The State of Working Class Politics Today

The State of Working Class Politics Today Part of my recent reading has been a book by Mark Elvin, The pattern of the Chinese Past. In this I found the following:- …. the network of local markets began to grow denser during the sixteenth and seventeenth century…… it seems plausible that the regular meetings of tenants and serfs in these markets would have given them a sense of common interests as a class, and allowed the discontented to see that their grievances were not just against a particular master or family, but against a system’ (page 245) This reminds me of my time as a student of Mining Engineering working on the coalface (not very expertly), our stint complete, spending a short while with the two leading colliers, discussing politics.That was in the 1950s. How things have changed since those days! As a boy I attended Sunday School and later the Chapel. I played with the other boys in the street. I went round the market with my mam up to age eleven when I went to Grammar School. I spent time in the Working Mens Club with my Dad. In those days there were very few cars. We travelled, when necessary, by bus or by train. We stood at football matches, free to move around and connect with different people. Life was far more communal, people had similar interests a d shared the same concerns. Now things are different. Whereas my Chapel had Sunday morning and afternoon Sunday School, and services morning and evening, nowadays they have one main service with very reduced attendance. The clubs and pubs which were a regular feature of men’s lives (often accompanied by their wives) are becoming rarer and rarer as more close down as no longer viable. Clibs and pubs were not just drinking places, but central to the culture of working class life. Places of entertainment, intellectual activity, often in the form of indoor sports. Card games and activities such as darts, snooker, long alley skittles require skill both intellectual and dexterous. There were whist and darts and other leagues in which the various pubs and clubs competed against each other but which also strengthened the links between various sections of the working class. Above all, pubs and clubs were places where people could meet and talk. This was also true of the allotments which were an important aspect of working class life. Places where a large proportion of the foodstuffs needed by the families were produced, and shared whenever there was a surplus but also places where people met and discussed common interests. As in ancient China, people with concerns about their everyday lives could share experiences and combine in action. The picture that I paint appears very much make centred, but my memories of the Chapel, and indeed of the Working Mens Club, always involve women. Women, beginning with my mother p, sisters and my aunts have always played a major role in my life. As they did in working class life generally. Hosiery was one of the major industries in my town of Loughborough, many of the workers being women. When I talk to my comrades about the Working Class, they see things in modern terms. The industries I grew up with (Loughborough had an amazing array of different trades and industries including heavy engineering, cranes, electrical engineering, hosiery machines, agricultural machines,coach and bus building, needles and the casting of bells) was wide and disperate. My mam worked as a cutter in a hosiery factory, my dad as a coach builder. (Both were members of their respective unions (NUHW and NUVB). In her early days my mam was part of the cohort to whom the vote was extended. She encouraged her workmates to go along to vote in Leicester for the Labour Candidate who had been in the forefront of the campaign to widen women’s franchise. In those younger days she almost caused a strike when she refused to work on jobs that had been transferred to her factory from another factory in Leicester where the men were on stri There was a thriving cattle market, as well as the main weekly market held every Thursday and Saturday. An annual Fair is held every November, inaugurated by Charter from centuries back. The town is on the fringes of what was the Leicestershire coal field with its high level of mechanisation and productivity. Moving south to live and teach in Kent, I found a completely different social environment from what I had experienced in both the East and the West Midlands. Streets of attached houses which, back home, would have been homes for solid labour voters, housed Tory voters. It has always seemed to me that the south was 50 years behind the Midlands and North in the development of the working class. On my area of Kent this was partly due to the, at one time, dominating presence of the military and the Naval Dockyard (although the Dockyard was at one time a centre on Communist Party activity) and partly a remnant of the old rural, peasant nature of Kent. Although the initial impetus for a working class movement came from the agricultural area, the Labour Movement was built on the large industrial complexes of mining, the docks, transport, railways, steel making, pottery hosiery, post and communications. The link between trade unionism and political activity varied. Much of the working class activity centred on trade unionism and local government. There was a clear link between activity and the chapel. It was in the Working Men’s Clubs, trade unions and the Chapel, that members of the working class, men and women, gained experience in speaking, organising and administration, which they transferred to other areas of life, putting what they had learnt into practice in their work place and in the community. Working Class life was an active, not a passive, experience. These were areas where they were in charge and where they could express themselves. They were also areas of support and assistance in which those who were vulnerable could be supported. An interesting comparison could be drawn between the drinking culture of the clubs and the teetotalism of the chapels. In fact there were quite strong links between the two organisations with mutual support and well as opposition. Sadly, as we have seen, the Chapel, the club and the pub, even the cinema, dance halls, and bingo halls have declined and there has been no a,ternate es to replace them. If we move our focus to present times, we find a working class that is far more divided than it has ever been. The institutions that brought us together are no longer there. If we take one example — transport. I believe that the figure now is around 75% of households have at least one car. They are independent and self reliant and so have very little interest in maintaining a public transport system. That means that the declining group, old people, children, disabled, the poorer sections of the community, who are dependent upon public transport are faced with a deteriorating situation, for which there seems no hope of improvement. Climate change calls for an end to a transport system based on fossil fuels; electric cars are not a viable alternative, and yet the majority (who have cars) support more roads and oppose the expansion of the rail network. This is a clear example of the trend which we find in all aspects of life. The greatest concerns that people express are in relation to the National Health Service. This is an area in which common provision available to all, irrespective of ability to pay, is so clearly needed. Yet the provision of private care fir those able to pay is increasing and the likelihood is that we will shortly be faced with a private, insurance based system, as in the USA, with United States companies increasing their stranglehold over our health provision. The even more serious situation with regard to social care, particularly for the older section of the community, is continually relegated to the ‘future decision’ compartment of policy making, leaving many people struggling against the situation they find themselves in. All the progressive moves in education, which were central to those of us involved as teachers and administrators in the 1969/70s have been lost. In those days we argued for comprehensive school structures, collegiate governance of schools and for child/pupil centred curricula. We believed in the opportunity for all those with the desire and ability to have a University education. Industries supported young people by paying for University places and providing grants to students. They provided long term apprenticeships with both practical and educational training, thereby enabling young people to develop the skills that the nation as a whole needed. Now, our children are neglected; curricula are designed to maintain a failing economic and social system; students forced to take out loans to enable them to pursue a University course; loans that will take them a lifetime to repay. The post war development of Council Housing (on well designed estates that met every need — schools, shops, pubs, libraries, churches and chapels, open green space, gardens; people centred, providing a variety of sizes and styles to need the differing needs of old and young, families and individuals) have been replaced by commercially driven high rise, high density buildings for those able to afford them whilst those in greater need are left to compete for what few, new, affordable homes are being built. The sale of Council houses has accerbated an already impossible situation. A great many of these former council houses are now back in the rented sector but no longer Council controlled. Profit has become the dominating factor of life. A few people benefit as the majority lose out. What is the Government’s response to all of this? We see it clearly in the latest decisions towards regional government. There is a belief, amongst the ruling clique, that progress depends upon strong individuals, mayors being in charge so that decisions can be made rapidly. These decisions being made by large companies, with no regard to the population at large, but simply on the basis of ‘economic development’, that is profit for these companies. The ability of individuals, groups of people, or communities to affect what happens to their living environment is rapidly disappearing. We are all becoming pawns within the system. AI (artificial intelligence), as it is now being developed, is making things worse. Making contact with institutions, whether it be the bank, the TV company, the surgery, the local government, the tax people, whatever, is becoming more a matter of using an app, a website, talking to a robot, or some other form of technology, but rarely what most people need which is to talk to a person. The world of work is another major area of our everyday day existence which has undergone massive changes. Job security, we are told, is a thing of the past.We must now be prepared to take up different occupations during our lifetime to satisfy the demands of the economy.There is never any evidence or reason given for this when many jobs will always be necessary. For young people the situation is extremely difficult. For Ma y people, especially women, zero hour contracts and having to accept multiple short time jobs is an everyday reality. Professional working class women have made significant progress and are now able to play a much greater role in public life. But the change from a household relying on the man of the house earning a family wage (which was only true in theory band not a fact as many women have a,ways been part of the workforce) has been replaced by an economic pattern that requires women, including mothers with very young children, to work. Often, as stated above in insecure, unpredictable conditions. In the meantime no really adequate provision has been made for the young children involved who are subjected to ‘children’ rather than being cared for in the manner in which many parents, mothers and fathers would wish. The needs of children and young people have been ignored in such a way as to be unacceptable in what is supposed to be a civilised society. The growth of the charity sector seeking to mitigate against the many problems highlighted above only goes to show that the criticism made here are valid. I well remember my dad’s hatred of both the means test and of charity. His view, which I agree with, is that all working men and women should be paid for their labour, and anyone unfortunate enough not to be able to work should be provided for as of a right within what has been termed the welfare state (which, lest anyone forget is paid for out of National Insurance and the taxes that the working class pay) so that no one is depended upon charity. People have, do and will always voluntary give of whatever they have to support others, but modern day charity is become almost a business called upon to enable those in command of our economy to retain more of the profits that they make from the labours of the working class. But what of our politicians and political parties? Party structures of ward meetings, local parties, constituencies, direct involvement, are no longer the basis of party democracy. Our Leaders, virtually all drawn from the ‘new middle class’, that is members of the working class who have benefited from the changes brought about after the end of World War Two and who have lost their interest in those sections of the working class who have not so gained, who have no incentive for calling for a socialist transformation of society to benefit everyone. They have been seduced by their apparent gains and seek to hold tightly onto them. As for the Parties to the Left (including the declared Marxist Parties) who argue for the need of a Revolution to completely transform society, believing that the emancipation of the working class must be through the actions of the working class, and whose ultimate aim is for a world wide unified classless society, we need to look closely at their aims and their methods to see how these relate to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. The Revolutionary Parties who argue that reforms (that is actions through local government and Parliament) are of no effect and that only action by the Working Class can bring about a transformation of society, are both right and wrong in their approach. They retain the ideas and words of Marxism but fail to appreciate that the world of work in this country, and indeed worldwide (there is now a clear worldwide division of labour, particularly is this crucial in advanced electronics where the essential metals and rare earths are mined to a large extent in developing third world countries, often in appalling conditions). The industrial society of the twentieth century has changed. In Britain the strikes in Schools, Universities, Health Service, do not have the same effect as strikes in industries such as the car industry in Coventry in the 1960s, or in Coal mining or other heavy industries. Those strikes had a major effect on the national economy (remember the four day week in 1974). Whereas strikes in schools and hospitals directly affect children’s education and the health of sick individuals. Only indirectly do they affect the capitalist economy. This is not to argue against such strikes when they are necessary, but to recognise the differences in the context within which they take place. The logical conclusion of this is that, for such strikes to lead to major changes in society, calls not for less community action, but for greater political activity within communities. This means that we should encourage those people who seek to be involved in community activity, including local government, and support all efforts to improve social conditions, whilst holding firm the view that these reforms are not enough but that we have to go much further. As I grew up there was a deep felt awareness of community hence a greater sense of solidarity. We have to rebuild all of that. Another aspect of Revolutionary Party thinking is related to Lenin’s statement that we should be ‘tribunes of the oppressed’. There is a danger that as the ‘new middle class’ gains dominance to the exclusion of the older, traditional working class, the leadership of the Revolutionary Parties, like that of other parties, such as the Labour Party, Liberal Party, the Greens and the Tories, also comes from that section of the community. These parties then, to different extents, lose sight of the wider working class. Parties become dominated by the thinking and needs of their leadership and the wider needs of the working class are lost. The result of this is that now 40% of the population is not involved in the Democratic process in any way. They are not involved with politics, are not members of any party, do not vote, their opinions and needs are not heard. Revolutionary Parties become more concerned with individual, personal issues rather than with the deeper, more economic concerns of large sections of the working class. An example of this is the stress placed on transgender rights, which, of itself is an important issue, but it can be taken too narrowly so that. instead of it being a positive issue for everyone, it can become a negative issue so that some women see in this approach a threat to the gains that have been fought for and made over the years. It is true, however, that those gains have been limited, professional women gaining but those women involved in more physical (as opposed to mental work) seeing very little change in their conditions and in many ways and change has made things worse. There is no one more oppressed than the mother trying to bring up children on her own, working at, possibly two or three jobs, and still struggling to meet the needs of her family. A lot of stress has also been placed on the fight against racism. Another area in which the need to be active in presenting a positive case against racism is clearly needed. Stand up to Racism (SUTR) is a different organisation than the Anti Nazi League (ANL). The latter was very specific and gained widespread support. The former is, by design, non political. It cannot take a political line because it seeks to draw all sections into its orbit. The aims of SUTR are good and deserve to be widely supported. But there are clearly problems with this approach as is clear from some of the comments that have been made within our local groups. Positive comments, but comments going against the strict confines of the group. This problem is also shown as SUTR devotes great effort to combatting the Reform Party. Another activity which is to be applauded but which raises questions. In its activity, SUTR sees this as a single issue, tackling racism. The long standing neglect of local government, and the view that reforms are of little value, becomes a serious matter, as there is no longer the basis within the community to support those aims.We are, by and large, working ‘from the outside’. This was less true of the ANL when the Labour Party had a stronger presence in the Working Class and a more effective, active group within the community. As with the transgender issue, the issue of racism can become a divisive I rather than a unifying issue. The slogan ‘Black and white unite and fight, Defeat the National Front’ was a far better slogan than ‘Black live matter’. We should at all times stress the unity of the working class and show that our interests are the same. What we always have to keep in mind is that we all have mixed (contradictory) consciousness and that we are all liable to make mistakes. We have to be clear in our politics and look for those issues that unite us and build upon those to create a party that can drive things forward and that lead to a complete transformation of society. We can aim for perfection but not expect perfection from anyone, including ourselves! The enemy we face and that we seek to overcome is the capitalist economic system. This affects all of our lives and is seen in all of the sectional struggles that we face. That includes racism, transphobia, the wars that are taking place, or likely to take place, the deprivation and poverty that people face. As we tackle these individual issues, we must always keep in mind the basic class struggle which is present in each of these issues. At all times we must be principled but seek unity. Our aim is a united, classless society. Only the united working class society can achieve this. It is true that people learn in struggle but for many people struggle is not confined to strike action but is a daily reality as they struggle to cope with the poverty and deprivation is their lot. Even with strikes, unless it is linked to other activities, and unless it is linked to political action which relates to the basic economic cause, and does not further the cause of the working class, sections may benefit but this may be limited to the most powerful unions. Strike action and politics must go together. The old slogan ‘Agitate, educate, organise’ is more necessary now than ever when all forms of communication are dominated by powerful capitalist individuals and organisations. We have a world to win and only the united working class can achieve the results that are needed. I may, in presenting my case as above, have given the impression that life was so much better in the days I write about. In order to correct any falsity in my arguments, let me remind you of the experiences of my parents and their generation. These are the people who, in their youth, saw their fathers, uncles and family friends, taken to fight in the Great War (1914 - 1918) and suffered all the deprivations and dire effects of that war. As they entered the workforce they were faced with the General Strike and the Slump with its devastating consequences. As they became parents with young families, they faced the trauma of the Second World War. Emerging from this they were determined that the things they had experienced should never again blight the lives of working class people. They brought about major changes at National and local level. My generation and future generations benefitted from their efforts. When a Tory Minister told them ‘You have never had it so good’ ( which was true) instead of striving to continue those efforts to improve social and community life, large proportions of the working class, who had gained more than other sections, looked to their own interest to the exclusion of the community. Another Tory Minister then claimed that ‘there is no such thing as society’. This has tended to come true as more and more people look to their own interests and fail to challenge the decisions made by successive Governments which have undermined social and community provision and led to the situation in which our whole economic structure of free enterprise capitalism has failed. We are faced with the increasing possibility of nuclear war and the dangers of climate change leading to the possible extinction of the human race coming ever closer to reality. We stand at the barricades fighting for a future for mankind. The only hope is that we can all unite to find a way forward. That future must be socialism or communism whichever word you choose to denote a society in which we hold all things in common and in which we recognise and accept that our individual future depends upon the equal futures of all other individuals. We can recognise our differences but also recognise that we succeed or fail together. Scribar 27.4.25