Unions, the Anarchist Conference 2009 and Proudhon

It has been a while since I blogged… That is because I’ve been very busy. First, there was release 13.1 of AFAQ which, in itself, took longer to do than I hoped. And for those with a good memory, the release date (18th of June 2009) is ten years on from J18 (as marked by the Guardian, strangely enough). J18 was fun and the very next day I met the love of my life (so that anniversary is easy to remember…).

The Proudhon Reader is progressing apace. I’ve decided upon a title, namely Property is Theft! with the sub-title A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Anthology. This has a certain ring to it and should get browsers at least picking it up… (not to mention other, perhaps less obvious but equally pleasing, reasons for having people reference "Property is Theft!" when discussing Proudhon!). In terms of material, it is pretty comprehensive with some new material being translated already. Here are the current contents:

What is Property? (extracts)
Letter to M. Blanqui (extracts)
Letter to Marx
System of Economical Contradictions: Volume I (extracts)
Organisation of Credit and Circulation (extracts)
The Reaction
The Bamboozlement of Universal Suffrage
Address to the Constituent National Assembly (extracts)
The Malthusians
Toast to the Revolution
Election Manifesto of the People (extracts)
Gratuity of Credit (extracts)
The State: Its Nature, Object, and Destiny
Bank of the People
General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century (extracts)
The Philosophy of Progress
Letter to Workers on Elections (extracts)

This will be added to, once certain texts have been translated. Here is the translation wish-list:

Systeme des Contradictions Economiques, tombe II (Chapter XI)
La Democratie
Les Confessions d’un Revolutionaire (Chapters: III, VI, X, XVII, XVIII, XXI)
Manuel du Speculateur a la Bourse (Associations ouvrieres and Associations pour la consommation)
Du Principe Federatif (Chapters: VI, VII, X, XI, Conclusion)
De la Capacite Politique des classes ourvrieres (2nd part: IV, V, VII, VIII, XIII, XIV and 3rd part: I, III, IV, IX)

There are a few chapters from these works already translated and will hopefully go in. In addition, I’m working on an introduction and there will be an appendix of a few documents from The Paris Commune to show how it was influenced by Proudhon. The introduction will be lengthy, if it aims to be comprehensive — particularly as lots of people have made lots of silly comments on the Frenchman’s ideas! And I’m going to go through volume 1 of System of Economical Contradictions and footnote where Marx distorted Proudhon’s ideas (which he to a staggering degree!).

Its an interesting project, but time and energy consuming! If you want to help and can translate from French, please consider contacting me (details in the original announcement). In particular, the material from the 1848 revolution are extremely important and seems to be relatively unknown.

From dead anarchists, to living ones. I attended the Anarchist Conference at the start of the month. This was the same basic format and notion as the 98 Bradford conference, which I also attended. Like that one, I thought it went well and a useful thing to organise. The organised mixed everyone up and did a good job — I knew no one in my group. We had various topics to discuss:

Movement or why we aren’t one
What constitutes our movement, our ideas, our own involvement, our relations with others, the limitations? – A self critical look at what anarchist, anarchism and anarchy means and why we choose to be associated with these terms and history.

Resistance or are we futile?

Every anarchist talks about resistance, but what do we actually do to resist? Are we resisting too much or not enough? What have we been involved in that has been effective? What have we been involved in that was anything but?

Class or is anybody out there?
Anarchism has been its most effective when it has had its roots in the workers movement. How and why was this? And why has it changed? What do we and other working class people do as we face deepening recession? What does working class mean today? What possibilities are emerging for a society-wide questioning on capitalism and the state? Are anarchist ideas fit for purpose?

Ideas into reality and what’s in between?
Anarchist ideas have always been characterised by imaginative and uncompromising visions of what a future free society would be. We all have our own personal visions of how society may be like without all the shite we have to go through – work, housing, poverty, boredom, powerlessness. How do we get from here to there? Can we find common cause despite our differences and turn our dreams into reality?

Suffice to say, it was an interesting discussion. We started off discussing anarchism, then defining what it was on the white board (brainstorming words like self-management, anti-authority, anti-state, anti-capitalist, mutual aid, and so on). A key question was why, if lots of people would agree with most of what makes anarchism anarchism, why there are so few "self-proclaimed" anarchists around. Then we discussed activities we thought were effective (I pointed to my experiences in the anti-poll tax movement and my union’s strikes). I made the point that, as anarchists, we expect far more from ourselves than, say, a member of the Labour Party or a voter. That involves minimum effort, at least turning out to vote once in a while for someone to act for you. Having to take direct action is harder, and may be intimidating to many people. And, and it can hardly be disagreed with, anarchists should be more forthcoming about our politics and getting people to become anarchists and join our movement (otherwise others will benefit from our hard work).

The discussion of class was heated (mostly thanks to me!) and strange. I objected to the suggestion that going to university makes you change class (i.e., from working class to middle class). An extremely patronising position, based on a classist dismissal of working class people. Obviously class society degrades those subject to it and we need to combat that legacy but educating yourself does not change your class (assuming that middle-class can be clearly defined, of course). Many people objected to class analysis and terminology, although most seem to be saying that this objection was to the "traditional" mental pictures using working class invokes (which is fair enough, but no need to throw the baby out with the bath-water!). I made the point that it is no coincidence that the ruling class hates to discuss class (I pointed to Thatcher telling Major off for proclaiming Britain a classless society as it reminded people of classes!). And look to America, where the "we are all middle-class now" mentality has played it part in making the rich very much richer and the "middle class" squeezed… I also pointed out that the class struggle should be, at its core, a struggle against class rather than fighting over the crumbs within class society. Ultimately, though, far too much discussion on something which is a no-brainer…

I agreed with most people who thought another conference should be organised for next year. I also suggested that the topics be more focused, with themes like workplace organising, neighbourhood activity, and so on, rather than the generic ones we had this year. Those were good to get discussion going, to clear the ground for constructive work. I would not go to a conference to discuss the same wide questions as this one, to be honest. I think that this highlights a problem, the need to have practical activities and alternatives to do. Without that, without something to do, anarchism becomes little more than a faith and will not grow. The conference also suggested a lack of infrastructure within the movement, leading to lack of discussion and, consequently, a lack of strategy. Having yearly conferences may solve that, although they would need to be complemented by local groups and local/regional conferences to be effective.

There was a post-plenum meeting to discuss making an effective national anarchist paper, most obviously helping Freedom in terms of articles and distibution. And before I had to disappear, I noted that Black Flag could be used as a movement magazine. Talking of which, issue 229 is out now (and has got good feedback!) and we are working on issue 230. I’ll be posting a class for articles for this soon, so think about contributing (assuming you are a class struggle anarchist or similar!). The deadline is end of August, for publication at this year’s London Anarchist bookfair (which is on the 24th of October).

Another, more detailed, account by another attendee can found here. Onto other matters…

Over on the BBC News webpage, Robert Peston was a bit puzzled why corporate bosses were giving themselves pay-rises as the economy tanked and they imposed pay-cuts on their staff. It is easy, it is because they are at the top of a hierarchical structure and can, therefore, monopolise the work of, and value-produced by, those below them. Why do they pay themselves loads of money? For the same reason dogs lick their balls: because they can…

Not that I’m surprised by Preston’s lack of awareness, given that capitalist economics (particularly of the right) seek to explain this income by avoiding such issues as class, hierarchy, institutions, power and so forth in favour of a make-believe world of neo-classical perfect competition and individualism where everyone receives exactly what they (or their capital) contribute to production. That they are paying themselves more as their company and the economy does badly just proves that all the problems in the economy are someone else’s fault (almost always, the working class) for what other conclusion can neo-classical economies provide? That wages of bosses reflect their position in hierarchical structures in a class society rooted in the exploitation and oppression of the many?

And talking of which, the questions of workers rights and freedom are being discussed again in America. There the bosses and their PR industry scum are out to attack the Employee Free Choice Act, a minor reform which will make it somewhat easier for workers to unionise. As this film makes clear (found via this site), the state-approved way of organising unions is squarely stacked against the workers:

Not that I’m surprised that the (capitalist) state approved way of organising is so hard — what do you expect, that the (capitalist) state will be neutral? What is surprising is the number of trolls who appear on liberal blogs denouncing unions when this subject gets mentioned. Clearly, the battle to turn Americans into serfs of their bosses has been somewhat successful in certain areas.

So what themes are the bosses and their lackies using to keep workers in their place? Well, as well as saying, falsely, that it will eliminate secret ballots (oh, the joy of workplace autocrats being concerned about their wage slaves democratic rights!) they are trying to suggest that unions cause unemployment, using cherry-picked data from (that socialist hell-hole) Canada. Luckily, some (left-wing, of course!) economists who know understand reality are exposing these attacks for the nonsense they are.

First up is Dean Baker, who really is someone people should read. As he points out (in Unions and Unemployment: The Battle Over the Employee Free Choice Act Gets Ugly) "the immediate response might be to ask, if this study’s findings are accurate, why Canada’s unemployment rate isn’t 7 percentage points higher than the U.S. rate? Canada’s unionization rate is about 20 percentage points higher than in the U.S., yet its unemployment rate is somewhat lower." Opps! Another writer (in Unionization and Unemployment: My Canadian Ears Are Burning) notes that "of the five most unionized provinces in 2008 . . . four had unemployment rates among the five lowest in Canada in May 2009" while "of the five least unionized provinces, four had unemployment rates among the five highest in Canada.". Opps, again! Perhaps it will come as no great surprise that this study was, well, less than independent: Investigation: Business bankrolls study claiming job losses from Employee Free Choice Act.

As discussed in AFAQ, this should come as no surprise (evidence suggests that high unemployment is associated with low pay, and vice versa). As would be expected based on an analysis of the labour market in terms of power and the role of unemployment under capitalism.

Unsurprisingly, the media is pretty much anti-union and against the reform. As would be expected, given the propaganda model analysis of the media (as expounded by Chomsky and Herman).

Which raises the question, why is this even being discussed if the state is, as anarchists argue, an instrument of class rule? Partly, because the state needs to present itself as being beyond class interests and so has to, sometimes, appear to be interested in the needs of the working class. Moreover, the state represents the interests of the capitalist class as a whole and so needs to act to keep the system going. Given the corrosive effects of markets and economic power, this means intervening to stop the system imploding. This may involve clashing with specific wings of the ruling class, particularly its more ideologically driven elements. This is the case now, with a deep recession making life difficult for business.

Capitalism can go into crisis for many reasons, but these can be generalised into two groups, namely when capitalism is too weak and when it is too strong. The current crisis, the end result of 30 years of neo-liberalism, has its roots in the stagnating real wages of most Americans and their subsequent need for debt (which Paul Krugman’s new book as discussed). As in the 1930s, effective demand needs to be boosted and unions are a good way of doing this (back then, unemployment falling was correlated with rising union growth and militancy — regardless of what certain numpties of the "free-market" right may think). So that this reform seems possible shows how badly American capitalism is doing (just as the current talk of welfare reform shows that sections of the ruling elite see the privatised system as an unnecessary drag on its competitiveness).

But making it somewhat easier to organise holds the danger that the organised workers may again become a force that cannot be ignored by bosses and politicians It may also raise the possibility that more radical change could happen. One thing is true, though, and it is that politicians act when they are forced to act by pressure from below. So, I would say that this is what anarchists should be focusing on rather than appealing to politicians to be nice to us wage slaves!

Finally, it is nice to see that people in Iran are taking to the streets in protest of what seems to be a stolen election. If Americans had done that in 2000 and 2004, then who knows what the world would be like now? But then the Iranian elections were stolen in an extremely crude manner, unlike in America. Good luck to them!

I wish there was more of that here, but it seems that in the UK people are more willing to moan at people who do act (such as the tube strikers in London) than act for themselves (as best expressed by the sadly too common refrain on the letters page of newspapers that "I earn a pittance but you don’t see me on strike" and without the awareness that these two facts may be related…). Although, as I noted an old article on strikes in France, there is a definite attempt to use the "politics of envy" against strikers, pointing to any better than average wages and conditions to turn the public against them. Ironically, it is neo-liberalism which now (openly!) proclaims the need for that false claim against socialism, that to be fair we need to level people down to the same (low) level…

Until I blog again, be seeing you…