I wasn't aware that Post-Leftist Anarchists had an official position on unions. I think Brian is making a big assumption about LBO list members when mentions post-left anarchism.
> Anti-union Democrats and Republicans are anti-union.
> Post-Leftist Anarchists and anti-union democrats and republicans unwittingly
> share ideological ground.
>
> Damn! never was good at those syllogism thingies.... let me try another:
>
> "Chuck's criticism of unions" never includes a viable alternative for workers.
I have a few ideas about what these alternatives might be, but I wouldn't rule out some radical, new form of unionism. Perhaps this could be called "post-unionism?"
> "Capitalists' criticism of unions" never includes a viable alternative for
> workers.
> ERGO "Chuck's c.o.u.'s" = "Capitalists' c.o.u.'s"
>
> No, that one seemed to work out fine. The only "fallacy" I see here is that
> Chuck fails to bring to the table an alternate to worker unionization, and
> instead reiterates his "straw man" that others (again) flesh out their
> concepts, so he can disagree with them (again) in the negative (e.g., "Fuck
> the Teamsters," etc.) and further avoid spelling out any other feasible model
> in the positive. The workers are starving for crumbs and it's 1 o'clock in
> the morning.
Well, first of all, my main criticisms are of the big unions and the leftist belief that unions are the only acceptable focus of social struggle. Some of you have defended smaller unions, but today there was news in D.C. that showed how bad small unions can be. The local Metropolitan Labor Council endorsed Mayor Tony Williams, a guy who not only a big friend of real estate developers, but it actively hated by many people in this city. This labor endorsement demonstrates how out of touch big labor is with the people of Washington, DC.
I'll grant that some forms of radical unions might provide the grounds for a workers struggle against capitalism. I think that these organizations would need to go through some radical changes in order to be effective. My personal preference would be for a strategy of networked economic disruption. This would be illegible to the state and the bosses and would be a strategy that would be hard to sell-out or corrupt.
Big business unions are not the answer, because they are not engaged in an ongoing fight against capitalism. It's highly important that we get our act together because we in the Global North only have 20-30 years before major climate disruptions kick in. Once that happens, if we can't prevent it, it won't matter if people are in unions or not because most of us will be DEAD.
Time is of the essence. Direct action gets the goods.
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"...ironically, perhaps, the best organised dissenters in the world today are anarchists, who are busily undermining capitalism while the rest of the left is still trying to form committees."
-- Jeremy Hardy, The Guardian (UK)