Re: [Marxism] oops! I meant to send that off list. My bad!

[Haines Brown <brownh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Walter Lippmann offers an interesting autobiographical sketch, but at
one point what he says puzzles me:

> And I also heard the same workerist and sectarian nonsense in the
> Socialist Workers Party which remains a Marxmail staple. It took me
> awhile after my involuntary departure before I began doing some of
> the research to learn what the roots of the workerist sectarianism
> which afflicted the SWP, and other sections of the left,...

The term "workerism" has always interested me, and so I turn to
Wikipedia, which offers a definition and then mentions some negative
aspects:

> Workerism is a name given to different trends in left-wing political
> discourse, especially anarchism and Marxism. In one sense, it
> describes a political position concerning the political importance
> and centrality of the working class. ... In another sense,
> 'workerism' refers to the glorification of the culture of the
> working class, independent of their historical role.

The first sense I think everyone here would agree is a positive
characteristic. The second sense appears to be ambivalent, as the
Wikipedia article later specifies:

> More broadly, workerism can imply the idealisation of workers,
> especially manual workers, working class culture (or an idealised
> conception of it) and manual labour in general. Socialist realism is
> an example of a form of expression that would be likely to be
> accused of workerism in this sense.

Well, one certainly wouldn't want to idealize capitalist culture, and
so the problem raised here is with an idealization of the working
class. Is this bad? In the heat of struggle, we naturally focus on
what is of positive value, for it contributes to our sense of unity,
our sense of moral rectitude, and it brings out those features of the
working class that are also our goals. On the other hand, the battle
for the moment is over and we have time to reflect, it seems to me we
should embrace the opposite approach and cast our light instead on the
weakness and flaws of the movement, for that is how we correct it and
make it stronger. In other words, I suspect the issue of idealization
depends on time, place and circumstance rather than being a universal
shortcoming.

However, the Wikipedia article also brings up Lenin's criticism of
workerism:

> V.I. Lenin charged a number of Russian socialists with being
> workerist for opportunistically following the political or cultural
> movements of the working class, instead of holding a separate
> Marxist political position.

This brings up an entirely different problem, which is that of
opportunism. Today I suppose we would describe this as a support for
"bread-and-butter" unionism, rather than challenging the existing
order. One might say that even when conditions are not ripe for
change, that at least the long-term goal should be kept in mind. If
so, then the issue that Lenin raises is not one of circumstance, but
of embracing a minimalist agenda that fails to understand that
immediate practical goals also deepen the contradictions of capitalism
and so hasten the day when it will be overthrown.

However, that was an issue in Lenin's time that may not be quite the
same today. If the minimalist position is to extract as much benefit
as possible from the existing structure without questioning it, then
that would seem to apply to the traditional Democratic Party, not any
Marxist party. As far as I know (which isn't much), no Marxist party
today embraces capitalism in the long run.

Walter L. was upset with the workerism of the SWP. Given my comments
above, I fail to understand his point. I wonder if he would specify in
what sense the SWP was workerist. More broadly, how is the left
generally workerist in a negative sense of the word? This seems to me
as a very important issue that strikes at the heart of what we are all
up to.

-- 
 
       Haines Brown, KB1GRM

         
        

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