Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 09:08:33 +0200
Subject: Re: AUT: Andre Gorz


Hi comrades.

Richard Singer wrote:
>        ... I appreciate the fact that Gorz, in the essay that I read (which

> was written way back in 1967), wrote so clearly about the distinction
> between reforms from above -- i.e., forms of appeasement offered by the
> state -- and reforms achieved through pressure from below.  I am already
> fond of quoting the following paragraph:
>
>         "Certain maximalists conclude from this that reforms are meaningless
> while the capitalist state continues to exist.  They are right when it is a
> matter of reforms from above, volunteered and institutionalized in cold
> blood, but wrong in the case of reforms brought about in hot blood by active
> struggle from below...

You can bet that the capitalist authorities will not volunteer a cut in profit
to bestow on the working class.

Thus, any "reform" is a result of class war struggle. The same as improved
condition and/or wage resulting from strike, so is every other achievement of
struggle. Be it improvement in "social wage" through government and municipal
services, or cut in taxes... etc. or a rise in the minimal wage...

> The emancipation of the working class can become a
> total objective for the workers, warranting total risk, only if in the
> course of the struggle they have learned something about self-management,
> initiative and collective decision -- in a word, if they have had a
> foretaste of what emancipation means."

The main thing is hope and feeling of power resulting from successful struggle.
The success in a strike or another kind of struggle is much more important than
any "organizational learning".

For sure, management of struggle through direct democracy and not by any
vangardist or other authoritarian methods, contribute to the feeling of each
participant that s/he contributed a significant share to the common achivement.
<snip>
Ilan





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