Workers' Liberty

The point is Clive would you state that workers have a "Right" to a free healthcare system under capitalism? I wouldn't because it implies that this is a bourgeois "Right" i.e. it is the same as the right to free speech, the right to life, the right to liberty etc.

I am not making a distinction between free healthcare and free drug counselling that is precisely the point. I am saying that we should attempt to bring healthcare under workers control because at the present time it is not practical to bring it also under workers ownership - its too big a bite to undertake. Consequently, fighting for workers control is an intermediate step. But providing a drug advice centre on an estate or within a community is a much smaller bite to take, and one which realistically can be undertaken.

Free socialised healthcare cannot possibly be a "right" under capitalism in the same way as the right to free speech, or the right to property for the simple reason that these other "Rights" are intrinsic to the way capitalism works efficiently, there is no rational reason why free healthcare is, which is why it did not exist for a considerable time, and does not exist in the US now for the most part if you set aside Medicare and Medicaid. Capitalism might provide these things if it feels it benefits, but there is no rational reason why it should if it does not benefit, anymore than it should rationally offer higher wages.

To suggest that these things are "Rights" under capitalism equivalent to the "Right" to free speech is to convey the idea to the working class that these things are compatible with the functionning of Capitalism, that it is just a matter of convincing the Capitalists and their state of the error of their ways. In other words it is to convey to the working class the idea that their interests and the interests of Capital are not contradictory. It is bourgeois reformism pure and simple, it is to carry into the heart of the Labour Movement bourgeois ideology.

We should by all means demand free healthcare, and where possible we should bring that healthcare under our control if not yet possibly bring it under our direct ownership - in actual fact the Labour Movement has long since brought part of healthcare under its own ownership and control through the many union owned Sanitariums - and where possible we should bring it under our ownership too, but we should not sow the illusion that free healthcare provided by the capitalist state is a "Right". It is not. We should in fact point out that free healthcare can only be a "Right" for the working class under socialism, just as only under socialism will workers have the "Right" to determine the other parts of the social wage, and the proprtion of their product to be taken as actual wages rather than invested in enhancing production etc.

Arthur Bough

Do workers, or people whether they're workers or not, have a right to free health care? Or free education? Or somewhere to live?

There's a sense, yes, in which all rights are historically constituted (and I suppose also fall under the heading of what Marx called the historical-moral component of the value of labour power); but surely there are also 'rights' we have by virtue of being human beings - human rights. It doesn't seem to me that by suggesting we have a right to free health care now - ie, under this system - we are attributing to capitalism the ability to provide for our needs.

On the contrary. Isn't it part of the critique of capitalism that it *can't* deliver these elementary human and social rights? I don't mean this just in a 'transitional demand' kind of way, but much more generally. People all over the world have a right, it seems to me, not to live in poverty, blighted by disease, violence and oppression in a multitude of forms. Expressing this as a *right*, far from 'carrying into the labour movement bourgeois ideology', is saying in the simplest and clearest way possible that capitalism is an inhuman system.

Clive, perhaps I am being picky about the wording, but I think it represents an important point.

There seems to me two different things. Should workers have the right to free healthcare, edication, childcare, perhaps even housing, heating, wtaer supply tec. etc. too. As socialists we would say yes I hope - though we may find the reality in the future if we ever arrive at such a fortunate position that providing these things "free" and without limit is no longer an option because it may not be environmentally sustainable to do so, but that willl be a matter for workers themselves ot decide on.

So we there is one statement - "Workers SHOULD have the right to free helthcare etc."

That is not the same thing as saying "Workers DO have the right to free healthcare etc."

The whole point of me being picky about the wording here is that it is important to make the distinction between workers SHOULD have the right to free healthcare etc., but such a right can only be achieved under socialism, and workers DO have a right to free healthcare here and now under capitalism, which implies that such a right is quite compatible with the normal functioning of the capitalist system. One says this is a basic human right, but you can only guarantee it for yourself udner socialism, you might be able to win it as a reform under capitalism but capitalism will always try to take it away in circumstances where this reform contradicts the efficient accumulation of Capital. The other says capitalism can provide free healthcare as a basic right to everyone, there is no contradiction between this provision and the efficient functioning of the system.

So yes, I agree it is part of the critique of capitalism that it can't provide these "rights" to workers, which is why its wrong to say that workers currently have them. To suggest that workers have these rights now, rather than that they should have them, is to suggest that capitalism can provide for them. It is precisely to remove that basic critique of capitalism that IT CANNOT provide these rights. To suggest that workers have these rights here and now under capitalism, to suggest that capitalism can introduce these rights is to suggest that the bad side of capitalism can simply be reformed away.

I have to say I am also uncomfortable with the notion of human rights in the manner you depict it. Partly, that's because of spending time arguing with Libertarians who put forward the idea of the Right to Life, Liberty and Property as being absolute rights. I think that in large part this argument was well summarised by Rousseau. Rousseau's notion of Man in a State of Nature was of course historically false - not his fault he didn't have the advantage of the study of anthrapology - because there has never been a time when Man has lived as separate from society. However, the major part of his argument still holds good, I think. The things that are taken as being Rights such as to life, liberty and property are not absolute rights they are rights which human beings have agreed upon.

Of course a Marxist critique of Rousseau would point out that in arriving at these rights it is not human beings in general which have agreed upon them, but ruling classes. Even these basic rights are filled with class content. The right to life is in large part at the discretion of the ruling class and its state apparatus. Just look at the proprtion of black US citizens condemned to death. Look at the example of peasants and workers hung in the 19th century for sheep stealing. Liberty too. The worker has no liberty for that period of the day when because the sale of his only commodity - labour-power - is inseparable from his own body, he sells his labour power to the capitalist. He is for that period of time literally a wage-slave.

So to speak of these even basic rights as being something which exist without the class content involved in them, and certainly without the recognition that these rights only exist in reality for as long as those claiming them have the power to enforce them is to imbue them with some kind of mystical pwoer which they do not possess.

Having said that there is a clear distinction between the right to Life, and the right to Liberty, and certainly the right to property which separates them out from something like the right to free healthcare. All of these previous rights are not only compatible with the efficient fucntioning of Capitalism, but are in fact central to its efficient functioning. The same is not true of a "Right to free healthcare."

Arthur Bough

I am sorry to be pedantic about this, but I think it is important to be absolutely clear. Maybe their is a difference between "we have the right to demand free healthcare from the bourgeois state", and "we have a right to free healthcare provided by the bourgeois state", but I don't think in practice there is a difference.

My whole point is that under capitalism no such right exists. The fact that workers in Britain have free healthcare whereas those in the US - other than those that get it through Medicaid - does not prove that this free healthcare exists as a right under capitalism. In fact it proves the opposite. It proves that far from it being a right it is a reform of the system won by the working class in Britain. That we should defend that reform and attempt to push through it to healthcare which is not just free, but which under workers control at least I think we would agree upon. I would argue that we should push through it even further and bring it not just udner workers control but workers ownership, not just at some distant date after the establishment of socialism, but as soon as the working class can realistically achieve it. Some parts of that are achievable now. But precisely because it is a reform, like all reforms it can be taken away. That is another indication that it is not a right. Generally speaking liberal bourgeois capitalism does not take away "Rights" unless the system itself is threatened for the simple reason that bourgeois democratic rights are themselves a necessary part of the way in which capitalism works.

Let me try to put it in terms of an analogy, though I know Clive doesn't particularly like analogies.

Suppose I live in a country where the only game anyone plays is football. I come up with the idea of a new game, which I think is much better and which everyone would be much better playing if they could just be convinced of it. I come up with rugby. So I argue everyone should have the "right" to pick up the ball and run with it. Now in terms of rugby such a right makes perfect sense. But this "right" makes no sense within the terms of football. It makes no sense for me to say to people whilst they are still playing football you have the right to pick up the ball and run with it, because they don't. They might do it and if the ref is distracted might even get away with it for a time, but ultimately because it breaches the rules of the game you can't get away with it. You might do it but the ref will blow for a foul. If you keep doing it to the extent that you are making the game unplayable you are likely to get sent off. Whatever I might think ought to be the right of players to pick up the ball and run with it, because I really think they should be playing rugby, as long as they continue to play football no such right exists.

Nor is me insisting that people have this right likely to achieve my aim of convincing them to switch to rugby. For one thing because the only game they know and understand is football it will be very difficult for them to understand at first that you could play a similar game with a completely different set of rules. TRying to get them to keep picking up the ball whilst playing football is likely to actually have the opposite effect, because it will just spoil the actual game they are playing and put them off the alternative. They might if football becomes completely unplayable decide to chuck it over, and in the absence of anything else be convinced to give rugby a go, but without really having any proper understanding of its rules or what its really about they are likely to not really take to it, but find that with all the football pitches having been converted and control of sporting activity now in the control of a bureuacratic clique they are forced to play rugby whether they like it or not.

The better alternative I suggest is that instead of suggesting to people playing football that they have a right to pick up the ball, that you get a small piece of land and start to play rugby on it, that you get a few people who are willing to give it a go and learn how to play, to demonstrate that a different game with a different set of rules is quite possible. And if you are right that rugby is a better game then more people watching it being played will be attracted to join in, to learn themelves. Resources will accumulate to buy more pitches and allow more people to play rugby.

That is my argument with healthcare, and other aspects of socialism. Their is no right under capitalism to free healthcare, just as there is no right to free gas and electricity - though Age Concern have now proposed this for old people. We may believe that such things should be rights, but they can only be such under socialism. I reject the Leninist concept that the transformation of property relations can only occur after a political revolution led by a revolutionary party which uses state power to bring about this transformation. I support Marx's view that capitalism itself is forced to bring about this transformation in part through its own operation - the establishment of large monopolies that subvert competition, the introduction of planning at an enterprise and macro-economic level as an alternative to the price mechanism, the replacement of the social function of the capitalist by professional managers, the repalcement of individual ownership of the means of production by colelctive ownership in the form of Joint Stock companies and the potential thereby through the use of Credit for workers to gradually claw back that ownership - and that workers can begin through the establishment of various forms of co-operative enterprises give that process a conscious push, and in doing so strengthen their own position. By establishing co-operative enterprises they partially remove some of the means of production out of the circuit of Capital, and establish them as transitional forms of property, which demonstrate in practice that not only can society work by a different set of rules from those of Capitalism, but that it can in fact work more efficiently and equitably for the benefit of the working class.

It is not to establish Little Icara or other such utopian schemas, precisely because it is necessary for socialists to point out that in order for these co-operative enterprises to break from Capital completely it is necessary for them to be continually expanded and spread throughout the whole economy, and that they must be accompanied with not just workers ownership and control of production, but with workers democracy in the communities and in the workplaces.

Arthur Bough

Time on your hands this evening, Arthur? ;-)

Human Rights?

I'm interested to know, what are human rights? From the discussion above it seems to me that people are confusing these with social privalages. Using some of the above "logic", everybody who was born before an effective health system were having their "human rights" breached. The only people who are entitled to anything are the people who control it. From a Marxist stand point we argue that the people who work to provide a "service" or "commodaties" (for want of better words) are the people who should own it. That is some of the logic involved which defines human rights and most of socialism. But it don't go like that. Humanity (the majority) are all too willing to relinquish control if it means the burden of responsibility is lifted, and capitalism is as good a foundation for this behaviour as any. And this is a far greater self imposed breach of human rights than the privatization of the NHS or a CCTV camera looking into your living room. Responsibility is a human right.

Co-operatives

What's the point? We already know they work (periodicaly), we know that they disrupt and threaten the capitalist mode of production while (for a time) empowering a minority of the working class, we know that it is simply a reform in the way they are easily brushed aside (or worse) by the bougoiuse class when deemed too powerful. Thier potential will always be short of the desired effect while capitalism remains predominant. Build your house on sand and it's bound to sink. All co-ops serve is to divide the working class further by creating a "third camp", when in reality there have always only been two,

"Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed".

The two roads to revelution,

1. We let capitalism run its life. We let it take control of everything as it intends to. Co-ops, reforms, third campers only slow down the "natural" process resulting in more of what we're seeing now, divides, destruction, desiese and death. Gradually the working class will realise the injustices and thier dispensable role in the eyes of the bougoiuse from experiance, the system will eventually collapse on its self and whats left of the bloody carcas of society will be fought over by the imaginary divisions of the working class. What division prevails is anybodies guess.

2. As Arthur says, we lead 'em by the nose. It is better to follow the one that knows than the many who simply believe. We are the ones that know

I have to say that I am still surprised when I hear socialists say we asked the bourgeois state to do this, and well they weren't interested.

Actually, there is a positive thing that socialists should take out of the lesson of Thatcherism - stop whinging, and start becoming self-reliant. Not self-reliant in the Thatcherite individualist sense, but self-reliant in the indpependent working class, Third Camp sense. Why on earther should socialists sow illusions to the owrking class in the good intentions of the capitalist state. Usually, we can do things better for ourselves anyway, and that ought to be the message socialists convey tothe worjking class anyway. That's not to let the bourgeoisie off the hook. It is to say let us come up with the solutions, for example why did we allow Drug Councelling services to die? - the answer is of course that as socialists we didn't really give much of a toss, because we expected the bourgois state to keep financing the out of the goodness of its heart - and organise top demand the necesary resources, but this time under our control, and if we can't at first get the bourgeois state to come up with them, let's find ways of doing it ourselves. Its not after all the middle class leafy suburbs that suffer with crack houses situated in their midst.

Arthur Bough

I am not a drugs worker. Beyond some human sympathy and encouragement, I wouldn't know how to help someone get off drugs. Neither, to the best of my knowledge, is anyone else who is involved in our TRA. We are entitled to demand the state helps us. Our role is to articulate and fight for our community's demands. That is "self-reliance", not some anarchistic approach that lets the state off the hook.

I work for London Underground (a state-owned enterprise). It doesn't always run the most reliable, safe, accessible, value-for-money Tube service that I think people are entitled to expect (understatement). So what should London's working-class communities do? Come on, show some self-reliance - dig your own tunnels and run your own underground railway?!

Marxists argue not just for nationalisation, but for nationalisation under workers control. Why? Because we do not recognise the idea that the capitalist state will run these industries in the interests of workers, and because as Marxists we believe that a primary focus is for us to demonstrate to workers that THEY CAN DO IT FOR THEMSELVES. In demanding nationalisation under workers control we are saying we can do this for oursleves, and we can do it better than you, we don't trust you to run the trains or anything else, but at the same time as long as we have to live under a capitalist market economy we demand that you finance us to guard against the natural economic chaos of capitalism.

So no they shouldn't show self-reliance by digging their own tunnels etc., they should do so by recognising that the bourgeois state has no interest in doing things in the interests of workers out of the goodness of its heart. It may be progressive compared with some long dead previous system such as feudalism, but it is not progressive vis a vis the working class, and we shouldn't sow illusions in it by suggesting that it could act in any other way just ebcause we demand that it does. And from that the way to show reliance is to demand workers control of the tube, a workers control that builds links between those that work on it, and those that depend upon it as users. And ultimately, if they can lever ownership of it out of the grip of the capitalists' state they should do so, as Marx put forward in Capital as the means of workers overcoming the contradiction between Capital and Labour through the establishment of Co-operative enterprises.

In actual fact, as I've argued elsewhere, to be honest if workers could get themselves into a strong enough position, and use the economic resources available such as their pension funds, the resources of the Co-op etc. together with further resources from employers contributions into a Worker Controlled Pension Fund I would prefer establishing Co-ops in suitable industries rather than nationalisation for the simple reason that the capitalist state will always try to undermine the workers control in a nationalised industry, will demand the profits go to it etc.

If it is right that we should demand not just nationalisation for the Tube etc., but nationalisation under workers control for the reasons given above, why should we not adopt the same position for other equally important aspects of our lives. Why should we accept the idea that the way our communities are administered is the function of the bourgeois state, with our main function being to put a cross on a Local Government ballot paper every few years, or at best to organise some protest when a problem arises. Why should we not demand that our communities rae under workers control too, and demand that the needs of implementing that conrol are financed by the local branch of the bourgeois state? Nor does it let the state off the hook. On the contrary it demands that they finance our control, just as we demand they finance our workers control of a nationalised industry.

In fact you could turn the argument the other way round on the basis of the position you are proposing. You could argue that Marxists drop the demand for nationalisation under workers control in favour of just nationalisation pure and simple on the basis that workers control let's the capitalist state off the hook from a demand that they run these industries effectively and for the benefit of the working class.

I was not suggesting that you or any other members of your TRA were able to fulfill this role at the moment. What I ams suggesting is that there are pklenty of examples of people who, often without any previous experience, volunteer to work in Citizen's Advice Bureaux, for instance. I know plenty of people that volunteered to work in NACRO offices. There are plenty of people who, often as volunteers, have helped establish Credit Unions on estates where people have had big problems with debt and usury. I would gues that on your estate there are unemployed people and others that could have some time to volunteer. I am guessing that local colleges run courses on drug counselling to train people. I am suggesting that it is possible to organise people from within the community to undertake such training at little cost. I am suggesting that the TRA demand the Council finance this training, and in the event it doesn't raise the finance itself from Trade UNions etc. I am suggesting that having done that the TRA demand from the Council somewhere from which to operate to udnertake this Counselling, and that possibly having done so it seeks the assistance of people who have previous experience in such counselling to get it going. That would be the equivalent of a firm being udner workers control, the demand for finance the demand for nationalisation. But if that finance isn't forthcoming that shouldn't be a reason to throw your hands up and say, "Well we demanded the bourgeois state do something in our interests, and it didn't." The workers at the Zanon factory haven't simply given up because they haven't got the Argentinian state to give them the financial backing of nationalisation.

Of course, in many instances the bourgeois state won't do what we ask of it - its a bourgeois state for God's sake. The sooner the idea is grasped that the bourgeois state is not progressive vis a vis the workers the better,and the sooner these illusions in it can be abandoned. Simply demanding the bourgeois state do things it has little reason to do not only sows illusions in the idea that it can be persuaded to do so if only we show it the error of its ways, but it stands in the way of workers actually taking control over their own lives here and now. At best it provides the basis for abstract propaganda about the inadequacy of capitalism in the hope that it may attract a few individuals to "The Party" or ultimately to stimulate them to engage in some revolutionary uprising against it - though such an eventuality seems very unlikely. In the meantime it does little to deal with the immediate problems of the working class.

Arthur Bough

I should have added more on the solution to the problem of the Underground. Your argument here sounds a bit to me like, "Oh dear this problem is a bit too difficult for workers to solve on their own. We couldn't possibly dig holes for the trains to run through on our own. How on earth could we do that without some kind capitalist or their state showing us what to do?"

Of course, the fact is that it is London workers that do dig the holes for the trains to run through, who do all the oher engineering, and electrical work necessary, and that drive the trains, and run the stations. The problem is not workers ability to do this it is the question of where the Capital is to come from that enables them to do it. On that I am happy to rely on Marx's solution to this problem as outlined in his most complete work, and statement of his ideas about how workers go about resolving their immediate problems, and at the same time bring about the transformation of capitalist property into socialist property. I trust you don't think Marx's solution was "Anarchist".

In Capital Vol III he writes,

“The co-operative factories of the labourers themselves represent within the old form the first sprouts of the new, although they naturally reproduce, and must reproduce, everywhere in their actual organisation all the shortcomings of the prevailing system. But the antithesis between capital and labour is overcome within them, if at first only by way of making the associated labourers into their own capitalist, i.e., by enabling them to use the means of production for the employment of their own labour. They show how a new mode of production naturally grows out of an old one, when the development of the material forces of production and of the corresponding forms of social production have reached a particular stage. Without the factory system arising out of the capitalist mode of production there could have been no co-operative factories. Nor could these have developed without the credit system arising out of the same mode of production. The credit system is not only the principal basis for the gradual transformation of capitalist private enterprises. into capitalist stock companies, but equally offers the means for the gradual extension of co-operative enterprises on a more or less national scale. The capitalist stock companies, as much as the co-operative factories, should be considered as transitional forms from the capitalist mode of production to the associated one, with the only distinction that the antagonism is resolved negatively in the one and positively in the other.” (Emphasis Added)

(Capital Vol III pp441-2)

For more on how socialists saw the practical solution to these problems in the past see Connolly here:

Socialism and Co-operatives

So for example, given the choice between the capitalist state's option for modernising the Tube, of a PFI scheme that keeps control in the hands of the capitalist state, provides a second rate solution to the problem, and siphons off profits to private capitalists, or Livingstone's proposal for the creation of a company to run it, financed by the issue of a Bond, Livingstone's solution was the more progressive. Of course, it would have been more progressive had the company issuing the Bond been a C-operative company operated under workers control, and with a Board made up of workers and passengers. It would have been more progressive still had it been linked with the idea of establishing co-operatives made up of London construction workers to actually dig the holes, set up the electrical requirements, and do all the other engineering works etc.

All of this ought to be the ABC of Marxism. It is a sign of the degeneration of Marxist ideas under the influence of Leninism and Stalinism that it isn't. It is an indication of the defeatism in the Labour Movement that even its most advanced sections have given up on the whole basis of socialism the self-reliance and self-activity of the working class, and reduce it simply to propaganda, whilst in practice continuing to rely on the bouregois state to act progressively.

Arthur Bough

I have no idea how you make the leap from me proposing a very limited measure such as workers on an estate coming together to establish through their own actions a drug counselling service to a suggestion that what I am proposing as the solution is Socialism Now. Quite the opposite is the case. Nor in proposing in the same way was Marx advocating Socialism Now when he put forward the idea that workers could adrress their immediate problems, and begin to change the balance of class forces, the material conditions which determine class consciousness, by establishing Co-operatives, and by using credit in order to raise the necessary funds for doing so.

Why it is ludicrous to suggest that workers are capable of organising themselves on an estate to udnertake under their control a very limited function such as drug counselling I have no idea. It seems to me no more ludicrous than the very many instances of workers establishing Credit Unions on run down estates, or establishing housing co-ops to manage their estates etc. And if its a ludicrous suggestion I'm at a loss to udnerstand why then you say that that was what you did!

Actually that isn't what came out of your post which was more about the fact that no one else other than the police were offering a service. My point remains that the first objective should be to try to establish these things under our own democratic control where possible, to bring them under our control where they already exist, to demand financial support where possible, but where that isn't forthcoming to find ways of doing it oursleves anyway where possible.

Arthur Bough

One big difference between Marx's suggestion and yours is that on our estate, people would have to organise their drugs counselling service as well as going to work. Very few people would have the time, and if they had, there is much more useful, political, organising work they could be doing rather than covering the gaps in state provision.

But also Arthur, I object to your suggestion on trade union grounds. The health service / local authorities should employ more drugs workers as part of expanding its services to tackle the issue of drug use. Getting volunteers to do this instead not only lets the state off the hook, it also undermines the fight for proper jobs.

Janine, let me deal with the Trade UNion grounds argument first, ebcause its one I've had to wrestle with myself in thinking about this in the past. Basically, I've come to the conclusion that's its a false argument. Last night when I made tea for the family, I wasn't paid TRade Union rates for doing it. It could be argued I did some catering worker out of a job by doing so, or a cleaner when I cleaned the house earlier in the day, or a taxi driver when I drove my wife and kids to work, or a painter and decorator when we paint the house ourselves (actually my wife usually does that because she won't let me near it). There are lots of things we do as individual workers that could be done by some other worker who could be paid Trade Union rates for doing it. We don't because basically we would never actually employ someone to do those jobs.

Similarly, there are lots of jobs that could be done within the community by paid workers, but in reality short of the working class being much more powerful than it is now we have no way of forcing the capitalist state or one of its agencies to do. The point then is as I commented in one of the posts above the question arises what is your main goal as a socialist - is it just to make abstract propaganda against the inadequacies of capitalism and the bourgeois state so that you can make yourslef feel better for having got that off your chest, and with an eye from this propaganda to recruiting the odd individual, or is it to actually try to provide a practical solution to the problem, whilst at the same time doing so in a way which empowers the working class in achieving that solution through its own agency. I think its the latter, and in doing so you far more effectively demonstrate the inadequacy of capitalism and the bourgeois state, and put yourslef in a far better position to win over workers as well. Other forces seem to have learned this lesson. The Islamists do it, witness Hezbollah in lebanon, the Provos do it, and even the Lib Dems do it. They have all built bases by that kind of action.

Yes you are quite right the people on the Miners Estate in my ward could have kept making pleas to the local Council about the fact that the grass on the estate wasn't cut etc. But the fact was that years of making such protests etc. didn't get the grass cut, didn't prevent the environmental health problems that having such a large piece of dereliect land in the middle of their estate caused, didn't help to prevent the general degeneration of the estate which a run down state tends to bring about. They weren't denying any Trade Unionist a job when they eventually took the matter in their own hands and bought with my assistance a big sit on mower, got themselves a lock-up to keep it in, and then did it themselves for the simple reason that no Trade Unionist had been or appeared ever likely to be employed to do it anyway. And yes they had jobs to do as well. But in adddition from taking control of his little bit of their life back under their control, this little bit of their estate back under their control, it led them on to have the solidarity and confidecne to tackle other things about the run down nature of the estate such as looking for ways of dealing with absentee landlords, looking at ways of raising finance in order to buy up empty houses themselves etc.

I also think that there is a wider political point. I am not at all sure that it is more progressive for the existing capitalist state and its agencies to provide many of these things compared to workers being able to do it themselves. Were the Health Service or Local Authorities really examples of workers control then maybe, but absent that I think that especially for small scale things which people have little power to force the state to do I think provision by workers themselves is far more progressive. Nor does this provision mean that those providing it need to be volunteers, unpaid or even worse paid than those that might otherwise be providing it. As I said I am sure that there are unemployed people on your estate who could be trained to do this work. There are lots of opportunities once you have actually organised something like this for appealing for funding, and having set it up yourslef, it gives even better grounds for shaming the Health Service or Local Authority of they refuse to even give some funding to help support it.

So in fact there is no difference at all between Marx's proposal and mine. The drugs counselling work would be the work of those providing it - or at least part of it, there may be other types of counselling work on the estate such people could provide. Nor do I see such work organising on its own initiative by the working class as not being political. On the contrary I think for the working class clawing back control of your life, clawing back control over the means of production is the most important political work you can undertake. And of course, those unemployed workers now provided with some useful training, now providing a useful service for their own community might not otherwise have engaged in what you consider political work anyway, they might otherwise have just sat at home watching their estate go down the pan, and hoping that the state or someone else would do something about it.

So such a movement does not at all undermine the fight for proper jobs at all. If we believe in our own theory that workers can by their own co-operative efforts run society better than the capitalists do then we have to believe that we can undertake these small scale operations more effectively than the bourgeoisie can do, more effectively both in terms of cost, and of the usefulness of what is provided for ordinary working class people. With something like drug counselling it may not be possible to provide this as a marketable service in the way in which say a workers co-op producing software might be able to do - on the other hand it might be possible to sell some services to middle class people etc. - but just in terms of the improvment to the lives of people on the estate drug users and no drug users alike, and possibly the very real costs incurred through theft, vandalism, higher insurance premiums etc., the cost of providing such a service would be well worthwhile for people on the estate, and would provide undoubtedly a more effective and cost efficient service than would be provided by the bourgeois state. But such things also have to be taken into a wider context too. For instance, if you build the confidence and skills to do something like this, you provide the basis for broadening it out to other aspects of people's lives on the estate. For example, other forms of counselling such as debt counselling, other forms of activity such as establishing a Credit Union, which certainly would be financable from the savings people pay out to banks and especially to usurers and credit card companies (not that with the interest rates on credit cards you can call it anything but usury anyway).

I think socialists have to get away from this old Leninist/Stalinist statist conception of socialism - especially in a capitalist state where the statism is a call on a capitalist state to act progressively - and get back to the basics of Marxism, which is about how we work towards resolving workers problems here and now through means which lever control and ownership back towards the working class, and in doing so create the objective material conditions which begin to transform within the consciousness of the working class, the perception of how society can and should operate.

Arthur Bough