by DGR News Service | Aug 16, 2021 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Direct Action, Education, Mining & Drilling, Obstruction & Occupation, Reclamation & Expropriation, Strategy & Analysis, Toxification
A Guide for Resistance
By Carlos Zorrilla with Arden Buck and David Pellow
Resistance to mining is growing worldwide. Although extractive companies are powerful, they are also vulnerable.
About this guide
This guide is intended for leaders and organizers who can work with communities to carry out local actions, and who can also work at the regional, national, and international levels. It describes aspects of the mining process and the dangers your community faces when mining companies seek to operate in your community (Sect. 1), the many strategies you can use to fight back (Sect. 2 and Appendices A and B), examples of successful resistance by communities who fought back (Appendix C), and helpful resources in a companion volume (Supplement). Our hope is that with this guide, you too can succeed in protecting your community against these dangers.
This guide is not only for mining.
Most of the tactics and countermeasures described herein apply equally well to other extractive and exploitative activities: oil, gas, logging, various polluting industries, and large hydroelectric dams. Most activities proposed by large corporations, although they promise benefits, ultimately devastate local communities and their surroundings. If your community is targeted, it is essential to organize and resist. Acknowledgements: The material in this guide draws on the experience of several experts on mining and its impacts, particularly principle author Carlos Zorrilla. The guide came about because he realized that other communities around the world could benefit from the knowledge and experience that he and his colleagues gained while fighting to keep his area from being destroyed by mining companies.
Download the whole guide as PDF here:
Protecting Your Community From Extractive Industries
by DGR News Service | Aug 10, 2021 | Education, Strategy & Analysis
This article is from the blog buildingarevolutionarymovement.
This post describes capitalism as: an activity, the capitalist system, the phases of capitalism through history and that there are many capitalisms. If we want to get rid of capitalism, first we need to understand what it is.
Jeremy Gilbert, in his recent book Twenty-First Century Socialism, gives a good summary of what capitalism is. Most human societies through history have not experienced capitalism, as it only developed in the last few hundred years. It then spread around the world. Gilbert describes capitalism as:
“a situation in which private individuals or corporations are allowed to use any means available to them – short of openly violent coercion – to accumulate vast profits from the sale of commodities, even if, in the process, they are paying workers very low wages, wrecking the local environment, or forcing people to change their way of life against their will.”
‘Capital’ is the wealth that is available to be invested or lent, with the aim of returning a profit in the form of more capital. A ‘capitalist’ is someone that profits from their ability to invest capital. Gilbert describes capitalism in two ways. The first is a more basic way as describes above; an activity called ‘capital accumulation,’ – which is the investing of capital with the goal of increasing their total amount of capital. The second broader way Gilbert describes capitalism is, “a whole way of ordering society, and to a set of values and beliefs about how society should be ordered.” See the next section for more on this.
Gilbert described how the problems that we face now are the same as in the 1800s: “industrial pollution, urban squalor, growing inequality, social insecurity, a widespread sense that society was falling apart and that nobody knew what to do about it, where a few were getting very rich as a result.”
Gilbert states that the obvious cause of these problems is technological change. But the way technology is used in society depends on how that society is organised – to benefit all or to benefit a few, who become rich and powerful by making and selling things for profit. For most companies and businesses to be successful, they need workers. Those running those companies cannot make significant profits if they pay their workers too much. So, “corporations and their chief executives use new technologies to try to keep down their wage bills, at their own workers’ expense.”
So that this is possible, capitalism organises society in a specific way:
“There had to be a small group of people rich enough to use the new technologies in these ways. There had to be large numbers of people around who had no choice but to work for the wages that they are offered. There had to be a whole legal system in place, and a culture, that treated the accumulation of vast profits by private individuals or corporations as legitimate, legal, and morally acceptable.”
For capitalists who pursue capital accumulation through investment, the main aim of activities is to accumulate capital. Gilbert explains that those that run businesses but use the profits to have a luxurious lifestyle or pay their employees well, are not ‘doing capitalism’. He is clear that an essential part of capitalism and capital accumulation is the need to exploit the labour of workers and pay them the absolute minimum.
Capitalists accumulates capital by exploiting workers to produce commodities for sale. “a commodity is anything that can be bought and sold for profit.” As new commodities have been found and developed since the 1400s, we are now at a point in society where almost everything we engage with is a commodity. In the past, most things in people’s lives were made by someone they know. “Now, we live in a world in which our entire material culture is a productof capitalism.” It looks like all this stuff comes from nowhere but it actually requires a huge amount of cooperation across, “factories, in global distribution networks, in retail outlets and in packing warehouses.”
Capitalists are always looking for new commodities to sell and new people to sell them too. Gilbert describes a brief history of capitalism. In the early days it involved colonisation and imperialism – going to other countries and using violence to take resources, land and people. In Britain, peasants were forced off the land so the rich could farm them. The peasants then had to move to towns and cities to find work in the factories to buy basic commodities to keep themselves alive. In the twentieth century, workers got organised and forced employers to pay them more so their standards of living increased. For capital accumulation to grow, people had to be convinced to buy commodities that they didn’t need. The modern advertising industry developed so now we regularly experience someone trying to sell us something. The late twentieth and twenty-first century has seen the number of commodities increase, but also most parts of our social life are now for sale – healthcare, education, dating, spirituality. This is called ‘commodification’. [1]
The Capitalist Story
Gilbert describes most capitalist as not being manufacturers, instead they get their profits from “speculation on shares, currencies, derivatives and debt instruments, or from retailing, distributing and marketing things that other companies have made, or from renting out property and land”
He explains that the capitalists have to have a convincing story to tell us, governments and themselves to justify the huge wealth and power they have. Gilbert states that this is the same story capitalists have been telling for four hundred years since European merchants expanded across the world:
“Human beings come into the world alone. They may collaborate with others to achieve certain goals or to protect their property, but their basic relationship with other humans is, at root, a competitive one. It is up to every individual to strive as best they can to enrich themselves, by working hard and deploying their unique talents. In a modern commercial society, governments will encourage them to do just this, in the knowledge that by pursuing riches, entrepreneurs will bring improvements to the lives of their many customers (improvements like sugar, tobacco and social media). For such a society to function smoothly, and for entrepreneurs to remain motivated to play their crucial role, the state must make the protection of private property its number one priority. Property and those who hold it must not only be protected from marauding bandits or foreign invaders; it must be protected from any claims that the wider community might try to make on it. Taxation, public spending, the regulation of corporations and markets; these may all be necessary to a degree, but they must be strictly limited if society is not to descend into tyranny. Any society that puts strict limits on the ability of individuals or corporations to enrich themselves would be a tyranny, and tyranny is the worst thing in the world. Because it is wrong to put restrictions on the economic activity of entrepreneurs, decision over things like the price of goods or the value of labour (i.e. wages) must be left up to the market; while individuals and corporations must be allowed to use any means available to them (advertising, media, propaganda, etc.) in order to pursue their commercial interests and protect them from interference by either competitors or the wider public.” [2]
This worldview can also be describe as liberalism.
The Capitalist System
Gilbert describes capitalism as a “particular set of socio-economic practices and the social relations which they engender, reproduce, and come to depend on.” Some theorists call this a ‘capitalist social formation’. He also describes the capitalist system as a social, economic, political and cultural system for the production and distribution of material goods. Marx calls this the ‘capitalist mode of production.’ The practices are important but only a part of the capitalist system. Either way it is the rich or capitalists that have the most power. [3]
Capitalism as a political system uses the power of wealth to apply pressure to governments to implement policies that are beneficial to the rich. They also spread propaganda that is favourable to them and their interests. Capitalists spend millions to lobby governments so they can control media institutions and this gives them significant influences over politics. Gilbert describes how we live in a ‘plutocracy’ – a society ruled by the rich.
Gilbert states that we need to be careful to not assume that capitalism or capitalist society is a “totally integrated and self-enclosed system, which subsumes every element of contemporary life.” Capitalism does have some effect on all of social life and blocks the achievement of many social goals, but there are many things happening that are not capitalist. This gives those in opposition to capitalism, opportunities to explore alternatives and challenge capitalism.
Capitalism can be described as an “abstract system – a kind of impersonal machine that just keeps going without anybody being in charge of it.” Gilbert explains that this is true to a point: “it is a system that would not exist without the continued efforts of capitalists to make themselves wealthy at everyone else’s expense.” New, successful capitalists, like CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos, find ways to change how the capitalist game is played so capitalism can be extended into more parts of social life [4]
– through Amazon we can order almost anything to be delivered to our home and Amazon records all our information and preferences.
The Corporate Watch publication, Capitalism, What is it and how can we destroy it? Describes the characteristics of capitalist economic and cultural systems. The key features of capitalist economic systems are:
- “markets play a central role in making decisions
- property rights set out who can use and trade goods, and so have economic power
- things, animals, and people are made into commodities – objects that can be owned and traded
- the state acts as an enforcer of the economic system, and helps it spread concentrations of wealth, of capital, to channel power into the hands of capitalist elites
- the profit motive drives capitalists to continually expand markets
- in modern industrial capitalism, profit very largely involves the exploitation of people who are forced to work” [5]
The Corporate Watch publication explains that capitalism is a culture: “a complex web of desires, values, norms, conscious and unconscious rules, practices, behaviours, attitudes, that are shared and spread in the social groups in which we are born, raised, and live our lives.” Capitalism would not be able to function unless everyone learns:
- “the rules of markets, how to act as buyers and sellers
- to respect property
- to see animals, the natural world, other people, and even ourselves, as ‘objects’ to be bought and sold, owned and managed
- to respect and fear the state, its laws, police, judges and teachers
- to accept gross inequalities of power and wealth
- to believe that accumulating ‘stuff ’ is the key to happiness
- to base our lives around work” [6]
Phases of capitalism
There have been a number of phases of capitalism through time. This is a brief overview of the phases of capitalism. I’ll go into more detail about the phases in futures posts.
- Mercantile Capitalism, 14th-18th centuries
Capitalism was, at that time, a system of trading goods at local markets to increase profits for traders. Early forms of the corporation were developed, and the first stock exchanges and banks were created.
- Classical/Industrial Capitalism, 19th century
This came about because of an enormous reorganization of society was taking place. “The bourgeoisie class, owners of the means of production, rose to power within newly formed nation-states, and a vast class of workers left rural lives to staff the factories that were now producing goods in a mechanized way.” [7]
- Keynesianism or New Deal Capitalism, 20th century
The stock market crash of 1929 resulted in the core principles of free-market ideology being abandoned by governments, banks and corporations. Governments responded by intervening in the economy to protect national industries from foreign competition. The expansion of national corporations was encouraged by investing in social welfare programs and infrastructure. [8]
There are two further phases.
- Finance Capitalism/Neoliberalism, late 20th century
‘Finance capitalism,’ or ‘financial capitalism’ is the subordination of processes of production to the accumulation of money profits in a financial system. Neoliberalism is the 20th-century resurgence of 19th-century ideas associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism and free market capitalism.
- Twenty-first Century Capitalism
This is the current phase we are in, and it started with the economic crisis of 2008, which delegitimised capitalism and neoliberalism. It has a number of the characteristics of Finance Capitalism and Neoliberalism. It also includes government austerity programs in many countries to reduce government budget deficits by implementing spending cuts on public services and social welfare programs. It has seen the election of authoritarian governments and huge government spending since the start of Covid 19 crisis. This phase is still evolving, so its form is not yet clear.
Many Capitalisms
The Corporate Watch publication points out that there are many types or forms of capitalisms at any one time. Capitalism also varies in different places. There is no correct definition of capitalism:
“Capitalism is not an all-powerful ‘monolith’. Capitalist systems co-exist, incorporate, work with or fight against other systems, cultures and forms of life. For example, with older feudal or tribal institutions, or with movements to create different ways of living.
In whatever form it takes, capitalism is not ‘natural’ or eternal. It is constantly changing, being re-made by human beings, and by the bigger worlds around them. The history of capitalism is a history of invention and creativity, and of destruction, exploitation, domination, bloodshed and terror. And also of resistance and rebellion and struggles for freedom.” [9]
Endnotes
- Twenty-First Century Socialism, Jeremy Gilbert, 2020, page 5-17
- Twenty-First Century Socialism, page 24-5
- Twenty-First Century Socialism, page 17-18 and Anticapitalism and Culture: Radical Theory and Popular Politics, Jeremy Gilbert, 2008 page 76-7
- Twenty-First Century Socialism, page 17-22
- Capitalism, What is it and how can we destroy it? page 4 https://corporatewatch.org/product/capitalism-what-is-it-and-how-can-we-destroy-it/
- Capitalism, What is it and how can we destroy it? page 5
- https://www.thoughtco.com/historic-phases-of-capitalism-3026093
- https://www.thoughtco.com/historic-phases-of-capitalism-3026093, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_capitalism
- Capitalism, What is it and how can we destroy it? page 3/4
by DGR News Service | Aug 3, 2021 | Education, Repression at Home, Worker Exploitation
This article is from the blog buildingarevolutionarymovement.
This post will cover the key ideas of the philosopher Karl Marx. In part 2, I will list the Marxist traditions after Marx.
David Harvey, who has written many books on Marxism, describes Marxism as a mode of analysis and a critical way of thinking. He explains that when you want to understand what is happening in a situation, then if you use a Marxist approach you will not be deceived by surface appearances and ‘ideological bluster’. You can use it to do an analysis for yourself and come up with an understanding of what is really going on in a situation. If you really understand what is going on, then you can act against what is really happening in a deeper way rather than deal with surface symptoms.[1]
Marxism is also important because Karl Marx was the first great critic of capitalism. This critique was continued in the many Marxist traditions. Capitalism is the problem, and we need a new system for organising society. [2]
Karl Marx was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist and socialist revolutionary [3]. He lived from 1818 to 1883 and spent most of his life in London. He collaborated with his friend and supporter, Frederic Engels on much of this work. There is much written about Karl Marx so I don’t plan to repeat it all here except to list his key contributions and some resources to find out more.
I’m going to use the framework from Sociological Theory by George Ritzer and N. Stepnisky Jeffrey as I’ve found it the best summary of Marx’s work [3]. There are several summaries of Marx’s work [4]. Marx was heavily influenced by G.W.F. Hegal, a German philosopher who lived from 1770 to 1831.
The Dialectic
Dialectical philosophy accepts that contradictions are part of reality and the best way to understand the real world is to study the development of contradictions. Hegal understood historical change through the concept of contradictions. Marx also believed that contradictions drove historical change. Where Hegal thought that contradictions could be worked out in our minds, Marx thought that contradictions were resolved by the “life-and-death struggle that changes the social world.” For Marx this meant the study of social relations based on the material world. “The dialectic leads to an interest in the conflicts and contradictions between various levels of social reality.”
An example of a contradiction is between workers and capitalists, who own the factories or buildings where work is done. The capitalists exploit workers to make a profit and workers want to keep as much of the profits for themselves as possible. Both are not possible and Marx believed that the contradictions would grow worse and more people would be workers as small businesses would be forced out of business and competition between capitalists would force them to exploit workers more. This could only be resolved by social change when the levels of exploitation reach a point where workers resist their exploitation. This resistance would result in more exploitation and oppression and escalate the class conflict. [5]
Dialectical Method
The dialectical method came from Marx’s focus on contradictions in the real world.
Fact and Value
In dialectical thinking, social values and social facts are inseparable. Social values are our judgments about society. The dialectical thinker believes it is impossible and undesirable to keep them separate because it would result in a disconnected study of society.
Reciprocal Relations
A dialectical thinker does not see social processes flowing in one direction, such as cause-and-effect. They see one activity or actor having an effect on another, but that second activity or actor will likely affect the first.
Pass, Present, Future
Dialectical analysts are interested in the relationship between social processes in the present, past and future. They, therefore, study the “historical roots of the contemporary world.” They also study social trends to help understand the potential directions of society.
No Inevitabilities
Marx did not view the future to be determined by the present. Marx believed the direction the future went in is dependent on individual choices and struggles. Marx was interested in the dynamics of real relationships so he rejected Hegel’s approach of ‘grand abstractions’.
Actors and Structures
Marx was focused on the relationship between people and the large-scale structures they produce, such as community organisations, institutions, governments, states. For Marx, these structures help people meet the needs of their lives and also present a serious threat to general well being if controlled by the ruling class that are only interested in the well being of their class. [6]
Human Potential
Before considering Marx’s analysis of the macrostructures of capitalism, it’s important to describe his thoughts on the micro-sociological area of social reality. Marx “built his critical analysis of the contradictions of capitalist society on his premises about human potential, its relation to labor, and its potential for alienation under capitalism. He believed that there was a real contradiction between our human potential and the way we must work in capitalist society.”
Marx argued that human potential is directly influenced by our specific “social relations and our institutional context. Therefore, human nature is not a static thing but varies historically and socially. To understand human potential, we need to understand social history, because human nature is shaped by the same dialectical contradictions that Marx believed shapes this history of society.” He also argued that there is a general human potential, which is called ‘species being’. This is made up of the potentials and powers that only human share.
Labour
The relationship between labour and human nature was important to Marx. Human labour creates something in reality that was only is people’s imaginations. What we produce reflects our purpose. For Marx this process of creating external objects in the real world from our internal thoughts is called objectification. It is also a material process of using nature to provide items to meet our material needs. As well as changing the material world, this labour also “transforms us, our needs, our consciousness, and our human nature.”
The term ‘labour’ for Marx was not only related to economic activities, it includes the act of transforming materials in the natural world into items we need or want. Capitalism has changed the process of labour so it is generally only associated with economic activities.
Marx believed that labour is a response to a need. The labour process results in a transformation that creates new needs, which for Marx was the “engine of human history”. It transforms the individual and society. [7]
Alienation
Marx believed that the relationship between labour and human nature was perverted by capitalism. He called this alienation. Under capitalism, we no longer labour under our own purpose but under the purpose of the capitalist who hires and pays us. Labour is just about earning money. This labour no longer transforms us as we are not doing it for ourselves so we are alienated from our labour and human nature. Marx described how the structures of capitalism cause alienation through the division of labour. The capitalists own the workers’ time, the means of production, and the products.
Marx’s concept of alienation works in four ways:
- workers under capitalism are alienated from their productive activity. The labour they do is not to produce objects based on their own ideas.
- Workers are alienated from the products they produce. The products they produce are owned by the capitalist and not the workers.
- Workers are alienated from their fellow workers. The production process isolated workers from one another. Workers are also forced to compete with other workers in workplaces and to obtain jobs.
- Workers under capitalism are alienated from their human potential. Instead of labour being transformational and satisfying our human nature, people feel least human in workplaces, and more like machines.
Alienation is an example of the contradictions that Marx’s dialectical approach uncovered. “There is a real contradiction between human nature, which is defined and transformed by labor, and the actual social conditions of labor under capitalism.” Identifying with our place of employment, or the things we buy with our wages, are symptoms of our alienation. Marx believed that alienation can only be resolved by real social change. [8]
The Structures of Capitalist Society
Marx witnessed in the 19th century rapid capitalist industrialisation across Europe with the significant changes it cause – “poverty, dislocation, and alienation”. Marx identified that capitalism was the main cause of alienation. He focused on critiquing capitalist society and developed a political program to go beyond capitalism.
Marx saw capitalism as an economic system where a large number of workers that own nothing, work to produce commodities so a small number capitalists can profit and who own: “the commodities, the means of producing the commodities, and the labor time of the workers, which they purchase through wages.” Marx understood capitalism to be an economic system and a system of power. Capitalism has transformed political powers into economic relations. Instead of using violence, capitalists are generally able to control workers by sacking them or closing workplaces. So capitalism is an economic and political system, a way of exercising power and a process for exploiting workers.
The capitalist system presents the economy as natural. People lose their jobs, wages are cut and workplaces are closed as part of the normal functioning of the economy. In fact, these outcomes happen because of social and political decisions. Attempts to connect human suffering and the economic structures are ignored or seen as irrelevant. Marx attempted to clarify the social and political structures of the economy by exposing ‘the economic law of motion of modern society’ and capitalisms’ internal contradictions.
Commodities
For Marx, commodities are “products of labor intended primarily for exchange.” Marx identified a commodities ‘use value’ – “objects produced for personal use or for use by others in the immediate environment.” When workers produce something for the capitalist that is then exchanged in the market for money, this is called the ‘exchange value’.
Fetishism of Commodities
Exchange values in capitalism become separate from the actual commodity so that the objects and the market for them become independent existences. Marx called this the ‘fetishism of commodities’. This separation is the second source of alienation listed above.
The economy takes on the function of producing value. “For Marx, the true value of a thing comes from the fact that labor produces it and someone needs it. A commodity’s true value represents human social relations.” Any object or commodity that we buy has hidden behind it several social relations.
The fetishism of commodities presents the economy as a natural reality. This relates to the concept of ‘reification’ – “the process of coming to believe that humanly created social forms are natural, universal, and absolute things.” This idea results in people believing that “social structures are beyond their control and unchangeable.” Marx viewed the economy as a form of domination, where political decisions related to the economy benefit the capitalists. People ‘reify’ (naturalise) social relationships, social structures, commodities, economic phenomena such as the division of labour, religion, political and organisational structures and the state.
Capital, Capitalists, and the Proletariat
Marx identified several categories of people in capitalist societies. He identified two broad categories in opposition with each other – the proletariat and the capitalist.
The proletariat are workers that do not own any means of production so sell their labour. Marx believed workers would become less skilled as more machines were introduced. The proletariat are also consumers because they use their wages to buy what they need. They are therefore dependent on their wages to survive and those that pay their wages.
Capitalists own the means of production and aim to produce more capital. “Capital is money that produces more money, capital is money that is invested rather than being used to satisfy human needs or desires.” A capitalist uses his money to buy commodities to then sell to make more money or profit. Non-capitalists obtain a commodity that they sell for money to then buy a commodity that they need to survive.
Marx describes capital as more than money that produces more money. It is also a social relation between “the proletariat, which does the work and must purchase the produce, and…those that have invested the money.” Marx sees capital as a relation of power. To increase it, capitalists must exploit the workers through a system that is produced by the workers’ own labour. “The capitalist system is the social structure that emerges from that exploitative relationship.” Capitalists live off the profit of their capital from the exploitation of the proletariat.
Exploitation
Workers are exploited by the “impersonal and ‘objective’ economic system.” Workers are controlled by capitalists because they need to engage in wage labour to meet their basic needs to survive, so the capitalists do not need to use force. It may appear that workers are free to choose what work they do but to survive, workers have to accept the work they are offered by capitalists. Marx describes the ‘reserve army of the unemployed’ – workers know that if they do not take the job someone from the reserve army of the unemployed will.
Capitalists pay the workers less than the value of what the worker produces and keep the rest as profits. Marx called this “surplus value’ – this is defined as, “the difference between the value of the produce when it is sold and the value of the elements consumed in the formation of the product (including the worker’s labor).” Capitalists then use this profit to grow their businesses to generate more surplus value. Marx saw surplus value as an economic concept, and like capital, as a social relation and form of domination, because labour is the real source of surplus value.
Marx also describes capital as being driven by non-stop competition. Although capitalists may seem in control, they are in fact driven by constant competition between themselves. Capitalists are driven to generate more profit to invest their capital in expanding their enterprise. Those that do not are outcompeted. Marx called this the ‘general law of capitalist accumulation’. “The structure and the ethos of capitalism push capitalists in the direction of the accumulation of more and more capital”. As Marx saw labour as the source of value, then the exploitation by capitalists of the proletariat led to class conflict.
Class Conflict
Marx used the term ‘class’ in his work but did not clearly define it. It is generally understood to mean “a group of people in similar situations concerning their control of the means of production.” Marx also viewed class in terms of its potential for conflict – “individuals form a class insofar as they are in a common conflict with others over the surplus value.” Capitalism contains a conflict of interest between workers and the capitalists who turn their labour into surplus value. It is this conflict that produces classes. This means that class is a theoretically and historically variable concept. To identify a class, first, you need to understand the potential conflicts that exist in a society.
Marx argued that a class only really exists when “people become aware of their conflicting relation to other classes. Without this awareness, they only constitute what Marx called a class ‘in itself’. When they become aware of the conflict, they become a true class, a class ‘for itself’.
Marx identified two classes in capitalism, the bourgeoisie and proletariat. Marx called the capitalists in the modern economy, the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie owns the means of production and employs the workers. Marx saw the conflict between the proletariat and bourgeoisie as a real material contradiction, that would only get worse until society is changed. Until that change, society would continue to be polarised between these two classes. Some capitalists will lose out and be forced into the ranks of the proletariat. Marx called this ‘proletarianization’.
Marx saw the increase in mechanisation as decreasing the skills of the proletariat and putting many out of work. The capitalists will create the masses that will organise and overthrow the system. He saw that the international linking of factories and markets are raising the awareness of workers, which will lead to revolution.
The capitalists look to avoid revolution by exploiting workers abroad through colonisation and imperialism, to reduce exploitation of workers in the home countries. Marx only saw this as delaying the inevitable end of capitalism, as the laws of the capitalist economy required the reduction of labour costs by increasing exploitation and therefore class conflict. “Marx did not blame individual members of the bourgeoisie for their actions, he saw these actions as largely determined by the logic of the capitalist system.”
Marx predicted at the economic level, “a series of booms and depressions, as capitalists overproduced or laid-off workers in their attempts to increase their profits.” In the political arena, he predicted the inability of civil society to discuss and fix social problems. Marx believed instead the state will increasingly protect the capitalists’ private property, and, when needed, to step in with force when the capitalists’ economic control of workers fails. [9]
Class Consciousness and False Consciousness
Marx described ‘class consciousness’ as an awareness of your social and economic position in society and in relation to others. Class consciousness is also an understanding of the social and economic aspects of your class, and its collective interests within the structures of capitalist society.
For Marx, workers lived with ‘false consciousness’ before they could develop class consciousness. Marx did not use the term ‘false consciousness,’ but developed the ideas. The term was first used by Engels. False consciousness and class consciousness are opposites. False consciousness is individualistic rather than collective. Individuals compete with each other in society, instead of working to collectivise their needs, struggles and interests. Marx saw that false consciousness was caused by the inequality of capitalist society, controlled by the ruling class. It stops workers from seeing their collective power and interests. It relates to Marx’s ideas around ideology, described below.
“Marx cited the phenomenon of commodity fetishism—the way capitalist production frames relationships between people (workers and owners) as relationships between things (money and products)—with playing a key role in producing false consciousness among workers. He believed that commodity fetishism served to obscure the fact that relations concerning production within a capitalist system are relationships between people, and that as such, they are changeable.” [10]
Capitalism as a Good Thing
Although Marx was critical of capitalism in terms of the dynamic of domination and exploitation, and its regular crises, he believed capitalism to be a good thing. He did not want to return to feudalism, before capitalism. In comparison, capitalism offered new possibilities and more freedom for workers. The workers are not free yet, but it gives hope and a path to great freedom. Also, as capitalism is the most powerful economic system ever created, there is the potential to end hunger and material deprivation.
Marx believed that capitalism was the primary cause of the significant characteristics of the modern age – constant change and the trend of challenging all accepted traditions. These came from the innate competitive nature of capitalism, which drives capitalists to constantly transform the means of production to change society. He believed capitalism to be a truly revolutionary force – it created a global society, constant technological change, and overthrew the traditional feudal society. Marx also believed it needed to be overthrown, as its role in the world was over and the next stage of communism needs to begin. [9]
Materialist Conceptions of History
Marx critiqued capitalism and its future because he believed that history would follow a predictable course. He has a materialist conception of history, also known as ‘historical materialism’. For Marx, this meant that how people provide for their material need determines or influences the relationships people have between each other, their social institutions, and their common ideas.
Marx called the way people provide for their material needs and the following economic relations, the ‘base’. Non-economic relations, such as social institutions and the important ideas in society, are referred to as the ‘superstructure’. Marx did not view the superstructure as simply “coming in line with the base.” He argued that human history was driven by trying to satisfy needs that are constantly changing. The satisfaction of needs resulted in more needs so that “human needs are both the motivating foundation and the result of the economic base.”
Marx describes the ‘material forces of production’ as the tools, machinery, and factories to meet human needs. The ‘relations of production’ are the relationships between people to satisfy their needs.
Marx had a dynamic view of history, so he thought that the forces of production (tools, machinery etc) will constantly change to produce for people’s material needs. Capitalism caused technological changes that resulted in factories. But for capitalism to happen, society changed due to a change in the relations of production (relationships between people to satisfy their needs). “Factories, capitalists, and wage labourers were not compatible with feudal relations.” Feudal lords obtained their wealth from their land and felt responsible for their serfs. Capitalists get their wealth from capital and feel no obligation to workers. Serfs felt loyal to the lords, whereas the proletariat must sell their labour where they can get work. “The old relations of production were in conflict with the new forces of production.” [11]
Cultural Aspects of Capitalist Society
Marx had several theories about the culture of capitalist society.
Ideology
Marx called the prevalent ideas of society that held back progressive change, ‘ideology’. Marx used the term ideology to refer to two related ideas.
Marx’s first understanding of ideology, “refers to ideas that naturally emerge out of everyday life in capitalism but, because of the nature of capitalism, reflect reality in an inverted manner.” An example is money. We know that money is only pieces of paper, but in daily life, we treat it as having an inherent value. Instead of believing that we give money its value, money is seen to give us our value. This understanding of ideology is open to disruption due to its unseen material contradictions. People come to understand that the economy is not objective and is politically controlled, resulting in workers alienation.
Marx’s second understanding of ideology refers to, “systems of ruling ideas that attempt once again to hide the contradictions that are at the heart of the capitalist system. In most cases, they do this in one of three ways: (1) they lead to the creation of subsystems of ideas – a religion, a philosophy, a literature, a legal system – that makes the contradictions appear to be coherent; (2) they explain away those experiences that reveal the contradictions, usually as personal problems or individual idiosyncrasies; or (3) they present the capitalist contradiction as really being a contradiction in human nature and, there, one that cannot be fixed by social change.”
Marx described how anyone can create this second type of ideology, whether they are from the ruling class, bourgeois economics, philosophers or even the proletariat if they have given up hope of changing society. Regardless of who constructs these ideologies, the ruling class always benefits.
Freedom, Equality, and Ideology
Marx argued that under capitalism, it appears that people are free and equal. In fact, it is capital that is free and the workers that are enslaved. For Marx, “freedom is the ability to have control over your own labor and its products.” Under capitalism, “people are dominated by capitalist relations that seem objective and natural and therefore are not perceived as a form of domination.”
The ideas of freedom and equality are the most dangerous to capitalism. Therefore, it needs to use the two forms of ideology to reduce freedom and equality.
Religion
Marx believed that religion was an ideology that was used to distract people who could not see their “distress and oppression” as produced by the capitalist system. He was not against all religion but when it “requires the illusions of religion”, meaning not real, and used to hide things in society. Religion is open to disruption and can result in religious movements opposing capitalism. Religion is also open to the second form of ideology by “portraying the injustice of capitalism as a test for the faithful and pushing any revolutionary change off into the afterlife.” [12]
Marx’s Economics: A Case Study
Marx understood ‘use value’ as items produced for personal use or use by others and ‘exchange value’ as something produced for capitalists for exchange in the market. Use values related to natural human expression and exchange values result in a distortion of humanity. Capitalism is based on exchange values.
Marx developed the ‘labor theory of value’ – “the basic source of any value was the amount of socially necessary labor time needed to produce an article under the normal conditions of production, and with the average degree of skill and intensity of the time.” The capitalist “pays the workers less than the value the workers produce and keeps the rest for themselves. The workers are not aware of this exploitation, and often, neither are the capitalists. The capitalists believe that this extra value is derived from their own cleverness, their capital investment, their manipulation of the market, and so on.”
This led Marx concept of ‘surplus value’ – “the difference between the value of the product when it is sold and value of the elements consumed in the formation of that product. Although means of production (raw materials and tools, the value of which comes from the labor involved in extracting or producing them) are consumed in the production process, it is labor that is the real source of surplus value.”
Capitalists use the surplus value to pay for land or building rent, bank interest, private consumption, and to expand their enterprise. Marx calls the capitalist desire to increase profit and surplus value the ‘general law of capitalist accumulation’. Capitalists are driven to constantly exploit workers. As this continues, exploitation achieves less and less gains, until an upper limit is reached. At this point, the working class will put pressure on governments to protect them from the capitalists, through limits to the working day or week. Capitalists respond by developing labour saving machines so they need less workers. “This shift to capital-intensive production is, paradoxically, a cause of the declining rate of profit since it is labor (not machines) that is the ultimate source of profit.”
The increase is the use of machines results in more and more unemployment. Increased competition results in less capitalists. This leads to a very small number of capitalists and a huge number of proletariat. At this point, capitalism is vulnerable to revolution. Capitalists look to avoid this by moving production and exploitation abroad to colonies. Marx believed this would only delay the inevitable failure of capitalism.
For Marx, the general law of capitalist accumulation meant that both the capitalists and proletariat had a fixed role to play set by the logic of the capitalist system. He did not blame individual capitalists. (Sociological Theory, p68-70)
Economic Crisis
In Marx’s time, there were two schools of thought about what caused an economic crisis. Some thought that crises were caused by a “lack of proportion between output of some sectors” – production not meeting the demand of items in some sectors and too many items in other sectors. This was known as ‘disproportionality theory’. Others thought that crises were caused by an “excess of total output” – overproduction. This is known as ‘underconsumptionist theory’ Marx and Engels were in the first school of thought.
Marx and Engels described individual economic crisis and also the recurring pattern of economic crises over the years. They predicted that crises would expand across sectors in society as capitalism spread around the world, rather than deepen in severity. They described a regularity in the time between crises but did not decide on a fixed period. [13]
Communism
For Marx, historical materialism helped “identify some predictable trends and to use these trends to discover the points where political action could be more effective.” Rather than focus on historical predictions, Marx believed that the way we meet our material needs was the best way to identify the “opportunities for effective political interventions.”
Marx thought that “capitalism had developed its productive powers so that it was ready to enter a new mode of production, which he called ‘communism’.” Marx wrote little about what a communist society would look like. He was against “recipes for the kitchens of the future.” Marx focused on critically analysing capitalist society and believed that “there would be time to construct communist society once capitalism was overcome.” In general, he wanted decision making taken away from the capitalists and economy, and replaced by “social decision making that would allow the needs of the many to be taken into account.” [14]
Endnotes
- 12m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL7zEVhPHQU
- https://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/what-is-marxism-faq.htm
- Sociological Theory, George Ritzer and N. Stepnisky Jeffrey, 2017, CH2
- The Thought Of Karl Marx: An Introduction by David McLellan 1995. The Marx-Engels Reader By Robert C. Tucker; Karl Marx; Friedrich Engels, 1978. Marx and Marxism, Gregory Claeys, 2018. Marxism and Social Theory, Jonathan Joseph, 2006.
- Sociological Theory, page 45
- Sociological Theory, page 46-48
- Sociological Theory, page 46-48
- Sociological Theory, page 53-55
- Sociological Theory, page 55-63
- https://www.thoughtco.com/class-consciousness-3026135
- Sociological Theory, page 63-65
- Sociological Theory, page 65-68
- Marxism: Philosophy and Economics, Thomas Sowell, 2012, page 96
- Sociological Theory, page 70-41
by DGR News Service | Jul 29, 2021 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Climate Change, Lobbying, Movement Building & Support
Editor’s note: We agree that “This is a landmark victory for the local communities who have stood up and held firm for over a decade to protect the climate, the Salish Sea, and their own health and safety.” We don’t put much hope into the Paris Agreement or all the UN climate summits. The best hope we have is us, so communities that develop and nurture a culture of resistance are the way to go.
This article originally appeared in Common Dreams.
Featured image: The Whatcom County Council on Tuesday night approved landmark policies regulating fossil fuel expansion at Cherry Point, home to two oil refineries. (Photo: RE Sources/Twitter)
By Jessica Corbett
In a move that comes as wildfires ravage the Western United States and could serve as a model for communities nationwide, the Whatcom County Council in Washington voted unanimously on Tuesday night to approve new policies aimed at halting local fossil fuel expansion.
“Whatcom County’s policy is a blueprint that any community, including refinery communities, can use to take action to stop fossil fuel expansion.”
—Matt Krogh, Stand.earth
“For too long, the fossil fuel industry has been allowed to cloak its infrastructure and expansion projects in an air of inevitability,” said Matt Krogh, director of Stand.earth’s SAFE Cities Campaign. “It has used this to diminish local communities’ concerns and then dismiss or ignore their voices. Whatcom County’s new, permanent policy is a clear signal that those days are over.”
“Local communities and their elected officials do have the power to decide what gets built near their homes, schools, and businesses,” Krogh continued. “Whatcom County’s policy is a blueprint that any community, including refinery communities, can use to take action to stop fossil fuel expansion.”
The county’s new land-use rules (pdf), approved in a 7-0 vote, apply to industrial land at Cherry Point, located north of the city of Bellingham. As KNKX reports:
The area has a deep-water port and two oil refineries. It’s zoned for industrial use. It sits adjacent to waterways that connect the Northwest to lucrative markets across the Pacific Rim. It’s also where what would have been the nation’s largest coal export facility—the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal—was canceled five years ago.
…Five years ago, the Army Corps of Engineers pulled the plug on Gateway Pacific proposal after the Lummi Tribe argued it would violate treaty fishing rights. The land at Cherry Point is adjacent to waters that are at the heart of the tribe’s usual and accustomed fishing area. And the state has designated that area an aquatic reserve.
Since that project’s demise, the council has enacted 11 six-month moratoriums. Tuesday’s vote permanently banned new refineries, shipping terminals, or coal-fired power plants at Cherry Point and imposed tougher regulations on any expansion of the area’s existing facilities.
The Bellingham Herald notes that while the five-year battle pitted the oil industry against environmentalists, “talks took a key step forward after the appointed county Planning Commission approved the Cherry Point amendments and a ‘stakeholder group’ of business and environmental interests began meeting to build a consensus over its final wording.”
“From the onset of the process five years ago, the County Council had set forth clear aims for new rules that would allow improvements of existing refineries while restricting facilities’ use for transshipment of fossil fuels,” Eddy Ury, a council candidate who led the stakeholders group for months while he was with the environmental group RE Sources for Sustainable Communities, told the newspaper.
“These dual purposes proved to be challenging to balance in lawmaking without overstepping authority,” Ury said. “The stakeholder group came together at the point where our respective interests were best served by cooperating.”
In a statement Wednesday, RE Sources executive director Shannon Wright welcomed the vote.
“This is a landmark victory for the local communities who have stood up and held firm for over a decade to protect the climate, the Salish Sea, and their own health and safety from risky and reckless fossil fuel expansion projects,” said Wright.
“There’s more to be done,” Wright added, “including addressing the pollution burden borne by local communities, in particular Lummi Nation, who live in close proximity to existing heavy industry and fossil fuel operations, and continuing to counter the threat of increased vessel traffic across the region.”
“When people ask local leaders to address their concerns, this is how it should be done.”
—Whatcom County Councillor Todd Donovan
Still, Whatcom County Councillor Todd Donovan celebrated that local residents “are now safer from threats like increased oil train traffic or more polluting projects at existing refineries.”
“When people ask local leaders to address their concerns, this is how it should be done—with input from all affected communities and industries, but without watering down the solutions that are most protective of public safety, the climate, and our waterways,” he said.
Stand.earth’s statement pointed out that the development comes as residents and activists in Tacoma, Washington are pushing for similar protections.
In a tweet about the vote in Whatcom County, the Tacoma arm of the environmental group 350.org said that it is “still waiting for Tacoma City Council to find courage to do the same here.”
The fights for local regulations on fossil fuels come as communities across the West endure the impacts of the human-created climate emergency—from deadly, record-breaking heat to ferocious fires. In Washington state alone, there are currently eight large active fires that have collectively burned 136,758 acres.
Conditions in the U.S. West, along with fires in Siberia and flooding across China and Europe, have fueled demands for bolder climate policy on a global scale. Parties to the Paris agreement—which aims to keep global temperature rise this century below 2°C, and preferably limit it to 1.5°C—are set to attend a two-week United Nations climate summit in Glasgow beginning October 31.
by DGR News Service | Jul 28, 2021 | Lobbying, Protests & Symbolic Acts
Editor’s note: The plan to protect the world’s wildlife (as well as the Paris Agreement) falls short because 1) Civilization is not and can never be sustainable. This is especially true for industrial civilization (Premise one), 2) The culture as a whole and most of its members are insane. The culture is driven by a death urge, an urge to destroy life (Premise ten), and, if you dig to the heart of it—if there were any heart left—you would find that social decisions are determined primarily on the basis of how well these decisions serve the ends of controlling or destroying wild nature (Premise 20). The only way to protect the world’s wildlife and the climate is to bring down the global economy.
This article originally appeared in The Conversation.
By Michelle Lim
It’s no secret the world’s wildlife is in dire straits. New data shows a heatwave in the Pacific Northwest killed more than 1 billion sea creatures in June, while Australia’s devastating bushfires of 2019-2020 killed or displaced 3 billion animals. Indeed, 1 million species face extinction worldwide.
These numbers are overwhelming, but a serious global commitment can help reverse current tragic rates of biodiversity loss.
This week the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity released a draft of its newest ten-year global plan. Often considered to be the Paris Agreement of biodiversity, the new plan aims to galvanise planetary scale action to achieve a world “living in harmony with nature” by 2050.
But if the plan goes ahead in its current form, it will fall short in safeguarding the wonder of our natural world. This is primarily because it doesn’t legally bind nations to it, risking the same mistakes made by the last ten-year plan, which didn’t stop biodiversity decline.
A lack of binding obligations
The Convention on Biological Diversity is a significant global agreement and almost all countries are parties to it. This includes Australia, which holds the unwanted record for the greatest number of mammal extinctions since European colonisation.
However, the convention is plagued by the lack of binding obligations. Self-reporting to the convention secretariat is the only thing the convention makes countries do under international law.
All other, otherwise sensible, provisions of the convention are limited by a series of get-out-of-jail clauses. Countries are only required to implement provisions “subject to national legislation” or “as far as possible and as appropriate”.
The convention has used non-binding targets since 2000 in its attempt to address global biodiversity loss. But this has not worked.
The ten-year term of the previous targets, the Aichi Targets, came to an end in 2020, and included halving habitat loss and preventing extinction. But these, alongside most other Aichi targets, were not met.
In the new draft targets, extinction is no longer specifically named — perhaps relegated to the too hard basket. Pollution appears again in the new targets, and now includes a specific mention of eliminating plastic pollution.
Is this really a Paris-style agreement?
I wish. Calling the plan a Paris-style agreement suggests it has legal weight, when it doesn’t.
The fundamental difference between the biodiversity plan and the Paris Agreement is that binding commitments are a key component of the Paris Agreement. This is because the Paris Agreement is the successor of the legally binding Kyoto Protocol.
The final Paris Agreement legally compels countries to state how much they will reduce their emissions by. Nations are then expected to commit to increasingly ambitious reductions every five years.
If they don’t fulfill these commitments, countries could be in breach of international law. This risks damage to countries’ reputation and international standing.
The door remains open for some form of binding commitment to emerge from the biodiversity convention. But negotiations to date have included almost no mention of this being a potential outcome.
So what else needs to change?
Alongside binding agreements, there are many other aspects of the convention’s plan that must change. Here are three:
First, we need truly transformative measures to tackle the underlying economic and social causes of biodiversity loss.
The plan’s first eight targets are directed at minimising the threats to biodiversity, such as the harvesting and trade of wild species, area-based conservation, climate change and pollution.
While this is important, the plan also needs to call out and tackle dominant worldviews which equate continuous economic growth with human well-being. The first eight targets cannot realistically be met unless we address the economic causes driving these threats: materialism, unsustainable production and over-consumption.
Second, the plan needs to put Indigenous peoples’ knowledge, science, governance, rights and voices front and centre.
An abundance of evidence shows lands managed by Indigenous and local communities have significantly better biodiversity outcomes. But biodiversity on Indigenous lands is decreasing and with it the knowledge for continued sustainable management of these ecosystems.
Indigenous peoples and local communities have “observer status” within the convention’s discussions, but references to Indigenous “knowledges” and “participation” in the draft plan don’t go much further than in the Aichi Targets.
Third, there must be cross-scale collaborations as global economic, social and environmental systems are connected like never before.
The unprecedented movement of people and goods and the exchange of money, information and resources means actions in one part of the globe can have significant biodiversity impacts in faraway lands. The draft framework does not sufficiently appreciate this.
For example, global demand for palm oil contributes to deforestation of orangutan habitat in Borneo. At the same time, consumer awareness and social media campaigns in countries far from palm plantations enable distant people to help make a positive difference.
The road to Kunming
The next round of preliminary negotiations of the draft framework will take place virtually from August 23 to September 3 2021. And it’s likely final in-person negotiations in Kunming, China will be postponed until 2022.
It’s not all bad news, there is still much to commend in the convention’s current draft plan.
For example, the plan facilitates connections with other global processes, such as the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. It recognises the contributions of biodiversity to, for instance, nutrition and food security, echoing Sustainable Development Goal 2 of “zero hunger”.
The plan also embraces more inclusive language, such as a shift from saying “ecosystem services” to “Nature’s Contribution to People” when discussing nature’s multiple values.
But if non-binding targets didn’t work in the past, then why does the convention think this time will be any different?
A further set of unmet biodiversity goals and targets in 2030 is an unacceptable scenario. At the same time, there’s no point aiming at targets that merely maintain the status quo.
We can change the current path of mass extinction. This requires urgent, concerted and transformative action towards a thriving planet for people and nature.
by DGR News Service | Jul 27, 2021 | Education, Movement Building & Support, Strategy & Analysis
This article is from the blog buildingarevolutionarymovement.
This post lists 9 Revolutionary moments and periods in Britain since 1381. This is a broad overview so I will look at the details and patterns of these moments and periods in future posts.
Following on from the previous post about learning from history, there has been a long tradition of the working class struggling to transform society. Several things are now different such as 40 years of neoliberalism, the atomisation of workforces with the large scale de-industrialisation of Britain, a heavily weakened labour movement, and a general lack of class consciousness for most of the working class. Class struggle in the 21st century is clearly going to be different as so much has changed. But there is much to learn from this history that I will go into in future posts. There are clear patterns through history in how different groups of actors operate during class struggles: the ruling class and state, the leadership of the trade unions, and the working class. Understanding these patterns is essential when thinking about class struggle going forwards.
In The Road Not Taken: How Britain Narrowly Missed a Revolution 1381-1926, Frank McLynn identifies seven occasions when Britain came close to revolution. These are the Peasants Revolt 1381, Jack Cade’s Rebellion 1450, the Pilgrimage of Grace 1536, the English Civil Wars 1642-51, the Jacobite Rising of 1745-6, the Chartist Movement of 1838-48, and the General Strike of 1926. McLynn includes the Great Unrest of 1910-1914 and near revolution in 1919, as leading up to the General Strike of 1926.
Rob Sewell has written an excellent radical history of the British labour movement called In Cause of Labour: History of British Trade Unionism. Sewell writes from a Lenin, Trotsky, and Russian Revolution tradition. He identifies 4 Revolutionary moments and periods of the labour movement: early radical labour movement in the late 1820s and 1830s; The Chartist Movement; The Great Unrest 1910-14, near revolution between 1919-26; and class struggle from the late 1960s to mid-1980s.
I have also added the Long 1968 – from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s.
The Peasants Revolt 1381
This was triggered by tax collection in Essex in May 1381. This resulted in rioting and protests that spread across the country. The rebels’ demands were tax reduction, the ending of serfdom and the removal of the King’s senior officials and law courts. The revolt was repressed by the end of June, including a battle in Norfolk.
Jack Cade’s Rebellion 1450
This revolt took place between April and July 1450. The grievances included corruption, abuse of power by the king’s advisers and military loses in France during the Hundred Years’ War. It was a southeastern uprising led by Jack Cade. The rebels looted London and were forced out of the city. The rebels were issues pardons by the King and told to return home.
The Pilgrimage of Grace 1536-7
This uprising began in Yorkshire and spread to other parts of northern England, in protest against Henry VIII’s break with the Roman Catholic Church, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and the policies of the King’s chief minister Thomas Cromwell. The King said he would consider their demands so they returned home. Another uprising took place in January 1537 and Henry VIII considered this a breach of the amnesty so rounded up all the original leaders and had then hung.
The English Civil Wars 1642-51
Here is a great summary from Wikipedia:
“The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (“Roundheads”) and Royalists (“Cavaliers”) principally over the manner of England’s governance. The first (1642–1646) and second (1648–1649) wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third (1649–1651) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament. The war ended with Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651.
The outcome of the war was threefold: the trial and execution of Charles I (1649); the exile of his son, Charles II (1651); and the replacement of English monarchy with, at first, the Commonwealth of England (1649–1653) and then the Protectorate under the personal rule of Oliver Cromwell (1653–1658) and briefly his son Richard (1658–1659). In England, the monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship was ended, while in Ireland the victors consolidated the established Protestant Ascendancy. Constitutionally, the wars established the precedent that an English monarch cannot govern without Parliament’s consent, although the idea of Parliamentary sovereignty was only legally established as part of the Glorious Revolution in 1688.”
The Jacobite Rising of 1745-6
This was an attempt by Charles Stuart to regain the British throne for his father James Stuart, from George II. Most of the British army were fighting in Europe. This was the last in a series of uprisings between 1689 and 1746. Charles landed in Scotland in August 1745, gaining Scottish support and won the Battle of Prestonpans. They reached as far south as Manchester before turned back in December. Battles were won on the retreat to Scotland and Charles escaped to Europe.
Early radical labour movement late 1820’s and 1830’s
Trade unions were legalised in 1824 resulting in the huge growth in the number of trade unions and their memberships. There was open class struggle between the workers against the government and employers. Strikes took place all over the country. In 1830-1 rural agricultural uprising took place led by the fictional ‘Captain Swing’.
The Merthry Rising took place in 1831 in Wales, where coal and steelworkers protested about wages and unemployment. This spread to nearby towns and villages. In June 1831 the red flag was raised in Merthyr Tydfil.
The Grand National Consolidated Trades Union was set up in 1834 to abolish capitalist rule and the revolutionary transformation of society. This had explosive growth with 500,000 members. Strikes across the country increased with demands over wages, recognition, and the eight-hour day. Repression increased with an example made of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, who were sent to Australia for attempting to set up an agriculture labours union. Repression resulted in many trade unions ceasing to function.
The Chartist Movement of 1837-48
Chartism was a national working-class protest movement for political reform with strong support in the North, Midlands and South Wales. Support was greatest in 1839, 42, 48. It presented petitions with millions of signatures to parliament, combined with mass meetings with the aim of putting pressure on politicians.
The People’s Charter called for six reforms to make the political system more democratic:
- A vote for every man twenty-one years of age, of sound mind, and not undergoing punishment for a crime.
- The secret ballot to protect the elector in the exercise of his vote.
- No property qualification for Members of Parliament in order to allow the constituencies to return the man of their choice.
- Payment of Members, enabling tradesmen, working men, or other persons of modest means to leave or interrupt their livelihood to attend to the interests of the nation.
- Equal constituencies, securing the same amount of representation for the same number of electors, instead of allowing less populous constituencies to have as much or more weight than larger ones.
- Annual Parliamentary elections, thus presenting the most effectual check to bribery and intimidation, since no purse could buy a constituency under a system of universal manhood suffrage in each twelve-month period.
Chartism did not directly achieve any reforms but put huge pressure on the ruling class and generated significant working class solidarity and class consciousness. In 1867 urban working men were given the vote, but it was not until 1918 that full manhood suffrage was achieved.
The Great Unrest 1910-1914 to the General Strike 1926
The Great Unrest from 1910-14 saw a massive national increase in union membership and strikes in response to employers’ attempts to reduce wages and intensify the exploitation of workers. The main sectors included miners, transport workers, and dockers. The government responded with warships, troops and police using violence to intimidate workers. Syndicalism was an important part of the struggle in this period.
This period also saw the Suffragette movement use militant tactics in their struggles for the vote for women.
The start of World War One resulted in the official suspension of party politics and labour movement struggle, although strikes continued through the war. Following the end of the war in 1918, 1919 saw a large increase in strikes, police uprisings, several armed forces’ mutinies and mass resistance among the working class.
There were mass strikes again in 1921 in response to wage decreases and increasing unemployment. The Minority Movement was launched in 1924 with 200,000 trade union members in the major sectors. Its aim was to overthrow capitalism, the emancipation of workers from oppression and exploitation and to set up a socialist commonwealth. Miners strikes continued in 1925 and the government backed down because it was not ready for a confrontation with the labour movement.
The General Strike of 1926 lasted for nine days in May. It was called by the Trade Union Congress to force the government to prevent wage reduction and worsening conditions for 1.2 million coal miners. 1.7 million workers went on strike: miners, transport and dockers, printers, ironworkers and steelworkers. The strike was defeated.
Long 1968
During the Culture Power Politics session on 1968, Jeremy Gilbert describes the ‘short 68’ and ‘long 68’. The short 68 is the events that happen in the year 1968. Gilbert describes the long 68 as a global revolt against colonialism and its legacies, against various forms of oppression that are typical of advanced industrial capitalism. He describes how the long 68 starts in the 1950s and ends with the global defeat of the left in the mid-1980s.
The social movements from this period include the women’s liberation movement, the gay liberation movement, green movement, disabled people’s movement, anti-racism and anti-fascism, and the peace/anti-war and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
The period from 1970 to 1984 saw an open class struggle between the state and the labour movement. There were a large number of strikes during this period. The 1972 miners’ strike over pay spread to sectors so the Tory government had to back down and the miners got increased pay and benefits. In 1973 oil prices quadrupled due to war in the Middle East and the miners introduced an overtime ban. The Heath government introduced the three day week in early 1974 and then called a general election in February 1974 but failed to get a majority of MPs so the Labour Party formed a minority government. The Grunwick dispute was a strike between 1976-78 for trade union recognition at Grunwick Film Processing Laboratories in London. It was not successful. The Winter of Discontent 1978-9 saw widespread strikes by public sector trade unions demanding larger pay rises, following the ongoing pay caps of the Labour Party. The government gave in to the demands.
The election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 saw a new aggressive approach to break the strength of the labour movement. There was a national miners strike in 1984 against the planned closure of 20 pits, resulting in the loss of 20,000 jobs. The Battle of Orgreave was a significant defeat for the miners following intense police violence. The miners’ strike ended in March 1985 with defeat. The Thatcher government closed over 100 pits and 100,000 miners lost their jobs. The 1980s also saw a number of radical socialist councils challenging Thatcher – the Great London Council, Liverpool City Council, Sheffield City Council and others – in what is known as the rate-capping rebellion.
