Why This Blog Exists
The basic idea of this blog is that a society dominated by a class of employers is both immoral and absurd. The issue is not simply that individual employers sometimes behave badly, or that particular economic arrangements are unfair. It is that a social system organized around the power of employers subjects workers and communities to the interests and decisions of a class whose position depends on the accumulation of capital.
The focus of this blog is primarily economic, although I will address other areas of social life whenever possible and relevant. My aim is to examine the social relations that sustain the power of employers and to contribute, in whatever limited way I can, to developing an understanding of the need to abolish that power.
Abolition and Revolution
The name The Abolitionary combines the ideas of abolition and revolution. It expresses the need to take seriously the abolition of the power of employers as a class, rather than treating that power as a permanent feature of society that merely needs to be regulated or moderated.
Such an abolition would entail a revolutionary transformation of our social relations. It could not be achieved simply through changes in government policy, better legislation, or more favourable agreements between workers and employers. It would require sustained organization and struggle by workers and communities over time. Such efforts would inevitably encounter opposition from employers and their representatives, whose interests depend on preserving the existing social order.
The question, therefore, is not merely how to improve conditions within capitalist society, but how workers and communities can organize to challenge the power that structures those conditions in the first place.
Criticism of Social Reformism
A recurring concern of this blog is the social-reformist left, particularly its influence in Toronto, where I live. By social reformism, I mean a political orientation that confines its aims to reforms within capitalism while postponing serious consideration of how workers might organize to challenge the power of the employer class itself.
Reforms can address particular problems, but they do not necessarily challenge the social relations that continually reproduce those problems. My concern is that the social-reformist left too often treats the abolition of employer power as a distant or impractical question, rather than making the development of workers’ capacity to challenge that power an immediate concern.
I will therefore critically examine the arguments, practices, and assumptions of the social-democratic and social-reformist left, including those of organizations and individuals that claim to represent workers’ interests. The purpose is not criticism for its own sake, but to examine the limits of approaches that leave the power of employers fundamentally intact.
How I Approach the Blog
Many posts will draw on books, articles, research, and other material I have read. I will often quote passages and provide brief commentary to illustrate an argument, challenge an assumption, or expose a contradiction. Other posts will examine economic data, labour relations, workplace authority, workers’ struggles, and the social and political ideas through which capitalist relations are justified.
Some posts will be short; others will form part of longer series. Certain points will recur across different posts. This repetition is deliberate when it helps clarify an argument or emphasize an important feature of the society in which we live.
I have created a separate page, The Money Circuit of Capital, to explain a central aspect of Marx’s analysis of capitalism. I will refer to it in posts where it helps establish or clarify an argument, rather than repeatedly reproducing the same explanation.
Despite limitations arising from my health, I will try to publish at least one post a week. I will also respond to selected posts and discussions where there is a serious engagement with the issues addressed here.
Suggestions and Discussion
Suggestions for improving this blog are welcome, as are substantive comments on individual posts. I am particularly interested in discussion that goes beyond proposing isolated reforms to examine the social relations that produce and sustain the power of employers.
The central question running through this blog is how workers and communities can understand, organize against, and ultimately abolish the power of the employer class.
