The second of a panel series, to subsequently be held internationally in Chicago, London, and Toronto in Fall 2013. The first event was held in conjunction with Rethinking Marxism in Amherst, Mass.
Thanks to Mark Cunningham (https://www.youtube.com/user/fwmarkc) for providing the video recording.
A moderated panel discussion and audience Q&A with thinkers, activists and political figures focused on contemporary problems faced by the Left in its struggles to construct a politics adequate to the self-emancipation of the working class. Hosted by the Platypus Affiliated Society.
Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Panelists:
George Caffentzis - Midnight Notes Collective
Shay Enxuga - Baristas Rise Up
Larry Haiven -Solidarity Halifax / Saint Mary's University
Co-sponsored by the Halifax Radical Imagination Project:
http://radicalimagination.org/
Description:
"Capital is not a book about politics, and not even a book about labour: it is a book about unemployment." - Fredric Jameson, Representing Capital: A Reading of Volume One
"...the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all." - Joan Robinson
"The error consists in believing that labor, by which I mean heteronomous, salaried labor, can and must remain the essential matter. It's just not so. According to American projections, within twenty years labor time will be less than half that of leisure time. I see the task of the left as directing and promoting this process of abolition of labor in a way that will not result in a mass of unemployed on one side, and aristocracy of labor on the other and between them a proletariat which carries out the most distasteful jobs for forty-five hours a week. Instead, let everyone work much less for his salary and thus be free to act in a much more autonomous manner...Today "communism" is a real possibility and even a realistic proposition, for the abolition of salaried labor through automation saps both capitalist logic and the market economy." - Andre Gorz
It is generally assumed that Marxists and other Leftists have the political responsibility to support reforms for the improvement of the welfare of workers. Yet, leading figures from the Marxist tradition-- such as Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky-- also understood that such reforms would broaden the crisis of capitalism and potentially intensify contradictions that could adversely impact the immediate conditions of workers. For instance, full employment, while being a natural demand from the standpoint of all workers’ interests, also threatens the conditions of capitalist production (which rely on a surplus of available labor), thereby potentially jeopardizing the system of employment altogether. In light of such apparent paradoxes, this panel seeks to investigate the politics of work from Leftist perspectives. It will attempt to provoke reflection on and discussion of the ambiguities and dilemmas of the politics of work by including speakers from divergent perspectives, some of whom seek after the immediate abolition of labor and others of whom seek to increase the availability of employment opportunities. It is hoped that this conversation will deepen the understanding of the contemporary problems faced by the Left in its struggles to construct a politics adequate to the self-emancipation of the working class.
Questions:
1. How do you characterize work and employment as a political issue in contemporary society? What is wrong with unemployment? And/or what is wrong with work?
2. A distinction is often drawn between "work" as purposeful human activity (presumably existing before and after capitalism), on the one hand, and "work" in the sense of labor in capitalism, where the worker undertakes purposeful activity for money under threat of material scarcity (typically in the form of wage labor), on the other hand. Is this distinction politically relevant when thinking about work? In a free society, would work manifest in one or both senses?
3. If the widely observable phenomenon of overwork and unemployment is a necessary feature of capitalist society, why and how is this so? What kinds of social necessity, in the present organization of the world, do you take to be underlying this phenomenon? Then, given your understanding of the nature of this necessity, what would it mean to radically transform it?
4. In the history of the Left, what examples do you regard as informing your attitude towards the politics of work and unemployment today, and what is relevant about these touchpoints?
5. Historically, the left has sought to remedy the problems of overwork and unemployment, through various means: full employment; a guaranteed minimum income regardless of employment; and/or shorter working hours for those employed. Which of these, if any, do you consider to be adequate responses, and how, if at all, should the Left pursue them?
6. If the abolition of wage labor should indeed be a goal of emancipatory politics, what forms of politics or concrete demands should be pursued to attain this goal? How do we get from "here" to "there"?
7. Given the breadth of issues and struggles pursued by the Left historically and today--race and racism, gender equality, environmental concerns, globalization, militarism, etc--what is the relationship between the politics of work and the broader project of social emancipation? Exactly how central or peripheral is the politics of work to social emancipation as such?
8. Where do you find the most promising attempts by the Left to address the issue of work and unemployment, today? What makes this contemporary work relevant and propitious?
9. What role, if any, do you assign to political organization, such as an actual or potential political party, in working to progressively transform contemporary relations of work and unemployment? What should be the relationship between any such organization and the working class?
10. A century ago, these questions were consciously taken up by a politically constituted workers movement in which socialists and Marxists participated. Today, discussions of this topic risk becoming utopian in the a-political sense. How, if at all, has the decline of workers movements and the death of the Left circumscribed our ability to engage the politics of work in the present?
English Description:
The politics of anti-austerity remained relatively muted in Canada until the massive Quebec student strike in 2012. While the symbol of the red square seemed to imply solidarity among the strikers, it was frequently unclear what the goals of this movement was beyond protesting tuition fee hikes. For some the strike was about resisting neo-liberalism and the "modèle québécois", the system of labour legislation, educational reform and public welfare that emerged from the 1960s Quiet Revolution. But for others the strike signaled the possibility to go beyond the past. This was expressed as a desire to pick up where the 1970s social democracy left off through demands such as free tuition. Others viewed Quebec's social democratic past as being part of the problem. They judged that parliamentary approaches, in the wake of Occupy and the Arab Spring, had grown irrelevant in the face of a direct democracy that has carried the strike through five months in spite of massive police reaction.
Whatever differences in goals, the strike fell short of expectations. While the tuition fee increases were placed on hold, the election of a sovereigntist (Quebec nationalist) social democratic party resulted in an underwhelming resolution. Unity among different Left factions during the strike has given way to acrimonious debates over whether anarchist or socialist tactics are to blame over the ultimate defeat of the movement. The attempt to overcome the past through the strike has ironically stirred up older historical sediments of the history of the Canadian Left that seem difficult to overcome.
The teach-in will explore the current crisis of the Canadian Left following the Quebec student strike through the history of the Left in Canada.
Andony Melathopoulos is an interdisciplinary PhD student at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. He has been broadly involved with the Canadian labour, environmental and health care advocacy . He was the first Canadian member of Platypus and currently functions as the Vice President for Platypus in Canada and the US Midwest.
German Description:
Bis zum Ausbruch der massiven Studierendenproteste von 2012 waren die politischen Reaktionen gegen die Austeritätspolitik kaum wahrnehmbar. Auch wenn das Symbol des roten Platzes eine Solidarität unter den Protestierenden suggerierte, war es oft unklar, welche konkreten Ziele die Bewegung verfolgte, die über den Protest gegen die Erhöhung von Studiengebühren hinausgingen. Für einige war der Studienstreik eine Form des Widerstandes gegen den Neoliberalismus und das „modèle québécois“, ein System von Arbeitsgesetzen, Bildungsreformen und öffentlichen Zuschüssen, die in der „Stillen Revolution“ der 1960er entstanden waren. Aber für andere signalisierte der Streik die Möglichkeit, die vergangene Versuche zu überflügeln. Das zeigte sich in dem Versuch, dort weiterzumachen, wo die Sozialdemokratie der 1970er aufhörte – etwa in der Forderung nach der Abschaffung von Studiengebühren. Andere wiederum sahen in der sozialdemokratischen Vergangenheit Quebecs das Problem. Angesichts von Occupy und dem Arabischen Frühling sahen sie parlamentarische Versuche als unbedeutend im Vergleich zur direkten Demokratie an, die über fünf Monate hinweg den Studierendenstreik, trotz massiver Polizeigewalt, getragen hatte.
Welche Ziele auch immer verkündet wurden – der Streik unterbot alle Erwartungen. Während die Erhöhung der Studiengebühren vorerst eingefroren wurde, hatte der Wahlsieg einer souverignistischen (Quebec-nationalistischen) sozialdemokratischen Partei enttäuschende Folgen. Die Einheit der verschiedenen linken Fraktionen während der Proteste zerbrach infolge von erbitterten Auseinandersetzungen darüber, ob anarchistische oder sozialdemokratische Taktiken für die schlussendliche Niederlage der Bewegung verantwortlich zu machen seien. Der Versuch, die Vergangenheit durch den Streik zu überflügeln, hat ironischerweise ältere Auseinandersetzungen aus der Geschichte der kanadischen Linken wiederaufleben lassen, die anscheinend nur schwer zu überwinden sind.
Der Teachin wird einen Blick auf die gegenwärtige Krise der kanadischen Linken nach den Studierendenprotesten in Quebec werfen, und anhand dieser eine Einführung in die Geschichte der kanadischen Linken geben.
In der Diskussion wollen wir uns ĂĽber Ă„hnlichkeiten und Unterschiede zu der politischen Landschaft in Deutschland und der Entwicklung der Studierendenproteste hierzulande austauschen.
Andony Melathopoulos ist ein interdisziplinärer PhD Student an der Dalhousie University in Halifax, Kanada. Er hat sich für Arbeits-, Umwelt- und Gesundheitsanliegen eingesetzt. Er war das erste kanadische Mitglied von Platypus, wo er gegenwärtig die Arbeit in Kanada und dem mittleren Westen der USA koordiniert.
Die Veranstaltung wird auf Englisch stattfinden.
The first of an upcoming panel series, to subsequently be held internationally in Halifax, Chicago, London, and Toronto in Fall 2013.
A moderated panel discussion and audience Q&A with thinkers, activists and political figures focused on contemporary problems faced by the Left in its struggles to construct a politics adequate to the self-emancipation of the working class. Hosted by the Platypus Affiliated Society at Rethinking Marxism 2013.
Transcribed in Platypus Review #62 (Click banner below to see):
Room 101, Campus Center, UMass Amherst
Panelists:
Stanley Aronowitz (Graduate Center of the City University of New York)
Robert Pollin (Political Economy Research Institute and University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
Jason Wright (International Bolshevik Tendency)
Description:
"Capital is not a book about politics, and not even a book about labour: it is a book about unemployment." - Fredric Jameson, Representing Capital: A Reading of Volume One
"...the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all." - Joan Robinson
"The error consists in believing that labor, by which I mean heteronomous, salaried labor, can and must remain the essential matter. It's just not so. According to American projections, within twenty years labor time will be less than half that of leisure time. I see the task of the left as directing and promoting this process of abolition of labor in a way that will not result in a mass of unemployed on one side, and aristocracy of labor on the other and between them a proletariat which carries out the most distasteful jobs for forty-five hours a week. Instead, let everyone work much less for his salary and thus be free to act in a much more autonomous manner...Today "communism" is a real possibility and even a realistic proposition, for the abolition of salaried labor through automation saps both capitalist logic and the market economy." - Andre Gorz
It is generally assumed that Marxists and other Leftists have the political responsibility to support reforms for the improvement of the welfare of workers. Yet, leading figures from the Marxist tradition-- such as Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky-- also understood that such reforms would broaden the crisis of capitalism and potentially intensify contradictions that could adversely impact the immediate conditions of workers. For instance, full employment, while being a natural demand from the standpoint of all workers’ interests, also threatens the conditions of capitalist production (which rely on a surplus of available labor), thereby potentially jeopardizing the system of employment altogether. In light of such apparent paradoxes, this panel seeks to investigate the politics of work from Leftist perspectives. It will attempt to provoke reflection on and discussion of the ambiguities and dilemmas of the politics of work by including speakers from divergent perspectives, some of whom seek after the immediate abolition of labor and others of whom seek to increase the availability of employment opportunities. It is hoped that this conversation will deepen the understanding of the contemporary problems faced by the Left in its struggles to construct a politics adequate to the self-emancipation of the working class.
Questions:
1. How do you characterize work and employment as a political issue in contemporary society? What is wrong with unemployment? And/or what is wrong with work?
2. A distinction is often drawn between "work" as purposeful human activity (presumably existing before and after capitalism), on the one hand, and "work" in the sense of labor in capitalism, where the worker undertakes purposeful activity for money under threat of material scarcity (typically in the form of wage labor), on the other hand. Is this distinction politically relevant when thinking about work? In a free society, would work manifest in one or both senses?
3. If the widely observable phenomenon of overwork and unemployment is a necessary feature of capitalist society, why and how is this so? What kinds of social necessity, in the present organization of the world, do you take to be underlying this phenomenon? Then, given your understanding of the nature of this necessity, what would it mean to radically transform it?
4. In the history of the Left, what examples do you regard as informing your attitude towards the politics of work and unemployment today, and what is relevant about these touchpoints?
5. Historically, the left has sought to remedy the problems of overwork and unemployment, through various means: full employment; a guaranteed minimum income regardless of employment; and/or shorter working hours for those employed. Which of these, if any, do you consider to be adequate responses, and how, if at all, should the Left pursue them?
6. If the abolition of wage labor should indeed be a goal of emancipatory politics, what forms of politics or concrete demands should be pursued to attain this goal? How do we get from "here" to "there"?
7. Given the breadth of issues and struggles pursued by the Left historically and today--race and racism, gender equality, environmental concerns, globalization, militarism, etc--what is the relationship between the politics of work and the broader project of social emancipation? Exactly how central or peripheral is the politics of work to social emancipation as such?
8. Where do you find the most promising attempts by the Left to address the issue of work and unemployment, today? What makes this contemporary work relevant and propitious?
9. What role, if any, do you assign to political organization, such as an actual or potential political party, in working to progressively transform contemporary relations of work and unemployment? What should be the relationship between any such organization and the working class?
10. A century ago, these questions were consciously taken up by a politically constituted workers movement in which socialists and Marxists participated. Today, discussions of this topic risk becoming utopian in the a-political sense. How, if at all, has the decline of workers movements and the death of the Left circumscribed our ability to engage the politics of work in the present?
A teach-in held on September 17th, 2013 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, led by Brian Schultz. An introductory teach-in on the development of human history from a Marxist perspective.
A teach-in held on September 5th, 2013 at Dalhousie University, led by Quentin Cyr.
In the mid-19th century, Marx and Engels observed, in the Communist Manifesto, that a "specter" was haunting Europe â the specter of Communism. A century and a half later, it is Marxism itself that continues to haunt the Left, while capitalism remains.
What does it mean that Marx and Marxism still appeal, while political movements for socialism are weak or non- existent? What were Marxism's original points of departure for considering radical possibilities for freedom that might still speak to the present?
How does Marxism still matter?
Please note: Due to technical difficulties, the first few seconds of the teach-in are cut off.
