Peter K.
> Gar Lipow:
>
>>contact with them. Then they would be a way for ordinary workers to be
>>exposed to the idea that workers could own and run their own workplaces
>>- that it is possible to be boss free. This was once a commonplace of
>>US popular culture - now so far buried that most people find it
>>inconcievable.
>
>
> When was this golden age?
By no means a golden age. Note I said "widespread" not a majority. But is is simply a fact that until say the mid fifies it was a widely held idea that owners and bosses were parasites who contributed nothing, the workers owning and controlling their workplaces was simply by commonsense the way things should be. Many who held this point of view would have rejected with horror anything called "socialism". And because it was sidespread, even the majority who did not hold it could not simply sneer it away. It is not that the U.S. ever had a pro-socialist majority, but that there was a time when to be a socialist was not the equivalent of being a flat earther. I suspect youy knew this, and that is was by poor phrasing that threw you. It is easy to read "widespread" as "majority".
BillB
> I simply do not ever see that them providing the kind of material base, say, a radicalized labor movement could.
>
>
> Actually there's a more fundamental problem. What most people fail to grasp is that it isn't the ability of such alternative economic structures to compete effectively in the marketplace and so forth, it is simply the fact that they must compete in the marketplace and the co-op members as individuals must survive in an economic environment where insecurity is prevalent.
>
> People just don't seem to get this intuitively, but it is very important to understand it.
>
>
> For a start, it is a false conception to imagine that an "anarchist" or "socialist" community can truly exist within a capitalist society. By "anarchistic" I take it you mean socialistic in the sense of providing economic freedom and security for all members of the community. However this is simply not possible in the wider context of a capitalist society. In such a society the only way to achieve some measure of economic security and freedom is by becoming a capitalist. In other words by joining the ruling class who, by definition, monopolise these privileges.
>
> I have been a housing co-operative member for many years and this problem is a recurrent nightmare.
>
> The simple fact is that a co-operative or intentional community cannot provide both economic security and economic freedom for all of its members, or at least not while any of them remain members of the working class. Being working class means one must work, usually but not necessarily, for someone else, in order to earn an income to live.
I disagree with your main point, the need or possiblity to abolish work, and with your defiinition of working class. In short, we agree on fundamntals. None the less your point is this post is one I agree with.
I don't think a true socialist or anarchist community can exist within capitalism. If it exists within capitalism it is a capitalist instution - including socialist and anarchist parties. I also agree that socialist institutes cannot compete on capitalist terms - at least not in neo-liberral capitalism. Capitalism is the most effective predator ever invented; institutions that attempt to stay socialist within that enviromrment either stay small or are forced to act increasingly like conventional capitalists in order to grow large. I actually think the boss free management I described is very efficient. But the Olympia food co-op which is consumer owned, worker self-managed but with a conventional managment stucuture (managers answerable to a board elected by the workers and consumers) and proressive is not exactly generating huge revenues. It manages to pay it's workers pretty much what a conventional supermaket is paid, and pay its rent and expenseive and maintian good rcredit terms with suppliers. It does manage to dontate a git to progreessive causes, and provide meeting space and donate food to the food banks, and a place to put up posters for progressive events. And as another Austrialian friend of my would say "good on them". I mean all of these are desirable things.
Thomas:
> But is it too hard to imagine that such
> initiatives could grow to the point of being major
> spaces outside of capital? You would have medical
> care, production, etc that lies outside of the domain
> of capital. This would weaken capital.
Yes - this is exactly what is too hard to imagine. I really cannot imagine alternative institutions growing large enough to provide that complete an alternative - where a whole community of people could feed themselves, houser themselves, get decent medical care through worker/community owned and run institutions without having to go corporations or capitalist businesses. And if alternative intitutions did grow large enough within capitalism, they would end up the way Mondragon did - as nicer capitalist insitutions, with signifcant worker share of the profits and input.
And no, I'm not in favor of the Grand Soiree. I'm closer in my few of strategy to Patrick Bond, and his support for non-reformist reform - taking into consideration the huge differences between South Africa and the U.S. -------------------
I've spent so much time criticizing, perhaps I should take at least a stab at what should be done.
I don't share the anarchist bias against using the state as an arena for struggle. If we are ever going to provide decent health care to everyone in the U.S. it won't be via voluntary withdrawal from the system by doctors and patients, but with state funding via a single payer heatlh system.
And while I'm not against participation in the electoral arena on principle, I agree that running or supporting candidates is not where I want to put my energy right now. In point of fact I don't agree with Yoshie that this would be a good time for the labor party to start running more candidates. Running, or even supporting candidates requires tremendous resources of time and money. Relative to the strength of leftists in the U.S. it represeents a potentially infinite drain.
That is,if every active leftist in the U.S. and every contributor of money to left causes focused 100% of their activist time and money on candidates it would either nothing or little.
So I agree that the immediate thing is to work on any of the thousands of issues that exists. And if possible to start raising the money to hire full time paid activists so that attempts to save the world are not limited entirely to people who do it in their spare time, as a hobby. And to link these different activist groups in some sort coalition or network - but one that is demcoratcially run - not led by some top down central control, and not run by some anarchist consensus. Consensus, except in very limited cases, translates to me "It's a dictatorship, but you have to pretend to like it".
And if I knew how this could be done this would be a much longer and more useful post. But just all activists I know feel that linkage between all the issues must be made, and that we need some common network between all of us, and are doing what we dan to promoste it. The anarchists of course want a looser network than I would favor - but in truth, I would be happy to have even an anarchist style network between all these causes if we could get one.
And re; the last issue of the Left Buisness Observer. I think this is a hint at the answer to your question. If there ever is a left in the U.S. the way to avoid a Lula type dilemma is by not accepting responsibility without power. Right now we don't have a left, let alone a left strong enough to have to make that kind of decision, But it is a mistake to accept a position in Governemtnt under really severe constraints as to what policies you can implement. Much better, if you can get in that position, to influence government from outside. That is rather than running candidates who opppose the War in Iraq or support single payer, if we have a large enough movement to do so, simply make sure that taking those positions is a condition for running in the districts you have influence. As an approach to electoral politics, build a political machine, rather than a political party. Of coruse all this si premature. We do not, as Carrol says have a left in a meaningful sense. We have atomized activists, and small fragmanted organizations. But, contrary to the facts on the ground, I feel a weird optimisim that this may be ending.