Doug cited Sam Gindin: > Very good response; I think you are right on re labour. The one thing I’d > add, and I think it is very significant, is that this crisis in labour > overlaps with the crisis on the left. I’m convinced that any renewal in > labour won’t happen until there is an organized left with feet inside and > outside labour - and even then it would have to be a left of a particularly > creative kind. Which raises the unavoidable question of what we do to create > such a left if neither the unions nor the democratic party are sites to make > this happen and the notion of this happening through the old Leninist > structures seems no less of a dead-end. THIS is the challenge that needs > taking on....
I would put it differently. These two are aspects of one and the same crisis. But that is because I view the left as the subset of the workers' movement that makes a conscious effort to see the big picture, the longer term, etc. What happens to the ocean ecology affects the dolphins. But I agree with Gindin's main point, which -- in my interpretation -- is that the primary condition for the labor movement to gain strength is that the left get its act together. Indeed. That is the starting point. Although, unlike Gindin, I don't know whether the unions and the DP will prove to be infertile ground for these seeds to emerge. That is something that we'll sort out in retrospect. And, ultimately, that is something to be decided by those who are in the DP and the unions, not by those of us outside of them. IMO, wherever there are working people, the embryo of working class struggle is lodged. It's hard to tell in advance whether existing restrictive structures (as they shift and are exposed to all sorts of contingent events, in and outside) will starve the embryo to death or will prompt it to build resistance and strength. In times like these, my reading of history says that bold tactical actions (involving crowds) and, not just the agitation that naturally accompanies those actions, but serious propaganda (in the old sense of the term, focus on theorizing the present and the alternative to the present and spreading that effort, sharing its results, etc.) work. And I see people responding. In my immediate environment, parents and teachers are very receptive and willing to take actions that a few years ago were unheard of. The great thing about Occupy is that it opens up the mind of people to entertain the fluidity or plasticity of social life. It is a narrow window though. Gene wrote: > Thanks for passing along the Sam Gindin point. It has been made before and > seems obvious to me. But labor focuses on very narrow interests and Occupy > seems to have silos for people looking to take care of an interest group need > (student loans, mortgages underwater, no jobs for recent graduates) and > nothing > of the creative renewal for all that Gindin mentions as the need. With due respect, Gene, I find this a bit too stingy. I prefer to say that Occupy is a broad umbrella in which people can at least know what one another is doing. It also facilitates communication and exchange of ideas. Occupy does not gets in anybody's ways, or preempts anybody´s initiative. That is good. There are a lot of things in politics that are NOT mutually exclusive. Just knowing what others are doing and being able to talk to them are necessary (though not sufficient) conditions for people to coordinate, which is a step in the direction towards effective, mor binding cooperation (i.e. people agreeing on goals and then pulling together to achieve them, with greater discipline and commitment). Each of the items Gene lists is a huge opportunity to lead serious struggles. I mean, just take student debt slavery. You can work on helping students or parents or whoever to build or strengthen existing organizations, etc. that take political action to force legislation that slashes the debt, provides more effective support to students, expands or multiplies public universities, etc. You can write books on how the current conditions in which our youth gets its education is contrary to the need of the nation to build up its main "economic resource," etc. so students, their families, and everybody else envision what unforgivable drag the status quo represents. Etc. So, right now, Occupy is no obstacle. On the contrary. However, is Occupy gearing up adequately for the fights to come? How will the people involved handle the cleavage between those active in getting Obama reelected and those actively against it? Extremely unlikely, but what if the Germans change course, and the whole capitalist world go all Keynesian, unemployment goes down, etc.? That would of course be, partially, an effect of this wave of struggles in which Occupy views itself. Knowing how to manage (partial) success is also a big challenge. These are all related by somewhat different questions. In this light, many of the objections and criticisms that people (e.g. Jodi Dean, Doug, etc.) raised against Occupy early on will become operational as time goes by. In some contexts, they may already be operational. Like us, Occupy is allowed to be a baby for a limited period of time only, then it must grow up or else. > And a question for Julio: I had the impression URPE was discouraging > economists from coming to camp this year -- in order to leave space for Occupy > folks. Did I have the wrong impression? I take it at face value that URPE is asking people to participate in the summer conference. Yes, there is finite space in the camp. But the allocation of space will be handled as fairly as humanly possible. It's a great chance to meet in a very relaxed setting, child friendly, etc. Hope to see you there, Gene -- and everyone else for that matter. Before I let this go, I will just voice something that has been in my head as of late. This may all be a commonplace here. Or it may sound as a bunch of vague generalities. They are. But I believe worth repeating. IMO, the most important lessons that one can derive from the heroic and tragic history of socialism (broadly understood) are these: (1) The struggle of the direct producers, the workers, is the engine of social change. It is all about people changing the conditions in which they work and lead their lives. This means that *process* (or collective agency, as opposed to structure or apparent results) is hugely important. In practical response to concrete needs, people need to talk, communicate, share actions, ideas, and goals. The specific mechanisms that they may use for all that, their organizations, all that stuff is important but secondary; it can be refitted or discarded if need be. Corollary: anarchism, terrorism, individual tantrums are diversions. Another corollary: Criticize the limitations of the existing structures, but don't stop there: build the new ones that will replace the old ones. Criticize by doing. Show how something doesn't work by building the thing that does work! (2) Theorizing matters, theorizing that takes nothing for granted, leaves nothing unquestioned. That is how a shared meaningful purpose is defined and sharpened. This also means that full certainty is excluded, that we must abide by the best norms of scientific inquiry (which is much like any other social process, contingent and all), etc. No social science, no socialism. The big contradiction is apparent at this point: How can (1) and (2) be combined? Because they must be combined. That is the challenge of the left, for as long as one exists. (3) For the time being, the highest form of the workers' struggle is the political struggle -- the struggle to rule, to build up and wield political power, to use it as a lever to restructure social life -- at the exclusion of the 1% or imposing on them taxing conditions. (4) There is much to learn from the history of socialism. We need to ensure that the corpus of ideas and reflections on what happened are transmitted, that new generations of fighters appropriate all that critically. We cannot and should not try to run away from that legacy. Own it, critically. Do not try to reinvent the wheel. A final and (IMO) nontrivial reflection here. I was just in Mexico City for a few days. I talked to leftists from various backgrounds. Very few coincidences among them. Things are coming to a head, politically. Whoever wins will run some version of the stuff that the rest of Latin America is doing. AMLO is the bigger promise. Anyway, they coincided on one thing: Twitter and Facebook are genius! Cubans think so too, as they recently call Twitter "an absolutely revolutionary web [technology] that seems to have given voice to society." http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2012/06/07/%C2%BFquien-escribio-el-primer-tweet/ Society has a voice now, in Twitter. I am sure everyone on PEN-L shares the same view. :-) A final final thing: Nathan Tankus, a member of these lists who lowers our average age significantly, is on the radio. Here: http://fsrn.org/audio/activists-call-stricter-sec-enforcement-and-criminal-investigation-jp-morgan-chase/10405 Way to go, Nathan! Jamie Dimon belongs in jail. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
