discussion of this article

Arthur Bough said…

"That is why People B4 Private Profit is campaigning against the Gateway development. The Council could solve the housing crisis tomorrow if it ensured that any new development is a 100% social housing that we can afford to live in."

Maybe, but the Local Council is merely the local agent of the bouregois State, why would that bouregois State act in the way a Workers State would act? Perhaps, if the Local Council were controlled by a large Majority from a revolutionary Workers Party, and was based on the support of a large class conscious working class then it might attempt such a policy - though in reality it would be frustrated by the local State permanent bureaucracy, and by the central Capitaist State - but last time I looked the votes for revolutioanry candidates were abysmally small, and at best most Councils are run by Right-wing Labour councillors. Demanding such Councils act in a way that is contrary to their class interest not only sows illusions in the State as being class neutral, but is likely to disillusion any workers who engage in such a pointless exercise.

Far better, to mobilise workers to bring their housing and community needs udner their own democratic control through the establishment of Housing Management Co-ops, through the devlopment of Co-operative Finance to help build workers housing to own or to rent,a nd thereby to break the monopoly of the Capitalist class and its State.

See:http://boffyblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/financial-crisis-and-marxist-response.html

and

http://boffyblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/obama-and-political-change.html

Tue 04, November 2008 @ 16:35

Kirstie said…

I think you can do both at the same time. Our aim is to take control over existing housing and demand that those who were elected by a big majority of local working class people in Lewisham, do something about it now and deliver high quality rented accommodation to house the 20,000 homeless families currently on the waiting list. Most of the people that we talked to think the Council should be doing something and therefore it makes sense to demand they should!

But we shouldn't leave it at that, because the neo-liberal Mayor and the councillors that support him won't do it. So we need class action to put this issue onto the map - that includes everything from strike action of those workers in housing to end to privatisation and take back the housing stock into working class control, backed up with rent strikes to put the squeeze on the Council.

We also need community action against evictions, especially in the private sector and the re-building of a squatters movement that takes over empty private property and hands it over to families and the community at large.

These are the sorts of tactics we are discussing in Lewisham. Come along to the public meeting on Saturday 22 November from 4-6pm at St. Mary's centre, Ldaywell Road SE13 if you want to get involved.

Tue 04, November 2008 @ 22:15

Arthur Bough said…

“Most of the people that we talked to think the Council should be doing something and therefore it makes sense to demand they should!”

Of course, people believe that. They have been conditioned by bourgeois society to be subservient, to believe that they are incapable of doing anything for themselves, that they must rely on someone else to do things for them, whether it is a Capitalist to provide them with work and organise the work process for them, to take the risks of production or so on, or whether it is the State of the Capitalists to whom millions have become serfs through a dependency on its good works. The commonest phrases you hear in bourgeois society when ever there is some kind of problem are, “Someone should do something”, meaning anyone other than me should do something, or else “They should do something”, this anonymous “they” usually meaning the Capitalist State in one of its forms. We will know that the working class has begun to get up off its knees and begun to throw off bouregois ideology when instead it says in response to any problem, “We should do something.”

“But we shouldn't leave it at that, because the neo-liberal Mayor and the councillors that support him won't do it.”

But this shows why your previous statement makes no sense. If you “know” these bouregois politicians will not act contrary to the class interests they serve how can you claim that “it makes sense to demand they should”! It makes as much sense as me demanding that my dog write me a thesis on Hegel! And in doing so I will only piss off anyone I persuade to waste their time waiting to read it.

“So we need class action to put this issue onto the map - that includes everything from strike action of those workers in housing to end to privatisation and take back the housing stock into working class control, backed up with rent strikes to put the squeeze on the Council.”

I won’t deny that such action could temporarily end privatisation, and I would support such action. But, the emphasis here has to be on the word “temporary”. Marxists support strikes for higher pay, whilst pointing out to workers that any victories won can only ever be temporary unless workers take ownership of the means of production. An end to privatisation will only mean that the houses remain under State Capitalist rather than Private Capitalist ownership and control. Your statement about “taking back” these houses into working class control is totally wrong, because they NEVER WERE under working class control in the first place. Nor for any meaningful period of time could they ever be whilst ownership was not in their hands.

“We also need community action against evictions, especially in the private sector and the re-building of a squatters movement that takes over empty private property and hands it over to families and the community at large.”

All very worthy, and necessary as part of building a movement to fight back, but without a perspective of bringing housing under workers ownership all ultimately doomed to defeat. Capitalists whether in their private or State form will never concede control over their propery to the working class for any length of time. As long as ownership remains in their hands they will simply wait for the moment to strike back – just as bosses wait for the time to strike back against reduction in the Rate of profit – and the workers will again be demoralised for having been taken down a dead end. We need workers to fight yes, but as Marx wrote to Ruge, our duty is to provide them with the correct Programme around which to struggle, and that can only be to show them why they need to begin to claw back the means of production, and other property back into their own ownership.

Wed 05, November 2008 @ 10:19

Kirstie said…

Arthur, I am unclear what you are saying. Are you in favour of mobilising people now to fight around the tactics I outlined? Yes or No?

If you are then help us build such a movement. My experience is that it is in the course of struggle that people change their view on things. Some of the activists involved in the campaign have had the view that we could convince the council to reverse their decision to privatise public services. So we went to the council meetings so that people could see for themselves what a bunch of parasites these people are. It is not enough to declare that Labour acts for the bosses. People have to experience it for themselves. That is why it is important that we make demands on these leaders. People expect them to do something because that is what they were elected to do and in the case of the officers paid to do.

I think the fact that a greater number of people are mobilising to fight around these issues, means that a greater number of people are likely to see the real nature of labour as a capitalist party. What we need to do is to translate this into political self organisation based on an anti-capitalist and explicity socialist programme. We are currently discussing the idea of a charter and as you can imagine there are a number of views about what our alternative should be.

I agree that our goal is to build a movement and a political party that expresses the most politically coherent part of that movement in the struggle for state power. Unless that struggle involves the expropriation of capital we will be back where we started. But how do we get there?

Can you explain exactly what tactics and strategy you are advocating to get us from where we are now to the point where the working class would be in a postion to organise the revolutionary overthrow of a capitalist government?

Thu 06, November 2008 @ 17:37