From: "Dave Bedggood" <dr.bedggood-AT-auckland.ac.nz>
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 16:35:52 +0000
Subject: M-G: Re: M-TH: Re: A New Agenda


>
Jurriaan,
said nothing about the post-war boom being a figment of the petty
bourgeois  imagination. The question is who do we blame for the 
collapseof the fightback after the end of the boom?

My point to you, and to James who echoes some of your thoughts on 
defeats in the recent past, is that these defeats are relative to the struggle 
put up. James' idea that people [presumably we are talking about 
workers here] were self confident individuals until the new right clobbered
them into passivity is very superficial. They were never self-anything in 
the first place  but smashed subjects taken in tow by the labour bureaucracy 
[SD and stalinist versions] and occasionally on a tiny scale by the centrist left. 

This false consciousness of SD "social citizenship" was build on a mudslide.  
The responsibility for these defeats were the left's failed programme 
[ its inability to understand theboom and its end] and/or its strategy and tactics 
[the terrible twins of sectarianism and opportunism] and  not that of
working class militants pushed around a few pickets and occupations.
Of course the consequences of these defeats were a worsening of 
workers living conditions, but this is far from the "end of class politics" 
that  James and his co-thinkers argue. I suspect the Usec position is 
not very different.

Although the language of politics reflects the rights triumphalism,
and centrism and Blairite SD have moved well to the right, 
who can deny that the mounting crises in the former Eastern Bloc, 
East Asia and the semi-colonies, plus the problems of Europe in 
discipling its labour force, do not signifiy an intensification of 
class struggle internationally and pose a daily test of the new world 
disorder?

In the face of this instability, the "end of class politics" argument is 
a very superficial mid-Atlantic reaction to neo-liberalism, which echoes,
or rather inverts the neo-liberal terms, and becomes an alibi for the left to
retreat for a period and lick its wounds. Quite a few of this disoriented left get 
on the Spoons lists and infect it with their pessimism. Godena on 
Menshevik-International is an obvious example. We need to fight this 
pessimism whenever it appears on these lists. 

If the subjectively revolutionary Trotskyists [and others] don't 
learn these lessons, dont see what went wrong and who was to blame,  
then they will get defeated  again, and if they have any influence 
again mislead workers in yet another round of struggles with even more 
serious  consequences. Because of new  upsurges in struggles, say in 
Russia and China, more serious defeats could follow without 
revolutionary leadership. Imperialism will be able to mobilise its workers
on the basis of labourism and chauvinism to embark on trade wars and military wars
against workers struggles in the former SU and East Asia, as  those economies suffer
worsening  economic upheavals. 
 
Therefore, as the Trotskyists keep saying on these lists, the ones we 
havent been excluded from, and some of us try to  practice as well as 
preach, we have to solve the crisis of leadership. Each of us in our various 
Trotskyist tendencies has to do a ruthless balance sheet of our roles over this 
period. What was wrong with our method, theory, programme, strategy and tactics. 
Now that would be a serious discussion far removed from acidic comments. 
That would be a new Agenda. Between Hugh, Bob, Jurriaan, James, me 
and several others who contribute less frequently we have quite a few
 tendencies represented already. 

In terms of Jurriaan's comments about NZ. The nature of these defeats were
even  clearer. It was no accident that in the early '90's, Roger Douglas and 
Mike Moore flew off to the SU and EE to advise the new bourgeois regimes 
on how to take apart "state socialism". What became known [incorrectly] 
as the "New Zealand Experiment" was hailed as the "way, the truth and 
the light" by international capitalists everywhere. After all NZ to
their minds was a tiny socialist state where the shock therapy needed 
in the Eastern bloc could be trialled with no real risk. 

This was very clear in the case of  labour market reform with the 
passing of the ECA in 1991 and which is now being 
copied  in Russia.  After all the NZ union movement was 
virtually a branch  of the state machine with bosses deducting dues and 
enforcing closed shops on behalf of the unions! Its now happening 
with reforms to social welfare were the US anti-welfare models are 
being applied to a strongly entrenched welfare state. Resistance to 
the axing of the welfare sacred cows is likely to be much more strong,
yet it won't succeed  without revolutionary leadership.

My point is that whether it was defence of  jobs, union rights or welfare rights,
these were  incredibly weak positions easily overrun when the labour 
lieutenants openly deserted to their generals, leaving  barely any time for 
the rank and file to find out how to regroup. The post-war boom, 
protectionism, full employment, social welfare etc obviously 
contributed to the false consciousness of "social citizenship", but 
it was the labourite, Stalinist, and tiny Trotskyist left, which more 
or less failed to understand what it was up against and made the
 strong possiblity of defeat certain and much more damaging. 

 Regroupment will only be possible when a new vanguard 
leadership is able to apply a transitional programme to break the 
best workers from labourite and nationalist politics represented by 
the Alliance and the TUF. But this begs the question of who is going 
to build that vanguard and on what foundation.

Dave.

> 

Dave Bedggood


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