John Clarke, former major organizer for the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), recently posted the following on Facebook:
When Macron weathered massive protests and strikes to proceed with an attack on the French pension system, it was clear that mass action that would have forced a retreat by those in power was coming up against a higher level of intransigence.If that was true of the French struggle, the events in Gaza drive this consideration home to a much greater extent. The US led West is supporting Israel’s genocidal onslaught in the face of massive protests, outraged popular sentiment, opposition from throughout the Global South and a ruling by the most authoritative world court. The risk of regional conflagration and the shredding of the legitimacy of the whole international order aren’t leading to a change of course.This isn’t a reason for despair but it does point to the fact that the state relative of compromise we have been used to is coming to an end. We are facing far more determined attacks that won’t be turned back by the forms and levels of opposition that we have relied on. The resistance we build will have to be massive but also highly disruptive if it is to prevail.
Clarke undoubtedly has accurately indicated that those who represent the class power of employers have dug in their heels to a much greater extent than in the past. However, I have implied in another post that Clarke likely vastly overestimates the extent to which workers, citizens, immigrants and migrant workers are at present consciously willing to oppose the existing class power of employers (see Exaggeration of the Extent of Conscious Opposition to International Law Does Workers, Citizens, Immigrants and Workers No Good). Clarke also exaggerates the extent of the radical nature of the labour movement at present (see Another Example of the Exaggeration of the Radical Nature of the Canadian Labour Movement). He also likely underestimates the ideological grip of the class power of employers (see Underestimation of the Grip of the Ideology of the Class of Employers , and Radical Leftists Should Not Underestimate the Ideological Grip of the Reformist Point of View and The Radical Left Underestimate the Ideological Power of Employers and Overestimate Their Own Ideological Struggle). Furthermore, the various tentacles of the capitalist state need to be addressed systematically (see Socialism, Part Ten: What It May Look Like, or Visions of a Better Kind of Society Without Employers: Child Support Laws, State Oppression and the Left ).
In other words, class struggle needs to emerge along various fronts simultaneously–economically, politically, ideologically and organizationally–and coordinated. How else workers, citizens, immigrants and migrant workers are going to end the class power of employers?
The Abolitionary 