Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1999 07:58:26 +1000
Subject: AUT: new Aufheben pamphlet on-line


Thanks to John and Jon, a new Aufheben pamphlet is now on-line at

lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/aut_html/Aufheben/doleaut.html

Here is the intro:

               DOLE AUTONOMY VERSUS THE RE-IMPOSITION OF WORK:

           ANALYSIS OF THE CURRENT TENDENCY TO WORKFARE IN THE UK

                                  Aufheben

                               [October 1998]

                               1 INTRODUCTION

The global advance of 'neo-liberalism' has been given fresh impetus in
Britain by the election of the New Labour government. Under Blair's
leadership, the Labour Party has abandoned its traditional commitment to
social democracy and has fully embraced the neo-liberal project originally
pioneered by Margaret Thatcher. However, whereas Thatcher was obliged to
attack the social consensus that had been built up on the basis of the
post-war social democratic settlement, Blair is seeking to build a new
'one-nation' consensus around the on-going attacks on wages, working
conditions and welfare entailed by the neo-liberal agenda.

As such, Blair's government recognizes that it is no longer sufficient
simply to impose the discipline of money. In order to shore up conservative
moral and 'family' values, the neo-liberal project has to be buttressed by
direct social intervention, beyond the mere rhetoric of the party
conferences, even if this means spending more money. This is clear with New
Labour's 'Welfare to Work' programme.

While recent benefit 'reforms' and workfare schemes have clearly been 'cost
driven', and this was no doubt foremost in the minds of the ministers who
were responsible for introducing them, such measures were not simply about
saving money on the welfare budget. With people compelled to work, wages
would inevitably become depressed and existing workers would have less
leverage to press for improved conditions. Likewise, 'Welfare to Work' is an
attack not just on the conditions of the unemployed but also, through the
job substitution and increased labour-market competition it will result in,
on wage levels. But it is more than this. 'Welfare to Work' is part of a
crusade to re-impose the work ethic. It is the government's flagship policy
and is central to 'reforming' the very principles of the welfare state. As
such, it is far better funded than previous benefit 'reforms', with =A33.5
billion being raised specifically for it from a windfall tax on the
privatized utility companies.

Despite these attacks, however, there is barely a movement of the unemployed
in the UK today, let alone an effective unity between the unemployed and
those in work. In contrast, the 1920s and 30s saw often effective action by
a mass movement of the unemployed in the UK. The lack of an unemployed
movement today is despite a relatively high level of non-representational
political activity among those on the dole in recent years; indeed, the dole
is the very basis for a number of the most vigorous direct action movements.
The energies of the natural opposition to the attacks on benefits (the
unemployed and the politically active) are currently being channelled in
other directions. Workfare is being introduced in the UK, not because the
unemployed have become 'acquiescent', but because a potentially powerful
opposition prefers - misguidedly in our view - to fight over other issues or
to seek individual solutions, rather than to defend the conditions that make
some of their campaigns and activities possible.

We seek to situate the present situation as follows. The current tendency to
introduce workfare as part of dealing with the welfare 'problem' in the UK
is a political-economic expression of the current *retreat of social
democracy* (which is the other side of the coin of the advance of
'neo-liberalism'). This tendency to benefit cuts and workfare in the UK is
stronger now than at any time since before the post-war settlement. The
present inclination to workfare is the logical expression of capital's
current requirement to re-negotiate that settlement: to restrict welfare and
to keep down wages through labour market competition; attacking the
entrenched autonomy of dole-life is a vital part of this re-negotiation.




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