Nihilism v Class Consciousness
Paul says,
“Those who first spotted such networked individuals mistook them for nihilists who could never effect change. On the contrary, I have argued (in Why Its Kicking Off Everywhere, 2012) that the new wave of struggles beginning in 2011 is a signal that this group does fight, and does embody similar technologically determined values, wherever it takes to the streets.” (p 180)
But, you don't have to believe that nihilists don't fight to believe they can't effect change. The various Peasant revolts were usually very violent and bloody. Indeed, the amount of violence, required for any revolutionary transformation, rises in inverse proportion to the degree to which the revolutionary class has matured, and is ready to assume the role of ruling class. A revolutionary class whose mode of production has already clearly demonstrated its superiority, whose economic and social position in society has become increasingly dominant, to the extent that the future of society and the state becomes increasingly dependent upon it, and whose ideas and values have already become widespread and accepted throughout society, which has, thereby won the battle of democracy, can utilise this so that the amount of violence it requires to put down any slaveholders revolt, by the old ruling class, is minimised. The problem with the struggles of peasant armies, and other such amorphous social groups is that they generate more heat than light. Peasants would frequently burn down barns and manor houses, but then were at something of a loss as to what to do next. It's always easier to be against something than to spell out and create a better positive alternative, as Brexit is demonstrating every day. And, for so long as humanity continues to have to produce to consume to live, every such solution starts from that basic question of how to produce?
The Occupy Movement, and other protests, after 2011, failed and dissipated, for that very reason. In the end, workers must eat, and to eat they must produce. As the UCS workers found, and as workers in France in 1968 discovered, the question always comes back to the need to produce, and who controls that production process. It's interesting that, in the US, many of those in the Occupy Movement, found a more sustainable way forward, not in a continuation of protest, but in the positive movement for change behind Bernie Sanders. As a Marxist, I obviously have disagreement with the mild social-democratic proposals of Sanders, but it has led to the development for the first time in a long while, of social-democratic and socialist ideas being discussed as part of the mainstream politics in the US, and with a series of Democratic candidates coming forward to stand openly as Social Democrats. And, as Engels put it in his advice to Marxists in the US, on how to go about building a Workers Party,
“….It is far more important that the movement should spread, proceed harmoniously, take root and embrace as much as possible the whole American proletariat, than that it should start and proceed from the beginning on theoretically perfectly correct lines. There is no better road to theoretical clearness of comprehension than "durch Schaden klug tererden" [to learn by one's own mistakes]. And for a whole large class, there is no other road, especially for a nation so eminently practical as the Americans. The great thing is to get the working class to move as a class; that once obtained, they will soon find the right direction, and all who resist, H.G. or Powderly, will be left out in the cold with small sects of their own.”
I agree with Paul that the working class did not commit itself to socialism, and an overthrow of capitalism, but settled for living within the system. The social-democratic settlement, from the latter part of the 19th century, was that overall its condition within that system would improve. But, I disagree with Paul that the reason for adopting this stance was “the persistence of skill, autonomy and status in working class life.” (p 181)
The real reason was a lack of any credible alternative fought for on the basis of a coherent plan. The first workers organisations, the trades unions were means of resistance, and became institutionalised organs of bargaining within the system. That principle was systematised in the ideology of the social-democratic parties, and in the creation of a social-democratic state. But, workers do instinctively establish alternative socialistic models.
Not long after they established trades unions, workers also created cooperatives, Friendly Societies, Labour Colleges, the Plebs League and so on. The Co-op, even early on created its own international college. As Marx points out, in the US, when workers settled there, they attempted to save, and whenever they could, they bought land, so as to be self-sufficient. But, that self-sufficiency also took the form of collective activity, such as barn raising. This kind of collective, cooperative activity is common across the globe. But, they are up against powerful forces. The capitalist state undermined workers own social insurance schemes, by creating welfare states, it undermined independent working-class education by the same means, and the TUC assisted by supporting the establishment of the WEA, in opposition to the Plebs League, and National Labour Colleges.
Paul examines the labour process over the history of the four previous long wave cycles. I will follow him in examining those next, separately. Using his periodisation.
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