tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post8586058845571917286..comments2024-03-27T09:14:27.496+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: A Conservative Case for Trade UnionsPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-40470125963084641722020-10-20T13:25:43.979+01:002020-10-20T13:25:43.979+01:00«This system of institutionalised class struggle w...«This system of institutionalised class struggle worked for them.<br />This non-political trade unionism tended toward Labourism: trade union stuff is up to the workers, but leave the wider politics of labour to the professionals. But Tory trade unionism had the same root:»<br /><br />There is a simple question: when is capitalism going to end?<br /><br />#1 If it is "within several years", why compromise, the vanguards of the proletariat should go for the political power of the trade unions now, and "one last heave", one last "general strike" will deliver the soviet paradise.<br /><br />#2 But if the answer is "not this century and perhaps not even the next", then perhaps the politics of driving a harder bargain while keeping alive the longer term aims would be more realistic than planning the transition to socialism while singing the "Red Flag".<br /><br />Thanks in part to #1 attitudes in 1983 voters chose “<i>a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power in favour of [property and business rentiers] and their families</i>”.<br /><br />Which is what we still have now, and what "worked for them" is better than that. V Ulianovich when asking "What to do?" warned wisely against both opportunism and adventurism. Conservative trade unionism is and was opportunistic corporatism, but then syndicalist trade unionism in retrospect was foolish adventurism.<br /><br />That swedish social-democrat said social-democracy was the art of most plucking the capitalist goose with the minimum of hissing.<br />That gives for granted that the capitalist goose has to continue to exist, thus disappointing those who wanted to ascend from the NMU to be the new ruling class as "Supreme Commissars of the People", but the swedish formula for quite a few decades "worked for them".<br /><br />Organizing workers for a better deal within the current system is not mere opportunism if the longer term aims and work for a better system are maintained. It is not easy: it is easier to just give up on the longer term aims and become corporatist (see SDP), and it is easier to forget the reality of the existing system and dream of the future soviet paradise (see NMU).Blissexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-85281000954433258912020-10-20T12:53:18.975+01:002020-10-20T12:53:18.975+01:00«their militancy is grounded in the day-to-day cha...«<i>their militancy is grounded in the day-to-day challenge of organising precarious workers and ensuring they get their fair share. If the patchwork of society could be sewn together in like manner, especially among "lower class politics" (his phrase) then extremism can be seen off and atomism overcome. Happy times are here again.</i>»<br /><br />That's the "tory" case for trade unionism: unions as guilds, within the context of "one nation" paternalism, that of incumbents in privileged social status.<br />But the Conservative party policies for the past 40 years have been mostly "whig", where social relationships are not paternalistic, and even "tory" trade unions are seen as obstacles to the power of those who are powerful in the markets, those who are incumbent in privileged market positions.<br /><br />The difference between "tory" right and "whig" right became only obvious in the french revolution of the late 18th century, so it is still easy to forget, but it does matter for things like Conservative attitudes to trade unions, as the Conservatives are a coalition, as our blogger keeps reminding us.<br /><br />«<i>the importance of class struggle to their system, and not just in terms of workers having enough wages to avoid crises of underconsumption, as per the present. An active, trade unionised work force is a pain in the arse for management, but it forces them to innovate to intensify exploitation and replace workers with machines, thereby retaining control over work and boosting productivity.</i>»<br /><br />That something that can only matter to the "tory" right, to a limited extent; for the "whig" right, the market does all that. And in any case both "tory" and "whig" right would rather their rents and profits were lower than to lose control to overly active workers, would rather have a permanent semi-recession (as in most of the period since 1980) than workers be in a position to be "uppity".Blissexnoreply@blogger.com