On a Marxist listserve, a writer posted with the subject reading “Workers know what it means to be in the working class.”
These are his short statements:
This is Mick Lynch of the Railway Unionists (The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers – RTU) of the UK – who were in bitter strike over the past year – talking to the British Medical Association (BMA) .
Workers get it, they know what class solidarity is – and what is the definition of the ‘working class’.
He included a YouTube video of Mick Lynch addressing the striking medical consultants of the British Medical Association: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPrcVVH8B98 .
The writer seems to thiink that it is self-evident that Mick Lynch’s speech reflects the nature of the working class.
That Mick Lynch’s political position is militant I would hardly deny, nor would I deny that such a position is preferable to the business-union attitude of many union leaders. However, Marxists need to look at what Lynch states and not accept as self-evident his militant credentials.
What are Lynch’s aim? Mainly a refurbished welfare state. He looks to roll back the attack on the welfare state–but he does not question the limits of the welfare state. Thus, he states:
From the cleaners, your support workers, your nurses, your doctors, your consultants, everybody, even the maintenance teams in all these hospitals, we need each other to run the health service. And of course we need each other to run this society in a decent way [my emphasis].
I am concerned with such a statement. What does it mean to “run this society in a decent way” if workers have to work for an employer–whether public or private? How is it decent to work for any employer? How is it decent to be used as a thing for purposes defined by employers–whether public or private (see The Money Circuit of Capital). Perhaps Lynch or the writer can explain this to regular workers; otherwise, it is just rhetoric to hide oppression and exploitation–with a human or social-democratic or social-reformist face.
Lynch almost explicitly states that his primary aim is to return to the supposed golden age of the formation of the welfare state after the Second World War:
And we went on to change it [society] after the Second World War when we established the welfare state, when we established universal education, when we established a health system, when we put people out of destitution and poverty.
Lynch is a militant social reformist or social democrat–but his aim is not to challenge the class power of employers as such but only a particular form of it.
How is his aim to be achieved? Through class struggle–which is certainly better than trying to beg for it, but should not Marxists be criticizing the limitations of his aim despite his militancy? Or should they be tailwaggers and remain silent out of fear of being called “sectarian?” Frankly, if Marxists are supposed to remain silent–why not just admit it and call themselves tailwaggers or social democrats or social reformers?
Or are Marxists supposed to remain silent because Lynch is engaged in “real practice” whereas they are merely engaged in “theory.” The idealization of activism and practice without any consideration of theory is like idealizing medical practice not grounded in theory. Both theory and practice are necessary to act intelligently. Furthermore, such an attitude is reminiscent of the left’s fear of criticizing Stalin and other “practitioners” of Marxism–because they engaged in practice.
Let us continue with an analysis of Lynch’s speech. He idealizes universal public education, and yet the universal public educational system is in many respects oppressive. The use of grades or notes or marks for quantifying the capacities of students, for example, is an oppressive form of evaluating students (see for example The Expansion of Public Services Versus a Basic Income, Part Two: How the Social-democratic Left Ignore the Oppressive Nature of Public Services: Part One: Oppressive Educational Services). His position is similar to the Chicago Teachers Union’s position–which is also limited to seeking reforms within the existing system and criticizing underfunding of schools rather than a radical reconstruction of the economic and political system in general and the public school system in particular (see http://academia.edu/40010639/A_Deweyan).
He also idealizes the public health system, which needs to be criticized (see for example Health Care: Socialist versus Capitalist Nationalization and Class Harmonies in Health Care? The Social-Democratic Way).
Lynch calls for a more regulated society–a regulated form of capitalism that existed after the Second World War–but not for the abolition of the class power of employers:
We need–it’s an old-fashioned thing to say–a more regulated society. We need a set of common standards in a democratic society that the employers have to respect and that the rich people of this country have to respect.
I could go on–but the writer who posted the URL for the YouTube video apparently thinks that it is self-evident that the video expresses that “Workers know what it means to be in the working class.” I fail to see how it does.
To be fair to Lynch, he does state the following:
Our system like your system is a comprehensive system that covers the country. It needs an army of people to work in it. From the cleaners, your support workers, your nurses, your doctors, your consultants, everybody, even te maintenance teams in all these hospitals, we need each other to run the health service.
He correctly points out the interdependence of workers on each other.
On the other hand, in a society dominated by a class of employers, that material interdependence is simultaneously characterized by social independence in the private sphere (production and exchange processes that are independent of each other socially) and hierarchical relations in both the public and private spheres. He does not mention this situation at all.
Furthermore, he seems–typical of social democrats–to imply that in the past workers were somehow not oppressed and exploited in a society dominated by a class of employers–the golden age of capitalism myth:
But there are vast numbers of people in this country who pay no tax whatsoever, who are escaping the rigors of the systems that we believe in. And it is about time that we change that. People need to be rewarded properly for the work they do, for the responsibilities they carry in their role in our society. And we should respect these payments and enhance them year on year. And that goes for every worker because what’s happened in this country is a transfer of wealth from what we call the working class –you might call them the working people or the ordinary people of this country–our wealth is being transferred to the super rich. The oligarchs are running this country right now, and they’re running it for their benefit, not the benefit of the people.
Was this not the case after the Second World War? During the Second World War? Before the Second World War? Have not employers exploited workers for centuries? If so, in order to remedy the situation, would it not be logical to call for an end to this situation rather than regulated it?
How should Marxists respond to Lynch’s statements above? How should they respond to the following statement:
That’s what we’re fighting for: for our welfare state, for the pillars of change and reform from the Second World War.
Or are Marxists supposed to be tailwaggers and refrain from criticizing miltiant union leaders because the Marxists will be accused by the sectarian left and social-reformist left of being sectarian?
What are Marxists aiming for? A society without a class of employers and without the associated economic, political and social structures? Or a refurbished welfare state?
The Abolitionary 
I really like your emphasis on workers being “used as a thing for purposes defined by employers–whether public or private.” That is the class relation in nuce. Although, a small proviso, individual employers too are ultimately “used as a thing for purposes defined” externally – by the circuit of social capital.
I completely endorse your criticism of social-democratic ‘practice’ in unions and elsewhere. In the twentieth century, although attempts to create ‘one big union’ for all workers ultimately and understandably failed, there were enough institutional mediations for workers to have the possibility of all acting together – so the general strike was not unknown, even if uncommon. This is shown quite clearly by recent events in France. In 1968 workers from different unions were able to overcome their differences and join the students in coming out on general strike. In 2023 it was never a realistic possibility.
Where your analysis comes up short, in my humble opinion, is that there is no mention of the international dimension. The world market operates not only to reduce different productive labours to quantitative multiples of each other (i.e. treat them as qualitatively homogenous) but also to reinforce and worsen those quantitative differences between different countries and regions, mainly by maintaining hierarchical value chains headed by monopolies and by controlling the migration of labour through the mediation of the state. This is the ultimate reason for the rise of the far right in many of the advanced capitalist countries. In the absence of the option of a “straight left to the jaw of Fat”, the working class is seduced into cannibalizing itself to maintain its relative wage differentials and the integrity of its nation state and ultimately, of course, into supporting calls for their ‘own’ nation state to wage war against other countries.
The state is integral to the capitalist economy and increasingly so in regulating the inter-relations within a globally interdependent one. The question of organisation is a political one and it must start from an uncompromisingly internationalist orientation which emphasises the interests of a single global working class antagonistic to a single global capitalist class on the terrain of a single global capitalist economy (albeit one fragmented into a mosaic of capitalist nation states).
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I certainly agree that the international dimension is important, but I wonder whether, politically, we should address the problem of overcoming the class power of employers initially at that level.
1. In one way, my focus on criticizing the class power of employers is a function of what I have experienced. For example, when I came to Toronto, I eventually was criticized politically for trying to raise the issue of whether there is such a thing as “decent work,” “fair wages,” and a “fair contract” (employment contract or in the case of unions a collective agreement).
2. I have noticed how discussions at the international level often disconnect from the issue of the class power of employers. To arrive at a proper appreciation and practical policy at that level should involve a proper appreciation of the general nature of the social situation in which we find ourselves–which is the class power of employers and the associated economic, political and social structrures.
3. I did participate in a reading group using Hadas Thier’s “A People’s Guide to Capitalism.” The reading group eventually petered out. I do not find that many participants (not the group itself though) find working for an employer to be all that bad.
4. If we can develop an opposition to the class power of employers at the national level, it would seem to me that the international level would also come into play. Admittedly, the two may indeed be needed together, but I lack and understanding of the international level.
5. Perhaps you can recommend some articles or books on the topic–that are politically relevant. I am not interested in understanding for the sake of understanding.
6. The state is indeed integral to the operation of capitalist relations of production and exchange. What politically relevant articles or books would you recommend? Michael Kratke refers to the state in relation to taxes. I have read fragments of Poulantzas and Miliband.
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