"nodes in a common struggle"

[Peter van Heusden]

On Mon, Mar 26, 2001 at 07:33:37PM -0600, Carrol Cox wrote:
> This kind of kickback is about 5000 years old -- as old as class society
> -- but I fail to see its political relevance. If anything it may
> discourage political struggle, since it is a way to vent irritation in a
> purely personal way. The IWW, correctly, condemned such merely
> individualistic expressions or acts of sabotage. 

That's assuming that this was an individualistic act of sabotage - that
the information gathering and execution of this stunt was the action
of an individual. How do you know that? The fact that the narrative
of the event was widely known seems to suggest there was at least some
workplace-level complicity.

As for political relevance - the political relevance of the refusal
of work should be obvious, if you consider relations in the workplace
from the point of view of valorization. Simply put, while your
wage buys your labour power, not your labour. Tapping surplus value
out of a worker requires the valorization of the 'variable capital'
(i.e. purchased labour power) put out by the capitalist. The 20th
century saw a transition which is important here - a transition from
the extensive (i.e. through longer working days) to the intensive
(i.e. through more 'productive' labour) mode of extracting surplus value.

This transition has made the workplace struggle around the valorization
of capital that much more important (as chronicled by various authors,
including Gramsci in 'the American worker', C.L.R. James in 'Facing
Reality', etc.) and correspondingly the capitalist ideology of personal
productivity, identification with the job, etc. is that much stronger.
In so far a workplace culture of resistance to the process of 
valorization is certainly political. Of course, this transformation
happened largely after the heydey of the IWW, so their commentary on it 
is notably lacking. 

Then, do events like the slashing of the boss' tires discourage
political struggle? While sometimes they might act as simple venting,
if you examine the act as part of a process - the process of the
workers in the workplace clarifying the relationship between themselves,
the boss and the job, then this act is not necessary depoliticising.
(Consider for instance, that in the course of period of heightened
class struggle, such as a strike, many 'individual' acts of sabotage,
etc. tend to happen. These things are, in my experience, both an
expression and a reinforcement of a culture of militancy)

I think it is politically important to recognise that these
things are happening outside of the context of traditional working 
class organising - in fact this 'micro politics' of the class struggle
is often an important part of setting the context for the visible
features of the class struggle.

Peter
--
Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com>
NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics
"Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man 
shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain 
and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844                 k*256^2+2083
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