Autonomy in the UK

[Udo Erasmus]

What autonomist movements have their been in Britain?
What does autonomism actually mean?
What would autonomism mean in the British context?

Discuss.

 

[Belushi]

I think Dr Who sorted them out.

 

[nino_savatte]

I think Dr Who sorted them out.

 

[danny la rouge]

http://www.infoshop.org/wiki/Autonomism

 

[Udo Erasmus]

I like it when Tony Negri talks of "Organisation, as Spontaneity reflecting on itself", this accords with my own experiments with marxism. It also has an affinity with the idea of praxis particularly as developed by my patron saint, Paulo Freire as a spiral of action and reflection.

As someone put it in the long hot autumn:
"To know more about the workers of Turin, to know more in general about the oppressed classes, is not a small problem. It is the cultural and political problem of any left worthy of the name".

Or as Negri suggests "The fact that we cannot spell the alternative out does not mean that it does not exist. It exists as a murmuring among the proletariat"

The core of your link seems to be this section:

In contrast with other forms of Marxism, autonomist marxism emphasised the ability of the working class to force changes to the organisation of the capitalist system independent of the state, trade unions or political parties. Autonomist Marxism is a "bottom up" theory: it draws attention to activities that autonomists see as everyday working class resistance to capitalism, for example absenteeism, slow working, and socialisation in the workplace. The US Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) are popularly taken as a prototypical "autonomist" labor union.

Like other Marxists, they see class struggle as of central importance, but unlike most Marxists, they have a broad definition of the working class that includes the waged (white collar and blue collar), and the unwaged (beneficiaries, homemakers and so on). The movement drew a line between the waged blue- and white-collar, protected by trade unions and the Welfare state, and other unwaged people, including unemployed people, students and immigrants, deprived from any form of political organization. Autonomists were less concerned with party political organisation than other types of Marxist thought; instead it focuses on self-organised working class action and the development of its theoretical tools in accord with actual working class struggles

 

[danny la rouge]

Indeed the last sentence you have quoted is the core.

 

[danny la rouge]

This is good, Udo;

http://libcom.org/library/interview-cleaver

By "autonomy" I mean the ability of workers to define their own interests and to struggle for them--to go beyond mere reaction to exploitation, or to self-defined "leadership" and to take the offensive in ways that shape the class struggle and define the future.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

I started this thread because I had been enjoying some documents on the Class against Class website: http://www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/

I was also interested in the possibility of something that has a strong marxist core of the idea of class and class struggle but a more expansive repertoire of techniques and tactics of struggle. The campaigns in Italy such as auto-reduction of busfares, re-take the city and so forth could have a new resonance as we shift an economic gear into credit crunch blues.

Meaningful action, for revolutionaries, is whatever increases the confidence, the autonomy, the initiative, the participation, the solidarity, the equalitarian tendencies and the self -activity of the masses and whatever assists in their demystification. Sterile and harmful action is whatever reinforces the passivity of the masses, their apathy, their cynicism, their differentiation through hierarchy, their alienation, their reliance on others to do things for them and the degree to which they can therefore be manipulated by others - even by those allegedly acting on their behalf.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

This is good, Udo;

http://libcom.org/library/interview-cleaver

One thing that seems the case with some autonomist movements is that they work when there is an upsurge of struggle, but when there is a downturn then having a core based on spontaneity of the masses means that they have trouble holding together. ie. autonomia in Italy seems to lose its way as the global economy heads into recession.

There is also a danger of celebrating the fragmentariness of social movements which can be their weakness, I'm thinking particularly of the explosion of social movements in Argentina around the start of the century.

 

[danny la rouge]

Meaningful action, for revolutionaries, is whatever increases the confidence, the autonomy, the initiative, the participation, the solidarity, the equalitarian tendencies and the self -activity of the masses and whatever assists in their demystification. Sterile and harmful action is whatever reinforces the passivity of the masses, their apathy, their cynicism, their differentiation through hierarchy, their alienation, their reliance on others to do things for them and the degree to which they can therefore be manipulated by others - even by those allegedly acting on their behalf.

That's pretty much how I see it, too.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

It's quite laughable when you read that the Gen. Sec of the Socialist Party/Militant in the 60s was Peter Taaffe, and the Gen.Sec of the SP today is Peter Taaffe. The same in the SWP, the leaders seem to be the same for years. The leaders of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign were under 30, the same generation now lead the Stop the War Coalition rather than a new layer of militants. Fossilisation is everywhere.

Not an organisations I can endorse, but some good articles, this passage seemed apt:

For complicated reasons, rooted in the extraordinary stresses of the 1940s and late 1930s, crisis-Marxism has also infected Trotskyism. We have to get rid of that infection in order to get rid of the bureaucratic conception of the revolutionary party that goes along with crisis-Marxism, and to reinstate an idea of the revolutionary party as helping to develop the subversive logic of workers' struggles by informing them with the systematised memory of past struggles.

In the 1960s the autonomists' approach arose from dissatisfaction with a bureaucratised Italian labour movement. Many of the core activists of that movement had been formed in the Resistance of the 1940s. The twenty-year-old radicals of the 1940s were now 40 years old, and had been trained in disappointment for 15 years or more. The autonomists looked "beneath" them to the young workers in the huge new factories in northern Italy.

A similar attention to "murmuring among the proletariat" inaudible or incomprehensible to older trade unionists is advisable today. In Britain 57% of trade unionists are over 40 years old (Labour Market Trends, July 2002, p.349). Among trade union reps and activists the proportion over 40 must be even higher.

The trade unionist who is 45 today was 20 when Thatcher took office in 1979 and trade-union membership started declining from its peak; 26 when the miners were defeated in 1985. He or she was attracted to trade unionism by the strong, confident trade-union movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s, but has since been trained in resisting decline, limiting damage, and dealing with individual grievances, rather than collective self-liberation.

A new radical generation is emerging, slowly and piecemeal. When it will start to shake the factories and offices, we do not know. Its dynamics will not be the same as those of the young workers in the huge new factories of northern Italy in 1968, who were almost all men, mostly from peasant families in southern Italy; nor the same as those of the older trade unionists "above" it. We will need to look closely and sensitively to what the autonomists (adapting Marx's concept "composition of capital") call the "class composition".

In some autonomist writing, however, the idea of workers' initiatives shaping capitalist development is stretched so far that it buries any close attention to class composition and the development of struggle beneath general enthusiasm for all "autonomous" rebellion.

What is to be done?

 

[durruti02]

exellent thread .. some great stuff being qouted .. i never understood quite why the british left almost entirely ignored the italian movement first in the factories from 69 to 72 and then later in the towns .. this was at least as important as 68 in france on any many ways more important than '36 and 1917 which were in long gone societies

i was always a big fan of Lotta Continua in Italy and in this country of Big Flame

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Flame_(political_group)

p.s. i would argue that Class war and also red action and later IWCA were all significantly influenced by italy

 

[DotCommunist]

I think Dr Who sorted them out.

Yes but in typical bleeding-heart fashion he couldn't bring himself to destroy the Nesteen Consciousness which the autons where merely the tools of.

The threat still remains

 

[durruti02]

http://uppingtheanti.org/node/383.

and i can't believe i haven't read this yet .. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Storming-Heaven-Composition-Struggle-Autonomist/dp/0745316069

 

[Udo Erasmus]

As I understand it the predecessor of the SWP, the International Socialists in the early 70s was developing an "international tendency" based on a very different model to later on & did develop fraternal relations and had talks with a couple of the Italian organisations. The IS was then more libertarian, for example in '68 Maurice Brinton from Solidarity spoke on platforms with Tony Cliff I have heard.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

http://uppingtheanti.org/node/383.

In a sense, their is an affinity with Edward Thompson's subjective idea of class:

"class happens when some men, as a result of common experiences (inherited or shared), feel and articulate the identity of their interests as between themselves, and as against other men whose interests are different from (and usually opposed to) theirs. The class experience is largely determined by the productive relations into which men are born--or enter involuntarily. Class-consciousness is the way in which these experiences are handled in cultural terms: embodied in traditions, value-systems, ideas, and institutional forms. If the experience appears as determined, class-consciousness does not. We can see a logic in the responses of similar occupational groups undergoing similar experiences, but we cannot predicate any law. Consciousness of class arises in the same way in different times and places, but never in just the same way."

 

[durruti02]

As I understand it the predecessor of the SWP, the International Socialists in the early 70s was developing an "international tendency" based on a very different model to later on & did develop fraternal relations and had talks with a couple of the Italian organisations. The IS was then more libertarian, for example in '68 Maurice Brinton from Solidarity spoke on platforms with Tony Cliff I have heard.

i can believe that .. i just missed the IS but the SWP branch i was around in 77 78 was pretty libertarian .. there is an ISJ from 1982? 1983 that is very critical of autonomism

ok no it was 1980 ( bizarrely reprinted in 2001 ) is that genoa??

http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj92/fuller.htm

 

[durruti02]

Red Notes was the main UK publisher of italian stuff

http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/archive/rare_books/red_notes.htm

 

[dennisr]

It's quite laughable when you read that the Gen. Sec of the Socialist Party/Militant in the 60s was Peter Taaffe, and the Gen.Sec of the SP today is Peter Taaffe.

It may have been 'laughable' if it was true. The majority of the old leadership of the Militant was got rid of by the majority of the membership (before the SP existed, let alone its general secretary existed). Which kind of turns your presumptions on their head.

ps although the SWP is a very different kettle of fish - weird how as an ex-loyal spouter of the SWP line you could not give some concrete examples of actual bureaucratic centralism. I don't know why you lot complain so much about the SWP - they are the source of most of the existing 'anarchists' in the uk today (hence the continued lack of understanding ?) - In that basis they do a good job of recruiting for 'anarchism'

 

[dennisr]

As I understand it the predecessor of the SWP, the International Socialists in the early 70s was developing an "international tendency" based on a very different model to later on & did develop fraternal relations and had talks with a couple of the Italian organisations. The IS was then more libertarian, for example in '68 Maurice Brinton from Solidarity spoke on platforms with Tony Cliff I have heard.

So if the IS could 'become' bureaucratic and 'centralised' could the same not also be said of present day 'libertarian' organisations? Which again would expose a contradiction wouldn't it - because I am assuming the 'libertarians' would look at their organisational structures - how they organise - as one of the means they have of preserving their 'purity' (as opposed to the nature of organisation - how they organise - put forward by marxists)

 

[In Bloom]

I am assuming the 'libertarians' would look at their organisational structures - how they organise - as one of the means they have of preserving their 'purity' (as opposed to the nature of organisation - how they organise - put forward by marxists)

Yes, you are. It's a pretty stupid assumption.

It's not about preserving the "purity" of anything.

 

[dennisr]

Yes, you are. It's a pretty stupid assumption.

It's not about preserving the "purity" of anything.

if its so stupid why is the critique of democratic centralism central to the arguements i hear?

or is it the word 'purity' you don't like??

 

[Udo Erasmus]

Well, I'm not an anarchist, I consider myself a kind of libertarian marxist. I have never found my ideal socialist organisation, as it doesn't exist, so I have linked up locally with whatever existing projects are going on and it is often important to have the back-up of some kinda national network to be an effective organisation. When I was in the SWP I thought that a massive upsurge of class struggle would transform the internal culture of the organisation, but who knows? I have much respect for the intellect and activism of many of my former comrades and have learnt much from them.

I have many disagreements with the SP, though to be honest it seems to me ridiculous that the SWP and SP are in separate organisations, they should be factions within a broader marxist organisation. I do believe that these divisions based on historic disagreements shouldn't dictate the present or the future of the left, as Marx said, "The traditions of dead generations weigh upon the brains of the living like a nightmare", I also believe in a greater flexibility of tactics.

As I've never been an activist in the SP I can't really comment on its internal culture, but from what I have heard from others it is quite top-heavy.

In my experience, some more libertarian forms of organising are deceptive, Consensus decision making, for example, while it is good to have consensus as a group and mutual respect, this process promotes conformity (people don't want to break the consensus and look confrontational by proposing an alternative view) and also means that a tiny minority can veto anything (within the Social Forum movement it has meant the most conservative reformists can dominate the process).

Many libertarian groups have 'no leaders' or 'hieararchy' this means that you either have to spend hours at meetings to be part of the process, or more generally that there are people who act as an informal executive who organise stuff between meetings and set up the meetings, but because they are not openly designated as officers of a campaign they are not democratically accountable.

 

[dennisr]

I have many disagreements with the SP, though to be honest it seems to me ridiculous that the SWP and SP are in separate organisations, they should be factions within a broader marxist organisation. I do believe that these divisions based on historic disagreements shouldn't dictate the present or the future of the left, as Marx said, "The traditions of dead generations weigh upon the brains of the living like a nightmare", I also believe in a greater flexibility of tactics.

A lot of interesting comments - just a rapid reply to this one though - I think those in the SP would argue that they have very little in common with the SWP - how it language of 'socialism'. In practice we disagree completely on how those vague ideals could be achieved - how people become concious of their position in society, develop the will to change their own worlds and what role they play in making that change etc etc. I suppose that part of a genuine flexibility in tactics would be to recognise that unity of the existing remnants of the left - especially for the sake of 'unity' has little to do with working class people organising themselves in the UK today. I agree fully on your point about never finding the perfect organisation - neither have I but I don't see that as a problem in being a member of an organisation)

oh and ditto for 'libertarian marxists' as for anarchists - you owe the SWP for that at least

 

[Udo Erasmus]

if its so stupid why is the critique of democratic centralism central to the arguements i hear?

or is it the word 'purity' you don't like??

One problem is most Leninist organisations don't even practise democratic centralism in the manner that Lenin did. For example, in the SWP the leaders never seem to disagree with each other, but present a united front to the members - was this the practise of the Bolsheviks? No way! The idea of a single party line, again, was not one found in the Bolsheviks.

Of course, many anarchist criticisms of leninism are poorly conceived. For example, the vanguard?

Well, in a sense, much political action relies on a vanguard, for example when school students walk-out over war, it was one or two who got together and took the first step. 200 pupils didn't suddenly spontaneously all come to a common conclusion. While at certain moments ordinary people can be more politically advanced than revolutionaries, at most times we will play a vanguard role in our communities and workplaces whether we call ourselves that 'cos we have been involved in lots of struggles and studied these questions in more depth.

The idea of a revolutionary party is a good one. The most militant sections of society come together to organise and also to act as a memory of the class, in the sense of taking the lessons of one struggle into the next struggle.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

A lot of interesting comments - just a rapid reply to this one though - I think those in the SP would argue that they have very little in common with the SWP - how it language of 'socialism'. In practice we disagree completely on how those vague ideals could be achieved - how people become concious of their position in society, develop the will to change their own worlds and what role they play in making that change etc etc.

So how do you think those vague ideals could be achieved?
How people do you think people become concious of their position in society, develop the will to change their own worlds?
And what role they play in making that change?

Obviously, there are lots of differences in political practise of the SWP and SP, hence they are in separate organisations. On an aside, the SWP doesn't seem to use the transitional programme/method very much. I have key differences with the SP on middle eastern politics. It just struck me last week when I met some of your comrades doing a stall on rising gas prices and then an hour later bumped into the SWP doing a stall on the same theme, how preposterous it was that these groups were completing against each other rather than forming platforms within a more dynamic marxist organisation.
But I'm sure I'm not the first to have though that!

 

[dennisr]

One problem is most Leninist organisations don't even practise democratic centralism in the manner that Lenin did. For example, in the SWP the leaders never seem to disagree with each other, but present a united front to the members - was this the practise of the Bolsheviks? No way! The idea of a single party line, again, was not one found in the Bolsheviks.

And not one found among democratic centralist - a united face externally yes but a strong, open democratic discussion and democratically agreed desisions before any united position is agreed - its part of creating an atmosphere where folk learn to think for themselves - as they will have to in many situations rather than awaiting the party line. I agree with you.

Of course, many anarchist criticisms of leninism are poorly conceived. For example, the vanguard?

Well, in a sense, much political action relies on a vanguard, for example when school students walk-out over war, it was one or two who got together and took the first step. 200 pupils didn't suddenly spontaneously all come to a common conclusion. While at certain moments ordinary people can be more politically advanced than revolutionaries, at most times we will play a vanguard role in our communities and workplaces whether we call ourselves that 'cos we have been involved in lots of struggles and studied these questions in more depth.

The idea of a revolutionary party is a good one. The most militant sections of society come together to organise and also to act as a memory of the class, in the sense of taking the lessons of one struggle into the next struggle.

I think you have to be careful in the language used nowadays - it tends to confuse playing a leading role as a minority with the way the 'vanguard' is presented - both by anarchists and those who gave them that understandable stick to beat marxists with - the likes of the soviet bureaucracy. in the same way thew SP has had a long discussion on the term 'democratic centralism' - a term which has very different conatations now to when it was originally used.

 

[Fisher_Gate]

exellent thread .. some great stuff being qouted .. i never understood quite why the british left almost entirely ignored the italian movement first in the factories from 69 to 72 and then later in the towns .. this was at least as important as 68 in france on any many ways more important than '36 and 1917 which were in long gone societies

i was always a big fan of Lotta Continua in Italy and in this country of Big Flame

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Flame_(political_group)

p.s. i would argue that Class war and also red action and later IWCA were all significantly influenced by italy

Big Flame did some good joint work with the IMG, including in the 'Socialist Unity' electoral compaign, back in the late 1970s which was promising in terms of different currents working together. However the rise of Benn in the Labour Party and the IMG's decision to enter the Labour Party along with many others led to a change. Big Flame dissolved around 1982 and mostly joined the Labour Party without any clear idea of their politics. Paul Thompson, their political guru and writer of much of their theoretical work became national chair of the 'soft left' Labour Coordinating Committee and latterly part of the journal 'Renewal' which describes itself as a 'critical friend' of New Labour and Tony Blair, and basically part of the modernisers who have just about destroyed the Labour Party. He is a prominent professor of management theory.

Lotta Continua were a massive far left organisation with a daily paper. But they too dissolved and went to the right with their leading members joining the Radical Party (Liberal) and the Socialist Party (right wing labourite). A small group did become part of Rifondazione. The PdUP party had some similar politics and was also massive in the 1970s with MPs in parliament, but collapsed into Eurocommunism and joined the PCI in the 1980s en route to right wing social democracy. Similarly to Lotta Continua only a small core finished up in PRC.

All these groups grew at a particular point in time, but had no answers to the actual problems and eventually collapsed into right wing social democracy.

 

[dennisr]

So how do you think those vague ideals could be achieved?
How people do you think people become concious of their position in society, develop the will to change their own worlds?
And what role they play in making that change?

Obviously, there are lots of differences in political practise of the SWP and SP, hence they are in separate organisations. On an aside, the SWP doesn't seem to use the transitional programme/method very much. I have key differences with the SP on middle eastern politics. It just struck me last week when I met some of your comrades doing a stall on rising gas prices and then an hour later bumped into the SWP doing a stall on the same theme, how preposterous it was that these groups were completing against each other rather than forming platforms within a more dynamic marxist organisation.
But I'm sure I'm not the first to have though that!

I agree on the stupidness of such.

The real test is in events where a large number of ordinary folk move into a campaign - take it over and make that initiative their own. Usually that is in the workplace but not always. I think - for all the critisisms of petty specifics - the Militant and SP has aquited itself pretty well when tested - the poll tax, liverpool and its role in various left union leaderships and most importantly in countless workplace disputes.

Ultimately like all left groups it is a tiny propaganda group until that propaganda is taken up and made into something concrete. That is a result of the propaganda hitting a real nerve - reflecting a real mood and linking that to what are seen as achievable tactics at that point in time. It is also a result of creating an opportunity where folk can see the initial shell of a potential organisation as something they can make their own through their own actions and initiatives - that does not always mean agreeing with the original Militant/SP/Left initiators. Most people draw their conclusions from action and activity rather than propaganda (which can only act as a spark to that action) - and through that discussion and disagreement as tactics and strategies are hammered out in that action.

I will try to be more specific - give examples - when I get back to this thread after reading replies - the work grindstone is calling me back at the moment

 

[Fisher_Gate]

So how do you think those vague ideals could be achieved?
How people do you think people become concious of their position in society, develop the will to change their own worlds?
And what role they play in making that change?

Obviously, there are lots of differences in political practise of the SWP and SP, hence they are in separate organisations. On an aside, the SWP doesn't seem to use the transitional programme/method very much. I have key differences with the SP on middle eastern politics. It just struck me last week when I met some of your comrades doing a stall on rising gas prices and then an hour later bumped into the SWP doing a stall on the same theme, how preposterous it was that these groups were completing against each other rather than forming platforms within a more dynamic marxist organisation.
But I'm sure I'm not the first to have though that!

Despite proclaiming to be 'trots' the SWP have never used the transitional method. The SP have formal adherence to it, and are getting better compared to the way in which they operated in the 1970s/1980s. Both groups have a bastardised version of maximum/minimum programme in which they proclaim the need for socialist revolution in broad abstract terms, but then operate around agitational slogans for immediate bread and butter issues.

Neither group has a strong approach to 'united front' work either.