Sunday 13 September 2009

The Plebs

Over the last few years I have been arguing for a return to the authentic Marxism of Marx and Engels, whose central tenet was that Socialism means the SELF-emancipation of the working class, brought about by its own collective action. Those ideas have been smothered in more than a century of muck laid down by the various Left statists, the Lassalleans and Fabians, whose ideas dominated the Second International, and in the revolutionary variant of those ideas represented by Leninism, which in turn split into the bureaucratic/reformist version of Stalinism and the revolutionary but sociologically petit-bourgeois version of Trotskyism, which in its turn necessarily degenerated into varieties of Opportunism and reformism via the Third Camp, or else into sectism. It is no wonder then that the idea of working class self-activity in practice is so alien to today’s Left. Even where it is propounded it is merely a piece of propaganda, a token to hide the real nature of the statist politics, which continues to dominate the organised Left. It is reduced effectively for calls for workers to act – independently, yes – via their Trade Unions or other organisations, but to act only in so far as their action is a means of applying pressure on the bourgeois state to act in their interests!

Nothing in this self-activity has anything in common with the self-activity that Marx and Engels spoke of, a self-activity which decried such calls on the bourgeois state to act in workers interests, but rather which relied on the workers themselves creating their own solutions not just separate from, but in militant opposition to that State, solutions which prefigure the society of the future in the society of today.

To suggest that workers should establish their own enterprises, should set up their own Co-operative organisations to own and control their communities, still less that they should fail to simply accept the conventional wisdom that something like the NHS has nothing to do with Socialism, but is yet another bourgeois institution whose purpose is to meet the needs of Capital, and condition the working class is at best seen as irrelevant by this Left, and at worst is seen as heresy, even by those that proclaim their belief in “independent working action”. A century of “Welfarism” has conditioned the Left and the working class that nothing is possible other than winning crumbs from the table of Capital (at best) in the short term, in the form of reforms – which are of course neutered and/or taken back at the first opportunity leaving workers with a class struggle that resembles the Labours of Sisyphus – whilst plying the idea of the Socialist Revolution as the only real solution in the long term, thereby turning the Social Revolution into a single even – like October 1917 – as opposed to the process described by Marx and Engels.

Yet, the history of the working class – which is what Marxists are supposed to systemise and draw lessons from – is replete with examples of working class self-activity of the kind described by Marx and Engels, and which is neither of the reformist or millenarianist variety described above. From, the establishment of Co-op shops and factories in the 19th and 20th centuries, to the creation of a whole series of different types of community organisations, to workers sporting clubs, choral societies, brass bands and so on, workers have demonstrated that they can and do create their own organisations to meet their needs without reliance on the bourgeois state.

In this blog I want to talk about one such example that keys into something I’ve spoken about before – Education – in particular what I said in my post about setting up Co-operative Colleges and Universities, See: Economics of Co-operation .

I’ve been prompted by reading some old material from Capital & Class (Journal of the Conference of Socialist Economists). In particular, a reproduction of “Economics For Workers In The 1920’s – Beginning With The Beginner” in C&C No. 7, from Spring 1979. It is about the activities during that period of the Plebs League – for Independent Working Class Education. The original article had appeared in Plebs, the journal of that organisation in 1920, and was written by Fred Casey, who was a tutor at the Manchester Labour College. According to Tim Putnam, who provides the C&C Introduction to the material, Casey later gained a reputation as an expositor of Joseph Dietzgen’s ‘Monist’ philosophy in his “Methods of Thinking”.

Putnam writes,

“The Movement for Independent Working Class Education became one of the most important forms of class organisation in this country during and immediately after the First World War. The Plebs League grew out of a revolt by trade union students at Ruskin College, Oxford , in 1908 against an attempt by the University to take over the college, sack radical staff and replace socialist curricula with safer material. The league developed an extensive network of part-time and full-time study under working class control, at a time when various state agencies were perceiving the need to integrate working class representatives into public institutions. Vehemently opposing any notion of class impartial ‘objective’ knowledge, and the National Council for Labour Colleges with which it merged struggled against the WEA (Workers Educational Association) under the banner of: ‘No compromise with bourgeois culture!’

“…Casey did not find his worker-students ‘apathetic’… Casey implicitly asks us to look again at the aspirations and expectations of political leaders who encountered apathy, suggesting either that their analysis was insufficiently materialist or that their political practice itself created the apathy it pretended to discover. The short time it took Plebs to achieve a monthly circulation of over 10,000 and the National Council for Labour Colleges to build a national organisation which reached ten times as many workers certainly bears out Casey’s point. Nor was the activity limited to study; as 1926 approached the League’s position as a class organisation made its meetings an important forum of strategy and tactics for the anticipated trial of strength.”


The article can be viewed at the CSE’s online archive here Beginning With The Beginner .

At the same time as demonstrating that workers CAN develop such truly independent working class organisation not just to apply pressure on the bourgeois state to make available provision, but to provide directly for its own needs, the fact that such organisation has effectively disappeared demonstrates both the success that the Capitalist State has had in incorporating such provision, and the complicity of the Left in that process in limiting itself to simply demanding that the bourgeois state DOES make that provision, a provision which the Plebs and others recognised would necessarily be to meet the needs of Capital not of workers. That process can be seen as the collapse of the Left into “Welfarism”, a process which helps to incorporate the working class, socialises it into a placid acceptance of the evils of Capitalism, and at worst turns large sections of the class into the modern day equivalent of the medieval serf, dependent upon that State for their survival.

In a review in the same edition of C&C Norman Ginsburg looks at two books on that issue – “The Development Of The British Welfare State, 1880-1975” by J.R. Hay, and “The Origins of British Social Policy” Edited by Pat Thane.

See: Reviews Page 3 of the PDF.

On the one hand Norman points to the contribution by Pat Ryan on the role of “Poplarism” the struggle by Poplar Council under the leader of George Lansbury, and the successes it had in winning some reforms for workers, and which provided, during the 1980’s some of the inspiration for the ideas of “Municipal Socialism”, which inevitably ended in isolation and defeat. As Norman says even of Poplar,

“This study shows vividly how the use of the machinery of bourgeois democracy by the representatives of labour can in certain circumstances present something of a fundamental, if short-lived, threat to capitalist welfare principles and the enforcement of 'work incentive'.”

But, one has to wonder how “fundamental” it was given that it was “short-lived”. There was, in fact, nothing in the experience of Poplar or any other experiments in “Municipal Socialism”, which could lead necessarily towards Socialism, precisely because they WERE based on acceptance of the local bourgeois state as the framework within which these provisions were to be made, and as the experience of Poplar and the 1980’s demonstrated, even if the Permanent bureaucracy of that local State does not undermine you ultimately, then the national bourgeois state will. Such strategies only replicate at a political level the kind of continual guerrilla warfare in the workplace that Marx warned the workers not to allow themselves to waste too many of their energies upon.

More significant I think are the other papers.

“The papers by Roy Hay and John Brown show how the national
insurance system was imbued from the beginning with quite specific
functions of 'social control' concerned with the enforcement of labour
discipline and the regulation of family life . Employers exerted considerable
control over the work of the 'approved societies' who ran the national insurance
system and the continual administrative obsession with malingering
and work-incentive sought to ensure that levels and accessibility of benefit
did not threaten the wage relation or relations of dependence within the
extended family .”


And,

“The extracts from the views of workers and working class organisations on welfare convey clearly the dilemmas which labour exchanges and national insurance, for example, posed in the Edwardian era and which legislation still presents to the working class today .

This theme also recurs several times in Pat Thane's book . On the one
hand, there was the view that "the aim of the working class ought to be
to bring about economic conditions in which there should be no need for
the distribution of state alms" (Hay p . 17), that the wage itself should
fully cover workers' and their families' needs and that state welfare interfered
with the independence of working class organisation and control . On
the other hand, the degradation and inadequacy of the poor law, and the
gathering parliamentary strength of the organised working class ensured
that the T .U .C . pushed for an extension of state welfare, from pensions
reform at the turn of the century to the establishment of the Beveridge
committee in 1941 . The suggestion left implicit in Roy Hay's book is that
the welfare state has been shaped . by a struggle of articulated views and
ideology .”


In fact, this demonstrates the facility with which the State is able to implement such a policy of incorporation. It is precisely the “degradation” referred to here that makes the reformist option of gaining a few more crumbs from the table a more appealing option, and the means by which the bourgeois state conveys its ideology into the working class – through the Trade Unions in particular – provides the basis for offering such a solution that fails to provide any systemic challenge. But, yet again the Left and workers from the time were at least aware of that dilemma in a way that the left today does not even seem to recognise i.e. “that state welfare interfered with the independence of working class organisation and control .” On the contrary much of the Left today simply sees its role as arguing for an extension of it!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looking at the speeches at the TUC conference, they are very critical of New Labour.

Do you think it is time for unions to stop funding New Labour and instead invest the money in building some of the parallel structures you talk about?

Boffy said...

No, I don't think the unions should stop funding the LP. For the reasons I have set out previously, I don't think that its sufficient for these kinds of organisations and actions to be promoted simply by individuals, and even the various Left groups - were they to commit to such action - do not have either the numbers or the weight within the working class to really push such a strategy.

However, one revolutionary in a LP Branch of 10 active members might well be able to get 3 or 4 of them to join in, and will be able to use the LP's machienry and resources. My experiecne is that this has a snowball effect. Through such activity you make new contacts and members who then tend to be active themselves.

I do think the TU's should, however, also directly fund some of these activities in the way that the Co-op already does. The Trade Unions could fund it through the Trades Councils or LP Branches. It is after all their members who live in these communities. We should get back to the system that used to exist of Trades and Labour Councils, rather than the division of hte two wings of the movement.

As I said the Co-op already funds Community Projects, and I would not be averse to seeking funding from the Local Council either. When I was a County Councillor we had a system whereby each Councillor had £10,000 a year to use to support Community projects in their area. Similarly, years ago when I was a City Councillor I made it a point of principle in putting down amendments to the many resolutions whereby the Council gave grants to small businesses, that it should be on condition of them recognising an appropriate Trade Union. If Councils can provide finance for small businesses they can provide it to TRA's, Housing Co-ops and so on.

JamesT said...

“Authentic” Marxism has you call it was not shy of making demands as the programme of the French workers party (Drawn up in 1880) clearly demonstrates. Building parallel structures went hand in hand with workers making demands of the ruling class; your Marxism is no more authentic than those on the left who have forgotten the importance of these structures.

One important point in the programme can be directly quoted, “That the producers can be free only when they are in possession of the means of production”. Your parallel structures must be built with this goal in mind!

Point 11 of the economic programme can illustrate that Marx himself laid down some of the muck you speak of, “Annulment of all the contracts that have alienated public property (banks, railways, mines, etc.), and the exploitation of all state-owned workshops to be entrusted to the workers who work there.”

On the funding of the LP, activists should fight within it but the unions should be using their influence to move it further to the left, otherwise I think all that money is going to waste.

Boffy said...

James,

Were these not the same "Marxists" of whom Marx famously referred to when he made his comment, "If this is Marxism then I am no Marxist"!

All of the Workers Parties of that time who called themselves "Marxist" were as Hal Draper has shown, in fact far more influenced by Lassaleanism and Fabianism than Marxism. That is certainly true of the German Socialists who as the most significant party of the Second International had a huge influence on the other parties, and on the subsequent development of "Marxist" ideas.

Yet, Marx's "Critique of the Gotha Programme is the clearest denunciation of those kinds of statist politics you could get. Engels subsequent comments about those who raised demands for nationalisation and so on bringing the Party into disrepute given his and Marx's long struggle to rid the movement of such ideas are a confirmation of it.

Your comment,

"“That the producers can be free only when they are in possession of the means of production”. Your parallel structures must be built with this goal in mind!"

Is precisely the position I argue! But as Marx, Engels and others like Pannakoek argued workers do NOT possess the means of production when the Capitalist state does!

Nor does Point 11 contradict what I have said, which is fully in line with the idea that where nation alised or statised structures exist Marxists defend them against privatisation, but call a) for workers control, and b) having demonstrated why under Capitalism such will not be freely granted, transfer to workers direct ownership.

Boffy said...

James,

On the LP, I'm not sure what "moving it to the Left" actually means. There have been lots of occasions in the past when the LP has been moved to the Left in terms of the policies adopted at Conference. It turned out not to amount to a hill of beans!

The LP can only be meaningfully moved to the Left if the working class itself has been moved to the Left. That will require a lot more than the concern with political debates and resolution mongering in CLP's and Conference that the Left has traditionally been most concenred with. It will require instead a focus on activity in Branches rather than those higher level bodies, in order to turn them outwards to work in the communities and workplaces building the kinds of structures I have spoken about.

Just as passing Leftish resolutions at Union conferences is meaningless without the kind of rank and file organisation in the workplace thaat can actually fight for and win support in practice for their implementation, so the same applies to "pushing the LP Left".

Of course, this is a diaalectical process. I am not saying that a more Left, more activist LP is not important for bringing about changes in workers conscioussness, but the starting point here and now is at the grass roots not some Cervantian tilting at windmills in the form of seeking the adoption of formally Left positions.

JamesT said...

This programme was co-authored by Marx himself!

Marx wrote: “this very brief document in its economic section consists solely of demands that actually have spontaneously arisen out of the labour movement itself.”

This shows that for Marx the movement itself determines immediate demands. That movement today is surely best represented by the TUC and many of these demands could be viewed as ‘statist’. It was the French party leader’s refusal to accept this point that led him to say, “If this is Marxism then I am no Marxist".

The structures that you propose are all well and good but they need a revolutionary outlook, otherwise you may as well say the workers need more sports clubs.

Let’s forget the LP moving to the left. Let’s say that if the unions have demands of the LP then if the LP doesn’t listen to them, what is the point of funding the party? It is not like this would force the party to the right.

Boffy said...

James, I think your argument begs the question of the relationship between Party and class or at least between Marxists and the class.

Neither of the two quotes you cite actually calls for nationalisation as I pointed out. Neither are calls for the bourgeois state to act in the workers interests. Both are consistent with the argument I have advanced about the need for workers ownership rather than ownership by the bourgeois state!

As for the immediate demands being raised by the class, quite true, but what is Marx's attitude to that. It is best summed up in his letter to Ruge. That is the class comes forward with solutions - for example the creation of Trade Unions, demands for higher wages and so on. Marxists recognise the limited - bourgeois nature of these organisations and demands. They do not respond in an "Ultra-Left" or sectarian way to these "mistakes" or limitations, but support the workers in the process, and in doing so point out those limitations help the workers learn from those mistakes, and in doing so develop the Marxists Programme to which they try to draw the workers ever closer.

If I am a militant in a factory facing closure, and the workers raise the demand that it be nationalised, I am not going to stand aside like some sectarian and say I cannot support this action because the demand for nationalisation is wrong!!! I will put forward my argument as to why nationalisation cannot provide a real solution, why a struggle to win workers ownership is needed, but if the workers ignore that I will be the best militant fighting for what has been agreed. Then when it is not nationalised, or when when it is nationalised and the first thing that happens is that the workforce is slashed, conditions are worsened and so on, I will again explain why that demand was wrong, and why my proposed course of action would have been better.

Sticking with the workers does not at all mean tailing them.

Boffy said...

On the LP a case could be made for saying then that the unions should NEVER have funded the Party! My argument is rather that the funding should be directed towards supporting those grass roots activities geared to developing working class organisation. Just as in fact funding inside the unions should be geared towards supporting rank and file activity in the workpalce as opposed to financing shiny new offices and a large bureaucracy.

Of course, the building of Co-operatives, of grass roots organisations and structures requires a revolutionary outlook, but that is precisely the reason I argue that revolutioanries should be the ones who LEAD it. That does not mean that we have to demand that all of those ordinary workers drawn into such activity have today or even tomorrow have to have such an outlook that is something that has to develop as a direct result of that activity, and the activity of revolutioanries within those organisations.

Boffy said...

In the introduction to the 1880 Programme we read,

"After the programme was agreed, however, a clash arose between Marx and his French supporters arose over the purpose of the minimum section. Whereas Marx saw this as a practical means of agitation around demands that were achievable within the framework of capitalism, Guesde took a very different view: “Discounting the possibility of obtaining these reforms from the bourgeoisie, Guesde regarded them not as a practical programme of struggle, but simply ... as bait with which to lure the workers from Radicalism.” The rejection of these reforms would, Guesde believed, “free the proletariat of its last reformist illusions and convince it of the impossibility of avoiding a workers ’89.” [4] Accusing Guesde and Lafargue of “revolutionary phrase-mongering” and of denying the value of reformist struggles, Marx made his famous remark that, if their politics represented Marxism, “ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste” (“what is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist”). [5]"

See: Programme of Parti Ouvriere .

This is precisely the point I have been making about the raising of demands such as "Nationalisation Under Workers Control", by sections of the left whose purpose in raising such demands is variously described as "Not letting the State off the hook", or else "Disabusing workers of their belief in the Capitalist State"! In other words precisley the phrase mongering Marx condemns here.

Of course, no Marxist is going to refrain in the Programme of a "Marxist" Workers Party in an election from setting out such reforms, any more than a marxist in a Trrade Union would refrain from putting forward the "reform" or a wage increase! Yet, the duty remains for the Marxist of pointing out that such reforms are only palliatives that Capital will take back at the earliest opportunity, that they are part of the guerilla war that marx referred to, and which he wanred the workers not to be too absorbed in.

That is why the point is made that whatever success might be achieved in winning them, "“That the producers can be free only when they are in possession of the means of production”.

Everything in Marx's writing including in what he says here is about precisely that converting propery here and now into workers property not promoting the idea of statised Capitalist property. Of course, he recognises that even there utlimately only the revolutionary action of the proletariat organised in a revolutioanry party holds the key, because the bosses simply will not stand by and allow workers to convert peacefully property into Co-operative property.