Discussion
Fighting
Against the Elimination of Jobs
The relentless loss of jobs in the Canadian manufacturing sector, especially in southern Ontario, has led to a debate about how workers can fight against the elimination of their jobs. This is a complex issue because it deals with the most fundamental problems of how the economy is organized. In addition, there is a huge army of economists, think tanks and journalists who continuously obscure the nature of the problem in order to prevent people from finding solutions.
Even for those who can see through the ideological overgrowth and who understand that the cause of the problem is capitalism this is a difficult problem to deal with. It is not sufficient to state that the problem is capitalism and the solution is socialism, even though this is true and is the concrete reality facing the working class. So the question naturally arises: “What are workers supposed to do while they are waiting for a revolutionary situation to develop?”
The problem is that this question arises naturally because it is based in the overgrowth of bourgeois ideology that is suffocating the entire society. It seems like an innocent and concrete question, but within it is contained every bourgeois prejudice against revolution and socialism and against the class struggle in general.
The first prejudice contained in this question is the deep-seated prejudice against revolution. This prejudice is particularly deep in the Canadian psyche for a number of reasons. The first reason is the arrogance of Anglo-American exceptionalism, which is based on the notion that the Anglo-American ruling classes are very enlightened and democratic and, therefore, revolution is entirely unnecessary. This notion was actually openly adopted by the communist parties in Canada and the United States in the 1940s, so for a long period of time there was no alternative to the constant bourgeois propaganda against revolution and socialism.
The post-war boom of the capitalist system in North America further reinforced this prejudice. Suddenly, workers could actually make some gains in terms of wages and working conditions. The 1960s also saw the de facto adoption of social democracy as the official ideology of the Canadian ruling class, partly in response to the needs of the Cold War ideological struggle between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and partly because the development of Canadian capitalism required massive public works expenditures in order to be profitable. The cornerstone of social democracy is the belief that revolution is not only unnecessary but is evil, and that capitalism will gradually evolve into a just and caring society.
Combined with these factors was the massive ideological assault on the working class by the U.S., the Soviet Union and their respective allies to convince workers that capitalism was synonymous with human rights, freedom and democracy while socialism was synonymous with oppression and human right violations.
On the basis of this deep-seated prejudice against revolution and socialism, the assumption is drummed into every Canadian that the prospects for revolution are very remote indeed. Therefore, while workers are waiting for a “messiah” to deliver revolution to them on a platter, they should get on with figuring out how to get by under capitalism. In other words, they should concern themselves with “practical” reforms, which can supposedly be achieved relatively easily under capitalism, and leave the problems of revolution and socialism to a future generation. This is presented despite the reality which exists in front of their faces that all of the post-war gains are being eroded, all of the social-democratic reforms of the past are being dismantled, real wages are falling and human rights are increasingly under attack by the state. Thus, while the entire society is moving backwards by leaps and bounds the illusion is held onto that things will somehow turn around if we just continue to do the same things we have done for the past several decades.
The concrete experience of the Canadian workers is that capitalism is failing to provide them with security on any front and the prospects for the future are even bleaker. They are coming under increasing attack from their employers in the form of demands for concessions, cutbacks in social spending, plant closures and layoffs. Of course, they are fighting back against these attacks because they have no choice but to do so. However, that fight-back is, at best, merely slowing the rate of decline. To suggest that workers can actually win these battles if they only fight a little harder or a little smarter, when the capitalists have a huge advantage in the form of wealth, organization and state power, is a pipe dream.
Therefore, the answer to the question, “What are workers supposed to do while they are waiting for a revolutionary situation to develop?”, cannot be that they should fight for some “realistic” reforms or lobby the government to “save” their jobs. Instead, the answer must be that during this period workers must not only continue to fight for their rights but should also provide themselves with the instruments, institutions and organizations necessary to actually win these struggles. In that way, instead of passively waiting for someone to save them they will be preparing conditions for the revolutionary transformation of society from capitalism to socialism, as well as preparing themselves to be capable of governing society once that transformation occurs.