Voter apathy isn't the problem

This is The fifth in a series looking at and debunking specific 'tactical voting' strategies and election narratives from an anti-electoral perspective. With thanks to Phil Dickens over at LibCom.org http://libcom.org/blog/voter-apathy-isnt-problem-28022015 Part one on holding your nose to vote labour Part two on voting for radical third parties Part three on voting as anti-racism Part four on alternative voting systems are all available on libcom. Despite the vast amount of column inches dedicated to who you should vote for, tactically or on principle, and the huge amounts of time, money and energy spent to 'get out the vote,' a great many people won't. They won't vote Labour to stop the Tories, or vote a third party to either pull Labour left or present an alternative to them. In fact, they won’t be voting at all because (whiny liberal voice) “they just don’t care.” This graphic sums up the argument of why this is supposedly such a problem: It should be immediately obvious what’s wrong with this graphic. ‘These people’ are highly unlikely to all vote in a similar direction, let alone for the same party, so they’re not a decisive victory for a single party waiting in the wings. Not to mention that a 100% turnout wouldn’t change the fundamental role of the state as the manager of capital and upholder of social order with a monopoly on violence. Nor would it guarantee that people do anything other than vote, like join unions or get involved in struggles for social change. You know, the stufff that actually could change everything. If you’re dismayed with the dismal lack of change that comes from elections, maybe look at why electoralism isn’t a vehicle for social change, before you start the rallying cry to ‘wake up sheeple!’ That isn’t to say there isn’t a serious issue to be addressed. A considerable majority of those who don’t vote will be of that position because they see no point. Even without necessarily having an anarchist analysis of the state, they can see that largely the same shit results whoever gets in. They’re alienated, atomised and disenchanted. In other words, they’re suffering not from apathy but from the proletarian condition. And though they might not consider themselves ‘political,’ a lot of them will see what the problem is better than those who simply insist that we need to vote Labour. If they’re white, working class and alienated, then there’s a huge risk that someone like UKIP or the BNP will have some appeal. Not because they’re racist, necessarily, but because the main parties have abandoned them, the left is non-existent on council estates, and these guys are actually talking about jobs, housing and social conditions - even if they are picking the wrong target and using the issues to stir up racism and xenophobia. So yes, ‘apathy’ needs to be tackled. There needs to be a serious effort to talk politics with our class, counter the racist myths, and build real working class unity instead of partitioning it and allowing class to be co-opted for race and nation (white working class, British working class, etc). But does this mean that we need to get people voting, specifically, or write them off as uncaring if they don’t? Of course not. Whether someone votes or not is incidental. Apathy isn't defined by whether you put an X in a box every five years but by whether you care about the real issues assaulting our class. Most people do, but feel powerless to do anything about them. That powerlessness is what breeds real apathy, not the unwillingness to vote but the feeling that they can't change anything. That makes the real challenge not getting out the vote but giving workers confidence in their own collective power to force change in the workplace and the community. For that, you have to think outside the ballot box.

Dont vote, get organised

Dont vote and get organised is a well known anarchist slogan that has stood the test of time. As my previous post yesterday outlined we do need organisation but do we need political party's to join and to vote for? are we wasting our good time and energy and limited resources on running for elections or is it a good way of raising issues that may otherwise be ignored ? " It was Bakunin who predicted in 1869 (three years before Marx fostered his Parliamentarianism onto the First International) that when "the workers . . . send common workers . . . to Legislative Assemblies . . . The worker-deputies, transplanted into a bourgeois environment, into an atmosphere of purely bourgeois ideas, will in fact cease to be workers and, becoming Statesmen, they will become bourgeois . . . For men do not make their situations; on the contrary, men are made by them." [The Basic Bakunin, p. 108] Similarly, Krotpotkin argued that "in proportion as the socialists become a power in the present bourgeois society and State, their socialism must die out." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 189] History has proven the anarchists correct -- unfortunately it appears that most Marxists consider history as an irrelevancy to their politics." "The first question to ask when evaluating using elections as a means of promoting socialist ideas is "what is the state?" Is it some sort of neutral body which can be used by all classes in society or is it, rather, an instrument of class rule, a machine which exists to protect the wealth and power of the capitalist class and enforce their property rights and authority? Anarchists argue that it is the latter. Most Marxists agree, although they reject the anarchist conclusion that we should not participate in it. Rather, like Lenin, they consider it is essential "that the proletariat be prepared for revolution by utilising the present state" by running candidates in elections and aiming to get them elected. In other words, we agree on what the state does but not on whether to use it to prepare for revolution. This argument is exceedingly old. It dates back to the late 1860s and early 1870s when the question of "political action" was discussed in the First International. Marx argued for the formation of independent workers parties who would, to use his 1880 words, transform the franchise from a means of deception, which it had been before, into an instrument of emancipation. By 1895, Engels was arguing that history had proven Marx right -- "The Communist Manifesto had already proclaimed the winning of universal suffrage, of democracy, as one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat . . . our workers immediately took it in earnest . . . And from that day on, they have used the franchise in such a way which has paid them a thousandfold and has served as a model to the workers of all countries. The franchise has been . . . transformed by them from a means of deception . . . into an instrument of emancipation." The use of elections also allowed the Marxists to reach the masses, break the Anti-Socialist Law, forced other parties to defend their views and actions before all the population and to measure their strength. Indeed, Engels argued that with "the successful utilisation of universal suffrage . . . an entirely new method of proletarian struggle came into operation" and that "the state institutions, in which the rule of the bourgeoisie is organised, offer the working class still further opportunities to fight these very state institutions" and so workers "contested with the bourgeoisie every post" during elections. [The Marx-Engels Reader, pp. 565-6]" "This tradition is continued till this day with marxist party's looking to stand in elections in teh hope of raising issues and the ideas of the mass's. Apparently they think most people only do politics when there is a election on. Their own teachings will tell them otherwise. "The argument that standing for election will complement direct action and that we must use every means open to us to win improvements and see our influence and organisations grow under capitalism, including standing for elections. The strange thing is that every party which has decided to "complement" direct action with elections have become increasingly bureaucratic and reformist, forsaking direct action in favour of continued and larger success in elections (indeed, winning elections soon became the be-all and end-all of their activity). This happened to the German Social Democratic party and the German Greens -- parties separated by decades but united by their tactics. Therefore, a short overview of the relevant history seems appropriate. History Repeats Itself? Marx once stated that events in world history occur twice -- first time as tragedy, second time as farce. To see why anarchists reject the notion of socialists using elections to further their case we have to look into previous examples of socialists and radicals using that tactic. To do so is informative. George Plekhanov, the father of Russian Marxism, argued against the anarchist critique of electioneering in his 1895 work Anarchism and Socialism as follows: "The corrupting influence of the Parliamentary environment on working-class representatives is what the Anarchists have up to the present considered the strongest argument in their criticism of the political activity of Social-Democracy. We have seen what its theoretical value amounts to. And even a slight knowledge of the history of the German Socialist party will sufficiently show how in practical life the Anarchist apprehensions are answered." The ironies of history constantly amaze. The anarchists are now the ones who can point to the political activity of German Social-Democracy as evidence for their politics. As Murray Bookchin correctly argues, the SPD supporting the First World War in 1914 did not spring out of nowhere. Rather, it was the end product of years of activity within bourgeois institutions: "During the 1890s in southern Germany, where Bismark's repressive measures had been less severe, social democratic deputies to state legislatures were already making opportunistic compromises with their liberal colleagues and trying to tone down the revolutionary rhetoric of the national party leaders. "Among the social democrats Reichstag deputies, too, an explicit right wing began to appear . . . By the 1890s, the party was becoming excessively successful, by promoting cosmetic reforms entirely within the framework of the Reich . . . "Eventually, the contradiction between the party's rhetorical adherence to Marxism and its growing opportunistic pragmatism came out in the open in a theoretical debate, which raged furiously from about 1898 to 1904, between . . . Revisionism and the upholders of . . . revolutionism." [The Third Revolution, vol. 2, pp. 293-5] Nor can the failure of Social Democracy be blamed on organisational problems which will be solved via Lenin's "democratic centralism." The SPD, contrary to conventional myth, "was a highly centralised party whose congresses enforced strict discipline when necessary . . . This discipline was especially within the Reichstag Fraktion, where on any given issue the delegates were obliged to vote in favour of the policy adopted by the caucus 's majority, whether they personally agreed with it or not . . . the centralism and the discipline of the party structure served to restrict members' involvement in making important decisions, as witness the leaderships' backroom concessions to the unions and the enormous power accrued by the party bureaucracy." [Op. Cit., pp. 302-3] Thus we have a highly centralised, Marxist party utilising bourgeois elections as Marx and Engels recommended and as the SWP (and others) urge today. What was the net effect? A slow and slippery decent into reformism, hidden begin radical rhetoric. In every large and successful Social Democratic Party, revolutionaries of the word were making political compromises that amounted to de facto acceptance of reformism and revisionism. As one of the most distinguished historians of this period put it, the "distinction between the contenders remained largely a subjective one, a difference of ideas in the evaluation of reality rather than a difference in the realm of action." [C. Schorske, German Social Democracy, p. 38] Rather than look to the causes of such behaviour in the tactics and activity of the Social Democrats and the nature of the capitalist state, Lenin blamed them on Imperialism. It was this that encouraged opportunism, as the "high monopoly profits . . . makes it economically possible for them [the bourgeoisie] to corrupt individual sections of the working class" (indeed, a "section of the British proletariat becomes bourgeois"). A useful analysis as it white-washes Marxist politics for any blame in what happened. Greens are good for you? Trotskyists like the SWP are well aware of the events associated with the degeneration of Social Democracy however they would like to claim to have learned the lessons of history. In the 1980s, another radical party, the German Greens, also followed the same path as the German Social Democrats. Claiming to an "anti-party party" they argued for a combination of direct action politics and standing for elections as the means of spreading the message of ecology and providing a focus and extra-clout for the various anti-parliamentary struggles and activities occurring in the grassroots of society. Unfortunately for them, history repeated itself. From only using parliament as a means of spreading their message, the parties involved end up considering votes as more important than the message. Janet Biehl sums up the effects on the German Green Party of trying to combine radical electioneering with direct action: "the German Greens, once a flagship for the Green movement worldwide, should now be considered stink normal, as their de facto boss himself declares. Now a repository of careerists, the Greens stand out only for the rapidity with which the old cadre of careerism, party politics, and business-as-usual once again played itself out in their saga of compromise and betrayal of principle. Under the superficial veil of their old values - a very thin veil indeed, now - they can seek positions and make compromises to their heart's content. . . They have become 'practical,' 'realistic' and 'power-orientated.' This former New Left ages badly, not only in Germany but everywhere else. But then, it happened with the S.P.D. in August 1914, then why not with Die Grunen in 1991? So it did." ["Party or Movement?", Greenline, no. 89, p. 14] This, sadly, is the end result of all such attempts. Ultimately, supporters of using political action can only appeal to the good intentions and character of their candidates. Anarchists, however, present an analysis of the structures and other influences that will determine how the character of the successful candidates and political parties will change. In other words, in contrast to Marxists and other radicals, anarchists present a materialist, scientific analysis of the dynamics of electioneering and its effects on radicals. And like most forms of idealism, the arguments of Marxists and other radicals flounder on the rocks of reality as their theory "inevitably draws and enmeshes its partisans, under the pretext of political tactics, into ceaseless compromises with governments and political parties; that is, it pushes them toward downright reaction." [Bakunin, Op. Cit., p. 288] As can be seen, while there are apparently convincing arguments in favour of radicals using elections, they ultimately fail to take into account the nature of the state and the corrupting effect it has on radicals. If history is anything to go by, the net effect of radicals using elections is that by the time they are elected to office the radicals will happily do what they claimed the right-wing would have done. Many blame the individuals elected to office for these betrayals, arguing that we need to elect better politicians, select better leaders. For anarchists nothing could be more wrong as it is the means used, not the individuals involved, which is the problem. At its most basic, electioneering results in the party using it becoming more moderate and reformist -- indeed the party often becomes the victim of its own success. In order to gain votes, the party must appear "moderate" and "practical" and that means working within the system. This has meant that (to use Rudolf Rocker words): "Participation in the politics of the bourgeois States has not brought the labour movement a hair's-breadth nearer to Socialism, but thanks to this method, Socialism has almost been completely crushed and condemned to insignificance. . . Participation in parliamentary politics has affected the Socialist Labour movement like an insidious poison. It destroyed the belief in the necessity of constructive Socialist activity, and, worse of all, the impulse to self-help, by inoculating people with the ruinous delusion that salvation always comes from above." [Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 49] This corruption does not happen overnight. Alexander Berkman indicates how it slowly develops when he wrote: "[At the start, the Socialist Parties] claimed that they meant to use politics only for the purpose of propaganda. . . and took part in elections on order to have an opportunity to advocate Socialism "It may seem a harmless thing but it proved the undoing of Socialism. Because nothing is truer than the means you use to attain your object soon themselves become your object. . . [so] There is a deeper reason for this constant and regular betrayal [than individual scoundrels being elected] . . . no man turns scoundrel or traitor overnight. "It is power which corrupts. . . Moreover, even with the best intentions Socialists [who get elected]. . . find themselves entirely powerless to accomplishing anything of a socialistic nature. . . The demoralisation and vitiation [this brings about] take place little by little, so gradually that one hardly notices it himself. . . [The elected Socialist] perceives that he is regarded as a laughing stock [by the other politicians]. . . and finds more and more difficulty in securing the floor. . . he knows that neither by his talk nor by his vote can he influence the proceedings . . . His speeches don't even reach the public. . . [and so] He appeals to the voters to elect more comrades. . . Years pass. . . [and a] number . . . are elected. Each of them goes through the same experience. . . [and] quickly come to the conclusion. . . [that] They must show that they are practical men. . . that they are doing something for their constituency. . . In this manner the situation compels them to take a 'practical' part in the proceedings, to 'talk business,' to fall in line with the matters actually dealt with in the legislative body. . . Spending years in that atmosphere, enjoying good jobs and pay, the elected Socialists have themselves become part and parcel of the political machinery. . . With growing success in elections and securing political power they turn more and more conservative and content with existing conditions. Removal from the life and suffering of the working class, living in the atmosphere of the bourgeoisie. . . they have become what they call 'practical'. . . Power and position have gradually stifled their conscience and they have not the strength and honesty to swim against the current. . . They have become the strongest bulwark of capitalism." [What is Communist Anarchism?, pp. 78-82] And so the "political power which they had wanted to conquer had gradually conquered their Socialism until there was scarcely anything left of it." [Rudolf Rocker, Op. Cit., p. 50] This was in spite of the revolutionary ideas that inspired them. Indeed, they were sucked into "practical" matters almost from the start. In the words of Wilhelm Liebknecht, one of the original leaders of German Social Democracy: "In the early stages, when we had few adherents, we used to go to the Reichstag [the German Parliament] and used it exclusively or almost exclusively for the propagation of our ideas. But very soon we found ourselves involved in practical matters." However, many radicals refuse to learn this lesson of history and keep trying to create a new party which will not repeat the saga of compromise and betrayal which all other radical parties have suffered. And they say that anarchists are utopian! In other words, its truly utopian to think that "You cannot dive into a swamp and remain clean." [Alexander Berkman, Op. Cit., p. 83] Such is the result of rejecting (or "supplementing" with electioneering) direct action as the means to change things, for any social movement "to ever surrender their commitment to direct action for 'working within the system' is to destroy their personality as socially innovative movements. It is to dissolve back into the hopeless morass of 'mass organisations' that seek respectability rather than change." [Murray Bookchin, Toward an Ecological Society, p. 47] The use of electioneering has a centralising effect on the movements that use it. Political actions become considered as parliamentary activities made for the population by their representatives, with the 'rank and file' left with no other role than that of passive support. Only the leaders are actively involved and the main emphasis falls upon the leaders. It soon becomes taken for granted that they should determine policy (even ignoring conference decisions when required -- how many times have politicians turned round and done the exact opposite of what they promised or introduced the exact opposite of party policy?). In the end, party conferences become simply like parliamentary elections, with party members supporting this leader against another. Soon the party reflects the division between manual and mental labour so necessary for the capitalist system. Instead of working class self-activity and self-determination, there is a substitution and a non working class leadership acting for people replaces self-management in social struggle and within the party itself takes shape. Electioneering strengthens the leaders dominance over the party and the party over the people it claims to represent. And, of course, the real causes and solutions to the problems we face are mystified by the leadership and rarely discussed in order to concentrate on the popular issues that will get them elected. The simple fact is that the bourgeois state has been developed to enforce minority rule. Its structure is no more an accident than the structure of a bird's wing. The wing has evolved to enable flight. The state has evolved a structure based upon minority, top-down rule that ensures the continence and protection of that rule. And as Kropotkin argued, anarchists "maintain that the State organisation, having been the force to which minorities resorted for establishing and organising their power over the masses, cannot be the force which will serve to destroy these privileges." [Peter Kropotkin, Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 170] The same means cannot be used to serve different ends as there is an intrinsic relationship between the instruments used and the results obtained -- that is why the bourgeoisie do not encourage participatory democracy in the state or the workplace! Just as the capitalist workplace is organised to produce proletarians and capital along with cloth and steel, the capitalist state is organised to protect and reinforce minority power. The state and the capitalist workplace are not simply means or neutral instruments. Rather they are social structures which generate, reinforce and protect specific social relations. These social relations are based on delegating power to others, letting leaders act for you, letting others fight for you. These have an impact on those who use these tactics, both the individuals and the organisations. The "essence" of state is, to use Luigi Frabbi's words, "centralised power" and "hierarchical despotism." It is based on delegating power into the hands of a few -- in a democracy, elected representatives and the state bureaucracy. It should be a truism that elections empower the politicians and not the voters. Parliamentarianism focuses the fight for change into the hands of leaders by its very nature. Rather than those involved doing the fighting, the organising, the decision making, that power rests in the hands of the representative. The importance of the leaders is stressed, as it must be in a centralised system. Anarchists, in contrast, argue that we need to reclaim the power which has been concentrated into the hands of the state. That is why we stress direct action. Direct action means action by the people themselves, that is action directly taken by those directly affected. Through direct action, the people create their own struggle, it is they who conduct it, organise it, manage it. They do not hand over to others their own acts and task of self-liberation. That way, we become accustomed to managing our own affairs, creating alternative, libertarian, forms of social organisation which can become a force to resist the state, win reforms and become the framework of a free society. In other words, direct action creates organs of self-activity (such as community assemblies, factory committees, workers' councils, and so on) which, to use Bakunin's words, are "creating not only the ideas but also the facts of the future itself." In other words, the idea that socialists standing for elections somehow prepares working class people for revolution is simply wrong. Utilising the state, standing in elections, only prepares people for following leaders -- it does not encourage the self-activity, self-organisation, direct action and mass struggle required for a social revolution. If we look at the Poll-Tax campaign we can see what would happen to a mass movement based on electioneering. The various left-wing parties (particularly Militant) spent a lot of time and effort lobbying Labour Councillors not to implement the tax (with no success). Let us assume they had succeeded and the Labour Councillors had refused to implement the tax. What would have happened? Simply that there would not have been a mass movement or mass organisation based on non-payment, nor self-organised direct action to resist warrant sales, nor community activism of any form. Rather, the campaign would have consisted to supporting the councillors in their actions, mass rallies in which the leaders would have informed us of their activities on our behalf and, perhaps, rallies and marches to protest any action the government had inflicted on them. The leaders may have called for some form of mass action but this action would not have come from below and so not a product of working class self-organisation, self-activity and self-reliance. Rather, it would have been purely re-active and a case of follow the leader, without the empowering and liberating aspects of taking action by yourself, as a conscious and organised group. Of course, even discussing this possibility indicates how remote it is from reality. The Labour Councillors were not going to act -- they were far too "practical" for that. Years of working within the system, of using elections, had taken their toll decades ago. Anarchists saw the usefulness of picketing the council meetings, of protesting against the Councillors and showing them a small example of the power that existed to resist them if they implemented the tax. A picket would have been an expression of direct action, as it was based on showing our potential power. Lobbying, however, was building illusions in "leaders" acting for us to and based on pleading rather than defiance. But, then again, Militant desired to replace the current leaders with themselves and so would not object to such tactics. Unfortunately, Militant never really questioned why they had to lobby the councillors in the first place -- if standing for seats was a valid radical or revolutionary tactic, why has it always resulted in a de-radicalising of those who use it? This would be the inevitable results of any movement which "complements" direct action with electioneering. The focus of the movement will change from the base to the top, from self-organisation and direct action from below to passively supporting the leaders. This may not happen instantly, but over time, just as the party degenerates by working within the system, the mass movement will be turned into an electoral machine for the party -- even arguing against direct action in case it harms the election chances of the leaders. Just as the trade union leaders have done again and again. Is it correct to argue that elections divert attention away from building alternatives and campaigns in our communities and workplaces? On the most obvious level, election campaigns use on time, resources and energy which could be used elsewhere. Also, if radicals are elected the whole focal point of struggle changes. Rather than direct struggle against the state and the boss, this is no longer needed as the elected representatives will act or people will think they will act and so not act themselves. They have elected someone to fight for them and so do not need to fight themselves. Rudolf Rocker points to this when he noted that "frequently happened that in just those sections of the country where the Socialist parties were strongest the wages of the workers were lowest and the conditions of labour worst. That was the case, for example, in the northern industrial districts of France, where Socialists were in the majority in numerous city administrations, and in Saxony and Silesia, where throughout its existence German Social Democracy had been able to show a large following." [Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 51] The Social Democrats were elected to fight for people, can we be surprised if people do not act themselves? Individualism Moreover, Marxist support for electioneering is somewhat at odds with their claims of being in favour of collective, mass action. There is nothing more isolated, atomised and individualistic than voting. It is the act of one person in a closet by themselves. It is the total opposite of collective struggle. The individual is alone before, during and after the act of voting. Indeed, unlike direct action, which, by its very nature, throws up new forms of organisation in order to manage and co-ordinate the struggle, voting creates no alternative organs of working class self-management. Nor can it. Neither is it based on nor does it create collective action or organisation. It simply empowers an individual (the elected representative) to act on behalf of a collection of other individuals (the voters). Such delegation will hinder collective organisation and action as the voters expect their representative to act and fight for them -- if they did not, they would not vote for them in the first place! Given that Marxists usually slander anarchists as "individualists" the irony is delicious! Not voting? Not Enough! As part and parcel of anarchist support on direct action is abstentionism. This signifies the rejection of voting. However, there is more than one kind of abstentionism. There is passive and active abstentionism. Passive abstentionism is that associated with alienation, apathy and a-politicalism. The one which bases itself on a "cannot be bothered," cynical attitude and little else. This form of abstentionism easily leads to rejecting all forms of struggle and politics, including direct action and anarchism. Anarchists are against this just as much as any socialist voter. Rather, anarchists see abstentionism as a positive statement, a means of turning the natural negative reaction to an unjust system into positive activity (i.e. direct action, solidarity, self-activity and self-organisation). So, anarchist opposition to electioneering has deep political implications which Luigi Galleani addressed when he wrote: "anarchists' electoral abstentionism implies not only a conception that is opposed to the principle of representation (which is totally rejected by anarchism), it implies above all an absolute lack of confidence in the State. . . Furthermore, anarchist abstentionism has consequences which are much less superficial than the inert apathy ascribed to it by the sneering careerists of 'scientific socialism' [i.e. Marxism]. It strips the State of the constitutional fraud with which it presents itself to the gullible as the true representative of the whole nation, and, in so doing, exposes its essential character as representative, procurer and policeman of the ruling classes. "Distrust off reforms, of public power and of delegated authority, can lead to direct action [in the class struggle]. . . It can determine the revolutionary character of this . . . action; and, accordingly, anarchists regard it as the best available means for preparing the masses to manage their own personal and collective interests; and, besides, anarchists feel that even now the working people are fully capable of handling their own political and administrative interests." [The End of Anarchism?, pp. 13-14] Therefore abstentionism stresses the importance of self-activity and self-libertarian through struggle as well as having an important educational effect in highlighting that the state is not neutral, but serves to protect class rule, and that meaningful change only comes from below, by direct action. For the dominant ideas within any class society reflect the opinion of the ruling elite of that society and so any campaign at election times which argues for abstentionism and indicates why voting is a farce will obviously challenge these ideas. In other words, abstentionism combined with direct action and the building of socialist alternatives is a very effective means of changing people's ideas and encouraging a process of self-education and, ultimately, self-liberation. Thus not voting is not enough, we need to organise and fight. We must not ask for any concessions from the government. Our mission is to impose from the streets and workplaces that which ministers and deputies are incapable of realising in parliament. In the words of an anarchist member of the Jura Federation writing in 1875: "Instead of begging the State for a law compelling employers to make them work only so many hours, the trade associations directly impose this reform on the employers; in this way, instead of a legal text which remains a dead letter, a real economic change is effected by the direct initiative of the workers . . . if the workers devoted all their activity and energy to the organisation of their trades into societies of resistance, trade federations, local and regional, if, by meetings, lectures, study circles, papers and pamphlets, they kept up a permanent socialist and revolutionary agitation; if by linking practice to theory, they realised directly, without any bourgeois and governmental intervention, all immediately possible reforms, reforms advantageous not to a few workers but to the labouring mass -- certainly then the cause of labour would be better served than . . . legal agitation." [quoted by Caroline Cahm, Kropotkin and the Rise of Revolutionary Anarchism, p. 226] Anarchists insist that we learn to think and act for ourselves by joining together in organisations in which our experience, our perception and our activity can guide and make the change. Knowledge does not precede experience, it flows from it. People learn to be free only by exercising freedom. As one Spanish Anarchist put it 'We are not going to find ourselves. . . with people ready-made for the future. . . Without continued exercise of their faculties, there will be no free people. . . The external revolution and the internal revolution presuppose one another, and they must be simultaneous in order to be successful." [quoted by Martha Ackelsberg, Free Women of Spain, p. 33] In other words, anarchists reject the view that society is static and that people's consciousness, values, ideas and ideals cannot be changed. Far from it and anarchists support direct action because it actively encourages the transformation of those who use it. Direct action is the means of creating a new consciousness, a means of self-liberation from the chains placed around our minds, emotions and spirits by hierarchy and oppression. Therefore, anarchists urge abstentionism in order to encourage activity, not apathy. The reasons why people abstain is more important than the act. The idea that the USA is closer to anarchy because around 50% of people do not vote is nonsense. Abstentionism in this case is the product of apathy and cynicism, not political ideas. So anarchists recognise that apathetic abstentionism is not revolutionary or an indication of anarchist sympathies. It is produced by apathy and a general level of cynicism at all forms of political ideas and the possibility of change. Not voting is not enough, and anarchists urge people to organise and resist as well. Abstentionism must be the political counterpart of class struggle, self-activity and self-management in order to be effective - otherwise it is as pointless as voting is. But abstaining will help the right-wing win the election. Possibly. However anarchists don't just say "don't vote", we say "organise" as well. Apathy is something anarchists have no interest in encouraging. This means that if the anarchists could persuade half the electorate to abstain from voting this would, from an electoral point of view, contribute to the victory of the Right. But it would be a hollow victory, for what government could rule when half the electorate by not voting had expressed its lack of confidence in all governments? In other words, whichever party was in office would have to rule over a country in which a sizeable minority, even a majority, had rejected government as such. This would mean that the politicians would be subjected to real pressures from people who believed in their own power and acted accordingly. So anarchists call on people not to vote, but instead organise themselves and be conscious of their own power both as individuals and as part of a union with others. Anarchists favour direct action for a reason. History has confirmed our theory -- using bourgeois methods simply results in bourgeois ends. so get angry not apathetic with extracts from http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/anarchism/writers/anarcho/vote.html

Ireland, reject the treaty reject austerity !

The “Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union” is a treaty to institutionalise synchronised austerity across Europe at the expense of basic democratic rights. If implemented, it will mean a further assault on the living standards of working people and will further deepen the economic crisis.
The central reason why this is an Austerity Treaty is the enforcement of the “balanced budget” rule contained in Article 3. This rule imposes a maximum structural deficit of 0.5% for a country with a debt to GDP ratio of greater than 60%, and 1% for other countries. Exceeding that amount will trigger an automatic “correction mechanism” - which means cutbacks and extra taxes.
What is a structural deficit? Essentially, it is a measurement of the deficit in an economy when cyclical movements in the economy and one-off expenditures are taken out of the equation. However, how to determine it is a matter of a lot of debate between economists with the result that different institutions can come up with very different figures. For example the IMF estimates that Ireland ran a structural deficit of 5.4% of GDP in 2006, while the EU Commission estimated a surplus of 2.2%! It also is really something that can only be measured with the benefit of hindsight, with the result that structural deficit estimates differ radically over time.
Countries that are in bailout programmes are shielded from these targets until they exit. Ireland is currently due to exit in 2014. The Department of Finance estimates that in 2015, Ireland will have a strucutral deficit of 3.7%. Bringing that down to 0.5% would mean at least €5.7 billion worth of extra cuts and taxes. It is more likely that the Commission would give Ireland a few years to meet the target. A target of 2017 would simply mean extending that austerity over three years, with around €2 billion of extra austerity per year. Those cuts would further reduce GDP, therefore necessitating yet more cuts!
If it is passed and implemented across Europe, this Treaty will not bring stability and growth, it threatens an absolute disaster. Austerity is already destroying lives and economies across Europe – with the Greek economy in freefall as a direct result, the Portuguese economy continuing to shrink and the Irish economy set to become the first in the EU to have six consecutive years of declining domestic demand.
According to the European Commission, in 2013, 18 countries out of 25 will have a structural deficit greater than their target, with an average deficit of 2.6 per cent. Reducing these deficits to the target levels in 2013 would mean at least €166 billion worth of cuts and extra taxes. That would have a devastating impact on the European economy. If a longer timeframe is given by the Commission, this will simply mean the same savage austerity drawn out over years.
A bondholders' Treaty
Article 4 requires countries with a debt to GDP ratio of over 60% to reduce it by one twentieth of the excess per year. In theory, there are two ways in which this ratio could be reduced. GDP could be increased or the debt itself could be reduced through paying back the principal. In practice, because of the austerity policies already being pursued and the implications of Article 3, the option of significant GDP growth is effectively ruled out.
Therefore, this Article in effect calls for a massive pay back of debt to the bondholders! In the Eurozone as a whole, the debt to GDP ratio is at 85%. Reducing that to 60% without GDP growth would require a reduction of €2.3 trillion of debt. This is a recipe for yet more austerity that will provoke a further contraction across Europe.
Ireland's debt to GDP ratio is likely to be around 120% in 2015. Reducing the debt to GDP ratio by one twentieth of the excess per year will therefore mean paying back €4.5 billion per year in principal to the bondholders on top of the €9 billion a year we will be paying in interest rates. This debt will only be paid back on the basis of yet more savage austerity imposed on working people.
Restrictions of major public investment
Articles three and four together demonstrate how this is an austerity Treaty in the interests of the bondholders and speculators. This is not simply one off austerity, but an attempt to enshrine it “through provisions of binding force and permanent character”. They mean that engaging in expansionary fiscal policy will be effectively made illegal.
While it is the case that often achieving a structural balance would be a worthwhile aim, it also often makes sense for a state to engage in borrowing and deficit spending in order to create employment and develop the economy. The need for massive public investment is particularly evident right now in Ireland. 450,000 people are on the live register and private sector investment has collapsed. Despite an increase in profits for the private sector (the gross operating surplus of non-financial corporations increasing by €2.6 billion in 2010) investment continues to decline (by €30 billion since 2007). On the basis of relying on the private sector, it is simply wishful thinking to suggest that the financial resources will be put together with the available skills and talents of labour to create jobs and wealth in our economy.
That is why massive public sector programmes are needed to get people back to work, as well as improving our infrastructure and developing our economy. If big business is not willing to invest, the key sections of the economy should be taken out of private ownership and into democratic public ownership and a democratic plan developed based on massive public sector investment to redevelop the economy.
Attack on democracy
The Fiscal Treaty is part of a process, with the economic crisis, that has seen significant attacks on democratic rights within the EU. For example, the unelected and unaccountable European Central Bank has become increasingly powerful – sending detailed prescriptions of austerity measures to the Italian governments for them to carry out. The unelected European Commission has played a central role in the removal of elected governments in Italy and Greece and their replacement by bankers' governments. This treaty is a significant attack on the basic democratic right to elect a government to decide on budgetary and economic strategy. It does this in two key ways.
Firstly, with the balanced budget rule it effectively ties future governments to the same economic policies as this one – neo-liberalism and austerity. It rules out governments running structural deficits – which could be used for investment in vital public works, to engage in necessary public spending and so on. It is surely one of the most basic requirements of a democracy that people are free to vote for different economic policies.
This has not come out of the blue – it is part of a process whereby economic policy has been technocratised. There has been a conscious attempt to use the crisis (a crisis of capitalism caused by speculators, bankers, neo-liberalism and deregulation, let us remember) to move economic policy out of the sphere of democratic discussion and to turn it into a purely technical question. So neo-liberalism is not posed as a policy choice, it is simply “responsible” behaviour.
The second key proposal diminishing democracy is the mechanism for countries to be effectively placed in administration. This is contained in Article 5 of the treaty, which says that countries in an “excessive deficit procedure” have to put in place a “budgetary and economic partnership programme including a detailed description of the structural reforms which must be put in place and implemented to ensure an effective and durable correction of their excessive deficits.” These programmes will be endorsed and monitored by the European Commission and Council. In this way there is a surrender of budgetary powers to the Commission and Council; consequently it will not only be countries in receipt of bailout funds like Ireland, Greece and Portugal that will have their budgets effectively written by these powers.
A neo-liberal Europe
With the economic crisis, the illusions that so-called social democrats promoted about a supposedly social Europe have been smashed by the reality of a neo-liberal Europe. This Treaty goes further along that road of diminishing democratic checks and accountability of the leading bodies in Europe, in order to create a Europe where the interests of the bankers and billionaires come first. This Treaty writes economic policy into law in their interests, at the expense of the vast majority who will suffer under austerity. It must be met with a vigorous No campaign in the referendum but also with struggle in the streets and workplaces by workers across Europe against their agenda.



With thanks to Paul Murphy MEP of the socialist party ULA in Ireland for this e xcellent article on the bits I don’t fully understand.

What did Lenin mean when he talked of trade union contiousness and social democratic contiousness ?

As marxists we are constantly asking ourselves which state of the class struggle are we passing through. As dialectic thinkers we do not see a situation as a stationary one something has happened for us to get to where we are and something is currently happening that will impact on where we go next. We are constantly looking at the working class movements and seeing where if anywhere they are heading.

Lenin was no different in the early part of the 20th centruy when he posed in his excelent pamphlett "what is to be done ?" Lenin formulated that the spontinaity of workers when struggle arises can be bracketed into diffeernt contious and non contious thinking. Lenin explains to us that trade union contiousness is simply workers using the collective power of the trade unions to fight for better pay, conditions and a shorter working day etc. These struggles which are limited to fighting within the existing system of capitalism are key as they do raise contiousness as we well know. But lenin clearly pointed out these struggles are not social democratic as they do not look to challenge the system as yet.
In this piece below from Lenin's what is to be done he makes a excellent point taht on their own the working class cannot draw the conclusions that to fully imancipate themselves as the marxist term goes that the system of explitation and greed needs to be over thrown. Only by the intelligencia and more academic thinkers who understand marxism who can be workers too of course can influence the mass's to convince them that a change of the system is needed. As socialists we have already drawn these conclusions but convincing other workers that there is the need to change the system is our daily task. Showing the inequalities and exposing the capitalist system for what it is is a daily task of a revolutionary.

"A. The Beginning of the Spontaneous Upsurge
In the previous chapter we pointed out how universally absorbed the educated youth of Russia was in the theories of Marxism in the middle of the nineties. In the same period the strikes that followed the famous St. Petersburg industrial war of 1896 assumed a similar general character. Their spread over the whole of Russia clearly showed the depth of the newly awakening popular movement, and if we are to speak of the “spontaneous element” then, of course, it is this strike movement which, first and foremost, must be regarded as spontaneous. But there is spontaneity and spontaneity. Strikes occurred in Russia in the seventies and sixties (and even in the first half of the nineteenth century), and they were accompanied by the “spontaneous” destruction of machinery, etc. Compared with these “revolts”, the strikes of the nineties might even be described as “conscious”, to such an extent do they mark the progress which the working-class movement made in that period. This shows that the “spontaneous element”, in essence, represents nothing more nor less than. consciousness in an embryonic form. Even the primitive revolts expressed the awakening of consciousness to a certain extent. The workers were losing their age-long faith in the permanence of the system which oppressed them and began... I shall not say to understand, but to sense the necessity for collective resistance, definitely abandoning their slavish submission to the authorities. But this was, nevertheless, more in the nature of outbursts of desperation and vengeance than of struggle. The strikes of the nineties revealed far greater flashes of consciousness; definite demands were advanced, the strike was carefully timed, known cases and instances in other places were discussed, etc. The revolts were simply the resistance of the oppressed, whereas the systematic strikes represented the class struggle in embryo, but only in embryo. Taken by themselves, these strikes were simply trade union struggles, not yet Social Democratic struggles. They marked the awakening antagonisms between workers and employers; but the workers, were not, and could not be, conscious of the irreconcilable antagonism of their interests to the whole of the modern political and social system, i.e., theirs was not yet Social-Democratic consciousness. In this sense, the strikes of the nineties, despite the enormous progress they represented as compared with the “revolts”, remained a purely spontaneous movement.

We have said that there could not have been Social-Democratic consciousness among the workers. It would have to be brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc.[2] The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals. By their social status the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia. In the very same way, in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of Social-Democracy arose altogether independently of the spontaneous growth of the working-class movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the development of thought among the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia. In the period under discussion, the middle nineties, this doctrine not only represented the completely formulated programme of the Emancipation of Labour group, but had already won over to its side the majority of the revolutionary youth in Russia.

Hence, we had both the spontaneous awakening of the working masses, their awakening to conscious life and conscious struggle, and a revolutionary youth, armed with Social-Democratic theory and straining towards the workers. In this connection it is particularly important to state the oft-forgotten (and comparatively little-known) fact that, although the early Social-Democrats of that period zealously carried on economic agitation (being guided in this activity by the truly useful indications contained in the pamphlet On Agitation,"


So what i myself draw from all this is that the role of a revolutionary party involved in the day to day struggles of the workers and inside the unions fighting day to day against the boss's who look to push down their living standards to increase their own profits. We must be alongside workers to explain that that this doesnt have to be this way. There is an alternative and we can achieve this through agitation first and foremost awaking the workers to the task in hand.