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Title: libcom introductory guide Author: libcom.org Date: 2005â2014 Language: en Topics: libertarian communism, introduction, introductory, capitalism, class, the state, statism, work, unions, union, direct action, ecology, guide, manual Source: http://libcom.org/library/libcom-introductory-guide
A set of introductory articles written or compiled by libcom.org clearly
explaining key issues and topics from a libertarian communist
perspective.
libcom.org is a resource for all people who wish to fight to improve
their lives, their communities and their working conditions. We want to
discuss, learn from successes and failures of the past and develop
strategies to increase the power we, as ordinary people, have over our
own lives.
We wake up every day to go to work, taking orders from a manager. We sit
at work counting down the minutes until we go home, counting down the
days until the weekend, counting down the weeks until our next holiday,
wishing our lives away. Or worse, we canât find a job, so we have to
scrape by on benefits. We worry about paying the bills and making rent
and we always seem to have the same bank balance at the end of every
month. We wonder if weâll be able to put anything by to one day start a
family, and think maybe next year. We get angry about the latest war the
governmentâs decided to start, and theyâre ignoring us again. We watch
the latest news on climate change and wonder if our children have a
future.
The problem is that every day we recreate a world that wasnât built to
serve our needs and is not under our control. We are not human beings,
we are human resources, cogs in a machine that knows only one purpose:
profit. The endless pursuit of profit keeps us stuck in boring jobs, or
looking for them when weâre out of work. It keeps us worrying about the
rent or mortgage payments every month when our homes were long since
built and paid for. It keeps the planet on course for an environmental
disaster as climate change accelerates and world leaders pontificate.
In this world, everything has its price. Every day, more and more things
enter the market. A century ago it was automobiles, today even DNAand
the Earthâs atmosphere have a price. For those things which we enjoy
most in life â friendship, love, play â the idea of giving them a price
is absurd or even obscene. The idea strikes us as absurd because the
market does not work by the same principles we do. âMarket forcesâ leave
hundreds of millions starving in a world with surplus food. Millions die
of preventable diseases while pharmaceutical companies spend more on
marketing than basic research. The market does not recognise human needs
unless they are backed up with cash. The only way to get the cash is to
work for a boss or claim benefits. By working for a wage, our own bodies
and minds enter the market as things to be bought and sold.
When we work, we create more things which can be sold on the market. But
we donât get paid the full value of what we create, otherwise there
would be nothing left over as profit for the bosses. If the company
canât make big enough profits, it will shut down, we will be made
redundant and the money will be invested elsewhere. The bossesâ
interests are not the same as ours. The problem with the market is not
that prices are too high or supply too short. The problem is not too
much regulation or too little. The problem is that everything has a
price. In the world of the market human needs only feature if those
humans happen to be rich enough to satisfy them. The worldâs governments
all work to uphold this order, sometimes with the carrots of democracy
and welfare, sometimes with the sticks of dictatorship and warfare. This
is not our world.
Every day, ordinary people are fighting back. Workers organise, strike,
occupy and revolt, standing up for human needs in an inhuman world. This
site is for them. You. Us. Those of us with nothing to sell but our
labour power and nothing to lose but our chains. Those of us whose lives
this deadening world sucks dry like a vampire. When we stand up for our
needs, we foreshadow a different world, a world based on the principle
âfrom each according to ability, to each according to needs.â A world of
liberty and community â libertarian communism.
The name libcom is an abbreviation of âlibertarian communismâ, the
political idea we identify with. Libertarian communism is the political
expression of the ever-present strands of co-operation and solidarity in
human societies. These currents of mutual aid can be found throughout
society. In tiny everyday examples such as people collectively
organising a meal, or helping a stranger carry a pram down a flight of
stairs. They can also manifest themselves in more visible ways, such as
one group of workers having a solidarity strike in support of other
workers as the BA baggage handlers did for Gate Gourmet catering staff
in 2005. They can also explode and become a predominant force in society
such as in the events across Argentina in 2001, in Portugal 1974, Italy
in the 1960s-70s, France 1968, Hungary â56, Spain 1936, Russia 1917,
Paris 1871âŠ
We identify primarily with the trends of working-class solidarity,
co-operation, direct action and struggle throughout history: whether
those movements are self-consciously libertarian communist (as in the
Spanish revolution) or not; whether they identify explicitly as class
movements or as movements against systemic inequalities under capitalism
such as the anti-racist, LGBT and womenâs movements. We are also
influenced by certain specific theoretical and practical traditions,
such as anarchist-communism, anarcho-syndicalism, black liberation,
council communism, feminism, ultra-left Marxism, left communism, and
others.
We have sympathies with writers and organisations including Karl Marx,
Gilles Dauvé, CLR James, Rosa Luxemburg, Maurice Brinton, Mariarosa
dalla Costa, Ambalavaner Sivanandan, Martin Glaberman, Anton Pannekoek,
Wildcat Germany, League of Revolutionary Black Workers, Anarchist
Federation, Solidarity Federation, prole.info, Asian Youth Movements,
Aufheben, Solidarity, the situationists, Mujeres Libres, Spanish CNT and
others.
However, we recognise the limitations of applying these ideas and
organisational forms to contemporary society. We emphasise understanding
and transforming the social relationships we experience here and now in
our everyday lives to better our circumstances and protect the planet,
whilst still learning from the mistakes and successes of previous
working class movements and ideas.
The site contains news and analysis of workersâ struggles, discussions
and a constantly growing archive of over 20,000 articles contributed by
our 10,000+ users ranging from history and biographies to theoretical
texts, complete books and pamphlets. We have incorporated several other
online archives over the years, and in addition have hundreds of
exclusive texts written or scanned by or for us. We are completely
independent of all trade unions and political parties; the site is
funded entirely by subs from our volunteer administrators and donations
from users.
If you think you might agree with us, why not register and get involved?
â a quick rundown of previous versions of our website.
: 10 years of class struggle online â our 10^(th) birthday post with a
history of our first 10 years and picking out highlights from the site.
libcom.orgâs brief introduction to capitalism and how it works.
At its root, capitalism is an economic system based on three things:
wage labour (working for a wage), private ownership or control of the
means of production (things like factories, machinery, farms, and
offices), and production for exchange and profit.
While some people own means of production, or capital, most of us donât
and so to survive we need to sell our ability to work in return for a
wage, or else scrape by on benefits. This first group of people is the
capitalist class or âbourgeoisieâ in Marxist jargon, and the second
group is the working class or âproletariatâ. See our introduction to
class here for more information on class.
Capitalism is based on a simple process â money is invested to generate
more money. When money functions like this, it functions as capital. For
instance, when a company uses its profits to hire more staff or open new
premises, and so make more profit, the money here is functioning as
capital. As capital increases (or the economy expands), this is called
âcapital accumulationâ, and itâs the driving force of the economy.
Those accumulating capital do so better when they can shift costs onto
others. If companies can cut costs by not protecting the environment, or
by paying sweatshop wages, they will. So catastrophic climate change and
widespread poverty are signs of the normal functioning of the system.
Furthermore, for money to make more money, more and more things have to
be exchangeable for money. Thus the tendency is for everything from
everyday items to DNA sequences to carbon dioxide emissions â and,
crucially, our ability to work â to become commodified.
And it is this last point â the commodification of our creative and
productive capacities, our ability to work â which holds the secret to
capital accumulation. Money does not turn into more money by magic, but
by the work we do every day.
In a world where everything is for sale, we all need something to sell
in order to buy the things we need. Those of us with nothing to sell
except our ability to work have to sell this ability to those who own
the factories, offices, etc. And of course, the things we produce at
work arenât ours, they belong to our bosses.
Furthermore, because of long hours, productivity improvements etc, we
produce much more than necessary to keep us going as workers. The wages
we get roughly match the cost of the products necessary to keep us alive
and able to work each day (which is why, at the end of each month, our
bank balance rarely looks that different to the month before). The
difference between the wages we are paid and the value we create is how
capital is accumulated, or profit is made.
This difference between the wages we are paid and the value we create is
called âsurplus valueâ. The extraction of surplus value by employers is
the reason we view capitalism as a system based on exploitation â the
exploitation of the working class. See this case study on the
functioning of a capitalist restaurant for an example.
This process is essentially the same for all wage labour, not just that
in private companies. Public sector workers also face constant attacks
on their wages and conditions in order to reduce costs and maximise
profits across the economy as a whole.
The capitalist economy also relies on the unpaid work of mostly
womenworkers.
In order to accumulate capital, our boss must compete in the market with
bosses of other companies. They cannot afford to ignore market forces,
or they will lose ground to their rivals, lose money, go bust, get taken
over, and ultimately cease to be our boss. Therefore even the bosses
arenât really in control of capitalism, capital itself is. Itâs because
of this that we can talk about capital as if it has agency or interests
of its own, and so often talking about âcapitalâ is more precise than
talking about bosses.
Both bosses and workers, therefore, are alienated by this process, but
in different ways. While from the workersâ perspective, our alienation
is experienced through being controlled by our boss, the boss
experiences it through impersonal market forces and competition with
other bosses.
Because of this, bosses and politicians are powerless in the face of
âmarket forces,â each needing to act in a way conducive to continued
accumulation (and in any case they do quite well out of it!). They
cannot act in our interests, since any concessions they grant us will
help their competitors on a national or international level.
So, for example, if a manufacturer develops new technology for making
cars which doubles productivity it can lay off half its workers,
increase its profits and reduce the price of its cars in order to
undercut its competition.
If another company wants to be nice to its employees and not sack
people, eventually it will be driven out of business or taken over by
its more ruthless competitor â so it will also have to bring in the new
machinery and make the layoffs to stay competitive.
Of course, if businesses were given a completely free hand to do as they
please, monopolies would soon develop and stifle competition which would
lead to the system grinding to a halt. The state intervenes, therefore
to act on behalf of the long-term interests of capital as a whole.
The primary function of the state in capitalist society is to maintain
the capitalist system and aid the accumulation of capital.
As such, the state uses repressive laws and violence against the working
class when we try to further our interests against capital. For example,
bringing in anti-strike laws, or sending in police or soldiers to break
up strikes and demonstrations.
The âidealâ type of state under capitalism at the present time is
liberal democratic, however in order to continue capital accumulation at
times different political systems are used by capital to do this. State
capitalism in the USSR, and fascism in Italy and Germany are two such
models, which were necessary for the authorities at the time in order to
co-opt and crush powerful working-class movements. Movements which
threatened the very continuation of capitalism.
When the excesses of bosses cause workers to fight back, alongside
repression the state occasionally intervenes to make sure business as
usual resumes without disruption. For this reason national and
international laws protecting workersâ rights and the environment exist.
Generally the strength and enforcement of these laws ebbs and flows in
relation to the balance of power between employers and employees in any
given time and place. For example, in France where workers are more
well-organised and militant, there is a maximum working week of 35
hours. In the UK, where workers are less militant the maximum is 48
hours, and in the US where workers are even less likely to strike there
is no maximum at all.
Capitalism is presented as a ânaturalâ system, formed a bit like
mountains or land masses by forces beyond human control, that it is an
economic system ultimately resulting from human nature. However it was
not established by ânatural forcesâ but by intense and massive violence
across the globe. First in the âadvancedâ countries, enclosures drove
self-sufficient peasants from communal land into the cities to work in
factories. Any resistance was crushed. People who resisted the
imposition of wage labour were subjected to vagabond laws and
imprisonment, torture, deportation or execution. In England under the
reign of Henry VIII alone 72,000 people were executed for vagabondage.
Later capitalism was spread by invasion and conquest by Western
imperialistpowers around the globe. Whole civilisations were brutally
destroyed with communities driven from their land into waged work. The
only countries that avoided conquest were those â like Japan â which
adopted capitalism on their own in order to compete with the other
imperial powers. Everywhere capitalism developed, peasants and early
workers resisted, but were eventually overcome by mass terror and
violence.
Capitalism did not arise by a set of natural laws which stem from human
nature: it was spread by the organised violence of the elite. The
concept of private property of land and means of production might seem
now like the natural state of things, however we should remember it is a
man-made concept enforced by conquest. Similarly, the existence of a
class of people with nothing to sell but their labour power is not
something which has always been the case â common land shared by all was
seized by force, and the dispossessed forced to work for a wage under
the threat of starvation or even execution.
As capital expanded, it created a global working class consisting of the
majority of the worldâs population whom it exploits but also depends on.
As Karl Marx wrote: âWhat the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all,
are its own grave-diggers.â
Capitalism has only existed as the dominant economic system on the
planet for a little over 200 years. Compared to the half a million years
of human existence it is a momentary blip, and therefore it would be
naive to assume that it will last for ever.
It is entirely reliant on us, the working class, and our labour which it
must exploit, and so it will only survive as long as we let it.
â Robert Tressel â a clever short introduction to how capitalism
exploits workers from Tresselâs famous novel The Ragged Trousered
Philanthropists.
Work Community Politics War â prole.info
â an excellent introductory illustrated guide to capitalism and
anti-capitalism.
Capitalism and communism â Gilles DauvĂ©
â a more detailed history and analysis of capitalism and its antithesis,
communism.
â Marxâs definitive analysis and critique of capitalism. Heavy going but
definitely worth giving a try at some point.
Capitalism â further reading guide
â libcom.orgâs guide to further reading on capitalist economics.
â libcom.orgâs capitalism tag
An explanation of what we on libcom.org mean by the word âclassâ, and
related terms such as âworking classâ and âclass struggleâ.
The first thing to say is that there are various ways of referring to
class. Often, when people talk about class, they talk in terms of
cultural/sociological labels. For example, middle-class people like
foreign films, working class people like football, upper-class people
like top hats and so on.
Another way to talk about class, however, is based on classesâ economic
positions. We talk about class like this because we see it as essential
for understanding how capitalist society works, and consequently how we
can change it.
It is important to stress that our definition of class is not for
classifying individuals or putting them in boxes, but in order to
understand the forces which shape our world, why our bosses and
politicians act the way they do, and how we can act to improve our
conditions.
The economic system which dominates the world at present is called
capitalism.
Capitalism is essentially a system based on the self-expansion of
capital â commodities and money making more commodities and more money.
This doesnât happen by magic, but by human labour. For the work we do,
weâre paid for only a fraction of what we produce. The difference
between the value we produce and the amount weâre paid in wages is the
âsurplus valueâ weâve produced. This is kept by our boss as profit and
either reinvested to make more money or used to buy swimming pools or
fur coats or whatever.
In order for this to take place, a class of people must be created who
donât own anything they can use to make money i.e. offices, factories,
farmland or other means of production. This class must then sell their
ability to work in order to purchase essential goods and services in
order to survive. This class is the working class.
So at one end of the spectrum is this class, with nothing to sell but
their ability to work. At the other, those who do own capital to hire
workers to expand their capital. Individuals in society will fall at
some point between these two poles, but what is important from a
political point of view is not the positions of individuals but the
social relationship between classes.
The working class then, or âproletariatâ as it is sometimes called, the
class who is forced to work for wages, or claim benefits if we cannot
find work or are too sick or elderly to work, to survive. We sell our
time and energy to a boss for their benefit.
Our work is the basis of this society. And it is the fact that this
society relies on the work we do, while at the same time always
squeezing us to maximise profit, that makes it vulnerable.
When we are at work, our time and activity is not our own. We have to
obey the alarm clock, the time card, the managers, the deadlines and the
targets.
Work takes up the majority of our lives. We may see our managers more
than we see our friends and partners. Even if we enjoy parts of our job
we experience it as something alien to us, over which we have very
little control. This is true whether weâre talking about the nuts and
bolts of the actual work itself or the amount of hours, breaks, time off
etc.
Work being forced on us like this compels us to resist.
Employers and bosses want to get the maximum amount of work from us,
from the longest hours, for the least pay. We, on the other hand, want
to be able to enjoy our lives: we donât want to be over-worked, and we
want shorter hours and more pay.
This antagonism is central to capitalism. Between these two sides is a
push and pull: employers cut pay, increase hours, speed up the pace of
work. But we attempt to resist: either covertly and individually by
taking it easy, grabbing moments to take a break and chat to colleagues,
calling in sick, leaving early. Or we can resist overtly and
collectively with strikes, slow-downs, occupationsetc.
This is class struggle. The conflict between those of us who have to
work for a wage and our employers and governments, who are often
referred to as thecapitalist class, or âbourgeoisieâ in Marxist jargon.
By resisting the imposition of work, we say that our lives are more
important than our bossâs profits. This attacks the very nature of
capitalism, where profit is the most important reason for doing
anything, and points to the possibility of a world without classes and
privately-owned means of production. We are the working class resisting
our own existence. We are the working class struggling against work and
class.
Class struggle does not only take place in the workplace. Class conflict
reveals itself in many aspects of life.
For example, affordable housing is something that concerns all working
class people. However, affordable for us means unprofitable for them. In
a capitalist economy, it often makes more sense to build luxury
apartment blocks, even while tens of thousands are homeless, than to
build housing which we can afford to live in. So struggles to defend
social housing, or occupying empty properties to live in are part of the
class struggle.
Similarly, healthcare provision can be a site of class conflict.
Governments or companies attempt to reduce spending on healthcare by
cutting budgets and introducing charges for services to shift the burden
of costs onto the working class, whereas we want the best healthcare
possible for as little cost as possible.
While the economic interests of capitalists are directly opposed to
those of workers, a minority of the working class will be better off
than others, or have some level of power over others. When talking about
history and social change it can be useful to refer to this part of the
proletariat as a âmiddle classâ, despite the fact that it is not a
distinct economic class, in order to understand the behaviour of
different groups.
Class struggle can sometimes be derailed by allowing the creation or
expansion of the middle class â Margaret Thatcher encouraged home
ownership by cheaply selling off social housing in the UK during the big
struggles of the 1980s, knowing that workers are less likely to strike
if they have a mortgage, and allowing some workers to become better off
on individual levels, rather than as a collective. And in South Africa
the creation of a black middle class helped derail workersâ struggles
when apartheid was overturned, by allowing limited social mobility and
giving some black workers a stake in the system.
Bosses try to find all sorts of ways to materially and psychologically
divide the working class, including by salary differentials,
professional status, race and by gender.
It should be pointed out again that we use these class definitions in
order to understand social forces at work, and not to label individuals
or determine how individuals will act in given situations.
Talking about class in a political sense is not about which accent you
have but the basic conflict which defines capitalism â those of us who
must work for a living vs. those who profit from the work that we do. By
fighting for our own interests and needs against the dictates of capital
and the market we lay the basis for a new type of society â a society
based on the direct fulfilment of our needs: a libertarian communist
society.
â an excellent introductory illustrated guide to capitalism and
anti-capitalism.
Strata in the working class â Martin Glaberman
â excellent article analysing divisions within the working class.
The Working Class and Social Change â Martin Glaberman
â another great article by Glaberman, this time on the meaning of class
consciousness and working class action.
Capitalism and communism â Gilles DauvĂ©
â a detailed history and analysis of capitalism and its antithesis,
communism, with interesting sections on the meaning of class.
A brief introduction to what we at libcom.org mean when we refer to the
state and how we think we should relate to it as workers.
States come in many shapes and sizes. Democracies and dictatorships,
those that provide lots of social welfare, those that provide none at
all, some that allow for a lot of individual freedom and others that
donât.
But these categories are not set in stone. Democracies and dictatorships
rise and fall, welfare systems are set up and taken apart while civil
liberties can be expanded or eroded.
However, all states share key features, which essentially define them.
All states have the same basic functions in that they are an
organisation of all the lawmaking and law enforcing institutions within
a specific territory. And, most importantly, it is an organisation
controlled and run by a small minority of people.
So sometimes, a state will consist of a parliament with elected
politicians, a separate court system and a police force and military to
enforce their decisions. At other times, all these functions are rolled
into each other, like in military dictatorships for example.
But the ability within a given area to make political and legal
decisions â and to enforce them, with violence if necessary â is the
basic characteristic of all states. Crucially, the state claims a
monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, within its territory and
without. As such, the state is above the people it governs and all those
within its territory are subject to it.
In a capitalist society, the success or failure of a state depends
unsurprisingly on the success of capitalism within it.
Essentially, this means that within its territory profits are made so
the economy can expand. The government can then take its share in
taxation to fund its activities.
If businesses in a country are making healthy profits, investment will
flow into profitable industries, companies will hire workers to turn
their investment into more money. They and their workers will pay taxes
on this money which keep the state running.
But if profits dip, investment will flow elsewhere to regions where
profits will be higher. Companies will shut down, workers will be laid
off, tax revenues will fall and local economies collapse.
So promoting profit and the growth of the economy is the key task of any
state in capitalist society â including state capitalist economies which
claim to be âsocialistâ, like China or Cuba. Read our introduction to
capitalism here.
As promoting the economy is a key task of the state, letâs look at the
fundamental building blocks of a healthy capitalist economy.
The primary need of a sound capitalist economy is the existence of a
group of people able to work, to turn capitalistsâ money into more
money: a working class. This requires the majority of the population to
have been dispossessed from the land and means of survival, so that the
only way they can survive is by selling their ability to work to those
who can buy it.
This dispossession has taken place over the past few hundred years
across the world. In the early days of capitalism, factory owners had a
major problem in getting peasants, who could produce enough to live from
the land, to go and work in the factories. To solve this, the state
violently forced the peasants off common land, passed laws forbidding
vagrancy and forced them to work in factories under threat of execution.
Today, this has already happened to the vast majority of people around
the world. However, in some places in the so-called âdevelopingâ world,
the state still plays this role of displacing people to open new markets
for investors. Read our introduction to class here.
A second fundamental requirement is the concept of private property.
While many had to be dispossessed to create a working class, the
ownership of land, buildings and factories by a small minority of the
population could only be maintained by a body of organised violence â a
state. This is rarely mentioned by capitalismâs advocates today, however
in its early days it was openly acknowledged. As the liberal political
economist Adam Smith wrote:
Laws and government may be considered in this and indeed in every case
as a combination of the rich to oppress the poor, and preserve to
themselves the inequality of the goods which would otherwise be soon
destroyed by the attacks of the poor, who if not hindered by the
government would soon reduce the others to an equality with themselves
by open violence.
This continues today, as laws deal primarily with protecting property
rather than people. For example, it is not illegal for speculators to
sit on food supplies, creating scarcity so prices go up while people
starve to death, but it is illegal for starving people to steal food.
Different states perform many different tasks, from providing free
school meals to upholding religious orthodoxy. But as we mentioned
above, the primary function of all states in a capitalist society is to
protect and promote the economy and the making of profit.
However, as businesses are in constant competition with each other, they
can only look after their own immediate financial interests â sometimes
damaging the wider economy. As such, the state must sometimes step in to
look after the long-term interests of the economy as a whole.
So states educate and train the future workforce of their country and
build infrastructure (railways, public transport systems etc) to get us
to work and transport goods easily. States sometimes protect national
businesses from international competition by taxing their goods when
they come into the country or expand their markets internationally
through wars and diplomacy with other states. Other times they give tax
breaks and subsidies to industries, or sometimes bail them out entirely
if they are too important to fail.
These measures sometimes clash with the interests of individual
businesses or industries. However, this doesnât change the fact that the
state is acting in the interests of the economy as a whole. Indeed, it
can be seen basically as a way to settle disputes among different
capitalists about how to do it.
Some states also provide many services which protect people from the
worst effects of the economy. However, this has rarely, if ever, been
the result of generosity from politicians but of pressure from below.
So for instance, after World War II, the UK saw the construction of the
welfare state, providing healthcare, housing etc to those that needed
it. However, this was because of fear amongst politicians that the end
of the war would see the same revolutionary upheaval as after World War
I with events like the Russianand German revolutions, the Biennio Rosso
in Italy, the British army mutiniesetc.
This fear was justified. Towards the end of the war, unrest amongst the
working classes of the warring nations grew. Homeless returning soldiers
took over empty houses while strikes and riots spread. Tory MP Quintin
Hogg summed up the mood amongst politicians in 1943, saying âif we donât
give them reforms, they will give us revolution.â
This does not mean reforms are âcounter-revolutionaryâ. It just means
that the state is not the engine for reform; we, the working class â and
more specifically, our struggles â are.
When our struggles get to a point where they cannot be ignored or
repressed anymore, the state steps in to grant reforms. We then end up
spending the next 100 years hearing people go on about what a âgreat
reformerâ so-and-so was, even though it was our struggles which forced
those reforms onto them.
When as a class we are organised and militant, social reforms are
passed. But as militancy is repressed or fades away, our gains are
chipped away at. Public services are cut and sold off bit-by-bit,
welfare benefits are reduced, fees for services are introduced or
increased and wages are cut.
As such, the amount of welfare and public service provision to the
working class in a society basically marks the balance of power between
bosses and workers. For example, the French working class has a higher
level of organisation and militancy than the American working class. As
a result, French workers also generally have better conditions at work,
a shorter working week, earlier retirement and better social services
(i.e. healthcare, education etc) -regardless of whether there is a right
or left wing government in power.
For decades, in addition to the struggle in workplaces and the streets,
many workers have tried to improve their conditions through the state.
The precise methods have differed depending on location and historical
context but primarily have taken two main forms: setting up or
supporting political parties which run for election and are supposed to
act in workersâ interests, or more radically having the party seize
political power and set up a workersâ government through revolution. We
will briefly examine two representative examples which demonstrate the
futility of these tactics.
The Labour Party in the UK was created by the trade unions in 1906. It
soon adopted the stated aim of creating a socialist society.
However, faced with the realities of being in Parliament, and therefore
the dependence on a healthy capitalist economy they quickly abandoned
their principles and consistently supported anti-working class policies
both in opposition and later in government .
From supporting the imperialist slaughter of World War I, to murdering
workers abroad to maintain the British Empire, to slashing workersâ
wages to sending troops against striking dockers.
When the working class was on the offensive, Labour granted some
reforms, as did the other parties. But, just like the other parties,
when the working class retreated they eroded the reforms and attacked
living standards. For example just a few years after the introduction of
the free National Health Service Labour introduced prescription charges,
then charges for glasses and false teeth.
As outlined, this was not because Labour Party members or officials were
necessarily bad people but because at the end of the day they were
politicians whose principle task was to keep the UK economy competitive
in the global market.
In Russia in 1917, when workers and peasants rose up and took over the
factories and the land, the Bolsheviks argued for the setting up of a
ârevolutionaryâ workersâ state. However, this state could not shake off
its primary functions: as a violent defence of an elite, and attempting
to develop and expand the economy to maintain itself.
The so-called âworkersâ stateâ turned against the working class: one-man
management of factories was reinstated, strikes were outlawed and work
became enforced at gunpoint. The state even liquidated those in its own
quarters who disagreed with its new turn. Not long after the revolution,
many of the original Bolsheviks had been executed by the government
institutions they helped set up.
This doesnât mean that our problems would be solved if the state
disappeared tomorrow. It does mean, though, that the state is not
detached from the basic conflict at the heart of capitalist society:
that between employers and employees. Indeed, it is part of it and
firmly on the side of employers.
Whenever workers have fought for improvements in our conditions, we have
come into conflict not just with our bosses but also the state, who have
used the police, the courts, the prisons and sometimes even the military
to keep things as they were.
And where workers have attempted to use the state, or even take it over
to further our interests, they have failed â because the very nature of
the state is inherently opposed to the working class. They only
succeeded in legitimising and strengthening the state which later turned
against them.
It is our collective power and willingness to disrupt the economy that
gives us the possibility of changing society. When we force the state to
grant reforms we donât just win better conditions. Our actions point to
a new society, based on a different set of principles. A society where
our lives are more important than their âeconomic growthâ. A new type of
society where there isnât a minority with wealth that need to be
protected from those without; that is, a society where the state is
unnecessary.
The state needs the economy to survive and so will always back those who
control it. But the economy and the state are based on the work we do
every day, and that gives us the power to disrupt them and eventually do
away with them both.
Private property, exclusion and the state â Junge Linke
â Brief article examining the role the state plays in capitalist
society.
The state: Its historical role â Peter Kropotkin
â A classic anarchist text examining the stateâs role in society.
The state in capitalist society â Ralph Miliband
â Excellent book analysing the nature of the state and how it cannot be
used in workersâ interests.
Capital and the state â Gilles DauvĂ©
â More detailed libertarian communist analysis of the state.
Marxism, freedom and the state â Mikhail Bakunin
â A collection of writings of the Russian anarchist with comments on the
state which were sadly proved accurate with the experiences of state
socialist revolutions.
The Bolsheviks and workersâ control â Solidarity
â A detailed examination of the anti-working class policies of the
Bolsheviks in the earliest days of the Russian revolution.
Labouring in vain â Subversion
â A critical history of the Labour Party from a working-class
perspective.
libcom.orgâs brief introduction to work, what we think is wrong with it
and what we, as workers, can do about it.
For the majority of us, most of our lives are dominated by work. Even
when we are not actually at work, we are travelling to or from work,
worrying about work, trying to recover from work in order to get back to
work the next day, or just trying to forget about work.
Or even worse, we donât have work and then our main worry is trying to
find it. Or we are one of the people â mostly women â whose household
and caring work does not count as paid work at all.
For many of us, we donât care about the work we do, we just need the
money to get by. And at the end of the month, our bank balances are
barely any different from the month before. We spend our days checking
our watches, counting down the minutes til we can go home, the days til
the weekend, the months til our next holidayâŠ
Even for those of us who have jobs in areas we actually enjoy, we do not
control our work. Our work controls us, we experience it as an alien
force. Most of us do not control what time we get to work or what time
we leave. Nor do we control the pace or volume of our work, what
products we make or what services we provide, or how we do it.
For example, nurses may love caring for their patients but still be
frustrated by bed shortages, insufficient staffing, punishing shift
patterns and arbitrary management targets. And designers may enjoy being
creative, but find their creativity is restrained: they are not given
free rein to innovate in the way they may want, often having to
effectively copy existing products which bosses know will sell.
Paradoxically, while millions of people are overworked, barely able to
cope with high workloads and long working hours, millions of other
people are jobless and desperate to work.
Globally, millions of people every year are killed by their work, while
scores of millions are made ill and hundreds of millions are injured.
And then much work, which may be extremely difficult, boring and/or
dangerous for workers and destructive for the environment, is not even
socially useful. Like in manufacturing, where built-in obsolescence
causes products to break down making people buy new ones, or entire
industries like sales and advertising which exist only to persuade
people to buy more products and work more to buy them.
Lots of other useful work is squandered in supporting socially useless
industries, like energy generation being used to power telemarketing
call centres, the manufacture of bogus cosmetic and medical products, or
the arms industry whose only product is death.
While automation, mechanisation and productivity continually increases,
working hours and working years donât fall. In fact, in most places they
are rising, as retirement ages are put up and working hours are
increased.
So if there are so many problems with work, why is it like this?
The reason is pretty simple: we live in a capitalist economy. Therefore
it is this system which determines how work is organised.
As outlined in our introduction to capitalism, the primary essence of
the capitalist economy is accumulation.
Money â capital â is invested to become more money. And this happens
because of our work. Our work is the basis of the economy.
This is because our work adds value to the initial capital, and the
value we add comes to more than our wages. This surplus value results in
the growth of the initial capital, which funds profits and expansion.
The lower our wages, the harder we work and the longer our hours the
bigger this surplus value is. Which is why employers in the private,
public and even cooperative sector continually attempt to make us work
harder and longer for less pay.
Similarly, our jobs are made dull and monotonous, so unskilled workers
can do it cheaper. The products we produce or the services we provide
are also often substandard to keep costs low.
Mass unemployment functions to keep wages of overworked employed workers
down as workers who are not afraid of being replaced by the unemployed
can demand higher wages, better conditions and shorter working hours.
(This is why governments donât just end unemployment by reducing the
length of the maximum working week.)
Enterprises which extract the most surplus value â and so profit and
expand the most â succeed. Those which donât, fail.
So if a company or an industry is profitable, it grows. This is
regardless of whether it is socially necessary, destroys the environment
or kills its workers.
This growth also relies on unwaged work, such as housework or domestic
labour. This includes the reproduction of workers in the form of
producing and raising children â the next generation of workers â and
servicing the current workforce: physically, emotionally, and sexually.
This unpaid labour is predominantly carried out by women.
Even though the nature of work is determined overall by the economic
system we live under, there are things we can â and do â do as workers
here and now to improve our situation.
If our work is the basis of the economy, and the basis of growth and
profits, then ultimately we possess the power to disrupt it, not to
mention ultimately take it over for ourselves.
Every day we resist the imposition of work. Often in small,
individualised and invisible ways. We sometimes get in late, leave
early, steal moments to talk to colleagues and friends, take our time,
pull sickiesâŠ
And sometimes we resist in bigger, collective and more confrontational
ways.
By taking direct action like stopping work â striking â we stop the
gears of production, and prevent profits from being made. In this way we
can defend our conditions and leverage improvements from our bosses.
The working class together, including the unemployed and unpaid, can
fight to improve other conditions, like for better state benefits or
against high prices or regressive taxes.
In the 1800s in Western countries, working hours averaged 12â14 hours
per day, six or seven days a week under appalling conditions with no
holidays or pensions.
Facing off massive repression from employers and governments, workers
organised themselves and struggled for decades, using strikes,
occupations, go slows and even armed uprisings and attempted
revolutions. And eventually won the far better conditions most of us
have today: the weekend, paid holiday, shorter working hoursâŠ
Of course outside of the West many workers still experience these
Victorian conditions today, and are currently fighting against them.
If we organise to assert our needs on the economy, we can improve our
conditions further. And if we do not they will be eroded back to the
level of the 1800s.
By organising together we do not only improve our lives now but we can
lay the foundations for a new type of society.
A society where we donât just work for the sake of making profits we
will never see or building a âhealthyâ economy but to fulfil human
needs. Where we organise ourselves collectively to produce necessary
goods and services â as workers did albeit briefly in Russia in 1917,
Italy in 1920, Spain 1936 and elsewhere. Where we get rid of unnecessary
work and make all necessary tasks as easy, enjoyable and interesting as
possible. A libertarian communistsociety.
â libcom.orgâs reading guide about work, wage labour and the struggle
against it.
â libcom.orgâs guide to organising in your workplace.
â libcom.orgâs archive of accounts of people organising in the
workplace.
Work and the free society â Anarchist Federation
â A more detailed pamphlet from the AF analysing work in capitalist
society, explaining its history and suggesting how work could be
organised in a free society.
â Landmark work by Studs Terkel speaking to people working in a
multitude of jobs and their feelings on them.
Wages against housework â Silvia Federici
â Autonomist Marxist feminist Silvia Federici on wages and housework.
The right to be lazy â Paul Lafargue
â In this text, Lafargue argues for the working classâs right to be
lazy, and says that productivity is the bossesâ problem, not ours.
A brief introduction to trade or labour unions, their function in
society and how we at libcom.org think we should approach them, as
workers.
To most people, a union is an organisation of workers created to defend
and improve its membersâ conditions with respect to things like pay,
pensions and benefits.
This is partially accurate, but definitely far from the whole story.
It leaves out the other side of trade unionism: the backroom deals, the
cuts in pay and conditions presented as a âvictoryâ, the strikes called
off pending endless negotiations, the members told to break the strikes
of other unions, the union activists disciplined by their own unionsâŠ
Time and again, union leaders â even left-wing ones â disappoint us. And
just like with politicians, every time they do, thereâs always another
one telling us itâll be better next time if we elect them.
The problem, however, is deeper than having chosen the wrong person for
the top-spot.
Unions of any reasonable size have a paid staff, and are organised like
a company. You have six-figure salary earning executives, appointed
middle-managers enforcing decisions from the top and a career ladder
into social-democratic political parties, think-tanks, government
departments.
In the workplace unions are run day-to-day by workers who volunteer to
be representatives, and often suffer personal costs in terms of
victimisation for their troubles. However, union members and their lay
reps in the workplace can also come into conflict with the unionâs paid
bureaucracy.
This is because the rank and file have different interests to the people
who work for and run the union. Union leaders have to put the needs of
the union as a legal entity above those of the union as a group of
workers fighting for their own interests. This is because their jobs and
political positions are dependent on this legal entity continuing to
exist. So supporting any action which could get the union in trouble â
such as unofficial strike action â is just not on the cards for union
leaders.
Even at regional and local level, full-timers donât share the interests
of their members. This isnât to do with their ideas or intentions (lots
of full-timers are ex-workplace militants who want to help workers
organise beyond their own workplaces), itâs about their material
interests. A win for a worker is more money, longer breaks, better
benefits. A win for a full-timer is a spot at the negotiating table with
management, so that workers will continue to pay membership dues to the
union.
Lay rep or shop steward posts â often taken by the most militant workers
â can be complicated. Unlike full-timers, they still work on the shop
floor and are paid like those they work with. If bosses cut pay, their
pay is cut too. And as a workplace militant, they can be victimised by
their bosses for their role.
However, they must also balance between shop floor interests and the
union bureaucracyâs interests. For example, a union rep may be furious
that her union is recommending workers accept a pay cut, but she will
still have to argue for workers not to leave the union. If they put
workersâ interests ahead of the bureaucracyâs they can find themselves
under attack not only from their bosses, but also their union.
Some problems have been with unions since they were first founded.
However others are the result of changes in capitalist society since
then. Originally, trade unions were illegal, and any organising effort
was met with intense repression from employers and governments. Early
union militants were often jailed, deported or even killed.
However, when workers kept striking and fighting despite the repression,
and succeeded in greatly improving their conditions, employers and
governments eventually realised it was in their interests to allow
unions to be legally established, and give them a say in the management
of the economy.
In this way open conflict between employers and workers could be
minimised, and the actual say workers would have could be drastically
limited by creating complex legal structures through which our official
ârepresentativesâ would speak on our behalf. And similarly the way in
which we can have our say could also be regulated within a legal
framework overseen by the state.
This process has taken place in different ways in different countries
and different stages in history, but the net result is similar. Across
much of the West we can join unions freely but the actions we can take
to defend ourselves from employers are limited by the web of industrial
relations laws. Big barriers are placed in the way of taking effective
strike action, in particular by banning any action which is not directly
related to particular union membersâ terms and conditions and any kind
of solidarity action. The unions have to enforce these anti-worker laws
on their own members, as if they did not they would suffer financial
penalties and asset seizure â and therefore cease to exist.
Furthermore, once unions accept the capitalist economy and their place
in it, their institutional interests become bound to the national
economy, since the performance of the national economy effects the
unionsâ prospects for collective bargaining. They want healthy
capitalism in their country to provide jobs so they can unionise and
represent them. Itâs not uncommon therefore for trade unions to help
hold down wages to help the national economy, as the British Trades
Union Congress (TUC) did in the 1970s, or even assist their national
governments in mobilising for war efforts, as unions did across Europe
in World War I, or as the militant US United Auto Workers (UAW) did in
World War II, signing a no strike pledge.
One thing which many radical and left-wing union members often argue for
is âreclaiming the unionsâ or, sometimes, building new unions without
bureaucrats at all. The thing is, unions donât function how they do
because of bureaucrats; itâs that bureaucrats are created by how unions
function (or want to function) in the workplace.
The unionâs role is a tricky one: in the end, they have to sell
themselves twice, to two groups of people with opposing interests (i.e.
bosses and workers).
To sell themselves to us, they have to show that there are benefits to
union membership. This sometimes means they can help us take action to
force management to maintain or improve our conditions, especially if
they are trying to gain recognition in a workplace for the first time.
Through getting us to join, they show management that they are the main
representative of the workforce. But equally, they also have to show
that they are responsible negotiating partners.
Management need to know that once an agreement is reached, the union can
and will get their members back to work. Otherwise, why would management
do any deals with a negotiating partner that canât honour the agreements
it negotiates?
It is from this desire to be a recognised negotiating partner that
unions end up acting against their own members. It shows them up in
front of management as not being able to control their members. This is
why in the UK in 2011 you get a Unite union negotiator calling a rank
and file electriciansâ group âcancerousâ just as in 1947 a minersâ union
official called for legal action against wildcat striking miners âeven
if there are 50,000 or 100,000 of themâ. Similarly, at highpoints in the
US union movement in the 1940s and 1970s, the UAW got its own members
disciplined and fired for striking unofficially.
So when unions âsell us outâ itâs not just them ânot doing their job
properlyâ. They might do one side (ours) badly, but theyâre doing the
other side really well! After all, they need to be able to control our
struggles in order to represent them. And this is why the efforts of the
so-called ârevolutionary leftâ over the past 100 years to âradicaliseâ
the unions by electing the right officials and passing the right motions
have ended up in a dead-end. Indeed, rather than radicalising the
unions, the union structures have more often deradicalised the
revolutionaries!
The only unions which have resisted this have been those that refused to
take this representative role, like the historical IWW in the USA, the
old FORA in Argentina and the modern day CNT in Spain. This refusal has
cost them in reduced membership numbers, state repression, or both.
Most unions take the easier road, helping to ensure peace, at our
expense, in the workplace. They kick our problems into the long grass of
grievance procedures, casework forms and backroom negotiations. And
employers love it. As a manager at a multinational in South Africa once
said when asked why his company had recognised the workersâ union: âHave
you ever tried to negotiate with a football field full of militant angry
workers?â
Since the 1980s, weâve seen huge attacks on workersâ conditions and
drastic changes to the job market. Casual, temporary and agency work
have become increasingly common, with workers changing jobs regularly.
In the West, many of the traditional industries of the trade union
movement have closed down and been replaced by those historically less
organised like retail, hospitality and the service sector.
This new reality undermines traditional trade unionism as building union
branches with a stable membership becomes much more difficult. However,
rather than trying to keep members by helping militants organise in the
workplace, the solution for the unions has been in mergers (NALGO, NUPE
and COHSE into Unison, TGWU and Amicus into Unite in the UK) and in
offering supermarket discount cards and cheap insurance as perks of
membership.
Equally, the international nature of the job market has further
undermined the official unions. Workers can be employed in one country
while working in another and companies themselves can move factories and
offices to where labour is cheaper.
For instance, in 2011, Fiat workers in Italy were encouraged by their
unions to accept worsened contracts under threat of having the work
moved to Poland. Meanwhile, Polish workers themselves were struggling
against Fiat. However, in neither country did the unions try to forge
international links between workers.
Whereas their representative function makes dealing with the trade union
bureaucracy extremely slow and draining for militants in them, these
changes to the job market have made them more or less irrelevant for
many workers outside of them.
When industrial disputes come up, non-union workers feel they canât do
much to support while even those striking may feel they are just going
through the ritual of official strike action: management put forward a
terrible offer, the union is âoutragedâ and calls a one-day strike
(maybe a few), negotiations restart and strikes are called off,
management come back with a very slightly less terrible deal and union
bosses declare victory and recommend it to their members.
However, it does not always have to work like this. The important thing
â whether we are members of a union or not â is that we go beyond the
limits set by the official unions and restrictive labour laws. Instead
of voting for different representatives or passing motions in stale
union branch meetings, we need to organise together with our coworkers,
to break their rules and stick to our own:
job they do, which union theyâre in (if any) or what kind of contract
theyâre on.
strike only to see their colleagues in other unions go into work. This
makes all of our strikes weaker and only by sticking together can we
shut down our workplaces and beat our bosses. For instance Shell tanker
drivers won above inflation pay increases in 2008 when drivers from
other companies refused to cross their picket lines. In the same year
NUT and Unison crossed each otherâs picket lines in education, and
neither won significant concessions.
whether covered by industrial relations law or not. In 2008, Brighton
bin workers fought back against management bullying, winning after
barely two days of wildcat action. Another wildcat later that year
confirmed their willingness to strike, with or without official union
backing. So in 2009 when management tried to cut their pay by up to
ÂŁ8000 (per year, per worker), they forced management to back down just
two days into a week-long official strike.
workplace but whole industries and even across industries. We need to
make links between our workplaces so we can come out to support each
other. In 2009, when oil company Total tried to sack 51 workers,
everyone walked out in support. Total responded by sacking over 600
workers for taking unofficial action. However, strikes spread across the
energy industry and in just over a fortnight everyone got their jobs
back.
blaming immigrants taking jobs or undercutting wages, or foreign workers
when factories are moved overseas, we need to support migrant workers
and workers in other countries struggling to improve their pay and
conditions. This will not only benefit them directly but will also mean
that employers will no longer be able to use them to undercut wages of
native workers either.
These are not new ideas. These are things which workers â both in unions
and out â have done throughout history and, in doing so, have often come
into conflict not just with their bosses but also their union
bureaucracy.
We often see unions as an organisational framework that gives us
strength. And certainly, this is partially true. What we donât always
acknowledge (or at least donât act upon) is that the strength a union
gives us is actually just our own strength channelled through â and
therefore limited by â the union structure.
It is only by acknowledging this and taking struggle into our own hands
â by ignoring union divides and not crossing each othersâ picket lines,
by not waiting for our union before taking action, by taking
unsanctioned action such as occupations, go slows and sabotage â that we
can actually use our strength and start to win.
â libcom.orgâs reading guide around trade or labour unions and the role
they play in modern society.
â a set of tips and guides for organising in your workplace. From basic
principles and getting started, to making demands, taking action such as
strikes, and winning them.
â our section full of personal accounts of organising and taking action
in the workplace, and lessons learned from them.
The origins of the union shop â Tom Wetzel
â article about the limitations of union closed shops and how they
helped unions act as a tool of discipline of workers instead of a tool
for defending their interests.
Organized Labor versus âThe Revolt Against Workâ â John Zerzan
â excellent article examining how unions often participate in the
exploitation of workers, focussing in particular on the US car
manufacturing industry from the 1930s to 1970s (the author much later on
in his life wrote a lot of terrible stuff, but we promise this is good).
Institutionalization from below: The unions and social movements in 1970s Italy â Robert Lumley
â chapter of Robert Lumleyâs excellent book on the mass struggles in
Italy in the 1960s-70s detailing how the unions re-gained control of the
social movements and channelled them into ârepresentativeâ politics.
1970â1972: The Lordstown struggle and the real crisis in production â Ken Weller
â highly interesting pamphlet on workersâ struggles against the frenetic
pace of work at a General Motors plant, and the co-optation of the
struggle by the auto workers union.
Wildcat: Dodge Truck June 1974
â detailed article by participants and eyewitnesses about the wildcat
strike at the Chrysler truck plant in Michigan, 1974, and the roles of
the workers, the union and the left.
libcom.orgâs brief introduction to direct action and why we advocate it,
as opposed to other forms of political activity.
Many people today are worried about the direction that the world is
heading in. Whether itâs about their working conditions or unemployment,
the environment, housing, war or any number of other problems, itâs
certain that millions (even billions?) of people at some point look for
some form of political action to solve their problem.
There are loads of different methods which people use to try and change
the world, too many to mention here. Often, however, we think that we
can look for help from various âspecialistsâ like politicians, union
leaders, legal experts and the like.
In reality, this isnât the case. Politicians and union leaders have
interests different from our own, like basically anyone earning
six-figure salaries or even those bumbling around ÂŁ80â90,000 a year. And
trying to find protection behind the law can leave us equally at sea, as
the laws that protect us today can simply be changed tomorrow â assuming
theyâre even enforced in the first place!
At the same time, we sometimes decide that at least we can decide to not
âtake partâ in the worst parts of capitalism. We can choose not to buy
from certain âunethicalâ companies or even grow our own food.
However, the problem with this is that it makes resistance to capitalism
an individual lifestyle choice, and one that not all people can make.
For instance, âfair tradeâ and organic products are often more expensive
than food which is neither.
More seriously though, it makes social problems about individual
companies or governments which behave âbadlyâ rather than a problem with
society as a whole. And it still leaves us to face them alone, through
our consumer choices. Business as usual continues, just for different
businesses. Exploitation continues and thereâs no amount of fair trade
cashew nuts thatâs gonna change that!
This is why we favour direct action: because it relies on our collective
strength to stop âbusiness as usualâ rather than our individual
lifestyle choices or appeals to political and union leaders. And because
at the end of the day, it means relying each other â the others who
share our situation â rather than on so-called âexpertsâ who ultimately
wonât have to live with our problems.
Put simply, direct action is when people take action to further their
goals, without the interference of a third party. This means the
rejection of lobbying politicians or appealing to our employersâ
generosity to improve our conditions. Ultimately, itâs not even just
that they donât care â itâs that they profit from making our conditions
worse. For more on this, read our introduction to class and class
struggle.
So we take action ourselves to force improvements to our conditions. In
doing so, we empower ourselves by taking control of and responsibility
for our actions. So, fundamental to direct action is the idea that we
can only depend on each other to achieve our goals
Direct action takes place at the point where we experience the sharp end
of capitalism. Often this will mean where we work, as our bosses try to
sack us or make us work harder, for less money. Or it can be where we
live, as local politicians try to cut spending by getting rid of public
services.
Direct action at work is basically any action that interferes with the
bossesâ ability to manage, forcing them to cave in to their staffâs
demands.
The best-known form of direct action at work is the strike, where
workers walk off the job until they get what they want. However, strike
action can sometimes be limited by union bureaucrats and anti-strike
laws. That said, workers often successfully ignore these limits and hold
unofficial, or âwildcatâ, strikes which return a lot of the impact of
strike action.
Though there are too many to mention here, some other direct action
tacticsused by workers are:
striking but not letting the boss replace them with strike-breakers
(also known as âscabsâ).
that less work is done (and so less profit made).
every little rule to the letter, again so as to slow down the pace of
work.
There are many examples of these kinds of tactics being used
successfully. In 1999, London Underground workers engaged in a âpiss
strikeâ against not being allowed to go home once their work was
finished. Instead of pissing by the tracks as usual, they would insist
on being accompanied to a toilet by the safety supervisor, who had to
bring the rest of the team with them (for safety). On their return,
someone else would ârealiseâ they had to go as well, effectively
stopping any work happening!
In Brighton in 2009, refuse workers held a successful wildcat strike
over management bullying while the same year saw Visteon workers in
London and Belfast occupy their factories against redundancies.
Direct action in the workplace has often been used for political ends as
well. For instance, in 2008, South African dockers refused to unload
arms that were to be taken to Zimbabwe.
However, it is possible for successful direct action to take place
outside of the workplace as well, over a variety of issues.
The 2003 Iraq war saw huge demonstrations, including the biggest in
British history in London on February 15^(th) where over a million
people got really wet marching to Hyde Park. This was unsurprisingly
ignored by politicians, who didnât really care about how wet, cold or
numerous we were. But direct action outside the workplace and in the
community can be effective.
The most famous example in recent British history is the Poll Tax. When
Margaret Thatcher attempted to bring in the unpopular tax in 1989, up to
17 million working class people across the country refused to pay it.
Non-payment groups spread through communities all over the UK and people
set up local anti-eviction networks to confront bailiffs. By 1990,
Margaret Thatcher and the Poll Tax had both been beaten. She was also
later filmed crying on telly.
Similar non-payment campaigns successfully beat increasing water charges
(1993â1996) and bin taxes (2003â2004) in Ireland. In 2011, working
people in Greece began the âWe Wonât Payâ campaign against rising
prices, with people refusing to pay motorway tolls, public transport
tickets and some doctors even refusing to charge patients for their
treatment.
Mainland Europe has also seen the spread of âeconomic blockadesâ. Often
used by students or workers where strike action has not been hugely
effective, they involve participants blocking major roads or transport
hubs. The idea is that by stopping people getting to work or slowing the
transportation of goods and services, the protesters block the economy
in much the same way as a strike would.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been involved in tactics like
these, breaking out from government-approved (and ineffective) tactics
such as lobbying and A-to-B marches.
Direct action is a rejection of the idea that we are powerless to change
our conditions. Improvements to our lives are not handed down from
above. They must be (and have always been) fought for.
We are always told about how people fought for the vote. Rarely,
however, is it mentioned how workers fought for the welfare state, for
decent housing, health care, wages, decent working hours, safe working
conditions and pensions.
But direct action is more than just an effective means for defending or
improving conditions. It is also, as anarcho-syndicalist Rudolf Rocker
said, the âschool of socialismâ, preparing us for the free society many
of us strive to create.
Like former Liverpool manager Bill Shankleyâs approach to life and
football, direct action involves collective effort, everyone working for
each other and helping each other for a common end. By using direct
action, even when we make mistakes, we learn from experience that we
donât need to leave things to âexpertsâ or professional politicians.
This course offers us nothing but betrayal and broken promises as well
as that long-felt sense of powerlessness.
Direct action teaches us to control our own struggles. To build a
culture of resistance that links with other workers in their struggles.
And as our confidence grows in the strength of our solidarity, so too
does our confidence in our ability to change the world. And as this
grows, the focus moves from controlling our own struggles to controlling
our entire lives.
Based on/stolen from
What is Direct Action? by Organise! Ireland
.
Direct action â Emile Pouget
â Classic Emile Pouget essay on direct action in working class struggle.
â Article from April 2011 issue of the Industrial Worker that explains
that direct action isnât solely used for its effect on âbread and
butterâ issues.
â A text from the French CNT-AIT written in March 2006, covering direct
action tactics and strategy.
Libcom.org workplace organising guides
â A set of tips and advice guides for organising in your workplace from
getting started to making demands and taking action.
A summary and examination of the environmental crisis and its causes,
and how we think the problems can be solved.
The earth is facing an environmental crisis on a scale unprecedented in
human history. This crisis is already responsible for high levels of
human suffering and, if it continues, risks the extinction of human life
on the planet.
The most damaging environmental issues in the world today are:
temperatures that will severely disrupt weather patterns causing mass
floods, droughts and disease killing millions. Air pollution also
destroys the ozone layer (that filters out dangerous cancer-causing rays
from the sun) and causes respiratory and other diseases amongst humans
which kills over 6 million people per year, according to the World
Health Organisation.
dumping of dangerous industrial wastes (such as mercury and nuclear
waste). Also, the use of non-biodegradable material in products and
packaging have turned many parts of the world into large rubbish dumps,
poisoning and injuring people.
fertilisers, pesticides etc. as well as inappropriate land use and
cutting down trees. For these reasons, soil is eroded at a faster rate
than it is being produced, contributing to rural poverty. Some
scientists suggest that by 2030 there will be only 20% of the worldâs
forests remaining, 10% of which will be in a degraded condition.
than any time since the dinosaurs died out. This loss of species
undermines the eco-sphere on which all life depends.
People often say that the reason that the world is in its current state
is because there are too many people or because of modern technology.
However, many of the most environmentally destructive practices are not
done by or for the benefit of most people and nor is it the case that
most modern industrial technologies are inherently destructive.
The problem is not that there are too many people or that modern
technology is inherently destructive. The problem is in society â and
particularly industry â as it is run today. Specifically, it is the
burning of fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas, releasing carbon dioxide
(CO2) resulting in global warming that is catapulting the planet towards
disaster. However, it doesnât have to be this way.
Many dangerous technologies and substances can be replaced. Instead of
burning fossil fuels, renewable sources of energy can be used, such as
wind or solar power. Petrochemical based plastics (for things like
plastic bags), which are not biodegradable, can be replaced by
starch-based plastics (which safely disintegrate if left outside).
Living in an eco-friendly way does not necessarily mean that we have to
accept a lower standard of living. The real blame for the environmental
crisis isnât because ordinary people leave too many lights on or use the
wrong type of soap. It is the wasteful system of production for profit
that is unsustainable. The real blame for the environmental crisis must
be laid at the door of capitalism, governments, and the society that
these forces have created.
Capitalism is an enormously wasteful system of production, geared
towards market competition and profit. For companies to survive this
competition, they profits must be maximised. And to maximise profits,
costs must be kept low. So just as paying workers is a cost that needs
to be minimised, so is the cost of protecting the environment and
disposing of waste safely. Read our introduction to Capitalism here.
Installing safety equipment and monitoring the use of dangerous
materials costs money and cuts into potential profits. It is more
profitable to shift these costs onto society in the form of pollution.
This is without mentioning all the things produced in a wasteful or
inefficient way. Huge numbers of products are built to break in order to
keep sales up (âbuilt-in obsolescenceâ). Useless or inefficient goods
are promoted and sold by means of high pressure advertising, often with
the aid of government policy (such as private cars in place of
large-scale public transport). Furthermore, this advertising pressures
us to dispose of useful items which are no longer âcoolâ and purchase
new ones.
Nor are all goods produced under capitalism actually consumed by
ordinary people. Sometimes companies produce more of a given product
than can be sold on the market, leading to a price collapse and
recession. The bossesâ solution is to destroy or stockpile the âextraâ
goods, rather than distribute them to those who need them. In 1991 there
were 200 million tons of grain worldwide which were hoarded to preserve
price levels. Three million tons could have eliminated famine in Africa
that year â and now the situation is still no different, with nearly
half of the worldâs food is wasted each year.
In a capitalist society, the success or failure of a state depends on
the success of capitalism within it. Therefore promoting profit and
growth of the economy is the key task of any state in capitalist
society. Read our introduction to the state here.
The state will not willingly enforce strong environmental protection
laws against companies because it does not want to cut into their
profits (and its own tax revenue).
In addition, it is often feared that strong environmental laws will make
countries âunattractive for investmentâ. For instance, in 1992, big
business in Holland were able to block a proposed tax on carbon
pollution by threatening to relocate to other countries.
As such, the environment cannot be saved by means of the state, or by
electing a âGreen Partyâ. Green parties, like all opposition parties,
always talk radical in opposition but act like the rest in power. In
Germany in 2001, the Green Party were part of the government and
condemned protests against the transport of nuclear waste and were
jointly responsible for the mobilisation 17,000 police against
protesting residents.
In 2007, the Irish Green Party, who had supported the âShell to Seaâ
campaign against the extraction of natural gas off northwest Ireland,
entered government. They soon changed their stance, with one senior
Green politician overseeing the project while in office.
At a general level, it is clear that the environmental crisis affects
everybody, and threatens the survival of the human race as a whole.
However, even though the environmental crisis is a global threat,
working classpeople are those most severely affected by it. We are the
ones that have to do the dangerous jobs that cause environmental
degradation and live in areas damaged by pollution, while those with
money can afford to move elsewhere.
While in the long-term a global environmental crisis would affect
everyone, not everyone shares an immediate interest in fighting it: the
bosses and the state profit from the processes that harm the
environment. Only the working class have a direct interest right now in
defending the environment.
Mainstream debates of âjobsâ vs. âenvironmentâ must be rejected.
Firstly, because those working in environmentally destructive industries
will often live in the same towns those industries destroy. So their
health, and that of their friends and family, is at stake, both while at
work and at home.
And secondly, because state and employer concern is completely false.
When they can make profit they will play down the environmental aspect,
saying it provides jobs. And when it stops being profitable or
economically important, theyâll close it down, saying how bad it is for
the environment and tossing everyone out onto the street, as we have
seen with the ILVA steelworks in Italy .
As capitalism is an inherently destructive system, ultimately the only
real way to stop the environmental crisis is to create a new society
based on human need rather than profit.
However, this does not mean nothing can be done in the meantime. The
environmental crisis was generated by capitalism and so must be dealt
with by challenging it. And as the state is part of this system, only
mass grassroots action can be an effective method to do so.
To do this, environmentalism must relate to the day-to-day needs of our
class. Itâs for this reason that we donât see much use in abstract
environmentalism separate from the class struggle.
As the people who produce all wealth in society, workers are able, by
action at the point of production, to wield a powerful weapon against
the bosses.
Because a large proportion of environmental damage comes from industry
and because the workers and our communities are the main victims of this
pollution, workersâ struggles for health and safety are often the first
line of defence for the environment.
By monitoring environmental damage as a part of health and safety we
link the struggle for better working conditions, our health (on and off
the job) and the environment. We can expose industrial use of toxic
substances, demand industry use recycled products where possible and
find alternatives for environmentally harmful products.
With enough power in the workplace, workers can even enforce
environmentalism in polluting industries. For instance, in the 1970s,
Australian construction workers enforced âgreen bansâ where workers
refused to work on environmentally harmful projects.
A lot of working class environmentalism takes place in the community,
such as campaigns for better public transport which then reduce the
reliance of individuals on private cars.
It can also come in the form of stopping environmentally destructive
projects being built or developed. For instance, in the UK in the early
1990s, anti-roads protests took place across the country. Though many
were lost the level of community support meant that in 1995, 300 roads
planned to go through natural areas or peopleâs communities were
cancelled.
In 2012, residents in Shifang, Western China, forced the government to
scrap their plans to build a massive copper alloy plant which many
feared would lead to serious pollution and health problems. And in Italy
today there are many examples of working class environmentalism, such as
the No TAV movement, which is struggling against the construction of a
high-speed rail link through the mountains of Piedmont, involving whole
communities using direct action in their battle for survival.
Environmental destruction is destroying large parts of the planet,
threatening the existence of all species, including our own. However,
this is not the result of bad choices made by individuals, but of how
society is organised.
Companies maximise profits when they do not have to worry about the
environment, while governments encourage investment when they do not try
to impose strict regulations.
As a result, it is up to the working class to defend the environment as
we are the only people with an immediate interest in defending it. And
while we can use direct action to fight environmental destruction,
ultimately, we will have to use our collective strength to build a new
world, not based on the relentless drive for profit but on fulfilling
human needs; including that of a clean and healthy environment.
Ecology and class: where thereâs brass, thereâs muck
â Anarchist Federation- Pamphlet looking at the ecological crisis facing
us today, what is being done about it and setting out in detail a
libertarian communist view on what an ecologically sustainable world
would be like.
Social Ecology versus Deep Ecology: A Challenge for the Ecology Movement â Murray Bookchin
â Murray Bookchinâs critique of âmysticalâ deep ecologists and his
contribution to the development of a pro-working class environmentalism.
Climate change and capitalist growth â Joseph Kay
â A look at whether capitalism is completely incapable at controlling
climate change, and what a capitalist approach to saving the environment
might be (as well as its effects).
Nature, Neoliberalism and Sustainable Development: Between Charybdis and Scylla
â Harry Cleaver â An autonomist Marxist take on the effects of
capitalist development on the environment.
The politics of anti-road struggle and the struggles of anti-road politics
â the case of the No M11 link road campaign â Aufheben â Fantastic
in-depth article on the UK anti-roads movement of the 1990s
1971â1974: Green bans by builders in Australia
â A history of the massive campaign of industrial action by building
workers which protected the environment and local communities by
refusing to work on harmful construction projects.
A short introduction to what we at libcom.org refer to as communism or
libertarian communism, what it is and why we think it is a good idea.
When we speak of communism we are talking about two things. Firstly as a
way of organising society based on the principle of âfrom each according
to ability, to each according to needâ, and secondly as the real
movement towards such a society in the world right now. Here we will
address these, starting with the latter, the less well-known meaning.
In our introduction to capitalism we describe the capitalist economy and
point out how the needs of capital â for profit and accumulation â are
opposed to our needs as working class people.
Employers try to cut wages, cut pensions, cut jobs, increase working
hours, speed up work and damage the environment. And when we can, we
resist because the conditions we live under in this economy push us into
asserting our needs against capital.
So when we do this: when we cooperate, when we use direct action and
solidarity to assert our needs, like when we organise strike action or
work to rule against pay cuts or higher workloads, we begin to lay the
foundations of a new type of society.
A society based on cooperation, solidarity and meeting human needs â a
communist society.
Communism as a movement, therefore, is the ever-present trend of
cooperation, mutual aid, direct action and resistance of the working
class in capitalist society.
At times this trend has encompassed huge numbers of the working class,
in huge waves of social unrest and workplace militancy, such as in the
American post-war wildcat strike wave, the Italian Hot Autumn of 1969 or
the British Winter of Discontent in 1978 or the anti-austerity
resistance in Greece since 2010.
Sometimes this social unrest has even resulted in the explosion of
revolutionary events. For example in Paris 1871, Russia 1917, Italy
1919â1920, Ukraine 1921, Spain 1936 and Hungary 1956. These are just
some of the occasions when the working class has tried, though
collective action, to reshape society in our own interests, rather than
the bossesâ.
There is no shortage in the world of politicians or political groups
claiming to have ready-made blueprints for creating a fairer society.
However, communism is not something which can be decreed into being by
political parties or individual politicians but must be created, through
mass participation and experimentation, by workers ourselves.
It is therefore worth pointing out at this stage that âcommunismâ has
nothing in common with the former USSR or present-day Cuba or North
Korea. These are essentially capitalist societies with only one
capitalist: the state. And it equally has nothing to do with China,
whose ruling party calls itself âcommunistâ while overseeing one of the
worldâs most successful capitalist nations.
However, in the various revolutionary events throughout history (some of
which mentioned previously), working class people have experimented with
different aspects of putting communism into practice. In doing so, they
laid down principles for how a communist society could be organised as
well as practical examples of what is possible when we act together in
our class interests.
Instead of ownership or control of the means of production â land,
factories, offices and so on â being in the hands of private individuals
or the state, a communist society is based on the common ownership and
control of those means. And instead of production for exchange and
profit, communism means production to meet human needs, including the
need for a safe environment.
Already today, it is us workers who produce everything and run all the
services necessary for life. We lay the roads, build the homes, drive
the trains, care for the sick, raise the children, make the food, design
the products, make the clothes and teach the next generation.
And every worker knows that often the bosses hinder us more than they
help.
Examples abound demonstrating that workers can effectively run
workplaces themselves. And in fact can do so better than hierarchically
organised workplaces.
One recent example are the factories taken over during the 2001 uprising
in Argentina, when one-third of the countryâs industry was put under
workersâ control. And historically, there have been even bigger and more
widespread examples.
For example during the Spanish civil war in 1936, the majority of
industries in revolutionary Spain were taken over and run collectively
by the workers. Where it was possible in some areas workers pushed
closer to a communist society, abolishing money or distributing
non-scarce goods for free.
In Seattle in 1919 during the general strike the city was taken over and
run by the workers. In Russia in 1917, workers took over the factories,
before the Bolsheviks returned the authority of the bosses.
Communism also means a moneyless society where our activity â and its
products â no longer take the form of things to be bought and sold.
The principal concern most people hold as to whether a communist society
could is asking if humans really can produce enough for us to survive
without the implicit threat of destitution, enforced by the wage system.
However, there is ample evidence demonstrating that we do not need the
threat of destitution or starvation hanging over us in order to engage
in productive activity.
For most of human history, we have not had money or wage labour, however
necessary tasks still got done.
In hunter-gatherer societies, for example, which were overwhelmingly
peaceful and egalitarian there was no distinction between work and play.
Even today, huge amounts of necessary work is done for free. In the UK,
for example, despite working long hours people (mostly women) also carry
out over three hours unpaid housework every day. On top of this, nearly
10% of people also carry out unpaid care work and 25% of adults in
England carry out voluntary work at least once a month. Globally, the
value of unpaid labour to the economy was an estimated $11 trillion a
year in 2011.
Almost every useful type of work you can think of is also done by some
people for free, not as âworkâ for wages, demonstrating that they are
not strictly necessary. Growing food, looking after children, playing
music, fixing cars, sweeping, talking to people about their problems,
caring for the sick, computer programming, making clothes, designing
products⊠the list is endless.
Studies show that money is not an effective motivator for good
performance at complex tasks. People having the freedom and control to
do what they want how they want, and having a constructive, socially
useful reason for doing so is the best motivator.
Things like the free software movement, too, demonstrate how
non-hierarchical, collective organisation for a socially useful goal can
be superior to hierarchical organisation for profit and that people
donât need wages to be motivated to produce.
And without the profit motive, any technological advancement which makes
a work process more efficient, instead of just laying workers off and
making those remaining work harder (like happens at present), we can all
just work a little less and have more free time. See our introduction to
work for more information.
In our introduction to the state we define government as âan
organisation controlled and run by a small minority of people⊠[with]
the ability within a given area to make political and legal decisions â
and to enforce them, with violence if necessary.â
With no division between employers and workers, and rich and poor, there
is no longer a need for a body of organised violence controlled by a
small number of people, like the police, to protect the property of the
rich and enforce poverty, wage labour and even starvation on everyone
else. And with no need to accumulate capital or make profit there is no
longer the need for armies to capture new markets and new resources.
Of course there will still be a need to protect the population from
antisocial or violent individuals. But this can be done in a localised
and democratic way, by a mandated, rotating and recallable body, rather
than by an unaccountable police force whose brutality and even murders
almost always go unpunished.
To make collective decisions, instead of ârepresentative democracyâ
which governs most countries at present we propose direct democracy.
True democracy is more than the right to elect a handful of (often rich)
individuals to make political decisions for us for a few years, while
other decisions are made unaccountably in corporate boardrooms led by
the âtyranny of the marketâ.
We can control our struggles ourselves, from our groups of workmates up
through workplace and community assemblies and we can come together to
coordinate across huge geographical areas using communications
technology and workersâ councils with mandated and recallable delegates.
And as we can organise our struggles, we can also eventually organise
society ourselves, as the working class has done before at times. For
instance, during the 1956 Hungarian uprising, workersâ councils were set
up to organise the running of society as workers demanded a socialism
based on working class democracy. And more recently, since the uprising
in 1994, the Chiapas region of Mexico has been run independently from
the state through direct democracy with no leaders and where public
servantsâ terms are limited to two weeks.
Many people may think that communism sounds like a good idea but doubt
it would work in practice. However first it is worth asking âdoes
capitalism work?â
As billions live in dire poverty amidst unimaginable wealth, and we
hurtle relentlessly towards environmental catastrophe we believe the
answer is a resounding ânoâ. And while no system will be perfect, we
believe there is ample evidence that a communist society would function
far better than our current capitalist one for the majority of people â
even for the rich who often arenât happy despite their wealth.
A communist society wonât be without problems. But it will resolve the
major issues we face today, like widespread poverty and ecological
devastation, freeing us to tackle much more interesting problems.
Instead of the need to work more, produce more and accumulate more, we
can instead focus on how to work less, make what work we need to do more
enjoyable, have more fun, more happiness and more joy.
Instead of measuring the success of a society by GDP, we can measure it
by well-being and happiness. Instead of relating to each other as
âstaffâ, âcustomersâ, âsupervisorsâ or âcompetitorsâ, we can relate to
each other as human beings.
Those of us reading and writing this may never live to see a fully
libertarian communist society. But even so communism as the real
movement â the everyday fight to assert our needs against those of
capital â improves our lives in the here and now, and gives us a better
chance of protecting living and working conditions, as well as the
planet, for ourselves and future generations. Indeed, it is communism as
the real movement â that is, the everyday struggles to defend and
improve our conditions today â that lays the foundations for communism
as a free and equal society.
What we call this movement has, in different times and places, been
called âanarchist communismâ, âlibertarian communismâ or simply
âsocialismâ or âcommunismâ. What matters, however, is not the name or
ideological label but its existence, not just as a future ideal but as
the living embodiment of our needs, our desires and our spirit of
resistance in our everyday lives. This spirit of resistance exists, and
has always existed, in every society and under every regime where there
is injustice and exploitation; so then, does the possibility for a world
based on freedom and equality for all.
Capitalism and communism â Gilles DauvĂ©
â a detailed explanation of communism as the emergence of real human
community and the antithesis of capitalism.
Work Community Politics War â prole.info
â an excellent introductory illustrated guide to libertarian communism
and capitalism.
A world without money: communism â The friends of 4 million young workers
â text discussing libertarian communism and in particular the necessity
of communism being a moneyless system.
Parecon or libertarian communism?
â a debate between the libcom group and advocates of a âparticipatory
societyâ, which clearly explains the arguments in favour of an economic
system based on âto each according to needâ.
The soul of man (sic) under socialism â Oscar Wilde
â the famous writer and poetâs key text outlining his personal vision
for a libertarian communist society, and its implications for personal
freedom and potential.
Collectives in the Spanish revolution â Gaston Leval
â book examining the constructive achievements of the Spanish
revolution, in which large parts of the country were run by the working
class.
From mass strike to new society â Jeremy Brecher
â excellent text looking at the transition from mass strikes to a
libertarian communist society, in particular examining historical
examples in Spain, Italy and Russia.
and
Fields, factories and workshops
â Peter Kropotkin- two classic texts by the Russian anarchist communist
which, while now dated are still invaluable. The former is an
examination of what needs to be done and how in a communist society, the
second spells out how such a society could be organised.