Remember remember the 6th of November!
On the 6th of November workers all over Ireland, both North and South, will march against Government cutbacks and the handling of the economic crisis. With Fianna Fail intent on slashing their way through public sector jobs and destroying our services the worker's movement is returning to the streets.
This has been an intense year for working class people and many many lessons have been learned. We started last winter with the Pensioners resisting the Governments suggestion that Medical Cards would be taken from the over 70's which brought 15,000 old people onto the streets on the same day as a students anti-fees demonstration of 15,000. When the two marches met at the Dail the young and the old greeted each other with massive cheers. But it was the old folks who shouted down speakers from the mainstream parties who took to the stage to placate the anger.
We then had the march in support of our Teachers which saw 80,000 teachers, parents and students take to the streets.
The movement was climbing all leading up to the ICTU march of 120,000 workers, both public and private sector, marching together. The march was led by the Waterford Crystal workers who had occupied their plant in February.
On that march the radical left's call for a 24 hour stoppage had huge resonance and the Union leaders were forced to call a day of action.
But the movement was demoralised massively by the Union Leader's decision to call off the day of action with 3 days notice, only to go into 'talks' with the government.
The ground was set for the Government to bring in their vicious April Budget, which if the worker's movement had progressed would have met massive opposition. With the working class demobilised it was easy for Fianna Fail to kick us while down.
Over the summer the anger expressed itself in the swing towards Labour in the council elections, the election of 5 People Before Profit candidates and the devastation of the Green Party.
This passive show of anger at the ballot box was followed by the break out of a number of economic struggles- at Marine Terminal Limited, Mr. Binman, Four Courts cleaners, Carrolls Joinery and the impressive Thomas Cook occupation.
The autumn saw the continuation of some of these strikes and the break out of further economic struggles at Coca Cola HBC and Green Isle Foods.
Now we have once more a worker's movement on the rise with the 24-7 alliance, an alliance of firefighters, nurses, soldiers and even the police representatives, who held meetings of over 1,500 in Sligo, 1,000 in Cork, 1,000 in Kilkenny and over 1,300 in Dublin. the alliance is joining the Trade Union march on the 6th of November when we'll have Public and Private sector workers, soldiers and firefighter on the streets.
There is a National Stoppage planned for Nov 24th.
Lets hope he Union leaders aren't stupid enough to lose the momentum once again.
We have to make sure we keep the pressure on them not to cave in.
Monday, November 2, 2009
BOOTS workers to strike....
Boots Chemists posted €20 million in profits for the year to March 2008 in Ireland and according to the New York Times- Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (the private equity firm that bought out Boots) looks set to generate pre-tax profits of up to $1.3 Billion for their shareholders!
Yet it’s in the interests of these shareholders that Boots staff are now expected to take pay cuts of up to 15.5% along with a reduction in terms and conditions despite Boots still being a highly profitable company with current cash reserves in excess of €70 million.
Some of Boots demands include - A 15.5% wage reduction at the top scale of pay from €14.20 to €12 per hour, A 25% reduction in public holiday pay, A 25% reduction in Sunday Premiums, Increased flexibility in weekend work for full time staff.
Boots management have dcclared that they will terminate all agreements with the Mandate Union from Nov 17th.
Workers have to put some manners on this company to let them know that they cannot get away with such blatant contempt for their hard working staff.
Boots joins the ranks of a number of companies who have provoked strike action on the part of their workers- Marine Terminals Limited, Coca Cola HBC, Green Isle Foods, Budget Travel, Mr. Binman- have all tried to use the recession (despite profitability) to drive down wages and conditions.
Workers should read the history and results of the above disputes, we need to fight wholeheartedly with our Unions when they voice our concerns, but if the Union wavers and falls short of delivering what the members demand we need to have in place rank and file organisation – spokespeople for each store elected from the workers in each store that can raise the concerns of workers at meetings with the Unions.
Yet it’s in the interests of these shareholders that Boots staff are now expected to take pay cuts of up to 15.5% along with a reduction in terms and conditions despite Boots still being a highly profitable company with current cash reserves in excess of €70 million.
Some of Boots demands include - A 15.5% wage reduction at the top scale of pay from €14.20 to €12 per hour, A 25% reduction in public holiday pay, A 25% reduction in Sunday Premiums, Increased flexibility in weekend work for full time staff.
Boots management have dcclared that they will terminate all agreements with the Mandate Union from Nov 17th.
Workers have to put some manners on this company to let them know that they cannot get away with such blatant contempt for their hard working staff.
Boots joins the ranks of a number of companies who have provoked strike action on the part of their workers- Marine Terminals Limited, Coca Cola HBC, Green Isle Foods, Budget Travel, Mr. Binman- have all tried to use the recession (despite profitability) to drive down wages and conditions.
Workers should read the history and results of the above disputes, we need to fight wholeheartedly with our Unions when they voice our concerns, but if the Union wavers and falls short of delivering what the members demand we need to have in place rank and file organisation – spokespeople for each store elected from the workers in each store that can raise the concerns of workers at meetings with the Unions.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
"The workers united will never be defeated"- The Thomas Cook Lock In.
Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Commerzbank AG and BayernLB speak for 43.9 percent of the Thomas Cook company, Arcandor (a german retailer) handed over that chunk of the profitable holiday chain in return for loans to cover it’s bad debts which amounted to 1.5 Billion. Royal Bank of Scotland, by the way, was the recipient of a bailout from the UK taxpayer. These international deals set the back drop for an inspiring show of worker’s initiative, solidarity, bravery and defiance.
On Friday 31st of July managers flew in from Britain with the intention of dismissing the workers from the two shops without notice, these managers had booked return flights for later that afternoon and so believed they would have no trouble firing the dublin workforce.They were in for a shock. Antoinette Shevlin, a worker there, describes the first day
”The lockin began because senior management from Thomas Cook arrived to the Dublin retail shops last Friday and called the staff together to say that the shops were being closed early due to staff demonstrating for a better redundancy package on the previous Wednesday. They requested that the staff leave in an orderly fashion and that they would receive their redundancy in due course. Thomas Cook had ended the negotiations by telephone on the 23rd July without the redundancy package being agreed on. Also, thay gave a closing date of the 6th September but if the staff protested they would close the shops earlier on the 7th August and the staff would only receive statutory redundancy. The offer they had made was for 5 weeks per year of service but bearing in mind that Thomas Cook are predicting profits of over 400 million this is a derisory offer.
When the lockin began I received a phone call from James asking if there was anything the SWP could do to help. They offered to place a picket outside the shop and stayed for the duration of the lockin. The response we got from the public was overwhelming. Also, the support from the SWP and other unions was very much appreciated as it helped to highlight our plight.”
The workers locked themselves in the upstairs office and left the shocked managers downstairs in the shop. Kieron Shorthall, thomas cook worker, led chants out the windows until an hour or two later the press arrived. The press photographer wanted a picture of Avril, an eight and a half month pregnant worker, and the workers came downstairs with management scowling, the press officer for thomas cook and the managers attempted to push the photographer out the door but were themselves evicted from the premises. Two of the managers left in tears, but these weren’t tears of emotion they were tears of frustration that these workers had dared to make a stand. Antoinette describes the elation in the shop-
”The mood inside the shop was very upbeat as we felt we had the publics vote for what we were doing. Also, the help that was given to us by way of donations and food greatly encouraged us.”
The support stall outside the store collected thousands of signatures a day with donations pouring in, groups of workers praised the bravery of the workers.On Aug 1st Direct Holidays, a sister shop to Thomas Cooks, on dublin’s Talbot St occupied. Workers felt that suspicious behaviour by security gaurds meant that their shop was threatened by immenent closure. This meant that staff from 3 stores were now in occupation.
”As everyone knows it all ended in the early hours of the morning of the 4th August. It was an experience I hope I will never have to go through again. It was very frightening and the show that was put on by the Gardai was very excessive and a complete waste of tax payers money. We were not dangerous criminals just ordinary working class people fighting for our rights. Having said that, the Gardai treated us very well when we arrived in the Bridewell Station. Thankfully in court the judge saw us for what we really were and we were set free. At least someone in authority had some sense.
We will always be grateful for the support shown to us in our hour of need.”
Antoinette describing the last day. The High Court had sat specially on a Bank Holiday to declare the workers in contempt for not appearing before a previous session of the court. The High Court is being used again and again to limit and break worker’s struggles, from the MTL port workers to injunctions against the Electricians and the Caroll’s Joinery workers from Kilkenny. If workers dont start breaking the law the law will break the worker’s movement.
The police waited until 5am to end the occupation, the streets were completely empty by that stage and the support protests outside had dwindled to about 13 or so activists (9 from the Socialist Workers Party, 1 from the Socialist Party and a few others). A taxi came speeding around the corner and stopped in front of the store, ”i dont know what you’ve done”, he said ” but there’s about 50 cops coming out of the station”. We straight away saw two columns of gaurds marching around the corner, we shouted into the occupation ”they’re here!”. Some of those inside who were awake began phoning the Press, while others, who had been sleeping, began to wake up.
We linked arms and sat in front of the door shouting ”this is a peaceful protest” but the gaurds threw us from in front of the door and then, after securing the street with barricades, used a metal ram to smash in the glass. It was at this point that Avril went into labour. An ambulance was called but her partner was held back and not allowed to accompany her as he was under arrest. The police read the Court Order to those inside and began to take them out one by one.
The workers were taken to the Bridewell over night and to court the next day, protesters began to gather over the course of the day ouside the Four Courts chanting loud enough for those inside to hear the level of support they had from family, friends and other workers.
”I’m proud of what i’ve done” Kieron Shorthall told assemled reporters. And he should be, because the Thomas Cook workers have shown how to fight back against redundancy, they occupied, they were released without charge by the High Court, and they forced the company back to the negotiating table, but not only that, they forced and entire nation to question the relationship between the Courts, The State and the multi millionaires who run companies like Arcandor, Thomas Cooks and Royal Bank of Scotland.
The Thomas Cook occupation and Worker's Protests across the city and country show a beginning of a revival of workers' militancy
We're beginning to see a recovery of strike figures in this country with protests, strikes and occupations bubbling up.
In response,the bosses and the State are using everything at their disposal to silence and break dissent.
They are determined to break wage agreements and break with the idea of a right to redundancy payments.
The breaking of the occupation by the State on behalf of Thomas Cook is the latest in a series of actions taken by the High Court against workers, from the workers at MTL in Dublin Port to the Electricians.
If the High Court is used as a weapon to break worker's struggles then an order to defend our wages, to protect employment agreements, it is in our interest to take actions that break the laws that destroy our struggles. Laws that jail protestors, break worker's occupations and limit and render strikes ineffective.
We also need support from the organised working class for these struggles. We have massive power and strength in our numbers and ability to shut this economy down.
It’s about time that we used it.
On Friday 31st of July managers flew in from Britain with the intention of dismissing the workers from the two shops without notice, these managers had booked return flights for later that afternoon and so believed they would have no trouble firing the dublin workforce.They were in for a shock. Antoinette Shevlin, a worker there, describes the first day
”The lockin began because senior management from Thomas Cook arrived to the Dublin retail shops last Friday and called the staff together to say that the shops were being closed early due to staff demonstrating for a better redundancy package on the previous Wednesday. They requested that the staff leave in an orderly fashion and that they would receive their redundancy in due course. Thomas Cook had ended the negotiations by telephone on the 23rd July without the redundancy package being agreed on. Also, thay gave a closing date of the 6th September but if the staff protested they would close the shops earlier on the 7th August and the staff would only receive statutory redundancy. The offer they had made was for 5 weeks per year of service but bearing in mind that Thomas Cook are predicting profits of over 400 million this is a derisory offer.
When the lockin began I received a phone call from James asking if there was anything the SWP could do to help. They offered to place a picket outside the shop and stayed for the duration of the lockin. The response we got from the public was overwhelming. Also, the support from the SWP and other unions was very much appreciated as it helped to highlight our plight.”
The workers locked themselves in the upstairs office and left the shocked managers downstairs in the shop. Kieron Shorthall, thomas cook worker, led chants out the windows until an hour or two later the press arrived. The press photographer wanted a picture of Avril, an eight and a half month pregnant worker, and the workers came downstairs with management scowling, the press officer for thomas cook and the managers attempted to push the photographer out the door but were themselves evicted from the premises. Two of the managers left in tears, but these weren’t tears of emotion they were tears of frustration that these workers had dared to make a stand. Antoinette describes the elation in the shop-
”The mood inside the shop was very upbeat as we felt we had the publics vote for what we were doing. Also, the help that was given to us by way of donations and food greatly encouraged us.”
The support stall outside the store collected thousands of signatures a day with donations pouring in, groups of workers praised the bravery of the workers.On Aug 1st Direct Holidays, a sister shop to Thomas Cooks, on dublin’s Talbot St occupied. Workers felt that suspicious behaviour by security gaurds meant that their shop was threatened by immenent closure. This meant that staff from 3 stores were now in occupation.
”As everyone knows it all ended in the early hours of the morning of the 4th August. It was an experience I hope I will never have to go through again. It was very frightening and the show that was put on by the Gardai was very excessive and a complete waste of tax payers money. We were not dangerous criminals just ordinary working class people fighting for our rights. Having said that, the Gardai treated us very well when we arrived in the Bridewell Station. Thankfully in court the judge saw us for what we really were and we were set free. At least someone in authority had some sense.
We will always be grateful for the support shown to us in our hour of need.”
Antoinette describing the last day. The High Court had sat specially on a Bank Holiday to declare the workers in contempt for not appearing before a previous session of the court. The High Court is being used again and again to limit and break worker’s struggles, from the MTL port workers to injunctions against the Electricians and the Caroll’s Joinery workers from Kilkenny. If workers dont start breaking the law the law will break the worker’s movement.
The police waited until 5am to end the occupation, the streets were completely empty by that stage and the support protests outside had dwindled to about 13 or so activists (9 from the Socialist Workers Party, 1 from the Socialist Party and a few others). A taxi came speeding around the corner and stopped in front of the store, ”i dont know what you’ve done”, he said ” but there’s about 50 cops coming out of the station”. We straight away saw two columns of gaurds marching around the corner, we shouted into the occupation ”they’re here!”. Some of those inside who were awake began phoning the Press, while others, who had been sleeping, began to wake up.
We linked arms and sat in front of the door shouting ”this is a peaceful protest” but the gaurds threw us from in front of the door and then, after securing the street with barricades, used a metal ram to smash in the glass. It was at this point that Avril went into labour. An ambulance was called but her partner was held back and not allowed to accompany her as he was under arrest. The police read the Court Order to those inside and began to take them out one by one.
The workers were taken to the Bridewell over night and to court the next day, protesters began to gather over the course of the day ouside the Four Courts chanting loud enough for those inside to hear the level of support they had from family, friends and other workers.
”I’m proud of what i’ve done” Kieron Shorthall told assemled reporters. And he should be, because the Thomas Cook workers have shown how to fight back against redundancy, they occupied, they were released without charge by the High Court, and they forced the company back to the negotiating table, but not only that, they forced and entire nation to question the relationship between the Courts, The State and the multi millionaires who run companies like Arcandor, Thomas Cooks and Royal Bank of Scotland.
The Thomas Cook occupation and Worker's Protests across the city and country show a beginning of a revival of workers' militancy
We're beginning to see a recovery of strike figures in this country with protests, strikes and occupations bubbling up.
In response,the bosses and the State are using everything at their disposal to silence and break dissent.
They are determined to break wage agreements and break with the idea of a right to redundancy payments.
The breaking of the occupation by the State on behalf of Thomas Cook is the latest in a series of actions taken by the High Court against workers, from the workers at MTL in Dublin Port to the Electricians.
If the High Court is used as a weapon to break worker's struggles then an order to defend our wages, to protect employment agreements, it is in our interest to take actions that break the laws that destroy our struggles. Laws that jail protestors, break worker's occupations and limit and render strikes ineffective.
We also need support from the organised working class for these struggles. We have massive power and strength in our numbers and ability to shut this economy down.
It’s about time that we used it.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thomas Cook Under Worker's Control!
The Thomas Cook offices at grafton st dublin are now under worker's control. Workers occupoed the building after management , who had flown in specially from the UK, announced the closure of the shops on north earl street and grafton st Dublin. The staff at the north earl st shop were told to close the store for an hour and to accompany managers to the grafton st store, they went upstairs and started laying out chairs to line the workers up and dismiss them. One of the workers who sensed what was coming shouted 'Lock In!' and, like electricity, word shot up through the other floors of the building.
The workers took the upper floors leaving management downstairs in the shop. Socialist Worker members arrived and, after speaking to a shop steward inside, we started distributing the worker's flyer about the dispute outside the shop to the public. We started chanting along with the workers who shouted along from the upper story windows 'I dont know what i been told..thomas cook aint got no soul!'. The response from the passers by was amazing, 'this is what this country needs',' they're right fair play to them'. Bin lorry drivers, Buses and Taxis continually beeped their horns and stopped to get more information.
A press photographer arrived and the workers assembled in the shop with management beside them looking uneasy, one of the pregnant workers was having her photo taken when the press officer for thomas cook management tried to block the shot, one of the union members threw the press officer out of the shop, soon to be followed by the other managers, who left in tears. They had never had to deal with workers fighting back. The workers and supporters outside began shouting, 'the workers united will never be defeated!'.
The very people who earlier that day had gathered the workers to dismiss them were left weeping into mobile phones and quietly asking could they have their bags back.
We arranged for the workers inside to exchange phone calls with the occupied vestas wind turbine factory in the isle of wight, with both sets of workers cheering one another on!
The workers took the upper floors leaving management downstairs in the shop. Socialist Worker members arrived and, after speaking to a shop steward inside, we started distributing the worker's flyer about the dispute outside the shop to the public. We started chanting along with the workers who shouted along from the upper story windows 'I dont know what i been told..thomas cook aint got no soul!'. The response from the passers by was amazing, 'this is what this country needs',' they're right fair play to them'. Bin lorry drivers, Buses and Taxis continually beeped their horns and stopped to get more information.
A press photographer arrived and the workers assembled in the shop with management beside them looking uneasy, one of the pregnant workers was having her photo taken when the press officer for thomas cook management tried to block the shot, one of the union members threw the press officer out of the shop, soon to be followed by the other managers, who left in tears. They had never had to deal with workers fighting back. The workers and supporters outside began shouting, 'the workers united will never be defeated!'.
The very people who earlier that day had gathered the workers to dismiss them were left weeping into mobile phones and quietly asking could they have their bags back.
We arranged for the workers inside to exchange phone calls with the occupied vestas wind turbine factory in the isle of wight, with both sets of workers cheering one another on!
Monday, July 27, 2009
Bord Snip and Dr Somers....
“We’ve about €25 billion in cash, instantly available for anything. I think this has given huge confidence also to the markets that no matter what happens we’ve more than enough cash.”
The above quote is from Dr Somers, head of the National Treasury Management Agency, now considering the publication of the infamous Bord Snip 'Nua' report you'd think someone would have taken him aside and told him to lay off the Marie Antoinette-esque 'You lot may be starving but look at the lovely necklace i just bought' talk, but no, the Irish elite are going to kick the most vunerable in society while boasting to the Market. Obviously they think we dont or cant read the business pages.
The Bord Snip (makes it sound so innocent, just a little 'snip') report once more targets the poor of this country with talk of 20% cuts in child benefit, social welfare for under 20s to stay at just €100 a week and for those aged between 20 to 25 to drop from €204 to €150. They want to sack 17,000 Public Sector Employees (even though we're set to reach 16% unemployment by the end of this year) which includes the sacking of Special Needs teachers and a huge increase, in the already high, pupil teacher ratio.
This is Class Warfare. This document was drafted by a CEO of the HSE, a former governor of the Central Bank, the managing director of State Street International and Mary Walsh, a partner in Price Waterhouse Cooper. This gang of upper class thugs have drafted a thouroughly neo liberal assault on the working class of Ireland.
Meanwhile the top 1% still have their untaxed €40 billion in wealth.
But they were never under threat, the Irish ruling class if using the crisis to re structure the country. The electrician's dispute a few weeks ago wasn't just about cash, it was about the employer's desire to destroy Joint Labour Commissions and Regulated Employment Agreements. The minimum wage is IBEC's next target.
In every area we're calling together a broad coalition of forces on the ground who are hit by these cuts, teachers, CE scheme workers, Pensioners etc to build for a demonstration for September.
Contact the SWP for information on your local fighting group.
The above quote is from Dr Somers, head of the National Treasury Management Agency, now considering the publication of the infamous Bord Snip 'Nua' report you'd think someone would have taken him aside and told him to lay off the Marie Antoinette-esque 'You lot may be starving but look at the lovely necklace i just bought' talk, but no, the Irish elite are going to kick the most vunerable in society while boasting to the Market. Obviously they think we dont or cant read the business pages.
The Bord Snip (makes it sound so innocent, just a little 'snip') report once more targets the poor of this country with talk of 20% cuts in child benefit, social welfare for under 20s to stay at just €100 a week and for those aged between 20 to 25 to drop from €204 to €150. They want to sack 17,000 Public Sector Employees (even though we're set to reach 16% unemployment by the end of this year) which includes the sacking of Special Needs teachers and a huge increase, in the already high, pupil teacher ratio.
This is Class Warfare. This document was drafted by a CEO of the HSE, a former governor of the Central Bank, the managing director of State Street International and Mary Walsh, a partner in Price Waterhouse Cooper. This gang of upper class thugs have drafted a thouroughly neo liberal assault on the working class of Ireland.
Meanwhile the top 1% still have their untaxed €40 billion in wealth.
But they were never under threat, the Irish ruling class if using the crisis to re structure the country. The electrician's dispute a few weeks ago wasn't just about cash, it was about the employer's desire to destroy Joint Labour Commissions and Regulated Employment Agreements. The minimum wage is IBEC's next target.
In every area we're calling together a broad coalition of forces on the ground who are hit by these cuts, teachers, CE scheme workers, Pensioners etc to build for a demonstration for September.
Contact the SWP for information on your local fighting group.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
STRIKES!
The Irish economy is going to ruin fast, with 10% contraction this year and a 15% contraction in GNP in the last quarter. Not only that but unemployment has reached a staggering 500,000 in a country with a population of just over 4 million.
The continuing Bank Bailouts and the government finalising the National Assets Management Agency (which will take on an estimated 90 Billion worth of debts generated by the top 20 property developers) ,alongside vicious cuts in community services, public sector pay, levies on all workers and the slashing of social welfare payments, has set the stage for massive confrontations to develop in irish society.
At the moment the electricians of the TEEU are on strike. Laurence, a worker at Spencer Dock Dublin, explains some of the reasons for their action-
"We're here to fight for the money we were promised in 2007, money that was agreed on but we never got, not only that but they want to cut our wages by 10% bring in unqualified workers and pay them 25% less. They want to cut travel time and make us supply our own power tools (which puts the cost of wear and tear on the backs of the workers).
They want to tear up the agreements on legal rates which would leave us forced back down to the minimum wage as the only gauranteed rate, they want to take us back to the 80s, they want to make us all 'sub contractors' who bid against each other for jobs and the cheapest gets it, it used to be that on each site you'd have 10 but now they want 3 or 4"
Most of the workers on the pickets are young (most are in their 20s and some have just started families etc) and are determined to fight the bosses and win their agreed upon wage increases. The spirit of defiance is remarkable, and with ICTU balloting other trades for all out action, we may soon see an escalation of the strike. Even before the ballot for the other trades on site to come out has taken place in many works others have joined the pickets, most notably at the airport were plumbers joined the electricians.
The employer organisation, IBEC, has stated that they want to see between a 10 and 15% reduction in living standards across the country. They have already announced their intention to brutalise people on the dole to make it so unattractive a prospect that those in employment will accept any wage and the most appaling conditions.
There's another strike, much smaller in scale but indicative of the attitudes of employers right now, happening at the Department of Heritage and Environment which is located in the Custom House.
13 cleaners who had been hired by a company called- Ecosystems cleaning- were told that they were changing hands and that a company called- Schorman- would be taking over. When they were called to a meeting with the Schorman Rep (who would only allow them to address her as 'miss elizabeth'..like something from the days of slavery!) they were given welcome letters and then tole that they would by working for 2.57 hrs a day instead of 4.
Now forgive me for pointing this out but the Custom House as far as i can tell hasn't shrunk by a proportion of 4 to 2.57, and seeing as that hasn't taken place i assume that the same amount of cleaning was expected to be done in half the time for half the wage.
When the women kicked up a fuss they were fired and are now picketing outside.
Apparently the company has employed 6 new cleaners.
I bet at a lower rate and with far less hours.
The continuing Bank Bailouts and the government finalising the National Assets Management Agency (which will take on an estimated 90 Billion worth of debts generated by the top 20 property developers) ,alongside vicious cuts in community services, public sector pay, levies on all workers and the slashing of social welfare payments, has set the stage for massive confrontations to develop in irish society.
At the moment the electricians of the TEEU are on strike. Laurence, a worker at Spencer Dock Dublin, explains some of the reasons for their action-
"We're here to fight for the money we were promised in 2007, money that was agreed on but we never got, not only that but they want to cut our wages by 10% bring in unqualified workers and pay them 25% less. They want to cut travel time and make us supply our own power tools (which puts the cost of wear and tear on the backs of the workers).
They want to tear up the agreements on legal rates which would leave us forced back down to the minimum wage as the only gauranteed rate, they want to take us back to the 80s, they want to make us all 'sub contractors' who bid against each other for jobs and the cheapest gets it, it used to be that on each site you'd have 10 but now they want 3 or 4"
Most of the workers on the pickets are young (most are in their 20s and some have just started families etc) and are determined to fight the bosses and win their agreed upon wage increases. The spirit of defiance is remarkable, and with ICTU balloting other trades for all out action, we may soon see an escalation of the strike. Even before the ballot for the other trades on site to come out has taken place in many works others have joined the pickets, most notably at the airport were plumbers joined the electricians.
The employer organisation, IBEC, has stated that they want to see between a 10 and 15% reduction in living standards across the country. They have already announced their intention to brutalise people on the dole to make it so unattractive a prospect that those in employment will accept any wage and the most appaling conditions.
There's another strike, much smaller in scale but indicative of the attitudes of employers right now, happening at the Department of Heritage and Environment which is located in the Custom House.
13 cleaners who had been hired by a company called- Ecosystems cleaning- were told that they were changing hands and that a company called- Schorman- would be taking over. When they were called to a meeting with the Schorman Rep (who would only allow them to address her as 'miss elizabeth'..like something from the days of slavery!) they were given welcome letters and then tole that they would by working for 2.57 hrs a day instead of 4.
Now forgive me for pointing this out but the Custom House as far as i can tell hasn't shrunk by a proportion of 4 to 2.57, and seeing as that hasn't taken place i assume that the same amount of cleaning was expected to be done in half the time for half the wage.
When the women kicked up a fuss they were fired and are now picketing outside.
Apparently the company has employed 6 new cleaners.
I bet at a lower rate and with far less hours.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
talk i gave on che guevara
Introduction on Che Guevara
Marx always, rightly, emphasised that ’the emancipation of the working class is the act of the working class’ because, not only, is this a necessary precondition of political and, most importantly, economic transformation but it is only through the unity gained in the course of a revolutionary process that people, born and bred under the alienating rule of capital, twisted and tortured by poverty can throw off ’ the muck of ages’,that is, remove from their heads the heirarchical, sexist, racist, nationalist etc ideas promoted by this system. Without the active participation of the majority in the interests of the majority all the prejudices produced by their oppression remain and the result of the revolutionary process falls short of genuine socialism.
For a certain part of the 20th century, after the defeat of the Russian Revolution and the rise of Stalinism, Marx’s statement the the class must emancipate itself was compltely sidelined with many groups on the Left declaring that the ’buffer states’, i.e. the eastern european countries occupied by Stalinist forces and the end of the Second World War, were somehow ’workers states’.
To accept this was to accept that socialist revolution could be achieved without the active participation of the workers themselves.
Right across the world though workers struggles were deflected by stalinist leadership who followed the whims and dictates of the exploitative ’state capitalist’ regime in Moscow and so, where the workers themselves did not lead the struggle against imperialism (which was the basis of Trotsky’s theory of ’permanent revolution’, that is- the struggle for national liberation if conducted by the working class in the oppressed nation would spill over into a struggle for socialism) other forces occupied the vacuum. In many third world countries the struggle was led by members of the middle classes who resented the backwardness of their own states, despised imperialism and felt that the type of industrialisation followed by the USSR was something to be imitated.
This is the world, the context, that Che Guevara grew up and was active in.
Ernesto
Che was born Ernesto Guevara in Rosario, Argentina June 14th 1928 to a left leaning middle class family. He began medical studies in 1948 but by 1951 had decided to go on a round trip motorcycle journey through south america. The final goal of this tour with his friend, Alberto Granado, was to work in the San Pablo leper colony in Peru.
Noone is born a revolutionary it takes long process of questioning and development, changing circumstances transforms the ideas with which you face new circumstances which further develop those ideas and to this process Guevara was no exception. Che’s attitudes slowly became more and more radical after his encounters with miners, workers and peasants working and struggling wherever he arrived right across the continent. Che returned a very different young man, with a lot to consider, to complete his studies in 1953. Both Che and, his friend, Alberto were transformed in the course of the journey which brought them both to the conclusion that some sort of change was needed in south america, for Che this meant a series of continent wide radical social transformations and for Alberto, it meant embarking on a career as a doctor.
In Guatemala in 1954 the nationalisation of the american United Fruit Company brought a US backed overthrow of the left wing Arbenz government, which Che witnessed, and finally cemented once and for all Che’s view of the USA as an imperialist power whose influence in the south american region would always mean attempts to overthrow left leaning governments and movements and fund reactionary forces and the Right. Che escaped the coup through the Argentinian embassy and made his way to Mexico. While there Che was introduced to Fidel Castro in june 1955 through rebel Nico Lopez. Castro spoke to Che for hours and hours at their first meeting and convinced him to sign up for the ’26th of July’ movement.
It was from this group of rebels that he earned the nick name ’Che’ which was his most often used phrase as it’s the argentinian shorthand for ’pal’.
Just 82 of them set sail for Cuba in the little ship, the ’Granma’, and after some initial fighting with the government forces upon landing were left with only 22 rebels surviving.
Cuba
Batista’s regime in Cuba was well known for it’s absolute corruption, a haven for the mafia and organised crime. US backed Batista had first come to power in a coup in 1954 and had won an election two years later, followed once more by a coup. Batista converted Havana into a gambler’s and criminal’s paradise.
The rebels fought their way across the island and took power eventually in January 1959 with Castro’s army arriving victorious in Havana.
Guerilla warfare seemed vindicated. They seemed to have achieved the impossible, a small group of determined rebels had overthrown a government.
Che though in his economic writings after the seizure of power soon began to realise though that a ’spiritual’ transformation of the masses of people had not taken place and wrote continually about the fact that he believed that ’moral’ incentives were needed to encourage communal living and to develop a ’socialist’ culture. But it’s no accident that the Cuban revolutionaries inherited people with the ’old’ attitudes bacause the majority of people hadn’t particpated in the process of their own liberation and the complete transformation that this involves. Without that vital element the masses remain nothing but spectators to the establishment of regimes that claim to act in their name.
In 1964 he travelled to New York and the UN and on Dec 17th travelled to Paris then embarked on a 3 month tour of various countries including China. When he returned to Cuba he was dissatisfied with the ever increasing reliance on, and influence of, the Soviet Bloc and eventually dissappeared from Cuban public life.
Congo, Prague and Murder
The Congo had been a place of great suffering, a country were imperial powers had intervened to destroy a left wing government. Patrice Lumumba was elected prime minister but was overthrown in a coup by Mobutu. Orders from the Belgian government are now known to have been responsible for Lumumba’s death. When Che arrived in Congo the movement had been crushed. He supported the Marxist Simba group and worked with Kabila but soon realised the entire project was doomed to fail. The objective circumstances were against them, his philosophy of ’if you are a revolutionary, make a revolution’ was being dashed against the harsh realities of the world outside his victory against Batista in Cuba.
He left, disheartened, and went to Prague were he wrote down his Congo experiences and also wrote books on philosophy and economics.
Eventually Che made his way to Bolivia with a small group of about 50 guerillas, probably believeing that he could eventually move into Argentinian territory, but completely isolated and outgunned he was murdered. He had expected support from the Bolivian Communist Party but had soon realised they were ’stupid and disloyal’. With no way to connect with the growing strike movement of the working class in the cities he was easily captured by the Bolivian military which he had wrongly assumed were less capable but were in receipt of US and CIA advice.
The Role of Revolutionaries
If the emancipation of the working class has to to be at it’s own hand then what role do revolutionaries play in this process?
Working class consciousness is shaped by the class’s lack of power, is shaped by alienation, this in turn leads workers to accept, to a greater or lesser extent, the ruling ideas in society. As Marx remarked the ’ruling ideas of an age’ are the ideas of it’s ruling class. During periods of crisis and worker’s struggles sections of the class generalise beyond the immediate experience of that particular struggle but when struggles are defeated then those realisations are lost.
If revolutionaries can unite the forward section of the class in every struggle into one fighting party that can take the lead and guide the working class as a whole forward, making conscious the line of march and constantly bringing into question the system as a whole, then this party can argue contantly with the backward section of the class, argue against faith in the state and pass on the past lessons of the class’s victories and defeats. The party then acts as the ’memory’ of the class.
But that’s not all- Trotsky described how the working class lets off ’steam’ during a crisis but if that steam isn’t focused then it dissipates with no real effect, but if the steam is focused by a piston then it can pull a freight train. The steam is still the driving force, the piston gives it focus. The revolutionary party is the piston that guides working class action. The theories of this party are nothing other than the generalised experience of the class itself. The revolutionary party is that most militant section of the working class which leads and prepares for the seizure of power by the majority of the class.
Legacy
Che Guevara, despite the tragedy of his isolation from a mass workers movement, leaves us his inspirational will to fight, the will to carry on despite the odds, it’s that absolute determination that moves people across the world to this day.
From Bolivian miners marching with his image to the capital La Paz, to children in Palestine wearing Guevara t- shirts while throwing stones at Israeli tanks, its in these places that his image still means something, places were people fight on no matter what the odds.
But with a more organic view of the role of the revolutionary, as not only a ’tribune’ of the oppressed but as the best fighters of the class who encourage the fight back of the entire class,
for it is only when the majority of people act on their own behalf that we can both physically and mentally escape from the hold of Capital, then the victory of socialism is assured.
We can win this time and i’m sure that when we do Che would have whole heartedly approved of the fact that we eventually found the path to human freedom that he had searched so hard, and paid such a high price for.
The tragedy of Che Guevara was the tragedy of a whole century, with the terrible defeats suffered by the working class at the hands of Stalinism in the 20th Century the notion that the working class would emancipate itself was silenced by the victory parades of so called ’marxists’ across Eastern Europe. The Stalinists have fallen and so now the path is clear.
Marx always, rightly, emphasised that ’the emancipation of the working class is the act of the working class’ because, not only, is this a necessary precondition of political and, most importantly, economic transformation but it is only through the unity gained in the course of a revolutionary process that people, born and bred under the alienating rule of capital, twisted and tortured by poverty can throw off ’ the muck of ages’,that is, remove from their heads the heirarchical, sexist, racist, nationalist etc ideas promoted by this system. Without the active participation of the majority in the interests of the majority all the prejudices produced by their oppression remain and the result of the revolutionary process falls short of genuine socialism.
For a certain part of the 20th century, after the defeat of the Russian Revolution and the rise of Stalinism, Marx’s statement the the class must emancipate itself was compltely sidelined with many groups on the Left declaring that the ’buffer states’, i.e. the eastern european countries occupied by Stalinist forces and the end of the Second World War, were somehow ’workers states’.
To accept this was to accept that socialist revolution could be achieved without the active participation of the workers themselves.
Right across the world though workers struggles were deflected by stalinist leadership who followed the whims and dictates of the exploitative ’state capitalist’ regime in Moscow and so, where the workers themselves did not lead the struggle against imperialism (which was the basis of Trotsky’s theory of ’permanent revolution’, that is- the struggle for national liberation if conducted by the working class in the oppressed nation would spill over into a struggle for socialism) other forces occupied the vacuum. In many third world countries the struggle was led by members of the middle classes who resented the backwardness of their own states, despised imperialism and felt that the type of industrialisation followed by the USSR was something to be imitated.
This is the world, the context, that Che Guevara grew up and was active in.
Ernesto
Che was born Ernesto Guevara in Rosario, Argentina June 14th 1928 to a left leaning middle class family. He began medical studies in 1948 but by 1951 had decided to go on a round trip motorcycle journey through south america. The final goal of this tour with his friend, Alberto Granado, was to work in the San Pablo leper colony in Peru.
Noone is born a revolutionary it takes long process of questioning and development, changing circumstances transforms the ideas with which you face new circumstances which further develop those ideas and to this process Guevara was no exception. Che’s attitudes slowly became more and more radical after his encounters with miners, workers and peasants working and struggling wherever he arrived right across the continent. Che returned a very different young man, with a lot to consider, to complete his studies in 1953. Both Che and, his friend, Alberto were transformed in the course of the journey which brought them both to the conclusion that some sort of change was needed in south america, for Che this meant a series of continent wide radical social transformations and for Alberto, it meant embarking on a career as a doctor.
In Guatemala in 1954 the nationalisation of the american United Fruit Company brought a US backed overthrow of the left wing Arbenz government, which Che witnessed, and finally cemented once and for all Che’s view of the USA as an imperialist power whose influence in the south american region would always mean attempts to overthrow left leaning governments and movements and fund reactionary forces and the Right. Che escaped the coup through the Argentinian embassy and made his way to Mexico. While there Che was introduced to Fidel Castro in june 1955 through rebel Nico Lopez. Castro spoke to Che for hours and hours at their first meeting and convinced him to sign up for the ’26th of July’ movement.
It was from this group of rebels that he earned the nick name ’Che’ which was his most often used phrase as it’s the argentinian shorthand for ’pal’.
Just 82 of them set sail for Cuba in the little ship, the ’Granma’, and after some initial fighting with the government forces upon landing were left with only 22 rebels surviving.
Cuba
Batista’s regime in Cuba was well known for it’s absolute corruption, a haven for the mafia and organised crime. US backed Batista had first come to power in a coup in 1954 and had won an election two years later, followed once more by a coup. Batista converted Havana into a gambler’s and criminal’s paradise.
The rebels fought their way across the island and took power eventually in January 1959 with Castro’s army arriving victorious in Havana.
Guerilla warfare seemed vindicated. They seemed to have achieved the impossible, a small group of determined rebels had overthrown a government.
Che though in his economic writings after the seizure of power soon began to realise though that a ’spiritual’ transformation of the masses of people had not taken place and wrote continually about the fact that he believed that ’moral’ incentives were needed to encourage communal living and to develop a ’socialist’ culture. But it’s no accident that the Cuban revolutionaries inherited people with the ’old’ attitudes bacause the majority of people hadn’t particpated in the process of their own liberation and the complete transformation that this involves. Without that vital element the masses remain nothing but spectators to the establishment of regimes that claim to act in their name.
In 1964 he travelled to New York and the UN and on Dec 17th travelled to Paris then embarked on a 3 month tour of various countries including China. When he returned to Cuba he was dissatisfied with the ever increasing reliance on, and influence of, the Soviet Bloc and eventually dissappeared from Cuban public life.
Congo, Prague and Murder
The Congo had been a place of great suffering, a country were imperial powers had intervened to destroy a left wing government. Patrice Lumumba was elected prime minister but was overthrown in a coup by Mobutu. Orders from the Belgian government are now known to have been responsible for Lumumba’s death. When Che arrived in Congo the movement had been crushed. He supported the Marxist Simba group and worked with Kabila but soon realised the entire project was doomed to fail. The objective circumstances were against them, his philosophy of ’if you are a revolutionary, make a revolution’ was being dashed against the harsh realities of the world outside his victory against Batista in Cuba.
He left, disheartened, and went to Prague were he wrote down his Congo experiences and also wrote books on philosophy and economics.
Eventually Che made his way to Bolivia with a small group of about 50 guerillas, probably believeing that he could eventually move into Argentinian territory, but completely isolated and outgunned he was murdered. He had expected support from the Bolivian Communist Party but had soon realised they were ’stupid and disloyal’. With no way to connect with the growing strike movement of the working class in the cities he was easily captured by the Bolivian military which he had wrongly assumed were less capable but were in receipt of US and CIA advice.
The Role of Revolutionaries
If the emancipation of the working class has to to be at it’s own hand then what role do revolutionaries play in this process?
Working class consciousness is shaped by the class’s lack of power, is shaped by alienation, this in turn leads workers to accept, to a greater or lesser extent, the ruling ideas in society. As Marx remarked the ’ruling ideas of an age’ are the ideas of it’s ruling class. During periods of crisis and worker’s struggles sections of the class generalise beyond the immediate experience of that particular struggle but when struggles are defeated then those realisations are lost.
If revolutionaries can unite the forward section of the class in every struggle into one fighting party that can take the lead and guide the working class as a whole forward, making conscious the line of march and constantly bringing into question the system as a whole, then this party can argue contantly with the backward section of the class, argue against faith in the state and pass on the past lessons of the class’s victories and defeats. The party then acts as the ’memory’ of the class.
But that’s not all- Trotsky described how the working class lets off ’steam’ during a crisis but if that steam isn’t focused then it dissipates with no real effect, but if the steam is focused by a piston then it can pull a freight train. The steam is still the driving force, the piston gives it focus. The revolutionary party is the piston that guides working class action. The theories of this party are nothing other than the generalised experience of the class itself. The revolutionary party is that most militant section of the working class which leads and prepares for the seizure of power by the majority of the class.
Legacy
Che Guevara, despite the tragedy of his isolation from a mass workers movement, leaves us his inspirational will to fight, the will to carry on despite the odds, it’s that absolute determination that moves people across the world to this day.
From Bolivian miners marching with his image to the capital La Paz, to children in Palestine wearing Guevara t- shirts while throwing stones at Israeli tanks, its in these places that his image still means something, places were people fight on no matter what the odds.
But with a more organic view of the role of the revolutionary, as not only a ’tribune’ of the oppressed but as the best fighters of the class who encourage the fight back of the entire class,
for it is only when the majority of people act on their own behalf that we can both physically and mentally escape from the hold of Capital, then the victory of socialism is assured.
We can win this time and i’m sure that when we do Che would have whole heartedly approved of the fact that we eventually found the path to human freedom that he had searched so hard, and paid such a high price for.
The tragedy of Che Guevara was the tragedy of a whole century, with the terrible defeats suffered by the working class at the hands of Stalinism in the 20th Century the notion that the working class would emancipate itself was silenced by the victory parades of so called ’marxists’ across Eastern Europe. The Stalinists have fallen and so now the path is clear.
Friday, March 6, 2009
world crisis
The world in crisis
The world ruling classes are in a state of complete panic with Germany’s Angela Merkel remarking that bankruptcy for entire states is now not so far fetched.
Job losses, bank collapses and manufacturing slowdowns are appearing in all major sectors of the world economy.
Obama’s stimulus package of 787 billion dollars was soon followed by the threatened collapse of insurance giant, AIG, which has now to be bailed out as they can’t let what’s described as a ’cornerstone’ of the US economy go down.
The last few months have seen the sharpest contraction in US growth since the crisis of 1973 with GDP in the last few months of 2008 declining by 6.2%. The data for 2009 seems to be much worse with figures constantly being marked down. With record lows expected in consumer spending figures the US is also facing a huge haemorrhaging of jobs – unemployment rose by 2.6 million since 2008 with 1.9million of those jobs lost in the last 4 months alone. This represents the greatest decline in employment since 1945. With 12 million now jobless, half a million a month now and increasing, more and more americans are having to subsist on foodstamps.
The world’s 2nd biggest economy, Japan, is declaring it’s worst results for 35 years. Japan’s industrial output dropping by 20% this quarter alone while exports have fallen by a shocking 40% and unemployment reaching an all time high of over 6%. The Japanese government have just signed a new freetrade agreement with other ASEAN countries but that hasn’t stopped the accusations of protectionism going back and forth between various asian countries.
Australia’s economic prospects are hugely dependent on Japan as the Japanese market is the biggest destination for Australian exports. One of Japan’s largest companies, Toyota, has announced their first operating losses since the 1930’s.
The collapse of the USA and Japan is having an effect on the Chinese economy. It’s expected that unemployment across south east asia will reach 97 million this year, which is an obscene figure. 600,000 firms closed in the last year in China. The government has responded like many others with a stimulus package totalling 586 billion. China is a net exporter but faces a 17.5% drop in demand for it’s products with figures for this quarter expected to be much worse. Indonesia has put tariffs on Chinese goods which hugely increases tensions in the region. These tensions are playing out on a wider scale too with the US and China throwing similar accusations at each other.
The 3rd largest economy in Asia is the Indian which is still, like China, declaring growth. Although the predicted 8% growth has been revised downwards to 5% by some commentators who also expect that these figures will fall even more in 2009. There are calls from sections of the Indian ruling class for measures to stimulate growth but the Indian economy is limited to mainly domestic demand.
If we take a brief look at Brazil their industry figures just released show a 12.4% drop since december alone with exports down by a massive 29%. Governments across South America, like elsewhere, are slashing interest rates massively.
In the EU and the region from the EU heart to Russia there are massive problems. The World Bank, The European Development Bank and the EU bank for reconstruction have given a 24 billion loan to Hungary and others but the Hungarian government has announced that they need at least ten times as much. Even the Russian economy which is a huge exported of Oil and Gas now believes that even a rise of Oil prices to 55 dollars a barrell won’t keep their economy out of danger.
From Ireland through the UK all the way over to the Baltic states and down to Spain, Portugal and Greece the bankruptcy of states has ruling classes in a state of absolute fear.
We can’t allow ourselves though to be overwhelmed by the scale of the crisis and give in to the fear that has infected the whole world ruling class and the majority of working class people worldwide who are fearful of losing jobs and homes. The ruling classes are getting away with cuts in places like Ireland, not because of their strength, but because of the weakness of the opposition forces. People want to fight back and their fear can easily, as we have seen here in Ireland, translate into militant actions. Socialists need to give a lead and show that we have answers to the questions people are asking, we have an alternative vision of society that everyday matches the conclusions that more and more people are reaching for.
Capitalism won’t collapse, it needs to be pushed over. The crisis is an opportunity. We have a chance to escape once and for all from this madness. The world economy is set to contract for the 1st time since 1945. The ruling class has to increase the rate of exploitation of workers in order to get profit rates up again and start the entire ridiculous process going again.
We can and must stand up give voice to the massive anger that’s out there. It’s time to say no more!
The world ruling classes are in a state of complete panic with Germany’s Angela Merkel remarking that bankruptcy for entire states is now not so far fetched.
Job losses, bank collapses and manufacturing slowdowns are appearing in all major sectors of the world economy.
Obama’s stimulus package of 787 billion dollars was soon followed by the threatened collapse of insurance giant, AIG, which has now to be bailed out as they can’t let what’s described as a ’cornerstone’ of the US economy go down.
The last few months have seen the sharpest contraction in US growth since the crisis of 1973 with GDP in the last few months of 2008 declining by 6.2%. The data for 2009 seems to be much worse with figures constantly being marked down. With record lows expected in consumer spending figures the US is also facing a huge haemorrhaging of jobs – unemployment rose by 2.6 million since 2008 with 1.9million of those jobs lost in the last 4 months alone. This represents the greatest decline in employment since 1945. With 12 million now jobless, half a million a month now and increasing, more and more americans are having to subsist on foodstamps.
The world’s 2nd biggest economy, Japan, is declaring it’s worst results for 35 years. Japan’s industrial output dropping by 20% this quarter alone while exports have fallen by a shocking 40% and unemployment reaching an all time high of over 6%. The Japanese government have just signed a new freetrade agreement with other ASEAN countries but that hasn’t stopped the accusations of protectionism going back and forth between various asian countries.
Australia’s economic prospects are hugely dependent on Japan as the Japanese market is the biggest destination for Australian exports. One of Japan’s largest companies, Toyota, has announced their first operating losses since the 1930’s.
The collapse of the USA and Japan is having an effect on the Chinese economy. It’s expected that unemployment across south east asia will reach 97 million this year, which is an obscene figure. 600,000 firms closed in the last year in China. The government has responded like many others with a stimulus package totalling 586 billion. China is a net exporter but faces a 17.5% drop in demand for it’s products with figures for this quarter expected to be much worse. Indonesia has put tariffs on Chinese goods which hugely increases tensions in the region. These tensions are playing out on a wider scale too with the US and China throwing similar accusations at each other.
The 3rd largest economy in Asia is the Indian which is still, like China, declaring growth. Although the predicted 8% growth has been revised downwards to 5% by some commentators who also expect that these figures will fall even more in 2009. There are calls from sections of the Indian ruling class for measures to stimulate growth but the Indian economy is limited to mainly domestic demand.
If we take a brief look at Brazil their industry figures just released show a 12.4% drop since december alone with exports down by a massive 29%. Governments across South America, like elsewhere, are slashing interest rates massively.
In the EU and the region from the EU heart to Russia there are massive problems. The World Bank, The European Development Bank and the EU bank for reconstruction have given a 24 billion loan to Hungary and others but the Hungarian government has announced that they need at least ten times as much. Even the Russian economy which is a huge exported of Oil and Gas now believes that even a rise of Oil prices to 55 dollars a barrell won’t keep their economy out of danger.
From Ireland through the UK all the way over to the Baltic states and down to Spain, Portugal and Greece the bankruptcy of states has ruling classes in a state of absolute fear.
We can’t allow ourselves though to be overwhelmed by the scale of the crisis and give in to the fear that has infected the whole world ruling class and the majority of working class people worldwide who are fearful of losing jobs and homes. The ruling classes are getting away with cuts in places like Ireland, not because of their strength, but because of the weakness of the opposition forces. People want to fight back and their fear can easily, as we have seen here in Ireland, translate into militant actions. Socialists need to give a lead and show that we have answers to the questions people are asking, we have an alternative vision of society that everyday matches the conclusions that more and more people are reaching for.
Capitalism won’t collapse, it needs to be pushed over. The crisis is an opportunity. We have a chance to escape once and for all from this madness. The world economy is set to contract for the 1st time since 1945. The ruling class has to increase the rate of exploitation of workers in order to get profit rates up again and start the entire ridiculous process going again.
We can and must stand up give voice to the massive anger that’s out there. It’s time to say no more!
Monday, February 23, 2009
a letter from ireland
(picture by michael gallagher myspace.com/libertypix)This weekend saw 120,000 workers march through the streets of Dublin calling for the withdrawal of the Fianna Fail governments 'pension levy'. The levy means that a public sector worker who earns 35,000 euro a year will lose 50 euro a week from their pay packet, so a couple who both work in the public sector are losing 400 euro a month, which is the cost of a mortgage and is an amount that most just cannot afford to pay.
This levy comes with a string of other vicious cuts against both private and public workers, the young, old and the unemployed. The right wing parties spouting pathetic justifications to, unsuccessfully, convince the irish working class to pay for the crisis. They have cut aid to children from Ireland's 'Traveller' community to assist them in school, they have cut aid to all children once they hit 5 years of age, creches, community drugs schemes, teachers and they want to slash our bus routes.
But people have reacted and reacted with anger. When the cuts were first announced there was a general meeting of the union IMPACT, which is a public services union, at which the leadership of the union called for an 'email campaign' and valentines day protests outside ministers constituency offices. There was fury from the members, the meeting erupted into calls for ballots for immediate strike action. The evening news on ireland's state TV reported the union leaders resolutions but ignored the call for strike action, there is a real fear in the Irish ruling class of a fight back from any sector inspiring others, but they cant hold back the anger that's out there no matter how hard they try.
'Teachers United' a grassroots movement of rank and file teachers picketed Anglo Irish Bank, a bank which has just been nationalised and its estimated that this manouvere has cost each household here 20,000 euro, the director of the bank, parasite Sean Fitzpatrick, it was revealed, gave himself loans of 80 million. Then it emerged that Anglo Irish had loaned 10 people secretly 400 million euro to buy shares in the bank just before nationalisation, if the shares went up they made huge profits, if they went down well the irish taxpayer was paying for the loan anyway.
The teachers protest got a lot of media attention because people are well aware of the connections between the shady dealings of the banks and the right wingers in the parliament buildings.
A meeting of rank and file and various sympathetic officers of all the unions was called in Dublin at which people called for an 'iceland style situation' and general strike action across all sectors to reverse the cuts and to bring down the government. Various trade union members spoke of the fear and anger they encountered amongst fellow workers and how, despite the sabotage of the union leadership, they had managed, in some cases, to call huge meetings of workers (up to 500 in a lot of cases!) where the call for strike action and ballots to all members for such action was unananimously endorsed. The meeting was adressed by a worker from the Waterford Crystal factory which is still in occupation- he pointed out that we must resist the media onslaught which has been savagely attempting to drive a wedge between the private and the public sector workers. He recieved a standing ovation from every single person there. Everyone left the meeting determined to go back to there own unions and build for the national stoppage.
Last wednesday the CPSU, the civil service union, had a walkout attended by thousands of members, at which we did a stall calling for further action and across all sectors, workers were coming up to the table saying 'we completely agree with you but why sign a petition? we need strike action NOW!'.
The busdrivers have been protesting constantly outside both the Department of Transport and out side the headquarters of the Green Party (who are in coalition with the Right, and despite claims to want more public transport have gone along with every cut). The drivers strike this week beginning on Friday and socialists and the People Before Profit movement organised public meetings across the city to defend our bus routes. At the meetings people from the working class communities affected spoke passionately in favour of the bus workers actions. Everywhere you look right now the phrase 'the workers united will never be defeated' is becoming a reality.
On saturday last, the 21st of February, 120,000 workers marched through Dublin city centre to the seat of Government to show their opposition to, not only these cuts, but the Fianna Fail government and their friends in the banks. People began to gather from early in the morning at the top of Dublin's O'Connell street, we were overwhelmed by the response to our stall calling for united strike action, people cheered and shook our hands, we sold hundreds and hundreds of socialist newspapers. The banners making thier way up the street showed the diversity of the opposition to this government but also the unity amongst the workers both public and private.
The Irish Travellers Rights association, Nurses, Firemen,Civil Servants, The Waterford Crystal workers (who were applauded all the way up the street by every single person standing on either side), Taxi drivers,Shell to Sea campaign,AntiWar activists, The Socialists, Students, Anarchists, Sinn Fein, Teachers, Doctors, Binmen and even the Soldiers and some sections of the police. The mood in irish society right now is so strongly turned against the government that the soldiers union have felt the strength to come out and state that not one of their members will break any strike. This has sent the government and the Army Officers into a panic, a high ranking officer this week in the papers was stated as saying that he would force the obedience of the lower ranks. Not sure exactly how they plan to force the men to break a strike, but its a sign of how much this government is losing control.
With the CPSU walking out of work this Thursday and the Buses out on Friday it looks like Fianna Fail are going to fail in their attempt to make the working class of Ireland pay for their criminal friends in the banks and the anarchy of the system they benefit from.
With a National One Day strike coming in the near future it seems the Irish Gulliver has woken on the beach and is starting to realise that he's tied down by nothing but tiny Lilliputians.
The workers are united. And although this movement will have it's peaks and valleys nothing can ever be the same again. Come visit Ireland...we're about to bring down a government!
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Revolution in the 21st Century...
R is for Revolution is the 21st century
(transcript of talk i gave)
When socialists talk about the possibility of revolution happening in the 21st century it’s not about a mere desire for revolution on our part, an ’ideal’ that popped into someone’s ’enlightened’ head which then inspires them to go off and one by one recruit people to change the world, or about trying to impose some such view that revolution will occur, its about deducing from reality itself those trends that inevitably push towards revolutionary situations whether we choose them or not.
In other words, to ask what is the nature of the capitalist economy? What kind of contradictions does it engender, does it create? And what kinds of actions does an anarchic economy of this sort constantly push people towards whatever they subjectively believe?
The Capitalist system as a whole is now in the midst of a severe crisis. In 2009 banks worldwide collapsed, the Irish government nationalised Anglo Irish Bank lumbering every household in the country with an extra 20,000 euro in debt.They raided the National Pensions Reserve Fund’s 17 or so Billion and handed half over to the banks.
The crash had been overdue for a long time, with rates of profit over the last two decades never recovering to their levels during the postwar ’golden age’ of capitalism which ended in the mid 70’s. This low rate of profit leading inevitably to Capitalists chasing profitable ventures, from dot com bubbles to the over inflated housing market. Neoliberalism since the mid to late 70’s has been a 30 year assault on the conditions of the international working class with the share of societies product going to profits constantly increasing at the expense of wages. Workers produce far more yet, in relation to their product, see returned far less.
So constant cuts were declared from the seat of every government while, at the same time political generalisation has been taking place on a massive scale in the last few years, in response, not only to the economic crisis, but has been developing since the mass mobilisations against the War on Iraq in 2003, and now, the protests against the slaughter in Gaza and the threat of economic collapse.
The threat of war looms constantly on the international horizon as capitalist states are ever more tempted to open up markets or solve economic problems militarily. We see U.S. ships parked in the Black Sea after the Georgian conflict pushing close to Russia and we see the Russian navy placing ships off the coast of Venezuela. The US army is positioned right across the Middle East. As recessions deepen war becomes an attractive way to grab another country’s resources and to stifle opposition to policy at home.
How will people respond? We can make the answer more concrete by lookin at how they have responded time and time again in periods of crisis in the past.
Worker’s democracy
In Paris in 1871, Russia 1905 and again in 1917, Hungary and Germany in1918,Limerick in 1919, Italy in1920 Spain in 1936, Hungary in 1956, Chile in 73, Portugal in 1974, Iran in 79 and Poland in 1980 we saw a form of self organisation emerge amongst the working class in response to various crisis - the workers circle,called a ’soviet’ in Russia, or ’condone’ in Chile, a ’Shora’ in Iran, a form of organic direct democracy.
At a certain point in every severe crisis the coordination of working class strikes and protests and the absolute necessity of self regulation of working class communities sees these community and workplace circles emerge as a direct outgrowth and natural continuation of the struggle. These forms of self organisation weren’t the creation of any marxist brain but time and time again are formed by the working class’s instinctive need for unity and for organisation in a time of massive crisis.
For example -The Commune of Paris in 1871 was a response to the betrayal of the Parisian workers into the hands of the Prussian army under Bismarck by the cowardly French Ruling class under the infamous Theirs. If the french ruling classes weren’t prepared to defend the city the workers decided that they would. They elected delegates from each area of Paris instantly recallable and mandated to follow the instructions of their electors, placed on the average wage to prevent corruption, they seperated the church and state declaring religion to be a private matter, they elected their judges, armed the population for self defence, food distribution was organised. They eventually suffered defeat as they couldnt spread the revolt to other towns. But those 2 months demonstrated the capability of the working class to self organise and it was from this that Marx generalised and worked out the developed form of his theory of the state.
Russia in 1905 and again during the revolution of 1917 saw Soviets arise. The first Soviet arose as a vehicle through which the workers could negotiate with the tsarist goverment but took on more and more the running of the daily lives of working class people until there arose a situation of dual power. The self governing working class alongside the institutions of the old power. The movement of 1905 was ultimately defeated but the Russian working class had taken on board lessons they would re-apply in 1917. Alongside parliament organs of working class self government superior in every way to the old power emerged once again after the February Revolution 1917. Lenin, in april, called for a challenge for power. ’All power to the soviets’ was his cry and it wasn’t until October that this slogan was fulfilled, with even Menshevik rivals of Lenin’s Bolsheviks declaring- ”what we have before us is nothing other than a rising of the working class”.
Dual Power
Two societies sit side by side during a crisis, one of slave owners the other of those who refuse to be slaves, the working class develops an urgent need, a need for a society of it’s own. When things reach this state, of Dual Power, then the choice has never been between the continuation of the movement from below and the old system, it becomes a choice between the fight to defend the organs of working class and community democracy against the rage and fury of the ruling class who will not accept any challenge to their economic dictatorship over the workers and society at large. So in 1917, for example, it was never a choice between Soviets and the official Constituent Assembly but between Soviets and reaction, the Assembly a cover for the forces of General Kornilov and others of his ilk to organise behind until they felt strong enough to destroy and root out all traces of worker’s democracy.
Trotsky once remarked that if the Russian Revolution hadn’t moved towards the seizure of power by the workers in October 1917 then fascism would have had a Russian name as opposed to an Italian. Fascism would have been born in Russia 1917 as opposed to Italy in the 20’s.
The same dynamic has developed again and again - in Chile in 1973, where the election of Salvador Allende backed by a strong workers movement in the workplaces was too much to bear for the likes of General Pinochet, the Chilean ruling class and their rotten friends in Washington. Here though workers never challenged for power to be transferred to their own organs, the cordones, but put their faith in the capitalist state. Time and time again a movement that puts it’s trust in the state has been crushed, the state is a weapon of the ruling class – judges, the civil service, the police, prisons etc are tools of oppression and Allende and the Chilean working people paid a terrible price to gain this knowledge with over 30,000 deaths. The defeat of the movement in Germany many years before saw humanity pay an even dearer price for failure to challenge the state, which ultimately, unleashed Nazi barbarism, first upon the worker’s movement and then, upon the Jews.
The 21st century
Can 21st century workers overthrow capitalism though? ’People have too much stuff’ is one of the arguments thrown back at socialists, but the question of the need for socialism isn’t just a quantitative question, that is a question of higher wages or a question of more things, its about the quality of life people have under capitalism, no matter how many TV sets a working class family acquire they still, as individuals when they go to work every single day, have absolutely no control over their lives. The 5 biggest corporations in the world are run by about 40 people employ hundreds of thousands of workers and have an output greater than the Middle East and Africa combined. Working class people have absolutely no say in the running of these or any enterprise that their labour builds. These giant corporations, which grow from the soil of competition as during every recession some firms go bankrupt and others buy them up thereby growing bigger, are completely unaccountable to the concerns of the thousands of lives they shape. Work is a dictatorship with a heirarchy of foots soldiers, managers and, at the top, the handful of ’generals’(who themselves are nothing but slaves to the blind forces of the market).
Anyway you can have two TVs in your house and still weep with fear when the bills arrive and fret over your children. You can have an iPod and still be so filled with hopelessness instilled in you by an absolute lack of prospects that you go out and commit acts of vandalism. Or you can internalise all this pressure and alienation and get stress related cancer when you hit middle age. This is the reality of working class life under capitalism in the ’best’ of times. Their booms never last though and all they seem to bring in hindsight are higher rents, higher food prices and stress from overwork.
But even from the point of view of standard of living we can see right now that the once common expectation that every working family could own a home is being stripped away with repossesions in Ireland (and the U.S. and U.K.) reaching record highs. There are 53,000 families on the housing waiting lists while 300,000 properties lie empty. The minimum expectations of most working class people can not now be fulfilled. Can they be sure that their children will have a better standard of living than they acquired? Not anymore.
The working class has always evolved and changed but the central aspect of working class existence, the fact that we have nothing to sell except our labour power, has not changed.
Once you’ve spent the share of your wages that goes on immediate consumption i.e. food, rent, bills and then maybe saved a little (which will now be impossible!) you are forced to return to work the next week and start the whole process again. Workers are still slaves to the economic necessity of returning to work, the choice is never ’will I work for a capitalist or not’ but ’which capitalist, out of necessity, must i work for’.
White collar workers work in conditions which more and more resemble the factory of old. Inputing numbers all day long. They too have nothin to sell except labour power. In fact yesterdays ’skilled’ workers have always been ’proletarianised’, engineers in the 1800’s were strangely seen at the time as a ’priveleged’ layer amongst workers but 30 or 40 years later they were at the forefront of union activity and worker’s struggles.
Conclusion
Women have entered the workforce in huge numbers in the last few years and have transformed society in the process as they no longer could accept the hold of the church over decisions relating to control of their own bodies and sexual attitudes. More people right across the face of this planet are working class than ever before. The working class of south Korea alone is bigger than the entire working class at the time Marx wrote. Units of Capital of massive dimensions and more concentrated then ever before exist now across state lines and borders linking people into a gigantic social productive process which need not be all in the name of the blind accumulation of profit, these enormous resources, unimagined in any previous age, if harnessed for social need could liberate humanity from so much unnecessary strife.
We have means of communication never before imagined, we can web chat instantly with people on the ground in warzones, we can relate news of struggle in a second to every single corner of the globe. Never has humanity’s bright future been so close to our grasp.
’The emancipation of the working class is the act of working class’ but we have seen that in the course of every massive movement from below a dual power situation arises. Protests, mass strikes, movements in the communities, on the streets, in workplaces get to the point where the goverment will attack from fear of losing control. We have to respond by defending our own forms of popular democracy, the revolution is a defence of the organic forms of working class self organisation that emerge in the course of every struggle.
Not only is revolution objectively possible but absolutely necessary as we balance on the brink of environmental collapse, permanent war and deep crisis in the economy.
21st century revolution not a fantasy….it is daily becoming a living breathing reality.
(transcript of talk i gave)
When socialists talk about the possibility of revolution happening in the 21st century it’s not about a mere desire for revolution on our part, an ’ideal’ that popped into someone’s ’enlightened’ head which then inspires them to go off and one by one recruit people to change the world, or about trying to impose some such view that revolution will occur, its about deducing from reality itself those trends that inevitably push towards revolutionary situations whether we choose them or not.
In other words, to ask what is the nature of the capitalist economy? What kind of contradictions does it engender, does it create? And what kinds of actions does an anarchic economy of this sort constantly push people towards whatever they subjectively believe?
The Capitalist system as a whole is now in the midst of a severe crisis. In 2009 banks worldwide collapsed, the Irish government nationalised Anglo Irish Bank lumbering every household in the country with an extra 20,000 euro in debt.They raided the National Pensions Reserve Fund’s 17 or so Billion and handed half over to the banks.
The crash had been overdue for a long time, with rates of profit over the last two decades never recovering to their levels during the postwar ’golden age’ of capitalism which ended in the mid 70’s. This low rate of profit leading inevitably to Capitalists chasing profitable ventures, from dot com bubbles to the over inflated housing market. Neoliberalism since the mid to late 70’s has been a 30 year assault on the conditions of the international working class with the share of societies product going to profits constantly increasing at the expense of wages. Workers produce far more yet, in relation to their product, see returned far less.
So constant cuts were declared from the seat of every government while, at the same time political generalisation has been taking place on a massive scale in the last few years, in response, not only to the economic crisis, but has been developing since the mass mobilisations against the War on Iraq in 2003, and now, the protests against the slaughter in Gaza and the threat of economic collapse.
The threat of war looms constantly on the international horizon as capitalist states are ever more tempted to open up markets or solve economic problems militarily. We see U.S. ships parked in the Black Sea after the Georgian conflict pushing close to Russia and we see the Russian navy placing ships off the coast of Venezuela. The US army is positioned right across the Middle East. As recessions deepen war becomes an attractive way to grab another country’s resources and to stifle opposition to policy at home.
How will people respond? We can make the answer more concrete by lookin at how they have responded time and time again in periods of crisis in the past.
Worker’s democracy
In Paris in 1871, Russia 1905 and again in 1917, Hungary and Germany in1918,Limerick in 1919, Italy in1920 Spain in 1936, Hungary in 1956, Chile in 73, Portugal in 1974, Iran in 79 and Poland in 1980 we saw a form of self organisation emerge amongst the working class in response to various crisis - the workers circle,called a ’soviet’ in Russia, or ’condone’ in Chile, a ’Shora’ in Iran, a form of organic direct democracy.
At a certain point in every severe crisis the coordination of working class strikes and protests and the absolute necessity of self regulation of working class communities sees these community and workplace circles emerge as a direct outgrowth and natural continuation of the struggle. These forms of self organisation weren’t the creation of any marxist brain but time and time again are formed by the working class’s instinctive need for unity and for organisation in a time of massive crisis.
For example -The Commune of Paris in 1871 was a response to the betrayal of the Parisian workers into the hands of the Prussian army under Bismarck by the cowardly French Ruling class under the infamous Theirs. If the french ruling classes weren’t prepared to defend the city the workers decided that they would. They elected delegates from each area of Paris instantly recallable and mandated to follow the instructions of their electors, placed on the average wage to prevent corruption, they seperated the church and state declaring religion to be a private matter, they elected their judges, armed the population for self defence, food distribution was organised. They eventually suffered defeat as they couldnt spread the revolt to other towns. But those 2 months demonstrated the capability of the working class to self organise and it was from this that Marx generalised and worked out the developed form of his theory of the state.
Russia in 1905 and again during the revolution of 1917 saw Soviets arise. The first Soviet arose as a vehicle through which the workers could negotiate with the tsarist goverment but took on more and more the running of the daily lives of working class people until there arose a situation of dual power. The self governing working class alongside the institutions of the old power. The movement of 1905 was ultimately defeated but the Russian working class had taken on board lessons they would re-apply in 1917. Alongside parliament organs of working class self government superior in every way to the old power emerged once again after the February Revolution 1917. Lenin, in april, called for a challenge for power. ’All power to the soviets’ was his cry and it wasn’t until October that this slogan was fulfilled, with even Menshevik rivals of Lenin’s Bolsheviks declaring- ”what we have before us is nothing other than a rising of the working class”.
Dual Power
Two societies sit side by side during a crisis, one of slave owners the other of those who refuse to be slaves, the working class develops an urgent need, a need for a society of it’s own. When things reach this state, of Dual Power, then the choice has never been between the continuation of the movement from below and the old system, it becomes a choice between the fight to defend the organs of working class and community democracy against the rage and fury of the ruling class who will not accept any challenge to their economic dictatorship over the workers and society at large. So in 1917, for example, it was never a choice between Soviets and the official Constituent Assembly but between Soviets and reaction, the Assembly a cover for the forces of General Kornilov and others of his ilk to organise behind until they felt strong enough to destroy and root out all traces of worker’s democracy.
Trotsky once remarked that if the Russian Revolution hadn’t moved towards the seizure of power by the workers in October 1917 then fascism would have had a Russian name as opposed to an Italian. Fascism would have been born in Russia 1917 as opposed to Italy in the 20’s.
The same dynamic has developed again and again - in Chile in 1973, where the election of Salvador Allende backed by a strong workers movement in the workplaces was too much to bear for the likes of General Pinochet, the Chilean ruling class and their rotten friends in Washington. Here though workers never challenged for power to be transferred to their own organs, the cordones, but put their faith in the capitalist state. Time and time again a movement that puts it’s trust in the state has been crushed, the state is a weapon of the ruling class – judges, the civil service, the police, prisons etc are tools of oppression and Allende and the Chilean working people paid a terrible price to gain this knowledge with over 30,000 deaths. The defeat of the movement in Germany many years before saw humanity pay an even dearer price for failure to challenge the state, which ultimately, unleashed Nazi barbarism, first upon the worker’s movement and then, upon the Jews.
The 21st century
Can 21st century workers overthrow capitalism though? ’People have too much stuff’ is one of the arguments thrown back at socialists, but the question of the need for socialism isn’t just a quantitative question, that is a question of higher wages or a question of more things, its about the quality of life people have under capitalism, no matter how many TV sets a working class family acquire they still, as individuals when they go to work every single day, have absolutely no control over their lives. The 5 biggest corporations in the world are run by about 40 people employ hundreds of thousands of workers and have an output greater than the Middle East and Africa combined. Working class people have absolutely no say in the running of these or any enterprise that their labour builds. These giant corporations, which grow from the soil of competition as during every recession some firms go bankrupt and others buy them up thereby growing bigger, are completely unaccountable to the concerns of the thousands of lives they shape. Work is a dictatorship with a heirarchy of foots soldiers, managers and, at the top, the handful of ’generals’(who themselves are nothing but slaves to the blind forces of the market).
Anyway you can have two TVs in your house and still weep with fear when the bills arrive and fret over your children. You can have an iPod and still be so filled with hopelessness instilled in you by an absolute lack of prospects that you go out and commit acts of vandalism. Or you can internalise all this pressure and alienation and get stress related cancer when you hit middle age. This is the reality of working class life under capitalism in the ’best’ of times. Their booms never last though and all they seem to bring in hindsight are higher rents, higher food prices and stress from overwork.
But even from the point of view of standard of living we can see right now that the once common expectation that every working family could own a home is being stripped away with repossesions in Ireland (and the U.S. and U.K.) reaching record highs. There are 53,000 families on the housing waiting lists while 300,000 properties lie empty. The minimum expectations of most working class people can not now be fulfilled. Can they be sure that their children will have a better standard of living than they acquired? Not anymore.
The working class has always evolved and changed but the central aspect of working class existence, the fact that we have nothing to sell except our labour power, has not changed.
Once you’ve spent the share of your wages that goes on immediate consumption i.e. food, rent, bills and then maybe saved a little (which will now be impossible!) you are forced to return to work the next week and start the whole process again. Workers are still slaves to the economic necessity of returning to work, the choice is never ’will I work for a capitalist or not’ but ’which capitalist, out of necessity, must i work for’.
White collar workers work in conditions which more and more resemble the factory of old. Inputing numbers all day long. They too have nothin to sell except labour power. In fact yesterdays ’skilled’ workers have always been ’proletarianised’, engineers in the 1800’s were strangely seen at the time as a ’priveleged’ layer amongst workers but 30 or 40 years later they were at the forefront of union activity and worker’s struggles.
Conclusion
Women have entered the workforce in huge numbers in the last few years and have transformed society in the process as they no longer could accept the hold of the church over decisions relating to control of their own bodies and sexual attitudes. More people right across the face of this planet are working class than ever before. The working class of south Korea alone is bigger than the entire working class at the time Marx wrote. Units of Capital of massive dimensions and more concentrated then ever before exist now across state lines and borders linking people into a gigantic social productive process which need not be all in the name of the blind accumulation of profit, these enormous resources, unimagined in any previous age, if harnessed for social need could liberate humanity from so much unnecessary strife.
We have means of communication never before imagined, we can web chat instantly with people on the ground in warzones, we can relate news of struggle in a second to every single corner of the globe. Never has humanity’s bright future been so close to our grasp.
’The emancipation of the working class is the act of working class’ but we have seen that in the course of every massive movement from below a dual power situation arises. Protests, mass strikes, movements in the communities, on the streets, in workplaces get to the point where the goverment will attack from fear of losing control. We have to respond by defending our own forms of popular democracy, the revolution is a defence of the organic forms of working class self organisation that emerge in the course of every struggle.
Not only is revolution objectively possible but absolutely necessary as we balance on the brink of environmental collapse, permanent war and deep crisis in the economy.
21st century revolution not a fantasy….it is daily becoming a living breathing reality.
Monday, February 9, 2009
we need a one day national stoppage!!
(people in iceland protesting daily)Socialist Worker Leaflet
-
No Pay Cuts or Pension Levies
-
Bail out Jobs and Services not the Bankers
-
Support the Waterford Crystal Sit In.
The pension levy on public sector workers is an outrage. Many low and middle income employees, who have taken out large mortgages, simply cannot afford to pay it.
The levy is another name for a pay cut:
- An employee on €45,000 will pay an extra €63 a week.
- An employee on €35,000, €43 a week
This pay cut is on top of a 1 percent levy on gross income and the deferment of all wage rises due under the current partnership deal.
Public sector workers did not cause the economic mess.
Nor are they the ‘bloated’ over-paid sector portrayed by the media. According to the OECD, Ireland has the third lowest rate of public expenditure compared to Gross Domestic Product, just ahead of Korea and Mexico.
Public sector workers already pay a 6.5% contribution to their pension. The real problem is not public sector workers but private sector employers who want to pay nothing to their employees’ pension funds.
While public sector workers are being attacked, the government is putting up €8 billion to ‘re-capitalise’ the banks. Despite all the talk of a ‘national effort’ to solve the crisis, no extra taxes have been imposed on the super-wealthy.
Instead of bailing out bankers, the government should put money into saving the jobs at Waterford Crystal and other areas where workers are being made redundant.
We need a massive programme of public works to help people who have been made redundant.
In this ecocomic crisis, workers are once again being asked to carry the can - while the super rich, who helped to cause the economic collapse through speculation, get off scott free.
A NATIONAL SHUT DOWN
This is entirely unacceptable. The unions need to organise serious action to resist these pay cuts. Talking and complaining is not enough when the very future of the trade union movement is at stake.
We need a one day national shut-down - and French style protests to demonstrates our opposition.
Public sector workers should initiate this one day shut down and invite private sector workers, who are facing pay cuts and redundancies, to join the action.
If such action is not organised by union leaders, it will have to come from the grassroots.
The over-70s showed how ‘people power’, how a mass movement from below could bring about some measure of social justice. Now is the time for the trade unions to do the same.
Friday, February 6, 2009
surprise surprise RTE tell lies!
So i was watching the evening news on RTE, the irish state broadcaster, reporting from the IMPACT union's general meeting to discuss the new 'pension levy' i.e. the new pay cut. Well RTE stated that the union had decided to have a nice little 'email campaign' and some valentines day pickets of the constituency offices of Fianna Fail TDs, all very polite and ineffectual sounding.
The thing is that's NOT what happened! The union leaders sent out a pre-emptive press release declaring these shy tactics as what would come out of the general meeting but the membership's fury at the actual meeting wasn't taken into account. The members voted to mandate the union to call mass protests during working hours and to ballot the membership nationally for strike action.
They stated that if the Irish Congress of Trade Unions wouldn't support these measures that IMPACT would act anyway.
The RTE report from the actual meeting cut off before any sign of workers anger was shown.
They obviously can't go encouraging the fight back now can they?
I'm related to a lot of working class soldiers, the soldier's union has announced that they wont break any public sector strikes (as the government has used them repeatedly in the past), anyway at a meeting of soldiers the other day someone flippantly suggested shooting Sean Fitzpatrick, the director of Anglo Irish Bank, if this crisis goes on maybe those kind of remarks will become more frequent and less flippant.
And the battalion stationed under the Dail in Leinster house are only a stones throw from that bank.... and while they're at it....
The thing is that's NOT what happened! The union leaders sent out a pre-emptive press release declaring these shy tactics as what would come out of the general meeting but the membership's fury at the actual meeting wasn't taken into account. The members voted to mandate the union to call mass protests during working hours and to ballot the membership nationally for strike action.
They stated that if the Irish Congress of Trade Unions wouldn't support these measures that IMPACT would act anyway.
The RTE report from the actual meeting cut off before any sign of workers anger was shown.
They obviously can't go encouraging the fight back now can they?
I'm related to a lot of working class soldiers, the soldier's union has announced that they wont break any public sector strikes (as the government has used them repeatedly in the past), anyway at a meeting of soldiers the other day someone flippantly suggested shooting Sean Fitzpatrick, the director of Anglo Irish Bank, if this crisis goes on maybe those kind of remarks will become more frequent and less flippant.
And the battalion stationed under the Dail in Leinster house are only a stones throw from that bank.... and while they're at it....
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
the private public divide?
every petty right wing commentator, from 'questions and answers' on RTEtv, to the columnists of our daily papers, to the various members of all the mainstream parties who pop up to voice their opinions on the above and other media formats, all sing from the same unholy hymn sheet at the moment- 'the problem is overpay in the public sector'- 'we have to save money... time to slash and burn the bloated public pay bill'. so nurses and bus drivers are 'overpaid' bloated vampires sucking the lifeblood of society? it seems to me that this is as ridiculous as it sounds... the real division isnt between the private sector worker and the public sector employee, but between the top and bottom of both sectors, both the CEO's of private firms and the top civil servants in this country are the true 'parasites' carried by the working class. to distract us from this truth all manner of hysterical screeching from mainstream political life is raised at every available opportunity.
according to the latest OECD figures ireland ranks as the 7th most unequal society in the 'developed' world. the top 10% of irish society earning more than 9 times the earnings of the bottom 10%.(remember this is a comparison of salaries, so what if we add in profits?) and this situation was made worse over the last two decades, so it seems that even economic growth, although it makes claims the working class are wealthier, sees workers across the western world produce far more but recieve less of a share of the total product of society. this trend is repeated over and over right across the world. neo-liberalism has been gnawing away at the share going to the workers, wages etc, this increased rate of exploitation an attempt to restore a profit rate which has been in decline, apart from the occasional burst of growth, since the end of the post-war boom in the mid 70s.
the fianna fail govt have already raided our national pensions reserve fund of 18 billion and handed half of it over to the banks for purposes of 'liquidity'. the pensions reserve fund is to provide for social welfare and pensions from 2025 onwards but has been gambled on the stock market over the past few years, one such 'investment' was in the firm- lehman brothers which infamously collapsed last year. such stock market dealings lost the fund 600million in the last 12 months.
their bail out of their friends in anglo irish bank will cost us billions, some estimates state we are now in debt by 20,000 euro per household. the goverment will cover the bad debts of the banks to the tune of 90% (while waterford glass and other workers have NO gaurantee of pensions).
yes the economy needs credit to run...but why continue to bail out these banks without accountablity? why not nationalise the whole banking sector? why cant we open their books to public scrutiny?
instead of attacking the average public sector worker why not fire the beaureacrats and top civil servants and save us all those pointless pieces of paper they're so fond of? why not tax the top CEO's of the private sector? those who made 41billion in the closing years of the celtic tiger?
why?..well because fianna fail, fianna gael and all the other parties clamouring towards coalition with one of these gangs accept the logic of the market, they accept we need to be 'competitive'.
should the health service be 'competitive'? should you manage your household affairs 'competitively'? 'oh i'm sorry little jenny but if we treat your cancer well we're no longer competitive'...'sorry children but if i feed you then we're no longer a trim stream lined competive outfit'....they all accept this race to the bottom...this inhuman fetishised logic...
so dont let them fool you into thinking the public sector is the problem! these over bloated corpses clinging to our backs have no right to label anyone as a parasite...
according to the latest OECD figures ireland ranks as the 7th most unequal society in the 'developed' world. the top 10% of irish society earning more than 9 times the earnings of the bottom 10%.(remember this is a comparison of salaries, so what if we add in profits?) and this situation was made worse over the last two decades, so it seems that even economic growth, although it makes claims the working class are wealthier, sees workers across the western world produce far more but recieve less of a share of the total product of society. this trend is repeated over and over right across the world. neo-liberalism has been gnawing away at the share going to the workers, wages etc, this increased rate of exploitation an attempt to restore a profit rate which has been in decline, apart from the occasional burst of growth, since the end of the post-war boom in the mid 70s.
the fianna fail govt have already raided our national pensions reserve fund of 18 billion and handed half of it over to the banks for purposes of 'liquidity'. the pensions reserve fund is to provide for social welfare and pensions from 2025 onwards but has been gambled on the stock market over the past few years, one such 'investment' was in the firm- lehman brothers which infamously collapsed last year. such stock market dealings lost the fund 600million in the last 12 months.
their bail out of their friends in anglo irish bank will cost us billions, some estimates state we are now in debt by 20,000 euro per household. the goverment will cover the bad debts of the banks to the tune of 90% (while waterford glass and other workers have NO gaurantee of pensions).
yes the economy needs credit to run...but why continue to bail out these banks without accountablity? why not nationalise the whole banking sector? why cant we open their books to public scrutiny?
instead of attacking the average public sector worker why not fire the beaureacrats and top civil servants and save us all those pointless pieces of paper they're so fond of? why not tax the top CEO's of the private sector? those who made 41billion in the closing years of the celtic tiger?
why?..well because fianna fail, fianna gael and all the other parties clamouring towards coalition with one of these gangs accept the logic of the market, they accept we need to be 'competitive'.
should the health service be 'competitive'? should you manage your household affairs 'competitively'? 'oh i'm sorry little jenny but if we treat your cancer well we're no longer competitive'...'sorry children but if i feed you then we're no longer a trim stream lined competive outfit'....they all accept this race to the bottom...this inhuman fetishised logic...
so dont let them fool you into thinking the public sector is the problem! these over bloated corpses clinging to our backs have no right to label anyone as a parasite...
Sunday, February 1, 2009
citizens army....
this shot shows the flag, the starry plough, flying over Waterford Glass which was occupied by workers 3 days ago when management tried to shut up shop...workers fought their way past private security goons who had been drafted in from dublin, as locals wouldnt take the job of holding off the employees...workers show no signs of backing down, the visitors centre has slogans of struggle written on all the notice boards 'united we stand divided we fall' and
the starry plough, flag of socialist James Connolly and the Irish Citizens Army, now flies over the workers occupied factory...
this action shows the way forward, we need to resist job losses....
RESIST! OCCUPY!
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
500 hundred jobs to go at First Active...
and 290 on the buses....here's a flyer for comrades in ireland to distribute....
Redundancy is a shocking experience.
It disrupts your plans and hopes for your future.
Your company is also conveying a message: We do not care about you
– profit is all that counts. Of course, they don’t put it as bluntly as this.
Your CEO or manager will probably appear on the media and
talk about how sad they are but it had to be done for ‘competitiveness’.
But they mean: workers are worth nothing, profit is all that counts.
Our society is experiencing a 1930s style crash and we can no longer accept this.
This is the 21st century and all of us have a Right to Work.
It is time to assert that people and our lives are more important
than a company’s ‘bottom line’
If you are facing redundancy,
socialists advise you to take the following steps:
❶ Call a meeting of your workmates to discuss the
situation.
Elect people to represent you, either by endorsing your existing
shop stewards or electing new representatives. Make sure that the
meeting is conducted properly by asking people to vote for what they
want.
❷ The first thing you need to decide is whether you want to
oppose the redundancies or accept voluntary redundancies.
Your union officials will almost invariably urge you to accept
voluntary redundancies. Socialists, however, urge you to
consider resistance: There is very little work out there and you need a
wage packet now.
❸ Do some research on your company. Find out the following items:
■ Are they making a profit? If they are suffering a temporary loss,
what sort of profits did they make in recent years? How much do they
pay their CEO?
■ How much did your company get in state grants? Have they been
paying proper taxes in this country?
■ Are they re-locating or closing down in order to benefit from
cheap labour? Or are they trying to intensify work for the remaining
staff.
❹ Organise an occupation of your workplace to resist
redundancy. It is the only message that profit
addicts understand. Remember: You
have two great levers that help you.
■ First, the company will want to get hold of the machines, office
space or factory space to sell off or use elsewhere. You should use
these as a bargaining lever to secure concessions.
■ Second, as the government has been bailing out banks, the obvious
question is: why can’t they bail out redundant workers?
❺ You should use the occupation as a base to
launch a major campaign to demand that the government protect
your right to work. Tell them to recover any grants
given to a company that has treated its workers like disposable products
and to use that money to fund alternative employment.
Demand that the government either get you all places on
community employment schemes on Pay Related Benefit or that they take
the company into public ownership to guarantee jobs.
❻ Resistance will bring you some results – acceptance
will give you nothing. Some might argue that this is very ‘radical’. But
we are living in changed times. When a US President like
Barack Obama promises that the US state will help fund the creation of
3 million jobs, you know ‘the times they are a changing’.
We need real, radical change here and that will come through
‘people power’ – not taskforces, committees and crocodile tears.
If you want any further advice on resisting redundancies or want
support for your actions, you can contact the industrial desk
of the Socialist Workers Party on 01 8722682 or simply
text - REDUNDANCY to 086 3074060
and we will ring you back.
Socialist Worker
www.swp.ie
Redundancy is a shocking experience.
It disrupts your plans and hopes for your future.
Your company is also conveying a message: We do not care about you
– profit is all that counts. Of course, they don’t put it as bluntly as this.
Your CEO or manager will probably appear on the media and
talk about how sad they are but it had to be done for ‘competitiveness’.
But they mean: workers are worth nothing, profit is all that counts.
Our society is experiencing a 1930s style crash and we can no longer accept this.
This is the 21st century and all of us have a Right to Work.
It is time to assert that people and our lives are more important
than a company’s ‘bottom line’
If you are facing redundancy,
socialists advise you to take the following steps:
❶ Call a meeting of your workmates to discuss the
situation.
Elect people to represent you, either by endorsing your existing
shop stewards or electing new representatives. Make sure that the
meeting is conducted properly by asking people to vote for what they
want.
❷ The first thing you need to decide is whether you want to
oppose the redundancies or accept voluntary redundancies.
Your union officials will almost invariably urge you to accept
voluntary redundancies. Socialists, however, urge you to
consider resistance: There is very little work out there and you need a
wage packet now.
❸ Do some research on your company. Find out the following items:
■ Are they making a profit? If they are suffering a temporary loss,
what sort of profits did they make in recent years? How much do they
pay their CEO?
■ How much did your company get in state grants? Have they been
paying proper taxes in this country?
■ Are they re-locating or closing down in order to benefit from
cheap labour? Or are they trying to intensify work for the remaining
staff.
❹ Organise an occupation of your workplace to resist
redundancy. It is the only message that profit
addicts understand. Remember: You
have two great levers that help you.
■ First, the company will want to get hold of the machines, office
space or factory space to sell off or use elsewhere. You should use
these as a bargaining lever to secure concessions.
■ Second, as the government has been bailing out banks, the obvious
question is: why can’t they bail out redundant workers?
❺ You should use the occupation as a base to
launch a major campaign to demand that the government protect
your right to work. Tell them to recover any grants
given to a company that has treated its workers like disposable products
and to use that money to fund alternative employment.
Demand that the government either get you all places on
community employment schemes on Pay Related Benefit or that they take
the company into public ownership to guarantee jobs.
❻ Resistance will bring you some results – acceptance
will give you nothing. Some might argue that this is very ‘radical’. But
we are living in changed times. When a US President like
Barack Obama promises that the US state will help fund the creation of
3 million jobs, you know ‘the times they are a changing’.
We need real, radical change here and that will come through
‘people power’ – not taskforces, committees and crocodile tears.
If you want any further advice on resisting redundancies or want
support for your actions, you can contact the industrial desk
of the Socialist Workers Party on 01 8722682 or simply
text - REDUNDANCY to 086 3074060
and we will ring you back.
Socialist Worker
www.swp.ie
Friday, January 23, 2009
more of the same?
(pic barack obama with 'warlords' in afghanistan)so i see obama has begun to announce his foreign policy objectives and has been in discussions with general patraeus with regard to shifting focus from iraq to afghanistan (although he still intends to leave at least 30,000 troops in iraq). the obama administration is trying to sell the idea of a 'dream ticket' government in afghanistan to replace the karzai clique. let's have a look at one of the wonderful characters destined to replace karzai and who is being placed in line to rule the afghan people and assist in the furtherance of the United States' shift in policy towards tackling militants in afghanistan and pakistan (a shift which already has the hindu chauvanists in india screaming that they always knew pakistan was the problem).
Gul Agha Sherzai
"A veteran of the wars against the Soviets, Mr Sherzai (whose name means "son of a lion") is a former governor of Kandahar criticised for human rights abuses. He escaped assassination in 2006."
this man is responsible for bloody crimes that makes ridiculous the claim from the obama gang that he could be part of any 'dream ticket'. from 1992 to 94 he was governer of kandahar and was regarded as particularly vicious even by afghan warlord standards. he was known to have been heavily involved in drug dealing, murder, bribery and corruption. in 2001 with the assistance of U.S military planes he retook kandahar from the taliban as part of the U.S. war.
he was appointed governer of nangarhar province in 2004 and again recieved criticism for his warlord like behaviour and his known involvment with the drugs trade.
these are obama's allies in the war on terror? the people of afghanistan have suffered enough, decades of war, against the british empire, the soviet empire, and now, the U.S. empire. 1445 afghan civilians were killed in 2008 alone.this is the 'noble' war that our rulers like to contrast to the occupation of iraq. every year has seen similar death rates for civilians since the 23,000 deaths in the initial invasion in 2001-2003.
they have a saying amongst the poor in afghanistan, 'afghanistan zulumistan' which translates as- 'afghanistan land of tyrants'. it seems that obama is determined to inflict more tyrants on the people of that region, to continue the policy of spreading the 'war on terror' into pakistan and to fuel ,by these actions, recruitment to groups like the taliban.
his 'dream' ticket for the afghan people is just another extension of their long long nightmare.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
obama...
obama....
So the cheering smiling crowds go wild, the poor of America have found, they believe, a new champion and the Rich smile and rub their grubby hands because the State is in the hands of someone the masses really believe in...all the better to convince them of the nesessity of massive cuts in all social provisions in order to save the bankers and the continuance of the war in Afghanistan, for which, Obama has already requested more troops.We live in a society where the economy of certain corporations is larger than the income of many small countries and yet within each of these giant corporate economies we have absolutely no democratic voice, every company is a hierarchy, the boss or shareholders at the top, middle management and then the foot soldiers, the pawns who do all the labour but have no say in the distribution of the products of their labour. No change in the personell of the State can shake this despotism ruling in the economy. The only choice you get is between which members of the ruling class you think should oppress you for the next four years. Of course the state has some 'autonomy' and can sometimes come into conflict with the ruling class as a whole but in essence the state, as a state of that class, as a system of armed men, judges and laws for the managing of the working class, can only ever really do one of 3 things- it can retard economic development, it can promote economic development, or it can do nothing...but the State can never challenge the prevailing economic order as it is a product of the irreconcilable class conflict engendered by that very same economic order.
Even when, in rare circumstances, the State comes into the possession of a group of reformers dedicated to change, then as we have seen time and time again, the state purifies itself of this 'abberation' i.e. the judges and the generals and the police force overthrow those who have 'infected' the capitalist's state with thier ideas of change. We saw this clearly in Chile in 73 when the socialist Salvador Allende put his faith in the state, the weapon of the ruling classes, to change things in favour of the working classes.He paid not only with his own life, but with the lives of thousands of workers massacred by Thatcher's good friend, General Pinochet.
So why cant real change ever come through Obama? Because the tyranny in the economy remains untouched. Although Obama represents a positive shift in American politics he will never deliver on the hopes and aspirations of the millions who voted him in. The New Deal of the 30's he's so fond of referencing ever did tackle the economic problems of that time, the Crash of the 1930's melted into the mobilisation for the World War.
No mainstream politician ever can. Only a movement that begins in the working class communities and on the streets, that develops it's own local and workplace based organs of democracy,which take over sphere by sphere the activites of working life,only this kind of movement can bring to life true democracy and liberate us from banking collapses and war.
james
essay on the dialectic
D is for Dialectic....
By james o’toole
By james o’toole
”When he directs his keenest arrows against our dialectic system, he is really attacking the specific mode of thought employed by the conscious proletariat in its struggle for liberation. It is an attempt to break the sword that has helped the proletariat to pierce the darkness of its future. It is an attempt to shatter the intellectual arm with the aid of which the proletariat, though materially under the yoke of the bourgeoisie, is yet enabled to triumph over the bourgeoisie. For it is our dialectical system that shows to the working class the transitory nature of this yoke, proving to workers the inevitability of their victory and is already realising a revolution in the domain of thought.”
Rosa Luxembourg on Bernstien
In the above quote Rosa Luxembourg defends the Marxist use of ’dialectics’ against attack by the revisionism of the reformist Bernstien of the German SPD in the early 1900’s. Throughout the history of Marxism as a movement and body of thought there have been attempts to ’remove’ the dialectic from marxism, to label it as an influence of the Idealist German philosopher,Hegel, or to label Marx’s use of dialectic terms in the writing of his major work ,’Capital’, as ’flirtation’ with Hegelian phrases for the purposes of poetical flourish. Right up to the present there are those who insist that the dialectic is not integral to Marx’s method. This is just not true, the dialectic is central to marxist theory and practice.
There have been many ’dialectic’ logics throughout history. In classical philosophy the term ’dialectic’ meant a form of argument based on the presentation of a particular ’thesis’ to which is then contrasted a counter-argument or ’counter-thesis’ and finally there results a ’synthesis’ which may contain elements of truth from both sides of the dialogue. Different versions of dialectic logic developed through the ages from Plato down through the Middle Ages finally obtaining it’s fullest expression in the systems of the German Idealist philosophers of the early 19th Century, especially in the works of G.F.Hegel.
”Further, we find upon closer investigation that the two poles of an antithesis, positive and negative, e.g., are as inseparable as they are opposed, and that despite all their opposition, they mutually interpenetrate. And we find, in like manner, that cause and effect are
conceptions which only hold good in their application to individual cases; but as soon as we consider the individual cases in their general connection with the universe as a whole, they run into each other, and they become confounded when we contemplate that universal action and reaction in which causes and effects are eternally changing places, so that what is effect here and now will be cause there and then, and vice versa.”
Here Engel’s clearly defines the huge difference between static and dialectic views of how change occurs, how seemingly opposed entities ’inter-penetrate’.
Hegel’s ’Notion’....
Hegel lived through the period of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars and was witness to the epic Rise and Fall of that entire historical movement. This period of economic and political, and thus philosophical, turmoil gave an enormous stimulus to thought. Germany at the time of Hegel’s birth was not a nation state, it existed as hundreds of small kingdoms, imperial free cities and petty principalities under the Hapsburg Crown. Despite being ’backward’ in comparison with French, and especially, English economic development, there was the emergence of capitalist forms of enterprise. Saxony, for example, had a mining industry which pre- dated the Reformation and various towns were engaged in iron founding, engineering etc. But the Bourgeois or Capitalist ’middle’ class were weak
economically and dependent politically.
There was another sort of ’middle’ class who were more forthright in their demands - there were 37 universities in the Holy Roman Empire, 3 in Saxony alone, and in every petty court a series of clerks, lawyers, intellectuals and artists. It was this layer that created a
period of boom for intellectual debate.These lawyers, lecturers and artists were capable of seeing in the French Revolution the ’master theme’ of the epoch but their own protests
never successfully extended beyond the realm of thought.
Hegel’s Dialectic emerged from German Idealism’s attempts to solve problems inherited from Kant and this period of immense upheaval and change. Social institutions, such as the French Monarchy, collapsed only to be replaced by other institutions which themselves fell in quick succession, things seemed to melt into their opposites. Napoleon marched across the continent uprooting feudalism and instituting the ’code napoleon’. It seemed as if the old world had been ’stood on it’s head’.
Hegel’s ’Phenomenology of mind’ ....
The ’phenomenology of mind’ was completed in 1806 in the town of Jena, which had been a centre of the ’storm and stress’ movement in art and literature. Napoleon was engaged in battle with Prussian troops on the plateau outside the town as Hegel was finishing the manuscript. This work takes us on a journey from the most basic forms of consciousness, such as sense- certainty (a form of consciousness which only grasps that which is directly given), and demonstrates how these consciounesses are self contradictory and necessarily move through contradiction to ever more complex relations of consciousness to itself, the subject, and to the object.
The ’phenomenology’ is famous for it’s Introduction where Hegel relates the need for a ’ladder to science’, that the whole of the ’phenomenology’ was a critique of various forms of thinking about the world which inexorably progress through their failings toward the need for dialectical thinking as the highest form of understanding. Hegel referred to the dialectic method as ’the Notion’.
”The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and we
might say that the former is refuted by the latter; in the same way when the
fruit comes, the blossom may be explained to be a false form of the plant’s
existence, for the fruit appears as its true nature in place of the blossom.
These stages are not merely differentiated; they supplant one another as being
incompatible with one another. But the ceaseless activity of their own inherent
nature makes them at the same time moments of an organic unity, where they not
merely do not contradict one another, but where one is as necessary as the
other; and this equal necessity of all moments constitutes alone and thereby
the life of the whole.”
Here some important aspects of Hegel’s thought emerge, different philosophical systems and scientific positions are understood not in terms of some ’objective’ incorrectness but as ’true’ in a relative sense, as different ’moments’ of an organic ’totality’ or whole in a constant process of transformation. They are analysed in terms of their origin, development,
inter-relationships (to other parts and the whole) and their cessation. Everything is in a process of coming to be and ceasing to be. The whole cannot be reduced to any of it’s constituent elements, and the whole is more than just the sum of the constituent parts. The whole and the parts form a ’unity of opposites’.
They call it ’Master and Servant’
One of the most famous sections of the ’phenomenology’ is Hegel’s description of the ’master slave’ dialectic. Hegel begins with two subjects struggling for ’recognition’, this battle for recognition leads to a ’life or death’ struggle, after which, one consciousness is Master and one is Slave. The Master is the dominant consciouness whose whole existence is ’being-for-self’, while the Slave is ’being-for-another’. The Slave exists only to fulfill the Master’s desires. The Lord can only achieve the ’negation’ of things, that is, he only consumes, whereas, the Slave works on the world to produce the things the Master needs.
So the Slave affirms himself as capable of altering the world.
”work… is desire held in check, fleetingness staved off; in other words, work forms and shapes the thing”
In fashioning things the Slave gains an awareness of the fact that he exists in his own right and in his work, where before, he only had an alienated existense, he acquires a mind of his own. The situation first found ourselves in is reversed. The Master now only exists through
another, through the labour of the Slave, whereas, the Slave has now achieved power over the objective world though his labour, has gained a ’mind of his own’. It’s important to note that the change or advance in consciousness goes through the mind of the Slave and not the Master. It’s also worth noting that for Hegel all that changes is the consciousness of the Slave. Hegel’s dialectic starts with the Slave’s consciousness, posits the world of labour and then returns to a transformed consciousness leaving reality unchanged. For Marx we
start with material reality, consciouness attempts to understand that reality and then, finally, we transform reality.
Hegel’s ’Science of Logic’....
Hegel begins his Science of Logic with the most basic and fundamental of all concepts, that of ’being’. Every thing ’is’, that is everything has ’being’. Every determinate thing has this property, it has ’being’. But Hegel asks what is ’being’ itself? What is ’being’ as opposed to
every determinate thing? The table has ’being’ in that it exists, the cup has ’being’, but neither of these particular things is ’being’ itself. It seems that ’being’ itself is ’nothing’. We see that the attempt to grasp ’being’ leads to it’s opposite, ’nothing’. But ’nothing’ has at least the property of being defined.We can describe ’nothing’ as the lack of determinate particular ’being’. We end up in a situation were the attempt to grasp one melts into it’s
opposite before once more returning to itself. Hegel’s solution is the category of ’becoming’, he captures the ’movement’ between both poles in a higher category which captures the existence and dissolution of both previous categories, that captures their ’coming to be’ and ’ceasing to be’. That captures their self movement.....
This may seem like pointless philosophising but has it’s uses as the processes of actual life move in a dialectic manner as opposed to the cause and effect mechanical schemas of most science and philosophies. Lenin remarks upon reading this part of the Logic ’ shrewd and clever! Hegel analyses concepts that usually appear dead and shows movement in them’.
It’s always important to keep in mind that for Hegel the movement of concepts governs the movement of the real world, this suited a german middle class who never practically achieved their ’bourgeois’ revolution, as opposed to the French who achieved a Revolution in reality. But in a way the enthusiastic declaration of the power of human thought to shape the world was progressive in relation to the eternal order of the feudal world with its never
changing orders of bishops, priests, princes and kings. Marx himself in his ’theses on feuerbach’ pointed out that although materialism had investigated the objective world, it never grasped the objective world ’subjectively’, in terms of human pratice.This side was developed by idealism. Unfortunately the only practice Hegel knew was the labour of philosophy but in Marx we find a materialism that acknowledges nature and the objective world as the basis of all human thought and action but is a ’dialectic’ materialism, a materialism that understands objective history as the product of the labour of a human subject.But Engels here captures the positive side of Hegel’s thought-
”In this system — and herein is its great merit — for the
first time the whole world, natural, historical, intellectual, is represented
as a process — i.e., as in constant motion, change, transformation,
development; and the attempt is made to trace out the internal connection that
makes a continuous whole of all this movement and development. From this point
of view, the history of mankind no longer appeared as a wild whirl of senseless
deeds of violence, all equally condemnable at the judgment seat of mature
philosophic reason and which are best forgotten as quickly as possible, but as
the process of evolution of man himself. It was now the task of the intellect
to follow the gradual march of this process through all its devious ways, and
to trace out the inner law running through all its apparently accidental
phenomena.”
’The sword of the proletariat’....
Marx once wrote that he wanted to write ’3 sheets’ that would explain the materialist application of the Dialectic. He never did, but the dialectic method was central to all of Marx’s works, and the works of all the major Marxists to follow. To quote Trotsky, Marxism without the Dialectic is ’a clock without a spring’. Marx completely transformed the categories of the dialectic in relation to Hegel, in Marx the dialectic becomes ,not the self-development of the ’Idea’ captured in categories that develop through their own inherent contradictions into one another, but, a dialectic of real material change, a
dialectic drawn from the actual contradictions of the objective life process of humanity, from the actual material of history.
The world had changed since Hegel’s death in 1831, the working class, who had formed a wing of the capitalist class in the French Revolution, were beginning to make their own demands. There had been a worker’s uprising in Lyons in 1834. The working class was stirring,in Britain and across the Continent, and beginning to make demands that pointed beyond the limits of the bourgeois system. Marx began his work as a journalist and activist on the left of the democratic movement, but in the course of his investigations and in the face of severe censorship, he undertook anew a study of French politics, British economics and a critique of German Idealist philosophy.
For Marx capitalist society forms a ’totality’, an organic whole in a constant process of change where ’all that is solid melts into air’, but a totality torn by contradictions.”In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of thier will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of the material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society…on which arises a legal and
political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of consciouness…at a certain stage of development , the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or- this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms- with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their
fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution”
It’s a natural law that we must labour on nature to provide ourselves with food, shelter and clothing and that in the ’social production’ of life we enter into certain ’relations’ with one another. These ’relations of production’ give rise to certain forms of thought which correspond to certain roles in the productive process.
Social consciouness is determined by social being. The ’contradiction’ at the heart of this totality between ’forces of production’ (tools, technology and the labour force) and ’relations of production’ which gives rise to an era of conflict, of potential revolution, is no automatic process, this is a conflict that can result in the reconstitution of the society at large or in the ’common ruin’ of the classes in conflict. The battle engendered by the fact of social production and private appropriation of profit, the war ,sometimes hidden sometimes open, between the classes has to be fought out, everything can be lost, or won. And we must emphasise that Marx never adhered to a ’refection’ view of knowledge,he never stated that knowledge was just the automatic reflex of the social process. As Engels often pointed out, the economy creates no body of ideas ’a novo’,from scratch. But as the italian marxist, Antonio Labriola, pointed out , nothing comes to us in a dream and ideas dont fall from heaven either. This shows how , in Marx, the dialectic is no dead formalism, has no relation to determinism nor is it in any way idealist.The two ’poles’ of any dialectic contradiction, it has to be remembered, should never be seen as external forces acting upon one another like billiard balls, it’s important to see each part as grounded in the substance of the whole. Franz Jakubowski gives a good description of the dialectic of consciousness and being-”Consciousness no longer stands outside being and is no longer seperated from it’s object.conciousness is determined by the transformations of being; but, as the consciousness of acting men, it in turn transforms this being. Consciousness is no longer consciousness above an object, the duplicated ’reflection’ of an object, but a constituent part of changing relations, which are what they are only in conjunction with the consciousness that corresponds to material existence. Consciousness is the self-knowledge of reality..”
Social consciousness and social being are distinct but also form a unity, which cant be reduced one to the other, although the economic basis takes precedence, new ideas and the transformation of old ideas is a complex organic process which is ’mediated’ e.g. even legal terms, which Marx viewed as a direct expression of economic and property relations, because they have to remain logically consistent, cant be a mere reflection of a
contradictory reality.
As the division of labour becomes more and more complex and people are appointed, more and more, to limited tasks the view of the ’whole’ is lost. This loss of a view of the whole as an organic social process is made worse by the dominance of the market (see article ’c is for commodity fetishism’). As each seperate sphere develops it’s own body of thought, these
bodies of thought tend towards internal coherence, they develop their own ’laws’. Ultimately they have their basis in economic development but they are more and more ’mediated’.
Quantity and Quality
Suppose you add one degree of heat to water, nothing at all happens. Add another degree and another, still nothing. It seems that these small ’quantitative’ changes in temperature have no overall effect. Eventually we reach 99 degrees and the addition of one more quantity or degree of heat leads to a transformation, a qualitative shift. The water has changed ’form’ it has become steam. The transformation of quantity into quality is an important aspect of dialectic analysis as it demonstrates how a political or economic
’leap’ can develop unseen beneath the surface and then suddenly a new formation emerges or suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of a crisis. It’s vital we grasp and understand how development proceeds ’gradually’ and in ’leaps’.We revolutionary party has to understand these developments, has to prepare for the ’leap’.
Marx also notes how the qualitative is transformed into the quantitative in a commodity economy, the concrete or particular labour of each individual commodity producer only realises it’s ’social’ aspect by becoming ’abstract’ labour, that is, labour that can be equalised on the market, through money, with any other product of labour, and thus, through the products of labour, with all other forms of particular or concrete labour. The
’quantity’ of exchange-value is indifferent to the concrete labour, to the ’quality’, to the particular labour i.e. whether you make shoes or cars they all become equalised in exchange, as commodities, through money with all other forms of labour. The material-technical content (concrete labour which produces use-values i.e, useful objects) takes on a social form (abstract labour which determines exchange value). The qualitative becomes quantitative.
Negation of the negation
In Hegel the ’negation of the negation’ was a means of asserting the rule of thought over the objective world. For Hegel the ’real’ world was the world of alienation, that any objectification (to make an object) was to alienate oneself. Hegel never saw alienation in terms of a specific mode of production under which the labour of one class in appropriated by another, where the rule of things grows in proportion to their labour. Hegel starts with, for example, a form of consciousness about the world ,say religion, then ’negates’ that in the name of objective reality (which he sees as alienation) and then restores the realm of thought by ’negating the negation’.Thereby leaving religion intact. The whole movement starts with the ideal and ends with the ideal, the real world is nothing but an alienated realm and thought just has to realise this ’other’ as it’s own creation.
Marx completely transformed ’the negation of the negation’ in his application of the Dialectic. In Hegel this ’law’ of the dialectic justifies what exists- the state, christianity etc. Marx and Engels start with real social contradictions, they dont force a preconcieved logic onto any given situation but from any given situation they work out the actual conflicts that are ’going on under our noses’.
”The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production which has flourished alongside and under it. The centralisation of the means of production and the socialisation of labour reach a point where they become incompatible with thier capitalist integument. The integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated'
Conclusion
Attempts to remove the dialectic method from marxism are attempts to disarm the working class intellectually, the dialectic is the method that finds movement in all things, to the dialectic thinker capitalism is just one passing stage in the development of mankind. It realises in thought what the working class according to it’s nature must realise in practice- the dissolution of class rule. The marxist dialectic is not just a scientific method it is also an ’art’ and must be ’practiced’, it must develop in a tight relationship with an actual working
class movement. As Marxism is the theoretical expression of working class activity it is both educating and educated by the working class. We are living right now in a period of great change and great danger, institutions falling, war on the increase, rising racism and a threat to the natural world upon which our whole existence depends, but also, a period of resistance, of questioning and hope. More than ever we have to prove the ’this sided-ness’ of our thinking, to put our ideas to the test. Social theories which rupture the unity of the living process of society suffer from a lack of engagement with a living breathing working class movement which posits itself as the subject and the object of the historical process, this lack of involvement leads to determinism and fatalism or idealism and mysticism (or systems which eclectically contain elements of both). To quote Trotsky in response to members of the U.S left who dismissed the dialectic-.... ”The struggle against materialist dialectics… expresses a distant past conservatism of the petty bourgeoisie, the self-conceit of university routinists and . . . a spark of hope for an afterlife.”....
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