How to stay ahead of the angry brigade
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/16997442-6832-11df-a52f-00144feab49a.html
By John Kay
May 25 2010
Like most hapless passengers, you may be wondering what the British
Airways dispute is actually about. Neither airline nor union seems
able to explain the areas of disagreement.
I doubt many readers of the Financial Times are interested in
doctrinal differences between parties of the extreme left, few of
which have very many adherents. But bear with me. The demonstrators
who broke up the settlement talks at the weekend came from the
Socialist Workers party. This group distinguishes itself from rivals
by insisting revolution is the only acceptable route to the
ill-specified change it seeks.
"Only through the experience of revolution," the party explains, "can
the powerless begin to experience their own capacities, test and
expand their own strengths, and actually become self-consciously
capable of running a new world." If this verbiage is familiar, it
probably reminds you of the claims made by corporate change consultants.
For the consultants, or for the Socialist Workers, the objective is
the process of change. And this is not so unusual. In the unlikely
event that the US became an Islamic fundamentalist society, al-Qaeda
would doubtless continue jihad. It would simply take the view that
the US was the wrong kind of Islamic fundamentalist society, the view
it currently takes of Saudi Arabia. The confrontation is the end
itself. That is why you cannot negotiate with al-Qaeda and the
Socialist Workers, and they are vague about what they want because
their worst nightmare is that they might be given it.
Between normal, pragmatic people oriented towards results and those
who seek dispute for its own sake, there is a gulf of
incomprehension. That is why Neville Chamberlain, by background a
businessman from Birmingham, was ill-equipped to deal with Adolf Hitler.
There is a personality type – it seems mostly male – that enjoys
conflict. Some become football hooligans, others philosophers. Many
societies find room for aggressive individuals in armies or police
forces but few commercial operations can accommodate them. Trading
operations are exceptions, which is why they are often dysfunctional
as organisations. They cannot maintain the rigid discipline that
provides the means through which military hierarchies prevent
internal conflict.
Academic life is also a haven for people who find ordinary social
interaction difficult. There you find individuals whose
confrontational style is verbal not physical, by whom everything that
is proposed is instinctively opposed. Indeed, elements of such an
approach are necessary to scholarly debate but the consequence is
that universities are impossible to run.
If dispute is inevitable, it is tempting to save time by triggering
it right away, and to go in with literal or metaphorical guns
blazing. This is usually a mistake. Those who take pleasure in
continued conflict are a small minority, and to confront them too
intransigently or strongly allows them to attract well-meaning
sympathisers. The war on terror, for example, has damaged al-Qaeda
but taken as a whole has probably done more damage than good to the
cause that the war promotes.
One approach is to direct conflict into harmless channels. Football
crowds provide an outlet for aggression that might otherwise be
released in more damaging ways. Academic and political life offer
opportunities to engage in dispute on matters of no importance. The
skilled chairman learns to let participants in a meeting dissipate
energy on trivial issues while ensuring that significant items are
dealt with elsewhere.
Most people dislike confrontation, and, given time, an aggressive
minority will find itself alienated. Meet the reasonable demands, and
appear to treat the unreasonable ones with seriousness; always engage
in discussion, however futile. The defeat of Arthur Scargill, the
British miners' leader, took more than a decade, the end of the
Troubles in Northern Ireland took twice as long. Any successful
strategy demands patience. That is why you are still waiting in the
departure lounge at Heathrow's Terminal 5.
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Why revolution? Our reply to the Financial Times
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=21378
1 June 2010
A Financial Times columnist claimed last week that the SWP was only
interested in conflict and has no idea what it is fighting for. Sadie
Robinson responds
--
A ridiculous portrayal of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) appeared
in the Financial Times newspaper last week.
In a column headlined "How To Stay Ahead Of The Angry Brigade", John
Kay said that revolutionaries have a "personality type" that means
they enjoy conflict. He also claimed that the party was similar to Al Qaida.
He wrote that socialists were chasing after some "ill-specified
change" because they didn't really want change at all. According to
Kay, they are only interested in the fight to get change.
The truth is that socialists are clear about what we want – although
newspaper columnists might not like what that is.
We want workers to control the things they produce and democratically
plan society to meet the needs of everyone.
We want a world that isn't racked by war, poverty and oppression.
Kay dismisses as "verbiage" the idea that the experience of struggle
and revolution are central to workers realising their potential to
run society. But it is crucial.
Most people, most of the time, are not revolutionaries. They hope to
improve their lives by other means – such as electing people to
represent them in parliament.
Sometimes workers accept attacks because they accept the ideology of
the system. So, they may think that pay cuts are inevitable during a recession.
There are a million miles between this situation and one where
workers are running society for themselves. How do we move from one
to the other?
The reality of society shapes people's ideas.
Dominates
Workers produce everything under capitalism and work dominates our
lives. But all the key decisions over what is produced, how much is
produced, how it is done and what happens to it afterwards are out of
our hands.
Karl Marx referred to the lack of control over the things we produce
as "alienation". People feel like cogs in a machine and this hits our
confidence about what we are capable of.
Alienation combines with the dominant ideas under capitalism that
justify the current system.
This ideology says that capitalism is the best way to run society,
that everyone has their place and that we should leave important
decisions to "experts".
Capitalism today peddles the myth that everyone has an equal chance
in life – ignoring barriers such as class, race or sex. If you fail
it's your fault.
Schools play an important role in driving these ideas down into
society. From birth and throughout education working class children
are taught about hierarchy and discipline. Constant testing tells
them they are not worth much and instills competition as if it was
something natural.
The media plays its role too. It often portrays working class people
either as irresponsible "chavs" with a propensity to violence and
alcoholism, or well-off and satisfied with their lot.
The implication is that such people could not run society or even want to.
Workers' feelings of powerlessness combine with the dominant ideology
to shape our ideas. But ideas can change when workers fight back and
question the structures and injustices of capitalism.
They start to have different experiences that challenge the ideas
they previously took for granted.
In struggle, people start to see other workers as allies, rather than
competitors or an enemy because of their nationality, skin colour or sex.
Most importantly, they begin to realise their own potential.
People who never thought they could speak in public find themselves
doing just that.
Last year workers occupied Visteon car parts plants in Britain and
Northern Ireland after the company sacked them.Many had not taken
industrial action before in their lives.
Suddenly they were drawing up picket rotas, securing the buildings,
organising food and donations, and sending speakers to meetings and
workplaces across the country.
Upsurge
Greece has seen a huge upsurge in recent months against austerity
measures being imposed by the government and Europe's elite.
Workers' long-held ideas are being thrown into flux as they strike
and resist the very government they elected late last year.
And struggles for reforms can sometimes spill over into revolutionary
movements. In a revolutionary upsurge, new kinds of organisation come
into existence on a huge scale. Workers plan the running of the whole
of society.
This brings in questions of democracy – how to resolve disputes, and
so on. Revolutions unleash the potential that is crushed by capitalism.
Revolutions happen at times of serious social crisis. They are a
process – and their success depends on what happens during that period.
A small band of committed revolutionaries won't bring about a new,
socialist world. The mass activity of millions of workers will.
As Karl Marx put it, "The emancipation of the working class is the
act of the working class."
There are two reasons why revolutions have to be made by the majority
of workers.
The first is that it won't succeed any other way. The working class
has the economic power and the numbers to create and build a new society.
The second reason is that it is only by creating such a society
themselves that workers will throw off all the backward ideas they
have grown up with.
In a revolution, there will be many arguments about which way
forward. Workers may overthrow one government but leave the class
structure intact. Fury at the system can lead in other directions and
workers can lash out at each other.
The ruling class relies upon the fragmentation and lack of confidence
among the working class to shore up its power. Struggle can overcome
these issues – but a pause in the momentum can let them sneak back.
The intervention and leadership of organised revolutionaries – such
as the SWP – is critical.
Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky wrote, "The working class, not the
party, makes the revolution, but the party guides the working class.
"Without a guiding organisation the energy of the masses would
dissipate like steam not enclosed in a piston box. But nevertheless
what moves things is not the piston or the box, but the steam."
Political organisation is a vital part of drawing people together to
fight for ideas and the correct strategy in the movement.
Unfortunately, making a successful revolution isn't simply a matter
of defeating ideas that say no radical change is possible – but also
defeating the power of the capitalist state.
The defenders of capitalism say that revolution is violent because
revolutionaries love violence. And it's true that revolutions can be violent.
But this is because the ruling class, a tiny minority of society,
refuses to accept the will of the majority and launches all-out war
to defend its privileges.
Capitalism's supporters forget to mention that violence is an
integral part of their system, with destructive wars, police
brutality and cuts to vital services and benefits, which all destroy lives.
Bloodshed
During revolutions, the violence of the ruling class is always far
worse than that of the workers.
If the working class fails to use sufficient force to defeat the
ruling class then worse bloodshed will follow. As Saint-Just said
during the French Revolution, "Those who make half a revolution dig
their own grave."
In the revolutionary uprising in Chile in the 1970s, workers and
peasants stopped short of seizing power from their rulers. The
response was brutal. All they had gained was drowned in blood by a coup.
Some conclude that the might of the state makes revolution impossible.
But the entire personnel of the state is a minority compared to the
size of the working class. The stronger and better organised the
workers, the less violence there will be.
Some people hope that we can reform the system and avoid confronting
the state. Struggles can and do win reforms. But as long as society
remains in the hands of an elite, it will always try to claw back any
gains we make.
While we can win some reforms, we can't reform away the exploitation,
alienation, racism, imperialism and all the other filth at the heart
of capitalism. We will only end these things by getting rid of class society.
Capitalism has developed the means to meet the needs of every person
on the planet – but it fails millions of people. Reforms leave in
place an increasingly brutal system that is threatening the survival
of the planet.
That's why we need a revolution to win true liberation.
What the FT said
John Kay claims that the Socialist Workers Party "distinguishes
itself from rivals by insisting that revolution is the only
acceptable route to the ill specified change it seeks.
"...for the Socialist Workers, the objective is the process of change.
"And this is not so unusual.
"In the unlikely event that the US became an Islamic fundamentalist
society, Al Qaida would doubtless continue jihad.
"It would simply take the view that the US was the wrong kind of
Islamic fundamentalist society…
"The confrontation is the end in itself.
"That is why you cannot negotiate with Al Qaida and the Socialist
Workers, and they are vague about what they want because their worst
nightmare is that they might be given it."
.
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