[lbo-talk] Contradictions of contemporary working class consciousness

[michael yates]

Perhaps something missing from this discussion is the power of bourgeois ideology. We are inundated with this from earliest age, from parents, churches, media, and schools. No one escapes it or is uninfluenced by it. Unions come into being within it, and they are influenced by it. In good times and bad times. Money, success, status, these have a powerful pull on us. It is a wonder anyone sees through it and embraces a radical life. Because you can be sure that if you do, many negative things will happen to you. 

 

With respect to union leaders and rank and file, one thing that the workers always have is the alienation they feel as they work. Most leaders no long feel this. So efforts to push for rank and file democracy and control over the union, led by workers themselves, can have a powerful impact on consciousness that no amount of radical rhetoric by leaders far removed from workplaces can have. Sustaining this is hard, however. Institutions have to exist to support it and make it self perpetuating.