Tips for Radicals

A contribution to the discussion from Left Unity supporter Simon Hardy and member of the Anti-Capitalist Initiative

Left Unity is taking shape. Several local groups have now been formed and a delegate conference will lay the basis for building the organisation in the coming months. The electoral successes of UKIP and the ineivtiable swing to the right in British politics as the mainstream politicians try and outdo each other in terms of xenophobia and immigrant bashing is a warning to us all. The incredibly low vote for TUSC and the Greens failure to fight cuts where they have councillors shows that there is no credible left of Labour challange at the moment. Left Unity is the only credible show in town to make the break through.

But we have a long way to go. Only now we turning to a discussion on politics, and there is clearly a  variety of views on the way forward. This article is a contribution to some of these debates.

Resistance

A common argument against Left Unity from people who should know better is that it is “electoralist”. This is strange since no statement has been passed by Left Unity in any form stating that elections are our primary or only concern.

Nevertheless, the fear around electoralism is an important one. It is the problem that the Green Party have, and this is why once they are in any position of local power, they end up sucked into the logic of the state and the economic interests of the bosses. We can see how the Green Party acted in Germany when it was in coalition government with the Social Democrat Party where it ended up acting much as the Lib Dems have done in Britain.

Left Unity must avoid this fate by focussing most of its energy and activist time on actual resistance to the cuts, to neo liberalism and the austerity offensive. The first time people come across Left Unity members should be on the picket line, the protest and direct action campaigns, not door knocking for an election.

Left Unity needs to become the party of the resistance. This is not to say that we don’t want a united anti cuts campaign or to work with people outside of Left Unity like the Greens or left wing Labour people. Of course we do. But only Left Unity has the potential to play a principled and leading role against the cuts in a way that no other political party in Britain can do.

If we do well in the campaigns, if we make a name for ourselves as serious and dedicated activists supporting every strike and building every protest, then and only then can be build the crediblity we need to turn that support into votes. In other words the elections are a secondary area of work that flows from our general activism. This means we are not chasing after votes, we are establishing ourselves as serious fighters against the government to the point when people are telling us they want to vote for us, that we should stand in the local or general elections.

Even then we must beware of trimming our politics to get votes. We have to be principled on unpopular questions around immigration for instance. Either we are anti-racists who stand in solidarity with those facing persecution by political parties and the media or we are nothing.

Back onto left unity, an odd (but interesting) statement from the UK group “Left Unity”, using the fact they’re going to run for elections as a reason they’re not electoralist.

Another new group in the name of unity, so obv will be sceptical until I see any actual success…

thesubversivesound:

Karl Marx was supposed to be dead and buried. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and China’s Great Leap Forward into capitalism, communism faded into the quaint backdrop of James Bond movies or the deviant mantra of Kim Jong Un. The class conflict that Marx believed determined the course of history seemed to melt away in a prosperous era of free trade and free enterprise. The far-reaching power of globalization, linking the most remote corners of the planet in lucrative bonds of finance, outsourcing and “borderless” manufacturing, offered everybody from Silicon Valley tech gurus to Chinese farm girls ample opportunities to get rich. Asia in the latter decades of the 20th century witnessed perhaps the most remarkable record of poverty alleviation in human history — all thanks to the very capitalist tools of trade, entrepreneurship and foreign investment. Capitalism appeared to be fulfilling its promise — to uplift everyone to new heights of wealth and welfare.

Or so we thought. With the global economy in a protracted crisis, and workers around the world burdened by joblessness, debt and stagnant incomes, Marx’s biting critique of capitalism — that the system is inherently unjust and self-destructive — cannot be so easily dismissed. Marx theorized that the capitalist system would inevitably impoverish the masses as the world’s wealth became concentrated in the hands of a greedy few, causing economic crises and heightened conflict between the rich and working classes. “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole,” Marx wrote.

Read more

The Business section of Time.com is saying Marx was right? We really must be fucked.

Love the bit about actual communists in China that have listened to the propaganda and are done taking this capitalist shite any more. Power to them.

(via class-struggle-anarchism)

amodernmanifesto:

The word capitalism is now quite commonly used to describe the social system in which we now live. It is also often assumed that it has existed, if not forever, then for most of human history. In fact, capitalism is a relatively new social system.

[For a brief historical account of how capitalism came into existence a couple of hundred years ago, see Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto]

But what exactly does ‘capitalism’ mean?

(via thepeoplesrecord)

amodernmanifesto:

Racial oppression remains a defining feature of the modern capitalist world. It is manifest most spectacularly in violent attacks on immigrants and minorities by fascist gangs. More important to the fate of these communities has been the systematic and increasing discrimination by capitalist states, manifest in attacks on the rights of immigrants, cuts in welfare services, and racist police and court systems.

How can racism be defeated?

An answer to this question requires an examination of the forces which gave rise to, and continue to reproduce, racism. It also requires a careful analysis of which social forces benefit from racial oppression.

By racism is meant either an attitude denying the equality of all human beings, or economic, political and social discrimination against racial groups.

I did not know that over half of the English migrants to the American colonies in the sixteenth century were indentured servants. According to this, racism was created to justify black slavery, and then evolved into the form it takes today.

Dunno if it’s historically true (didn’t check the links) but an interesting way of looking at it nonetheless — that still doesn’t mean you can just reduce all racism to “bcs capitalism”.

Gets a bit patronising towards the end – we should fight racism bcs it’s shit, not to “win the support of all sectors of the working class”, not to mention the “working class people do blah” bits – but good read overall, and good strategy e.g. get involved in anti-racist struggles, and bring class analysis where it’s missing.

(via frozenrevolutionary)