Correspondence
Dear Subversion,
The writer of the article 'Bambi Lib' in Subversion 16 says that vegetarians should 'stop bothering ordinary working class people who eat meat in the here and now'.
It's true that many vegetarians adopt a moralistic preaching tone in their propaganda but a far more important issue here is the mass of scientific evidence from all over the world of the disastrous medical effects of the average 'western' diet containing vast quantities of saturated fat-laden so-called meat.
... Bear in mind that the ruling class generally regards working class (or even middle-class) human beings as farm animals to be exploited when possible and disposed of when not and it's not surprising that they and their media should remain silent about the harmful side-effects of flesh gobbling even though the evidence has been available in some cases for decades.
... It is surprising that professed revolutionaries like the 'Bambi Lib' writer should think that this issue has nothing to do with class interest, class solidarity and class struggle.
... As for socialism, which I take to be a more or less egalitarian society, the main obstacle to its achievement is the perceived interests of of the majority of the developed world's population (who are definitely middle-class by world standards) in the continuation of capitalism which among other things gives them meat every day if they want it. So any efforts to convince them that at least one of the 'benefits' of capitalism is very much the reverse just might hasten the revolution a little.
Yours etc.
J. W.
Subversion Reply:
Dear Comrade,
Sorry about the delay in replying to your letter.
We quite take your point about the unhealthy nature of the food capitalism offers up to us - like everything else in capitalism, it's not there to do US any favours. The point about the article in Subversion that you refer to is that it was dealing with the Animal Rightist argument that berates the workers for not rising above the conditions that life under capitalism imposes on us, and striving individually for "purity". In other words we were attacking the anti-worker arguments of many animal rightists, rather than the anti-capitalist argument that you were putting forward in your letter.
While there are of course steps that can be taken in daily life to try to ameliorate some of the effects of life under capitalism, like trying to eat a bit more healthily, we have always taken the view that substantial change is only likely to result from a fundamental challenge to capitalism itself, and that comes from the radicalisation that will accompany a large scale upsurge in class struggle. We believe that our efforts are most fruitfully used when directed towards that goal - the goal of communist revolution.
As for your final point, we strongly disagree that most people in the developed world are middle class by world standards. Class is not a matter of level of income/living standard but of the relationship of people to the production process. If one group of workers (for instance in the developed world) are given a bigger portion of crumbs from the capitalists' table, they are still working class and still exploited, and the capitalists will always have a need to squeeze more profits out of them, to attack them in various ways. This means that the objective basis for class unity on a world scale permanently exists.
As to educating the "better-off" workers as to the unsavouriness of capitalism's commodities (whether meat or whatever) we are not at all against this but we think the "education" of class struggle is a million times more potent and so, as we said above, we concentrate our modest efforts in that direction.
We hope this clarifies our views somewhat, but don't hesitate to write again if you want to.
Yours etc.
SUBVERSION
********AGAINST NICENESS*********
This is a response to the two articles that appeared in the last SUBVERSION (16). It is written by another SUBVERSION member.
Firstly, I agree with both the previous articles, what I want to examine further is the notion that large sections of the working class must become more compassionate, caring, selfless and generally nice before there is a hope of us being able to embark on a successful global insurrection against class society.
A lot of "revolutionaries" in the working class argue that unless we challenge (and win against) "unacceptable" behaviour in our class now we won't have the "revolution" we want and nothing will be solved. The cry is: "The 'revolution' won't solve everything at once, as if by magic".
The "revolutionaries" who say this sort of thing reveal the poverty of their notion of what the overthrow of class society means also they expose their lack of understanding of the class struggle and their fear of a working class that gets out of control.
For us at Subversion the revolution, the class war, won't be over until the last vestiges of trade, exchange, slavery and all exploitation of humankind is extinguished. When we all live for ourselves, and not for work, or for others, in one amazing, diverse and brilliant global human community then we will have achieved freedom.
So, those who think that the "revolution" won't create a world human community must think of revolution in terms of a coup d'etat, a simple change of the people who run the State. Maybe they think that there was a real revolution in Nicaragua, Zimbabwe, China, or that the Russian Revolution basically succeeded but went a bit wrong later. If these people are aiming for this sort of revolution (with maybe a few added nicenesses, like "equality" for women) then they should, of course, sign their brain away to the leaders and hopeful future tyrants of groups like the Socialist Workers Party.
Secondly, it is a misunderstanding of what class struggle really is that leads people to dismiss it as "not enough". Class struggle is the continual fight between the owners of this planet (the bourgeoisie) and the dispossessed, the workers. They try to control and exploit us as best they can and we try to avoid control and exploitation as much as we can. Obviously, for most of the time we haven't done very well, however our bosses are shit-scared of us, and even if many of us don't know it now, when capitalists and the friends of capitalism look at the working class they know they are beholding their future executioners. Now, the working class engages in class struggle because it sees a way of making its life more tolerable (this may be by defending existing, or getting more, material comforts and/or it may be as a way of getting their own back against all our bosses and wise sages) - this struggle holds the germ of revolutionary action because the only way we can hope to even maintain tolerable living conditions is by removing the bosses and the system (the economy) that exploits us. More than this, as our consciousness of class and capitalism is raised through the war we wage on our bosses and their friends it becomes easy to see that if we eradicated class society entirely, if we abolished money and exchange and our lives were driven by our desires and needs instead of by profit and control, then our lives would be far better than merely tolerable. In fact, in a revolutionary situation it becomes obvious that the only way we can actually survive is by going the whole way to communism, otherwise we'll be exterminated.
This class struggle goes on whether revolutionaries are around or not, workers do not need to be condescendingly led into struggle by messianic politicos. In fact, they are not led into struggle by these types, invariably it is the swell-heads of so-called "revolutionary politics" who tag on the end of events desperately trying to catch up in order to take charge. The task of revolutionaries is to examine struggle and changing conditions and to participate in class struggle in order to warn of false friends and blind alleys and to push the struggle ever further by inspiration and deed. We must also, of course, try to attract as many disgruntled proletarians to revolutionary views as possible, so that when things start happening there are enough of us around to help prevent our class slipping back into defeat or into the jaws of manipulators and other scumbags. This does not mean attempting to create a mass movement - this is impossible because a mass movement can only come into being in a revolutionary event - it simply means getting enough individuals and groups of revolutionaries around the world so that we can make a difference. Revolutionaries did not invent class struggle and will not make the revolution, but their role in explaining what is happening or what will happen is important during the course of daily class struggle and vital during a revolutionary event.
The decryers and doubters of the actuality and potential of class struggle have failed to understand what the real motivations of the working class are (i.e. class struggle) and instead of acting on this knowledge they hope to change workers under capitalism through an ideology of niceness. They want workers to become, for example, non-sexist, non-racist, non-meat-eating, and generally polite. They fear that if a revolution came and large swathes of the population weren't polite and lovely then the masses would form into hysterical bands of blood thirsty louts who ate babies and raped sheep. This sort of thinking is indicative of tyrants on both the left and right wings of capitalism. It is based on morbid fantasies about "human nature". The only way a revolution will occur is through an escalation of class struggle, when workers in struggle find their common interests and identify their enemies and make the leap from defending their living conditions to attacking without mercy the source of their misery. It is only through struggle that workers will unite as equals - because it makes their fight more effective, not because they have suddenly become "politically correct".
Anyone who thinks that it is possible for the working class to unite as equals in a sea of niceness before we have started to smash capitalism is just pissing in the wind. And worse, these ideologues of niceness will act as a brake on revolutionary impetus because essentially they despise and fear the working class and think we need to be kept under control. At best they don't understand what class struggle is and at worst they are tyrannical scum who will prove that they are the friends of capitalism rather than of humanity.
We can't make life appreciably better for the worlds proletariat under capitalism, we can only improve our lot by embarking on the struggle against the bosses and their world economy and eventually destroying class society completely. If we don't attack the source of our misery not only will we fail to change anything but they will kill us anyway.
For this reason the debate about animals is irrelevant unless we can show that being nice to animals under capitalism is utterly unimportant to the nature of class struggle and the task of freeing this planet from the stranglehold of our bosses and their friends. Already, parts of the bourgeoisie are defending animals and the environment because they can see a profit in it. With all this niceness around, people defending animals, local government recycling old rubbish, equal opportunities as law, roads protesters, ecological campaigners in every walk of life, health food shops everywhere, and people like David Bellamy and Alan Clark around I reckon I should be well on the way to achieving a state of complete nirvana! But sadly I'm not. None of this has done anything to change my miserable life as a wage slave or given me any more control over my existence, and it hasn't done anything for the rest of my class either.
Some people look to the animal rights protesters and admire their courage and the fact that they are fighting one aspect of business and the even the cops - but frankly, so what? working class fascists fight the cops too, should we admire them as well? If we are going to be uncritical of any one or group that fights an aspect of authority then we may as well stay in bed with our wet dreams and posters of Nelson Mandela. How soon will it be before English lefties and anarchists start supporting the Orange Men of Northern Ireland, with their heroic slogan: "No Surrender!"???
But to return to the original argument: if you think it is more feasible to make everyone nice to each other, and everything, than it is to destroy capitalism and class society then you may as well join the Christian Church - and see how far that gets you!!
AGAINST THE TYRANNY OF NICENESS!
FOR PROLETARIAN UNCONTROLLABILITY!
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