Critical Education Articles Placed in the Teacher Staff Lounge While I Was a Teacher, Part Fourteen: A Critique of the Educational Nature of So-called Educational Reforms

This is a continuation of a series of posts on summaries of articles, mainly on education.

When I was a French teacher at Ashern Central School, in Ashern, Manitoba, Canada, I started to place critiques, mainly (although not entirely) of the current school system. At first, I merely printed off the articles, but then I started to provide a summary of the article along with the article. I placed the summaries along with the articles in a binder (and, eventually, binders), and I placed the binder in the staff lounge.

As chair of the Equity and Justice Committee for Lakeshore Teachers’ Association of the Manitoba Teachers’ Society (MTS), I also sent the articles and summary to the Ning of the MTS (a ning is “an online platform for people and organizations to create custom social networks”).

As I pointed out in a previous post, it is necessary for the radical left to use every opportunity to question the legitimacy of existing institutions.

The attached article for the ESJ Ning is prefaced by the following:

Hello everyone,

Attached is another article that I sent for the ESJ Ning. I prefaced it with the following:

Daniel Rossides’ article, “Knee-Jerk Formalism: Reforming American Education,” provides a detailed criticism of various school reforms in the United States. Since it does not focus on reforms for high-stakes testing (which have not found general acceptance in Canada), much of his criticism is also directed to Canadian school reforms.

Rossides not only argues against the neoliberal reform effort at high-stakes testing but also liberal reformers of schools. In fact, he argues that all school reform efforts in their current form will lead to naught.

He questions the view that schools (he calls it education) produce good workers and good citizens. There is no evidence to support those two claims. He also questions the view that schools sort individuals into various hierarchies at work according to relative merit.

Rossides’ reliance on educational research to justify his conclusions is all the more interesting since educational research invariably assumes that modern schools constitute the standard for determining the validity and reliability of educational research. The inadequacy of educational research will not be addressed here, but on the basis of educational research itself changes in schools can do little to offset the disadvantages of poverty.

Rossides argues that the school outcomes of those children and adolescents whose parents are from the lower classes will not change unless we shift resources both to those lower-class families and to the schools where those children and adolescents attend. School reforms that aim at supposedly changing the outcomes for the lower classes have been shown to be historically ineffective. School reform focuses on—school reform and not in reform of the socio-economic conditions of the lower class families and their neighbourhood.

The modern school system is characterized by a class system according to socio-economic status (SES). [The adequacy of such a definition of class should be queried, but I will not do so here. For some purposes, SES is legitimate—but it is hardly an adequate characterization of class since the source of income and not just the level is relevant in determining class.]

It is the middle- and upper-classes who have aided in producing lower-class learners with disabilities, the mentally retarded and so forth—by defining children and adolescents of lower-class parents by defining the characteristics of such children and adolescents as learned disabilities, mental retardation and so forth and then treating the children and adolescents as learners with disabilities, with mental retardation and so forth.

The extremely skewed nature of wealth and income, the persistence over generations of middle- and upper class dominance and lower class subordination, an excess of workers over the demand for workers (especially at the lower levels) with corresponding  poverty-stricken families and the domination of social and political life by the middle- and upper classes aids in defining the children and adolescents of the lower classes as deviant and labelled according to middle- and upper-class standards (and not, of course, vice versa—except when rebellions break out).

Although Rossides referent is the United States, there is little doubt that much of what he writes applies to Canada.

The modern school system is characterized by what seems to be classlessness: all classes attend the same school. The facts belie such a rosy picture.  Features of the school system are biased towards the middle and upper classes and against the lower classes; such features as an emphasis on literacy, abstract knowledge and patriotism (one—white—principal had the hypocritical audacity to announce over the PA system that Canada was the best country in the world—when two thirds of the student population were probably living in substandard conditions).

The fact that children and adolescents of various classes attend the same school, given the emphasis on middle-class and upper class concerns and definitions of what constitutes and education (such as academic subjects and literacy rather than the use of the body in combination with literacy and academic subjects), along  with a grading and testing system that streams or tracks students, as Rossides notes, hardly leads to a meritocracy. Rather, it merely reproduces the status quo.

Furthermore, there has been a decided trend towards class-based segregation of schools, with inner-city schools for the children and adolescents of the lower classes and suburban schools for the middle- and upper classes. (Of course, there is an added racist aspect of this structure, but poor white children are also caught in the web—or trap).

Rossides notes that, when SES was factored out of the equation, school reforms had little impact on the academic outcome of children and adolescents from poorer families. (Note, however, the bias of defining “success” in terms of academic outcomes.) The author points out that what is needed is not just more resources at the school level but more resources at the level of the family. Without addressing the extreme inequality of family incomes, changes in school resources and school reforms will likely have little effect in changing outcomes (despite the rhetoric of school bureaucrats and liberal ideologues in universities).

Equalizing school expenditures will not address the inequities that characterize income inequalities.

Rossides points out that study after study has shown that school aspirations, school outcomes, expenditure per capita, regularity of attendance, scholarships, entrance into college or university and so forth correlate highly with social classes and class origin.

In post-secondary institutions, the proportion of members of the lower classes represented on governing boards is lower than their proportion in the population and, correspondingly, the proportion of members from the middle and upper classes is overrepresented.

The proportion of those young adults who attend university is class-based, with more than double, for example, attending a four-year college program than those from the lower middle and working classes. Scholarships are skewed towards to those already with high grades, and these are typically not the lower classes. Thus, young adults whose parents can more afford to pay for their tuition and other expenses receive free money whereas young adults whose parents cannot afford to pay for their children’s tuition and other expenses are excluded from consideration—all this under the cloak of equality of opportunity.

The divide between public universities and colleges and private ones has practically been removed in many instances, with public colleges and universities operating as private institutions, with high tuition and partnerships with private firms (but with no public accountability in many instances). Public universities and colleges function more like markets than public institutions and are accessible to those with money—or high grades (which often probably correlate).

Rossides pinpoints formal education’s simple role: to determine where one enters in the occupational hierarchy. Formulated differently, the primary role of schools and other formal institutions linked to them is to allocate people to positions on the market for workers. The rhetoric about learning is secondary to this role.

Employers certainly believe that more formal schooling results in better workers, so credentials are important for hiring. However, once hired, differences in levels of formal schooling, surprisingly, do not lead to increases in productivity.

Credentials and class are correlated, so credentials form another mechanism for the perpetuation of class differences.

Rossides also criticizes the view that schooling leads to improved citizenship—increase in knowledge about politics and creative public service (active and creative political participation). Political participation in fact has declined. Furthermore, in the United States, schools have not led to increased integration of children and adolescents through civics and other courses. The rhetoric of schools as producers of good citizens hides a reality of schools that perpetuate class divisions and inequality.

Although Rossides’ point is well taken, he seems to miss something vital about what schools do when he refers to schools hiding the real nature of schools. Schools do in some ways serve to integrate children and adolescents into the real world of inequality and class divisions by—hiding those realities from them. (Besides, he implies as much further in the article, in relation to his explanation of why school failure continues for the lower classes.)

Through the rhetoric of equality of opportunity, civics and other courses (such as history), children and adolescents learn the supposed equality of all and supposed meritocracy. Rather than having children and adolescents learn just how unfair and inequitable modern society is, schools cover up the reality through the administrative, hierarchical structure, with administrators frequently attempting to impose their middle-class will on working-class children and adolescents (who may rebel in school through various means, ranging from passive absenteeism to active “misbehaviour”) in the name of efficient administration and ”learning.” By redefining children and adolescents as pure “learners” (learning machines), administrators then often discipline them for not acquiescing in the unequal situation in which many working-class (coupled often with racially oppressed) youth find themselves.

Schools have also not led to increased knowledge of the world in which they live that they can and do use in their daily lives. The knowledge that children and adolescents learn in schools is often what could be called “inert” knowledge—knowledge that is never used. Even if children and adolescents learned abstractly what political participation involved, since they do not use such knowledge in their daily lives (perhaps they would use it against school administration), they do not really learn to become good citizens.

Schools also serve to depoliticize learning by focusing on abstract cognitive skills rather than skills that relate to the daily lives of children and adolescents. Individuals become, to a greater and greater degree, interchangeable non-political units. Abstract literacy, by failing to link up to the social experience of children and adolescents, is soon forgotten outside school boundaries. The environment in which it is learned is so artificial that children and adolescents cannot transfer what they have learned to any other environment.  Furthermore, we have one life, but the fragmented way in which we study the world in school and formal learning prevents any synthesis of our experiences in school. That too leads to rapid forgetting of what was learned in schools.

This fragmentation of experience contributes to the continuance of the status quo since those in and outside schools can focus on their limited activity within a fragmented, academic and abstract curriculum and ignore the poverty, oppression and devastation that the children and adolescents inside and outside the school experience.

Rossides then explains why, despite the failure of schools to make children and adolescents better workers and citizens, by noting that the situation accords with the interests of the upper class in maintaining the appearance of a meritocracy; in other words, the present school system aids in hiding its own oppressive nature of the working class. Those who have an economic and cultural interest in maintaining the present system of inequality limit access to credentials to their own children while presenting the present system as the very embodiment of equality and meritocracy. Much of what is studied, the author implies, is irrelevant, but it serves to weed out the lower classes from occupations that pay higher incomes.

The claim that schooling (or “education”) is the key to ensuring equality, social justice and equity serves to divert attention, as well, from the social inequalities, social injustices and social inequities rampant in our society.

After briefly looking at the invalidity and unreliability of mass testing suggested by conservative proponents of school reform, the author makes an interesting and important point about how conservative school reform has pushed for student outcomes based on so-called objective norms (outcome-based education again). Since Rossides considers this a conservative reform effort, it can be concluded, if his analysis is valid, that the NDP has instituted a conservative performance system provincially without many people, including teachers, even raising objections to this conservative trend.

He mentions in passing that parents of the upper class oppose any attempt to eliminate the grading system since the grading system is integral to the children of the upper class “inheriting” the same class position—a very interesting observation that warrants much more analysis and serious discussion. Unfortunately, it seems that educators do not want to discuss seriously such issues.

Rossides does maintain that the push for outcome-based education has no objective basis since there is no agreement on what constitutes objective standards. It would be interesting to have the Minister of Education, Nancy Allen, in the spotlight in order to determine how she defines such objective standards and how she developed such standards—along with other conservatives, of course.

The author argues that there are two real reasons for the poor performance of the United States (and, I might add, Canada). Firstly, there is the belief and practice that an unplanned economy, including unplanned capital investment, will lead to the good life. Secondly, there is the belief and practice that the antiquated political-legal system will enable most people to live a good life.

The back-to-basics movement (reading, writing and mathematics) typical of the present trend in the school system substitutes what should be means to ends into ends in themselves. (The same could be said of the so-called academic subjects.)

Rossides does contend that schools do matter, but he then commits similar errors as the views that he has criticized. He outlines what a good school is in purely conventional terms, such as a strong administrator who emphasizes academic subjects and reading. Rossides takes from one hand and gives with the other. He further argues that the main problem with schools, as learning institutions, has not been historically and is not now at the elementary school level but at the high-school level. Such a view deserves to be criticized.

Elementary schools focus mainly on reading—without many children (especially those from the working class) understanding why they are engaged in a process of learning how to read, write and do arithmetic. There is undoubtedly pedagogical process, but such progress applies just as much to high schools as it does to elementary schools.

The main function of elementary schooling is to have the children learn to read, write and do arithmetic, with the primary emphasis on reading. Elementary school teachers are specialists at best in reading.(It would be interesting to do a study on how many reading clinicians started out as elementary school teachers and how many taught only at the high-school level.) There are many problems with such a conception of learning. I merely refer to the many articles on Dewey’s philosophy and practice of education.

The author vastly overestimates the efficacy of elementary schools as institutions for real learning (as opposed to learn to read, write and do arithmetic—often for no ends than to read, write and do arithmetic. In other words, elementary schools, instead of teaching reading, writing and mathematics as means to an end, generally reduce them to the end of elementary school education.

Of course, the lack of inquiry into the world, a lack so characteristic of elementary schools and contrary to the nature of young children, becomes a burden that eventually distorts most children’s minds. The wonder of childhood becomes the boredom of formal learning rather than an expansion and deepening of our grasp and wonder of our experiences of the world.

Rossides` article, therefore, does have its limitations. Despite these limitations, his article contains an incisive critique of the neoliberal movement towards educational reform—and, more generally, the rhetoric that surrounds educational reform.

Should not those who attempt to achieve equity and social justice expose the rhetoric of educational reform?

Fred

The Radical Left Underestimate the Ideological Power of Employers and Overestimate Their Own Ideological Struggle

Leftists frequently refer to themselves and others as the left. This is vague to the point of being useless. Often, what is meant by being left is being paying lip-service to being anti-capitalist–without in reality doing anything to oppose the power of the class of employers as such, either ideologically or in practice.

A good example is an article written by Tim Heffernan, Simon Schweitzer, and Bill Hopwood on July 8, 2020, in the social-democratic journal Canadian Dimension (COVID-19 and Mass Unemployment: the NDP and Beyond). In that article, the writers make the following statement in relation to what kind of organizing efforts could be achieved in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada by the New Democratic Party (the social-democratic party in Canada):

Events like well-publicized video town halls, car caravans, or carefully marshalled physical protests/pickets would do a lot to shine a light on the shortcomings of the Liberal government and the capitalist system [my emphasis]. The NDP could be pushing now for public ownership of all long-term care homes, waiving of rent and mortgages during the pandemic, an end to evictions or foreclosures, and a universal public health system.

Trudeau may be popular, but he is also vulnerable, especially from the left. The NDP could start now building support for a jobs program to reconstruct the Canadian economy and society after the devastation of COVID-19 and a world economic depression. This program could combine tackling the climate crisis with providing jobs and building affordable homes–all vital for Canadians’ well-being. Restarting the economy will take major public investment–workers are short of money, and big business is continuing its refusal to invest just as before COVID-19.

There is almost a mystical quality about the claim that “the shortcomings of the capitalist system” will become evident by such short-term efforts. This overestimates vastly the efficacy of such efforts in driving home to working people and community members “the shortcomings of the capitalist system,” and vastly underestimates the staying power of the capitalist system despite such “shortcomings.”

This does not mean that there should be no efforts to address problems associated with the capitalist system or with specific problems that have emerged due to the pandemic in the context of a capitalist system characterized by the domination of a class of employers. However, let us not underestimate the tasks required to ensure that people do indeed believe that the capitalist system has shortcomings that require the elimination of the power of the class of employers and the economic, political and social structures and relations associated with that power.

The overestimation of what people actually believe can also be seen from the following:

An indication of the leftward shift in public attitudes is shown by the results of a recent survey conducted by Abacus Data in late May. Three-quarters of Canadians said they either strongly support (44 percent) or support (31 percent) a tax of one to two percent on the assets of Canada’s wealthiest to help pay for the country’s recovery. The survey also touched on the issue of government aid to corporations. Four-fifths of respondents (81 percent) said that companies receiving government assistance should be prohibited from using foreign tax havens or using the funds to pay for excessive executive salaries, to buy back shares, or hike dividends.

Belief in heavier taxation of the wealthy, or more strings attached to corporations that receive government assistance is hardly the same thing as a belief in the shortcomings of the capitalist system. Social democrats or leftist social reformers often talk of the need for corporations to pay their fair share of taxes, for example (see Co-optation of Students at School Through We Day, Part Two: The Social-Democratic Left Share Some of We Day’s Assumptions). The concept of corporations paying their fair share of taxes does not express opposition to the class power of employer.

At the provincial level, the writers refer to the British Columbia NDP (British Columbia is the most western province in Canada) and its lack of criticism of the failings of the capitalist system:

BC’s New Democrats have acted as a moderate and competent government, better than is the case in several provinces, but they have not shown a commitment to working people and have propped up capitalism rather than challenging it. The NDP is missing an opportunity to show to the rest of Canada a bold alternative to the present failing system.

The NDP, federally and provincially, do not aim to end capitalism. Has it ever really done so? It is a social-democratic or social reformist party; that is its nature. The NDP would have to be a very different kind of party to be able to offer “a bold alternative to the present failing system.” Furthermore, most working people and community members do not really believe that the capitalist system is a failing system. Where is there evidence to the contrary?

Let us listen to one of the writer’s own lack of taking seriously the need to engage in sustained ideological struggles in order to ensure that workers and community members really believe that capitalism is a failing system: Tim Heffernan is a member of Socialist Alternative, the same political party as Kshama Sawant, an elected representative to the Seattle City Council. I had a debate with Mr. Heffernan sometime ago:

Fred raises some interesting points. However, I think he’s confusing social-democratic/reformist demands with transitional demands. There’s a difference which I can elaborate on if needed but the practical contrast between them can be seen in Seattle itself where I would argue that Rosenblum encapsulated an honest and militant social democratic approach while Kshama Sawant & Socialist Alternative (also militant and honest) pushed the movement to its limits by raising the demand for 15/taxing the rich to the need for a socialist transformation of society. But I will concede that there are some in the US left who label SA as reformist too.

Also, we need to look at the concrete not the abstract. The “15 movement” in North America has seen different manifestations and the slogans/demands put forward have varied in time and place. So in Seattle in 2013-14, it was “15 Now”, in other parts of the US it became “15 and a union” and in Ontario it was ” 15 & Fairness”. Fred objects to the term “fairness” presumably because of its association with the old trade union demand of “a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay”. Engels dealt with this demand back in 1881 where he recognized the usefulness of it in the early stages of developing class consciousness of the British working class, in the first half of the 19th Century, but saw it as an impediment at the time he was writing.

To today and “15 and Fairness”. I think the addition of “fairness” to the straight “15” demand was an excellent move. Fairness wasn’t understood as an airy fairy, feel good notion but came to be seen as shorthand for a series of extra and linked demands that could mobilise low paid and exploited workers:
– paid sick days
– equal pay for equal work (full time vs part time)
– the right to a union
– the fight against racism and discrimination
and more

If the above be bullshit, so be it. I like to think that Engels, were he alive today, would have his criticisms of the limitations of 15 & Fairness but would be overwhelmingly positive about what it has achieved so far.

Tim

To which I responded:

Hello all,

Tim’s justification for “fairness” is that it is–somehow–a transitional demand. Let him elaborate on how it is in any way a “transitional” demand. I believe that that is simply bullshit.

He further argues the following:

“Fairness wasn’t understood as an airy fairy, feel good notion but came to be seen as shorthand for a series of extra and linked demands that could mobilise low paid and exploited workers:
– paid sick days
– equal pay for equal work (full time vs part time)
– the right to a union
– the fight against racism and discrimination
and more”

How does Tim draw such conclusions? It is a tautology (repetition of what is assumed to be true) to say that it is fair if “paid sick days, equal pay for equal work (full time vs part time), etc. is considered “fair.”

Why should these goals be tied to “fairness”? I had paid sick days at the brewery, I belonged to a union (there was, however, evident racism among some of the brewery workers and there was also a probationary six-month period before obtaining a full union-wage). Was that then a “fair” situation? I guess so–according to Tim’s logic. Why not then shut my mouth and not complain since I lived a “fair” life at the brewery? But, of course, I did not shut my mouth.

But does Tim believe that merely gaining “paid sick days, equal pay for equal work (full time vs part time), the right to a union, the fight against racism and discrimination and more” is fair? If he did, he would then presumably cease being a member of Socialist Alternative since he would have achieved his goals. However, he likely does not believe that it is fair. What he proposes, then, is to lie (bullshit) to workers by not revealing what he really believes as a “transitional” demand. He does not really believe that it is fair, but he believes that such rhetoric is a useful tool in developing a movement. Frankly, I believe that such a view is both dishonest and opportunistic. Workers deserve better–it is they who continue to be exploited despite “paid sick days,” etc. Receiving paid sick days is better than not receiving paid sick days, but all the demands obtained cannot constitute “fairness.” And yet workers who buy into the rhetoric (bullshit) of fairness may believe this fairy tale (it is, after all, a fairy tale presented by social democrats often enough, among others). Rather than enlightening the workers about their situation, such rhetoric serves to obscure it and to confuse workers–support for the Donald Trump’s of the world in the making.

Such low standards. Rather than calling into question the power of employers to direct their lives by control over the products of their own labour, it implicitly assumes the legitimacy of such power. Ask many of those who refer to the fight for $15 and Fairness–are they opposed in any way to the power of employers as a class? Not just verbally, but practically? Or do they believe that we need employers? That we need to have our work directed by them? That working for an employer is an inevitable part of daily life? That there is no alternative? That working for an employer is not really all that bad?

When working at the brewery, I took a course at the University of Calgary. The professor was interested in doing solidarity work for the Polish organization Solidarity at the time. I told him that I felt like I was being raped at the brewery. He looked at me with disgust–how could I equate being raped (sexually assaulted) with working for an employer? I find that radicals these days really do not seem to consider working for an employer to be all that bad. If they did, they probably would use the same logic as their opposition to sexual assault. Sexual assault in itself is bad, but there are, of course, different degrees of sexual assault. Those who sexually assault a person may do so more violently or less violently; in that sense, those who sexually assault a person less violently are “better” than those who are more violent. However, sexual assault is in itself bad, so any talk of “fairness” in sexually assaulting someone is absurd. Similarly, any talk of fairness in exploiting someone is absurd. But not for the “radical” left these days, it would seem.

Fred

Engels, Marx’s best friend and political ally, criticized the opportunist sacrifice of the long-term interests of workers for possibly short-term gains–and this is what the so-called radical left do often enough (and Mr. Heffernan’s defense of linking the fight for improved wages and working conditions with “fairness” . Quoted from From Christoph Henning (2014), Philosophy After Marx: 100 Years of Misreadings and the Normative Turn in Political Philosophy, page 37, note 86:

This forgetting of the great, the principal considerations for the momentary interests of the day, this struggling and striving for the success of the moment regardless of later consequences, this sacrifice of the future of the movement for its present, may be “honestly” meant, but it is and remains opportunism, and “honest” opportunism is perhaps the most dangerous of all!

Let us now discuss Mr. Heffernan’s acceptance of the slogan “Fairness” alongside the fight for a minimum wage of $15 an hour, on the one hand, and the reference to shedding light on the “shortcomings of the capitalist system” on the other. Surely one of the shortcomings of the capitalist system is its unfairness. Having millions of workers working every day for an unelected manager or managers (as representatives of employers) is unfair. Losing your job through no fault of your own (because management decides it is best for the company or department) is unfair. Being treated as a means for the benefit of employers is unfair (see The Money Circuit of Capital).

There is an apparent clash here between the acceptance of the slogan “$15 and Fairness” and the apparent claim that it is necessary to shed light “on the shortcomings of the capitalist system.” This contradiction is, however, merely apparent. Mr. Heffernan does not take seriously the need to engage, systematically and persistently, in pointing out “the shortcomings of the capitalist system.”

Or does he? He claims that the slogan “Fight for $15 and Fairness” is a transitional demand. Does he have evidence that it indeed has served to change the aims of workers from fighting for reforms within a system characterized by a class of employers to an aim of fighting to abolish their class power? I am still waiting for Mr. Heffernan to provide such evidence.

In fact, it is very difficult to shed light “on the shortcomings of the capitalist system” in such a way that working people and community members will take seriously such shortcomings and act upon such a belief. Frequently, what happens is that one aspect of the capitalist system is criticized whereas the system as such is simply assumed to be unchangeable. This is in fact the assumption of the slogan “Fight for $15 and Fairness.”

Mr.Heffernan’s evident acceptance of the ideology of “Fight for $15 Fairness and Fairness” goes hand in hand with substantial underestimation of the need for and difficulty of sustained ideological criticism of the “shortcomings of the capitalist system.”

Imagine a substantial number of of Canadian believing that the capitalist system has such short comings that they are willing to organize and struggle to overcome such a system. In other words, they would have to have similar aims. How far are we from achieving such common aims among millions of workers and community members? The distance between where we are and where we need to be is great, and Mr. Heffernan’s acceptance of the slogan “Fight for $15 and Fairness” does nothing to bridge the gap; to the contrary, it contributes to the maintenance of such a gap. References to shedding light on “the shortcomings of the capitalist system” ring hollow.

Mr. Heffernan, like many other self-styled radical leftists, does not really aim to shed light on “the shortcomings of the capitalist system.” If they did, they would persistently engage in exposing such shortcomings. Furthermore, they would distinguish shortcomings that arise from shortcomings of the capitalist system as such and shortcomings that arise from a specific form of capitalism. Shortcomings arising from capitalism as such cannot be reformed whereas shortcomings arising from a specific form of capitalism can be reformed without changing the basic nature of capitalism. Admittedly, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the two, but we need to make an effort at distinguishing them so that we can distinguish between actions that question the very foundation of the class power of employers and actions which that class power can co-opt.

We need to realize that aiming for a socialist society will require much ideological struggle in order to clarify our aims and to move, collectively, towards the common aim of abolishing the class power of employers and its associated economic, political and social structures.

There is no such movement here in Toronto. It needs to be created. I suspect the creation of such a movement is also required in many parts of the world since it is mainly social democrats who dominate the left these days–despite their radical-sounding phrases.

A Worker’s Resistance to the Capitalist Government or State and Its Representatives, Part Seven: Complaint Against the Winnipeg Child and Family Services with the Manitoba Ombudsman

Introduction

As I indicated in my last post, my substantial complaint to the Manitoba Institute of Registered Social Workers (MIRSW) against a social worker was dismissed without really considering the nature of the complaint. Of course, Francesca, my daughter, was still being physically abused by her mother I pursued the issue by filing a complaint against the Winnipeg Child and Family Services (WCFS) with the Manitoba Ombudsman.

Of course, Francesca’s mother in the meantime continued to use a belt, a wooden stick and physically abuse Francesca in various other ways (as I outlined in my previous posts in this series. I continued to complain to Winnipeg Child and Family Services about this physical abuse.

As I indicated in an earlier post, the physical abuse included (but was not limited) to the following: Since the civil trial in April 1999, my daughter complained of the following (as of February 18, 2000): 1. Her mother was using a wooden stick on her buttocks; 2. Her mother used a belt to spank her on the same area; 3. Her mother grabbed Francesca and forced her into the apartment building; 4. Her mother had grabbed Francesca’s throat in the elevator and warned her not to tell me that her mother had hit her; 5. Her mother shoved Francesca to the floor on two separate occasions; 6. Her mother hit Francesca on the head with a book; 7. Her mother pulled Francesca’s hair; 8. Her mother scratched Francesca with a comb.

Oppressive Letter from Dan Berg, Assistant Program Manager, Winnipeg Child and Family Services

In the meantime, I received a letter from Dan Berg, assistant program manager, Intake and Early Intervention Program, of Winnipeg Child and Family Services. It was dated January 22, 2004.

Here is the content of the letter:

My name is Dan Berg. I am an Assistant Program Manager with the Branch of Winnipeg Child and Family Services based out of 835 Portage Avenue, phone number is 944-6750.

I recently reviewed the referral letter sent by yourself on January 5, 2004, regarding Francesca your daughter receiving a bruise on her leg resultant of her mother Veronica Harris allegedly hitting her with a remote control on her leg.

As a standard practice in our Abuse Unit we review the entire file on each family, their background history with our Branch to inform our current decision to investigate a matter or not,. I personally took on this responsibility given the extensive history of involvement our Branch has had with your family

Frankly, as an Assistant Program Manager with over twenty years in the child welfare field, I am very concerned about the number of referrals you have made to our office regarding your ex-wife.

We as a branch have consistently interfered in your wife’s affairs resultant of these referrals to our Agency by yourself. Investigations continue to be unfounded and your daughter has been subjected to numerous interviews and medically examined a very intrusive measure on more than one occasion.

We as a Branch, will not be investigating your most recent disclosure regarding your daughter and your ex-wife.

I will instruct our Crisis Response Unit to screen all calls from yourself from this date forward particularly if they reference your wife and and the quality of care of your daughter Francesca Harris is receiving. As a Branch responsible for child welfare matters in the city, we will respond to legitimate calls.

If in the future our Branch staff follow up on a referral call from yourself and we determine that the call is unfounded and malicious in nature, we will be consulting our legal counsel and the police to consider legal action.

You should give some serious consideration to exploring Family Conciliation Counseling so your daughter does not have to continue to be caught in the middle of your differences. Children of separated and divorced parents can learn to cope quite well if the parents put their child’s needs first.

I trust future referrals to our Agency will be seriously screened by yourself to their validity in the future. I am available for you to contact me directly at 944-6750.

Sincerely,

Dan Berg
Assistant Program Manager
Intake and Early Intervention Program

Patrick Harrison
Program Manager
Intake and Early Intervention Program

cc. Diva Faria, CRU Supervisor
Diana Verrier, CRU Supervisor

I have included the letter as written–including its grammatical and punctuation errors.

Evasive and Oppressive Letter from Manitoba Ombudsman

Among other communications from Manitoba Ombudsman, I received the following, dated May 12, 2005. I will not quote all of it since the main points are the following:

Our office has investigated the concerns you raised and have concluded that the position taken by WCFS as outlined in their letters of January 13, 2003 and January 22, 2004 is not clearly wrong or unreasonable. Accordingly there is no recommendation that can be made on your behalf.

In the January 13, 2003 letter, Rhonda Warren, assistant program manager to the Winnipeg Child and Family Services, stated the following:

Whether we agree or not regarding the issue of corporal punishment, it is not illegal for a parent to use such practice and in absence of injury Child and Family Services does not have the authority to demand change. It appears from your lengthy correspondence that you and … [the] mother have very different childrearing practices.

This implies that Francesca’s mother was using corporal punishment. However, just a year later, Dan Berg implied that I was making false allegations of physical abuse–like the social worker who wrote the court-ordered assessment. Why is that? The letter from Manitoba Ombudsman does not explain how it drew the conclusion “that the position taken by WCFS as outlined in their letters of January 13, 2003 and January 22, 2004 is not clearly wrong or unreasonable.”

How is it reasonable to claim that Dan Berg’s refusal to further investigate my complaints of physical abuse by the mother and his threat of consulting legal counsel and contacting the police was reasonable when Rhonda Warren, who held the same position as Dan Berg the year before, implied use of corporal punishment by Francesca’s mother for at least six years?

By the way, the claim by Rhonda Warren, assistant program manager to the Winnipeg Child and Family Servicesthat that “it is not illegal for a parent to use such practice and in absence of injury Child and Family Services does not have the authority to demand change” is hypocritical. I was living in a bachelor’s suite, with a separate bed for myself and for Francesca but in the same room, obviously (I could not afford at the time a one-bedroom apartment)–after I had been falsely accused of sexually abusing by both the mother and Winnipeg Child and Family Services. Francesca would sleep with me despite having her own bed, and I did not think anything about it. The mother apparently complained to WCFS, and the WCFS contacted me, implying that if I did not stop sleeping with Francesca, they would take Francesca away from me. I had to force Francesca to sleep in her own bed–and that included spanking her–for the first time. Both of us were crying. The WCFS abused both Francesca and me–despite a child sleeping with a parent not being “illegal.”

The conclusion that I drew from this is that the legal provisions for the protection of children were being used to justify conclusions that were already formed beforehand. The “rule of law” so much by the social-democratic left and liberals is a farce–just as was the court-ordered assessment (see my critiques of the “Marxist” Herman Rosenfeld, who claimed that what was needed was somehow a “transformation” of the police rather than their abolition in the series of posts on the reform or abolition of the police (for example, Reform or Abolition of the Police, Part One).

In a follow up letter, dated January 9, 2006, Manitoba Ombudsman indicated the following:

As you are aware, the Ombudsman is an independent Officer of the Legislature whose duty is to investigate administrative acts, decisions or omissions of a departments and agencies of the provincial and municipal governments.

The Winnipeg Child and Family Service did not consider that Francesca needed protection and that the threat to consult legal counsel and phone the police was reasonable. Both judgements were “reasonable” according to the Manitoba Ombudsman.

Of course, what is reasonable is very dependent on the point of view of those who interpret the law–and a citizen’s interpretation is irrelevant unless they have the money to pursue the issue in court.

The Winnipeg and Child and Family Services is supposed to protect children from physical abuse. On page 2 of the January 9, 2006 letter from Ombudsman Manitoba, they quote the following from “the law”:

Child in need of protection

17 (1) For purposes of this Act, a child is in need of protection where the life, health or emotional well- being of the child is endangered by the act or omission of a person.

Illustrations of child in need

(17 (2) Without restricting the generality of subsection (1), a child is in need of protection where the child …

(b) is in the care, custody, control or charge of a person …

(ii) whose conduct endangers or endanger the life, health or emotional well-being of the child

(c) is abused or in danger of being abused …

(e) is likely to suffer harm or injury due to the behaviour, condition, domestic environment or associations of the child or a person having care, custody, control or charge of the child;

(f) is subjected to aggression or sexual harassment that endangers the life, health or emotional well-being of the child.

Protection of the informant

18.1 (1) No action lies against a person for providing information in good faith and in compliance with section 18.

What happens when the definition of child abuse differs between a citizen and the capitalist state or government–or an official of the capitalist state or government? Since I considered all my complaints to the WCFS to be instances of child abuse, and the WCFS did not, the default is–with the government. I would have had to appeal, probably, up to the Supreme Court (if I could)–and I did not have either the knowledge nor the money to do so.

The same could be said of any appeal of the Manitoba Ombudsman decision.

In relation to the WCFS’s threat to take legal action and to phone the police, how could the Manitoba Ombudsman, in its letter dated May 12, 2005 conclude that “the position taken by WCFS as outlined in their letter of January 22, 2004 is not clearly wrong or unreasonable?”

So, despite section 18.1 (1) providing protection for those who provide “information in good faith,” the threat of Dan Berg and the WCFS to consult its legal counsel and to phone the police was “not clearly wrong or unreasonable.”

Like the Manitoba Registered Social Workers Institute’s rejection of my complaint against the social worker who wrote the court-ordered assessment, the farcical nature of the whole process of filing a complaint against unfair treatment was becoming ever clearer.

It is true that In the letter by Ombudsman Manitoba dated January 9, 2006, they did indicate that I could still make complaints to the WCFS if I had concerns about the way her mother treated Francesca. In the same letter, however, they wrote the following:

WCFS is now aware that the tone and choice of wording of the letter in question gave you the impression [note how Ombudsman Office makes the matter look like a mere question of interpretation–gave you the impression”–as if others would not have interpreted the letter from Dan Berg, assistant program manager of the WCFS as a threat] that they felt your complaints were not legitimate and that you would be subjected to police involvement. We have confirmed that WCFS will respond to you as specified in The Child and Family Services Act.

I responded, verbally I believe, to Ombudsman Manitoba that it was not the “tone and wording of the letter in question” was not the issue–but the real threat of phoning the police. That real threat will be the topic of future posts.

Further Physical and Emotional Abuse of Francesca Subsequent to Dan Berg’s Letter and the Lack of Action of the Winnipeg Child and Family Services

Subsequent to Dan Berg’s letter in January 2004, in June, 2004, Francesca indicated to me the following: Francesca’s mother hits Francesca in the nose, causing it to bleed as well as the mother throwing a wooden stick near Francesca’s face.

On July 5, 2004, I took Francesca to the Children’s Advocate office, where Francesca was interviewed. The person who interviewed her, Janet Minwald, then talked to me. She indicated that there had been a disclosure this time about physical abuse. Apparently, it took the WCFS several months before it interviewed Francesca (ironically, only the WCFS had the authority to inquire into allegations of child abuse–not the Children’s Advocate).

However, the last time that I complained to the WCFS was after the June 2004 incident. Francesca had told me that her mother had kicked her in the back. I took Francesca to the WCFS, and the response was: “There was no mark” so they could do nothing. From that time onward, I saw no further point in filing complaints to the WCFS. The institution was oppressive and, in fact, contributed to the physical abuse of Francesca–and all this with the blessing of Ombudsman Manitoba and indeed, indirectly, the Minister of Family Services and Housing and the head of the provincial government, Gary Doer.

The Responsibility of the New Democratic Party for Francesca’s Continued Physical and Emotional Abuse

I had sent a letter to the Minister of Family Services and Housing on May 1, 2005 since I had not yet received a response from Ombudsman Manitoba. I received this response:

Mqy 18, 2005

Dear Mr. Harris:

Thank you for your letter to Premier Gary Doer dated May 1, 2005, regarding the report you have been expecting from the Office of the Ombudsman. As the Coordinator of Issues Management for the Child Protection Branch, your letter has been referred to me for response.

I understand from your letter you were anticipating that a report from the Office of the Ombudsman into your complaint against Winnipeg Child and Family Services was to be ready by February 18, 2005. I further understand that to date, this report has not been received. As the concerns that you are experiencing are related to the Office of the Ombudsman, by copy of this letter, I am referring this matter to the Office of the Ombudsman and request that they respond to you directly.

Thank you again for bringing this matter to our attention. I truest that the Office of the Ombudsman will be able to respond to your concerns.

Sincerely,

Shelley Sorin, Coordinator Issues Management

cc: Premier Gary Doer
Honourable Christine Melnick, Ministry of Family Services and Housing
Ms. Irene Hamilton, Ombudsman

Gary Doer was the New Democratic Party (NDP) premier (head of government) of Manitoba at the time. The NDP is a social-democratic political party in Canada.

More General Political Considerations Concerning Government Oppression and the Social-democratic Left

The social-democratic left often call for the expansion of public services–without ever inquiring into how oppressive those services can be for citizens, immigrants and migrants. The social-democratic left’s solution of the expansion of public services for those who have often experienced government oppression, evasion and subterfuge is not a solution at all but a problem. (For various posts that outline this idealization of public services or seek an expansion of public services as a solution to the problems faced by workers, citizens, immigrants and migrants, see for example Basic Income, Public Ownership and the Radical Left in the Wake of the Coronavirus Pandemic: A Critique, 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 and The Expansion of Public Services Versus a Basic Income, Part Two: How the Social-democratic Left Ignore the Oppressive Nature of Public Services: Part Two: Oppressive Welfare Services).

This is one of the reasons why the right has increased in strength–because the left idealizes public services and fails to acknowledge and to take into account oppressive experiences of regular people when such people deal with the government. Many people perceive the policies of expanded public services as an expansion of oppressive powers of government–with reason.

Indeed, the social-democratic or social-reformist left simply ignore the tentacles of the oppressive capitalist state that have spread throughout civil society or the so-called non-state and non-market sector. Indeed, Marc Mulholland (2016), in “Revolution and the Whip of Reaction: Technicians of Power and the Dialectic of
Radicalisation,” Journal of Historical Sociology, has rightly criticized such ignorance. Pages 2-3:

Social science analyses of historical revolutions often concentrate upon the destruction of the central executive government, what we might call the regime, without paying sufficient attention to the
machinery and personnel of governance extending throughout the state territory. Laws, rules and regulations comprise the technical machinery of power, but this machine requires skilled operators sufficiently familiar with the technique of practical governance. These skilled operators are the vital intermediary between the executive directors of power on the one hand, and the instruments of power – soldiers, bailiffs, police, office-administrators, propagandists, etc. – on the other. We may call these intermediary strata the technicians of power. The technicians of power do not design or construct the machinery of political and social administration, but they maintain it and they know how it works and how they like to see it working. Technicians of power are not randomly selected. They are drawn from particular social classes and have their own political predilections and the power to act on them. …

A regime might be decapitated, but its servants throughout the land cannot be so easily removed. Revolution cannot scatter its opponents at one blow. This is perfectly understandable once we appreciate that the structures of established governance run deep through society, and resist easy transformation.

Ignoring the extent to which the capitalist state is extended through various agencies formally outside the state or government underestimates greatly the difficulty of overcoming the power of capitalist class both before taking power and after taking power. For example, as I indicated in an earlier post (see Exposing the Intolerance and Censorship of Social Democracy, Part One: The Working Class, Housing and the Police), the movement to defund the police here in Toronto (and undoubtedly elsewhere) will unlikely be successful for various reasons. One of the reasons is its neglecting the various oppressive powers and structures linked to the police that support the police function in various ways. Their moral critique of the police lacks an engagement in inquiry into those forces linked to the police that support the police in various ways; their target for defunding is one-sided and limited and therefore will unlikely be successful.

Conclusion

My experiences with the WCFS, from the initial false allegation of sexually abusing Francesca in 1996, to the last time I complained to the WCFS about Francesca’s mother kicking her in the back, were mostly oppressive. Furthermore, the WCFS Ombudsman Manitoba and the government did nothing to protect Francesca.

In my next post, I will fast forward to 2007-2008, when Francesca skipped school so much that she was obliged to repeat grade eight in 2008. By that time, not even her mother could control her. Nor could I. Francesca had been violent towards me since 1999, when her mother refused to let me see Francesca or let Francesca to see me for almost three months.

In 2008, I obtained a position as a permanent teacher in September 2008, in Ashern, Manitoba, a very small town about 160 kilometers north of Winnipeg. Francesca’s mother agreed to have Francesca live with me since her mother could no longer control her. I decided to home school Francesca while living in Ashern and teaching there. I enrolled Francesca in distance education courses in June 2008, and I gave her the courses. She then left with her cousin, Laura, for Kelowna, a city in the province of British Columbia. I expected Francesca at least to work a bit on the distance education courses during the summer of 2008. She never did. That was the beginning of our problems.

What happened subsequently will be the subject of other posts. In the next post in this series, though, I will expose my own limitations–as father of Francesca. The left needs to learn to criticize itself.

The Poverty of Academic Leftism, Part Four: The Myth of Creating Socialist Spaces

Professor Noonan, an academic leftist, argues that the Nemak return to work provides lessons for the left. Indeed, it does–but unfortunately he fails to draw further lessons from the situation.

He says the following:

As regards work, the structural dependence on paid employment is what makes people working class. This structural dependence is what, above all, democratic socialism would overcome. However, it cannot be ended overnight, but until it is ended workers’ short term struggles are always in danger of becoming victims of wars of attrition. The capitalists, with the law typically on their side, can wait workers out or bleed their resources dry (Unifor was facing fines of 25 000 dollars a day and individual officers 1000 dollars per day). Overcoming the dependence requires long term struggle, but dependence means that your ability to survive without the work you are refusing to do is time-sensitive in the extreme.

Given the claim that the capitalists have “the law typically on their side,” should not the conclusion be drawn that the law as such should be criticized? That reference to “fair contracts” and “decent work” which trade union representatives often express, should be criticized? Professor Noonan remains silent about this. Why is that?

Should not union training include, systematically, the bias of law in relation to workers’ interests? Does it? Should that lack of inclusion of a critique of the bias of law be itself criticized?

He further writes:

There are three general sorts of changes. On the one hand, there are concessions which are made in order to return the situation to normal. This sort of concessions appears to be all that Nemak has offered. At the other extreme, there are revolutionary changes which would create completely new social institutions. It is easy to find abstract arguments that contend that no major social contradiction can be resolved without revolutionary changes. It is much more difficult to find concrete arguments that are powerful enough to actually mobilise revolutionary forces. The key problem here is that no one can say with any certainty how a new society would work (beyond general assurances that it would solve everything because it would be the opposite of this society).

Professor Noonan then dismisses both possibilities:

If concessions do not address the problem and a progressive revolution is not in the offing in the foreseeable future, [my emphasis] hope must be invested in a third possibility: smaller scale structural changes that create space and time for for deeper and wider changes in an unfolding process of transformative social change. How is that to happen if workers cannot survive outside of paid employment (or its social benefit equivalent) for long enough to survive for the long-term? The answer is to struggle for changes to the nature of employment. The Nemak crisis, and the analogous crisis in Oshawa offer opportunities for just these sorts of demands.

The reference to “progressive revolution” is dismissed because it is not possible in the foreseeable future. What does that mean? That substantial changes in class relations will arise in the short-term is undoubtedly unlikely. However, Professor Noonan performs a sleight of hand by shifting the future to some far off horizon. This is the method of social reformers of various persuasions–they shift radical change to the distant future rather than seeing than any radical change will always have to begin in the present. Carl Weathers, in his role as Apollo Creed, told Rocky in the movie Rocky III: “There is no tomorrow.” All progress will always have to begin in the present–but as John Dewey, the educational philosopher and logician pointed out, the present is a moving present.

It may appear that Professor Noonan does indeed include the future in the present by struggling “for changes to the nature of employment.” Let us look at what Professor Noonan has to say on this score.

He says:

GM Workers in Oshawa are being subjected to the same loss of their factory as Nemak workers in Windsor. Like Nemak workers, the GM workers did not meekly accept the GM decision, but instead fought back. They have won a concession (which is nevertheless a victory and another good lesson): the company will consider using a small fraction of the space and workforce to produce parts. But there are other ideas which, while bold, are not impossible within existing institutions. However, if they were realised [my emphasis] they would point beyond existing institutions towards new models of public ownership and workers’ control incompatible with the logic of capitalism. At the same time, since they are realizable here and now they do not depend upon a “revolutionary break” for which the required social and political forces do not exist.

In response to the Oshawa closing, Sam Gindin urged the CAW leadership to go beyond negotiations to work on the transformation of the plant into a publicly owned and worker-controlled facility for the production of electric vehicles. Markets would be initially guaranteed by government contract. Financing and start up costs would also require government support that is impossible to imagine with a capitalist party in power, but not impossible to imagine with a worker friendly government (an NDP radicalised by the threat of a election drubbing?) Instead of treating capitalism as a fixed and final reality that workers must either accept today or overthrow tomorrow, it works in the spaces created by democratic institutions and norms to find means of inserting an anti-capitalist principle and practice into the heart of the system. It shows that there are real alternatives to survival and creative activity than capitalist labour markets that can be realised right now, creating the time we need to fundamentally transform society by expanding non-capitalist employment spaces. Short term dependence on paid capitalist employment is reduced by people putting themselves to work in a non-capitalist firm. The system is not transformed, but a living alternative is created that serves as a real, not text book example, that another world is possible.

It is certainly necessary to propose ideas that “point beyond existing institutions towards new models of public ownership and workers’ control incompatible with the logic of capitalism.” Are there not, however, conditions for such ideas to be realizable in practice?

In the crisis situation in Oshawa, it may be that workers are more prone to accept solutions that point beyond existing social conditions. However, in a crisis situation, without prior preparation, it may well be that workers will grab at solutions that protect their own immediate interests at the expense of longer-term interests. It may also be that workers’ interests can more easily be divided so that the employer can take advantage of such splits. To counter such possibilities, it is necessary to prepare workers beforehand.

Thus, has their been adequate criticism of the structure of authority at the Oshawa plant? Has there been discussions about democratic control at work? Or have the workers there been constantly indoctrinated with the view that their work is “decent work?” That the collective agreement was a “fair contract?” That they received “fair wages?” That the power of an employer to close a workplace is “fair?” As I argued in another post, was there a critique of collective bargaining beforehand in order to prepare workers for going beyond the collective agreement? Or was there silence over the legitimacy of collective agreements? If so, would that not lead to confusion among many workers? If so, does such confusion not tell against the formulation of any consistent policy towards the large number of workers who will lose their jobs at the GM Oshawa plant?

Another relevant point here is how Professor Noonan speaks of “creating spaces”: the space was not created by the workers but by the employer (the decision to close the Oshawa plant). The workers reacted to this decision. It would have been much more intelligent to criticize the union ideology systematically beforehand rather than feeding into the union ideology of “decent work” and “fair contracts.” Did Mr. Gindin engage in such criticism? Or was he afraid to do so out of fear of alienating union representatives?

Furthermore, Professor Noonan relies on another sleight-of-hand by slipping in the fantasy that the New Democratic Party (NDP) would somehow magically turn into “a worker friendly government (an NDP radicalised by the threat of a election drubbing.” Like Professor Noonan’s logic in relation to the so-called harmonious interests of workers at the University of Windsor where he works and the management of that university, he assumes what he must prove: How the NDP can be converted into a “worker friendly government” under conditions of an economy dominated by a class of employers. The NDP and union representatives may think they are “worker friendly,” but they also share the same beliefs as their center and right-wing counterparts: the legitimacy of the employer-employee relation. The NDP may indeed enable workers to organize more easily and institute certain social reforms that may benefit workers more when compared to other political parties, but that does not make them “worker friendly.” They are more “worker friendly” than the other major political parties, but that is all. This does not magically convert them into a “worker friendly” political party. (Nonetheless, I am seriously thinking of voting for the NDP in the upcoming federal election on October 21, 2019 since their policies–such as a definite 360 hours of working for an employer required in order to be eligible for unemployment insurance as opposed to the current 720 for regular workers and 910 hours for beginning workers–are more specific than the vague guaranteed livable income, for example, proposed by the Green Party. Such vagueness can be transformed into minimal changes in income.)

Finally, it is typical of the academic left (and Sam Gindin falls in that category for, despite not being an academic technically, he shares many of their beliefs) that they avoid “creating spaces” in their own immediate environment. What, for example, did Mr. Gindin do to “create spaces” during his long stint as research director for the Canadian Auto Workers union? Did he try to create spaces that could “point beyond existing institutions towards new models of public ownership and workers’ control incompatible with the logic of capitalism?”

What of Professor Noonan? Does he try to create spaces that could “point beyond existing institutions towards new models of public ownership and workers’ control incompatible with the logic of capitalism” where he works? Might that not threaten his own livelihood?

Middle-class academics who are sympathetic to workers’ situation could provide welcome skills (such as research skills) to workers. However, they often lack the passion and emotions involved in real struggles for power: as Aaron Schutz, in his book Social Class, Social Action, and Education: The Failure of Progressive Democracy points out:

But then, as Alinsky repeatedly pointed out, middle-class people were
pretty comfortable already. It did not really matter that much to them,
in concrete ways, whether anyone actually listened or not as long as they
had their say—in academic publications, for example. Their children were
unlikely to suffer much as a result. Near the end of his life, however, Alinsky
turned to efforts to organize the middle class, increasingly convinced that
those on the bottom needed allies from the middle if they were ever to generate
enough power to foster the change they needed and that the middle
class would also benefit if they learned to organize.

Middle-class leftists in Toronto and surrounding areas, as far as I can see, not only do not engage in some of the preparatory work necessary to enable workers for struggles that “would point beyond existing institutions towards new models of public ownership and workers’ control incompatible with the logic of capitalism,” but go out of their way to oppose such preparatory work.

Before the announcement by GM of the plant closing in Oshawa, Mr. Gindin met with some workers from the plant. I did not accompany Mr. Gindin to Oshawa , but his preliminary account of a meeting between him (and, I believer, Herman Rosenfeld) and some workers at Oshawa did not go very well; it might have been a problem of logistics or some other problem, but I doubt that there was any real discussion of the limits of the present arrangement of employers controlling the conditions of life (the factory) of the workers in Oshawa (and elsewhere). Mr. Gindin, out of fear of alienating workers, probably did not bring up the systemic issue of the power of the class of employers and how that power plays itself out in various domains.

Furthermore, Professor Noonan fails to justify his assumption that worker cooperatives somehow magically provide “a living alternative is created that serves as a real, not text book example, that another world is possible.” Cooperatives have existed in the past and exist in the present, but to argue that they somehow automatically provide a living example of an alternative is quite debatable. How does Professor Noonan justify his assumption? He does not.

Even if the GM Oshawa plant were nationalized and turned into a worker cooperative, there is no basis for assuming that there would be a magical transformation that would point towards a society within a different logic from the logic of capitalism.

Mondragon, a large set of cooperatives in the Basque region in Spain, may inspire some to seek alternatives–but then again it may not. This requires research. One author certainly questions whether Mondragon provides “a living alternative.” Sharyn Kashmir, in her book The Myth of Mondragon: Cooperatives, Politics, and Working-Class Life in a Basque Town, provides a different assessment of cooperatives. For example, she quotes a worker at Mondragon (page 122):

Begofia was in her late twenties and had been a member of one of the
Fagor co-ops since she was eighteen years old. She had always worked on the
assembly line. Over dinner, she told me that she felt exploited at work, “just
like any worker in any firm . ”

“What about the fact that you share ownership of the firm ?” I asked.
“It means nothing to me” she replied. Begofia also said she felt “apathetic
” about the governance of the cooperative. “I only go to the annual meetings
of the General Assembly because it’s required. Everybody goes because
they have to. If we didn’t have to, we wouldn’t go.” What she resented more
than anything was being told that she was participating in managing the cooperative
and that “it is your firm .”

As Begofia spoke, I began to hear the words “participate,” “cooperate,”
and “your firm” in a new way ; listening to her, they sounded imposing.
Had I gotten the sense that Begofia was alone in her feelings, I would not have
taken her complaints so seriously. However, she continually spoke for her fellow
workers, implying that her experiences of alienation and feeling manipulated
by cooperativist ideology were common . Furthermore, most of those at
dinner had lived their entire lives among cooperators and did not seem surprised
by what she said. To the contrary, they offered anecdotal evidence of instances
of workers’ apathy and frustration that they had heard from friends
and relatives.

This does not mean that there should be no struggle to nationalize the Oshawa plant and to convert it into a worker cooperative. However, such a struggle should explicitly try to link a critique of the power of employers as a class to this particular situation–and to the inadequate solution of nationalization and worker cooperatives in the context of a society dominated by a class of employers.

Worker cooperatives in themselves, as long as they are unconnected to a larger critical movement to supersede the power of a class of employers, will unlikely “point beyond existing institutions towards new models of public ownership and workers’ control incompatible with the logic of capitalism.”

As Minsun Ji points out (‘With or without class: Resolving Marx’s Janus-faced interpretation of worker-owned cooperatives,” Capital & Class, 2019, page 3):

Among the conditions or factors that might shape the potential of a worker cooperative movement in any given time, the most important for Marx is the manifestation and political mobilization of class consciousness (or the lack thereof ) among cooperative practitioners. In the end, Marx did not so much focus on promoting a certain type of labor organization as being most conducive to transformation (e.g. worker cooperatives or labor unions). Rather, he focused more on the importance of class consciousness within labor organizing, and on the development of radicalized class consciousness among workers, whether through the expansion of labor unions, worker cooperatives, or any other institution of worker empowerment.

In order to become a significant and sustainable challenge to capitalist systems, Marx believed that cooperatives had to grow beyond their small scale and reach capacity to change the mode of production at the national level. To reach this kind of national scale, truly transformational cooperatives would have to become politically natured, and to foster the radical ‘class-consciousness’ of worker members. It is the presence or lack of this focus on developing and mobilizing class consciousness, not the nature of the labor institution itself (i.e. cooperative or union), that Marx believed to most powerfully shape the radical or degenerative tendencies of local forms of labor activism.

Since Mr. Gindin refuses to engage directly with the issue of the power of employers as a class (such as, for example, questioning union rhetoric about “decent jobs,” “fair contracts,” and the like), I predict, as I did before, that the Oshawa plant will not be nationalized and converted into a worker cooperative. Mr. Gindin and company have not done the necessary work to prepare workers to engage in a struggle that seeks to go beyond the class structure.

Even if the Oshawa plant does become worker-owned, it is unlikely to form a space that points “beyond existing institutions towards new models of public ownership and workers’ control incompatible with the logic of capitalism.”

In other words, and contrary to Professor Noonan, for such a strategy to work, it is necessary to start now (and not in some distance future) by querying the class structure. Professor Noonan continually seeks to fly away from the need to question the legitimacy of the class structure from the beginning. Why is that? Perhaps because of his own class situation?

What Kind of Organization or Structure does an Anti-Capitalist Struggle Require?

The following is a critical look at a leftist conference held on April 26, 2014 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, entitled Building Solidarity Against Austerity. Session 3. Fighting Austerity Today. Specifically, it looks critically at the presentation by Dave Bush, a leftist activist in Toronto, who argues that it is necessary to create an organization for the long-term struggle.

Mr. Bush implies that we need something beyond the New Democratic Party (NDP), which is a social-reformist political party, but he does not explicitly explain why we need something beyond it. Implicitly, though, he argues that a new organization is needed to fight against the neoliberal austerity program.

The new organization required seems to be a purely negative organization since its main purpose is to fight against austerity. Fighting against austerity, however, is not necessarily the same as abolishing the class relation between employers and employees.
Indeed, fighting against austerity is perfectly consistent with the stated aims of the NDP and other social democratic organizations. On the federal NDP website , it states:

Canada’s NDP has a proud history of fighting for ordinary Canadians and delivering results. Over the last 50 years, New Democrats have helped ensure the introduction of universal medical care, public pensions, and the expansion of Canada’s social safety net.

New Democrats are champions for people – not corporations or the ultra-rich. We believe in building a society that is more equal and more just for everybody. We are determined to fight for solutions people urgently need right now. From skyrocketing housing prices to soaring out-of-pocket healthcare costs – Canadians haven’t received the help they need.

Mr. Bush perhaps advocates for a new organization because the NDP does not, in practice, live up to its own claims. This interpretation is justified since Mr. Bush points out that we need to think about what is needed to the left of the NDP. Yes, we do. Unfortunately, his references to “ripping apart our collective services” seems to assume that public services are our services. Public services are hardly democratic, as he undoubtedly knows, and yet his vocabulary leads to a false image of the public sector as a collectivity of some sort. Workers in the public sector are employees just as much as employees in the private sector. How being “public services” magically converts being a public employee into a collective organization that provides “our collective services” is never explained.

Mr. Bush also refers to “making gains beyond a specific campaign” as being strategic. In what sense is it strategic? One campaign to which he refers in Halifax was to fight for converting hydro from a private corporation and monopoly into a public one. I certainly agree that privatization should be fought against, but the left then tends to limit its demands to its opposite–make it public, which is exactly what Solidarity Halifax advocated. Nationalizing utilities, however, is hardly a socialist measure if by a socialist measure you mean increased control over our lives at work and in life generally.

Nationalizing hydro does not even take it to the same level as education (at the public school level) and health services in that, at least theoretically, the use of the services do not require money. To use hydro that is publicly run by the capitalist state still requires that the users have money. How is that a major socialist gain? From the point of view of public workers, how is it a gain? Do they not have “jobs” working for an employer (the capitalist state)? Is that what is meant by socialism? How is that a enriching life, to have to work for the capitalist state as your employer?

Mr. Bush argues that advocating for the nationalization (or rather provincialization) of hydro was strategic for two additional reasons than just the need to protect public services as public: firstly the private corporation would raise rates whenever it wanted to do so, so there was a potential large opposition to it and hence for conversion to a public corporation. Secondly, none of the regular political parties, including the NDP, were making it an issue. Hence, Solidarity Halifax could distinguish itself by focusing on a large potential need.

However, It could in fact be said that Mr. Bush and the rest of the left is now in fact a purely anti-austerity movement. It considers, practically, that fighting against austerity is the only practical thing to do. To challenge the power of employers as a class is off the agenda forever for the left here in Toronto and indeed in most parts of Canada. At best, Mr. Bush illustrates the limits of the social-reformist left, which cannot envision a world beyond the power of employers as a class.

Mr. Bush also says that we need to engage in coalition building. On what basis? There was little discussion about what the goals of such coalition building would be,

Coalition building perhaps was supposed to be centered around the fight against privatization in general and the privatization of Canadian postal services in particular. This seems to be some of what Mr. Bush is aiming to achieve. However, having services performed by state employees rather than the private sector may be preferable in that, on the one hand, more employees are proportionately unionized in the public sector than in the private sector and, on the other, at least on the side of consumption workers who receive services do not need to pay directly out of their pocket; consumption is socialized and made available to all (in theory if not always in practice).

Although these two reasons form a basis for fighting against austerity, they hardly question the principle recognized theoretically but not practically by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) (a leftist organization that resists policies that lead to “immiseration and destitution”): that economic coercion forms the necessary base of class relations in a capitalist society. State employees are subject to economic coercion like their private-sector counterparts (see The Money Circuit of Capital).

Fighting against austerity through nationalization and other measures should be a means towards the end of abolishing the power of employers as a class; fighting austerity should not be an end in itself–which is what Mr. Bush seems to seek.

Mr. Bush further argues that the community’s role is mainly one of support. Admittedly, he makes this assertion in the context of the potential privatization of postal services, but is that the major role of the community? Is the community merely to be a reflective support for “labour” (actually, unionized workers), or can it not be both supportive and critical? Or can it be supportive by being critical? The view that the community’s main role is to be supportive assumes that the union movement represents a standard that is sufficiently robust and powerful to justify subordinating the community to it.

Why should we accept that assumption? The open letter by John Cartwright, president of the Toronto & York Region Labour Council to the union movement on January 30, 2018, refers to economic justice, and yet in another post (see Basic Income: A Critique of the Social-Reformist Left’s Assumptions and Analysis: Part Two), it was pointed out just how inadequate is Cartwright’s implicit claim that the union movement has as its goal economic justice when the power of employers as a class is not questioned.

It can be further added that the nationalization of hydro involves its own set of problems that the social-democratic left do not seem to want to address. For example, public sector workers are employees. Being employees, they lack freedom in various ways. How does the fact that public sector workers are employees relate to socialism? Is socialism consistent with the existence of employees? If so, then it is consistent with using human beings as things, is it not? Is that then socialism or capitalism?

What is more likely meant by socialism is what existed before the emergence of what is called neoliberalism: a truce between unions, employers and government and the resurgence of the old welfare state.

What I call socialism would include the abolition of the employer-employee relation–period. It is not about nationalizing utilities and converting institutions merely from private to public government; it would involve the democratization of the economy (see Socialism, Part One: What It May Look Like, Socialism, Part Two: What It May Look Like, Socialism, Part Three: What It May Look Like, or Visions of a Better Kind of Society Without Employers).

Despite these many limitations of Mr. Bush’s presentation of what an anti-capitalist movement needs to become, his idea of having an organization as a membership based organization does have merit. The idea is that membership will determine what is feasible in terms of human capacity. If there are only four members, then only four-member actions should be taken. If 400 members, then larger actions, or more coordinated actions, can emerge. Mr. Bush’s recognition of some of the limitations placed on leftist organizations, unfortunately, does not extend to any recognition of his own views on leftist organization.

Mr. Bush claims that it is necessary to build a non-sectarian left, but what that means he fails to spell out. His own brand of anti-capitalism is really only anti-austerity and is itself sectarian.

A Short List of the Largest Private Employers in Canada, According to Profit

When belonging to a leftist organization called the Toronto Labour Committee (Ontario, Canada), I worked on, in a minor position, on some statistics related to financial campaign contributions for the Toronto elections. Not being satisfied with this, I proposed that we start trying to develop a class analysis of Toronto. I indicated, though, that I did not really know how to proceed in this. I sent this over the Toronto Labour Committee listserve, and the response was–silence.

The following attempts to fill in, however inadequately, that silence, but it is first addressed at the more macro level of Canada. If others can provide more detailed and sophisticated statistics and analysis (while still being comprehensible), I would much appreciate it.

I thought it would be useful to provide a list of some of the largest employers in Canada. The reason why I think such a list would be useful is that it provides at least a somewhat concrete picture of who really has power in society and the extent of that power. Since most social-reformist leftists ignore the power of employers and assume such power as a background which they can assume as constant, they then consider their reformist policies without calling into question such power.

I hope to expand this later. If readers have better statistics or statistics from other countries, feel free to comment. This should be a work in progress.

It is taken from the following: Largest Employers in Canada.

Obviously, there are different ways of considering what the largest employers are. At least four come to mind readily: according to profit, according to employment, according to total revenue (sales) and according to assets.

The following list of the 20 largest employers lists them according to (after-tax) profit for the year 2012. The profit is indicated in parentheses. The currency is Canadian.

Statistics relating profit to wages and salaries would be useful to obtain an approximate rate of exploitation (undoubtedly Marxian economists would find the procedure faulty, but if so, then they should provide their own correctives at a concrete level–unless they are only academics who are little concerned with bridging the gap between theory and the more empirical experiences of the working class).

1. The Royal Bank of Canada ($7 billion 442 million)
2. The Bank of Nova Scotia ($6 billion 466 million)
3. Toronto Dominion Bank ($6 billion 367 million)
4. The Bank of Montreal ($4 billion 115 million)
5. Imperial Oil ($3 billion 766 million)
6. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) ($3 billion 339 million)
7. Suncor Energy ($2 billion 783 million)
8. BCE ($2 billion 763 million)
9. Canadian National Railway ($2 billion 680 million)
10. Potash ($2 billion 79 million)
11.Thomson Reuters Corp. ($2 billion 70 million)
12. Husky Energy ($2 billion 22 million)
13. Great-West Life Co. ($1 billion 930 million)
14. Canadian Natural Resources ($1 billion 882 million)
15. First Quantum Minerals ($1 billion 772 million)
16. Goldcorp Inc. ($1 billion 749 million)
17. Manulife Financial ($1 billion 736 million)
18. Rogers Communications ($1 billion 730 million)
19. Sunlife Insurance ($1 billion 674 million)
20. Power Financial ($1 billion 626 million)

If you sum up the amount of profit for these 20 companies, you get $59 billion 991 million.

To get an idea of the meaning of this amount of profit, we can do several calculations:

Divide this amount by the total population of Canada: 37, 177, 886 (estimated, March 10, 2019, but for calculating convenience let us say 40,000,000): That is $1500 extra per year more for every person in Canada.
Divide this amount by the total employed in February 2019: 18 million 991 thousand workers (for convenience, 19 million): An extra $3157 per year for every employed worker.
The redistribution of all profits according to the whole population or to those who are employed would probably not have a great impact on many individuals and families; of course, a more refined analysis, with incomes lower than the average being affected relatively more than others with incomes greater than the average.
This can be seen if we divide this amount by the total unemployed in the last three months of 2018: 1 million 30 thousand (for convenience, 1 million): That is $59,991 per year more for every unemployed Canadian.
If we combine #3 and #4, and divide by the sum of the two (unemployed, 1 million, + employed, 19 million, or 20 million in total): $3000 per year extra for every unemployed or employed worker. Again, as an average, the redistribution would not have a major impact if spread out equally among all employed and unemployed workers. Its impact would be all the greater the more the redistribution would be limited to those who are unemployed or to those with limited incomes. However, this does not mean that such redistribution of profits would merely involve propping up the level of income of unemployed and those with limited incomes. As I have argued in several other posts on the nature of socialism, a substantial portion of profits would be allocated to an investment fund that would be distributed nationally, regionally and locally to various communities. Some profits might be allocated initially to provide for those who are unable to work, but with the elimination of a market for workers and the abolition of a class of employers, workers would increasingly not need to resort to such supplementary funds.
It should be remembered that the above statistics are limited only to the 20 largest private companies. There are many other companies with profits, and if all those profits were included in the calculation, the impact on total income would likely be much larger and more significant than it is here indicated.

The position of the social-reformist left, of course, is for some kind of redistribution of such profits–but not to the complete redistribution of such profits. For them, there is such a thing as “fair share of the profits” via changed tax policies.

For example, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) published a work by Toby Sanger entitled Fair Shares: How Banks, Brokers and the Financial Industry Can Pay Fairer Taxes (page 23) (The title itself shows confusion since something that is fairer need not be fair):

As other Canadians are paying for the costs of the financial crisis, Canada’s under-taxed financial industry should also be required to pay its fair share.

Again, at the provincial level, in Ontario on the Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP) website (https://www.ontariondp.ca/platform)-a social-reformist political party linked to unions).

Protect middle class families by having the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations pay their fair share

At the federal level, the NDP, in its pamphlet POLICY OF THE New Democratic Party of Canada EFFECTIVE FEBRUARY 2018, page 3 reads:

Ensuring that large profitable corporations pay a fair share of taxes.

According to the money circuit of capital, though, there is no such thing as a fair share since it is inherently unfair to treat human beings as means for obtaining more money (see The Money Circuit of Capital).

What do you think of the profits of such companies? What is the source of such profits? What should be done with them? Should workers control them? Communities at various geographical levels?

Is there such a thing as a fair share under existing economic conditions of a class of employers controlling our selves.

Management Rights, Part One: Private Sector Collective Agreement, British Columbia

In Ontario, Canada, there will be an election in three days. Ontario is the most populous province in Canada. Currently, the Liberals are in power, but even their leader admits that they will lose the election. The race is now between the Progressive Conservatives (an oxymoron, of course), headed by the populist Doug Ford, and the NDP (supported by many unions), headed by Andrea Horwath.

I will vote for the NDP, but I hardly believe that this party represents my interests. Such a party has no intention of opposing the power of employers as a class.

The fact is the NDP party and unions cannot address issues that I and many others face in our lives–in this case, the power of management to dictate to us at work. They remain silent over such issues, or they paper over such issues by high-sounding rhetoric that hides the reality.

Consider the rhetoric of John Cartwright, president of the Toronto & York Region Labour Council, in his open letter of January 30, 2018, wrote the following: “We need to fight for labour law reform including broader based bargaining so that precarious workers can have a vehicle in which to achieve dignity and economic justice.”

What does Mr. Cartwright mean by economic justice? Collective agreements? Since he does not explain what he means (a characteristic of rhetoric), we will assume that he means collective agreements between employers and unions.

Other social-reformist leftists express a different kind of rhetoric that centers around the non-unionized workforce. For example, the fight for a $15 an hour minimum wage here, along with needed reforms of employment standards, was paired with the concept of “fairness.” David Bush, a contributor to the rankandfile website, explicitly considered such reforms to be fair.

Collective agreements, however, are probably better than the provisions of employment standards for workers in that they limit the power of management even more. Nonetheless, collective agreements are decidedly unfair in that they do not question the power of management to use workers as things for the benefit of the employer.

The NDP, Canadian unions, the social-reformist left in general and even the so-called radical left seem incapable of criticizing the adequacy of such collective agreements.

This blog will at least partly compensate for this silence.

The following management rights clause is more detailed than many. It illustrates the power of employers in relation to employees and how employees are, ultimately, things to be used (in this instance, for obtaining as much money as possible). It also illustrates the lack of democracy in the workplace.

Even if the management rights clause were not detailed, arbitrators have indicated that there is an implied management rights clause in collective agreements. Consequently, workers are expected to follow management’s orders or suffer the consequence of possible discipline and, ultimately, dismissal–economic blackmail.

This is what working for an employer involves–economic blackmail. The implicit situation is: if the worker does not like the working conditions and does not like being treated as a thing–there is the door. The worker is “free” to leave at any time. Of course, workers in general (as a class) lack the conditions for their own economic independence. Consequently, their freedom is an empty freedom. If they try to exert their freedom, how are they to live? If they are parents, how are they to feed, clothe and provide for the children? Such freedom is empty, and yet this empty freedom is nowhere addressed by the social-reformist left. At best, they look towards a renovated welfare state and not to democratic control over the economy.

From

COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT
Between
COLD LOGIC CORPORATION
And
UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS UNION, LOCAL NO. 247
Chartered by the United Food and Commercial
Workers International Union, CLC
TERM OF AGREEMENT
October 17, 2010 to January 31, 2021

pages 3-4:

ARTICLE 4 – MANAGEMENTS RIGHTS
4.01 Except as specifically limited by the express provisions of this Agreement, the Company retains exclusive right to exercise all management rights or functions.
These shall include:

a) The right to formulate, enforce, revise and administer rules, policies and procedures covering the operations including but not limited to attendance, discipline and safety.

b) The right to discipline or discharge for just cause.

c) The right to select the products to be handled, choose customers, determine the methods and scheduling of shipping, receiving and warehousing, determine the type of equipment or vehicle used and the sequence of operating processes within the facility, determine the size and character of inventory and to introduce different shipping, receiving and warehousing methods. Without restricting the generality of the foregoing, the Union agrees that the Company has the right to study or introduce new or improved production methods or facilities

d) The right to establish work schedules, to determine the number of employees necessary to operate any department, or classification of the Company, to determine management organization for each department, to hire, layoff, suspend, promote, transfer and demote, to assign work on a temporary and permanent basis, to establish or revise reasonable performance and quality standards.

4.02 It is agreed that listing of the foregoing management rights shall not be deemed to exclude other rights of management not specifically listed.

You will unlikely be able to find anything by the social-reformist left that addresses the issue of why management has such dictatorial power over workers on a daily basis.

Why the silence?

Perhaps, as Jack Nicholson said in the movie A Few Good Men–“You can’t handle the truth!”

The NDP and its social-reformist followers cannot handle the truth. Why otherwise the silence?