The Leap Manifesto as a Social-Democratic Document: Climate Change, Environmental Degradation, Indigenous Rights and the Perpetuation of the Dominance of a Class of Employers

Written before the coronavirus pandemic, The Leap Manifesto: A Call for Canada
Based on Caring for the Earth and One Another, produced by various authors in 2015, ranging from scientist David Suzuki to the former head of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), Paul Moist, focuses on the need for the transition to a new kind of economy–a green economy. I will only address certain aspects of the Manifesto. If I should address further aspects in another post in the future, I will

It states:

We start from the premise that Canada is facing the deepest crisis in recent memory.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has acknowledged shocking details about
the violence of Canada’s near past. Deepening poverty and inequality are a scar on the country’s present. And our record on climate change is a crime against humanity’s future.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s mandate was:

The TRC is a component of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. Its mandate is to inform all Canadians about what happened in Indian Residential Schools (IRS). The Commission will document the truth of survivors, families, communities and anyone personally affected by the IRS experience.

Direct and Indirect Violence in Modern Society

The violence perpetrated by the Canadian government on Aboriginal peoples certainly needs to be addressed. However, violence has taken many forms in Canada’s past, such as the direct or indirect violence of the creation of a market for workers, who need to sell themselves to employers. The continued existence of a market for workers in Canada expresses the continued existence of such violence.

Direct violence in a society characterized by a class of workers who must sell their capacity to work on a market via a labour contract (whether individually or collectively) is reserved for a special institution: the modern government or the modern state. From Geoffrey Kay and James Mott (1982 ), Political Order and the Law of Labour, page 83:

One crucial presupposition of modern contract, which it then reproduces, is that both parties arc deprived of the right to act violently in defence of their own interests, or even to pardon those who harm them. In a society of equivalents relating to each other through contract, politics is abstracted out of the relations of production, and order becomes the task of a specialised body — the state.

The modern state or government ensures that the contractual relations of the workers and employers are met and that the property of each is respected. Since workers acquire property, generally, in means of consumption (food, clothing, rental of apartments or houses, buying of condos or houses, cars or other means of transport, entertainment, books, balls and games for their children, and so forth), they generally lack means for their own continued existence (such as business computers, buildings, machine and so forth. It is the employers who own these and not the workers.

Since workers in such a society (and Canada is such a society) are means to the ends defined by employers (see The Money Circuit of Capital), and treating human beings as a means rather than their own ends (think of children and what most people say about treating children’s development as an end in itself–and then apply the same idea to adults) is a violent act, then employers’ treatment of workers as means is a continuously violent act, and the modern government or state protects such violence and indeed monopolizes the use of direct violence and thereby perpetuates the violence of employers.

Does the Manifesto have anything to say on this score? Following the above citation from The Leap Manifesto, it says:

These facts are all the more jarring because they depart so dramatically from our stated values: respect for Indigenous rights, internationalism, human rights, diversity, and environmental stewardship.

These may be the stated values, but Canadian reality has consistently contradicted such stated values. In general, such stated values are hypocritical. Consider human rights. Human rights in Canada are consistent with treating workers as things by employers (see Employers as Dictators, Part One). I will address the issue of “environmental stewardship” briefly in the following section.

Goals of The Leap Manifesto

What is the goal of The Leap Manifesto?

Canada is not this place today — but it could be. We could live in a country powered entirely by truly just renewable energy, woven together by accessible public transit, in which the jobs and opportunities of this transition are designed to systematically eliminate racial and gender inequality. Caring for one another and caring for the planet could be the economy’s fastest growing sectors. Many more people could have higher wage jobs with fewer work hours, leaving us ample time to enjoy our loved ones and flourish in our communities.

There are several points here:
1. truly just renewable energy
2. accessible public transit
3. jobs that systematically eliminate
a. racial inequality
b. gender inequality
4. Caring for the planet
5. Caring for one another
6. Higher wage jobs
7. Work fewer hours
8. Time to enjoy our loved ones
9. Time to flourish in our communities.

Some of these demands seem reasonable. Who would not want higher wage jobs? (I will come back to this.) Who would not want to work fewer hours while having the time (and money) to enjoy our lives with family, friends and flourish within a community? Who among the left at least would not want the elimination of racial and gender inequality?

Environmental Degradation a Necessary Feature of a Society Dominated by a Class of Employers

This is contradictory list. Even on the assumption that racial and gender inequality could be eliminated, as I have already indicated, a caring planet and a capitalist economy are mutually exclusive (see The British Labour Party’s 2019 Manifesto: More Social Democracy and More Social Reformism, Part One). Of course, there is room for improving the current environmental situation through changes to more renewable resources, but the infinite nature of the capitalist economy contradicts any real solution to the problem of environmental degradation. From Ann Davis (2010), “Marx and the Mixed Economy: Money, Accumulation, and the Role of the State,” in Science and Society (pages 409-428), Volume 74, Number 3, page 412:

Circulation, and the expansion of value, is an end in itself, and therefore without limit.

The idea of “environmental stewardship” within a capitalist society is an illusion.

How urgent is the need for addressing climate change and environmental degradation, according to the Manifesto?

We know that the time for this great transition is short. Climate scientists have told us that this is the decade to take decisive action to prevent catastrophic global warming. That means small steps will no longer get us where we need to go.

This plea for rapid change, of course, will now be put on the back burner because of the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis that will flow from it.

The Manifesto outlines the following timeline:

…we want energy sources that will last for time immemorial and never run out or poison the land. Technological breakthroughs have brought this dream within reach. The latest research shows it is feasible for Canada to get 100% of its electricity from renewable resources within two decades: by 2050 we could have a 100% clean economy.

Even on the assumption that Canada can shift to 100% clean energy by the year 2050, as the Manifesto claims, environmental degradation will continue since it will always be necessary to expand the economy infinitely. Climate change may be addressed (although, in addition to the problems associated with the coronavirus pandemic, there are powerful capitalist interests in the fossil-fuel industry), but not environmental degradation due to the nature of the capitalist economy. The Manifesto simply ignores this problem.

Unless the social relations that characterize an economy that moves towards infinity is addressed, caring for the planet is simply a will-o’-the-wisp.

Indigenous Rights and the Modern Government or the Modern State

The Leap claims:

So we need to leap.

This leap must begin by respecting the inherent rights and title of the original caretakers of this land. Indigenous communities have been at the forefront of protecting rivers, coasts, forests and lands from out-of-control industrial activity. We can bolster this role, and reset our relationship, by fully implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Moved by the treaties that form the legal basis of this country and bind us to share
the land “for as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the rivers flow,”

Although, as Mark Franke (2007) argues, in “Self-determination Versus the Determination of Self: A Critical Reading of the Colonial Ethics Inherent to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” in Journal of Global Ethics, Volume 3, issue 3, pages 359-379, that the adoption of the Declaration undoubtedly aids in the recognition of indigenous grievances, he also argues that the definition of self permitted through the Declaration would limit indigenous peoples to definitions of self characteristic of liberal societies. Such enabling and constraining features are characteristic of many liberal capitalist states (Francesca Merlan (2009), “Indigeneity: Global and Local,” in the journal Current Anthropology, Volume 50, Number 3, pages 303-333). As Franke remarks (page 375):

The human rights discourse of the UN itself is based inmaking a division between, on the one hand, those peoples who are seen as peace-loving social units willing and capable of supporting a specific vision of human need and rights and willing and capable of supporting the state as the necessary mechanism through which these needs and rights may gain address and, on the other hand, those who are unwilling or incapable of either. The whole notion of self privileged in the UN’s vision of self-determination is predicated on its contrast to a class of groups who do not seek identity with the human self idealised within its ethic. As Farid Samir Benavides Vanegas contends, the globalisation of rights remains deeply trapped in a colonial outlook (Vanegas 2004). As a result, peoples in the world who seek to determine themselves in ways that do not accord with the UN vision of peace, security, and human rights are not even eligible for recognition as selves. They could not be seen to identify with the human self valorised within the UN project; they can be only different from the self.

If it is the case, then, that any indigenous peoples wish to engage in processes of self-determination that questions the validity of the state as the fundamental organising
principle for their lives and the lives of all other peoples on earth, on the basis of the Declaration, there is no room for them to be recognised as groups deserving of the rights set out in the document or as groups that may be recognised as selves in the world. Under the basis of this document and the ethic of self that propels it, indigenous peoples have no opportunity to be identified as peoples with genuine moral claims on the states and international organisations of this world, if they choose to express their interests in ways outside of the modern political vision of self, which is itself a product of colonialism.

The Manifesto assumes the legitimacy of the modern state or government, and such an acceptance often goes hand in hand with acceptance of the continued existence of a class of employers. (For a critique of the nature of the modern government or state, see for example, The Poverty of Academic Leftism, Part Seven: The Idealization of the Nation State or the National Government and Nationalization in the Wake of the Coronavirus Pandemic, Part Two, or Socialism, Police and the Government or State, Part One).

The Leap’s Assumption of the Continued Existence of a Class of Employers

In addition to ignoring the direct and indirect violence of modern class society, the necessary degradation of the environment in a capitalist context, and the necessary limitations imposed on Aboriginal self-determination, the Leap Manifesto fails to criticize the essential nature of the economy in which we live. It states, as noted above:

Many more people could have higher wage jobs with fewer work hours….

Higher wages–rather than the abolition of a system based on wages, with the class of employers abolished in the process–this is one of the goals of the Manifesto.

It may seem that the Manifesto goes further. It says:

As an alternative to the profit-gouging of private companies and the remote
bureaucracy of some centralized state ones, we can create innovative ownership
structures: democratically run, paying living wages and keeping much-needed revenue in communities.

However, in another part of the Manifesto, it states:

We call for an end to all trade deals that interfere with our attempts to rebuild local
economies, regulate corporations [my emphasis] and stop damaging extractive projects.

Companies can only be regulated if they exist–and presumably such companies will still involve a class of employers. There is simply no direct expression of the need to eliminate the class of employers and the associated economic, political and social structures.

It may also appear that the Manifesto, by proposing a universal basic income, is advocating the abolition of classes:

Since so much of the labour of caretaking – whether of people or the planet – is currentlyunpaid, we call for a vigorous debate about the introduction of a universal basic annual income. Pioneered in Manitoba in the 1970’s, this sturdy safety net could help ensure that no one is forced to take work that threatens their children’s tomorrow, just to feed those children today.

I too have advocated for a universal basic income (see, for example, A Radical Basic Income as a Radical Reform). However, it is not to be part of a “sturdy safety net” but to breach a hole in the need for working for an employer in general–a threat to the power of employers as a class; such a breach would require widespread class struggle–something which the Leap Manifesto simply ignores. Economic coercion is necessary in a capitalist society–as John Clarke, a former activist in the organization Ontario Coalition Against Poverty admitted (see “Capitalism needs economic coercion for its job market to function” (Ontario Coalition Against Poverty: OCAP).

The document is a hodge-podge of proposals, some of which may be attained within a system dominated by a class of employers (such as higher wages, self-determination by Aborginal peoples as defined by nation states and even, perhaps, “clean energy” (although that is debatable). Other proposals cannot be realized within the modern class system–abolition of the direct violence of the modern state and the indirect violence of the dictatorship of employers; environmental degradation; and the definition of self-determination that goes beyond the limits of the modern state.

The proposal of a basic income could be accommodated within the capitalist system, or it could be more radical, threatening the existence of a market for workers. Since the Manifesto nowhere explicitly opposes the class power of employers, it is likely that it proposes some form of basic income that is consistent with the continued existence of a market for workers, where workers are hired and fired by employers.

Another piece of evidence that the proposal of basic income is likely consistent with the continued existence of a market for workers is who signed it: Paul Moist. As I pointed out above, he was former national president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE); he retired in 2015–the same year as the publication of the Manifesto.

I met, I believe, Mr. Moist in 1996, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The issue of “fair collective bargaining” had come up. Susan Thompson, who was mayor of Calgary at the time, wanted to break the collective agreement between the city and CUPE local 500; she tried to have Gary Filmon (premier of Manitoba, Canada) support her attempt to breach the collective agreement. Paul Moist, at the time head of CUPE local 500 outside workers in Winnipeg, called out the slogan “A contract is a contract,” in opposition to Susan Thompson’s underhanded attempt; it was a wise tactical move on Moist‘s part since people supported him in what they perceived was an unfair act by Susan Thompson.. At the time, I belonged to a leftist group called New Directions. Mr. Moist came to one of the meetings, and I asked him whether he considered the slogan to be a tactical move or whether he believed in it. His response was that the foundation of our society is contracts; he evidently believed in the slogan.

Furthermore, Mr. Moist is a supporter of the New Democratic Party–a social-democratic party whose aim is to reform capitalist society, making it more of a welfare state than the current neoliberal model.

All in all, then, the Leap Manifesto falls far short of any real call for change. Its “leap’ is indeed a leap–at a frog’s pace rather than at a human pace. It is a social-democratic or social-reformist document.

Review of Jane McAlevey’s “A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy”: Two Steps Backward and One Step Forward, Part Two

This is the continuation of a post that reviews Jane McAlevey’s latest book entitled A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy.

In the last post, I showed that Ms. McAlevey exaggerates the extent to which strikes and collective bargaining can offset the power imbalance between the class of employers and the working class. In this post, I will show that Ms. McAlevey’s point of view is definitely social democratic or social reformist.

She writes the following in her book:

There’s nothing neutral about suicide nets; there’s nothing inevitable about creating a greater climate crisis by offshoring jobs so ships bigger than small towns cross oceans, killing the ecosystem and creating a need for more fuel; there’s nothing comforting about creating millions of close-to-slavery working conditions in faraway lands that Americans can’t see when they happily upgrade to the latest phone. We don’t need robots to care for the aging population. We need the rich to pay their taxes. We need unions to level the power of corporations.

This call for corporations to pay taxes–certainly, corporations should be forced to pay more taxes, but the implication here is that if corporations did pay more taxes, there would be a fair system. I will criticize this social-democratic view in another post, where I will criticize the Canadian social-democratic call for corporations to pay their “fair share” of taxes? Corporations need to be taken over by workers if they are to control their own lives since corporations form part of the economic structure that expresses a kind of economy where workers are controlled by their own products rather than the workers controlling their own products.

In the quotation above,there is a further problem that illustrates Ms. McAlevey’s social-democratic approach. She refers to the need for “unions [in order] to level the power of corporations.” How does the existence of unions “level the power of corporations?” To conclude this is to exaggerate the capacity of unions to challenge the employers as a class. The unions in the 1930s did not “level the power of corporations.” Ms. McAlevey provides no evidence that they did. They limited the power of corporations, but it is bullshit to say that unions have or can level the power of corporations. Such a view ignores the power of employers to dictate what to produce, how to produce, when to produce and so forth. I worked in several unionized environments, both private and public, and I failed each time to see how unions even approached the power necessary to “level the power of corporations.

As I showed in my review of Ms. McAlevey,’s earlier book, No Short Cuts: Prganizing for Power in the New Gilded Age (found in the Publications and Writings section of this blog), Ms. McAlevey claims incorrectly that, when workers organize at the firm level, there is no difference between structural power and the power of agents. She confuses the micro level of organizing with the macro level of the capitalist economy as a whole. In her most recent book, she ignores altogether the difference and merely assumes what she needs to prove: that organized workers at the level of the firm or corporation somehow magically control their own lives and are equal in power to corporations.

Ms. McAlevey’s view concerning unions and their supposed power to level the playing field merely echos Canadian liberal sentiments, such as expressed in the work Reconcilable Differences: New Directions in Canadian Labour Law, by Paul Weiler (1980).

Furthermore, as a number of posts have shown (see for example Management Rights, Part One: Private Sector Collective Agreement, British Columbia), the management rights clause in collective agreements provides management, as the representatives of employers, with wide powers; collective agreements do not question such power but only limit it. Even when a collective agreement does not have an explicit management rights clause, arbitration boards have indicated that there is an implicit management rights clause. Ms. McAlevey conveniently ignores such facts and thereby idealizes the power of unions, the power of collective bargaining and the power of collective agreements.

In another post, I pointed out how, in the context of health and safety, one union representative admitted the limited power of unions (see Confessions of a Union Representative Concerning the Real Power of Employers).

Ms. McAlevey’s confusion of the micro and the macro extends to her exaggerated claims concerning the extent to which workers gain from strikes directed against a particular employer. She often uses the term “big” when referring to wins by workers and unions. From the introduction:

Chapter 1 discusses three such examples of women winning big.

…

To win big, we have to follow the methods of spending very little time engaging with people who already agree, and devote most of our time to the harder work of helping people who do not agree come to understand who is really to blame for the pain in their lives. Pulling off a big, successful strike means talking to everyone, working through hard conversations, over and over, until everyone agrees. All-out strikes then produce something else desperately needed today: clarity about the two sides of any issue. Big strikes are political education, bigly.

It is certainly an innovation to focus on winning over those who disagree with us–the left often are a clique that simply address themselves. However, this constant reference to winning big hides the fact that even more important and wider successes are considered big wins rather than skirmishes that should lead towards the overthrow of corporate power. Divorced from such a movement, they can hardly be considered “big wins.” Only those who have faith in the legitimacy of the collective bargaining system to produce fair results could use such a term as “big.”

Nowhere does Ms. McAlevey question corporate power as such but assumes its legitimacy.

Just as Ms. McAlevey confuses power at the micro level with power at the macro level in relation to unions, collective bargaining and collective agreements, she confuses the levels of power when it comes to identifying problems related to the environment. She writes:

There’s plenty of money to make a Green New Deal happen. Investigative journalist Christian Parenti has recently pointed out that corporations are currently sitting on $4.8 trillion in cash—a subset of $22.1 trillion they hoard. That money could be used to quickly transition the economy to a robust unionized green economy, one that can reproduce a dignified quality of life for workers of the future and end the destructive jobs-versus-the-environment debate. But to access that money, it takes real power and know-how—the kind of authority that unions in New York still have, along with a few other major states. To rebuild union power elsewhere, the environmental movement will have to stand up and fight alongside them—really fight, not just talk about green jobs. That means actively throwing their support behind workers’ right to strike and actively backing workers. That kind of organizing and the power it builds will be necessary to raise taxes on the rich (versus just talking about it) [my emphasis] and make progress on shifting federal subsidies away from fossil fuels and toward a safe, resilient economy that works for humans and our planet.

Just as the British Labour Party, in its Manifesto It’s Time for Real Change, jumps on the bandwagon of climate change, so too does Ms. McAlevey. The view that climate change will be solved on the continued basis of the existence of a class of employers–a capitalist basis–by only making the rich pay more taxes is typical of social democrats these days (for my criticism of such a view, see The British Labour Party’s 2019 Manifesto: More Social Democracy and More Social Reformism, Part One).

Ms. McAlvey’s social-democratic position finds expression as well in her idealization of other capitalist countries:

There is a third option: the kind of income supports that come with the social democratic policies found throughout much of Western Europe. This would allow greater labor-force participation by both parents, but it would require radical changes to the fabric of our economy. In Sweden, people have generous paid parental leave—two back-to-back years, one for each parent—so that each baby born has a parent as its primary full-time caregiver for the first two years of life. When this parental leave is exhausted, Swedish toddlers enter a nationalized child-care system that is essentially free: paid for with a fairer taxation system that levels the playing field for children’s opportunity and success from birth forward.

The idealization of Sweden and other Scandinavian countries is another ploy used by social democrats to prop up their own reformist tendencies.

Let us look for a moment at Sweden. The consensus between employers and unions started to break down in the 1980s, and accelerated during the 1990s, when there was an economic crisis. (From “Education and Inequality in Sweden: A Literature Review,”
Carl le Grand, Ryszard Szulkin and Michael Tåhlin; in Editors: Rita Asplund and Erling Barth, Education and Wage Inequality in Europe: A Literature Review, 2005, page 355):

However, since the beginning of the 1980s, the consensus around the
solidarity wage policy has been undermined. The national federation of
employers has adopted new policies aiming at wage determination at the
firm level, while the attitudes among the trade unions have been mixed.
This new situation has resulted in a decentralisation of wage negotiations, giving more space for local agreements. Hence, the scope for variation in earnings, both between and within groups, has increased markedly in Sweden during the last decades.

The increase in within-group inequality is connected to two developments
in the Swedish labour market that have important policy implications. First,
the gender wage gap has been stable in the last two decades although the
gender differences in years of experience have diminished markedly. This
lack of improvements in the gender wage differentials is closely related to the
fact that the returns to education have decreased for women in relation to
those for men. Thus, the trend towards increased within-group wage inequality
seems to be to the disadvantage of women in Sweden. …

Second, the relative wages for public sector employees have fallen drastically
in the last decades. This development is closely related to a decrease
in the returns to education for public sector employees in relation to those
for private sector workers. This trend is, of course, related to the first
trend, as women dominate strongly in the public sector. Reasonably, the
main explanation for the rise of earnings inequality between public and
private sector employees is the increasing financial problem of the public
sector, as well as the decentralisation of the wage-setting processes that has
taken place in Sweden since the first half of the 1980s.

Changes in the labour market were followed by changed in education in the 1990s, characterized by a shift in governmental policy towards management by objectives–including education. (From Anne Berg and Samuel Edquist, 2017, The Capitalist State and the Construction of Civil Society: Public Funding and the Regulation of Popular Education in Sweden, 1870–1991 , page 173):

However, as a consequence of the turmoil surrounding the oil crisis in 1973, the digital revolution, and the rise of finance capitalism and global outsourcing, many classic Swedish industries, such as shipbuilding and clothing manufacturing, started to go out of business. Unemployment rates rose and consumption stagnated. Sweden
managed to hold off the worst consequences of the crisis, but the path towards a change in policy and governance had been set. The reform of 1991 was part of a general shift in government policy from traditional rule by guidelines and directives to management by objectives. It followed a broader trend of reforms inspired by neo-liberalism, which called for decentralisation and marketisation of welfare services: education, health care and social security. The neo-liberal ideology had gathered strength in the 1980s, encompassing all the major political parties including the Social Democrats. The neo-liberal programme was set out to solve the problem of how to manage society and the bureaucratic system of government while saving resources. The market, not government, was to handle issues such as social security and education.13 In 1988, there was a decision in principle to implement management by objectives and results throughout the Swedish government apparatus. Soon, such a reform was decided on for the compulsory and upper secondary school system, combined with a move to decentralisation, both of which were to be particularly important for the subsequent changes in popular education policy.14 Interestingly, this policy change, mainly intended to make public administration more efficient, was also suggested for the administration of popular
education and its grant system. Goal-oriented management was seen at the government level as a way of safeguarding and strengthening the independence of popular education.

According to management by objectives, education can be taught according to discrete objectives that are then somehow magically integrated. I will critique in a future post management by objectives (outcome-based education, or OBE) via a critique of several articles of a former professor of mine (Robert Renaud) concerning Bloom’s taxonomy, which forms a ground for outcome-based education. (From Qin Liu (2015), Outcomes Based Education Initiatives in Ontario Postsecondary Education: Case Studies, page 7):

OBE’s precursors can be found in the earlier objectives movement, as represented by Tyler’s (1949) Basic Principles of Curriculum and Design, Bloom’s (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, and Mager’s 1962) Preparing Instructional Objectives, as well as in mastery learning (Block, 1971; Gusky, 1985), criterionbased assessment (Masters & Evans, 1986) and competency-based education (France, 1978). From these sources, it becomes apparent that OBE stemmed from and is rooted in efforts to address pedagogical concerns.

The idea that Sweden “levels the playing field for children’s opportunity and success from birth forward” is a myth.

Furthermore, I will, in a future post, criticize the idea that there is such a thing as “a fairer taxation system that levels the playing field for children’s opportunity and success from birth forward” in relation to schools. This idea of “leveling the playing field” is pure rhetoric, and presents a completely false picture of the decidedly uneven playing field characteristic of a society dominated by a class of employers–whether unionized or not.

I will also further argue that even if equal opportunity did exist, it would not change the hierarchical nature of the division of labour and the class structure since competition between workers, inheritance laws and the hierarchical ownership of the conditions of lives would be recreated as workers competed (with some losing and others gaining in the process–thereby merely mirroring the present class structure).

I started out, in the first post, by quoting Sam Gindin, with Mr. Gindin pointing out how popular Ms. McAlevey is these days. Her popularity is undoubtedly due in part to her own innovations in organizing. It is, however, also due to her exaggerated claims concerning the efficacy of her own approach to collective bargaining in eliminating power, wealth and income differentials between the class of employers and the working class.

In the next post, I will refer to how the president of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC)–a social-democratic organization of unions federated to it and representing more than three millions Canadian workers– idealizes collective bargaining–like Ms. McAlevey.

The British Labour Party’s 2019 Manifesto: More Social Democracy and More Social Reformism, Part One

The following is the first of a two-part series of posts, providing a critical assessment of some of the views expressed in the 2019 British Labour Party’s Manifesto, It’s Time For Real Change.

The British Labour Party seemed to be more concerned with jumping on the bandwagon of climate change than really addressing the core issue of the power of employers as a class (and its relation to the rape of the Earth).

Thus, the very first section is entitled “A Green Industrial Revolution.” Climate change is a buzzword these days, but I doubt that it has the holding power necessary to make fundamental change. For many people, climate issues have little immediate concern for their daily lives as they proceed to drive to work for an employer, or take the bus, the subway or light rail transit. They then subordinate their wills to the employer (and try to get as much fulfillment as they can out of such work) and then return home to recuperate from their use as things at work (or go to malls to compensate for their less than fulfilling lives at work).

Furthermore, the whole issue of climate change that sidesteps the nature of the capitalist economy and the need to eliminate the power of the class of employers as such (and the associated economic and social structures) will never solve the problem of climate change. The issue is: Can climate change really be adequately addressed without addressing the power of employers as a class?

Can we continue to treat the Earth as unlimited and resolve the problem of climate change? The capitalist economy necessarily is a process that is infinite. Consider the money circuit of capital (see The Money Circuit of Capital). If we look at the beginning and the end of the process, there is a quantitative difference between the two. This quantitative difference is profit, and that is the goal of the whole process. Thus, if you invest $1,000,000 at the beginning of the year and receive $1,100,000 at the end of the year, you receive $100,000 profit. This difference has arisen from a process of exploiting workers (that is where the $100,000 comes from–the workers produce more value than what they themselves cost to produce). However, once the capitalist process has ended through the sale of commodities and the capitalist has $1,100,000, this money is no longer capital. Capital is a process, and once it is finished, it no longer is: its birth is simultaneously its death, so to speak. The capitalist who now has $1,100,000, to remain a capitalist, must invest the money again–but because of competition with other capitalists, he will have to invest more than $1,000,000. There is thus an in-built infinite process of continuous expansion (interrupted by economic crises due to the impossibility of obtaining an adequate profit rate). Such an infinite process in the context of a finite Earth hardly bodes well for efforts to eliminate the causes of climate change.

The so-called “Green solution” that sidesteps the contradiction between an infinite economic process and a finite Earth will not likely be able to address the problem of climate change. The Labour Manifesto does just that–it sidesteps the power of employers as a class and the associated economic, social and political structures needed to maintain that power.

If workers are unwilling to oppose the class of employers at present, why would climate change motivate them to engage in such opposition? But then again, the purpose of the Manifesto is not to really challenge the power of employers as a class.

Of course, compared to anything proposed by the main political parties here in Canada, the Manifesto seems radical, such as a minimum wage of 10 pounds per hour, expansion of social housing, a pay raise of all public sector workers of 5%, nationalisation of key industries (such as energy and water), free tuition and so forth. Measured by the standard of the major political parties in Canada, it is a radical manifesto.

However, measured against the standard of a socialist society (see, for example, the series of posts on socialism on this blog), the Manifesto is just one more expression of the lack of dealing directly with the class power of employers.

There are many other problems with this Manifesto, only some of which will be addressed in the next post in this series.