Some of what Anthony Teso writes is valid. It describes some of the processes explained by Rana Dasgupta in the article I recommended elsewhere – “the demise of the nation state <https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/05/demise-of-the-nation-state-rana-dasgupta>” although I must say that Dasgupta describes things more thoroughly and much more vividly (which is not irrelevant). I understand that Dasgupta’s approach is not acceptable in academic circles, but I think it’s more useful for socialists and worker activists.
A problem for both Teso and Dasgupta is the issue of the role of the leadership of the working class, which in the US is the union leadership (since there has never been a working class party). Dasgupta ignores the question entirely. Teso considers it, but he comes close to apologizing for the leadership. He writes: “the state and employers employed law, police, courts, and bureaucracy to restrict disruptive labor action. It became harder to organize strikes legally and materially. Union leaderships were frequently incorporated into systems of contract administration, grievance processing, and political lobbying. The rank-and-file push was blunted.” Of course the capitalists will use their state power to undermine workers organizing. They always have. In her seminal book “The New Jim Crow”, Michelle Alexander makes the point that structural, legal racial oppression gave way in one form or another when it could no longer be enforced in its previous form. The same is true for labor law. It used to be illegal to even talk about combining to form a union, never mind actually doing so. Then, when it became impossible to enforce those laws, they changed them. There is nothing god-given or immutable about “organizing strikes legally”. There is an alternative – reverting to the methods of the 1930s. But that is completely taboo to all wings of the union leadership, including all members of the “progressive” wing. It is most unfortunate that the majority of socialists implicitly accept that taboo. When I started in the carpenters union (1970), the unions were still able to achieve some limited success by operating within the bureaucratic state structures. Within ten years, that was collapsing. The response of the union leadership was to become even more conservative, even more concessionary. The result is a massive alienation from the unions on the part of the rank and file. Not only from the unions, but even from the very idea of a collective struggle to change conditions for all – in other words, the very basis for unionism. Teso describes the breakdown of a sense of community within the working class. He is right, but he doesn’t adequately consider the disastrous role of the entire union leadership in this process. There are other factors to consider also. For example, I recently read an article about what happens in the brain when a person takes notes with a pen and paper vs. on a tablet or computer. A study was done while electrodes were connected to subjects’ skulls. They found that when a person takes notes with a pen and paper, the entire brain is much more active. Not only that, but the information is generalized and remembered better. It is similar with a child learning mathematics by manipulating material objects vs. on a touch screen tablet or computer. Similar, by the way, with reading a physical book vs. reading an ebook. It has also been shown that the brain is more active when reading than when listening. All of this impacts how workers, and everybody else, think. Here’s another example: 20 or more years ago, in my neighborhood, on Christmas morning there would be little gangs of kids riding up and down the block on their new bikes. No longer. Now, they’re at home on their computers or X boxes or whatever they play with. All of this impacts political consciousness. As Steve Bannon says, “politics is downstream from culture.” Teso talks about what socialists can and should do, but I think there is a deeper question to consider first – the very nature of this period in which we live. I believe that we are living in a period in which counter-revolution has gained the upper hand. I wrote a pamphlet called The Nature of this Period. <https://oaklandsocialist.com/2024/08/13/the-nature-of-this-period-an-oaklandsocialist-pamphlet/> In it I wrote: “After a period in which liberation and revolution contended with repression and counter revolution, it seems that the latter may have gotten the upper hand at least for the moment. It is essential to recognize this. “Failing to do so, some on the left sink into a morass of confusion and political and moral degeneration. This includes left support for individual terrorism and for groups which, however much they may have risen due to oppression, are counter revolutionary nevertheless.” It also includes seeking some magical formula or pretending that we can derive “the answer” just by working harder or smarter. That is a bitter pill to swallow, but there is no surviving politically without recognizing it. John Reimann -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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