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ICC meeting: international revival of workers' struggles

Thora said:
Tbf, surely your job is the main criteria for assessing your class position :confused:

I was told on another class thread here that my simplistic analysis of class based on job was wrong and that background is just as important!
 
bluestreak said:
I was told on another class thread here that my simplistic analysis of class based on job was wrong and that background is just as important!
Yet again urban fails the political consistency test! :mad:
 
Yaaaawn.

Who cares??? No wonder I gave up on anarchism, if it's full of people who have nothing better to do than slag each other off on Internet forums... :rolleyes:
 
Thora said:
Tbf, surely your job is the main criteria for assessing your class position :confused:

Says you, "surely". Not me, for sure.

That's one of the reasons, perhaps, why I don't as a rule join groups or parties.

Anyway, since when did the holding of beliefs (ideas) become class-dependent?

We won't settle it on here and it's not the first time I've been told my liveliehood and political beliefs were/are incongruous. **shrugs**

I believe what I believe. It was my upbringing which informed my early political consciousness.
 
No. It isn't a contradiction. Find me someone who has similar beliefs as mine and show me how they live outside of Kapitalism and I'll show you a miracle. Or a liar.

I know that, unless you live in a non-capitalist society such as Korea or Cuba then all people live within the capitalist system, in so far as they live, work and function within it.

Even what counts as the working class in Marxist terms has to buy food, rent housing and work for firms that operate according to the concept of private control over the means of production for profit.

I'm not a Marxist, a anarchist or a socialist of any sort, as you would know if you have read my other posts on U75. But if we use Marxist or anarchist-communist terminology, there is a difference between the classes of worker (proletarian) and those who have control over the means of production (bourgeois).

You clearly fall into the latter category, you don't just eanr a living by 'selling your labour' but you have actual control over the services your firm offers and you have the right and power to hire and fire those who work for you, which in Marxist/anarchist terms is the key to how capitalists use their power to 'oppress' the working class.

I myself don't follow this view of the world, but since you hold those beliefs, I'll play devils advocate and use them for me to make my point.

What I do for a living is, mostly, irrelevant to my ideas and beliefs.

Personally I can agree to that, but ideologies that oppose capitalism use economics as the measure of society and both Marxists and anarchists would argue that your class determines what side your on, "being determines consciousness" as Karl Marx put it.

Of course there can always be quirks and exceptions, like Engles and his ownership of a textile factory, but as a whole, class is the deciding factor for the far left in who is on what side of the 'class war/conflict'.

I come from a large housing scheme (council estate) on the southside of Glasgow, lived on an even larger estate in a major southern [English] seaport. My mum pulled pints for a living. My dad was a sailor and then a publican. Am I 'bourgeois'? Am I defined by my roots?

According to the ideology you yourself support, a person's class is not determined by what their parents did or the conditions they were brought up in, but what role they have when they work, in relation to the means of production (who has to sell their labour to survive and who controls the means of production and services).

Richard Branson and John Major both came from and grew up in poor working class backgrounds, yet they through their working life went to the top.

Or is your sole criteria for suggesting I'm 'bourgeois' based on my job? Odd.

Look, I'm am not personally having a go at you or anything, I don't personally know you so I am not to judge.

I also personally have nothing against you based on your job, that would be stupid. Like I said, I'm no left winger so for me there is no problem with what you do for a living.

I am just genuinely curious as to your career and how they fit in with your beliefs. The only reason I am curious is simply because both anarchism and Marxism have very narrow and defined views of humans, much like fascist and nationalist ideologies, they don't see humans or judge them as individuals and look at each person and value him/her according to their own merit or what they have done in life, but simply lump whole groups of people into categories and base them and judge them according to their category. For the far left it is class and the far right it is race, religion or a persons sexual orientation, the category may vary, but the same ideal is implied that humans are not beings in their own right but merely a digit in a much larger group.

All I am saying is that you support a ideology that lumps you as the 'enemy' so to speak, how is it that you deal with that or even go along with it. Again I don't mean to judge, just generally curious.

Also on a last note, given your 'class' background and that of your family and how you have since done well for yourself and how you are now a company director, does that and your own personal experience of that not actually sway you to the idea that people can do well for themselves if they try and work at it. A good example of social mobility is it not?

Just asking as you said your experiences as a young guy when things were not so good, molded your political beliefs and I am curious to know if your success now may have in any way convinced you otherwise?
 
Blimey.

I appreciate you putting so much in to that post. And as such, it deserves a considered response, rather than my usual stock of knee-jerk replies. :D

[Sometimes it does to turn Marx and Hegel and dialectical materialism on their head (being/consciousness and what determines what)]

Good post. I shall cogitate and try and respond succinctly (no chance!).
 
lightsoutlondon said:
I believe what I believe. It was my upbringing which informed my early political consciousness.


Yes. And it's your current position which influences your embrace of the free market. Not exactly brain surgery to work that one out!
 
Random said:
Yes. And it's your current position which influences your embrace of the free market. Not exactly brain surgery to work that one out!

Erm. Even if what you had written had an element of truth to it, you've got it the wrong way round, surely?

Don't call you surely. Bomm-tish.
 
bluestreak said:
I was told on another class thread here that my simplistic analysis of class based on job was wrong and that background is just as important!
They're both important, but Alan Sugar is defo not working class.

Anyway, my dad was a binman and my mum was the 3rd Earl of Northumberland, so what does that make me eh :mad:
 
The icc :eek: fascinating aren't they ! It's almost a rite of passage for some anarchos having that hardline left commie phase, before growing out it and becoming a bit more sensible.
This is a group that has a theory, but no practice, other than standing outside/leeching of off other peoples meetings ect, they are big on telling others the shortcomings of their politics, but never for one moment stop to consider their own.
Lessons are something they give, not receive, you never get any sense that maybe they could learn something from others, icc politics are a fully formed closed loop, impervious to any real criticism.
Can you imagine the icc actually talking to real workers ? what a horror show that would be. Can you imagine them actually getting involved in any real struggles ? or an actual revolution ! How can this group really get involved with anything, when it's entire history to date, has been standing outside, and on the edge of everything, how could it ever change that mindset ?
Nothing that was ever likely to happen, would live up to their pre conceived ideas or expectations, because the trouble with political activity and especially with revolutions, is that they tend to be a messy affairs, that do not move along clean straight lines, and the people involved are likely to be full of contradictions.
What to do under those circumstances ? throw yourselves into it body and soul despite of any problems, or stand on the sidelines and criticise, because that's what they would be doing in the seemingly unlikely event of any revolution or serious upturn of class struggle actually occurring.
Here you have a group of intelligent and very knowledgeable people, who have rendered themselves politically impotent, due to their narrow, inflexible, dogmatic, and one dimensional take on everything. Sad really, because if you pick through the mad sectarianism of their paper and it's obscure disputes with perceived enemies, then occasionally they might have an interesting point to make.
 
About 18 months ago I recall that a lot of Libcom people were obsessed with the ICC (from a friend who used to rant about the quality of "debate" on there).

It took me a while to realise they weren't talking about the International Criminal Court, such is the relevence of the International Communist Current to the world around it.
 
Zhelezniakov said:
The icc :eek: fascinating aren't they ! It's almost a rite of passage for some anarchos having that hardline left commie phase, before growing out it and becoming a bit more sensible.
This is a group that has a theory, but no practice, other than standing outside/leeching of off other peoples meetings ect, they are big on telling others the shortcomings of their politics, but never for one moment stop to consider their own.
Lessons are something they give, not receive, you never get any sense that maybe they could learn something from others, icc politics are a fully formed closed loop, impervious to any real criticism.
Can you imagine the icc actually talking to real workers ? what a horror show that would be. Can you imagine them actually getting involved in any real struggles ? or an actual revolution ! How can this group really get involved with anything, when it's entire history to date, has been standing outside, and on the edge of everything, how could it ever change that mindset ?
Nothing that was ever likely to happen, would live up to their pre conceived ideas or expectations, because the trouble with political activity and especially with revolutions, is that they tend to be a messy affairs, that do not move along clean straight lines, and the people involved are likely to be full of contradictions.
What to do under those circumstances ? throw yourselves into it body and soul despite of any problems, or stand on the sidelines and criticise, because that's what they would be doing in the seemingly unlikely event of any revolution or serious upturn of class struggle actually occurring.
Here you have a group of intelligent and very knowledgeable people, who have rendered themselves politically impotent, due to their narrow, inflexible, dogmatic, and one dimensional take on everything. Sad really, because if you pick through the mad sectarianism of their paper and it's obscure disputes with perceived enemies, then occasionally they might have an interesting point to make.

Very good, I agree with it word for word, except that I do not think they have anything interesting to say at all. Btw i could be biased in that they came to a meeting of ours and proceeded to tell us what 'we' think, in short they lied about us built upon those preconceived notions you talked about. They pissed me off so much I offered them to go outside:eek: :cool: (early 1990s!).:D I do not like that sort of 'know it all politics' which is neo Leninist in practice ('we know', 'the proles don't').
 
urbanrevolt said:
At least Class War had a publication 'victory to the hit squads' during the miners' strike- that at least endeared me to them

On the other hand they always seemed small and with no real method to get bigger but then what do I know being in a group of less than 50!
So size DOES matter! :p
 
Attica said:
Very good, I agree with it word for word, except that I do not think they have anything interesting to say at all. Btw i could be biased in that they came to a meeting of ours and proceeded to tell us what 'we' think, in short they lied about us built upon those preconceived notions you talked about. They pissed me off so much I offered them to go outside:eek: :cool: (early 1990s!).:D I do not like that sort of 'know it all politics' which is neo Leninist in practice ('we know', 'the proles don't').
Is this the royal 'We'?
 
I've only met one of the ICC in person, he's a posty from Birkenhead, pretty sorted workplace millitant who, I should imagine, spends an awful lot of time "actually talking to workers" (such a terrible chore, isn't it?), unless he spends his breaks sitting in total silence in the corner.

I have my problems with the ICC, their Leninism and their tendancy towards hyperbole being a big part of that, but there are a lot of rediculous preconceptions people have about them, based on no knowledge whatsoever.
 
Postman Pat and his Black & White Dogma?

In Bloom said:
...he's a posty from Birkenhead, pretty sorted workplace millitant...

I should hope so. They're good at sorting at the Post Office.

And even ICCers can't spend all their time talking about the decadence of capitalism and the counter-revolutionary role of trade unions.
 
In Bloom: you are quite right to point out that we don't 'recruit' in the SWP sense where membership cards are handed out the moment you turn up at one of their meetings. We want people to join us, but only after a thorough discussion of and agreement with our political positions and practise.

Serious or not, I will answer your question about class struggle and decadence. In itself, the existence of the class struggle doesn't prove that the system is 'decadent' (ie, in historical decline or crisis) since it has existed from the very beginning of the system. On the other hand, in decadence the old methods of struggle are no longer effective: the system does not have a rosy future and can't offer a perspective of steadily improving living standards, so that workers' struggles tend to assume a massive and revolutionary character. The clearest proof of this were the revolutionary struggles of 1917-23. The old reformist methods and organisations (unions, social democracy) were shown to be completely useless for the revolution - in fact they were directly opposed to it. Nearly a hundred years later we're still in the same fundamental situation: the offical 'labour' organisations are a barrier to the class struggle and we are faced with the choice between socialism and barbarism. Today's struggles are a long way from being openly revolutionary but they do show that the class struggle is not dead (as the ruling class tells us) and that there is still a possibility of averting the slide into total barbarism.
 
This thread went OT some time ago so I might as well carry on:

I know to stop taking someone's politics seriously when they use the phrase 'the revolution' without any apparent irony. There have been and will be many kinds of revolutions with many different goals and competing interests. 'The revolution' implies that there's a right and proper kind of revolution, often considered predictable in some sense, that will finally pave the way to the rule of the people (or the righteous, if you're in the SWP). It signals a complete failure to understand the complexities of both history and power.

'A revolution' I can just about stomach, though personally I rarely agree with the people who use it.
'The revolution' = bunch of jokers with ridiculously simplified view of the world.

As you were.
 
You're obviously not a stupid lad but you don't half write some fucking stupid things on these boards.
 
Sorry I was going to edit that because it was unnecessarily harsh but then I saw you were reading this forum so it seemed pointless. In all seriousness though, inferring a detailed and fully articulated historicism from the use of the definite article is really rather silly. Don’t get me wrong, the kind of dogmatic historicism you’re attacking is a worthwhile object of critique however the fact that you can’t conceive of someone talking seriously about the revolution without them assenting to this thesis says more about you than them.

The phrase "I know to stop taking someone's politics seriously" really irritated me. The perpetuation of rational discourse is utterly dependent on people actually engaging (seriously) with what others say. One of the most pernicious features of a dogmatic historicism is the rational disengagement it licenses. It’s something to be avoided wherever possible and if you’re going to do it (while simultaneously attacking the dogmatism and simplicity of others) you really need to have a good basis for it.
 
Well, as for the disengagement you're talking about, once you've argued with your first hundred dogmatic revolutionary types you kind of lose the energy to argue with the next hundred you meet. Or I do. And maybe I shouldn't, but there we go - Heads+brick walls = headaches in my experience.

As for what range of politics the use of 'the' implies - I don't just disagree with the historicists you're referring to - I disagree strongly with anyone who thinks that a single cataclysmic political upheaval will create the kind of society they'd like to see.

And in my experience people who have a more nuanced view of what 'revolution' could achieve simply don't use the term 'the revolution' - because being nuanced thinkers they are aware of the inflexibility of vision it implies.

Perhaps your experience of people's use of the term is different though - I'm a relativist so I reckon we can both be right ;) :p
 
Alfredo said:
the system does not have a rosy future and can't offer a perspective of steadily improving living standards, so that workers' struggles tend to assume a massive and revolutionary character.

Apologies, I know this was written with IB in mind, but -

I largely agree with what you've written, except for the bit I've highlighted. I either don't understand what you've written here, or I don't agree with it. I'm not sure which! Can you walk me through it, if you have the time/inclination?
 
He means that the rotten apple just needs a kicking irrespective of the formal aims of any action. It's quite likley to cause the thing to collapse.

How long have you been in thr ICC alfredo?
 
butchersapron said:
He means that the rotten apple just needs a kicking irrespective of the formal aims of any action. It's quite likley to cause the thing to collapse.

How long have you been in thr ICC alfredo?

...but which post-Russian/Chinese revolution or struggle is he alluding to?
 
lightsout: I guess the starting point for what we say about the class struggle is Rosa Luxemburg's The Mass Strike, which was based on her analysis of the huge strike movement in Russia in 1905. She noted that the Russian workers' struggle did not follow the pattern of pre-arranged trade union organised strikes but took on an explosive character which tended to spread across different sectors, giving rise to new forms of organisation in the struggle, and linking economic with political demands. For her it was confirmation that capitalism was entering a new period in which the workers' defensive struggle was going to be propelled into directly revolutionary confrontations.
This was confirmed in 1917-23 and again and again throughout the ensuing period: for example, the workers' uprisings in Spain in July 1936 and May 1937; the Italian workers revolts of 1943; the massive upsurges in East Germany, Poland and Hungary in 53-56; the May 68 events in France. the Italian hot autumn of 69, the Corboba (Argentina) uprising of 69; the unofficial general strike around the arrested dockers in britain in 1972; the polish mass strikes in 1980; most recently, the dynamic around the movement against the CPE in France, the struggles of textile workers in egypt and bangladesh in the past year. etc etc. Obviously not every workers struggle is on this scale, but it is a profound tendency underlying the overall movement. Does this make anything clearer?
In Bloom: thanks for the points you have made about the misrepresentation of the ICC. The idea that we just stand on the sidelines in the class struggle is a real travesty. If people want to discuss this properly, I can give many examples of our direct participation in workers' struggles. We have never pretended to have an massive influence in the class struggle, but this applies to all revolutionary groups today.
Butcher: I've been around rather a long time. Since the ICC was formed in fact - 1975. Why do you ask?
 
Alfredo - don't you think it's a problem with your theory that you never have had any influence?

Like In Blooms Liverpool postie, talking to whoever, inneffectually. Marxism isn't about unchanging theoretical approaches (EP Thompson said that the point of politics was to act, with effect) and it is a real problem for your praxis that you cannot ever put your theory into practice. A similar problem that some anarchists have too so do not feel attacked alone - i attack all, equally:D
 
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