Proletarian Strategy - Part 2

Ultra-Left Childishness

In Part 1, I have argued that Marx and Engels, basing themselves on their understanding of the workings of the Capitalist Economy, and their experience of working-class struggles, identified not only that Trade Union struggle could provide no real solution for workers' problems, but explained why that was the case. It was rooted in the fact that workers did not own property, and with only their Labour-Power to sell, Capital would always have the whip hand. Wages would rise and fall in line with the demand for Labour-power, and Capital Accumulation determined what that demand would be. If Capital decided its return was inadequate, it would reduce accumulation, wages would fall. And if Capital Accumulation was rapid, it would be the demand for Labour that would push up wages not Trade Union action. The answer could only be for workers themselves to become the owners of their means of production by the establishment of worker owned producer Co-operatives.

But, the Ultra-Left have opposed such a strategy. In the 1970's, as the Long Wave boom came to an end, workers, in Britain, found that the strategies and tactics they had employed for the previous two decades or so of boom, were no longer adequate. As firms closed, simply striking was no answer. They began to occupy the factories. But, as workers in France discovered in 1968, and as Vestas' workers discovered recently, simply occupying is no answer either. At some point, if you want to live you need an income, and to get an income you need to consider the need to work, to restart production. In the 1950's and 60's, if your firm threatened to close the gates, or to lay-off workers, a strike might produce some results, and if it didn't, there was always another job. After 1970, there was no guarantee of another job any time soon. It was in this climate, and with the backdrop of a Labour Government, in which Tony Benn was Industry Minister, and pushing elements of the Alternative Economic Strategy, such as the National Enterprise Board, and Planning Agreements, that a number of Worker Co-operatives were established such as that at Meriden, at Kirby, and at the Scottish Daily News. The experience of these Co-ops was not good, and that served to strengthen the antipathy towards Co-ops that the Left already had.

As Jim Tomlinson wrote in an article, British Politics and Co-operatives, in Capital and Class 12 1980, the orthodox left position was that so long as Co-operatives operated within a Capitalist environment they would be forced to adopt Capitalist management practices. Just how much that Left orthodoxy differed, and continues to differ from the politics and strategy of Marx and Engels, just how much it was imbued with bourgeois ideology is demonstrated by a quote Tomlinson gives from Socialist Worker of 20th July 1974, in relation to the Scottish Daily News.

“The object is to save jobs. The running of a newspaper, or any other enterprise, along commercial lines, requires that commercial considerations come first. Workers ' management sounds attractive, but that management would face the same problems as the Beaverbrook management.

It would have to try to solve them by trimming the workforce, by pushing 'flexibility' and generally undermining the conditions that union action has achieved in the industry.

...You cannot build islands of socialism in a sea of capitalism. And workers' management of a commercial concern operating in that sea deprives the workers of the strength of union organisation directed against management...Real workers' management is for the socialist future.”

Tomlinson quotes a further article by Duncan Hallas in relation to the Meriden Co-op, in SW on 10th August 1974.

“Co-operative self-management by workers will come. But, it can only realise its potential when the working class controls the economy and when planning for its own needs replaces production for profit.”

There is so much wrong here that it is difficult to know where to begin. So let's start at the beginning.

“The object is to save jobs.” Is it? Is that the extent of socialist ambition, to go no higher than simple Trade Unionism, and trade union goals? Should not a socialist, applying Marxist principles, have higher ambitions than that, for example developing an alternative form of property, and undermining bourgeois property relations?

“Workers ' management sounds attractive, but that management would face the same problems as the Beaverbrook management.” Is that true? It would not face baying shareholders demanding shareholder value. Its workers might well decide to forego their share of dividends, in order to hold on to their jobs, for instance. Workers might also decide not to plough back all of their profits into an expansion of Capital, aware that Capitalism is a system prone to cycles. They might decide to act like Pharaoh in the Bible, and lay aside funds for the lean years. A private Capitalist has no such incentive, because they are unconcerned about laying off workers in the lean years, other than to the extent that re-employing and retraining them would increase the costs.

As Tomlinson says, the mistake is to conclude that competition forces a particular form of management and strategy on companies, essentially assuming that companies are forced to adopt Taylorist methods. But, that is essentially a structuralist not a Marxist method of analysis. It leaves out the fundamental aspect of Marxist analysis that “the truth is always concrete.” In fact, a concrete analysis demonstrates that even within Capitalist enterprises a whole gamut of structures have been adopted, and few of them conform to Taylorist principles. In fact, most firms moved away from assembly line production per se, towards other forms of continuous flow production, the development of work groups in which a degree of worker autonomy was encouraged, many of which resulted in increases in labour productivity of 100%! And, the concept of profit maximisation is open to a whole variety of interpretations too. In Japan, for instance, it was interpreted in a very long game sense, of maximising market share, which often meant lower short-run profits. In today's economy, there are many smaller, high value added firms that operate outside the sphere of shareholder pressure, and have focussed on a non-profit-maximising model, that accepts the idea of limited market share, and enterprise size, precisely to avoid the need to profit maximise, and are, therefore, able to focus on other goals, including effects on the environment, job satisfaction etc.

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