Workers' Liberty

.... they would ban it goes the old saying. Perhaps not totally accurately. But for Marxists the main point about elections has always been not the winning of seat, but the increased facility to reach out to wider circles of the working class. That was lenin's message in left-Wing Communism. Of course when Lenin was writing he was talking about Communist Parties 100,s of times bigger than today's microsects, and organisations that not only had some real implantation in the working class, but a more fertile seedbed into which their ideas could be sown. Where CP's were small such as in Britain and the task of getting the message across would be more difficult Lenin proposed a bloc with the LP in order to utilise its greater size. Marx and Engels in similar vein joined the German Democrats for that same reason - it was says Engels the best transmission belt for speaking to hte workers. I am at a loss to understand why Marxists then seem to be subject to an overwhelming urge to stand their own ineffective candidates in elections, who in reality will reach out and speak to no one other than the already converted, and given the divisions on the Left probably not even that.

Marxists should use whatever vehicle is at hand to speak directly to the workers, especially during election times, and in the US at the moment there appears a surprsing level of interest and enthusiasm. The fact is in the US just as with the LP in Britain workers continue to give their support in their large majority to the Democrats. To deny that reality and try to create your own alternative reality where you can comfort yourself with preaching the true gospel is just the kind of Ultra-Leftism that Lenin criticised amongst those that confused their own recognistion of the banruptcy of organisations and institutions with the continued support of them by the workers. Its true that workers in the US need their own Workers Party, but only workers themselves can create that. The question is how that is brought about. Simply proclaiming it won't do. It will take a long slog of talking to workers where they are now to create the conditions under which such a Party can come into existence.

Arthur Bough

For an article in Solidarity 3/124, taking a broadly similar line to Barry's, see here.

For a response by Eric Lee, advocating that socialists support the more left-wing Democratic Party candidates, see here.

"I had been active, as a socialist, in the Democratic party for almost a
quarter of a century when I realized that it was not a political party
at all.

"That notion came to me in Paris in 1983 when I was teaching at the
St.-Denis (formerly Vincennes) campus of the university. I was trying
to explain American politics to my students when I suddenly realized
that I could simplify their lives and mine by telling them that there
were no political parties in the United States. The Democrats and
Republicans, I said, were not parties in any European sense of the
word. They were undisciplined and periodic coalitions, which came
together on the basis of electoral opportunism every two years -- and in
a national sense, only every four years. They had no real program, and
the platforms adopted by party conventions were, by the common consent
of all, simply consigned to the wastebasket once they were voted.

"The institution of the primary, I continued, was a marvelous, and
uniquely American, example of this organized anarchism. In Europe, the
parties of the Left tend to name leaders on the basis of a political
viewpoint and, in any case, only dues-paying members of the party have
the right to elect delegates, who in turn select that leader. Even
conservative parties such as the British Tories have some kind of a
mechanism whereby leaders 'emerge.' Moreover, in the parliamentary
system it is quite common for victorious parties to enact their entire
electoral program. That happened in the 1945 Labour government in
Britain and as a result of the Socialist triumph in France in
1981-1982. But in the United States anyone who declares himself or
herself a member of a party can, without the payment of dues or the
affirmation of a single political principle, help determine the
leadership, program, and policies of the party.

"Indeed, it was only in my own lifetime that the custom of crossover
voting in primaries was eliminated. That is, it used to be quite easy
for voters to select the party to which they 'belonged' on primary day
itself. This meant that Democrats could vote in the Republican primary
to select the worst possible candidate from the Republican point of
view, and that Republicans could return the favor. Under such
circumstances, I told my students, it was all but impossible to have a
serious, disciplined party -- indeed to have a party in any sense of the
word -- since elected officials responded to their amorphous,
unorganized base and not to any institution.

"This puzzling fact was one of the reasons why generations of American
socialists had committed political suicide. They had attempted to
create a party and movement in the United States on the European model --
only that model didn't apply. It took a long time for American
socialists -- and for me -- to grasp this home truth. We righteously
pointed out that the Democratic party contained a good number of the
most reactionary people in the United States: not just crooks and
swindlers, which was obvious enough, but union busters, militarists,
racists, sexists, and just about every single variety of political
desirable. What we did not notice was that, at the very same time,
the Democratic party had, since the New Deal, also contained the clear
majority of the progressive forces. That was, and is, a blatant
contradiction. A very American contradiction."

(Michael Harrington, THE LONG-DISTANCE RUNNER, 1988, pp. 67-68.)

Its true that US parties are not like modern European parties. They are in fact very similar to the original political parties in Britain, which were no more than collections of individuals. The Party was based around the individual who through local patronage and outright bribery collected a group of people around them to support their candidature, and vote for them in the election. Outside election times these organisations did not exist. This was, of course, facilitatted by the fact that at the time very few people were entitled to vote. When I first began studying US Politics 30 years ago I thought the system of Caucuses and Primaries was absurd looked at from a European perepsective. How on Earth can you have candidates selected by any Tom, Dick or Harry that decides on the day to register as a Democrat or Republican voter rather than candidates being selected by the Party. Even in Britain, now the candidates are selected solely by Party members though now on a One Member One Vote basis rather than at Party meetings.

I still think the US system in that regard is crazy. It was designed for a different time when small local communities of basically peasant farmers gathered in a form of Rousseauean direct demcoracy - though of course Rousseau was opposed to the division of the body politic into factions as a division of the general Will - to determine their candidate. In many ways its similar to the kind of democracy a workers democracy would operate to select candidates. But that kind of Libertarian society of the original US is long gone, and keeping those structures merely facilitates the rich and powerful individuals getting themselves on to the ticket, and excluding all others.

But as I said above for Marxists why does any of that matter. What is important is not in the end which bourgeois politician is selected, but the fact that during such periods there is a heightened awareness by the working class, a much better opportunity outside large scale class battles to talk directly to the workers in a political rather than merely industrial setting. In many ways the organisation of US parties down into many levels such as the Block organisations facilitates that, because it brings things down to a human level where its possible to talk to people on a more individual level. The Block organisation like the Branch Party of the LP is where the real day to day issues that affect the working class - housing problems, environmental problems and so on - get discussed, and it is in that context that Marxists can encourage workers to organise their own independent class action to resolve these problems, and thereby begin to create the conditions udner which a socialist class conscioussness can develop.

Yes if your perpsepective is on trying to get Left candidates elected or Left policies adopted and so on you are doomed to disapointment, but that should not be the focus of Marxists activity. We are for independent workers organisation and activity not sowing illusions in various forms of the bourgeois state providing solutions.
Arthur Bough

USRed, do you think socialists should be involved in the Democratic Party/support its candidates? Not clear... sorry if I've missed something!

Sacha Ismail

"I still think the US system in that regard is crazy. It was designed for a different time when small local communities of basically peasant farmers gathered in a form of Rousseauean direct demcoracy - though of course Rousseau was opposed to the division of the body politic into factions as a division of the general Will - to determine their candidate."

I thought the primary system was a 20th century invention? Certainly at the time of the civil war the parties/alliances held conventions to pick their candidates, and I don't think primaries were involved. I could be wrong however. Does anyone know more?

Sacha

I see little choice in the matter, Sacha. The U.S. electoral system -- something which socialists cannot change by an act of will -- does not allow for a credible form of "independent political action" (as the Trotskyist and Trotskyist-derived portions of the U.S. Left call it). The real options are to support and build the anti-corporate left wing of the Democrats to the point where either (a) the Democrats become dominated by the left or (b) more likely, the "party" splits along ideological and class lines, or to abstain from electoral politics altogether except as a form of protest, which ensures that American workers will not take you seriously.

I wish it was otherwise. As Michael Harrington effectively says in the quote above, the Democratic Party taken as a whole is a cesspool. But it's a cesspool in which those fighting for a pro-worker politics have no choice but to wade.

It's true that prior to the 20th century, U.S. primaries were machine-driven, closed affairs. With open primaries the parties became more amorphous -- which is why industrial unions in the 1930s were able to influence them in a positive way, within limits. But the Civil War certainly was important in shaping U.S. electoral politics. As a comparison, reference Ireland, in which the Labour Party has never risen above third place, because Fianna Fail and Fine Gael were the opposing sides in the Irish Civil War, which was the crucial fact in the organization of the modern Irish state.

The institution of the Presidency, elected separately from the legislature, is also a barrier to the building of a mass third party. (Note that Charles De Gaulle, by creating an elective Presidency for the Fifth French Republic, largely destroyed the multi-party nature of French politics.) And then there’s the Federal system. The effects of this on American politics are often overlooked — the most dramatic example is, of course, the Civil War. The U.S. is the only country that fought such a war over the abolition of slavery because it is the only country that defined so basic an institution as local! Consider such matters as corporate charters to see how federalism privileges the rule of bourgeois politicians. Furthermore, federal systems contribute “fuzziness” to electoral results -- as in Canada and Germany, where opposition parties tend to gain control of the states or provinces in elections that react against the center.

The nature of the American electoral system is what it is, and not to be overcome by an act of will. The reason that third parties haven't become major parties once the ballot access rules were changed in the 1890s is not a failure to try. It’s been tried, and tried, and tried again. Similarly, the link of major institutions such as the NAACP and the AFL-CIO to the Democratic Party is not to be overcome by an act of will.

As the Old Man said, "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please."

USRed -

Of course, you're right; neither the electoral infrastructure of American politics nor the links to the Democratic Party of major unions and other progressive organisations cannot be overcome by "an act of will". Neither will the instinctual identification many American workers undoubtedly feel towards that party.

But I think it's possible to recognise those realities and still draw different conclusions than you do. I think that your formula - i.e. "it won't be overcome by an act of will, so we'd better wade through it" - is a recipe for ending up saying "it won't be overcome at all", and burying yourself in the Democratic Party.

The idea that you entertain the notion of the "left" in the DP (I would question the politics of a lot of that 'left', to be honest, but that's maybe another debate) might gain hegemony at some point suggests to me that your perspective for revolutionary entryism in the DP isn't really feasible at all. Quite how this could be possible when the DP is so dominated by big business and so enmeshed in the system of corporate patronage is beyond me.

Consider the implications of arguing your position to what one might call, to use the jargon, "the most advanced workers" - that is, the workers who recognise and accept the basic ideas that workers need their own independent voice in politics, based on and accountable to their organisations (Labor Party Advocates did have the support of unions organising 2,000,000 people, remember). Your position says "no, no, no - don't bother trying any of that independent working-class representation nonsense; what you need to be doing is wading through a cesspool."

Even to workers who are nowhere near that level of political consciousness your position still preaches an almost nihlistic despair; it's the only show in town (no matter how ultra-bourgeois it is in policy and composition), everything else is pathetically small or has failed (despite the potential of projects like the LPA or even Nader's 2001 campaign), and one day "the left" might come to dominate. Your position tells workers who're disatisfied with what the Democrats offer to put up, shut up and "wade through the cesspool", and it tells workers who vote Democrat out of instinct that they're doing the right thing and if only "the left" could dominate a bit more then things would be looking pretty good.

The instinct to back the Democrats is not something revolutionaries should be encouraging on any level. The instinct to break away, to do something new, something different, something independent is what we should be nurturing no matter how gargantuan the task seems.

There are lots of things that "will not be overcome by an act of will." The biggest one that I can think of is the fact that about 0.000001% of the world working-class currently has healthy revolutionary socialist consciousness. So if we can't even conceive of something as comparatively immediate-term as an independent working-class formation in American politics then how the fuck are we going to tackle even bigger obstacles that won't "be overcome by acts of will"?

Revolutionaries will have to wade through lots of cesspools on the way to workers' government, I'm sure. But the Democratic Party should not be one of them.

I wish I had more time to contribute to what could be a fascinating and important discussion here.

I think Arthur pretty much gets where I'm coming from. I don't mean to sound especially electoralist. I'm not -- especially since the U.S. political system requires supermajorities in favor of reform for reform to be legislated into existence. There are incredible barriers or choke points to actually enacting reforms. These are not going away short of Constitutional reform or some catastrophic political rupture. In Europe a political party can "take power" with 51% of the popular vote. It's very hard to say how many votes a real Left would need in the U.S. to "take power." To be specific, it would have to control the Presidency, 60% of the Senate, a majority of the House, AND ensure the Supreme Court wouldn't interfere (which probably means 10 years or more of reformers controlling the appointment process) to have the political wherewithal to enact serious reform. And this presupposes a coherent political party; the Democratic Party is very ideologically diverse -- i.e., cross-class -- and undisciplined (its legislators have wide latitude to vote as they please -- hence Harry Reid and Dennis Kucinich can both be Democrats, when in Europe they'd almost certainly be in different parties).

And of course Left parties in Europe can have influence in coalition governments; in the U.S. the political process is much more winner-take-all and easily leads to a divided-government stand-off.

So traditional reformism isn't really even a practical option in the U.S. today, if it ever was. We have a demobilized working class, but an America with the best of European mobilization rates would still be facing an uphill battle.

My stance is the same as that of Michael Hirsch, who, like Barry Finger, is on the editorial board of NEW POLITICS. I've met Mike; I promise you, being involved in Democratic Party politics (mostly in local races) has not forced him to abandon his Marxism one iota. He has not "buried" his politics. See this piece:

http://www.wpunj.edu/newpol/issue42/Hirsch42.htm

By the way, I was involved with Labor Party Advocates. Most of the members of the unions that supported LPA had little-to-no idea that LPA existed; they certainly weren't involved with it. It was mostly Trotskyist groups and ex-members of Trotskyist groups who were involved. It was a case of the Left "capturing itself." It was depressing. It wasn't a mass movement. And I supported Nader in 2000. That campaign didn't lead to the building of anything. I had hoped that it would. But the Green Party is no more credible than it was before the the campaign. And it's full of middle-class kooks, many of them not particularly "left" in any obvious way. (I think Arthur mentioned somewhere that there was a fusion Green/Libertarian Party ballot in one state -- as if somehow the Libertarians, who'd like to privatize the fire department and the armed forces, are innately preferable to even the most pro-business Democrats!)

This isn't to say that the European Left is so much better off. Your politics is increasingly "Americanized" and your labor and social-democratic parties are thoroughly housebroken. And your revolutionary Left is mostly a sectarian and authoritarian mess. So the grass is not necessarily greener (redder?) on your side of the pond anymore.

Thanks for the civil (albeit too depressing!) discussion.

USRed -

The debate's not about what "the left" (however we're defining that) would have to do to "take power" by negotiating the US electoral system. The debate about what the American labour movement needs to do in order to assert itself as an independent force in US politics.

The fact that you had a bad time in LPA and Nader's 2000 campaign is anecdotal; it doesn't indicate anything about those projects that meant they were innately doomed to failure. And the stuff about the Green Party/Libertarian lash-up is an irrelevant red-herring; no-one's endorsed that or (as yet) argued for backing the Greens this time round.

You're going to have to do a lot more than bemoan the "depressing" nature of LPA to convince me that continuing to beg from scraps from the Democrats's table is the best policy for the labour movement.

Undoubtedly you'd don't advocate uncritical support, servility, capitulation or whatever. But your perspective - which rules out almost dogmatically any notion of an independent formation - cannot be anything other than a recipe for maintaining the business-unionist, "we'll give you money/activists if you promise a few piecemeal reforms"-type framework through which US labour relates to politics, albeit maybe with those piecemeal reforms increased a bit. Fine - reforms are good. But on this basis why shouldn't unions just sell themselves to whichever bourgeois party promises the biggest/best reforms?

Workers need an independent voice in politics. How does your perspective offer one? How does it even offer a strategy that might lead to one? How does it offer anything other than despair at the notion that such a thing could ever be possible?

I thought I had effectively answered the questions you put to me, Daniel. Apparently not. So, I will try to make myself clearer.

It is important to understand that the Democratic Party is not a disciplined political capable of formulating and carrying out a program in the interests of a social class. It is not like, say, your Liberal Democratic Party. It is a coalition of local groups with social bases varying from constituency to constituency which meets every four years to elect a presidential candidate. In the 1930s this worked to labor's advantage as it tried to get a foothold in the DP. But in the long run it worked against labor, since the lack of disciplined voting meant that the DP could never be relied upon to produce on its promises. To counteract this, the labor movement would have to set up local organizations in every constituency and in alliance with organizations of traditionally oppressed groups (Black organizations, Latino organizations, etc.) run candidates pledged to a program. In essence, it would have to create a disciplined faction -- a real party within the Democratic "Party." But the labor movement, overwhelmingly led by class-collaborationist Cold Warriors, was never willing to do this.

I think the U.S. Left should put forth the demand that the labor movement build a disciplined party within the DP. Its candidates would run in Democratic primaries. They would refuse money from big capital. If they betrayed the working class when elected, they would lose the unions' support -- unions could run a new candidate with the primary. If union candidates lose primary elections, they do not have to support the winning, bourgeois Democrat -- they can either run independent candidates or refrain from endorsing the winner. This state of affairs would probably not be likely to go on for many decades -- either labor and its allies would gain the upper hand within the Democratic coalition, or there would be a split that would result in a more traditional type of independent Labor Party, as the Republicans emerged from the remains of the Whig Party.

I agree, working-class independence is key. This independence will likely take a more curious form in the U.S. than elsewhere. The strategy I have outlined is made more difficult by the AFL-CIO/Change to Win split. But it is still more likely to bear fruit than attempting to revive Labor Party Advocates.

You may still disagree with me, as is your right, but I hope you will at least understand that it isn't my intent to advocate electoral class-collaboration. If it was, I wouldn't be so disgusted by American unions supporting Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Red, I have two problems with your argument here. Firstly, you say the Left should raise the demand that the Labour Movement create a disciplined Party within the DP. I have to say that this is equivalent to the AWL's similar demand that the Trade Unions take back the LP. The reason I have a problem with it is this, and in fact you've given the answer yourself earlier. Who is this Labour Movement that is going to do this? The fact is that the demand can under present conditions be a demand to no one other than the union tops. But these people in the US and UK are part of the problem not the solution. To demand that the LM meaning the mass rank and file base of the Trade UNions do this is merely to demand that the Labour Movement be something it clearly at the present is not i.e. class conscious. It is then a rather utopian and maximalist demand. But worse than that the condition or at least a major part of the condition for this mass of the Labour Movement achieving this class conscioussness is the existence of a Workers Party, and of Marxists acting within that Party to generate such a conscioussness through praxis. I agree with you as against the AWL that the alternative is not the simple proclamation of some Workers Party by Marxists or the attempt to substitute a TRotskyist microsect for such a party in elections as the AWL suggest for example, in Britain and Venezuela, for the actual if deficient Workers parties that exist, but placing demands on social forces to do something that they are not going to do is not the answer either. The task falls to Marxists themselves to do this work, patiently and laboriously - qualities unfortunately that are ingrained in proletarians, but anathema to the petit-bourgeois that make up most of the microsects.

The task falls to Marxists to work at a very basic level through these Parties alongside workers in a very routinist way dealing with the every day problems of workers, and thereby building their own credibility and the confidence of the workers themselves that they can intervene directly to deal with the problems that affect their everyday lives. Look at the work Lenin did for instance on a personal level providing legal advice to workers, and so on during the 1890's. It is necessary through such - often local - activities to utilise the resources of such Parties to reach out to wider circles of workers and to bring at least some of them into the Party. If you think like a romantic revolutionary that such workers are going to overnight become class warriors then give up now, they won't. Class conscioussness can only develop slowly, and it requires the right material conditions too. And if you only want to recruit such workers for the purpose of winning votes to pass this or that resolution, get this or that person elected to this or that position again give up now because workers will soon get fed up of that going nowhere. Workers want real results something that actually improves their lives or a fight to do so that they can relate to something immediate not the socialist millenium. That means dealing with their every day problems. However, much the "Left" might criticise the routinism of some of the old LP members, the ordinary working class Councillors and so on, the fact is that over the last 80 years it is the latter that most workers would see as having done anything to improve their lives, whilst seeing the "Left" as a bunch of dillettantes on an ego trip.

The second problem I have is with this latter aspect where you still seem tied to the notion that the most important aspect of such activity within the Party is to win it to some set of positions, get "Left" candidates elected to positions etc. But I would argue that it is this kind of place filling, and resolution mobgering that has been the problem with the Left's relation to these Parties. Of course I'm not saying that winning these Parties to a socialist Platform is unimportant, or that having "Left" leaders is not also, but it is unimportant if it is seen as the main focus of activity rather than something which flows naturally from having as Marx puts it "won the battle of democracy" that is that if the work is done correctly then the mass base of the Party itself imbibes these ideas, and their adoption becomes a mere matter of course a reflection of the fact. Time and again we have seen in the LP win pyrrhic victories at the Conferecne to pass this or that resolution, elect more or less Left NEC's, but it has been pointless, because the votes did not reflect the actual balance of forces within the Party itself. In fact, the argument over Conference resolutions does have some merit. Often Conference Resolutions do get passed without their being much in depth discussion amongst the members of the Party and Trade Unions in much depth. Longer process of discussion within the Party does have merits. Of course, even Legislative action is important - it would be useful if in Britain the anti-union laws could be abolished, but that only occurs if you have won the battle of ideas to create the resources to bring it about. Certainly some self-proclaimed alternative will not achieve it.

So again I come back to the fact that for Marxists although these things are important, they are of secondary importance. They flow and must flow from the fact that they represent a groundswell of opinion within the Party and the class, and work has to be done before you get to that stage. For Marxists the focus has to be on them organising within such parties at a grass roots level to deal with workers problems through direct self-activity NOT through demands for legislative action - that is Marx's argument in the Critique of the Gotha Programme. As Marx said in that connection, however, and as Engels put it in relation to the building of a Party in the US its necessary to relate to such parties in so far as they organise and are supported by workers even on the most minimal Platform to begin with, and through our activity work them up.
Arthur Bough

It's entirely true that the strategy that I've outlined can't be separated from the need to build a far more democratic and militant trade union movement in the U.S. Hence the importance of organizations such as the Association for Union Democracy and the Labor Notes network. Most of the existing union leadership has no interest in such a strategy -- they will "go along to get along" in the usual business-unionist way because that's all they think is possible and/or they have no interest in a politics of class struggle, even one that goes through -- rather than simply around -- the Democratic Party.

The point is not so much purely legislative/electoral as it is to get the unions and allied (or should-be allied) organizations to create a political entity that is entirely theirs and has is accountable to them. Hence my stress on the building of a disciplined faction/party-within-a-"party."

Red, thanks for that clarification. I think that perspective is absolutely correct there must be a campaign to transform the Trade Unions that mirrors the perspective of direct self activity through the Workers Party whether that Party be the Democrats or LP. The two things should be symbiotic. Marxists in the unions should focus on promoting the idea of rank and file organisation and self-activity. IN Britain the idea of building rank and file movements has in fact always been about building electoral machines to get slates of militants elected, to organise to push this or that motion at union Conference, and the same has been the main focus of Entrist work in the LP. This to my mind is arse about face for a Marxist.

The main function of rank and file organisation in a workplace should be to mobilie the membership to take an active part in the functioning of the union on a daily basis, to be prepared to take action immediately there is a problem rather than to rely on officials of whatever rank acting as a go between with management to try to conciliate and resolve issues, and thereby to imbue within the membership confidence in their own strength and ability, and a natural wariness at any leaders in order to keep them under check. But such activity can only ever be Economistic it needs to be given a political aspect, which can only occur within a Political party. It is then necessary to take those militants that do begin to develop a class conscioussness out of that milieu and into a political milieu to continue the struggle and the education of those militants. But the workplace is not the only area of struggle either. Workers have lives outside the workplace.

Marxists have to be active in the Workers Party in that general sense of the Party to which workers give their affiliation in order to turn it outwards too to link up the experiences of the militants in the factories to the experiences of workers within their own communities, to take the forms of workers organisation in the workplace out into htose communities to extend the lessons of class solidairity in the workplace into the Community through the establishment of Tenants Associations and so on. Parties like the Democrats and LP will not do this work of their own volition, because the whole ethos like that of the TU bureaucracy is the principal of letting the elected representatives do it. In fact a clear parallel with the way bouregois society has used the welfare state to develop a dependency culture, and a more widespread culture that everything is always someone else's fault, someone else's reposnsibility, and it is always up to someone else "someone should do something about it" mentality can be seen. Such a dependency culture - like the opium of the people - encourages passivity, and mitigates against the working class ghetting up off its knees, and gaining pride and confidence through its own organisation and self-activity. Only Marxists can infuse that spirit into the Workers Party, and Workers Movement in general because it is only Marxists that have that perspective of a class liberating itself.

But that is why the task for the remaining small number of Marxists is so great - as great as that which faced the simiarly small number of Marxists in the 19th century. The task is to work in such parties and to use their organisation and mechanism to turn them outwards to establish community organisations that will operate on the basis of self-help and self-organisation. In a sense Black Power organisations did this. They basically said we can't rely on the Man so we have to do it oursleves. They encouraged black businesses in the ghettoes etc. The problem was that such activity tended to be individual self-help rather than the establishment of co-operative forms of organisation, and the consequence was that those that did set up businesses and so on ended up becoming the Man themselves. With a socialist perspective its necessary to use politcal organisation to develop Co-operative forms. For example given the problems with sub-prime at the moment there is a crying need for the establishment of Credit Unions democratically controlled from within the Community undercutting the loan sharks in all their varieties of legitimacy and illegitimacy, providing secure cheap finance, whilst providing a grounding on financial advice to help prevent the problems of debt. The US has a history of co-operation in things like Barn raising that should be utilised to encourage co-operative forms of housing provision, and management, and the use of co-operative forms of finance to help finance such initiatives. I was talking to someone in LA a while ago that was involved in such schemes of co-operative housing provision.

I think that there is great scope for linking up even such ventures with Trade Unions in construction etc., and thereby making the kinds of mental links in workers minds about the way in which a different kind of society can be developed by their own hands. As Marx put it in his address to the First International the development of such Co-operatives was so important not just ebcause it was workers doing it themselves, but that a practical example of the new society was far more poweful than any number of literary works outlining the wonders of socialist society. There is nothin in any of this type of activity that can be used by Party bosses as a basis for expelling Marxists, and everything in it that both links the Marxists on a daily basis with resolving the immediate problems of the workers, and at the same time presents the ideologogical and material foundations of socialism. It takes marxists from being up in the air providers of future schemas for the workers salvation into the people seen by workers as having the solutions to their everyday concerns. Sure sometimes you will fail, get thrown back. Only the petit-bouregois are afraid of that, workers face it everyday in their lives at work and at home, pick themselves up and start again. The whole basis of the work experience for the proletarian is the gradual and repetitive shaping of the product or their part of it.

Arthur Bough

I have just read Sacha's latest comment in the recent issue of Solidarity online. There are it seems to me a number of problems with it.

1) Sacha says its a pricniple that there should be an independent workers voice in elections. Where does this principle derive from? Marx and Engels were happy to join the German Democrats which was abourgeois Party rather than demanding that they had their own "indpendent" voice. Why? Because they realised that content trumps form. They could have proclaimed their own indpendent workers party, but they knew that it would have had no real content, no substance to it. Far better to speak to wrokers where they ACTUALLY were in the Democrats than salve thier conscioence by trying to create their own working class. But in any case why does an "independent" voice require a separate party. During an election it is at least, and almost certainly more easy for Marxists to speak to workers effectively as members of some Party that already has the ear of workers.

2) Sacha objects to Eric's argument that the LPA only existed on paper. He says its problems was that it did was not independent enough, the unions supported the Democrats at election time. PRECISELY. That was Eric's point. It was not a Party that had real support from the working class, if it had then the union tops whose initiative in fact it was would not have been able to swing behind the Democrats! The question is not WHETHER we should be in favour of a Workers Party - all Marxists should be - but HOW such a Party can be created. Simply proclaiming yourself to be it won't work as the SWP, WRP and lots of other insignificant initials have discovered over the last 80 years.

3) I think Sacha is wrong in relation to the differences between the two parties, but it really doesn't matter. That should not be the basis of the argument. If the majority of workers gave their support tothe Republicans I'd be in favour of working in the Republicans. I have no interest in advocating support for Clinton, Obama, Edwards or any other rich American - actually according to the figure Obama only has around £600,000 so he's probably less rich than around a third of all Britons - but I am interested in Marxists being able to work alongside US workers effectively. That means working with them where they are not where you would like them to be.

4) On socialised Healthcare. There is already socialised helathcare in America. Its not very good, but probably not that much worse than socialised helathcare in Britain, its only for those that cannot afford Health Insurance, but it does exist. I spoke to a UK hospital administrator a while ago who had also been an Administrator in the US, and he said that the stories about people being left on the siwewalk because they didn't have Health Insurance, are to put it bluntly a load of bollocks. In fact, companies like Wal-Mart, quite like the socialised healthcare because they see it as an argument for them not having to pay out for Health Insurance premiums for their employees in the way many big US companies have been forced to do udner pressure from well organised workforces. In fact, the big auto companies like GM have been arguing in favour of some form of socialised healthcare precisely on the basis that the huge amounts they pay out for Health Insurance makes them unco,petitive against European car companies. So don't be udner any illusion that this is some kind of socialist watermark. Capitalism will advocate socialised healthcare, and socialised other things if its in its interests to do so. In fact it helps it to tie workers in more to the dependency culture, reliant on the good graces of the bouregois state, that, unfortunately,in which some socialists have made themselves complicit.

Arthur Bough