in the service industry. (My friends in direct production roles, like in factories, actually seem to do better. I have no substantial proof of why, but my gut tells me that this is the remnant memories of class resistance by the old labor movement.) They don't get paid the right amount, no overtime/too much overtime, they have shitty bosses, etc. These complaints are nothing new to any young person working.
But my comments and suggestions go completely ignored by my friends and classmates. It's not that they don't have problems with the work, or that they're Mr. Block either. They hate their bosses, they know what they want changed, and I've helped them understand how easily they can bring about that change. The problem, I think, is consciousness and despair.
The reproles of my generation have no concept of class struggle or class consciousness. Thrust back into the working class, they have no models or history of struggle to look to and get inspired by. The white reproletarianized youth of today is divided by the historical barrier of race from workers of color, from whose history there is a lot to be inspired by. They seem to have no concept of what it means to be "working class," but also have not completely bought into the bootstrap myth. They remain ambivalent towards the welfare system, progressive on social issues, but confused about their historical role as workers. In fact, I think that one of the first bridges that I have to cross with these reproles is getting them to accept the word "worker" as a descriptor for their work.
I think that these reproles will play an important role in class struggle in the United States, particularly as the country's economic future becomes more and more clouded by China and the European Union. I accept Martin Glaberman's suggestion that action proceeds consciousness, so my concern is not in radicalizing these folks via ideology. Rather, I think what the revolutionary movement can do for these reproles is to continue the work started by the Autonomists for the Italian working class in the seventies: we must explore and valorize the kinds of resistances that these workers are already participating in. We must show these workers that their actions are already representative of class struggle, and that the next step must be to organize these individual actions that refuse work into collective refusal and creation of alternatives.
How we go about doing this is a big question, but I see it as one that I need to struggle with. I think my job as an anarchist revolutionary in the next few years is going to be focused on reproles and the process of action and radicalization amongst them. We'll see where that goes.
This concept of reproletarianization really grabbed me. It describes so perfectly what I have seen in my own life and in the lives of my friends and age cohort out of high school. Many of my close friends and classmates have become reproles. Their parents were raised to aspire to middle class ambitions and raised them to do the same, but the changing economy has not allowed them to take the same routes. This isn't to ignore the agency involved in these decisions. Many folks I know have left college, the traditional path to skilled worker positions, because they couldn't stand it any more. (This is something worthy of way more analysis, perhaps by someone with a stronger psychoanalytic knowledge than myself.)
My interest is how these reproles have proven so difficult to organize with. While I help out in the IWW, my role as a student means that I only have so much energy to spend on that project. But I have taken my training as a Wob and applied it. I routinely offer workplace advice to my friends and high school classmates. Nearly everyone I know gets screwed at work, inevitably in the service industry. (My friends in direct production roles, like in factories, actually seem to do better. I have no substantial proof of why, but my gut tells me that this is the remnant memories of class resistance by the old labor movement.) They don't get paid the right amount, no overtime/too much overtime, they have shitty bosses, etc. These complaints are nothing new to any young person working.
But my comments and suggestions go completely ignored by my friends and classmates. It's not that they don't have problems with the work, or that they're Mr. Block either. They hate their bosses, they know what they want changed, and I've helped them understand how easily they can bring about that change. The problem, I think, is consciousness and despair.
The reproles of my generation have no concept of class struggle or class consciousness. Thrust back into the working class, they have no models or history of struggle to look to and get inspired by. The white reproletarianized youth of today is divided by the historical barrier of race from workers of color, from whose history there is a lot to be inspired by. They seem to have no concept of what it means to be "working class," but also have not completely bought into the bootstrap myth. They remain ambivalent towards the welfare system, progressive on social issues, but confused about their historical role as workers. In fact, I think that one of the first bridges that I have to cross with these reproles is getting them to accept the word "worker" as a descriptor for their work.
I think that these reproles will play an important role in class struggle in the United States, particularly as the country's economic future becomes more and more clouded by China and the European Union. I accept Martin Glaberman's suggestion that action proceeds consciousness, so my concern is not in radicalizing these folks via ideology. Rather, I think what the revolutionary movement can do for these reproles is to continue the work started by the Autonomists for the Italian working class in the seventies: we must explore and valorize the kinds of resistances that these workers are already participating in. We must show these workers that their actions are already representative of class struggle, and that the next step must be to organize these individual actions that refuse work into collective refusal and creation of alternatives.
How we go about doing this is a big question, but I see it as one that I need to struggle with. I think my job as an anarchist revolutionary in the next few years is going to be focused on reproles and the process of action and radicalization amongst them. We'll see where that goes.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Uprisings in Lhasa
So things are getting pretty hot in Tibet. The situation there merits a moment of analysis, I think.
First: China is the perfect embodiment of authoritarian capitalism. I say this first to dissuade any confused "anti-imperialists" who think that everything that challenges the United States is somehow progressive. Nothing of the sort. China has flipped communism on its head, and is paying the consequences. An impoverished and swelling working class is beginning to put its feet down. The situation is nothing if not reminiscent of the U.S. in the late 19th/early twentieth centuries. An active but entirely unorganized working class which is trying to establish forms to resist capitalist exploitation. China is the most important country in the next decade, and not because it's economy is "booming" but because its class struggle is.
Second: The Dalai Lama should be the first one against the wall. For all his equivocation and pacifist language, he is a rank opportunist and theocrat. Much as I am loathe to give them their due, the Maoists and their lackeys have pointed out what a scumbag he is and how horrible feudal Tibet was for the underclasses. Michael Parenti's oft-cited essay is of use here. A choice quote:
"Keep in mind that it took a Chinese occupation and almost forty years of exile for him to propose democracy for Tibet and to criticize the oppressive feudal autocracy of which he himself was the apotheosis. But his criticism of the old order comes far too late for ordinary Tibetans. Many of them want him back in their country, but it appears that relatively few want a return to the social order he represented."
The Dalai Lama is anti-choice and anti-gay. He's not even pro-independence. His leadership would be a giant step backwards for Tibet. He is enormously popular in the West because his pacifist style makes liberals feel at ease and also as if they're doing something while they're not. If Tibet does somehow break off or achieve a measure of autonomy, the former serfs will not likely welcome back the feudal theocracy that he represents.
Taking this two as premises, we can see that neither the CCP nor the Dalai Lama has the interests of working people in Tibet in mind. And what's more, they know it. We must examine these recent disturbances as moments of class struggle. The struggle in Tibet is not being led by the "Dalai clique" as Beijing would have us believe. In fact, the pacifist-king-in-exile has threatened to resign if violence continues. Hardly the words of someone supporting the conflict on the streets of Lhasa! But the Lama is not supporting the actions: they challenge his role as legitimate leader, because they are autonomous and decentralized.
The ethnic Han in Tibet can be seen as analogous to the Protestants in Northern Ireland. Ethnic Tibetans acting against the Chinese government occasionally (and incredibly regrettably) spills over to ordinary Hans because they are part of that occupation, even if they are not the ones doing the actual crimes.
Of course, the Western media is doing its best to downplay the revolutionary energy of this authentic anti-imperialist struggle. The rioters are portrayed as hooligans that are "over-reacting" and not following the proscribed path toward liberal democracy. We've got to be careful that we don't fall into cheer-leading for either the U.S.-backed Lama or the CCP. Neither are progressive and neither are revolutionary. The working class in Tibet is testing out the waters and we must watch and critically support their actions.
First: China is the perfect embodiment of authoritarian capitalism. I say this first to dissuade any confused "anti-imperialists" who think that everything that challenges the United States is somehow progressive. Nothing of the sort. China has flipped communism on its head, and is paying the consequences. An impoverished and swelling working class is beginning to put its feet down. The situation is nothing if not reminiscent of the U.S. in the late 19th/early twentieth centuries. An active but entirely unorganized working class which is trying to establish forms to resist capitalist exploitation. China is the most important country in the next decade, and not because it's economy is "booming" but because its class struggle is.
Second: The Dalai Lama should be the first one against the wall. For all his equivocation and pacifist language, he is a rank opportunist and theocrat. Much as I am loathe to give them their due, the Maoists and their lackeys have pointed out what a scumbag he is and how horrible feudal Tibet was for the underclasses. Michael Parenti's oft-cited essay is of use here. A choice quote:
"Keep in mind that it took a Chinese occupation and almost forty years of exile for him to propose democracy for Tibet and to criticize the oppressive feudal autocracy of which he himself was the apotheosis. But his criticism of the old order comes far too late for ordinary Tibetans. Many of them want him back in their country, but it appears that relatively few want a return to the social order he represented."
The Dalai Lama is anti-choice and anti-gay. He's not even pro-independence. His leadership would be a giant step backwards for Tibet. He is enormously popular in the West because his pacifist style makes liberals feel at ease and also as if they're doing something while they're not. If Tibet does somehow break off or achieve a measure of autonomy, the former serfs will not likely welcome back the feudal theocracy that he represents.
Taking this two as premises, we can see that neither the CCP nor the Dalai Lama has the interests of working people in Tibet in mind. And what's more, they know it. We must examine these recent disturbances as moments of class struggle. The struggle in Tibet is not being led by the "Dalai clique" as Beijing would have us believe. In fact, the pacifist-king-in-exile has threatened to resign if violence continues. Hardly the words of someone supporting the conflict on the streets of Lhasa! But the Lama is not supporting the actions: they challenge his role as legitimate leader, because they are autonomous and decentralized.
The ethnic Han in Tibet can be seen as analogous to the Protestants in Northern Ireland. Ethnic Tibetans acting against the Chinese government occasionally (and incredibly regrettably) spills over to ordinary Hans because they are part of that occupation, even if they are not the ones doing the actual crimes.
Of course, the Western media is doing its best to downplay the revolutionary energy of this authentic anti-imperialist struggle. The rioters are portrayed as hooligans that are "over-reacting" and not following the proscribed path toward liberal democracy. We've got to be careful that we don't fall into cheer-leading for either the U.S.-backed Lama or the CCP. Neither are progressive and neither are revolutionary. The working class in Tibet is testing out the waters and we must watch and critically support their actions.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Withdrawalist Strategies
I've only been involved in the anarchist movement formally for about a year and a half now. Before I was in a rural area and had no other contacts.
But in my short time, I've become interested in what I see as the two "tensions" of anarchist praxis, which I brought up in the insurrectionary vs syndicalist/platformist thread, of "economic action" and "political action" line. I don't think they are mutually exclusive, of course, but they do reflect theoretical underpinnings.
In examining the "economic action" line, which I find more engaging and powerful, I've spent a lot of time hanging out with the Marxists. Unfortunately, modern anarchist theory just isn't developed with solid critiques of the economy (with the exception of the market anarchists, who have an advanced, if silly and incorrect one). Here some of the work of the extreme left-wing of the communist movement, particularly the Johnson-Forest Tendency in the U.S. (particularly Martin Glaberman) and the Autonomia movement in Italy have proved remarkably useful. But while their critique is powerful, they mostly analyzed capitalist society and class composition in their epoch. What they didn't do was spent a lot of time strategizing on where to go forward.
In searching for an anarchist strategy that privileges economic action, I've come to see an important line emerging. The two authors who present some of the most compelling critiques are the anarchist anthropologist David Graeber and cranky working class intellectual James Herod. Herod's May 2007 book Getting Free takes some of the perspectives offered by Graeber (though he cities one of Graeber's lesser-known pieces instead of his hugely important Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, so it could be a coincidence) on how egalitarian societies have traditionally dealt with authority and turns them into specific suggestions for how to build an anarchist society.
Both of these thinkers' ideas boil down to what I'm calling "withdrawalism." In a few words, withdrawalism picks up on the Autonomist Marxists' notion of the "refusal of work" as a way to combat capitalism and applies it to all of social life. To me, this represents a qualitative advance on the Autonomists' position, which privileged economic struggles by marginal workers and ignored other parts of social life (at least in my limited reading of their works.) Herod calls this process "gutting capitalism," which I think is an apt description.
In the post-industrial societies of the West, anarchist strategy, I argue, cannot be constructed along traditional lines. Unions, and syndicalism broadly, have failed us. (The contradiction of being a dues-paying member of the IWW is not lost on me.) The "summit-hoping" of the white anarchist ghetto is not "breaking the spell," but rather reinscribing racist and classist dynamics and giving the primitivist and post-leftists a platform from which to speak for all anarchists.
To me, withdrawal from capitalist society reflects the newest and most important version of the historical slogan of "the new world inside the old". Organized communities of resistance, which organize along class lines in urban communities, could provide a new way forward for anarchist strategy.
(x-posted from RevLeft)
But in my short time, I've become interested in what I see as the two "tensions" of anarchist praxis, which I brought up in the insurrectionary vs syndicalist/platformist thread, of "economic action" and "political action" line. I don't think they are mutually exclusive, of course, but they do reflect theoretical underpinnings.
In examining the "economic action" line, which I find more engaging and powerful, I've spent a lot of time hanging out with the Marxists. Unfortunately, modern anarchist theory just isn't developed with solid critiques of the economy (with the exception of the market anarchists, who have an advanced, if silly and incorrect one). Here some of the work of the extreme left-wing of the communist movement, particularly the Johnson-Forest Tendency in the U.S. (particularly Martin Glaberman) and the Autonomia movement in Italy have proved remarkably useful. But while their critique is powerful, they mostly analyzed capitalist society and class composition in their epoch. What they didn't do was spent a lot of time strategizing on where to go forward.
In searching for an anarchist strategy that privileges economic action, I've come to see an important line emerging. The two authors who present some of the most compelling critiques are the anarchist anthropologist David Graeber and cranky working class intellectual James Herod. Herod's May 2007 book Getting Free takes some of the perspectives offered by Graeber (though he cities one of Graeber's lesser-known pieces instead of his hugely important Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, so it could be a coincidence) on how egalitarian societies have traditionally dealt with authority and turns them into specific suggestions for how to build an anarchist society.
Both of these thinkers' ideas boil down to what I'm calling "withdrawalism." In a few words, withdrawalism picks up on the Autonomist Marxists' notion of the "refusal of work" as a way to combat capitalism and applies it to all of social life. To me, this represents a qualitative advance on the Autonomists' position, which privileged economic struggles by marginal workers and ignored other parts of social life (at least in my limited reading of their works.) Herod calls this process "gutting capitalism," which I think is an apt description.
In the post-industrial societies of the West, anarchist strategy, I argue, cannot be constructed along traditional lines. Unions, and syndicalism broadly, have failed us. (The contradiction of being a dues-paying member of the IWW is not lost on me.) The "summit-hoping" of the white anarchist ghetto is not "breaking the spell," but rather reinscribing racist and classist dynamics and giving the primitivist and post-leftists a platform from which to speak for all anarchists.
To me, withdrawal from capitalist society reflects the newest and most important version of the historical slogan of "the new world inside the old". Organized communities of resistance, which organize along class lines in urban communities, could provide a new way forward for anarchist strategy.
(x-posted from RevLeft)
Monday, December 3, 2007
History
I love seeing this title on the IWW webpage:
"Industrial Worker - Issue #1701, November 2007"
And yet they remain the most relevant working class organization in the States.
"Industrial Worker - Issue #1701, November 2007"
And yet they remain the most relevant working class organization in the States.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
On class reductionism
I don't have any cohesive thoughts on this subject, but its something which has been playing on mind a lot after some discussion with a female comrade.
One of the irritating habits of the more Marxist-inclined anarchists (a group of which I am a member) is the ability to reduce all problems to problems of class. Clearly, this approach is outdated as other reductionist approaches, like petite-bourgeois anarchism (the State is the bad guy!) or jingoist workerism (the Foreigners are the bad guy!)
Noticing the development of the capitalist system, Marxist critics have far outweighed their anarchist comrades in their consideration of the system as scientific. The work of Negri, Tronti, and the autonomists has been particularly enlightening. But this is not enough.
Other thinkers, some of them Marxist, some of them not, have noticed that the oppressions present in capitalist society exist in non-capitalist society. The kneejerk reaction, that capitalism has imperialized its prejudices and internal contradictions, is simply not true. Non-capitalist societies are not paradises, they too have their problems (with gender in particular). Anthropology has been particularly helpful my understanding of the universalism of oppression.
So class reductionism is not enough. Clearly, as the autonomists have pointed out, the traditional role of women in capitalist society has functioned to reproduce labor. Likewise, as the Johnson-Forrest Tendency folks and their successors have indicated, the working class of color is the most revolutionary class in America. But these problems do not simply disappear when capitalism ends.
To build an authentically anti-capitalist movement of the working class, we cannot simply eschew personal and social racism, sexism, and heteronormativity as "liberal identity politics". To do so not only further oppresses already oppressed people, but discourages the development of people as people. If we seek to build an anarchist future, we must model the social relations we seek to create in our communities.
Nor can we fall into the trap of the liberals, who focus solely on personal and social oppression. But that is not my concern with class reductionists. They already know this part, but can't understand that the movement for workers' liberation must be lead by oppressed peoples, as they have the most to gain. Simply waiting for the OBU to organize them, or events to radicalize them, denies agency and is also poor strategy.
One of the irritating habits of the more Marxist-inclined anarchists (a group of which I am a member) is the ability to reduce all problems to problems of class. Clearly, this approach is outdated as other reductionist approaches, like petite-bourgeois anarchism (the State is the bad guy!) or jingoist workerism (the Foreigners are the bad guy!)
Noticing the development of the capitalist system, Marxist critics have far outweighed their anarchist comrades in their consideration of the system as scientific. The work of Negri, Tronti, and the autonomists has been particularly enlightening. But this is not enough.
Other thinkers, some of them Marxist, some of them not, have noticed that the oppressions present in capitalist society exist in non-capitalist society. The kneejerk reaction, that capitalism has imperialized its prejudices and internal contradictions, is simply not true. Non-capitalist societies are not paradises, they too have their problems (with gender in particular). Anthropology has been particularly helpful my understanding of the universalism of oppression.
So class reductionism is not enough. Clearly, as the autonomists have pointed out, the traditional role of women in capitalist society has functioned to reproduce labor. Likewise, as the Johnson-Forrest Tendency folks and their successors have indicated, the working class of color is the most revolutionary class in America. But these problems do not simply disappear when capitalism ends.
To build an authentically anti-capitalist movement of the working class, we cannot simply eschew personal and social racism, sexism, and heteronormativity as "liberal identity politics". To do so not only further oppresses already oppressed people, but discourages the development of people as people. If we seek to build an anarchist future, we must model the social relations we seek to create in our communities.
Nor can we fall into the trap of the liberals, who focus solely on personal and social oppression. But that is not my concern with class reductionists. They already know this part, but can't understand that the movement for workers' liberation must be lead by oppressed peoples, as they have the most to gain. Simply waiting for the OBU to organize them, or events to radicalize them, denies agency and is also poor strategy.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Fives sketches and five theses
This will hopefully be in a forthcoming zine:
“The student struggle has now been left behind…The outcome of the present crisis is in the hands of the workers themselves, if they succeed in accomplishing in their factory occupations the goals that the university occupation was only able to hint at..”
- COUNCIL FOR MAINTAINING THE OCCUPATIONS
Wind howls and echoes eerily through the empty shell of the new athletic facility, half built. The whole south side of campus is always singing this screechy, unearthly tune. It is the first snow of the year, just a couple of days after Halloween. My bike is cold to the touch, my gloves are busted through and don’t help much. I swear that I can see my breath in front of me. The
******
******
******
Thesis 5: Alienation from school is related, but not identical to, alienation from work. Whereas worker alienation stems from the extraction of surplus and the commodification of all activities in capitalism, student alienation stems from the production of valueless commodities and the disconnect between presumed class identity and reality, past and future.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
On Organization
Organizing is the most efficient way of creating a world. Simply waiting for a moment of insurrection is insufficient strategically.
Creating highly organized programs and campaigns empowers people, it does not take away their power. Organized does not mean the same as proscribed. It means a plan of action, accountable to the participants (subjects) and the society on which it acts (objects).
Anarchists need to stop fearing organization. The only way to end capitalism is to confront it with a front of heterogenous elements which can work together in this task. Anarchy, as noted so long ago, is order.
I do not believe that anarchism is a project that a small number of people can carry out. A small number of people can carry out anarchism in a small place, in a small time. These fights are beautiful and I respect them utterly. But Rome wasn't built in a day and it won't be torn by an affinity group.
We simply cannot turn anarchism into a "small-a" idea, where our tactics pervade other groups (consensus, for example) but we lack our own organizations. Likewise, we cannot abandon the masses, as some of our contemporaries would suggest that we do. The working class, in its most complex understanding, a multifaceted group of people that includes people at the point of production, excluded from production, and those who reproduce the ability to produce, are still the most revolutionary class of people in the spectacular economy.
I write these things because they seem so logical and obvious that they need not be said. Yet anarchists still think that we can turn inwards to our own comrades, remove organizing others as a priority, and engage in political work without organization. These suggestions may be pleasing on a theoretical level, but they are pragmatically unimplementable. We may practice them, but we do so at the risk of accomplishing our goals. While I remain cognizant of the exhortation that one cannot fight alienation with alienated means, I recognize that there are unalienated means of organization. If not, then what is the point of organizing to change society in the first place?
Creating highly organized programs and campaigns empowers people, it does not take away their power. Organized does not mean the same as proscribed. It means a plan of action, accountable to the participants (subjects) and the society on which it acts (objects).
Anarchists need to stop fearing organization. The only way to end capitalism is to confront it with a front of heterogenous elements which can work together in this task. Anarchy, as noted so long ago, is order.
I do not believe that anarchism is a project that a small number of people can carry out. A small number of people can carry out anarchism in a small place, in a small time. These fights are beautiful and I respect them utterly. But Rome wasn't built in a day and it won't be torn by an affinity group.
We simply cannot turn anarchism into a "small-a" idea, where our tactics pervade other groups (consensus, for example) but we lack our own organizations. Likewise, we cannot abandon the masses, as some of our contemporaries would suggest that we do. The working class, in its most complex understanding, a multifaceted group of people that includes people at the point of production, excluded from production, and those who reproduce the ability to produce, are still the most revolutionary class of people in the spectacular economy.
I write these things because they seem so logical and obvious that they need not be said. Yet anarchists still think that we can turn inwards to our own comrades, remove organizing others as a priority, and engage in political work without organization. These suggestions may be pleasing on a theoretical level, but they are pragmatically unimplementable. We may practice them, but we do so at the risk of accomplishing our goals. While I remain cognizant of the exhortation that one cannot fight alienation with alienated means, I recognize that there are unalienated means of organization. If not, then what is the point of organizing to change society in the first place?
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
From the mouths of babes (or rather, LibCom)
"I mean, look at CrimethInc. They're essentially a bunch of badly dressed drop-outs with shit politics, but have a very high profile because they print sexy looking books and use loads of romantic sub-situationist beatnik imagery. Class struggle politics aren't as "boring as fuck" but a lot of class struggle media and publicity is. "
-John Stevens, LibCom.org Collective
-John Stevens, LibCom.org Collective
Monday, September 10, 2007
On the line
Okay, so here I am again. I long ago decided that blogs were too indulgent and were part of our culture of individualist consumerism (as opposed to individualist creativity). But I've reconciled my concerns with my need to a. write and develop my rhetorical skills and b. not use Facebook for this. So I hope to make sure I only tell stories and write analysis. I refuse to give up my personality to a machine. With that in mind, on to my experiences:
I was raised in a family that was sympathetic to labor. My folks are middle class workers. I should qualify that statement by suggesting that we're "middle class but if my dad got sick we'd be out on the street" as opposed to "middle class being a polite way of saying rich". There is a tremendous difference between those two positions, one which is not expressed in the term "middle class".
But they'd never felt that they wanted to improve their working conditions. Today I participated in my first picket and it was quite an experience. Standing on the line at the University of Minnesota, blocking trucks from delivering while AFSCME workers are out was pretty enlightening and empowering. I was at the lines with few deliveries so I didn't get into the real confrontational stuff that happened at other docks. But no deliveries passed our blockade. What's more is that the drivers who I talked to understood what we were doing and voluntarily turned around. The paper delivery guy who could have just walked by us decided he would rather turn around.
There's something powerful about meeting other people in a setting where you are not supposed to be doing something. Whether it is a protest against the war or a picket fighting the monster of global capitalism, there's a devious feeling that you're doing something sneaky and "bad" as the bourgeois call it, and the folks you are with are in it with you. A little conspiracy of regular folks.
So today on the line, I chatted with the most interesting people. When your average person thinks of "union workers" I suspect they think of an overweight white guy with a cap sitting on his ass. Which is unfortunate. On the line today we had quite a variety of characters. An old Teamster who told us horror stories of union bureaucracy and vote rigging and wished he wasn't retired or he'd join the IWW, a Ph.D. in geography who worked as a library tech because the accreditation system said he needed to have a Library Science degree to be a "real" librarian, a single mom, on strike, who rides Critical Mass and wore a shirt declaring "Cars R Coffins".
There's a lot of anti-worker rhetoric that flies around the anarchist movement these days. A lot of it comes from people who don't work because they don't want to, or don't work because they don't have to. And that ticks me off.
My buddy has a phrase: ABC. Anything But Class. Which seems to be a problem in our movement. We can recognize oppressions based on race, gender, sex, sexual orientation, ability, environmental destruction, etc. We even start talking about the inherent oppressiveness of language or speciesism and weirdo stuff like that. I feel like in overreaction to the terror of the Soviet Union, anarchists have forgotten the problem of class. Sure, some anarchists from working class backgrounds will recognize the fact that class is a problem, both in society and in our community, but they refuse to organize to DO anything about it. They just organize around empowering workers in the community. Well, sure, that's part of it. But we need a movement of workers at large to change society.
People like to shit on Marx these days, and sometimes with good reason. Nonetheless, his thinking on the nature of humanity as productive and creative continues to strike me as dangerously anarchistic (Bakunin: the urge to destroy is also a creative urge). And I've never been more pleased to call myself a human being than when I've been in places like today, doing what little I can to help improve the lives of my fellow humans. 5 am is pretty early to get up in the morning, but if the class war rages then, I guess I'll be there.
I was raised in a family that was sympathetic to labor. My folks are middle class workers. I should qualify that statement by suggesting that we're "middle class but if my dad got sick we'd be out on the street" as opposed to "middle class being a polite way of saying rich". There is a tremendous difference between those two positions, one which is not expressed in the term "middle class".
But they'd never felt that they wanted to improve their working conditions. Today I participated in my first picket and it was quite an experience. Standing on the line at the University of Minnesota, blocking trucks from delivering while AFSCME workers are out was pretty enlightening and empowering. I was at the lines with few deliveries so I didn't get into the real confrontational stuff that happened at other docks. But no deliveries passed our blockade. What's more is that the drivers who I talked to understood what we were doing and voluntarily turned around. The paper delivery guy who could have just walked by us decided he would rather turn around.
There's something powerful about meeting other people in a setting where you are not supposed to be doing something. Whether it is a protest against the war or a picket fighting the monster of global capitalism, there's a devious feeling that you're doing something sneaky and "bad" as the bourgeois call it, and the folks you are with are in it with you. A little conspiracy of regular folks.
So today on the line, I chatted with the most interesting people. When your average person thinks of "union workers" I suspect they think of an overweight white guy with a cap sitting on his ass. Which is unfortunate. On the line today we had quite a variety of characters. An old Teamster who told us horror stories of union bureaucracy and vote rigging and wished he wasn't retired or he'd join the IWW, a Ph.D. in geography who worked as a library tech because the accreditation system said he needed to have a Library Science degree to be a "real" librarian, a single mom, on strike, who rides Critical Mass and wore a shirt declaring "Cars R Coffins".
There's a lot of anti-worker rhetoric that flies around the anarchist movement these days. A lot of it comes from people who don't work because they don't want to, or don't work because they don't have to. And that ticks me off.
My buddy has a phrase: ABC. Anything But Class. Which seems to be a problem in our movement. We can recognize oppressions based on race, gender, sex, sexual orientation, ability, environmental destruction, etc. We even start talking about the inherent oppressiveness of language or speciesism and weirdo stuff like that. I feel like in overreaction to the terror of the Soviet Union, anarchists have forgotten the problem of class. Sure, some anarchists from working class backgrounds will recognize the fact that class is a problem, both in society and in our community, but they refuse to organize to DO anything about it. They just organize around empowering workers in the community. Well, sure, that's part of it. But we need a movement of workers at large to change society.
People like to shit on Marx these days, and sometimes with good reason. Nonetheless, his thinking on the nature of humanity as productive and creative continues to strike me as dangerously anarchistic (Bakunin: the urge to destroy is also a creative urge). And I've never been more pleased to call myself a human being than when I've been in places like today, doing what little I can to help improve the lives of my fellow humans. 5 am is pretty early to get up in the morning, but if the class war rages then, I guess I'll be there.
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