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Title: Co-operatives and conflicts!
Author: Anarcho
Date: January 12, 2009
Language: en
Topics: cooperatives, conflict
Source: Retrieved on 29th January 2021 from https://anarchism.pageabode.com/?p=175
Notes: A continuation of the discussion raised by the Bailouts or co-operatives? article, which was published in Freedom alongside another article arguing against anarchists raising the demand for co-operatives.

Anarcho

Co-operatives and conflicts!

I’m not sure whether Joseph Kay (“Co-ops or conflicts?”, Freedom vol.

69, No. 23–4) actually read my article on co-operatives before writing

his piece. I would guess not, as it has the feel of a standard

libertarian communist response against co-operatives within capitalism.

If so, that is a shame as I may need to repeat myself somewhat as the

analysis I presented was not really addressed.

I had hoped that my article (“Bailouts or co-operatives?”) had made

clear that suggesting co-operatives was a short-term solution for those

workers facing closing workplaces or whose bosses are seeking bailouts.

I did not address the issue of (so-called) “self-managed exploitation”

simply because that is a different question, relating to the issue of

co-operatives within capitalism and the future libertarian society. As

my original article addressed neither issue. Instead it was a call for

action, plus an explanation why co-operatives were a valid socialist

alternative to bail-outs and nationalisation within the current crisis.

Firstly, I do need to point out a few contradictions in his argument. He

proclaims that we are “in no position to demand anything. As a tiny

minority in the class, our ‘calls’ for this or that are impotent cries.”

Yet, without irony, he raises various “Communist demands” we should be

making! What is it to be? Are we in no position to demand anything or

can we raise demands? I assume the latter, which means that his real

objection to demands to create co-operatives is that he opposes that

specific demand.

Key suggests that “Communist demands are concrete, material demands

reflecting our needs as workers.” Apparently avoiding unemployment does

not reflect our needs as workers. Is he seriously suggesting that

workers, faced with the closure of their workplaces, should simply

collect their P45s and head straight to the unemployment office? That

the task of anarchists is not only to not suggest occupations but to

oppose them as “petit-bourgeois”? Or that we should be indifferent when

public (our!) money is used to bailout the muppets who got us into this

crisis to begin with?

Somewhat ironically, he lists some “concrete material demands” we should

“make” (forgetting that we are “in no position to demand anything”),

namely “no to job losses, wage cuts, public service cuts and evictions.”

No evictions? Like when bosses close their workplaces and evict their

workers from them? And how would we ensure no evictions? Perhaps by

occupation? And how are the occupiers to resist the resulting “wage

cuts” this would create (I doubt the bosses would pay them wages)?

Perhaps by resuming production under their own control? Surely

occupation of workplaces in the face of closure is but one of many

“concrete material demands” anarchists should be raising?

And that is a key point. I never suggested that supporting co-operatives

was the only tactic we could make in the current crisis. Far from it!

Need I point out that deciding to turn your workplace into a

co-operative involves both the “advocacy of collective action” and “mass

meetings”? Need I point out that it is a form of direct action? So it is

a case of co-operatives and conflict!

Kay argues that co-operatives are pointless unless “backed by a class

movement capable of imposing them. To call for this or that in the

absence of such class power is to get ahead of ourselves; there are more

pressing matters at hand.” Yet, as I suggested, raising the demand that

any bailout be premised on turning the firm into a co-operative is a

means of encouraging the formation of such a movement, a movement we can

both agree is sadly lacking just now. Nor can it be considered getting

ahead of ourselves to suggest possible libertarian solutions to the

“pressing matters” of bailouts, workplace closures and unemployment!

So need I say that my suggestion for co-operatives was aimed at

encouraging workers to act for themselves, to get them to find their own

solutions to the problems caused by the current crisis? As such, I agree

with Kay that “our activity should be aimed at increasing the

confidence, power and combativity of the wider class.” Opposing bailouts

and closures with demands for occupations and co-operatives is part of

that, I would suggest.

Kay spends some time discussing the limitations of co-operatives.

Capital, he argues, “cannot be managed in our interests, so it is

pointless to try.” Yet, as both Proudhon and Marx made clear,

co-operatives are not capitalist: “Let us suppose the workers are

themselves in possession of their respective means of production and

exchange their commodities with one another. These commodities would not

be products of capital.” (Marx, Capital, vol. 3, p. 276)

Suggesting that workers faced with unemployment form co-operatives

hardly means, to quote Kay, that “Class struggle – and with it the

potential for revolutionary change – is short-circuited.” Does he really

think that the state or capital will happily let workers expropriate

their workplaces? I doubt it. I noted how Kropotkin suggested union

control as an alternative to Nationalisation, I should also point out

that in the 1880s Engels suggested as a reform the putting of public

works and state-owned land into the hands of workers’ co-operatives

rather than capitalists. (Collected Works, vol. 47, p. 239). So, really,

were both Kropotkin and Engels advocating the ending of the working

class as a “potentially revolutionary class” and the end of “class

antagonism” when they suggested co-operatives as an alternative to

nationalisation? I doubt it.

Kay suggests that “often raised as a sort of intermediate, ‘realistic’

demand short of revolution” but that “workers’ control under capitalism

is simply self-managed exploitation” and that “establishing a co-op”

would be “swapping one form of alienation for another, proletarian for

petit-bourgeois.” I plead guilty to the first charge, although I stress

that my suggestion was an attempt to bring a revolution closer by

encouraging direct action by workers – in other words, I am not aiming

for “workers’ control under capitalism” but rather workers’ control

(among other tactics) as a step towards ending capitalism.

As for “self-managed exploitation”, that is just confused. “Self-managed

exploitation is not just a neat turn of phrase”, Key asserts but I

disagree. He is confusing the fact market forces would still exist and

rule workers’ lives (and this is a serious objection) with capital/wage

labour and so exploitation (in an anarchist or Marxist sense of

expropriation of surplus by non-producers). He argues that “capital

rules social life” vertically “through the person of the boss” and

horizontally “through market forces”, yet do I really need to point out

that capitalism is a mode of production, not a mode of distribution?

Markets existed before capitalism and a self-employed artisan working

his own tools is not exploited by a capitalist.

He argues that is we turn his workplace “into a co-op, those same market

forces causing my boss to make cuts would still be there, but we would

have nobody to say no to when under pressure to increase the rate of

exploitation to survive in a hostile market.” Really? Is he saying that

workers’ would make the same decisions as a boss would in the same

circumstance? Ultimately, his argument is identical to the apologists of

capitalism – bosses have no power, the market is supreme. Yet this is

false – market forces may cause bosses to act in certain ways, but being

a boss shapes any decisions made.

If that were not the case then why would we need unions? We would not be

able to gain any reforms, for the boss would be simply passing on the

demands of “market forces”! But we know better than that. The issue of

“market forces” does raise the question of whether bosses practice

“self-managed exploitation” when they make decisions they dislike (for

example, not to buy that third holiday house but rather make investments

in their company to keep it profitable)? Is capitalist investment

“exploitation” of the capitalist? Kay’s arguments would, I think, lead

us to conclude that it is – which shows its weakness.

He argues that “if the firm has resources” then we should “demand the

concrete material things we want.” Yet my argument was primarily related

to when firms are about to go bust. Is he really suggesting that rather

than expropriate the boss, we just accept our P45s? All in all, I am

surprised that a member of the Solidarity Federation would resist

suggestions to expropriate capital, to oppose calls for workers to

occupy their workplaces, to be quiet when the state bailouts or

nationalises capitalist firms.

In summary, I would suggest opposing, rather than supporting,

co-operatives is “not a stepping stone, but a cul-de-sac.” I feel he is

confusing the notion of piecemeal reform by co-operatives with a

response to redundancies I have advocated (hence his comment that “like

nationalisation, workers’ control is not a demand based on our concrete

material needs as a class, it is just about how capital should be

managed”). Perhaps it could be argued that expropriating workplaces in a

non-revolutionary situation is a bad idea, yet why is it a

non-revolutionary situation? Perhaps because workers are not

expropriating their workplaces?

All in all, I feel that my suggestion for co-operatives as a practical

alternative for libertarians remains valid. Provided, of course, that

they are seen as one form of many kinds of direct action and solidarity.

Our focus should be, then, co-operatives and conflicts with both

supporting each other in an attempt to first build the revolutionary

workers’ movement we are sorely lacking and, ultimately, to abolish

capitalism!