Reply To: Status of World Socialist Party (US)
Neil, part of our task is one of education.
For sure, many of us would like to be our own boss and not be under the thumb of a martinet manager and to have a say in the running of our workplace. Some coops offer such an alternative but are they a means for system change or able to take advantage of a niche market?
What changes is that the coops lose their credibility and drop many of their ethical values as they strive to compete against rivals who have no qualms about being ruthless and cut-throat. As I say, we have practical knowledge of this. Mondragon is the prize example. Orthodox businesses outsourced casual temporary staff and went offshore to cheaper waged countries to safeguard their profitability. When profits were threatened, they lay off staff. These trading decisions were exactly what Mondragon also did. A successful coop is a successful capitalist enterprise or they simply disappear.
As for trade unions, we have not stepped back but exhorted their militancy, to be more demanding if they can get away with it, as put by what Dave in another context explained – clawing back a bit more surplus value that are stolen from us by the employing class.
We have urged them to practice more democracy. We have voiced our support when they engage in strikes.
What we do not do is feed the left-wing fantasy that the unions, even the radical IWW-types, are able to make the leap from defensive industrial economic actions to revolutionary change through general strikes. Once again this conclusion is not some conjecture but from the study of actual class struggle events.
Telling people some home-truths does hurt them emotionally, but in the long-term a lot less painful than coming to realise they have been misled and lied to just for the sake of party recruitment. Understanding how coops and unions operate under capitalist conditions and what are their limitations offer the best chance of using them as a shield against the capitalist predators.
As for the suggestion that we hire a PR company to undertake an image rebrand for ourselves and conduct an advertising campaign for us. I am sure there maybe an agency out there that might share our outlook and approach and have the techniques to spread our message. But our task is not to bring socialism to the working class as the Internationale says, like saviours, but to assist our fellow-workers in their own emancipation.
“I’m not a charismatic speaker, and if I had the capacity to be one I wouldn’t. I’m really not interested in persuading people. What I like to do is help people persuade themselves. ” – Noam Chomsky