Some
have called it 'five days that shook the WTO'.
There is no doubt that the various protests in Seattle during the week
of November 30, 1999 (hereafter referred to as N30) against the
inauguration of the 'millennium round' of meetings of the World Trade
Organization sent shock waves around the world. What the shock waves reliably transmitted is the information that
there is now a militant, growing, international mass movement in resistance to
the push by international capital to economic globalization. But this "movement" - by now
usually referred to as the "anti-globalization movement" - is
extremely heterogeneous in its composition, consisting of both openly
pro-capitalist "fair trade" protectionists and the "direct
action" radicals who claim to be not just against globalization, but
against capitalism itself. In fact, the
"fair trade" faction itself is highly heterogeneous, consisting of
most of the unions of the AFL-CIO (as well as their Canadian counterparts), the
major mainstream environmentalist organizations such as Greenpeace, the Sierra
Club, and the Green Party, various social-activist religious groups, more or
less moderate third-worldist groups such as Global Exchange and the International
Forum on Globalization, some feminist groups, as well as some left-liberals and
social democrats, various landless peasant organizations from various
"developing" countries, and even arch-conservative "fortress
America" forces such as Pat Buchanan and his followers.
What "shook the world" was that, as Loren Goldner wrote, "there was, in the patent lack of official preparedness for what happened, an unrepeatable singularity ... an opening to exactly that element of the unknown and unexpected that characterizes a situation momentarily beyond all manipulative control, whether by the state or the unions or the 'left', when power lies for a moment 'in the streets'. In 24 hours, Seattle ripped away the 'one note' unanimity of the tolerated 'public discussion' of international economic issues of the past 20 years or more." (1) Furthermore, the "Seattle events gave a concrete target to opponents of the seemingly abstract forces that have made action on the appropriate level so difficult for so long. ... there was a genuine whiff of the spontaneous awakening, in the heat of confrontation, to the power of capital and the state that has not been seen in the U.S. since the sixties ..." (ibid.). Thus what took place in Seattle constituted a major breakthrough, in that it demolished the prevailing consensus of "public opinion" that within (atleast) North American society capitalist globalization was seen as inevitable and its opponents were, if not non-existent, at best marginal, poorly organized, economically ignorant or else unwilling to face the present and future - in a word, inconsequential. Public consciousness was, in the matter of a couple of days, shattered with regard to a whole host of key social issues: about whether the "neo-liberal agenda" (i.e., the agenda of globalization, freeing up all restrictions on the movement and functioning of capital worldwide) is inevitable, since every big corporation and all of their lobbies and other mouthpieces, every major newspaper and other organs of the mass media, every powerful state, and every multi-state international organization controlled by the most powerful states (e.g., the G7, OECD, EU, NAFTA, and of course, the WTO itself, the IMF and the World Bank) are all pushing this agenda; about the role of the police and other repressive organs of the state vis a vis peaceful protest, the expression of dissent, and "the right to free speech", whether these forces are politically "neutral" ( as bourgeois democracy claims they are) or whether they in fact serve the interests of the rich and powerful before all else; about what if any alternatives there are to the "neo-liberal" agenda; about whether there is a "new movement" militantly opposed to the "neo-liberal" agenda and its assortment of attacks on the rights and conditions of life and work of the poor, the working class, small farmers, indigenous people and poor peasants from "developing" countries; and about what sort of strategy and tactics such a movement would need to be able to decisively confront the whole of the (forces behind) the "neo-liberal" agenda. No wonder the world was shaken!
AN EMBRACE OF A GLOBAL
PERSPECTIVE
For
internationalist revolutionaries, discussions and debates about the
"Battle of Seattle" have largely concerned what significance the protests
have in relation to the class struggle and what if any effects they might have
on the development of class consciousness within the recomposing global
proletariat in this new century. For
me, “the
anti-WTO/anti-globalization movement …is significant because it brings
to the surface changes in class consciousness reflecting more or less the
following line of thought: do we continue to submit as atomized individuals to
the increasingly merciless exploitation and destruction (of both people and the
natural environment) imposed on us by capital and the state, thereby
contributing our own labour and wages to the increasing power of this
state/capital machine; or do we instead stand up and join together on an
international scale in mass collective resistance to this ever more destructive
force? To me, this is a real step forward in consciousness. …While a group such
as the ICC (International Communist Current) will look at Seattle N30 and see
only leftist organizations, trade unions, and (presumably 'petty bourgeois')
students, it can't be denied that of the 50,000+ protesters, a significant
number -- a majority without doubt -- were proletarians, whether or not they
took part under the auspices of a union or leftist organization. If one wanted to, one could argue that such
proletarians were simply duped by their 'leaders', that all the efforts and
costs they went to to participate in the Seattle N30 action were entirely under
the false consciousness of leftist or trade unionist ideology; or, one could instead
recognize that a real 'grassroots' upsurge has burst on the scene and it
possesses a very real potential to move beyond the limits that the leftists and
the unions want to impose on 'the movement'.... Workplace struggles are
isolated, local (to begin with at least, and almost always in the end as well),
and the real forces at work (society wide, if not global forces) are usually
obscure at best. The understanding such
struggles manifest is typically sectoralist and fragmented, rarely if ever
globalized. (And of course the trade unions play an absolutely crucial role in
this process of limitation and retardation of consciousness.) On the other hand, the consciousness on
display in Seattle showed a real maturation, including on a political level;
determinedly away from the local, isolated, separate existence people are
normally subjected to, here was an embrace of a global perspective and the
opening up of the opportunity for an actual global practice. (A popular leftist
slogan goes: 'Think globally, act locally', clearly an attempt to confine
'activism' to the localist ghetto; I think it will become increasingly clear to
capital resisters, especially proletarians, that what we really need to begin doing is acting globally as
one united international force.) Their
globally oriented action and consciousness reflect a real maturation within the
class, a forward movement of class consciousness. Our aim must be to foster and
accelerate this maturation through our interventionary activities.”
I discussed these matters with the CWO (Communist Workers Organisation) and with IP (Internationalist Perspective). In a largely excellent "Declaration on the Seattle/WTO Summit", written before N30, the CWO/IBRP argued that globalization is inherent to capitalism, that it began long before the creation of the WTO, that its frenzied push results from the permanent crisis of capital, that street protests won't prevent it; as well, they characterized and denounced some of the dominant groups protesting and their demands and aims as essentially leftist reformists. They implied, however, that there were no elements of the working class at the protests not under the control or influence of such reformist organizations. Thus, in response to their claim that "protesters include Friends of the Earth and Christian Aid, trades unions, anarchists and left wingers, as well as small farmers and traders from some of the world's poorest countries. Their demands vary from a change in the WTO rules so that there will be 'fair trade for the benefit of all' to getting rid of the WTO all together so that the monstrous gap between rich and poor that capitalism has created over the last twenty years can be reversed", I wrote to them that "In your statement on the confrontations over the WTO Ministerial, you neglected to mention that there were many ordinary proletarians in Seattle on N30-D01 who were not there to demonstrate under union banners or leftist group banners. And that they were demonstrating against the WTO as an organization symbolizing globalizing capital. These proletarians have few if any illusions that abolishing the WTO is the same thing as abolishing capitalism. However, many of them do see the movement to destroy the WTO as an important part -- a first step? -- of the broader, longer-term struggle to resist capital and the state. Many of them believe that if this movement can succeed in abolishing the WTO, that it will represent a positive effort towards resisting global capital's increasing domination and destruction of all life on this planet, as it will both help to foster a much greater awareness amongst the proletariat of the stakes involved at this turn of the century and millennium and that it will help to 'empower' the proletarian masses by showing them that we -- ordinary working, or unemployed, people -- are capable of standing up to capital and the state and stopping in their tracks their programs of ever-greater exploitation and destruction." Since the IBRP statement on Seattle was written before the protests took place, it made no mention of the fact that American longshoremen all along the West Coast shut down every port in solidarity with the protests on N30. Neither did it mention rank and file workers' resistance to the tame AFL-CIO led protest. Thus, I pointed out to them that "several thousand union members in the union parade saw what was really going on and actively broke through the union "security" goon line to join up in active solidarity with the 'radicals'. If this is true, this event in itself represents a significant step forward in workers' class consciousness in North America."(2)
PARTY-FETISHISM
Finally, concerning the question of future resistance to capitalist globalization, I gave the following response to the IBRP: "You write: 'Once the people who produce capitalism's wealth begin to wake up to the fact that there is an alternative to capitalism and that it lies within their grasp....then protests like today will fade into insignificance.' But it is the beginning of this waking up that Seattle N30 represents; but not yet so much that there is an alternative to capitalism, but rather that there is a massive and rapidly growing opposition to capital's increasingly destructive domination of all life on earth and that this opposition is not just confined to this or that sector of the class but is instead generalized throughout the whole class. It is the beginning of a waking up to the fact that we don't have to individualistically submit to capitalist totalitarianism, a waking up to the fact that there is a growing resistance movement emerging which can foster solidarity, awareness, and community in struggle. It is true there are still many confusions in this movement, particularly those concerning bourgeois democracy. And it is also true that at this point in time we are not talking about a class movement, but rather an inter-class one. However, to not see the turning around from a state of apathy and resignation amongst (atleast a segment of) the proletarian youth of North America to one of resistance, solidarity, increasing awareness of the reality of globalizing capitalist domination, and renewed hope for our future -- that we poor proles can have an impact if we act collectively and militantly -- is to miss the significance of what happened in Seattle. It will be the role communists to help demonstrate to increasing numbers of proletarians what is the real alternative to capitalist barbarization."
The
CWO's response to me (to be found in Revolutionary Perspectives #16)
claimed that: "As we don't think
the unions, the ecologists or the Christians have a minimally anti-capitalist
agenda, we plead 'not guilty' to the charge of ignoring the possibility that
there would be proletarians there!"
I must admit that the logic of this argument escapes me. On the question
of future resistance, the CWO argued that: "For us, Seattle, and events
like it, are not where the real class battles will be won and lost. ... If
there were waves of strikes demonstrations like Seattle would turn into
something more - confrontations which lead to threat to the state. This would indeed be a new beginning for the
working class.... For us the overthrow of capitalism will be a conscious act of
the working class. For this the working
class need to be organised politically into a class party."
But the working class is not going to begin - at least not at this point in history - with waves of strikes linked with protests like the ones in Seattle. Such waves of strikes can't come out of thin air, they must originate from real material conditions, both objective and subjective. Insofar as the CWO ignores this reality, they abandon historical materialism in favour of idealism. While on the question of our class needing to be "organised politically into a class party", I replied that " I strongly reject this Leninist conception. For me, for the working class to consciously overthrow capitalism, the class must rather be organised generally into workers' councils. However, I am not a councilist. My position on the role of the revolutionary political organization -- of which there may well be more than one in the revolution -- is in the tradition of the German-Dutch communist left: its function is to provide a global coherence and historical perspective within the councils which permit as much of the class as possible to understand their position within the historical movement towards communism. More generally, the political organization acts as a catalyst or accelerator of the development of the class consciousness of the proletariat. The party only encompasses a small minority of the class, that fraction which elaborates and defends a revolutionary marxist programme. It does not organize the class as a whole. The class as a whole, rather, organizes itself. This is the real meaning of the phrase that "The emancipation of the working class is the task of the working class itself." It is the only way for communism to come about. A minority fraction of the class cannot do it in place of the vast majority. The party represents a compass for the class, and it does so by collectively arguing within the unitary organs of the class (strike committees, councils, etc.) for the class to take a course in its most profound actions which accord with the party's programme. The party's key contribution is the clarity of its programme and theories, and its ability to relate that programme to the various moments of the revolutionary process. Its theories analyze and reveal the existing social conditions the revolutionary movement finds itself in -- conditions constantly changing -- while its programme points out the general course to take. It is up to the vast majority of the class to collectively decide, at every moment in its struggle, what it will collectively do, and then to do it."
OUR VOICE MUST BE HEARD IN
THIS MOVEMENT
My debate with IP was more fruitful. It was sparked primarily by a leaflet I wrote (under the pseudonym "Wage Slave X") and distributed at an open meeting in Vancouver organized by "veterans of the Battle of Seattle" (mostly from the direct action faction) to recount and present their experiences of the protests and to openly discuss what was achieved and what wasn't. The leaflet, entitled "On the Anti-WTO Movement", carelessly characterized the "movement" as a "Popular Front". I went on to claim that "at this early stage this is not at all a 'bad thing'; it is, in fact, given the balance of social forces, necessarily unavoidable." Then, assuming, without argument, that this new movement will develop into something "beyond what it is presently", to become more radical and far-reaching, I predicted that this "front" - between "radicals" and "moderates", between "anti-capitalists" and "pro-capitalists" - will collapse as the radicalization process would increasingly lead to the moderates discrediting themselves before the radicals. With these characterizations and predictions as a basis, I went on to propose that " ... all genuine anti-capitalist tendencies that have been re-energized by what happened in Seattle ought to make their positions, their critiques, their radical proposals for real social change known as widely as possible, and not just 'within the movement'. Until Seattle N30, the very idea of anti-capitalist revolution was widely considered moribund, a dream that was dead. Now, many, many people who had nothing to do with N30 are opening their minds to anti-capitalist ideas. They want to hear about serious alternatives to the increasingly bleak future capital has to offer us. Do we not, as revolutionaries with relatively developed anti-capitalist theories and positions, have -- dare I say it -- a 'duty' to make them as publicly known as possible? And further, shouldn't we, within the movement, try to organize some sort of radical anti-capitalist tendency? Not so as to engage in the typical bourgeois political manoeuvering and intrigue, but rather, so that we can learn as early as possible who our real allies are, and thereby prepare for the future situation alluded to above, when the movement either moves beyond the WTO or else disintegrates."
In response to this text, IP (in the person of Mac Intosh) offered a number of criticisms: "First, the term 'popular front' which you introduce is a dangerous one, freighted with the legacy of Stalinism in the 1930's, and entailing an alliance with 'progressive' (sic) factions of the bourgeoisie. The fact that factions and political organizations of capital were present in Seattle N30 is not the issue; what is, is a term -- popular front -- which entails alliances with certain factions of capital, a strategy that must be repudiated, and which is a class line. In that sense, a popular front would indeed be a `bad thing', though it seems clear to us that that is not what you intend."
" Second, saying that it makes 'perfect sense' for the movement at an early stage to comprise the trade unions and environmentalists (and the leftists too) is fine if it is clear that what is meant is that organizations hostile to the WTO (or to its present composition) will try to limit and divert the movement from becoming anti-capitalist. But that presupposes that a clear line is drawn between those organizations and their objectives and those of the communist movement. The drawing of such a line is not the inevitable outcome of the development of the movement, but rather, at the minimum, requires clarity on the part of revolutionaries at each stage of their intervention. After all, powerful forces which are committed to the system of value production were active in Seattle N30: the unions, which oppose the WTO only because they want a seat at the table, because their vision of order is based on tripartite bodies, which include the state, employers, and the unions, to administer the capitalist system; representatives of capital who oppose globalization, and remain committed to the nation-state as its organizing principle, and who thereby fear and oppose the loss of national sovereignty (the far right in the US, protectionists, etc.) or who resent American domination of global capital (the far right in Europe, for example); and leftists, who remain committed to a different -- neo-Stalinist -- model for the organization of capital. While these latter two are not the dominant factions of capital in any country, they may gain popular support and power in the face of an open economic crisis. In addition, some libertarians, anarchists, those in Europe designated as 'autonomes,' for whom destruction of private property and the symbols of capitalism, are the goal, for whom confrontation for confrontation's sake is the objective, for whom that kind of action is the sole meaning of a 'carnival of resistance,' while they express a rage against capital, have no perspective for its abolition, and can even play a role in diverting the movement from the task of posing an alternative to its reign."
Mac Intosh went on to argue: "Indeed, it is possible to conceive of several outcomes for the anti-WTO movement besides the process of radicalization that you point to. One would be a modification of the organization of the WTO, such that the unions and environmentalists would participate in its governing body. That seems to be the clear objective of the AFL-CIO, and the Sierra Club, for example, and even has the covert support of the Clinton administration and the Democratic Party. Another, would be the dismantling of the WTO, or withdrawal from it, which is the goal of the far right and protectionist factions of capital in the industrialized countries. A third outcome is the radicalization to which you point, in which the movement goes beyond an anti-WTO movement to become a mass struggle against capitalism. That outcome will not result from a popular front with the capitalist factions of the anti-WTO movement. Indeed, such an outcome seems to depend on clearly drawing the class line in all our interventions, and also politically separating ourselves from the anarchists, whose actions lack any perspective for the abolition of value production."
My
response to these criticisms was as follows:
"I do indeed realize that the term 'popular front' is a dangerous
one. I agree that anti-frontism is a class line for revolutionaries and the
proletariat. My usage of the term was casual and regrettably careless,
perhaps contributing more confusion than clarity to the discussions occurring
inside of the anti-WTO movement. What I meant was simply to indicate the
extraordinary diversity of the groups that make up this 'movement', with the
added suggestion that this 'front' is composed of both 'moderates' and
'radicals', 'reformists' and 'revolutionaries'. This 'front' is of interest
because the mobilization in Seattle brought together 'radical anti-capitalists'
and 'moderates' (e.g., the AFL-CIO, the Sierra Club, etc.) in their shared
opposition to the WTO. Yet the fact is these two different currents really had
virtually nothing to do with each other either before or at Seattle N30. (They
were not part of one big 'coalition', which is the least that a 'popular front'
would entail.) Both currents -- which, separately, could each be described as a very loose 'coalition', one
'moderate', the other 'radical' -- simply mobilized their forces to be there
and to protest in their own different ways.
In fact, there were really two different protests in Seattle on N30: the peaceful, orderly, legal march
and rally led by the AFL-CIO, and containing all the 'moderate'
environmentalist, religious, etc. groups; and the other one by the militant
radicals, via the Direct Action Network (a loose, temporary coalition), which actually shut down the WTO
on N30 (and was obviously illegal), and thus provoked the state's repressive
response. (The actions of the few dozen 'anarchist trashers' provoked no such
response; rather, they provided the excuse, the legitimation or
rationalization, post hoc , of the state's response, by the organs of the mass
media, for all those 'citizens' who weren't there and don't know any
better.) While the two protests were
spatially contiguous, they each began and ended several hours apart, and the
forces of state repression repressed only the 'radical' one. Although many new
alliances were developed amongst many different organizations, there was/is no
single alliance or coalition comprising both 'radical' groups and 'moderate'
ones."
I
felt it necessary to point out that "I am fully aware that '... a mass
struggle against capitalism ... will not result from a popular front with
capitalist factions of the anti-WTO movement.'
I had hoped it was clear that I was trying to orient 'radical anti-capitalists'
within the movement away from alliances
with capitalist factions and towards
alliance (or at least co-operation and discussion) with other
anti-capitalist or revolutionary elements.” In my view, the political
perspective to which I adhere 'belongs' in some way or some sense within the
radical current of the 'movement'. I believe my perspective's voice should be
heard within the movement. I believe
this because I feel strongly that, if not yet then eventually, this voice will
be seriously considered and respected within the radical current as, in some
sense, 'belonging' there. At the same time, I realize that eventually, down the
road, an internationalist communist perspective will find itself opposed to
pretty much all other tendencies, within (even) the radical current.”
In response to Mac Intosh's suggestion that I was minimizing the danger and threat of the pro-capitalist factions within the "movement", while overemphasizing the tendencies towards radicalization, I wrote: "Of course, all of the 'moderate', 'reformist' leftists are going to be there at the head of this 'new movement'. How could it be otherwise? And of course they are attempting to totally dominate the movement and to ensure that it stays within the bounds of bourgeois order and respect for authority. I do not believe I underestimate their abilities to recuperate the movement, to make it safe for capital and the state. However, in my view, there is a very strong tendency within the movement (especially amongst the the younger participants) to move beyond the bounds the leftist recuperators aim to impose on it. For example, as far as I am aware, there are few illusions among the radicals that it will be possible to 'radicalize' the unions. In my view, as the movement develops, regardless of what is 'accomplished' (in terms of changing society, i.e., forcing the state/capital complex to scale back or discard its most ambitious projects), the leftist recuperators will be increasingly seen by 'movement participants' as reactionaries devoted to state capitalist order and therefore against any really significant social change. (Of course, intervention by revolutionaries will greatly facilitate this tendency.) To a certain extent, this has already begun to occur: the most reactionary of the leftists have already exposed themselves as such by publicly denouncing the 'anarchist criminals'. (New 'enemies' have been made as a result, complementing the many new 'allies'.)"
IS THERE CLASS STRUGGLE
OUTSIDE THE WORKPLACE?
Some
of the most important parts of this debate concerned the forms and terrain of
the class struggle in this new era of restructuring capital and a recomposing
working class. "Mac Intosh wrote: '... the radicalization of the
movement to which we are dedicated cannot occur within the anti-WTO movement
itself, even with a clear political perspective, but will be dependent on the
development of the class struggle at the workplace(s).' But does the class
struggle only exist within the workplace(s) or must it always originate from
there? What about the unemployed and other sections of the proletariat which
have no connection to any workplace(s)? There must be a social space outside of
the workplace(s) where a mass class struggle between the proletariat and the
ruling class can take place. There must be a means whereby the proletariat can
come together regardless of workplace or any other form of division and
separation to fight as one unified class against the state/capital complex."
"We
internationalist (left) communists speak of -- and have spoken of for 90 years
with Luxemburg and Pannekoek -- the need for MASS ACTION against capital and
the state. Well, here, in Seattle on N30, we had a case of mass action, a large
part of it -- the key part -- self-organized (by proletarians and students)
which effectively accomplished something; which is something we haven't seen in
North America for I don't know how many years. Of course, the political mass
(or general) strike is for us the class' ultimate weapon, its ultimate form of
struggle against the state/capital complex. But aren't there other, 'lesser'
forms of mass action against the s/c complex which fall short of the general
strike? Forms such as just what we saw in Seattle? Of course, a key problem is
that anyone , proletarian, lumpen, peasant, petty bourgeois, or even ruling
class member, can take part in such actions -- and without any doubt, members
of all of these classes and strata did participate in the protests in Seattle.
At this early stage, the struggle is still on 'the terrain of capital'. Yet,
how could it be otherwise? The question is: which direction does the struggle
(or 'movement') take? ... further onto the terrain of capital or ...
increasingly off that terrain and onto the terrain of the world
proletariat? And here the question
arises: what form/content of collective action beyond workplace based job action is on the proletariat's terrain?”
"For
us revolutionary marxists, the class struggle emanates from the workplace(s),
from the point of production and exploitation, but the workplaces are separate
and divided. At the same time, for us,
the class struggle, to reach a successful conclusion, must generalize across
all divisions and separations, including national boundaries, to unify in one
global struggle against global capital and all of the ruling capitalist classes
and states. Workplace struggles
typically arise out of the conditions specific to those workplaces, thus making
generalization very difficult, especially in this period when the state has
developed sophisticated techniques for dividing the proletariat and
sequestering and sterilizing those workplace struggles which do break out. On
the other hand, the anti-WTO/anti-globalization movement is already a
generalized global movement (implicitly or potentially) confronting global capital. Granted, it is not at this time a
proletarian movement; it is a movement that is presently operating on the
terrain of capital. But there are many
globally aware proletarians within the 'movement' who see what the ruling class
is up to with the WTO, who recognize the agenda, and do not want to wait,
isolated in their own (individual or group) specificity, for the harsh attacks
on us all they see coming. They possess
a militant will to fight the agenda and project of the 'globalizers' NOW with
as many other 'globalization-resisters' as possible on as broad a
(geographical/global) scale as possible, as one united force; to begin the
struggle of mass collective resistance before it's too late. We know that in the course of this struggle
they are going to find themselves in the company of a number of reactionary
forces, groups from other classes, and of course the trade union and leftist
organizations, all of which will try to attain ideological hegemony within the
'movement'. We must try to grasp what potential
(if any) for the development of proletarian class consciousness is
contained in this movement."
A later contribution by Mac Intosh made some important points about transformations in the very nature of the "point of production" and their consequences for struggles based there. "struggle at the point of production will erupt onto the streets and public space; that is a condition for revolution. However, without its base at the point of production, the battle in the streets has no real perspective, no class basis. What was lacking in Seattle was precisely that element. That raises another point: in capitalism at the beginning of the 21st century, the very meaning of the term "point of production" has undergone a profound change. The age of Fordism, with its concentrations of blue collar workers in vast factories as the cutting edge of capitalist production is over. In a certain sense, 1968, and the struggles of the 1970's were its last gasp. Both to avoid the danger of such proletarian concentrations, and because of fundamental changes in technology and the organic composition of capital, with their requirement that surplus value now be extracted from a 'collective laborer,' capital has transformed the point of production. This latter is not confined to a discrete geographical space (the factory, mill, or mine) so much as to a global network and a cyberspace. This has also resulted in a recomposition of the working class. All those changes have themselves transformed the conditions, though not the necessity, for the development of class consciousness."
A PERSPECTIVE FOR
RADICALISATION
In a
later contribution to the debate, I tried to flesh out what potential for such
development of class consciousness I then saw in the anti-globalization
movement. "What I see are tendencies and potentialities, possibilities.
What I do not see is the anti-globalization movement as a whole transforming
itself into the revolutionary proletarian movement. What I see is a fraction of
the existing movement radicalizing itself increasingly, especially in the face
of the increasing timidity of the 'moderate' (i.e., openly pro-capitalist)
factions. If such a tendency is able to develop the rudiments of a
revolutionary coherence (and by this I do not mean anything resembling a full-fledged
revolutionary coherence, but rather, a tendency towards coherence), and,
if it is able to develop any kind of momentum, then ... what? I must admit, I'm
not sure. I never did entertain any fantasy about such a movement being of
anywhere near the importance of a mass strike movement. At best, it would be
some kind of auxiliary to, or agitation-propaganda platform for, a mass
political strike movement. It would confront and contest the operation of the
major international institutions representing -- and, as institutions, merely
symbolizing -- global capital, pushing for a generalized, global, proletarian
assault on all of the organizations of capital. In this way, it could, perhaps,
play a significant and positive role in the development of revolutionary
consciousness; but only if it is able to link itself to an international
generalizing workplace-based struggle/movement. Perhaps such a scenario is not
possible in this period. Perhaps any such movement is bound to disintegrate or
decompose in the face of the state-capitalist monolith. Perhaps the most that
such a tendency could give rise to -- as a result of the impossibility of
permanent proletarian struggle under the real domination of capital -- is new
elements forming new discussion groups, and some of them, consequently,
entering the international revolutionary milieu of political organizations. I'm
not sure. Perhaps such a tendency could do no more then reflect the deepening
and extension of revolutionary consciousness in the proletariat, especially its
tendency towards global unity. (For me, this would still be a significant and
positive development, insofar as this 'subterranean maturation' would otherwise
not be reflected in anything on the surface of social reality.) However, I am
presently inclined to believe that it could do more than this, that it could
have a positive influence on the development of revolutionary class
consciousness, even if it also contained a few less than revolutionary aspects
(i.e., aspects infected by capitalist ideology). Perhaps acting as a magnet,
attracting proletarian elements discontented with the state-capitalist order,
regrouping them (though not necessarily, and in fact, most likely not, in a
single organization) in a militant movement confronting the dominant
institutional forms of global capital, <against capitalism> and <for
an alternative society>, it seems to me atleast possible that it could
foster a deepening and an extension of class consciousness. At the same time, I
have no illusions that such a state of affairs could last indefinitely. Most
likely it would end up recuperated by radical leftism, but before that it could
have a positive effect on the class and its struggle, it could point the way --
roughly and not without confusions, but nonetheless a signpost -- towards total
global confrontation by the world proletariat with/against global capital and
all its ruling classes. The leftist recuperation would thus be a major step
backwards, but, if it is accompanied by a loud and relatively coherent split,
refusing to be co-opted by leftism, real lessons could be learned and a
corresponding development of consciousness (atleast for this minority fraction
of the class, but probably also for many others not directly involved) could
take place. All of this is of course very much a matter of looking into the
mists of the future. And looked at soberly, it doesn't seem very likely.
Perhaps other scenarios are more likely. But I refuse to reject the possibility
that something coming out of this movement -- regardless of how small a
fraction of the movement it represents -- could act as a spark, a sort of wake
up call, to the class in general, to start confronting the really big questions
facing us all."
Of course, the real problem with this scenario becoming an actuality is that since the struggle -- insofar as it is isolated from struggle at the point of production -- does not take place unequivocally on the terrain of the proletariat, the ideological forces of the real domination of decadent capital ensure that any factors or elements conducive to the development of working class consciousness are effectively suppressed. Thus the question comes down to whether or not a fraction of the "movement" is able to separate itself from all pro-capitalist factions, to develop a tendency towards a proletarian praxis, and, most importantly, to unite with an international, generalizing workplace-based struggle. On this, I think, there is agreement between IP and myself. One question that remains open, however, is whether or not IP's insistence that a revolutionary, anti-capitalist praxis can only emerge from the collective worker at the point of production neglects or (inaccurately) denies the potential for the development of proletarian consciousness by the unemployed and other segments of the class apart from the workplaces. Hopefully, further contributions to the debate within the milieu will address this question.
Wage Slave
X
June
2000
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FOOTNOTES
(1)Loren Goldner, “Seattle: the
first U.S. riot against ‘Globalization’?”, in The Bad Days Will End, #1,
and in Discussion Bulletin, #100.
(2) On this point, Goldner in his text is dead wrong when he writes that “throughout, the trade union bureaucracy remained firmly in control of the worker contingents (determined, and successful, in their plan to have nothing but a peaceful, disciplined, unthreatening march independent of, if not indifferent to, the ‘crazies’ of the direct action groups), and few if any workers seriously challenged that control.”