Workers' Liberty

David is too fast to judge and too keen to rubbish the Euston Manifesto. He bluffs and blusters and ends up denying politics. David makes mistakes of assessment and delivers statements of false fact.
First, on matters of fact. The EMG did not claim to have distributed 800 tickets. Demand for tickets outstripped the capacity for the original venue (which held only 136) hence the move to a bigger space. 250 people came: 350 tickets had been sent out. 250 is a good return from 1800 signers, many of whom do not live in UK and most do not live in London. It was an open and democratic meeting. The AWL was invited to speak from the floor but didn’t take up the offer.
The raw number of attendees tells less than the story of the 150 people who stayed behind to chat in the bar. Most want to start working with us. There seems to be a great deal of interest and enthusiasm in the Eustonite view of the world. Maybe David could discuss why this might be the case instead of mustering all his strength to deny it.

David tells us false facts about the websites and campaigns which support the EMG. First, Labourstart isn’t a component of the EMG. Second David thinks Democratiya is a ‘chit-chat’ webspace when in fact it’s a journal of book reviews written by serious academics with a readership profile spanning all continents. There is no ‘comment’ function at Democratiya where ‘after dark chit-chat’ could take place. David should take a look. Some of the articles will help with his exams.

HP is a chit-chat webspace which posts provocative, quick-fire articles. The subsequent discussions are the same ones that take place between leftists in coffee bars and pubs all over the country and probably all over the developed and free world. These discussions also take place in Iraq, in Iran, in the former Yugoslavia and in Turkey. We know they do because people from those countries have written to the EM to tell us how they use the Manifesto in their political discussion groups. I cannot imagine why David sneers at the web. David’s superior tone does not prevent me thinking he would be better off examining the EMG as a case study in political organising during an age when the web is a significant arena for debate and tool for making trans-national links.

In his desire to paint-small the EMG David underplays Engage’s work in the components of the new UCU. ‘Some Eustonites were active in the boycott’ he begrudges. Formally true: but a fib by omission. Engage led the successful overthrow of the boycott policy in the AUT and worked closely with the AWL only to narrowly lose in NATFHE. It is daft enough for David to condemn the EMG as ‘not rooted in the TU’s’ when it doesn’t claim to be. It suicidally daft to make the same claim when Engage’s work in the AUT was a more successful piece of TU work than the AWL or its antecedents has ever done, ever in 40 years of existence: ever.

Confronted with Shalom Lapin’s demands on Gvt, David denies politics. He thinks it out of the question that a trans-national alliance of social democratic governments could get to grips with the exploitation of labour in the third world. He thinks this because even social democratic Gvts, (don’t you know), rest on capital and therefore action by them against capital is a definitional impossibility. David counterposes ‘action from below’ to such a demand on Gvt. But these are not either/ors. Of course the Manifesto supports free and open trade unions and action from below. Equally it is an ‘of course’ that Gvts take action which restricts capital. In fact they do so all the time: there is no automatic, linear read off from the needs of capital to social, economic and foreign policy. The state and the Gvt in Britain are relatively autonomous from the needs of this or that section of capital. In that space, the space where politics happen, much can be won or lost. David’s approach denies politics. I know anarchists who value politics more than David.
This is not the first time the AWL has chosen to deny politics. Take the majority line on the Road Map: you didn’t support it although you had no alternative to offer and for awhile it might have brought a solution to the P/I conflict. Take your attitude to Iraq – you do not support the UN backed process of building a state – although it is hard to imagine any other route to a democratic state and certainly you have no alternative. By denying politics David is left with little choice but to scorn and deceive and point out the difference between the awl and the Euston Manifesto, which ought to be an easy enough exercise as the EM isn’t a revolutionary organisation or even a socialist one. It would be more interesting to know what the awl thinks is wrong with a project to promote democratic decencies and rationalism.

While a rather inane question, I will respond to Jane's "analysis" of how many people turned up - the Euston Manifesto website said you had to change venue because of demand, then later claimed that you had sold out of tickets for the second venue too. That venue clearly could probably have held 800. So, deduce what you will.

I'm sure a lot of people want to work with you - it's never hard to find people whose politics aren't all that different from the status quo. Of course it's easier to recruit people to your "group" than to a Trotskyist one - but we are calling on people to reject the whole bourgeois view of society, analyse what lies behind the "politics" of Parliament, and help with a forcible overthrow of the ruling class - while your reformist programme is unanalytical, unremarkable and reconcilable with the system as it exists.

"Labourstart isn't a component of EMG" - Well done. Of course not. However, you may note that I said that Labourstart was a good resource, so that's hardly to your credit. Furthermore, Alan Johnson said that Labourstart was part of the alleged activist core underlying the EM.

I'm afraid the wording referring to Democratiya in the paper was edited slightly - I had initially solely referred to it as "masturbatory". Essentially however, I don't see anything "serious" about Democratiya, beyond its strongly pretentious tone. Its writers have no understanding whatsoever of class and agency of change, and indeed have a shallow, unanalytical understanding of imperialism. For example, Oliver Kamm's comment on Iraq "the tragedy of the invasion of Iraq, in which what might reasonably have been presented as an anti-totalitarian struggle was tarnished by political incompetence and a bruising diplomacy." reminds us of Geras' facile comment "of course, we're not in favour of bad interventions". Do you think the privatisation of resources in Iraq and the invasion of US construction firms are purely incidental - it seems more like a keystone of the occupation. It's hard to see the great democratic upsurge which you claim exists - sectarian right-wing parties in power are hostile to the working class, allow the plunder of their country's resources, and allow the US/UK troops to stay against the will of most Iraqis. Therefore - particularly given the strong US-Saudi alliance - I beg to differ when you claim that neo-con foreign policy is "anti-totalitarian"...

So, masquerading as "leading thinkers", these people's pseudo-commentary begs far more questions than it answers. They should do some reading about political economy - I can send them some stuff if you like. Marxism for Dummies? I find your "some of the articles will help with his exams" comments funny on a similar basis - I'm not sure if your age is a defence of your politics, although if you want to feel superior, you probably need to rely on this kind of argument.

While of course chit chat on the web is hardly of a lower value than that which goes on "in coffee bars" - not that I like the idea of liberal Lefties reading the Guardian over a £4 macchiato in Islington - it is no substitute for real political activism. Working on the ground and in trade unions allows you to engage with real activists and working-class fighters, and to actually challenge the system - chit chat on the web is meaningless if it is not translated into real political activity. Unlike Compass/Catalyst etc., I do not believe that our ideas alone are what can change society. It's not only a case of arguing out theory which is needed, but practical implementation and real-world activity - and I doubt that most Eustonites, and indeed most Harry's Place commentators, are involved in on the ground campaigns. However, this theory-practise distinction is somewhat of a moot point, given that the "theory" on Harry's Place is very soft on capitalism and the government anyhow, and therefore not particularly translateable into working-class activism.

You claim to be more 'pragmatic' because you deal with solutions proposed by the ruling class. "The UN backed process of building a state" is not a real route to a democratic state, because it is being created under the control of an occupation which is unpopular with most Iraqis, relies on sectarian political blocs who can only foment ethnic-religious tension, and stands as little more than a front providing legitimacy for the carving up of Iraqi resources, services and industry by US-UK capital. Iraq is experiencing an ever-increasing civil war - it is clear that the status quo is no more of a realistic "solution" than what we fight for. The primary concern is solidarity with the Iraqi labour movement - the coalition forces have not only attacked this movement themselves, but by their very presence act as a recruiting agent for the reactionary Islamist groups who routinely attack workers.

The government and state are autonomous from occasional sectors and demands of the capitalist class, yes. But by saying this you implicitly admit that the state is essentially bourgeois, founded on class-society and exploitation. So why aren't you socialists? Why not fight for a revolution against it?

Apparently there are two reasons why you don't.

1) You don't see the working class as an independent agency of social change - it's just one of many ways change can be made. So, you say that governments can do some things against the logic of capitalism, so we can put some faith in them - but what progressive things do they do which aren't the result of pressure from below? It's hardly as if the right to vote, right to form unions etc. were just handed down by benevolent governments who didn't care about business. They were won in struggle.

2) You have admitted defeat to the status quo, so prefer to look for 'pragmatic' reforms which can be made within capitalism. Your demands stop at "social justice" - worse, in the case of neo-con foreign policy, many Eustonites try to apply their own politics onto what the government is doing, in a ridiculous effort to pretend that the "War on Terror" is a progressive - anti-totalitarian - campaign. The fact that no trade union or socialist group in the world would call for their own country to be invaded doesn't appear to concern you.

Some Eustonites were against the war, yes - but the distinction is unimportant, since supporting it would only be an extension of the logic of politics which think we can work with the ruling class to improve the world. But our demands and theirs are not reconcilable in a world so sharply divided between bosses and workers. Any weakness on our part, any reliance on them, will leave us vulnerable to attacks - they want to crush the workers' movement, in Iraq as much as in Britain. You refuse to attack the very base of such exploitation - such a strategy can never defeat it.

Jane did you really mean "...Engage’s work in the AUT was a more successful piece of TU work than the AWL or its antecedents has ever done, ever in 40 years of existence: ever." If so it's the most ridiculous thing you have written: ever.

The Euston Manifesto got huge free publicity from the mainstream press, with Will Hutton and many others hailing it as the great new force "coming to the rescue of Blair". After that, a half-full hall is not really anything to boast about.

Many useful political projects have started with a lot fewer than 250 people. But they had ideas focused on acting to change the world, rather than on applauding the already-established powers when they do something we like or half-like.

Jane's attempt at theory gives us the measure of it. Politics, she instructs us, is about "the space" established by the fact that "the state and the government in Britain are relatively autonomous from the needs of this or that section of capital". It is not about class struggle against capital (which the Euston Manifesto does not mention at all) - no, it is about the vagaries and disjointednesses within capital.

How do you do politics, then, if you are not a capitalist, or a government member or adviser, yourself? By applauding Tony Blair as "bloody marvellous" when he makes a speech which you think will "promote democratic decencies and rationalism" (even if the actual purpose of the speech is to dress up an assault on civil liberties). By cheering on "progressive" capitalist government actions from your blogsites.

Thus, Jane sees the AWL as "denying politics" because... we don't support "the UN-backed process of building a state" in Iraq, and didn't support the US-UN-EU-Russian "road map" for Israel-Palestine (that was unanimous, by the way, not a "majority" view: our debate about it was on whether we should denounce it straight off as just flam to cover up support for Sharon, or say that it could not be supported or relied on, but even a small possibility of diplomatic progress was to be welcomed).

Lack of a message to George W Bush on Iraq, or to Tony Blair on the "road map", saying "well done... we support you" - that's what constitutes "denying politics"?

Both the "road map" and the aspiration to set up a more or less functioning bourgeois democracy in Iraq correspond to the long-term interests of capital. Little has come of them essentially because of the shorter-term imperatives and interests of capitalist governments, notably the USA's.

It follows neither that we give de facto support to the ultra-reactionary opponents of such more or less "enlightened" capitalist schemes (Hamas, the Sunni supremacists in Iraq, etc.), nor that we fall in behind the capitalist forces who we hope will be more "enlightened".

As experience has shown, both historically and in the two cases cited, we cannot trust the capitalist forces even to deliver on what they promise. If they do deliver, they will do it in their way, and as part of fighting their class struggle. (As, e.g., the US occupation did "deliver" bourgeois democracy in Japan - and along the way helped the Japanese bourgeoisie to smash the militant wing of the Japanese workers' movement). As and when the "progressive" capitalists deliver measures advantageous to the workers' cause, our job is to maximise the ability of the workers' movement to expand and utilise those measures, and go beyond them. We do that by fighting for the political independence of the working class.

We explained this in our pamphlet Solidarity with Iraqi workers - and Marxists have been explaining it ever since there was such a thing as Marxism - since Marx's 1850 March Address, at least.

Working-class politics is no more defined by the "space" created by the autonomy of state and government from "this or that section of capital" than trade-unionism is defined by the "wiggle-room" created by the individual and cultural variations in how capitalist bosses manage their companies. It is no more centred on "well done" messages to the capitalist governments seeming to be more inclined to "democratic decencies and rationalism" than trade unionism is centred on "well done" messages to philanthropic, liberal-minded, or far-sighted bosses.

The essential point about the room for politics within a capitalist society is not the "autonomous" vagaries of particular politicians or managers - which exist, of course - but that "the needs of capital" are not defined by any superhuman or infallible authority. For example, where workers are sufficiently assertive, over a sufficient period, capitalist managers and politicians will come to reckon that conceding trade-union rights serves "the needs of capital", at least within such future as they can calculate. The practical definition of what "the needs of capital" are will have been changed by the action of the working class. Whether that concession actually "serves the needs of capital" in the long term will be decided by what the workers make of it - whether, for the relevant term, they settle into conservative "bread and butter" trade unionism, or use the freedoms won to go further.

Engage certainly did excellent work on the AUT boycott of Israel. (In part, because it did its campaign strictly without any Euston-type stuff such as supporting the "road map", or applauding Blair).

It is, as Janine and Martin O point out, ridiculous to rate that as bigger and better trade-union work than AWL or its forerunners have ever done. In any case, the real success of Engage was a different sort of effort from what most of our big efforts in the trade union movement have been - and have to be, if we are fighting for socialism - in relentless opposition to the capitalist and trade-union "establishment".

In the AUT, over the boycott, it so happened that we were fighting a reactionary policy which had been rushed through a union conference almost "on the sly", and which (for their own reasons) both the union establishment and other large "establishment" forces wanted to get rid of. It was still a fine and good thing to get rid of that reactionary policy. But it is not a general model for trade-union successes.

And anyway Jane cannot claim the anti-boycott campaign as a triumph for Euston-type politics. It wasn't the Eustonites who initiated that campaign. It was AWL. The main movers of Engage were first mobilised for that campaign by... us contacting them and urging them to sign a statement against the boycott. For sure, they then picked up the ball and ran with it very well, but we threw in the ball. Meanwhile, the chief author of the Euston Manifesto, Norman Geras, had responded by resigning from AUT and urging all Jewish members of AUT to follow suit.

Martin Thomas

Martin, I'm genuinely shocked by your gross misrepresentation of the campaign against the boycott in the AUT, which I've only just come across. Your account is false, and I think that you know it is. I guess that I count, with David Hirsh, as the main movers of the campaign against the boycott. I was not moved, or even nudged, by you or the AWL - I was moved by me, and a bit by Hirsh, and my longstanding oppostion to the boycott, which was pre-AWL and roughly liberal and trade union-democratic (with inflections). You didn't throw me the ball. I learned a lot from SO and the AWL - both about the demonisation of Israel, and the importance of telling the truth to ourselves. You should remember that. It wasn't as you say, at all. Congratulate yourself, if you want, on the long-term education of a few folk who take some central arguments and ideas, and do things with them that you might not expect or welcome. Don't fabricate claims about day to day influence within the AUT.

I readily concede that the work that the AWL does in unions is of a different kind to the activity we pursued in the AUT.

David Broder, you're both unnecessarily rude and wrong with reference to the work of socialists, trade unionists, opponents of the war, signatories of the EM and writers for Democratiya. The stuff about computer screens versus real struggle is just silly. Again, unless you are far too enclosed, I guess you know that, and your polemic is a matter of going through the motions. But the world is changing, comrade.