17/08: Friendly Attacks on the Workplace
Something that bothers me about many radical social theories out there is their emphasis on the worker. I can accept that capitalism defines the worker in relation to their power as part of a greater analysis of society. However, when we organize, we aren't organizing workers, we are organizing individuals. If you are looking for areas of tension and choose the workplace, the dialog will probably be based on work and how individuals conflict with work.
This is where I'll step back a little. Anarchists generally have two methods if they are approaching a workplace struggle. Both can be interchangable, but there is an emphasis for developing the workplace as a method to provide economic security and support to the individuals so they don't have to live on the edge of poverty. This takes on the same face as old labor and striking for reforms. The extra security is very subjective in how it provides for individuals in the workplace. These types of struggles help provide income that can be used to help the individuals, their families and friends live with or above poverty as well as assist propaganda and resistance efforts .
The extra security does have its failings. It can provide a person who is working poor an elevation to the lower middle class or maybe even lower middle to damn near rich. This promotes unnecessary material accumulation and compliance to the social order in exchange for the continuation of the good job and its economic security. This creates different interests as has historically been shown with the expansion of the middle class, giving us only a repetition of what has already occurred with the general elevation of most of the working class into the middle. This isn't essentially true, but what has occurred in the 20th century suggests this to be true.
New initiatives by working individuals in poverty towards "friendly" insurance can be more effective at creating economic security. This type of insurance would help with medical bills, funeral bills, strike stipends and so on. This is a reduction from what unions can offer and is diliberately divorced for the idea of unions. I do this because union bureacrats and officials are typically separated from their workers through varying degrees of hierarchy and specialization and have been known to be less than supportive of all forms of workplace resistance. The friendly insurance acts as an alternative service for the working poor by the working poor. This type of insurance would not be based on accumulation and workers participating in its creation would share the hard decisions on who and how people are to be covered by the friendly. Networking with doctors and other professionals that can reduce costs can be beneficial and doctors that accept a life of poverty can be more helpful and fully involved in poverty support. This insurance can be expanded as a professional assistance insurance so that home repairs, plumbing, carpentry, and so on can be included in coverage with medical coverage.
The second method anarchists promote is not based on relieving poverty or creating more economic security. Instead its based on the idea of attacking the workplace as a symbol of oppression, in some cases it is based on causing affects on the general economy and in other cases its based on seizing or shutting down the workplace as an expression of power. The above friendly insurance would be able to function in both examples of workplace struggle as long as it isn't so large that it has to operate as a separate body from its membership. The friendly insurance can be held together by small clusters of informal independent and worker associations to ensure it remains part of what these individuals are doing and not a separate entity.
This is just a brief outline and much more go can go into any method of resistance. I feel anarchists push themselves into a false dichotomy over work because the nuances between attack and reform have become too rigid and absolute while questions of what is necessary to live socially while we resist have moved more in the direction of interests not based on socializing and releaving poverty but accumulating more security and material power. I will continue looking into these kind of issues because I feel that the growth of anarchy would benefit from emphasizing poverty intervention in workplace struggles rather than accepting the current methods of labor struggle. This also makes arguments for ending certain workplaces more possible if we already have a functioning practice for poverty relief and support.
This is where I'll step back a little. Anarchists generally have two methods if they are approaching a workplace struggle. Both can be interchangable, but there is an emphasis for developing the workplace as a method to provide economic security and support to the individuals so they don't have to live on the edge of poverty. This takes on the same face as old labor and striking for reforms. The extra security is very subjective in how it provides for individuals in the workplace. These types of struggles help provide income that can be used to help the individuals, their families and friends live with or above poverty as well as assist propaganda and resistance efforts .
The extra security does have its failings. It can provide a person who is working poor an elevation to the lower middle class or maybe even lower middle to damn near rich. This promotes unnecessary material accumulation and compliance to the social order in exchange for the continuation of the good job and its economic security. This creates different interests as has historically been shown with the expansion of the middle class, giving us only a repetition of what has already occurred with the general elevation of most of the working class into the middle. This isn't essentially true, but what has occurred in the 20th century suggests this to be true.
New initiatives by working individuals in poverty towards "friendly" insurance can be more effective at creating economic security. This type of insurance would help with medical bills, funeral bills, strike stipends and so on. This is a reduction from what unions can offer and is diliberately divorced for the idea of unions. I do this because union bureacrats and officials are typically separated from their workers through varying degrees of hierarchy and specialization and have been known to be less than supportive of all forms of workplace resistance. The friendly insurance acts as an alternative service for the working poor by the working poor. This type of insurance would not be based on accumulation and workers participating in its creation would share the hard decisions on who and how people are to be covered by the friendly. Networking with doctors and other professionals that can reduce costs can be beneficial and doctors that accept a life of poverty can be more helpful and fully involved in poverty support. This insurance can be expanded as a professional assistance insurance so that home repairs, plumbing, carpentry, and so on can be included in coverage with medical coverage.
The second method anarchists promote is not based on relieving poverty or creating more economic security. Instead its based on the idea of attacking the workplace as a symbol of oppression, in some cases it is based on causing affects on the general economy and in other cases its based on seizing or shutting down the workplace as an expression of power. The above friendly insurance would be able to function in both examples of workplace struggle as long as it isn't so large that it has to operate as a separate body from its membership. The friendly insurance can be held together by small clusters of informal independent and worker associations to ensure it remains part of what these individuals are doing and not a separate entity.
This is just a brief outline and much more go can go into any method of resistance. I feel anarchists push themselves into a false dichotomy over work because the nuances between attack and reform have become too rigid and absolute while questions of what is necessary to live socially while we resist have moved more in the direction of interests not based on socializing and releaving poverty but accumulating more security and material power. I will continue looking into these kind of issues because I feel that the growth of anarchy would benefit from emphasizing poverty intervention in workplace struggles rather than accepting the current methods of labor struggle. This also makes arguments for ending certain workplaces more possible if we already have a functioning practice for poverty relief and support.
