The British Socialist movement in stagnation — time to think of new forms of organisation
As a socialist, I would say much of my political outlook and praxis has been heavily Marxist inspired until recently. Whilst I remain influenced by Marx (not so much Engels), aside from his analysis of commodities (Commodity Fetishism) and elements of the Dialectical and Historical Materialist method; I feel in practice, alot has proven incorrect.
The “workerist” politics of many socialists has appeared to me to have been a complete failure. Obviously I’ve learnt the Labour Party is trash, but it is flawed in the same way all organisations with paid staff are; this can include trade-unions, which whilst neccessary, are also subject to many flaws as organisations. I find its always the same: intellectual activists and “useful idiots” turn out to most events, always the same types, its not “organic” by any measure. The rest are stale self interested paid officials. Trade unions internally are bureaucrats who are not passionate, it is simply a job to them. The average “worker” isn’t interested, even when they know they are being exploited, they often do not care. In terms of anything beyond their job role (ie, being an active political member or trade unionist), they are unmotivated and disinterested. The ideas of “Class Conciousness”, largely an idea drawn out from Marxism by Lukacs, tend to be totally flawed when put into reality.
The recent strike waves are not revolutionary, they are simply self-interested union workers attempting to maintain pay in line with inflation (which I support) and are not largely socialist in character. I believe there is also a separation today which did not exist in the 1970s. Union workers are separate from the vast majority of workers today, in some respects they (union workers) could be seen as being privileged by comparison as they have better terms, conditions and pay. This isn’t a case of, “well, others should unionise then!”: it is that the types of jobs today which are not unionised often cannot be unionised, especially when much of the UK economy is service sector based. I would argue there is a separation there within what would traditionally called “the class” or the so called proletariat.
When I see videos of union officials and activists talking about “the working class” and “workers”, ironically often you never see any of those people they discuss being present, what does that tell you? When you broaden a dialectical analyisis, like Murray Bookchin did, he argued (and I agree) that the class struggle operates within the capitalist system. It doesn’t overthrow it. Thus unions work within the system, they simply (at best), balance the scales a bit between labour and capital, fixing or glossing over the worst elements of capitalism and in some respects, one could argue that because of this they actually strengthen and/or maintain the capitalist system. Bookchin was right when he argued the “worker” compliments the “boss”, like the “serf” the “lord”, the “slave” the “master”; it is psychological domination society wide.
Socialists should want to go beyond this system, I think the idea of class struggle being “a motor of history” is somewhat flawed unless we reconcile how domination, systems of power and degrees of hierarchy also operate in our society within our analysis and political project then I do not see us achieving much. If “the class” is not this monolithic force which awakens and becomes “a class for itself”, then we need to rethink. Yet there are so many dogmatic, almost faith based agents and thinkers within those who make up the active socialist left, it frustrates me to no end. Other ideas that were conceived (and id argue utilised) have primarily come from Ernesto Laclau’s and Chantel Mouffe’s approach set out largely in their book “Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics”; this is what Corbyn (those he hired as his political directors) tried to do in my view, its limits were exposed in the process and it ultimately failed.
How can a relevant and 21st century socialist movement in Britain organise and succeed today? I don’t have that answer at this time (who does?) but what I do know is we need to go beyond “workerism”, we need to stop privileging “the worker”. “The worker” is an enslaved subjectivity, it is an identity in its own prison without walls. Taking loosely from Foucault, id say work disciplines people but not in the beneficial way that Marx, Engels and Gramsci argued; It in fact disciplines the psyche. The “worker” takes on their own exploited and enslaved social role as a point of pride in my view. This is where I think breaking with elements of “historical materialism” as an outlook is now more than ever required. We must consider the impact of ideas, mind and psychology as being co-determinants in the organisation of our society (like “the Protestant Ethic” by Max Weber argued, for example).
I do not think it is as simple as “the economic base” determines “the super structure”, nor do I think it is as quite the same as the Althusserian argument where he would cite over determination but with the economy as still being the base determinant “in the last instance”. I think it goes beyond that and its no surprise then that the ideas I believe people need to consider more seriously are Foucault’s, given that he was an under-study of Althusser. Foucault tackled with two key topics at the same time in his later works, the idea of what he called governmentality and his concepts of “the self” and “power” . (the former set out in his lectures starting around 1977 and ending in the early 80s at the time of his death. The latter being a theme he heavily explores across his “History of Sexuality” volumes)
The problem is, no one will listen to these ideas as so many want to maintain the same tactics because buy into “representative” systems. These systems in my view always fail because those who are internal to those bureaucratic structures are corrupted by self-interest due to the wage system inherent in them, as well as power structures/dynamics which form inside of these organisations. Much of the organisational methods socialists have tried have been based off of systems and ideas formed within bourgeois society. The left needs to think of truly new, socialist, ways of organising themselves. Ways which consider and seek to prevent the same problems occuring that we have seen in historic communist parties, socialist parties, social democratic parties and in trade unions.
