Telling it how it is
Jenny Slaughter
I would like to thank Louise for her contribution in telling us ‘how it is’, says Jenny Slaughter, Left Unity’s new contact person in Hebden Bridge.
I would also like to thank her for not bringing Marx, Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin, Rosa Luxemburg or Gramsci et al into her discussion because, try as I might, it has the effect of making me glaze over. Louise has inspired me to tell you how it is for me although I’m coming from a totally different situation and perspective. Nevertheless I want you to know that I, too, am looking to Left Unity.
I am of the baby boomer generation, a post-war baby who has benefited enormously from the introduction of the Welfare State – the NHS, free orange juice, free cod liver oil, post-war rationing (no sweets or junk food), grammar school education, full grant at university, no tuition fees, freedom to drop out, tune in and turn on as I pleased because jobs were easy to come by. An extremely lucky generation and I know it! Probably the healthiest generation (ref Professor John Ashton, Faculty of Public Health) as life expectancy could well start to decline again as the poverty gap widens and/or kids are increasingly corrupted with consumerism promulgated by corporations.
Currently, I continue to lead a very nice life, thank you very much. I have a state pension, NHS pension, winter fuel allowance and bus pass. I spend my time doing cultural stuff which I can afford, holidays and traveling which I can afford and I am an active volunteer director for a non-profit organisation.Am I working class or middle class and is that relevant?
You can see I have no obvious motivation to rock the boat apart from the fact that I don’t want to live in a world that is so utterly unfair, corrupt and destructive of the planet if there is any chance of changing it for my children, grandchildren and Louise’s children.
I have never been politically active with a big P but have done lots with a small p. Like most people, my engagement with party politics has only extended to voting. I have always voted Labour digressing once to the Greens (Euroelections 1989). Nevertheless, I vividly remember the absolute euphoria in May 1997 when Labour finally won and the massive disappointment of the subsequent years leading inexorably to the point where I am now totally disenfranchised.
Ken Loach’s film The Spirit of ’45 spoke to me personally and politically and motivated me to sign up to LU where there is a glimmer of hope that things can change and wrongs can start to be righted. So I am one of the 8000+ who have signed up but who are biding their time to see which way this train is traveling. I have since studied the debates on the website and have started to educate myself on the various arguments and counter-arguments put forward. This is so necessary because if I cannot persuade my family and friends of the necessity and feasibility of LU then I won’t be able to convince anyone else.
Most of my left-leaning friends are very sceptical – citing the danger of ‘splitting the vote’. Some say they will now join/rejoin the Labour Party (change from within brigade) in order to make a positive contribution to opposing austerity from the Con/Dem government. But now thanks to Louise and others, I am now better equipped with arguments to convince them that LABOUR IS PART OF THE PROBLEM – they are all in it together, interchangeable, suffocating in the middle ground.
But equally, I need to convince my circle that the unintended (or intended?) consequences of a new party does not mean that their property will be confiscated at the barrel of a gun in a bloody Marxist revolution! Moderator – please edit if I’m being over the top!
John Penney and others – if I am patently NOT ‘a working class militant’ (as you describe Louise) am I therefore not in need of LU and is LU not in need of me? Best tell me now ……. before I get too attached.
16 comments
16 responses to “Telling it how it is”
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I am with you on almost everything except that I’m more hard-up than you and trying to make a living. I get a similar response from Labour or ex-Labour voters but i think if it galvanises people and gets them to think things through a bit more then that’s all to the good. if on reflection people decide to vote Labour having thought about the issues then that is their right and it’s better than being apathetic or disenfranchised. i’m in LU partly because I think it’s good for democracy to have a party (assuming we will be a party) which covers ground the other parties have abandoned, as well as because I happen to agree with its aims
The Tax Payers Alliance has been a great force for pushing right-wing politics. Rather than enter the electoral foray, I’d like to see the Left Unity push politics to the left.
We need an organisation that is impartial and can help develop policy and public awareness of the damage in society, and particularly of the economic model we have today.
There are many lies and myths to overcome, as well as the right-wing press. If we can help progressive policies o be popular, then progressive parties are much more likely to adopt them, win elections and implement them.
There are tens of millions of us, let us work together, no matter which party we are affiliated. We all want better and not for UKIP or the Tories to rule along with the backing of their multi-million pound funded think tanks.
Thanks for your comments, these debates are a really healthy break from things that happened before. I don’t think it’s enough just to call ourselves progressive though. Brighton Council consider themselves progressive and many who joined the Labour Party did so because they believed they were progressive. Both are busy imposing cuts on working people. I think we need to be explicitly for something different. Spending needs to be based on need, not profit. Socialism is not a dirty word.
Well done Jenny, the future is bright in Hebden Bridge. Hope you get some others in the village to help you establish a branch.
Gooodness sake, this is not the making of a Socialist Party but a Quaker group
Yes, Labour is part of the problem.
The entrenched middle class Labour leadership and middle class Parliamentary Labour Party, particularly. I don’t have a problem with the middle classes – many might say I am, where I am in my career. It’s their outlook, and their buy-in to the system of big business that’s the issue.
But with the totally undemocratic First Past the Post electoral system (supported by Labour) it makes it even more pertinent that we demand that our Party, the Labour Party, works for us, because short of celebrity representation such as Galloway and the occasional independent or Green breakthrough,what other chance is there for a party of the working class? – By working class I mean everyone who depends on working for a living, which may just as well include most ‘self employed’, along with their families – that is, the vast majority.
Labour has been hijacked by a middle class elite. It has been seismically shifted to the Right over the last 3 decades or so. That was on the back of defeats for the Labour movement and in the Blair year’s an economy that moved forward.
The credit bubble bursting has changed all that because this is a systemic failure of capitalism that pro capitalists cannot wriggle out of, and now the right wing in the Labour movement are on the back foot. How can they defend this system, which now makes ordinary people pay whilst the very wealthiest get even richer?
Change is happening, incrementally, in all sorts of ways, but the reality is that the middle class, pro big business Labour leadership are never going to break with the idea of capitalism – this would be revolutionary, by definition (and I suspect revolutionary for many signing up to Left Unity, too). It just ain’t going to happen – the status quo is ingrained into them to the extent that they, substantially, believe in TINA.
So it is only going to be pressure building from the ranks of the Labour movement and the trade unions, and perhaps the likes of Left Unity and others, and the effects of the crisis that cannot be foreseen flowing from a flat-lining economy and who-knows-what World events that will cause the leadership to veer Left (be replaced), perhaps the other side of the General Election.
I hope Left Unity will play a role in drawing new layers in. It is not big enough to be a Party by a long way (in my opinion). I took the name “Left Unity” literally when I expressed an interest as a LP member. But if those thousands of ordinary Labour Party members who are looking for a socialist alternative, along with tens of thousands of Labour levy paying trade union members who are up for radical change are seen as ‘part of the problem’, then what does ‘Left Unity’ amount to?
Somehow, between us, we have to find a way to inch forward to a point where we can burst on the scene, in or out of Labour – but that requires a lot more than an ephemeral burst of enthusiasm. The media belongs to our opponents and its influence is all-pervasive – yes, Facebook/Twitter helps us build new connections, but people on Facebook represent the views of people at large – which is either apolitical/uninterested, and/or generally for the status quo – if they weren’t, we’d be talking of a Left Unity with 8,000,000 expressing an interest. We need to move ahead knowing that there are no guarantees, knowing that we start from a weak base, but also knowing that arguing for an economic and political system that organises itself for the benefit of all rather than the benefit of the few (plan C) is an absolute must if humanity is to surge to new heights rather than cave in on itself.
Jenny LU is very much in need of you. Nice one for writing that and I look forward to working with you in the growing Yorkshire & Humberside LU community.
Have you read Jasmin al Hadaq’s contribution in response to the ‘UKIP of the Left’ piece? There are many other positive ones, but this advocates a future for LU that you might like.
Jasmin – where are you?! More contributions please.
Liz,
I think it’s important to differentiate from the Marxist ‘sects’ & how useful Marx’s analysis of capitalism can be in explaining why the post-war generation like yourself have had it ‘so good’ & why a return to social democracy is not an option.
Firstly, the theory that goes with Marxists has often been used by people to be little ruling elites in their little groups. It has been used by certain groups to permit a hierarchy whereby a central committee make all the decisions & the rest are expected to just sell the paper to fund their lifestyles of dreaming of being the next Lenin. Left Unity, & more importantly the working class in general, rightly don’t want anything to do with this.
However, Marx’s analysis of capitalism, as difficult as it is to comprehend at a detailed level, can explain why there was a post-war era of prosperity in the west, & why that will not return. That is, after the depression of the 1930’s & WWII devalued & destroyed so much capital, (let alone the lives of millions) & oil & gas were enabling huge advances in productivity, the rate of profit was high, the war debt could be paid off relatively easy with such economic growth & an increasing amount of the working day could be stolen from workers in value terms whilst their material conditions actually improved. On top of this we still had the west plundering the third world – imperialism. These were the material conditions that enabled the NHS & the welfare state in general to be created & funded, helping in the ideological fight with the Soviet Bloc.
Today capitalism is in a huge crisis. A crisis that they are still trying to paper over by printing more & more money. It is what Marx called a crisis of overproduction. Only capitalism has crises of overproduction. Too many commodities are produced relative to what can be realised in profits in terms of labour time. Not too much is produced that isn’t needed. Capitalism doesn’t produce for need, as we all know, it only produces for profit. But hold on a minute, why are all these banks & other multi-nationals reporting such obscenely high profits? Well, they weren’t in 2008/09. This is the role of debt & this can be traced back to the early 1970’s, financialisation & the dollar decoupling from gold. Since the 1970’s, before Thatcher & Reagan, we had the rise of finance capital. It has been capitalism’s way of dealing with falling profits, for debt is claims on future labour time that have yet to be realised, this artificially boosts recorded profit rates. It is debt that allows this overproduction to occur. And, when in 2008 the credit crunch turned into financial collapse because of fears that debts wouldn’t be fully recoverable, the governments & central banks stepped in by taking on some of the bad debts & creating more debt to buy time. That’s all they have done is buy time, by making the underlying problem even worse.
All this means is that some mythical Swedish-style social democracy where capitalism gets taxed at high rates to fund a state-of-the-art welfare state helping to deliver a more equal & class harmonious society is very much wishful thinking, even a delusion. Capitalism cannot afford it. We need to be providing a vision of a post-capitalist society based upon common ownership. We need to try & explain how this would look rather than just saying we are for socialism. That real democracy is not voting for parliamentary ‘representatives’ or even local councillors, but participating directly in decision-making processes.
Theory is important, but it must be used in ways that empower people, not keep them down.
Hi Jenny,
I look forward to meeting you at some future event, you are clearly a very honest and genuine person who wants to make the world a better place – hopefully the bread and butter of LU now and in the future. One small point if I may. Marxism has never had a problem with private property and so you can feel safe in your bed! The phrase “property is theft” is often mistakenly ascribed to Marxism but was actually said by Proudhomme – an anarchist philosopher. This will no doubt prompt acres of typeface but I hope you accept it in the spirit in which it is meant, my tongue is well and truly in my cheek and my opening sentence was heartfelt and genuine :-)
Very best wishes,
Colin
Hi Jenny, if it helps, in Doncaster, we have many women and men like yourself involved in our activities and the group, groups are all the stronger for it. Anytime you want to come along and meet up with us, that would be great.
this is what we want again! thanks for writing about it. “I am of the baby boomer generation, a post-war baby who has benefited enormously from the introduction of the Welfare State – the NHS, free orange juice, free cod liver oil, post-war rationing (no sweets or junk food), grammar school education, full grant at university, no tuition fees, freedom to drop out, tune in and turn on as I pleased because jobs were easy to come by. An extremely lucky generation and I know it! Probably the healthiest generation (ref Professor John Ashton, Faculty of Public Health) as life expectancy could well start to decline again as the poverty gap widens and/or kids are increasingly corrupted with consumerism promulgated by corporations.
This really is the next part of the story ken loach tells in his film, it really is a much needed part two people need to see, it’s quite depressing seeing the pre 45 and post 79. we need the in-between story, your story mu mums story just has much. can u believe it wev’e had really just one generation of working class people who had it half way decent under our system, shocking.
Thanks so much everyone for (mainly) very positive comments. It’s quite daunting to put your head above the parapet on a site like this when it could get bitten off!
Ben – yes I have read Jasmins post and agree absolutely about language and PR if we want to appeal to a wider audience than the usual suspects (potentially the 99%)
John – I’ve found your post really informative but to be honest I’m still trying to get my head round it so if you’ll forgive me I’ll leave that response for another time.
Louise – thanks for your encouragement – it’s precisely because I’ve benefited so much from the establishment of Welfare State that I feel so sad about its destruction and want to help do something about it.
Rupert – I’m not a Quaker but are Quakers and Socialists incompatible? (serious question)
Hi jenny
Greetings from Huddersfield – we have a meeting on Weds if you fancy coming – see the Hudds face-book page for details.
Also, have you seen the discussion document we drew up called ‘Stuff we can unite around?’ Its on this site somewhere. Its only a draft mind you and no doubt loads, if not most of it needs a total rewrite but we aimed it to appeal to ordinary people as well as established lefties, get a discussion going and tried to avoid the usual cliches. Lets get positive about our message and that will be the best way to win people away from the Labour party which is going to go into the next election with only one real selling point: they aren’t the tories. We all deserve and need a better choice than that.
Thanks for this Richard. I can’t come this week cos I’m going to be away. But I’ll join the FB group and keep in touch. I have read your document but will re- read. Hope to meet up at some point!
Welcome to Left Unity , Jenny. You are obviously not a “working class militant” in the traditional sense; and neither am I. The social position of people in a whole range of what are usually called “middle class occupations” over the last 40 yers or so has actually undergone a process of “proletarianisation” as the privileges and salary differentials which separated these jobs from more traditional “working class” jobs have been eroded. Teaching is a classic example of an occupation which is objectively completely “working class” nowadays – it only being the power of the mass media and capialist propaganda which stll persuades so many people that they have a distinct “middle class” identity (and interest) apart from the rest of the working class.
In reality almost all the population stands to lose big time from the Austerity Offensive of the superrich and their political lackeys. It must be the aim of Left Unity to build on the opposition to the Austerity Offensive right across the artificial “working class/middle class ” divide. No, I’m not suggesting a cross class alliance with genuinely “middle class” people – ie, small businesspeople, small capitalists – the real “middle class”. But if we can’t attract people who can buy into a vision of a fairer, more just, more equal society, a socialist society, from across the false, arbitary, working class/middle class demarcations, then we lose out on the potential of some very radical, committed, new members.
Nevertheless it is the mass recruitment of people from the more traditional “working class” which will be critical if Left Unity is to break out of the Left sect mould and become a radical party with political and workplace muscle.
Thanks for that little lecture on how class has changed in recent times, John, I’m sure Jenny really appreciated that. You are totally wrong in your conclusion and “a radical party with political and workplace muscle” just about sums it up.