[lbo-talk] DC: Costs of big marches

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Sean:
> So it gets a march together under the general heading of being anti-war,
but
> doesn't really say much else about its general principles.  This attempts
to
> overshoot sectarian concerns (at least for the unaware) and means that any
> number of individuals can go to the march--either to voice their their pet
> complaint or to simply "be together." What Doug, et. al. pointed to in
their
> article on "activistists" was something that others have talked about in
> terms of the ontological claims made by Hardt and Negri in Empire,
something
> that you hint to when you say, "Social movement participation has a
profound
> effect on transforming one's cognitive frame."  This is true, but it
problem
> here it that it is a transformation without content. Thus, when you say,
> "For one armed only with a hammer every problem looks like nail," in
> reference to the activists themselves, it doesn't really make sense as a
> critique.
> 
> In fact the problem seems to be that there isn't a common hammer anymore,
> which is really what you mean when you say that "working class" movements
> are the only ones which succeed--and likely the reason that the Civil
Rights
> movement had its successes.  In this case, it is only partially about the
> way that windows of opportunity open for (or are opened by) social
movements
> in their relations with the "elite class" and it isn't completely
contingent
> on the ability to withhold labor or power from the capitalist class.  It
is
> also about articulating a coherent set of principles relevant to the
> audience that can be used as a hammer--and getting enough people to use it
> to build something with whatever nails they find.  Better yet it is about
> having a blueprint and making people aware of it enough to inspire them to
> pick up the hammer and pound some nails.

Let me further clarify.  Call me a "vulgar Marxist" - but I firmly believe
that if the material base on the ideological superstructure are on a
collision course, it is the ideological superstructure that yields.  I am
not saying that ideological superstructure is not important, it can be
important when it sis aligned with the material bases, but it is simply
pushed aside when it contradicts the base.

In my mind, marches, demonstrations etc, are working on the ideological
superstructure side.  It mattered when that superstructure could be aligned
with the material base - i.e. the de facto control of the material means by
the working class.  Without the relation to the material means of
production, the concept of class is pretty much meaningless. So when I say
that protest mattesr only when it mobilizes working class I mean it matters
when it mobilizes people who have the physical - but not necessarily legal -
control  of the material means of production, and the protest can abolish
the superstructure (beliefs, property rights, laws, etc) that prevent them
from exercising that physical control in a way that is revolutionary.

The fact of the matter is that today protests cannot have that effect
because they cannot lead to the exercise of physical control of the material
means in a way described above.  All they can do is to define class as
identity politics - as people who feel they belong together and have a
'working class" identity without having the physical control of the material
means.  I d not mind if other people do it - but I simply think it is a
total waste of my time.  What I would rather do is to organize material
resources in a way that undercuts capitalist control of them - eg. by
cooperatives and mutuals (which are already strong in Europe, Canada, and
many Third World countries) and organizing international coalitions of
cooperatives and mutuals, and their political representations.  There might
be other ways, I am sure, but they need to be on the material bases side not
identity politics which again I consider an utter waste of my time.

 Wojtek