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.Back To Part 1
Forward To Part 3
I agree with your demolition of the simple minded - sometimes intentionally so - Left attitude to co-ops. I can see that, properly managed, co-operative enterprise has advantages over capitalist enterprise.
ReplyDeleteThe difficulty is that it is not, and cannot be, a panacea. Stuff happens. Innovation and change happens.
A continental wide co-op of blacksmiths would not have saved that industry in the 1920s if they saw the Model T Ford approaching on every back road of America for instance.
Too often, Leftists don't like confronting this sort of stuff. It makes them uncomfortable because it deals with change that seems real and immediate, rather than theoretical and far away. So they leave it to the Right and the Centre. This is a mistake: the Left surely has to reclaim the future?
Now, I'm no starry-eyed technological enthusiast a la Spiked/RCP. I see both dangers and advantages in much technological change. I'm not even that keen on the idea of 'growth' as currently understood. But I am convinced that change and innovation can be better managed collectively, and with the driving motive of capital accumulation stripped out of the system. Too often the 'Left' simply sound as if they want to stop it completely.
Charlie, thanks for your comments, relevant as always. I hope that I have not suggested that they are a panacea, I've tried to emphasise that they are just one part of a strategy. The trouble is that much Left thought is tribal, and runs on train lines. If I say following Marx and Engels, and others that TU struggle can provide no real solution, and at the same time point to Co-ops as an additional strategy, this is taken as meaning that I am opposed to TU struggle, which is ridiculous, rather than as with M&E, and Lenin seeing it as a part of a strategy with its own subordinate role. I am a martial Artist, and have done Kung Fu for a couple of decades or so. We tend to criticise other styles such as Tae Kwon Do, for being good at using their legs, but not making proper use of their hands. Both kicking and punching have a role, but you wouldn't use a kick to perform a role more appropriate to a punch and vice versa.
ReplyDeleteI also hope that in the stuff I've written on Co-op Economics, I haven't suggested that just setting up a Co-op provides all the answers to Capitalist crisis either. More on that in the future parts here. Some of the stuff I've written recently about Mondragon, also shows that a Co-op can have a more forward looking approach than private Capital, as their venture into bio and other technology demonstrates. A Workers Co-op will have an incentive to look at what might be coming down the pike, because it is their jobs at stake. That I think was a useful lesson of Lucas, though it wasn't a Workers Co-op so they had no means of implementing the Plan - the other lesson.
One view I have that I put tentatively to Phil at AVPS because of his PhD Thesis recently, was that most Left sects are made up of people who are young, and generally students or intellectuals. When you are young time goes very slowly. You think as a result that the revolution must be just round the corner. Secondly, intellectuals are used to moving from conception to completion without the boring bit in between. But, workers are used to focussing day in day out precisely on the boring bit, or doing the same job, and once one piece of work is finished you start on the next exactly the same piece of work. Consequently, the left sects to keep their membership happy have to have a perspective based on that Big Picture the Maximum Programme, rather than a long term strategic view. Its why we need not those Left sects but a WORKERS' Party.
A quick further point. I was just watching the News about the BAA strikes. There were some e-mails read out from people opposing the strikes, because it would affect their holidays and so on. Now, of course, the BBC will try to "Balance" comments by having lots of such sentiments conveyed, but we shouldn't underestimate the degree to which such backward views are held. Nor should we just dismiss them as backward views, because as Engels points out part of our job is to try to ensure as much unity amongst workers as possible. Marx himself spoke about a weakness of Unions being their "injudicious use of their power", and an inevitable consequence of any strike is that as well as hitting profits - which tend to be made up when the strike is over - it hits mostly workers who are the consumers of the goods or service.
ReplyDeleteWe shouldn't see strikes as anything more than they are - a blunt weapon that we are forced to use, because of our weakness.
A thought occurred to me that precisely because in a Worker Owned Co-op - run democratically - the Workers would have completely open books, they would know in advance how much they could pay themselves, and so avoid such strikes. But, just as important, for the reasons alluded to in my series on the First International, that openness, and the wages set would undermine the claims of private capitalists not to be able to afford a particular wage. It would be a massive propaganda tool if there were now a Worker Owned Co-operative Airport that was saying, yes we can afford this pay rise, why can't BAA?