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Title: Strange Victories Author: Midnight Notes Date: 1985 Language: en Topics: Alfredo M. Bonanno, environment, nuclear, violence Source: Retrieved on September 1, 2009 from www.geocities.com/kk_abacus/ioaa/strange.html Notes: This edition published 1985 by Elephant Editions B.M Elephant London WC1N 3XX Also published in Midnight notes #1, and the collection Midnight Oil: Work energy and War 1973â1992, available from Autonomedia.
At a certain point in their development, capital and the State manage to
rationalise exploitation. This is happening at the present time to a
certain extent: pure repression is giving way to âbeing involvedâ.
These new forms of repression must be understood if we do not want to
remain tied to out-of-date forms of revolutionary activity.
The new forms of involvement, though not entirely new, are now being
developed in more original and highly dangerous ways.
The permissive State, although it still uses dissuasion (in the form of
police and army), is tending towards dialogue, allowing a certain amount
of freedom of movement and self-regulation so that everyone becomes
controllable at all levels.
In this way the counter-revolutionary role of so-called dissent is
fundamental to maintaining order and continuing exploitation. Both the
bosses and their servants are depending more and more on these forms of
recuperation in preference to pure repression by armed forces â although
the latter continue to remain the ultimate element in convincing and
repressing.
So the State is asking the revolutionary movement to collaborate in
maintaining social peace. Comrades shouldnât jump back in horror at such
a statement. The State can ask what it wants of us. It is up to us to
understand whether we are being drawn into manoeuvred consensus, or
whether our dissent still has an element of rupture. The Stateâs
projects are continually being updated. One minute they are putting up a
wall of repression, the next they are softer, decodifying behaviour that
was once condemned and persecuted. The State and capital have no moral
code of conduct. They adapt according to the Machiavellian thesis of
using the brute force of the lion one day and the cunning of the fox the
next.
Today might well be the moment for the foxâs velvety paw.
One extremely useful element in the present day situation, that gives
capitalâs restructuring a seeming aspect of being a spontaneous process
of adjustment, is the massive presence of âdissentâ. We must say ânoâ.
They are putting through anti-union laws, we must say no. They are
putting missiles at Greenham Common, we must say no. They are building
more and more prisons with special wings, we must say no...
This no must be shouted aloud, not be a simple whisper of platonic
dissent. It mustnât pass into action, but remain simply a âminorityâ
demonstration of disagreement. It is then up to the governing forces to
explain the practical impossibility of such a choice, which is
nevertheless based on the âhighest moral valuesâ. As good a way as any
of making a fool of people, extinguishing their potential
aggressiveness, directing this impetus of rebellion towards activities
that are dissent in appearance alone, and in fact are
counter-revolutionary in every aspect.
This is what is being asked of the peace movement, and that is what they
are supplying. As an ideology pacifism lends itself to being exploited
for the production of social peace. An indigestible mixture of Christian
sacrifice and millenarian fideism, it is much appreciated by the State
as a means of involvement. Even the peace demonstrations that comrades
are so impressed by are an element that is much appreciated in the
spectacular framework of exploitation. The fact that these
demonstrations are innocuous has nothing to do with whether or not they
clash with the police. They are recuperated on all sides because of
their being sporadic and passive as far as the State is concerned, and
because of their basic lack of ideology as far as the peace movement is
concerned.
These new priests, clutching on to the altar of their own sacrifice, are
incomprehensible to people who would like to participate in struggles,
but not for that are prepared to abdicate their patrimony of violent
attack against the State. This is what the State puts its trust in,
their incomprehensibility, allowing the peace movement demonstrations
that are forbidden to others, but intervening as soon as any signs
appear of an outside presence within the pacifist organisations.
The same can be said for trade union struggles, even autonomous ones,
âself-managedâ ones, or those carried out under the leadership of the
few anarcho-syndicalist organisations. The State is also asking them for
the maintenance of social peace. Their ineffectiveness is the guarantee
of their possibility of continuing. Revolutionary ineffectiveness
immediately transformable into complying with the Stateâs
counter-revolutionary requests. Their function today is that of lending
credibility to the process of restructuring that is taking place, at
least in the most sensitive areas, extinguishing dangerous attempts at
isolated actions of attack in total disaccord with any kind of trade
union representation.
We should also be more aware of the counter-revolutionary role of the
new commune movement, the vegetarian and ecology movements, the
anti-psychiatry movements and all the tendencies that are trying to
split up the real contrast with power, or are trying to reduce it to
simple, formal dissent.
We can consider all forms of strictly formal dissent and all attempts to
divide the class conflict into a multitude of sectors, as being
functional to power. This is exactly what the couple capital/State want
to happen.
Many comrades in good faith fall prey to this contradiction.
The best of them, those really in good faith, are only misinformed, or
simply stupid due to lack of analytical clarity. They are the ones who
limit themselves to great declarations of principle against nuclear
weapons, or are abstentionists every time the elections come around, or
hand out leaflets against special prisons, then return to their lairs to
wait for the next time to repeat the sacrosanct ritual of the eternally
obvious.
The worst, those in bad faith, are the skeptics who have lost their
enthusiasm of the past and now understand everything about life; and the
ambitious ones trying to get a little allotment of power on which to
seminate their swindles. On the one hand the super-intelligent looking
down on those limiting themselves to carrying on with the struggle; on
the other, those advancing their careers by kissing the hands of the
labour party or the arses of the dissenting church. The nausea that
overcomes us on seeing the first is equal only to that which we feel on
seeing the second at work. There are many ways of gazing at oneâs navel
or furthering oneâs career, but these are among the worst.
We must oppose the advancing counter-revolution with all our strength.
First of all with analytical clarity.
It is time to put an end to shyness. It is time to come out and say
things clearly and without half measures. Beautiful declarations of
principle are no longer enough, in fact they have become merchandise for
trading with power. We must engage seriously in a struggle to the end,
an organised and efficient struggle which has a revolutionary project
and is capable of singling out its objectives and means.
The following piece of work, on the anti-nuclear movement in the US and
Europe, although written in 1979, is still a valid contribution to this
search for clarity as a basis for struggle. Since the time it was
written the anti-nuclear/peace movement has grown and multiplied mainly
due to the mining of Europe with nuclear missiles. This growth has been
of massive quantity, but the logic and quality remain the same as when
the following was written. All the more reason then for a critical
re-reading today.
Alfredo M. Bonanno
After the Three Mile island accident in Pennsylvania, we all know that
we pay not only for our electricity, but also for financing the
destruction of our health. Nuclear reactors are not only expensive and
ineffective, they are a permanent danger. In 1978 alone, atomic plants
had 2,835 âincidentsâ and they ran at only 67.2% of their capacity. (New
York Times, April 15, 1979). Radioactivity causes cancer, leukemia and
genetic damages. It doesnât respect county or State borders; radioactive
iodine contaminates our milk and we have no means to control it.
Radioactive clouds travel with the wind, and the pollution of our water
and food distributes it everywhere.
Electricity is only a part of our energy expenditures. We pay also for
gas, heating and gasoline. In the last few months the prices for fuel
started rising again, after they had risen more than 100% between 1973
and 1975. With Carterâs deregulation of petroleum prices, they will go
up continuously in the coming years and probably will reach European
levels of 2.50 dollars per gallon of gasoline very soon.
The Government and the energy companies tell us that âweâ are in a
squeeze since the âenergy shortageâ forces âusâ to build nuclear plants
and raise rates and prices. They tell us that the Arabs have us by a
string and âweâ must âprotectâ ourselves. Most people have not bought
this story. Polls show that 70% of the people do not believe there is an
energy shortage â simply because it is obviously false. 78% believe the
companies âjust want to make more moneyâ. (New York Times, April 10,
1979). All other fuel prices are going up as well: natural gas, coal,
uranium and oil. This has nothing to do with the Arabs (all our coal and
most of our uranium is mined domestically) nor with shortages (US coal
reserves could last for hundreds of years and there is more crude oil
available than ever before). The energy prices go up because the
companies have the power to raise them. They control oil wells,
coal-mines and power plants, and they can blackmail us at will because
we depend entirely on their supply. We have only the choice between
paying or freezing to death. Higher energy prices are a continuous
attack on our wages and force us therefore to work more and to work for
the plans of the companies, who are not interested in supplying the
people with energy, but are interested in making money and strengthening
their control over us.
The nuclear power plants are the ultimate peak of this blackmail. The
energy companies demand not only that we should accept higher energy
prices, but also higher levels of radioactivity, cancer and fear. Not
only must we work more and harder to pay the bills, but also we must
lose our health and wellbeing. With the threat of nuclear danger, they
can impose âsafety measuresâ on us, install a police State, order us to
leave our homes, evacuate our families, respect curfews. How can we know
that they tell the truth? Most people donât believe them anyway; polls
showed that only 16% of the people believe what government and nuclear
officials said during the Three Mile island accident.
What can we do against this politics of fear and exploitation? First, we
have to reject this crisis mentality they want to impose on us. We must
know that there is enough energy, enough money (in 1978 the capitalists
made record profits of 130.7 billion dollars), enough food, clothing and
housing for everybody, employed or unemployed, waged or unwaged. And if
problems of energy conservation arise, we must make sure that the people
themselves control such measures and that they are not dictated to us by
the energy-capitalists in order to make more money. Before we can speak
of energy conservation, we must have more power.
Higher prices and radioactivity hit everybody everywhere: blacks,
hispanics and urban whites as well as farmers, small-town residents and
atomic workers around nuclear plants. This fact is crucial for the
future development of the anti-nuclear movement which started in
semi-rural and sub-urban areas. This movement was a first response of
concerned people against nuclear development. This anti-nuclear movement
is a social movement with its specific type of people involved, with its
specific ideology, tactics and experiences. Now that the situation is
changing, that âEverybodyâ is hit by the nuclear issue, the experiences
of the movement must be studied and â if necessary â criticised. It is
important both for âoldâ anti-nuclear militants and for ânewâ people in
urban areas who are entering mobilisations against nuclear energy to
find out if and how the anti-nuclear movement can play a role in our
struggle against the power of capital.
In the case of the anti-nuclear movement, there is a risk that it could
be used against poor urban people. As long as the anti-nuclear movement
does not clearly attack the price policies of the energy, companies and
does not link the âhealthâ and âmoneyâ issues, it cannot be understood
by people who are struggling for daily survival. In such a situation
capital can play the anti-nuclear movement against the poor or vice
versa. For example, the energy companies and the State (the government)
can blame the anti-nuclear movement for the higher electric bills; or
they can try to impose solar energy and higher energy prices.
We are writing this paper because we are convinced that the anti-nuclear
movement in general and the ânewâ anti-nuclear movement in urban areas
in particular could be a catalyst for struggles against the âcrisisâ and
capitalismâs attack against the working class. Now the most urgent
problem is: How can we organise against capital? In attempting to answer
this question, we shall look at the anti-nuclear movement as a movement
of social organisation, determined by the class interest of the people
involved in it, by its relationship to capital, its historical,
geographical and psychological conditions.
We shall not specifically deal with the nuclear issue as an
environmental and technological problem. We know that any technology
developed by capital is used as a weapon against the working class,
i.e., ourselves. Further, the nuclear industry is only one of the actual
fronts of new technology, together with the computer and chemical
industries. Nuclear energy production is used to break the struggles of
the coal-miners in the US or of the oil-workers in the Middle East and
in the US. (This is the reason why coal, an abundant energy source which
could be made safe with available technology, is not used instead of
uranium.)There is no such thing as an independent âtechnological and
scientific progressâ occurring outside class struggle. âProgressâ has
become another word for âmore effective exploitationâ and has nothing to
do with our needs and wishes. The present capitalist technology has been
shaped for exploitation and control over our lives. It is not a neutral
means that can be used in a different class context. There will be no
âliberated assembly-line,â no âsocialist nuclear power,â no âacceptable
risks.â On the other hand, there is no reason why capital could not be
able to use solar energy against us, although so far they have not.
Strangely, the anti-nuclear movement did not originate in highly
populated, industrialised and polluted areas where, it could be assumed,
a struggle against environmental dangers would seem to be urgent. The
anti-nuclear movement is not an immediate response to the attack on the
quality of life which takes place in the âindustrial trianglesâ of the
US and Europe. In West Germany, where the anti-nuclear movement first
started, it emerged not in the traditionally polluted Ruhr area, but in
South-west Germany in a rural zone of vineyards and small, farmers
(Whyl, 1974). The same was true for France (Malville, near Lyons, is
situated in an essentially rural area), Switzerland (Kaiseraugst,
Goesgen, etc.) and Italy (e.g. the nuclear plant of Montalto di Castro
in the Maremme). A similar type of area is found near Seabrook nuclear
plant in New England, which is one of the few regions of the US where an
older type of small or middle-sized farming and fishing exists (in the
rest of the US we should rather speak of agricultural industry).
But the strange location of the anti-nuclear movement is not so puzzling
at a second look: It is due to the conscious choice of the nuclear
industry. The âback-to-the-landâ movement of capital is easily explained
by the âbad experiencesâ it had in the metropolitan, industrialised
centres. Urban riots, student agitations, workersâ struggles were
developed and favoured by the urban environment. The capitalists
realised that the cities were dangerous for their health.
Nuclear development presented possibilities for a new organisation of
industrial geography, a new industrial frontier. Never before in the
history of capital have the sites of industrial installations been more
carefully planned than nuclear power plants. Some decisive aspects of
this planning have been:
and pose fewer problems in case of evacuation);
sabotage, âbadâ influence on personnel);
for evacuations for different purposes, e.g. in case of social
troubles);
respect capital made some of the most painful miscalculations).[1]
Plant locations were chosen from the beginning to prevent protests and
organised actions against or within nuclear plants. The problems of
communication and organisation in rural areas compounded by the
complicated class situation mixing small owners, wage-depending people
or rural intelligentsia, coupled with the relatively immense financial
power of the companies, were supposed to guarantee a quiet development
and disarm any opposition.
While this plan worked in some cases, it did not in others. Protests
developed despite these difficult conditions. Pay-offs to local
governments and some advantages to local businesses could not always
effectively divide the local population. However, the anti-nuclear
protest of local communities usually did not go beyond legal actions
(voting in town meetings, law-suits, petitions, media action, etc.),
although there are some significant exceptions, mostly due to the
farmersâ radicalism (tractor blockades in Germany, cutting of power
lines in Minnesota, and other episodes). For them the construction was
not a mere âdanger for mankind during the next 500,000 years,â but a
direct attack on their income.[2] Confronted with the allied power of
the companies and the government, these legal actions led mostly to a
dead-end. Only the emergence of an additional factor decided whether the
struggle would move to a higher level or the nuclear industry had won
that round. Only where this âfactorâ was present can we speak of an
anti-nuclear movement.
This âadditional factorâ was introduced by an important change in the
class structure of some rural areas which occurred in the early
seventies, a period when the planning and location of the nuclear plants
had already been completed. (In the US, this process takes about 12
years; while in Europe it used to be faster, but most plants now
completed had obviously been planned in the sixties.) The change we are
speaking of is the resettlement of urban intellectual workers
(wage-depending professional, teachers, artists, journalists,
social-workers, students, government workers, etc.) in rural zones, a
move largely stimulated by the various sixties movements. As a
âback-to-the-landâ movement, it chose rural areas which were not too
isolated and too far from the cities, for it needed continuous contacts
with the educational and cultural industries.
In the US this âadditional factorâ decisively emerged in two regions: in
New England and in California.[3] These are, not surprisingly, the areas
where anti-nuclear movements have developed most continuity and
mass-character. The choice of these areas is directly linked to the
specific interests of this intellectual proletariat (we use the term
proletariat in the original marxist sense: all the people who live on a
wage and cannot live on their capital without working â âindependently
of whether the wage is high or lowâ.) On the level of production these
areas are the major national or regional centres of the education
industry in which workers receive âskillsâ and qualifications which
result in a higher valuation of their labour power. They provide a
variety of full-time, part-time, seasonal and temporary jobs themselves
and in related businesses, such as bureaucracy, social assistance,
book-stores, printing-shops, building maintenance, drug-dealing,
culture, art, sports, psychiatry, restaurants and small shops, etc. A
look at the rate of private and public education expenditures per
inhabitant in these areas can give some evidence.
The most typical case for us is Massachusetts, with expenditures far
above the 2^(nd) ranking New York, and forming the centre of the New
England area, while New Hampshire and Connecticut follow close behind in
the national ranks. Moreover, rural New England has a good network of
highways leading to nearby major cities like New York and Boston, the
educational and cultural centre of the US. Thus, rural New England has
attracted a lot of intellectual workers in search of a quiet country
life. To a lesser degree, this is also true of California around San
Fransisco, and other areas. Rural New England and California offered not
only possibilities of external jobs, but also conditions for cheap
reproduction of this type of worker. By the term reproduction we mean
all the work that has to be done in order to keep us in shape so that we
are able to work: eating, clothing, relaxation, medical care, emotional
âservicesâ, discipline, education, entertainment, cleaning, procreation,
etc. Sometimes what we call âlifeâ is, in reality, only reproduction for
capitalist exploitation. Cheap reproduction is particularly urgent for
the intellectual workers as they hold only temporary jobs or part-time
jobs or live on welfare and food-stamps.
In New England, subsistence farming, collective reproduction (communal
living) and mutual use of the skills of the highly qualified
intellectual labour-force via the substitution of capital-intensive
reproduction (hospitals, micro-wave ovens) by labour-intensive
reproduction techniques (macrobiotics, yoga, bioenergetics, meditation,
massage, walks and fresh air) were favoured by the agricultural
structure, the climate (which imposes a certain discipline), the
vicinity of metropolitan areas and low real estate prices.
This constellation allowed a certain refusal of full-time intellectual
work and the loosening of capitalist control over it. Under this aspect,
the retreat to the countryside and the alternative lifestyle are forms
of struggle by intellectual workers against capital. Capital has always
had problems in controlling its intellectual labour force mainly because
the profit returns are indirect and slow, particularly for disciplines
like philosophy, literature and art. This loose tie between intellectual
work and capital does not imply that it stands outside of capital, even
if it is temporarily devoted to apple-picking, woodworking or
cow-milking, and if it is geographically separated from the centres of
formal capitalist command (like universities, publishing houses, etc.).
There is no such thing as âoutside of capitalâ in a capitalist society:
from a long-term perspective, the âback-to-the-landâ intellectuals are
just testing out new capitalist possibilities of dealing with certain,
problems of cheap production.
One of the requirements for the cheap reproduction of the
âback-to-the-landâ intellectual labour-force is a relatively intact
natural surrounding. Nature, if intact, is cheap or even free. Nature as
a means of reproduction is important for these intellectual workers
because the specialisation and one-sidedness of their work generates
psychological instability and requires periods of complete relaxation
without jarring sensorial stimuli (noise, media, social contacts).
Nature is the most efficient compensation for intellectual stress since
it represents the unity of body and mind against the capitalist division
of labour. Extensive consumption of nature has traditionally been an
element of the reproduction of intellectual workers. (It started with
Rousseau, then came the Romantics, Thoreau, the early tourists, Tolstoi,
artistsâ colonies in the Alps, etc.). The ecological movement responds
directly to the class interests of the intellectual sector of the
proletariat and the struggle against nuclear power plants is a mere
extension of this struggle.
The history of the Green Mountain Post Films is a good illustration for
this process in New England. Itâs story began in 1967 in Washington, DC,
when Marshall Bloom and Ray Mungo founded Liberation News Service as an
essential means of exchanging news in the fast-growing anti-war
movement. By 1968 LNS suffered an irreconcilable split between âorthodox
Marxist-Leninistsâ and a âless doctrinaireâ faction led by Bloom and
Mungo. Mungo and friends decided to leave New York City, then home of
LNS, and resettle at a farm in Packers Corner, Vermont; and, soon after,
Bloom and his band found a farm in Montague, West-Massachusetts, some 15
miles away.
A weekly news service dispatch came out of the Montague barn for a few
months, but it trickled off under the pressure of a New England winter.
The abrupt switch to farm life temporarily forced media and politics
into the background. The two communities were busy struggling to
survive. Then, in November, 1969, Marshall Bloom killed himself,
supposedly due to the isolation. His death served to strengthen the
farm-peopleâs resolve to keep working in the media. Over the years the
two farms produced a considerable amount of books and articles. After
the Vietnam war, political concerns were largely subsumed by the demands
of rural self-sufficiency. It takes years to get an organic farm going;
fortunately, haying, the maple treesâ gift of sap, and authorsâ fees
provided some cash.
Then in December 1973, the Northeast Utilities Company announced plans
to build a twin-tower nuclear plant three miles from the farm in
Montague. One of the first reactions was Sam Lovejoy, a long-term farm
resident, cutting down a 500-foot weather observation tower which was to
precede the proposed plant. He then hitched a ride to the Montague
police station and handed in a statement on the necessity of civil
disobedience in times of environmental emergency. He went on trial and
won.
The two farms have provided scores of informal ideologists and leaders
of the anti-nuclear movement in the New England area: Harvey Wasserman,
Anna Gyorgy and others. They produced several films and also distributed
a film on the Whyl anti-nuclear movement which had a strong influence on
the movement against the nuclear plants in New England, particularly at
Seabrook. (cf New Age, Special Report, 1978 and Ray Mungo, Famous Long
Ago).
The crisis after 1973 has intensified also the attacks of capital
against the intellectual proletariat which had conquered certain levels
of power in the sixties (represented mainly by the high educational
budgets and the expansions of the universities and research
institutions) and had been able to defend itself against tight command
structures. The counter-attack of capital was mainly oriented toward
regaining control over the productivity of the intellectual labour
force. By cuts of educational and university budgets (engineered with
the âfiscal crisisâ), food-price inflation and destruction of the rural
retreats (where reproduction is cheap), capital has tried in the last
few years to regain control. This process of devaluation put the
underemployed intellectual proletariat in a tight squeeze.
By 1976, when the first wave of attacks was over, it was clear that the
job-perspectives for intellectual workers would be dim for decades and
that they. could not expect to get out individually or by intensified
retraining (revaluation). In 1976 the Clamshell Alliance was founded,
the first sentence of the founding statement being:
âRECOGNIZING: 1) That the survival of humankind depends upon
preservation of our natural environment.â It is obvious that the
âsurvival of mankindâ is intimately linked to the survival of this
intellectual proletariat, and the preservation of â âourâ natural
environment can be taken literally. (Intellectuals have always had the
precious talent of presenting their own class interests as those of
âhumankindâ â as though their own class interests were something dirty).
The âchoiceâ of the anti-nuclear issue as terrain of struggle is to be
explained not only by the specific history of the two farms in New
England or other similar developments. For underemployed or temporarily
employed workers it is very difficult to organise on the job. The jobs
are unstable, the possibilities of mass struggle are minimal (the
worker-boss ratio being low or, in the case of self-managed or
âalternativeâ jobs, reaching 1/1), and sabotage is ineffective in the
case of intellectual work and in the absence of expensive capital goods.
All this pushed the struggle immediately on the level of the âgeneralâ
circulation of capital, on the level of âsocietyâ, of âhumankindâ. As it
is not possible for them to attack any specific capital from the inside,
the struggle has to be launched from the outside.
The anti-nuclear protests of local residents presented such a
possibility of intervention from the outside. A unifying factor from
outside could intervene in a dead-lock situation of conflicting
interests of small store-keepers, farmers, workers connected with the
nuclear plan, professional petty-bourgeois, etc. The anti-nuclear
militants of the âsecond movementâ could keep together this strange
class mixture and at the same time use it as âhostageâ against an
isolation of their own struggle. So it was possible to forge that
âmisallianceâ between former urban radicals and rural conservatives.
This alliance was, however, never without problems, and the division
between âlocalsâ and anti-nuclear militants remained clear on the level
of real actions, with the locals, for example, supporting occupations or
demonstrations mainly passively.
The development of this movement was facilitated by the fact that a
large number of the New England âsubsistersâ had had experiences in the
anti-war movement, i.e., in mobilization techniques, media work,
information finding, legal work, etc. Further, once the movement was
started it developed its own dynamic reproductive functions for the
militants as it provided social contacts and interesting events for old
politicos who began getting bored in the relative isolation of the
country life. Additionally, the movement became a source of income and
created jobs for intellectual workers (writing and selling articles,
books, buttons, T-shirts, making conferences, figuring out âalternative
energy sourcesâ, etc.). In this regard, it was a direct answer to the
problem of survival for at least a particular section of âhumankindâ.
Perhaps the class structure of the anti-nuclear movement becomes even
more clear when we look at those sectors of the working class who are
not present in it: factory workers, blacks and urban minority people,
atomic workers (with some important exceptions), construction workers
and young urban clerical and service workers. All these urban or
industrial class-sectors are usually exposed to substantially higher
levels of pollution and environmental stress and are, even when living
in large cities, not safer in the case of radioactive fallout when a
nuclear accident occurs, as the accident at Three Mile island has
demonstrated. But these sectors have a qualitatively different
relationship to capital, more stable in the case of the factory workers
(unions, family, mass organisation on the job) or without any assets in
the case of the poor (their labour-power is not very valuable or is even
worthless for capital because little money has been invested in their
reproduction). Even more different are the types of reproduction,
including all âculturalâ differences, straight lifestyle, etc.. The
indifference of these sectors toward the anti-nuclear movement (or
better: issue) is not based on a âlack of education and informationâ as
anti-nuclear militants often bitterly complain. Even very uneducated
class-sectors have always been able to grasp the essential knowledge
about their problems, if the knowledge were in their interest and
presented possibilities of struggle. There is of course no such thing as
a âtheoretical class interestâ: the uneducated Iranian masses have been
able to beat the CIA-trained Shah regime which was backed by the most
educated capital in the world, U.S. capital; scores of poor people have
the skills to cheat welfare; workers can deal with their union
bureaucrats; etc. Moreover, recent polls show that practically everybody
distrusts the energy-lies of the government and the companies. The
problem is not education, but organisation and finding ways of effective
and direct struggle.
So far, the anti-nuclear movement has presented no promising way of
acting for the urban working or unemployed people. âNuclear dangerâ
alone can trigger activity only if there is an immediate material
interest involved. It is pointless to be afraid of something if you
canât do anything against it... (Thatâs why nuclear disarmament
movements provoke so little reaction, even with a global, horrible
catastrophe being possible at any second.) There is no âobjective
dangerâ and death is not immediately a political category. Power is.
The formation and class composition of the European anti-nuclear
movements follow in general the American pattern. The main difference
consists in that in Europe the new intellectual, work-refusing working
class has not been geographically concentrated in certain regions.
European capital has not been able to organise the division of labour,
especially between physical and intellectual work, along well-defined
geographical lines. The movement started in Germany where the
âsubsistence intellectualsâ had reached relatively high levels of
autonomy (the installment of the social democratic government in the
late 60âs marked the impact of the movement and presented large material
concessions to students, intellectuals, etc.) which were then brutally
attacked in the crisis (ideologically covered by Red Army Faction (RAF,
âBaader-Meinhofâ)-hunting hysteria. The process of alliance of the
âfirst anti-nuclear movementâ with the âsecond movementâ was very
similar to the one in New England. It represented a âlittle political
miracleâ, for the âalternativeâ people were officially stigmatised as
âterroristsâ and the populations of the nuclear sites were traditionally
right-wing.
The lack of geographical division in Europe favoured the class-specific
expansion of the movement. Unlike the US, whole sectors of urban young
or unemployed workers joined it, not particularly because of the
anti-nuclear issue, but for its quality as a general social movement
expressing insubordination, rebellion, the possibility of violent
struggle, etc. As the whole plethora of the ânewâ or âradicalâ left
quickly filled its ranks, huge demonstrations of dozens of thousands of
people like, those in Brokdorf, Kaiseraugst, Malville, Kalkar, etc, were
possible. In Europe, everything is geographically and politically
ânearâ, communications are easy and fast, there is a continuity of
âdemonstration cultureâ, while the existence of socially âhomogenisedâ
political parties (particularly socialist and communist) immediately
link all types of issues to the general political power game. This can
be seen by the fact that the nuclear issue has been used by different
political parties to overthrow the governments: In Sweden the
conservatives used it against the ruling social democrats and won; in
France the socialists use it against a âliberalâ government; in
Switzerland the anti-nuclear issue was first used by the extreme right,
then the extreme left, at last also by the social democrats.This further
proves that the anti-nuclear issue by itself fails to provide a
definition of the class-content of the movement.
in Relation to Capitalist Planning
We have seen that the anti-nuclear movements always express specific
class interests, which are not everywhere the same. The nuclear industry
creates contradictions not only between certain sectors of the
intellectual proletariat and capital, but also between endangered small
owners, petty bourgeois, small industrialists and more advanced capital.
The nuclear industry represents for the former classes the destruction
of older levels of capitalist development and psychological equilibrium.
This explains why the anti-nuclear issue and ecological issue in general
have been used in the context of reactionary ideologies. We mention
âecofascismâ, a right-wing ideology which intends to impose austerity,
lower wages and longer working hours, old-style family life, etc, while
struggling against new technologies. This tendency had some impact in
Europe, but obviously not in the US where the Ku Klux Klan supports the
construction of nuclear plants.
One of the characteristics of the ecological and anti-nuclear movement
is that the class interests of the people involved in it are never
directly expressed in its ideologies. Anti-nuclear militants seem to be
classless angels, coming directly from the heaven of a general
âresponsibility for humankindâ and announcing the destruction of Sodom
and Gomorrah by a core melt-down. The main argument for this classless
ideology is, of course, that radioactivity affects all classes, that
radioactive waste will be a problem for capitalists as well as workers.
This is only partially true, for rich people have more possibilities to
avoid radioactive areas and can protect themselves better. But even if
radioactivity might kill everybody, it does not eliminate class
difference until that moment (and this is obviously the period we try to
deal with).
In reality, the âclasslessâ ideology of the anti-nuclear movement is an
outflow of the class-situation of its members: as they have no
possibility of organisation or self-definition on their jobs, they are
forced to operate practically and ideologically on the level of the
general development of capital. From their point of view, even if
capital is seen as the basic relation of society, capitalâs enemy is
taken as âhumankindâ or âall living creaturesâ. As we read, âNuclear
power is dangerous to all living creatures and to their natural
environment. The nuclear industry is designed to concentrate profits and
the control of energy resources in the hands of a powerful few,
undermining basic principles of human liberty.â (Declaration of nuclear
resistance of the Clamshell Alliance, November 1, 1977). This is a pure
but useful fiction. The abstraction âhumankindâ is used to not endanger
the alliance with local small owners, professionals, etc. At the same
time it is the expression of the class ideology of intellectual workers
whose function is to plan for the general development of capital â
including the working class â and to sell these plans to us all.
Confronted with âbadâ nuclear capital, this general responsibility above
all classes is transformed into the planning of an alternative
development. They donât simply reject capitalist development, but rather
present an anti-plan: â2) that our energy policy be focused on
developing and implementing clean and renewable sources of energy in
concert with an efficient system of recycling and conservation.â Here
again, it is not said who would develop and implement âourâ energy
policy. This statement about alternative planning is completely
disconnected from problems of power and class and thus reveals its
merely ideological function.
The anti-plan ideology is in fact one of the most visible
class-ideologies of devaluated intellectual workers. Developing
anti-plans means nothing less than finding a new function for such
intellectuals in a modified capitalist development. The struggle among
the anti-planners of âourâ future is the struggle about the
qualifications of future intellectual workers, for the ability to find
alternative futures is exactly the function of intellectual workers (on
a âlowerâ level called management, on a âhigherâ level, philosophy).
It is clear from the beginning that less valuable labour-power such as
factory workers, clerks, housewives, etc. cannot participate in this
type of management of the future. For them the present is more difficult
because their relationship with capital is more immediate and
irreconcilable. The anti-plan ideology at the same time keeps away such
less valuable workers from the movement, thus keeping the
class-composition of the movement âcleanâ. A worker who is in permanent
struggle with management will never try to participate in it, even if it
is âalternative managementâ. This becomes even more evident when we look
at some of these anti-plans:
Ralph Nader proposes a model of âsaneâ capitalism based on competition
of small capitals under the quality-control of the State. This would
provide scores of easy jobs for quality-controllers like Nader and
consorts, but no advantages for workers, only tighter control (as is
typical in smaller businesses).
The most frequent anti-planning ideologies are based on the development
of solar or other alternative energy sources. Solar energy has been
promoted particularly around the job-issue. It is said that the nuclear
industry destroys jobs and that solar developments would create lots of
new jobs. This argument starts usually as Harvey Wasserman puts it in
one of his articles (New Age, Special Report 1978): âThe conflict lies
in the basic difference between a capital-intensive economy and one
based on human work.â Such a statement is simply false: capitalist
intensive economies are based on human work and require still more and
more intensive human work. First, the machines, the equipment, etc. of
capital intensive industries have to be built ultimately by human work.
Then, as a glimpse at statistics shows us, non-industrial and service
jobs have been expanding rapidly in the last few years âdespiteâ nuclear
development. While the rate of unemployment has been stable, overall
employment has gone up rapidly. More human work than ever is being
extracted from workers in the US. It is true: proportionately less
people work in manufacture and automated industries in general,
especially in the energy sector. But this doesnât mean that capital can
or wants to do without human work. It is an optical illusion to see only
the automated factory and not the sweatshop on the corner. The fact is,
human work, and therefore surplus values (surplus human labour extracted
by capital), is extracted in less capital-intensive branches and appears
as the profit of highly capital-intensive sectors.
One of the instruments of this surplus-value transfer is the hike of
energy and food prices. In order to pay their bills, the energy
companies make us work more and more in small shops, as salesmen,
typists, clerks, drivers, etc. The capitalist system forms a unity:
exploitation in one place can result in profits in another place. This
would also certainly be the case in the solar industry. The solar
workers would do the shit work and the companies (e.g. steel companies
which produce sheet steel) would make the profits. Wassermanâs cry for a
âlabour-intensiveâ development means nothing more than offering capital
a new source of human work, a new source of exploitation. The problem is
not lack of jobs. Nobody cares about jobs, because every job means
self-repression, loss of life, repression of oneâs wishes. The real
problem is lack of money, access to power and to the wealth which we
have ourselves produced. If jobs are an efficient way to get money, we
might accept them as a temporary solution, a tactical compromise with
capital. But jobs can never be a solution to the problem of the working
class.
Of course, unemployment is also a weapon used by capital against us,
because it forces us to choose between misery or accepting the worst
jobs at the lowest wages. On the other hand, many people have discovered
temporary unemployment as a weapon against capital: you donât get much
money, but if you organise with other people (as Harvey Wasserman and
his crowd did in New England) you have more time for yourself, can
regain some strength and develop your talents. Unemployment is not a
question of technology, but a question of power. As long as we donât
have the power, the control over all resources and social wealth, âhuman
workâ will always be an attack on us, whether it is planned by
Rockefeller or anti-planned by Wasserman.
The same is true, of course, for socialist and communist models, like
the one of the CPUSA, which includes even nuclear energy, but âunder
democratic controlâ, i.e., managed by the State (whomever that may be).
The âStateâ is only another name for âgeneral capitalâ, especially in
the energy sector, and what ultimately we might expect from socialist
States can be seen in Russia, China, Vietnam, etc.
Even more radical and âanarchistâ anti-plans such as Bookchinâs
proposals or other similar models, which want to cut back society and
economy to small, human, self-sufficient units, without State, capital
and money, suffer from the same basic vice: anticipating and planning a
future for âothersâ, assuming the functions of intellectual workers,
defending oneâs own value as qualified labour-power, putting the future
as a barrier between the different class sectors in struggle. The
ecological and anti-plan ideology is an expression of the fears of
intellectual workers in confronting less valuable labour power. They are
not ready to devaluate themselves, to renounce their planning and
managing function, to âget downâ on the level of immediate,
irreconcilable struggle against capitalist exploitation in all its
forms. Hiding behind the concept of âresponsibility for humankindâ, for
the future, for âconstructive alternativesâ, for all âifsâ and âbutsâ
(will we have enough energy? who will clean the streets?) they protect
their own existence as a distinct sector of the proletariat. This is
neither surprising nor vicious â we just have to be aware of it...
However, the anti-nuclear movement need not be âa movement of
anti-planning. Making the nuclear industry a target of struggle is
essential at this point. The nuclear industry represents a synthesis of
all major trends of capitalist development. All aspects of the general
perspective of capital are concentrated in this industry: high capital
intensity (70 plants in the US employ only about 79,000 workers and
produce 13% of all electricity), extreme discipline and command over the
labour force, combination of State and private capital (in research,
financing, supervision), internationality, computerisation, and
extension of the âplanning horizonâ far into the future (nuclear waste).
The nuclear industry is able to occupy all free spaces geographically
(reactors are independent of local resources), politically (all
police-State measures can be justified by radioactive dangers), and in
time (even if we âwinâ, we will have to deal with the nuclear waste; our
âutopiasâ are infested for thousands of years).
Psychologically, nuclear reactors are symbols of permanent self-control
and self-repression, representing the psychological character of the
fifties: The controlled explosion, the slow burn-out, corresponds to the
process of exploitation of each single worker. Nuclear plants emit bad
âvibesâ because they are like capital wants us to be. We are not allowed
to explode socially â the reactor is not allowed to explode technically.
Our control-rods are family-education, responsibility-ideologies
(including âalternativeâ), fear of death â for if we melt down, we are
punished with the âtechnicalâ death penalty. The nuclear plant is just
another element of this blackmailing with death, together with traffic,
machines, etc.
In the sixties, some of this technical reliability melted down, millions
of intellectuals and other workers refused the stress of
self-repression. In this respect, nuclear development is felt like a
counter-attack of capital to create new centres of reliability against
the marsh of obscure wishes and desires. It is an attack on the working
class because it aims at imposing tighter command and higher
productivity on it. The anti-progress, anti-command,
anti-concrete-and-steel-ideology within the anti-nuclear movement
represents a basis for unity with other class sectors as it is a genuine
expression of the class-situation of the intellectual proletariat as
well as of factory and office workers, etc.
Slime against concrete/refusal of responsibility and command against
capital/life against work/ wishes against need â these are elements of
an ideology and practice which could destroy the planning/anti-planning
dead end.
The problem of practical organisation in a semi-rural area was resolved
in the case of the Clamshell Alliance by the system of affinity groups
(a term alluding to the âgrupos de afinidadâ of the International
Brigade in the Spanish Civil War). Under the term âaffinity groupâ,
different types of social aggregation are included. On the one side, an
affinity-group can be constituted by a traditional citizen-committee,
i.e., a more or less formal, loose type of social organisation based on
occasional meetings and limited types of action (mainly legal and
institutional). On the other extreme, an affinity group can coincide
with reproductive organisations, e.g., rural communes, where there is no
distinction between âlifeâ and âpoliticsâ.
Typical affinity groups in New England are located between two
âextremesâ, i.e., they are not necessarily living together but are based
on additional common activities (like bicycling, running a mobile
kitchen in an old bus, acting, music playing), job-relationship
(students) or pre-existing organisational ties (women, gays, American
Friends, socialists, vegetarians). Affinity-groups are limited to 20
members who usually live in the same community or neighbourhood. Some of
the names of affinity groups evoke this atmosphere of blending âlifeâ
and âpoliticsâ: Chautauqua, Critical Mass, Medical Alliance, Nuclear
Family, Frustrated Flower Children, Winds of Change, White Trash, Tomato
Sauce, Hard Rain.
The activities and social life of affinity-groups are not focused
necessarily on the anti-nuclear issue. With this issue it was possible
to put together and âcentraliseâ all these initiatives in the Clamshell
Alliance, which then developed a dynamic of its own. Formally, the
affinity-groups send their representatives to the Coordination
Committee, which, with the help of various subcommittees, organises the
activities of the Alliance. Major decisions are made in Clamshell
Congresses, meetings of all members of the affinity-groups.
Not being based on economic relationships, the affinity-groups require a
continuous effort, ideologically and socially, to keep them together. It
seems that those affinity-groups which were not able to develop a
certain type of para-economic activities (mostly reproductive, like
being in the same yoga-sessions) proved to be very unstable. This
organisational problem was partly resolved by the establishment of
nonviolence training sessions, which were publically announced by
posters and leaflets. An organisational force behind these sessions was
the American Friends Service Committee (the âQuakersâ). A typical
session consisted of an ideological introduction presented in these
terms: âNon-violence is a constant awareness of oneâs humanity, dignity,
and the self-respect of oneself and others. It implies a vision of a
type of society youâre looking for and therefore means there are certain
things you do and do not do.â (Wally Nelson as quoted in Valley
Advocate, Sept. 1 1976).
After this introduction, the group was divided in different roles,
âpoliceâ, âoccupiersâ, âmediaâ, âPublic Service Company officialsâ,
âlegal observersâ, and these roles were played in the form of a fictive
occupation. These sessions served not only to enforce nonviolent
tactics, but also to create several affinity groups or strengthen shaky
groups.
This type of âartificialâ organisation corresponds to the situation of
an intellectual proletariat spread over a rural area where
communications have to be willingly established and âspontaneousâ mass
mobilisations are not possible. The apparent rigidity of this
organisation is a means of self-protection and replaces lacking economic
ties. Nonviolence training sessions become virtually compulsory for
affinity groups. At the same time, participation in occupations and
other acts of civil disobedience outside of an affinity group became
practically impossible, for âeverybody knows if nobody knows youâ.
The formally loose and unauthoritarian structure of the affinity groups
and the organisation as a whole is compensated by procedures of
ideological and social preselection based on the consensus process.
Consensus has been presented as a ânon-violent way for people to relate
to each other as a groupâ and practised for centuries by the Quakers.
The process isformally democratic like minority/majority systems,
delegation systems, and decision by lot.But on the level of class
reality, it excludes the less qualified labour force or people who are
forced into full-time jobs or are exhausted by work. Consensus,
therefore, favours people with psychological and sociological education
since physical power is not allowed to enter group decision making.
The exclusion of physical violence is more than compensated by the
sophisticated use of psychological and intellectual pressure and the use
of time against people who are less skilled and have less time.
Consensus can be used as a means of black-mailing, for it imposes the
responsibility for the whole group on each member, thus becoming an
additional source of ideological and psychological pressure.
Theoretically, it could only work in a non-totalitarian way if all
members had the same class-status, the same skills, and the same level
of reproduction. Otherwise, it becomes the instrument of an elite which
forces other people into âwithdrawing from the groupâ. The
consensus-system of decision-making is another symptom of the high value
of the labour power of its users, expressed by Wally Nelson as the
âhumanity, dignity, and the self-respect of oneself and othersâ. âIt is
not a universal, class-independent system and cannot be rigidly adopted
in other situations.â
A basic set of rules for a consensus process is:
of what decision needs to be made is formulated. A proposal can then be
made. (Part of this discussion should bring out the present position or
course of action of the group relating to the issue at hand).
on the issue.
proposal as stated.
adopted. A consensus has been reached.
resolved for the proposal to be adopted.
solutions can be offered which meet no objections, then a proposal
cannot be adopted as consensus. The group would then continue with the
last consensus decision it had on the subject, or lacking such a
previous decision the consensus would be to take no action on the
proposal.
There are ways to object to a proposal within the consensus:
it.â)
from doing it.â)
Some guidelines from consensus process:
objections. Help others find ways to satisfy your objections.
responsibily. Help find ways to satisfy objections.
competitive right-wrong, win-lose thinking. When a stalemate occurs,
look for creative alternatives, or for next-most acceptable proposals.
Avoid arguing for your own way to prevail. Present your ideas clearly,
then listen to others and try to advance the group synthesis.
vote, averages, or coin-tossing. Try instead to resolve the conflict.
Donât abandon an objection for âharmonyâ if it is a real problem you are
speaking to. Donât try to trade off objections or to reward people from
standing aside.
We all have the same purpose, to non-violently stop nuclear power.
Seemingly irreconcilable differences can be resolved if people speak
their feelings honestly and genuinely try to understand all positions
(including their own) better.
It should be noted that the above section is only an introduction to
consensus and how it works. We are all learning more about the consensus
process as we use it.
From the Handbook for the Land and Sea Blockade of the Seabrook Reactor
Pressure Vessel (Clamshell Alliance)
In certain situations âconsensusâ was violated even within the Clamshell
Alliance, when the consensus of the informal leaders did not correspond
to the consensus of the informal followers. This was the case of the
legal rally of June 1978 and the cancellation of a demonstration in
November 1978 when the Ku Klux Klan announced a counter-demonstration at
Seabrook. In these situations, the real power-structures within the
organisation broke through and the democratic fog dissolved. Formal
democracy is never a guarantee of real peopleâs power, for it does not
answer the basic question: who decided to use democracy? who decided on
the timing? who poses the questions? The real power in such situations
is always based on criteria like: âWho has the money?Who has the
information? Who has the education? Who has the technical instrument
(paper, telephones, cars, printing machines, megaphones, guns)? Who has
the social connections?â Awareness of these basic elements of power is
much more effective in preventing the formation of a ruling clique than
consensus-rituals. If there are leaders (which might be justified and
effective) they must not be allowed to hide behind democratic
smoke-screens, but must be forced to operate in their real function and
submit to the control and criticism of the movement. It is better to
have an open dialectics of leaders and masses than paralysing illusions.
Not only are affinity-groups and the consensus system based on
labour-intensive reproduction techniques, but so is the third tactic of
the anti-nuclear movement: nonviolent civil disobedience. With this
tactic the movement declares and guarantees the rejection of physical
interactions with disciplinary workers (policemen) who are usually less
qualified than the anti-nuclear demonstrators. At the basis of
nonviolent civil disobedience is a deal with the police centred on the
value of the militants themselves. On the one side, the cops will
refrain from cracking the heads of the highly trained, actual or
potential, professional intellectual workers because they might get into
trouble, e.g., the typical antinuclear militant would have easy access
to lawyers or might be a lawyer himself and thus could sue the cop
without too much trouble. On the other side, the militants take, almost
naturally, the attitude of being the copsâ bosses and assume they have
no need to âresort to violenceâ. For example, the advice given to
demonstrators for dealing with the cops is first to look them in the
eyes and ask âHi, my name is..., whatâs yours?â That is, the cops are to
be treated as if they were domestic servants to be dealt with
âhumanelyâ. This advice is clearly based on the presumption that the
demonstrator is highly qualified; needless to say, if a ghetto resident
took up this advice he would have some lumps to pay for such âhumanityâ.
nonviolent preparation.
emergency.change of watch in boats.tactical movement in response to
movement or action by reactor shippers or enforcers.new arrivals to
blockade.
From the Handbook for the Land and Sea Blockade of the Sea-brook Reactor
Pressure Vessel (Clamshell Alliance)
The Clamshell does not make explicit the class presuppositions of
nonviolent civil disobedience. They write, â...nonviolent direct action
has been a means of mobilising popular support for a movement by
convincing the general public that actions taken against an unjust
situation are valid.â However, they do not say when such âmeansâ are
possible.The social power of nonviolent civil disobedience is based on
the value embodied in the human capital of the nonviolent militants
(invested in them by âgeneral capitalâ). Nonviolent civil disobedience
is a potentially very effective strategy as long as the value of the
labour force involved (e.g. in the case of intellectual workers,
especially in New England) is high. It can be used by its proprietors to
blackmail single capitals (e.g. the nuclear industry or a single utility
company) from the out-side, mobilising the interests of âgeneral
capitalâ (the âgeneral publicâ, the State, etc.) against such a single
capital. As long as they are nonviolent, the value of their own
labour-power protects the militants from being attacked, for their
expensive human capital could be damaged.
A nonviolent group action is an orderly, coordinated demonstration of a
purpose, and for a purpose. Nonviolence is dependent on reason,
imagination and discipline. Here are seven specific guidelines on
nonviolence:
one of sympathetic understanding of their personal burdens and
responsibilities without support of their official actions.
violence to acts directed against us.
positive, creative and sympathetic response.
their weakness to what we may believe is our advantage.
contact â and especially to those who may oppose us â the purpose and
meaning of our actions.
should withdraw from the action.
From the Handbook for the Land and Sea Blockade of the Sea-brook Reactor
Pressure Vessel (Clamshell Alliance)
Nonviolent militants use their value to âshame the Stateâ; supposedly,
if people as valuable as they violate the law, then the law or policy
they are protesting must be obviously unjust! They set themselves and
their judgement as the standard for the Stateâs actions. To send such
âfineâ people to jail would seem to condemn the State, therefore, and
not them. Such âmoralâ presumption is ultimately based on the high value
capital stored in the militants which is not a universal property of all
workers. Thus, nonviolent civil disobedience cannot be a universal
remedy, for its effect depends upon who does it.
The antinuclear movement has not always relied exclusively on nonviolent
civil disobedience. It has turned to more violent tactics whenever the
contract of non-physical behaviour could not work because a sufficient
quantity of highly valuated human capital could not be assembled or only
a devaluated labour force was present (e.g. in agricultural areas
without ânewâ intellectuals or in industrial regions). A clear case in
point is the anti-nuclear struggle in the Basque country of Spain. The
nuclear plant under construction in Lemoniz was bombed by the ETA (a
Basque nationalist organisation) on March 17 1978, and two workers were
killed. This accident did not impede the anti-nuclear movement but
widened its impact. The ETA was not blamed for the death of the two
workers, not even by their fellow workers, who protested against the use
the unions and left-wing wanted to make of their dead colleagues. (The
unions and the parties had used the funeral to denounce âviolenceâ.) It
was revealed that the ETA had announced the bombing half an hour in
advance and that the management of the construction firm had refused to
evacuate the site. The movement, far from losing support after the
bombing, turned the incident against the plant and continued to sponsor
mass demonstrations.
The ânonviolenceâ tactic works only if the organisation can guarantee
the ânon-physicalâ behaviour of its militants: Nonviolence training
sessions and general control over the activist personnel of the movement
are therefore vital for this tactic. The leadership of the movement has
to be able to control its own class composition and exclude less
valuable labour-power (like minority people, blacks, factory workers)
which could endanger this tactic. Unless the movement can accumulate
substantial âlumpsâ of pure, highly valuated labour-power, nonviolent
civil disobedience is useless. The exclusion of other class sectors is
not enforced on a formal level, but through the whole process of
recruitment and âsocialisationâ of the movement. Thus, a material aspect
of affinity groups is the availability of substantial amounts of spare
time as well as ideological qualifications most people do not have.
âNonviolenceâ not only requires labour-intensive preparation, it also
demands the maintenance of ânonviolenceâ discipline and self-repression.
For nonviolent civil disobedience implies the acceptance of and
submission to violence done to you or to your brothers and sisters.
Watching your friends being dragged away by the hair requires additional
reproductive work, elaborate ideological motivations (nonviolence
ideologies, historical justifications, religious and moral support),
physical compensation activities to get rid of accumulated anger and
frustration (body politics, acting out therapies), psychological work
(love, verbalisation-techniques, art), which, in general, are not
available to less valuable, less qualified workers. Underemployed
intellectual workers can obtain this type of therapy (even if they
cannot afford it directly) because they are largely qualified to do it
themselves, being psychologists, philosophers and therapists. The New
England region has been a âgreenhouseâ for the developments of methods
dealing with advanced problems of reproduction. Such levels were rarely
attained before, certainly not in Europe, where, consequently,
nonviolence tactics could not be applied in the same way.
Much confusion has been created around the question of ânonviolenceâ
because different points of view â tactical, political, historical,
anthropological and philosophical â have been mixed in a jumbled way.
From the tactical point of view, non-violent civil disobedience can be
very effective under certain class conditions. However, ânon-violenceâ
is not compared to other forms of struggle from the standard of
effectiveness by the leaders and ideologists of the antinuclear
movement. They give nonviolence an almost holy and ahistorical
status.Nonviolence ideologies go far beyond tactical considerations
because they are deeply embedded in the class composition of the
movement, which then generalises its particular interests into a general
philosophical system.
Nonviolent ideologists maintain that humans are by nature nonviolent and
that to resort to violence is to begin an endless catastrophic cycle,
for âviolence generates anger and more violenceâ. There is no evidence,
however, that there is any âhuman natureâ either violent or nonviolent.
For every âprimitive peopleâ â an ultimately imperialist category â
living in âpeace and harmonyâ there is another glorying in war and
slaughter. Facts no more support this ânonviolenceâ conception than they
support its âconservativeâ opposite that views humanity as universally
rapacious. However, even a superficial glance at history and literature
shows that violence can end violence as well as propagate it.
What is most confusing in this ideology is the definition of violence
itself, for to make a distinction between violence and nonviolence
dependent upon whether someoneâs body is hurt or not is to lend support
to the most questionable âphilosophyâ: the Stateâs. There is no
borderline between mind and body, unless we accept criminal laws as our
philosophical guideline and framework of our lives, i.e., only âBodily
damageâ is recognised as a crime. The West German State can appear
âhumaneâ, therefore, by only psychologically and intellectually
torturing political prisoners in sensory deprivation calls. Though the
prisoners are sometimes driven to insanity and suicide, the German State
can escape censure since it has not âhurtâ them!
The basic problem is not whether we express our feelings, class
interests or political aims violently or nonviolently. Our problem is:
who controls our actions? In a class society like ours, this comes down
to the ultimate question: do our actions express the interests of our
class (the working class) or the interests of capital?
One of the more dangerous implications of certain nonviolence
ideologists is the identification of the violence of the oppressed with
the brutality of their oppressors, which completely merges the working
class with capital into an abstract âhumanityâ. For the argument that
âviolence breeds violenceâ distorts the real class relations and leads
them to blame the Stateâs brutality on the resistance of the working
class. Such a logic ends by equating the violence of the Warsaw ghetto
fighters with the brutality of their Nazi executioners! But who provokes
whom? The State has been in a state of being provoked since it came into
existence!
By not making the crucial distinction between working class violence and
State brutality we are led to adopt the ideology of our oppressors. On
the one side, brutality is a repressive procedure of State agents. A
typical example of brutality is Hitler: he was a gentle man in private,
loved children, dogs, was a vegetarian and could not stand the sight of
blood, the Holocaust, the war, the slaughtering of left-wing militants
was a mere bureaucratic operation for him, a âjobâ that had to be done.
That was Hitlerâs brutality as well as the âlittle Hitlersâ that
preceded and followed him. For the âjobâ of the State is to impose work
on the rest of us and this âjobâ can only be done if the State has the
power to kill or torture us when we refuse to work: this is the
brutality of the State. On the other hand, working class violence
attacks work. A typical example is the violence of a strike like the one
in âHarlan Countyâ where the struggle against mining wages and working
conditions became an armed battle against company guards and scabs. This
violence can in no way be equated with the Stateâs brutality. Only the
destruction of work, not the destruction of violence, can destroy
brutality (Or as the French writer Jean Genet put it: âIf we are able to
mobilise all our violence, we might, perhaps, be able to overcome
brutality.â)
On a purely tactical level, nonviolence is not a general recipe
independent of the class composition of a movement. The interrelation of
class composition and nonviolence tactics is illustrated by the
development of the Black Liberation Movement.[4]
Started in the South in the fifties as a movement of educated, valuable
black intellectual workers or students, it was centred in the colleges
and organised around the churches. Personalities like M.L. King himself
or Andrew Young are typical representatives of this class composition.
The necessary self-disciplining and ideological work was done through
the church organisations which played a role comparable to the affinity
groups or non-violence training sessions of the antinuclear movement.
The accumulated value of this black intellectual labour force was then
used against single capital factions, which refused to grant the
corresponding wages and positions. Nonviolence was therefore a possible
tactic. When later (Birmingham 1963) less valuable labour joined the
movement, this tactic broke down as violent struggles in the urban
ghettoes developed. It is significant that leaders like Stokely
Carmichael, a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNNC), first committed to nonviolence turned later (Selma, 1965) into a
propagandist of armed struggle. It was not an ideological critique of
nonviolence or âmoral degradationâ that brought this change, but the
simple fact that the class-composition of the movement, and therefore
its relationship with capital, had changed. Later, in 1971, the brutal
repression of the Attica revolt showed drastically how capital deals
with an unarmed âcheapâ labour force in rebellion.
It is no coincidence that at present, when capital has begun a
devaluation-attack on certain sectors of the intellectual labour-force
(expressed in the âdim job-perspectivesâ), and when the class
composition of the anti-nuclear movement is bound to change, the
discussion about certain levels of non-violence (damaging private
property or not) and the 100% consensus principle (which is linked to
the problem of guaranteeing a certain class composition) arises sharply
within the Clamshell Alliance and in the antinuclear movement in
general. It is easy to see that a growing number of militants are
beginning to reject the rigid non-violence-contract with capital because
it is not useful anymore.
The discussion concerning the destruction of private property arose in
response to the practical question of what to do with the fence around
the Seabrook construction site and again when in the street-blockade of
March 9 1979, some militants proposed to pour oil on the road to make it
slippery and dangerous for the truck delivering the reactor vessel.
Nonviolent civil disobedience is a militant activist tactic. Some of its
ideologists go as far as saying that it requires more courage than
violent struggle because it is more risky for you can be easily caught
by the police and jailed!
In this regard, nonviolence is in opposition to the legalism of most
antinuclear protests by âlocalâ residents. In most illegal sit-ins and
blockades, it was not possible to concretise the alliance of local
residents and antinuclear militants on the level of participation.
The Clamshell Alliance felt so weak after these experiences, that it
began to reject, temporarily, nonviolent civil disobedience and return
to legalism. This happened, e.g., with the rally of June 24, 1978, which
turned out to be a legal âalternatives fairâ. This decision, made by the
informal leaders of the movement, was a first reaction to the changing
class composition of the movement and to the âleaksâ in the social and
ideological control over it. This was marked by the emergence of such
groups as the Bostonian Clams for Democracy who were beginning to
propose less âpeacefulâ methods like breaking down the fence surrounding
the plant put up by the authorities to prevent another occupation at
Seabrook.
Harvey Wasserman, the most prominent supporter of the âreturn to
legalismâ, wrote in the June 22 1978 issue of WIN Magazine:
âNonetheless, it is time the movement recognised its growth and
divisions. It seems almost inevitable that if the anti-nuclear movement
is to proceed â which it must â then those who are dedicated to
non-violence must proceed with their own organisations, and those who
are not must move into new ones.â (Our emphasis.) This is a clear
declaration of his will to divide the movement in order to preserve its
class-composition. Problems of consensus or democracy (what is they want
to stay?) are put aside in such an emergency.
The division of the movement in order to guarantee its class-composition
and the control of its leaders over it is a well known procedure of
reformist and trade-union politicians which serves capitalist
domination. The history of the organisations of the working class is in
fact a history of âexpulsionsâ of âleft-wingâ factions. Real social
movements, revolutions, are always parties which are taken over by
uninvited guests. The threat to divide the movement if it does not
accept the (informal) line must be rejected, while the recognition of
âits growth and divisionsâ must occur within the movement.
As for legalism, this is not another possible compromise with capital,
like nonviolent civil disobedience. Legalism always means disarming and
paralysing the real social movement (direct action, âsubversiveâ
behaviours, autonomous organisation) in order to get a broad
representation on the level of anonymous, formalised, hierarchically
controlled institutions (bourgeois democracy, media, unions). On this
level, it is possible to get a representation which goes beyond limited
class sectors. Capital allows the âbreakdownâ of all class-divisions
within the working class if this process is controlled by the State,
i.e., by its own institutions. Referendums, elections, legal rallies,
for example, âovercomeâ such class-divisions as those between
intellectual workers and local residents. But the price paid is that the
movement no longer acts as a social movement. In reality, it is not
acting at all but is only symbolically present. It exists only in
relationship to State-institutions or the media. Going to such a legal
rally does not mean that you are âa lot of peopleâ, it means that you
are ânobodyâ, only an abstract number, an element in a piece of âartâ.
Totally legal gatherings demonstrate not the strength of the movement
but the strength of State-control over it. It shows the that the State
can allow such huge accumulations of people without any practical
consequences â unless, the rally âgets out of controlâ. At the same
time, this type of legalism is a weapon against genuine autonomous
organisation. First, because it drains away a lot of energy and time
from (possibly modest) direct actions. Second, it discourages day-to-day
activities and imposes rhythms on the movement which are not its own.
Legalism is not a compromise with capital, it is the way capital deals
with oppositional movements in ânormal timesâ (if it doesnât revert to
fascism or armed repression).
This process of disarmament is exemplified by the struggle of the
Granite State Alliance (Manchester, NH) against the electricity rate
hikes and particularly the Construction Works in Progress (CWIP) rate
hike. The CWIP increase was to be about 25% and was to finance the
building of the Seabrook nuclear power plant. The class structure of the
initial group was substantially the same as that of the Clamshell
Alliance. However, starting with the rate-hike, which meant an attack on
all wage-income levels, it was possible to extend the class-composition
of the movement potentially to the whole working class and especially
the elderly and low-income urban people. The GSA wanted to build a
social movement on this basis, but it was used indirectly by the
Democratic candidate for Governor, Gallen, who promised not to introduce
CWIP and used this issue (in combination with clever TV tactics) for his
campaign in the Fall 1978. Against the explicit will of the GSA, the
social potential of the rate-hike was transformed into electoral,
institutional powerlessness. The possible broad class-composition got
diluted into individual votes. Gallen won, but the construction of the
Seabrook plant goes on, with all the financial consequences for the rate
payers. There will be no CWIP. However, the State of New Hampshire is
now considering the purchase of a part of the shares of the Seabrook
plant, through a new State Power Authority. Thus, the plant will be
financed with tax money directly, instead of electricity rates,
providing a further pretext to cut back vital social services. The
defeat would not have been so painful if a lot of free work and
political energy had not been exploited by institutional legal activity.
The main difference between the European and American antinuclear
movements consists in the greater âimpurityâ of the former. Though a
strong tendency in Europe as well, the strategy of non-violent civil
disobedience never became dominant or âcompulsoryâ as in the US. Urban
unemployed or underemployed workers (mainly intellectual, but also
service workers and manual workers), urban youth gangs, the political
groups of the old and new New Left (in Germany certain sects of
Marxist-Leninists: in France and in Switzerland, Trotskyites),
âregionalâ movements (the ETA in the Basque country, the
Occitan-movement in Southern France) were the uninvited guests who
spoiled the party from the very beginning. The control over the
class-composition was therefore loose. Demonstrations were
proportionately much larger than in the US but at the same time
unpredictable and often poorly organised. No formal grassroots model
with the coherence of the affinity groups emerged. Alliances such as the
Clamshell Alliance came into existence, but there was more instability
and they were never âleft aloneâ.
After the massive and deceptive wave of demonstrations in 1977, the
informal leaders and leading organisations went back to legalism as in
the US. In Germany, âGruene Listenâ participated in local and regional
elections. In France, several ecologist parties took part in the
national elections. In Switzerland, various ecologist and left-wing
organisations used the anti-nuclear issue in elections and in a national
referendum (which was defeated by 49 to 51%). All these attempts had
initial successes, but failed in the longer run. As the disaffection
with political institutions is very strong among the European working
class, the situation did not allow for such electoral games. Ecologists
seldom took more than 3â5% of the votes, a percentage which does not
correspond to the anti-nuclear attitudes found in the polls (in most
countries a majority of the population is against nuclear plants).
The different and more âdiffuseâ class composition of the European
antinuclear movement found its most visible expression in the tactics of
the police, which were much more belligerent than the police response in
New Hampshire, despite the fact that NH is a âlaw and orderâ State. In
Europe, unprovoked police responded physically against the
demonstrators, using tear gas, clubs, dogs, even grenades, causing
hundreds of injured and even death (as in the case of Malville in 1977).
Civil war-like street blockades, dozens of miles away from the
demonstration-sites and at national borders (which despite âEuropean
Unificationâ are now more intensively used than ever to control
âundesirable mobilityâ), were set up to hassle and withhold
demonstrators. Trains were stopped, buses and cars blocked for hours,
all âweaponsâ (like lemons, handkerchiefs, motorcycle helmets, raincoats
and car tool-kits) were confiscated. In Kalkar, West Germany, on
September 24 1977, 60,000 demonstrators made it to the the site, mostly
walking dozens of miles. But more than 10,000 were blocked on the road.
Using the official hysteria created around the Schleyer kidnapping which
was going on simultaneously, the West German government mobilised 13,500
policemen, the largest police gathering in German history.
1977 marked a temporary defeat for the European antinuclear movement
mainly on the military level. Nonviolent civil disobedience reached a
threshold which made it obsolete as an effective or even possible
tactic.
While a part of the movement went back to legalism, other antinuclear
activists experimented with acts of sabotage against power-lines
(France), railroad lines (Switzerland), construction sites (Spain),
factories supplying nuclear plants (Switzerland, France), and
installations of utility companies (bombs at the information pavilion in
Kaiseraugst, Switzerland in the spring of 1979). Sometimes bombs were
placed near nuclear construction sites or plants, not to damage them but
to demonstrate their general vulnerability.
This wave of âviolentâ acts has triggered an intensive debate within the
European antinuclear movement. At first the âofficialâ nonviolent
organisations denounced these actions as âdirected against the movement
and harmful for its growthâ. But later this âhard lineâ weakened and
they sometimes accepted bomb-attacks, if the bombings were carefully and
âcleanlyâ executed without damage to the environment, nature or âliving
creaturesâ. This debate concerning tactics is still going on, though it
is often conducted on an ideological level. Significantly, Anna Gyorgy
in her No Nukes mentions neither the violent (or technical) actions of
the European movement nor this important debate on the future of the
movement.[5] By this nonviolent censorship, she withholds information
from the US movement which could endanger the ideological control of its
class-composition.
At this moment, especially after the Harrisburg accident, the European
antinuclear movement seems, to have overcome its legalistic apathy. The
âpoliticisationâ of the movement by traditional or new âecologicalâ
parties has only temporarily disarmed the movement, while a more
creative combination of ânonviolenceâ and âviolenceâ has appeared in
recent activities and demonstrations.
Nuclear Industry
The immediate enemy of the antinuclear movement is the nuclear industry.
This industry is apparently a âsingle capitalâ which, however, has
financial and technological roots in many other capitals and represents
the most âgeneralâ single capital so far. In practically all countries,
the nuclear industry is tightly linked to the State which has developed
and financed its technology through the nuclear weapons industry. This
fact alone makes it clear that the struggles around the nuclear cycle,
from inside or outside, are immediately concerned with a State/capital
and reach the highest levels of class-contradiction.
The nuclear industry was planned throughout the fifties and sixties as a
response to the unreliability of domestic coalminers and oil workers in
the Middle East (of the Suez crisis in 1956). It was conceived as the
source for a new capitalist accumulation, a new model of capitalist
command, control and territorial organisation. The ânuclear workerâ was
to be the standard for a new class-composition: a model of discipline,
responsibility and political reliability.
The higher level of discipline was to be achieved by a militarisation of
the nuclear cycle. âAtoms for Peaceâ was to be a mere extension and
toned down version of the terroristic impact of the nuclear weapons
industry. In the late sixties the construction of 1,000 power plants by
the year 2,000 was planned. This Plan meant the full ânuclearisationâ of
US territory and would have been a marvelously powerful but subtle means
of social control. The Plan envisioned that the production of 30% of the
energy supply would be nuclear. If this had succeeded, the industry
would have been able to bust all the struggles of the coal miners and
oil workers. The planned location of the plants was also dictated by the
need for class control. The plants were sited around the major
metropolitan areas, so that the State could impose evacuations or other
emergency measures and blackmail the population with radioactive danger
in times of âsocial unrestâ. (It would not make any difference if the
danger were real, for with radioactivity âyou donât feel anythingâ until
after the damage is done). The same command-functions could have been
exerted on an international level through the control of the uranium
cycle. For example, the European nuclear industry depends completely on
US and Canadian uranium and to a large extent on US nuclear technology.
This plan suffered one major internal contradiction: though planned as a
profitable single capital, the nuclear industry turned out to be
completely unable to function capitalistically. One problem was the
immaturity of nuclear technology itself. The political pressure of the
working class did not give capital enough time to resolve all the
technological problems (âsafetyâ, waste, environmental problems).
Another problem was the over-extended circulation period of nuclear
capital. It takes ten years to plan a plant, four years to build it,
another 15 years to completely pay off the investments, by which time it
is technologically obsolete. This makes the costs of a nuclear plant
virtually incalculable, for in this long period many external influences
(inflation, changes in the supply costs, changes in the environment) can
intervene. Thus the huge cost overruns.
The extended circulation-period of nuclear capital is not a mere
financial or economic risk, it is also politically dangerous. It imposes
a rigidity on capital which can be âexploitedâ by the working classâs
power of surprise. Between the planning stage of the recently built
plants and today, there was the studentsâ movement, the anti-war
movement, a new situation in the Middle East, a general loss of
credibility in the ideology of âprogressâ, a breakdown of the family,
the crisis after 1973. The antinuclear movement itself is both a part of
these general developments as well as their expression. Capital has
invested deeply in a future it really does not control. In a sector with
short profit-return periods, capital can adjust, quickly to new
situations without losing huge amounts of already invested money â not
so in the nuclear industry.
All these working class surprises forced capital to give up the idea of
a really profitable nuclear industry. One response was to make energy in
general artificially more expensive. This began in earnest in the
oil-crisis of 1973. Once oil was made two times more expensive than
before, nuclear energy became more competitive. At the same time, the
additional oil-profits could be used to finance the nuclear industry
which is connected with the oil-trusts through the banking system.
Further, the oil companies are directly interested in the nuclear
industry because they control a large share of uranium mining and can
coordinate the price of uranium with that of oil (e.g. between 1973 and
the present the delivery price of uranium oxide has gone up from seven
dollars to more than twenty.)
This profit injection into the energy industry as a whole has been paid
for by the working class in the form of higher gasoline prices and
inflation. The State organises the inflation of energy prices since it
guarantees the electric companiesâ profit with money taken from the
working class either in the form of taxes or by granting higher utility
rates. Further, the State lowers the real cost of nuclear plants because
decommissioning costs are not charged, while the liability of the
companies is reduced by a law which artificially lowers their insurance
costs (the Price-Anderson Act limits liability to a ridiculously low 560
million dollars.)
The nuclear industry is not operating on conventional capitalist
cost-principles or, rather, far less so than other industries. It is
more like a branch of âState socialismâ where the State pays and the
industry receives âfakeâ profits. Its economic function can best be
compared to that of the war industries, for it is only under such
âpara-militaryâ conditions that the nuclear engineering and utility
companies survive financially. The âflip sideâ of this State/capital
relation is that the nuclear industry has become a subtly powerful
instrument of State planning in the crisis.
Higher energy prices and the ease of price manipulation afforded by the
nuclear industry impose higher basic costs on all capitals. Nuclear
prices force them either to raise their capital-intensity
(rationalisation, automation) or, if they are not able to do this, to
raise the rate of exploitation (lower wages, longer hours, faster work
rhythms) or both. Not only are workers forced to work more, but single
capitals are forced by general capital (the State) either to exploit
them more effectively or face bankruptcy.
If we compare the nuclear plants with their actual achievements we find
them in a very critical situation. Only 72 plants are operating in the
US and most of them are operating far below their capacity. In 1978 no
new nuclear plants were ordered while almost every day we read that
plants have been cancelled or will be shut down. In March 1979, five
plants in the Northeast were shut down by the nuclear Regulatory
Commission because of âearthquake dangersâ. The Seabrook plant is
struggling with serious financial problems. The Three Mile island plant
is lost. In Europe, dozens of plants have been cancelled or delayed. In
Austria, a completed plant will not go into operation after a referendum
on nuclear development. It will become a silent and ugly monument of the
ânuclear ageâ in that country. If we compare this situation to the
original plans, we can speak of a âvictoryâ against the nuclear
industry. But whose victory? And is it really a victory?
These victories cannot be due to the antinuclear movement alone because
the movement had a direct impact only in a few situations (as in Whyl,
West Germany). For example, the referendum in Austria was supported by
the conservative Volks-partei against the Social-Democrats and was not
started by the anti-nuclear movement. This âvictoryâ occured, moreover,
in a period of open defeat of the movement in Europe.
The nuclear industry puts the blame on, ârising costsâ and not on the
anti-nuclear movement. This is superficially true. But âcostsâ are only
an expression of the social processes that cause them. One very
important (if not the most important) element of these âcostsâ are the
nuclear workers themselves, including all types of scientists and the
social context in which they move. Nuclear plants were designed for the
responsible progress-abiding, intellectual-technical workers of the
fifties. The high capital-intensity and the centralised existence of
nuclear capital require stable, socially settled âfamily menâ,
âmilitarilyâ disciplined workers, truly âscientificâ Stakhanovites of
the second half of the 20^(th) century.[6] It is no accident that the
race to develop the atomic bomb also produced the first âpeacefulâ
atomic workers. War has always been capitalâs laboratory for developing
new production processes and forming new types of workers.
The sixties and seventies put this ânewâ worker in crisis. Wives,
mothers and lovers no longer produced stability and discipline, the
universities didnât produce reliability, while academic unemployment
ruined the âprideâ of these workers.
As this disillusioned, cynical, unstable intellectual proletariat
emerges, the future of such capital-intensive industries like the
nuclear industry is endangered.
Because of its long planning period, the long term future affects the
immediate behaviour of the nuclear industry more than any other branch
of capital. The nuclear industry is in crisis because its future is in
crisis: not its technological future, but the relationship between its
technology and labour force, between technology and âhumanityâ. The last
few years have seen a whole wave of nuclear âdesertionsâ. Scientists and
even members of the NRC went over to the âenemyâ. Some of these
deserters helped make the film China Syndrome. In West Germany, the most
spectacular case was that of Traube, the director of the national
nuclear power plant programme, whose telephone was tapped by the police
because he was suspected of having contacts with the Red Army Faction of
Baader-Meinhof. This accusation could not be proven but Traube was fired
and then joined the ecological movement. Recently, Kathy Boylan, whose
husband is an employee of the nuclear department of the Long Island
Lighting Company, pronounced herself against nuclear power. Asked
whether her stand against nuclear power could jeopardise her husbandâs
job, Mrs Boylan replied, âIt might.â (N.T. Times, April 6 1979)
The undermined discipline of the nuclear workers imposes, high âCostsâ
on the nuclear industry, i.e., costs for âsafety and protectionâ against
its own employees. Sabotage or âhuman errorâ are in fact main concerns
of the NRC. In 1978 the NRC demanded that all plants apply new, tougher
safety procedures: more personnel, introduction of the âTwo man ruleâ
(all employees dealing with vulnerable operations should always be
accompanied by another employee to prevent sabotage), installation of
TV-supervision and new safety clearances of two-thirds of all employees
(which costs 6000 dollars per person). It seems that a number of
companies refused to apply these rules and risked the loss of their
licenses (the deadline was first August 1978 and later extended until
February 1979)[7]. But these new procedures did not do the job. In fact,
the NRC blamed the Three Mile island accident on âhuman errorsâ, for the
system itself worked fine! Nuclear workers have protested against the
âtwo man ruleâ and other safety procedures because they consider them a
declaration of mistrust. They are right: capital does not trust them.
For capital must not only deal with the question: who educates the
educators? but, most crucially in the nuclear industry, it must pose the
question: who controls the controllers?[8]
Though no nuclear plant has been shut down due to a wage dispute,
nuclear workers have been visibly struggling for more safety for
themselves against radioactive dangers.
Karen Silkwood has become something of a national martyr because she was
murdered in 1974 when she tried to make public information about health
dangers in the nuclear processing plant where she worked. In 1976
workers in a nuclear reprocessing plant in La Hague went on strike for
about six months protesting radioactive contamination at the plant. Most
recently in February 18, 1979, nuclear workers at the nuclear power
plant of Caorso, Italy went on strike demanding safety guarantees from
the company against radioactive dangers. The âleaksâ of discipline
within the nuclear cycle seem to be enlarging and capital must have
strong doubts about the command-creating function of the nuclear
industry.
This crisis of command-creation within the plants (or the nuclear cycle
in general) is intensified by the crisis of command over the
socio-political environment around the plant. Site planning is obviously
sensitive to this environment. Thus, in Italy the nuclear programme is
relatively modest (11 million people per plant site). This is not
surprising in a country with high levels of âmass terrorismâ and a
general credibility gap between the State and the working class.
Capital-intensive industries like nuclear power are too risky there. At
the other extreme is Switzerland which has the largest nuclear programme
proportional to the population (900,000 people per plant) supplying 25
per cent of its electricity.[9] Again this is not surprising for
Switzerland is known for its political and social stability. Instead of
increasing control over the site environments, however, the construction
of nuclear plants has provided an ideal target for social movements of
different origins. Many times, the plants âorganisedâ social
insubordination around themselves. The high concentration of capital and
the âvisibilityâ of this capitalist âfortress of confidence and
progressâ attracted all types of protest, attacks and threats. For
example, in the US, 175 threats or acts of violence against nuclear
plants were reported. One of the most spectacular occurred on August 27,
1974 when an incendiary bomb exploded near Pilgrim 1 in Massachusetts
while the plant was at one of its rare moments of full power. Nuclear
capital could not anticipate this type of reaction which was based on
social processes that emerged after the nuclear plants had been put on
line. Attacks on the nuclear industry were not only used by the
anti-nuclear movement. They were also enmeshed with other political
purposes (e.g. struggles for national or regional liberation or for more
traditional âparty-gamesâ). Thus the anti-nuclear movement is only one
of the social movements which forced higher âcostsâ on the nuclear
industry from the outside: These âcostsâ include: expenses for the
military defence of the plants, propaganda and lobbying efforts,
additional safety measures, legitimation (safety studies, legal
actions), âlost timeâ and interest charges.
Even the accident at Three Mile island, the first real-life rehearsal of
nuclear command-creation, indicated more symptoms of the decay of
command than of its strengthening. Thousands of workers took advantage
of the situation and did not show up for work, while the credibility of
State and nuclear officials reached only 16 per cent in the polls. On
the one side, workers who were told not to leave did leave; on the other
side, those told to go often did not go. As Woodrow Miller, 63, former
mayor of the town of Goldsboro (near the reactor) explained the attitude
of the later type of refusers: âWhat is the difference if you stay in
New York and die from carbon monoxide or I stay in Goldsboro and die
from radiation?â Given the fact that the crisis, the higher costs of
living, the cut-backs of social services have generally created so many
risks for health, many people are perhaps willing to take the additional
radioactive risk, stay in an evacuation area and try to make use of the
situation in the form of looting or riots. The renewed interest by the
government in âcivil defenceâ and mass, police-run evacuations indicates
that nuclear plants are not terrorizing and commanding enough for the
working class of the seventies.
Even in this critical situation, with all these âstrange victoriesâ, the
nuclear industry (and even less capital in general) is not yet defeated
and has other choices. State/capital wants us to pay a high price for
our unexpected victories and lack of devotion to its plans. For if
splitting atoms cannot do the job of controlling our lives, maybe
decaying dollars can.
At this moment, capital is obviously testing out two possible futures: a
risky, capital intensive nuclear future and a labour-intensive,
low-energy version. Neither is very tempting though there will always
be, after the priority is set, a combination of both. The choice we are
offered is one between cancer and misery. The âloyal oppositionâ to
capital within the anti-nuclear movement seems to accept such a
blackmail and is campaigning for the âmiseryâ version: âSolar jobsâ,
conservation and âlabour-intensiveâ production. In this sense, they are
âeducatingâ the masses, but they face the same problem the dominant
capital faces with its cancer-option. Imposing labour-intensive
production on a working class that has. been fighting around the refusal
of work is as hopeless as the search for responsible high
capital-intensity workers. However, if we are not able to reject the
choice between cancer and misery, we will surely get both.
One of the major achievements of the anti-nuclear movement and its
militants (even its âsolar capitalâ planners) is to have created a
social movement practically from zero. In the midst of the general decay
of old âNew Leftâ organisations, anti-nuclear militants took a practical
chance that lots of âpure revolutionariesâ didnât even perceive. But
this world is ungrateful and militant merits are not eternally respected
because all movements, if they remain alive, change continuously. The
anti-nuclear movement emerged with a class composition linked to a type
of highly valued intellectual labour force in rural and suburban
regions. Will this be the social and geographic limit of the movement?
With the Three Mile Island accident and the energy price attack, capital
is saying to this movement: âOkay, folks, you got a point. But what
about food-riots in the cities, which side will you be on?â
This may appear exaggerated, but this question expresses the main
problem the anti-nuclear movement will necessarily face in urban areas.
The urban working class forces a choice on the movement: will it stick
to its old class-structure or will it try to extend beyond these limits?
Will it be a movement of concerned intellectual workers, dealing with
problems of antiplanning, restricting its form of struggle and
organisation to this class sector or will it deal with more immediate
issues such as rate hikes and food prices. The anti-nuclear movement is
still pondering over the risks of enlarging its class composition (which
could mean self-devaluation) versus the advantages of conserving its own
value as a labour force. (For example, at one of the first major
occupations of a nuclear plant site after Three Mile island â the one at
Shoreham, New York on June 3, 1979 â nonviolence training has still been
declared compulsory by the organisers).
The anti-nuclear movement has developed a certain rigidity and a fear of
uninvited guests. While being harmless in rural areas, this rigidity can
become a danger in cities where different class-sectors live closely
together. âDoing your own thingâ in a city can immediately mean doing it
against others, for everything is so directly interrelated. The
apparently innocent act of installing a windmill on the roof and saving
energy is an attack on a neighbour who probably doesnât have the
necessary money for such an installation and is left alone in the
struggle against rising electricity bills. One arm of the anti-nuclear
movement, âalternative energyâ can become just another hobby for higher
income people or people with special educations. Thus, Carterâs energy
bill subsidizes the installation of solar heating devices through tax
write-offs, but only those who have houses to install them and taxes to
write off can take advantage of the deal. In general, such individual or
class restricted energy solutions put poorer sectors in an even tighter
squeeze and deepen the divisions within the class. If a nuclear shut
down only means solar privileges for some people, capital can divide the
possible movement of all energy consumers and we will lose the nuclear
battle.
Not to deal with the problem of energy prices at the urban community
level means to automatically play the game of capitalist class division,
consciously or not. All types of symbolic or legal activities, like
âmaking the link with the atomic bombâ (can you practically attack an
atomic bomb by âattackingâ the Pentagon?) divert from possible
activities in the community. If we are not able to deal with the local,
electric company, how can we deal with the Pentagon? Why should we go to
Washington if we have never been to the corner utility office?
These questions concerning the movementâs direction must be asked now,
for the anti-nuclear movement has a real chance to play a role as a
catalyst for struggles in a very critical situation in the cities. The
Harrisburg accident has legitimated this movement on a mass level and
has âeducatedâ people about the lies of the government and the nuclear
industry. Being anti-nuclear means to be against capital, against the
energy squeeze, against the âChoiceâ of cancer or misery. The
anti-nuclear issue is a possibility of autonomous organisation outside
of all types of compromised party, union and ethnic organisations, and
open field of creativity for all types of people. The characteristics of
the âruralâ anti-nuclear movement are partly an obstacle for such a
function. The urban anti-nuclear movement has to develop its own ways of
organis-ing, making decisions, and acting. It must insist on its own
rhythms and cannot just be an appendix of the established organisations.
April 26, 1979
[1] Whyl in Germany was a christian-democrat (conservative) stronghold,
the political attitudes could be described as âlaw and orderâ, âdefense
of private propertyâ, âanti-communistâ. Nevertheless, it became the
centre of a very militant activism of local people against the planned
nuclear reactor and against the christian-democrat government.
[2] In Whyl, the quality of the wine would have declined due to climatic
changes; the value of the real estate would have gone down; milk
production would become problematic, etc.
[3] Similar âfactorsâ emerged on a lesser scale in other places,
including the Denver-Aspen area of Colorado; around Chapel Hill, North
Carolina; Madison, Wisconsin; etc; in sum, in centres of âalternativismâ
which co-exist with centres of the education industry.
[4] Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, Black Power: The
Politics of Liberation In America (New York, 1967).
[5] Anna Gyorgy and friends, No Nukes: Everyoneâs Guide to Nuclear
Power, (Boston, 1979).
[6] According to G. Daneker and R. Grossman, Jobs and Energy
(Washington, D.C., 1977) p. 15, the ratio of professional and technical
workers in atomic plants is 33 per cent of the total plant employment;
in manufacturing this ratio is 10.2 per cent while in mining it is 12.6
per cent, Handbook of Labour Statistics 1976 (Washington, D.C., 1976).
[7] Interview with R. Jungk, Tages Auzeiger, March 6, 1979.
[8] The typical nuclear plant employs about 733 persons a year according
to Ron Langue,Nuclear Power Plants: The More They Build, The More You
Pay (New York, 1976). The average cost per plant completed in 1976 is
about $ 2 billion, e.g. Seabrook will be about $2.5 billion on the basis
of 1978 estimates. Thus the average investment a worker handles in a
year is $2.7 million. The investment per worker per year in petroleum is
$150,000 while in textiles it is $18,600, Statistical Abstract of the US
1978, Washington, D.C., 1979), p. 567. Thus the nuclear worker has to be
16 times more reliable than the petroleum worker and 145 times more
disciplined than a textile worker.
[9] Calculated from the Statistical Abstract.